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Never Too Hot

Never Too Hot (Hot Shots: Men of Fire #3)(63)
Author: Bella Andre

She hung up the phone, her heart heavy for Josh, for how hard fifteen was treating him.

At the same time, though, her heart was heavy for herself.

It didn’t matter if she ever got beyond forgiveness with Andrew, if she ever learned to trust him again. Because there was no way her son would ever accept him.

Maybe if Josh hadn’t seen them in the parking lot, maybe if she hadn’t admitted to him that Andrew was one of the big reasons her marriage hadn’t worked, then things could be different.

But they weren’t different.

And never would be.

* * *

Josh fingered the half-empty pack of cigarettes in his pocket. He’d swiped them from the new dishwasher’s stash a few days ago, told himself the guy wouldn’t miss the last few in the box. It had been a long time since he’d stolen anything, when he was five years old and had pocketed the water pistol his mother wouldn’t buy him at the grocery store. He hadn’t gotten caught, but just as he had then, he felt guilty.

Pushing out the back door of his house, he headed through the trees, to the wood pile between his property and Poplar Cove.

The house that f**khead who’d been boning his mom grew up in.

Josh hated feeling guilty for stealing the cigarettes. Just as much as he hated feeling like nothing he did was right anymore, that no matter where he was, he didn’t fit in.

He’d tried to call Hannah but she kept letting it go through to voice mail. And the worst part of it was, he knew it was his fault, that she had been disgusted by the way he blew up at his mom.

‘Cause that was the thing, there were times when he could see it all so clear, when he could see that his mom was doing her best and that he was the one f**king up. But then, other times, he couldn’t get a hold on his anger, his frustration.

The cigarettes and pack of matches bounced around in his pocket and he took them out, held them in his sweating palm. He wasn’t really feeling it now, but only a loser would walk away without at least smoking one, right?

Popping one out of the pack the way he’d seen people do in movies, he lit a match and held it to the cigarette.

Hopefully he’d lit the correct end of it, he thought as he put the other side between his lips.

Standing in the woods, a lit cigarette in his mouth, for a second he felt completely badass. Like he was finally in control of his own destiny.

And then he took a puff.

The cigarette went flying out of his mouth into the dry leaves as he coughed and choked. Shit, that was the most disgusting thing he’d ever tasted. How could people actually smoke those on purpose?

Smoke whipped up around his feet, the dry leaves quickly burning up near the rubber soles of his tennis shoes, and when his eyes stopped watering he realized the leaves were catching on fire, all of his stupid childhood fantasies going up in smoke too.

Doing a panicked rain dance on top of the leaves and dirt, feeling like a bigger idiot that he ever had, all he wanted was to go to his mom’s diner, sit at the counter with a comic book, and have her make him a triple thick chocolate milkshake. Just like she had when he was a kid.

Finally, when he’d stamped the small fire entirely out, he went home and he buried the pack of cigarettes and matches in the bottom of the kitchen garbage before heading into the bathroom to shower off the smell of smoke.

Chapter Twenty-six

THANK GOD, Ginger thought as she worked quickly on the final touches of her painting. She might be as emotionally confused as she’d ever been, but at least she hadn’t lost her mojo. All she wanted was to focus on her art instead of all the crazy things Connor had said to her out on the beach.

I love you.

What if I want to marry you because I can’t imagine a life without you?

Didn’t he know she’d already written him off? That he couldn’t just up and do an about-face about everything and expect her not to question him?

She put down her paintbrush. She was lying to herself. She wasn’t in the zone at all. How could she be when her entire future was hanging in the balance? When Connor was waiting for her answer?

Her first big art show was in less than a week, a show she’d been eagerly anticipating for months. By God, she needed to make the most of it. With or without the man she loved by her side.

She was reaching for her paintbrush again when she noticed the smell of smoke wafting by. Strange. Why would someone have lit a campfire in the middle of a sunny day?

And then, in a flash, it hit her. She wasn’t smelling a campfire: something was on fire.

Her hand immediately went to her stomach. Working to remain calm, she slipped her feet into tennis shoes before running out on the beach to try to figure out what was burning.

Her hand went to her mouth when she stood at the water’s edge and looked up. The trees behind Poplar Cove were smoking and every few seconds a new orange burst of flames popped up over the roofline.

Her first thought, her only thought, was about Connor. About how upset he’d be if the cabin burned. He’d poured his heart into renovating it, but more than that, his summer home had been such a happy place for him as a child, and held the best of his memories inside its log walls.

She couldn’t let it burn.

She ran toward the house, searching for a hose and a ladder, even though she knew what Connor would tell her if he were here. “Get away from the building. Get as far away from the fire as you can and stay safe.”

And she would. But first she needed to do what she could to save his family’s cabin.

She’d just propped the ladder up against the side wall, just turned on the hose full blast, when Josh came running across the beach, obviously drawn by the smoke.

“Go back home and call 911,” she yelled. “Call your mother. And call Connor and his father.”

The boy’s eyes were wide with fear as he yelled, “Okay,” and ran back to his house to make the calls.

It was the strangest thing, but even though the fire was close enough that she could feel its heat, she wasn’t afraid of getting on the roof while lugging a heavy hose. Not when she had such a clear purpose.

I need to save Poplar Cove. For Connor.

She didn’t know how long she’d been up there, but it was quickly getting hotter and smokier as the fire made its way down the mountain to the cabin, jumping trees one after the other like tinder.

The Adirondacks were known for their flash rainstorms, for the huge amount of water that could, abruptly, fall from the sky with no warning for fifteen minutes and then disappear just as quickly. But since the storm that had tipped over Connor’s sailboat it had been hot and dry, with temperatures almost in the triple digits.

Oh, how she wished one of those storms would decide to roll in right now to give them all a good dousing. But when she looked up at the sky, behind the layer of smoke and ash all she could see were blue skies, not a cloud in sight.

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