Hers was right in front of her. He’d walked her to her car.

  And then left.

  Take care?

  For a second Stacy started after him. Angry. Filled with fight.

  And just as quickly as the will to go after him had come, it dwindled. Jesse Macdonald had written it all down for her.

  At her request.

  He’d told her what he did and didn’t want. What he could and couldn’t do.

  He’d made his choices.

  And they were right for him.

  With that thought, she got into her car, pulled behind Mac into traffic, and as soon as she could, turned to head to the closest box store.

  She had some shopping to do.

  Possessions to replace.

  Before she could check into a hotel where she knew no one, to eat by herself, and try to figure out what she was going to do with the rest of her life.

  * * *

  Mac drove around Saguaro, every street, past his parents’ houses, the people he’d known all his life. And eventually ended up at home. He typed in his passcode at the gate of the community. Something he’d have to do until he got a new truck, and then a new bar code sticker for the windshield.

  He pulled up to his place.

  Stacy was safe.

  And while she’d lost memorabilia that she’d never be able to replace, she had the means to go wherever she wanted.

  Buy whatever she desired.

  Be whomever she chose.

  He couldn’t have scripted a better ending.

  For her.

  And for him, too.

  He was getting exactly what he wanted.

  Stacy was safe.

  And he was home. Alone. Just as he’d ordained.

  Exactly what he wanted.

  Except that...he didn’t.

  His house, the thought of a new truck, the flattering offer from the sheriff’s office that he’d just called to accept...none of it gave him any pleasure at all.

  The things that he used to value most didn’t matter to him.

  He drove around the block. Looked at his house again. Thought of another long shower, some sweat shorts and a T-shirt. Ordering delivery from three different places and eating parts of all of them in bed.

  Didn’t matter.

  Second time around, he headed back out the gate. Drove to Stacy’s hotel. Took an elevator up to the room he’d heard the chief mention when he’d given her the key.

  And knocked.

  He heard her approach the door. Waited for the pause as she checked the peephole. Stacy was Stacy. She’d always check the peephole.

  Even before...

  When she opened the door, still wearing her uniform, a glorious smile on her face, he shook his head.

  “How do you do it?” he asked.

  Still grinning from ear to ear she replied, “Do what?”

  “I just broke your heart and you’re still glad to see me.”

  “I will always be glad to see you, Jesse Macdonald. I love you. The person you are. Not who I need you to be for me.”

  He didn’t walk into the room.

  Didn’t trust himself to be alone in there with her and a bed and nobody looking for either one of them.

  “I’m not sure I’d be good at...any of what you want. Having kids...the idea isn’t horrible. But then we’re both stressed and tired. Our careers are pulling at us. The two-year-old is having fits and the baby is teething and...”

  She put a finger to his mouth. Her digit was shaking. “I just poured a glass of wine,” she told him, sounding relatively steady. “You mind if we take this inside, because I really need a gulp or two.”

  When she put it like that...and the residual reaction of her uncertain soft touch still throbbing against his lips...

  Hands in his pockets, giving himself a firm command to keep them there, he followed slowly behind her. More of a meander. Like him being there with her was no big deal.

  Just partners, coming down from days of running for their lives.

  They needed a private debrief, was all.

  She uncapped a bottle of beer. Handed it to him.

  And one hand came out of his pocket.

  He drank an eighth of the bottle. Pulled it away.

  “I just... I don’t want the love to turn to hate,” he said then. “I can’t bear the thought of ever hating you. But I figured out something that’s even worse.”

  She’d taken a seat at the dining section of the room. Lifted her black police shoes to the table, crossing her ankles.

  “What’s that?”

  Did she have any idea how sexy she looked?

  Was she doing it on purpose?

  “Not loving at all.”

  Her feet fell down to the carpet with enough force to have been heard in the room below.

  “Excuse me?” Her chin was wavering. Her eyes shooting warmth, and suddenly moist, too.

  “Not feeling a deep love for one person is one thing. But to feel it...and waste it...” He shrugged. Held his beer with one hand. Kept the other trapped.

  Just not at all sure what he was hoping to accomplish.

  “Are you saying you love me, Mac?”

  With a sideways cock of his head, he said, “I’d have thought that much was obvious. The problem is...how do we...”

  He didn’t get the words out. Stacy flew at him. Knocking the bottle out of his hand to pour out on the carpet, as she wrapped her arms around his neck and covered his mouth.

  His arms came around her. No permission. They just did.

  When she finally pulled back, he started to talk, and she shook her head. “Just let me...okay?”

  He nodded.

  “This isn’t a case, Mac. The only plan we’re going to have going in is to promise to remember this...right now...this minute. How we feel. And the time on the mountain, the best and worst...any time life starts to get the better of us, we come back to what our deepest hearts have learned.”

