Allie Pleiter - The Firefighter's Match

A Healing Match

After serving overseas, former soldier Josephine “JJ” Jones needs a fresh start. And Gordon Falls is just the place. When JJ meets executive Alex Cushman, her world is turned upside down. Alex is seeking a respite from all the pressures of his multimillion-dollar business. And the beautiful firefighter might be the answer to his prayers. But a secret lies between them. One so big, it threatens to end their love before it’s even begun. Can she ever trust Alex when she finds out he may be responsible for a family tragedy that changed all their lives?

Gordon Falls: Hearts ablaze in a small town

“You should just leave.”

Alex had thought about leaving. The old Alex would have been long gone days ago. Still, he couldn’t.

He saw it, then, in her eyes. JJ was waiting for him to leave. Watching for him to betray her in the way she had been betrayed before.

“I can’t leave.”

“Why?”

“You really don’t know the answer to that?”

Her face flushed. “Why would I ask a question I know the answer to?”

JJ tried hard not to look him in the eye, but the more she dodged him, the stronger his conviction became. “Because I’m supposed to stay.” And then, even though it felt like jumping off a cliff to do so, Alex made himself add, “And because I want to stay.”

Her eyes widened, and she backed up. “Max doesn’t need you.”

“I’m not staying for Max.” He reached for her hand.

At first JJ edged out of his grasp, but when he took another step, she stilled her hand and let him grasp it. “I’m staying for you.”

ALLIE PLEITER

Enthusiastic but slightly untidy mother of two, RITA® Award finalist Allie Pleiter writes both fiction and nonfiction. An avid knitter and unreformed chocoholic, she spends her days writing books, drinking coffee and finding new ways to avoid housework. Allie grew up in Connecticut, holds a B.S. in speech from Northwestern University and spent fifteen years in the field of professional fund-raising. She lives with her husband, children and a Havanese dog named Bella in the suburbs of Chicago, Illinois.

The Firefighter’s Match

Allie Pleiter

www.millsandboon.co.uk

Before you start reading, why not sign up?

Thank you for downloading this Mills & Boon book. If you want to hear about exclusive discounts, special offers and competitions, sign up to our email newsletter today!

SIGN ME UP!

Or simply visit

signup.millsandboon.co.uk

Mills & Boon emails are completely free to receive and you can unsubscribe at any time via the link in any email we send you.

And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love Him, who have been called according to his purpose.

—Romans 8:28

Dedication:

To Rachel

Who has overcome so much

Acknowledgments:

This story needed a hefty dose of technical support to get the details right. My thanks to fire chief Don Lay for again checking all the firefighter and firehouse facts. Lisa Rosen and Dr. David Chen from the Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago were also great helps. Thanks as well to Sean Smith,

who lent me his climbing knowledge and expertise. If any of the medical, climbing or firefighting facts of this book are incorrect, the fault lies with me

and not with any of these generous experts.

Contents

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Epilogue

Dear Reader

Questions for Discussion

Chapter One

Gordon Falls, Illinois

1:48 a.m.

2:36 a.m.

3:14 in the why-on-earth-can’t-a-soul-get-to-sleep morning and JJ Jones still lay as wide-eyed as if she had downed a quartet of espresso drinks.

Refusing to lie there one more minute under the false pretense of drowsiness, JJ reached for an elastic band. She pulled her long blond hair back into a resolute ponytail and stepped into a pair of jeans under her oversize T-shirt. Padding to the not-yet-familiar kitchen of her rental cottage, JJ let the summer evening breeze coming off the Gordon River soothe her annoyance.

It was a lovely place, even in the middle of the night. She could almost count her insomnia as a pleasantry here, the nights were so enjoyable.

She grinned at her brother’s handwriting, still sloppy in his brief set of “Guest Instructions” taped to the refrigerator door. They were mostly useless items with a few wisecracks like “#6. Don’t drown in the river,” and “#8. Go to the hospital if you get bitten by something you can’t identify.” Max ran his cottage and boat rental businesses like he ran the rest of his life: at breakneck speed with little thought to useful details. His talent at haphazard messes was one of the reasons she’d opted to stay in a rental cottage rather than Max’s grubby house.

She addressed the list, stained in three spots and taped back together in one corner. “I’ve seen your house. I’ve seen your life. You’d have lasted eight seconds in my unit, Max. Six, tops.”

It felt foolish to chastise an empty room, but since leaving the army a month ago she’d not yet learned how to be comfortably alone. That was why she was here: to reacquaint herself with the virtues of peace and privacy. To ease her way into settling down in Gordon Falls alongside her brother. And, if she was truly honest, to get the chronic knot out of her stomach and squelch the nonstop urge to look over her shoulder. Helping Max out by tending to his business for a month while he was off on yet another of his crazy schemes was just a temporary way to pay the bills while she got her life in order.

JJ laughed at her own thoughts. Who was she kidding? Picking up after Max’s multiple fiascoes was a lifetime gig. Jones River Sports was just this year’s verse to the same old song. She was amazed, actually, that he’d held on to the business as long as he had. The real surprise, though, was that she was actually enjoying the benefits that came with this particular scheme. JJ liked the location and thought she might really want to stay, even when Max pulled up stakes, as he was sure to someday do.

Pushing past the diet sodas on the fridge’s top shelf, JJ found a bowl of grapes and was pulling them out to snack on when she heard a tune coming in the window. She turned, not quite able to place the melody or the instrument. It was an instrument being played outside, wasn’t it? Not someone’s nearby radio? A sour note, followed by a second attempt at a melody, confirmed her guess. It wasn’t a guitar, and it wasn’t a violin, either. A banjo? No, a ukulele. She set the bowl down on the yellow Formica counter and peered out the window. It was. It was a ukulele. People still played those? In the middle of the night?

She popped a grape into her mouth and squinted harder in the direction of the dock. Max had said something about a crazy renter, some guy who paid cash in advance through a broker and wouldn’t give a name. She’d never have rented to someone acting that suspicious, but of course Max thought that was all great fun.

“Just don’t bug him and he probably won’t murder you.” That had been Max’s final instruction on the mystery renter. The creepy, nocturnal mystery renter.

Yet how creepy could a guy be who launched into a bad rendition of “When You Wish Upon A Star” at—she checked the clock with a grimace—3:21 a.m.?