The Firefighter's Christmas Reunion. Christy Jeffries
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his perfectly mapped-out life on the East Coast and return to Sugar Falls, let alone move here permanently.
And who in the world had thought it would be a good idea to put someone like him in charge of the fire department, responsible for saving innocent people?
Indifference would have been Isaac’s first choice of reactions to seeing the woman who’d once held his teenage heart in her hands. Annoyance, or even anger, would also have been an expected response to seeing Hannah again, though, most of the aching bitterness he’d held on to throughout college had dissipated. Instead, Isaac found himself filled with a weird sort of curiosity about her and hadn’t stopped thinking about her since she’d showed up yesterday. And the last thing he wanted was for someone—especially her—to mistake that curiosity for renewed interest. He’d had ten years to grow wiser and thicken his skin. There was no way he’d fall under her spell a second time.
He looked over Sammy’s head at the woman standing on the opposite side of the cab of the fire engine, her lips twisted into a tight line while she eyeballed the two of them. Really, it wasn’t as if he was going toss her son into a raging inferno the second she took her eyes off him. Would it hurt Hannah to take a step back and maybe not frown quite so much?
Her blond hair was twisted into another messy bun secured to the top of her head with two pencils, and Isaac had to admit that her face was still as striking as ever, with strong, high cheekbones and aqua blue eyes that never used to be so guarded. So wary. Scanning past her faded flannel work shirt and down the length of her, he noticed that her legs were still long and lean, but her hips were just a little fuller. Everything about her was the same, except more. More mature, more compelling, more...arousing.
“Can I turn on the siren?” Sammy’s voice was soft and tentative, as though he was afraid to ask for what he wanted. Despite his reserved manner, amazement glowed out of the boy’s eyes and Isaac knew the kid was a goner. Just like Isaac had been the first time he’d visited his Uncle Jonesy and toured the old volunteer station.
Isaac stayed with his uncle the summer after his parents’ divorce and then returned every June through August after that. One would think that he and Hannah would’ve bonded over their status as “summer kids,” but she was more of a social activist than a socializer. It wasn’t until after they were sixteen that Little Miss Do-Gooder had come out of her shell and spoken more than a sentence to him at an impromptu car wash fund-raiser she’d organized to raise money for a local animal shelter.
It was also the first time that he’d ever seen her in a bathing suit and he would never forget the way she’d—
“Sammy, we should probably let the firefighters get back to work,” Hannah called through the open passenger door, interrupting Isaac’s steamy memory.
“Okay.” Her son’s shoulders slumped, but he didn’t let go of the steering wheel.
“Wait,” she said quickly. “Would you guys mind if I took a picture of him sitting there with the helmet on and everything?”
Isaac was used to kids and their fascination with fire engines and uniforms, so it was a pretty standard request from a doting parent. He attempted a casual shrug before replying, “No problem.”
She patted down her denim-clad hips before a blush stole up her cheeks. “I left my phone in the classroom.”
A flurry of emotions crossed Hannah’s face and Isaac could tell she was wrestling with whether to leave her precious son unattended with him or to forego the picture altogether. While Isaac hadn’t exactly been proud of the way he’d handled their breakup all those years ago, Hannah surely had to know that he wasn’t a complete monster. Even if he’d still been holding on to a ten-year-old grudge, which he clearly wasn’t, Isaac would never involve an innocent child in a petty dispute. Anyone who knew him would know that.
However, Hannah obviously hadn’t really known him back then and she certainly didn’t know him now. Otherwise, she wouldn’t always be expecting the worst from him. She wouldn’t have been so quick to move on after that night...
Taking pity on the kid, Isaac reached into his pocket and pulled out his own smartphone. He tapped on the camera icon before passing it through the cab of the truck. “Here, you can use mine.”
As her pupils darted down to the electronic device and back up to him, the changing expression on her face suggested she was struggling to make a decision. Isaac couldn’t help himself from adding, “Unless you have a better offer.”
Narrowing her eyes, she reached out so quickly, her fingers brushed across the back of his hand. Although the brief contact was only the result of him purposely goading her, it was the second time in the past forty-eight hours that the slightest touch from Hannah had sent his pulse skyrocketing.
But her words quickly brought him back down to earth. “As I recall, you were never hurting for any offers yourself.”
Isaac’s brow twisted in confusion. What in the hell was that supposed to mean? And was it his imagination, or did the phone tremble slightly as she held it up to frame the image?
Hannah moved the phone forward and backward, then immediately lowered the screen, revealing her sucked-in cheeks. Isaac flashed back to a memory of her doing the same thing whenever she’d been embarrassed. But the sweet memory was soon replaced with a less pleasant sensation when she finally said, “Would you mind backing up?”
He looked at the steel step he was standing on outside the driver’s side door. If he backed up any more, he’d be on the asphalt. His gaze returned to her and she gave him a tense nod, encouraging him to step down. “If you didn’t want me in the picture, you could’ve just said so.”
“I thought I did,” she mumbled, then she jerked her head toward Sammy with a pointed look that could only indicate that she was hoping to avoid any type of unpleasantness in front of her son.
She’d never been very good at confrontation, at least, not where Isaac had been concerned. And apparently she hadn’t gotten much better. Not that he’d come here looking for a fight; however, there was only so much professional courtesy he could extend. Community outreach was part of his job, rehashing the past was not. Keeping his mouth firmly shut, he jumped down off the rig and tried to pretend that he didn’t notice Hannah’s obvious change in tone when she sweetly told her son to count to three and say cheese.
“I can’t believe you didn’t tell me that he was back in town,” Hannah said to her brother Luke as soon as Sammy ran out the back door to play with his older cousins.
“Who is he?” Carmen, her soon-to-be sister-in-law, asked as she set out a salad bowl full of mixed berries.
“Don’t ask,” her brother whispered to his fiancée.
“Isaac Jones!” Hannah might as well have shouted, her voice echoed so loudly inside the old Victorian home Luke’s family had just moved into. He turned to the pizza boxes she’d set on the counter, but not before she caught his eye roll.
“You mean the fire chief?” Carmen asked, then gave Luke a reprimanding look and closed the cardboard lid on his hand. “You get the boys washed up. I’ll set the table.”
“What table?” Luke asked, looking out of the kitchen and into the empty dining room. “Hannah kept everything when she moved back into our cabin.”
“First of all, you got Nana’s Oldsmobile and I got all of her outdated furniture, which I lovingly and painfully refurbished before I went to Ghana,” Hannah said slowly, as though she was explaining fairness to a first grader—for the eight hundredth time. “Secondly, it’s the Gregson family cabin, and I lived there first.”
“Ignore your brother.” Carmen gave a dismissive wave. “He’s wanted to live in town since he moved to Sugar Falls full time and when you got back, he finally had an excuse to buy this old fixer-upper.