  She made it sound so...possible. And the way she’d greeted him at the door...knowing him...happy with whatever he could give her...

  Mac gave up. Then and there.

  Just quit.

  Stopped fighting the one battle he suddenly realized he’d been meant to lose. “I love you, Stacy Waltz.”

  “And I love you, Jesse Macdonald,” she told him. “My Mac,” kissing him even as she led him to the bed.

  They fell together. Got out of their uniforms with much more finesse than they’d used the night before, fell to the quickly exposed sheets and touched each other in ways they’d already discovered. And in new ways, too.

  Right up until Mac hovered above her spread legs, and she closed them. “Condom,” she said. “I’m guessing you didn’t manage to refill your wallet sometime today?”

  He opened her legs again. “You want to fill that big house of yours with babies, right?”

  Her eyes glistened. “Yes, but not until you’re ready...”

  He looked her straight in the eye as he plunged into her. Kept hold of her gaze as they moved together, moaned together.

  And came together.

  Figuring that if the fates had any more bounty left in store for them, they’d just made their first baby.

  Epilogue

  Mac took a bite of chocolate-covered strawberry and fed the rest to Stacy. Juice dripped over her chin and down to her chest.

  He licked it off.

  Then sat back in the limousine, sliding his hand up beneath her slim-fitting, long white dress just a little, enjoying the darkness with her.

  “My parents handled themselves well,” he said. Purposely bringing up family to calm himself down enough to wait until they were in the honeymoon suite the men and women in the department had rented for them at one of Phoenix’s five-star resorts. A wedding present for their new, very lovely and very determined assistant chief.

  A position that would have Stacy’s brain receiving all information, and giving suggestions as she saw fit, on all major cases, without actually being out on the streets. Unless it was to attend a police or community function.

  “I think my dad’s actually going to stay in town this time,” she said, sounding happier than he’d ever heard her. And in the three months since they’d come down off the mountain, Mac had heard a lot of happiness from her. More than he’d ever thought possible.

  He’d expounded a fair amount of his own, too. Something he was growing used to. And liked even more for the fact that the emotion wasn’t completely new. He and Stacy had been happy together for five years.

  And he’d figured out that as time passed, trust in what lasted grew.

  His trust in her as a cop.

  A loyal partner.

  A lover.

  And a lifetime.

  “I told him about the baby,” she said then.

  And Mac smiled. He’d known she would. They’d only found out for sure the day before. Had decided to wait to announce until after the wedding. But... Adam Sorenson was a man you just wanted to share your news with.

  “And?”

  “He talked about selling his place in town and building a small place on that driveway that’s left on our land.”

  Her driveway.

  They’d had the land cleared. Small nubs of new growth were already beginning to show through the ash and dirt.

  They’d shopped for all new furniture for the big house, too. She hadn’t wanted to live anywhere else, despite her newfound wealth. And he didn’t, either. She’d bought the Brandon property. Had the house taken down. The mine closed.

  And was in the process of getting the mining operation going where Tom had struck gold. Out of sight and sound of any residence. She was creating much-needed jobs for Saguaro, and was giving the city 50 percent of the profits, too.

  The rest, she’d signed over to a company the two of them owned together.

  There might be a time when Stacy “got over” the trauma she’d been through. When she quit waking up in the night in cold sweats, reaching for Mac. And falling back asleep in his arms. A day could come when she quit missing the things she’d lost—all the keepsakes from her former years that kept memories of other times alive. The day could come. He didn’t think so.

  But he understood that she was still going to be okay. That she was okay. That they’d always be okay.

  Because love didn’t burn up in fire or get shot. It didn’t die.

  It just kept growing.

  And building.

  As long as those who’d felt its power took care to remember it was there.

  * * *

  Keep reading for an excerpt from Hunted Hotshot Hero by Lisa Childs.

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  Hunted Hotshot Hero

  by Lisa Childs

  Prologue

  The hotshot holiday party ended without the bang everyone had been expecting and dreading, no one more so than Rory VanDam. Ever since that reporter dredged up the plane crash that had happened five years ago.

  No. Ever since the plane crash.

  No. Even before that.

  Rory had been waiting for the big bang or the next crash. While he’d been waiting the longest, the other hotshots had begun to expect bad things to happen, too, and not just because of their jobs. Being a hotshot firefighter was more dangerous than being a regular firefighter because they battled the worst blazes—the wildfires that consumed acres and acres of land and everything in their paths. But it wasn’t the job that put them in danger lately, it was all the bad things that had been happening to the hotshots. Explosions. Murder attempts. Sabotage.

  But tonight, the holiday party ended with an arrest but no gunshots, no fight, not even a fire. The party was over now and the hotshots, who had traveled to their headquarters in Northern Lakes, Michigan, to attend it, were tucked up in the bunks at the firehouse unless they had other places to stay. And, since falling in love and getting into relationships, many of them had other places now. So maybe it wasn’t just bad things that happened to hotshots. But for Rory, to fall in love or have someone fall in love with him would be a very bad thing. He couldn’t risk a relationship with anyone ever again.

