Christy Jeffries - The Firefighter's Christmas Reunion

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.

Chapter Three

“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. Anyway, do you and Chief Jones have history or something?”

“History? Ha!” Luke said around a mouthful of pepperoni he’d sneaked off one of the pizzas. “You guys were barely outta high school. Shouldn’t you be over that by now?”

Carmen’s eyes lit up. She was a cop, and Hannah had a feeling that she was dying to investigate something other than who was at fault for the latest fender bender in the Duncan’s Market parking lot.

“Of course I’m over him,” Hannah argued. Her head pounded and her arms ached from cutting out all of those pumpkin shapes from cardstock before stapling them to her new bulletin board. The first day back at school was always chaotic, but since she was coming into the classroom halfway through the semester, this year was already proving to be an uphill battle in concentration. She tried to remind herself that she’d been lucky to get this last-minute teaching assignment when she’d rushed home unexpectedly to be closer to her mom. Rubbing her temples, she added, “It’s just that it would’ve been nice to be forewarned that I’d have to see him on a regular basis. I didn’t even know that Sugar Falls had a real fire department now.”

Luke gestured at his wife’s blue uniform with a greasy thumb. “As soon as the residents of Sugar Falls voted to form their own police force, everyone knew that a fire station was going to be next. They’re even housed in the same building. On two separate sides, obviously.”

Hannah sighed. Before she’d left for Ghana, she’d attended every school board and city council meeting there was. She should’ve expected as much and normally would be the first to endorse the improvement of their town. But did they have to hire Isaac Jones?

“What are his qualifications, anyway?” she muttered to herself, but Carmen’s raised brow indicated she’d heard. “I mean, besides volunteering with his uncle and racing around town as if he had a siren permanently attached to anything he drove. Including that jet boat he used to drive way too fast on Rush Lake, showing off for all those girls from Sugar Falls High.”

“I remember that boat! That’s the one his dad bought him for his sixteenth birthday.” Luke smiled, then caught his bride-to-be’s eye and quickly cleared his throat. “I mean, I remember that it went fast. I don’t exactly recall the part about the girls...”