  So, with nowhere else to stay, he was lying on his back on one of the bunks, staring up at the ceiling. Despite that arrest tonight, Rory was still uneasy, waiting for the next bad thing to happen.

  The immediate danger was only over for Trent Miles tonight. The person who had been threatening Trent in Detroit, where Trent worked out of a local firehouse when not on assignment with the hotshots, followed him up to Northern Lakes. While the young man had run Trent and his girlfriend off the road the day before, he hadn’t harmed anyone tonight. Trent’s girlfriend, a Detroit detective, quietly arrested her and Trent’s would-be killer. Except for that whole running them off the road thing, Rory was relieved that the killer was the only one who’d followed Trent up to Northern Lakes and not the man’s sister again.

  Trent’s sister, Brittney, was beautiful, with her long curly dark hair and big topaz-colored eyes. But Brittney Townsend was also an ambitious young reporter who would sell out her own soul for a story. Or at least her own brother.

  Not that Rory could judge anyone for selling out their soul, not when he’d already done it himself. But it still affected him, leaving him feeling hollow and empty inside and alone even in a bar full of other people like he’d been earlier tonight for the party. His coworkers. His friends. At least he hoped they considered him a friend and not the saboteur.

  Who the hell was behind all the damn dangerous “accidents” the hotshots had been having? Broken equipment. Like the lift bucket coming loose with Trick McRooney in it and all of the cut brake lines on trucks that had sent or nearly sent hotshots to the hospital. And the loose gas line on the stove in the firehouse kitchen that had caused the explosion that had taken out Ethan’s beard and revealed his real identity as the Canterbury heir.

  Rory touched his jaw where stubble was starting to come in again. And his uneasiness grew. His disguise was being clean-shaven and short-haired; something he hadn’t been for a while until his hotshot training and his new identity.

  His new life. But this new life was proving to be every bit as dangerous as his last one. And he couldn’t help but think that this life was going to end, too.

  As he lay there, he heard the rumble of an engine and then another and another. The firehouse was on Main Street, but there was never much traffic in Northern Lakes at this hour and especially during the winter. And these engines weren’t just passing by, they were running inside the building.

  The fire trucks.

  Who started up the truck engines?

  They hadn’t been called out to a fire because the alarm hadn’t gone off. It would have woken up everyone in the bunk room if it had. And as far as he knew, he was the only one awake because all around him, other hotshots snored.

  Trent Miles stayed behind in Northern Lakes after his girlfriend left. A couple of the younger guys, Bruce Abbott and Howie Lane, stayed because they’d been drinking at the party. And a couple of the older guys, Donovan Cunningham and Carl Kozak, stayed, probably for the same reason.

  Michaela was here, too. The female hotshot worked as a firefighter in St. Paul, which wasn’t far away, but while she hadn’t been drinking, the party ended too late for her to want to make the drive home.

  Not everybody staying was a hotshot. Stanley, the kid who kept the firehouse clean, was sleeping here tonight with the firehouse dog, Annie. Stanley’s foster brother, Cody Mallehan, and his fiancée, Serena Beaumont, had recently gotten licensed as a foster home and had taken in a kid who was allergic to Annie. And Stanley didn’t like to be separated from the big sheepdog/mastiff mix that had saved his life.

  His life wasn’t the only one she’d saved, though. She’d rescued many other hotshots and their significant others over the past year since Stanley had adopted her to be the firehouse dog. Maybe she was about to make another rescue because she whined and crawled off the bunk below Rory where she’d been sleeping with Stanley. Then she jumped up, put her paws on the side of Rory’s bed, and she whined again, obviously as confused and concerned as he was about those running trucks.

  “You hear ’em, too,” Rory said, and he jumped down from his bunk. While the diesel trucks didn’t emit as much carbon monoxide as gas engines, if all of them were running, like he suspected they were from the sound, the level could get high enough to kill.

  The air was already getting thick. He coughed and sputtered, trying to find his voice to wake the others. “Hey...” he rasped out the words. “Hey...”

  Annie barked, but it wasn’t as loudly as she usually barked. Rory needed her to bark as loud as she had the first time she’d seen Ethan without his beard. He needed her to wake the others, or they might not be able to wake up ever again if the carbon monoxide level rose any more.

  And he needed to get the hell downstairs and shut off those trucks. He would pull the alarm in the hall, too, before going downstairs. That would certainly wake up everyone easier than he and Annie could.

  But once he stepped through the door to the hall, something struck him hard across the back of the head and neck, knocking him down to his knees before he fell flat on his face. His last thought as consciousness slipped away was: Would he be able to wake up again or was his most recent life ending right now?