LITMIR.BIZ

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situation. He didn’t want any of his family seeing the risks he took. His brother Matt, the county sheriff, knew full well the dangers of firefighting, but Adam had always played down the risks when discussing his job with his family.

      There was another reason he’d stayed away from Spruce Lake. The reason he’d spent half his life trying to run from his hometown. Someday soon, he needed to confront that.

      Adam rubbed his eyes again and started to sit up. He needed to get out of there, but found himself pushed back down as the paramedic washed out his eyes again. “I’m fine,” he protested.

      “I decide when you’re fine,” she said, placing the oxygen mask over his face again. “Breathe,” she commanded. “I’ll be back in a minute. I’ve got other firefighters to see. It’s not all about you, Adam—you dog-rescuer, you.” He could hear the gentle sarcasm in her voice.

      “Don’t hurry back,” he muttered, and closed his eyes, breathing in the cool air, feeling it surge into his lungs, restoring the O2 levels to his bloodstream. He coughed again and sat up, then removed his mask and coughed up black goop that had gotten into his lungs. He spat it out.

      Only it landed on a pair of white sneakers. He looked up into the pale blue eyes of the mother of all those children.

      “Thank you,” she murmured.

      “No problem,” he gasped between more coughing. “Anything else you want me to spit on?”

      “Do you always do that?” she asked.

      “Do what?”

      She crouched beside him. “Deflect a compliment. I was thanking you for saving my son. And Molly. What you did was extraordinarily brave. I don’t know how I can ever repay you.”

      He gave her a tiny salute, muttered, “All in the line of work,” and lay back down. He didn’t want to talk to this woman. To anyone. He wanted a long shower and clean sheets. Cool, clean sheets.

      CARLY SPENCER STOOD for a moment watching the firefighter who’d saved her son Charlie’s life, knowing he’d shut his eyes to get rid of her.

      She’d wept as he carried Charlie out of the burning building. She’d been so sure he wouldn’t be found. Jessica, the babysitter she’d hired to care for her children after school, had been sick today and sent a friend to fill in for her.

      Since today, the last day of school before the February break, had been declared a snow day, although the weather had turned unexpectedly mild, so it was actually more of a slush day, her three oldest children were home. And since Carly had back-to-back massage appointments booked at the Spruce Lodge spa—and God knew, she needed the money—she’d had to get moving and hadn’t taken enough time to run through the children’s routines with Tiffany. The girl had obviously panicked and forgotten all about eighteen-month-old Charlie sleeping in the bedroom that was farthest from the living room.

      “I’m so sorry, Mrs. Spencer!” she’d cried as Carly pulled up in her vehicle in front of the burning building. “There was this huge explosion and all I could think about was getting the kids out…. But then when we got down here, I remembered the baby was sleeping in the back room.”

      Her words had sliced into Carly’s heart. Without hesitating, she’d raced into the building and collided with a firefighter who was coming out with Mrs. Polinski in his arms.

      He’d handed the old woman to a colleague and grabbed Carly by the arms.

      “You’re not going in there!” he’d yelled through his mask.

      “My baby’s inside!” she screamed. “I have to get him out!”

      “Which floor?”

      “Third. First door on your right!”

      The words had scarcely left her mouth when he released her and ran back into the building as another firefighter carried Mr. Polinski outside.

      Someone grasped her by the shoulders. “Come over here away from the danger, ma’am,” he said. “Adam will find your baby.”

      The man seemed confident of Adam’s ability to find one tiny little boy in a huge inferno, but the sound of the building disintegrating and the amount of smoke billowing from the windows and doorways eroded her hope that the firefighter would get to Charlie in time.

      Alex, Jake and Maddy had huddled around her, trembling with fear and shock. Carly hugged them close and waited.

      She’d felt a prickle of apprehension go up her spine—as if someone was watching her. She glanced around at the crowd. Of course people are watching you, she chastised herself. Still, the sensation was so weird…. She searched the faces, but saw no one familiar. Shrugging it off, she put it down to her fears for Charlie.

      When the firefighter returned, holding Charlie protectively beneath his coat, she’d rushed to take her son from him.

      But then Alex had raced back toward the building to find Molly. Carly hadn’t had time to wonder about the Polinskis leaving her behind; maybe everything had happened too quickly for anyone to think rationally. The fact that her babysitter had left Charlie behind was evidence enough of that.

      The firefighter had charged into the building to rescue Molly. Carly had held her breath, fearing for his and Molly’s lives. And then she’d heard the glass shattering as he’d kicked out the window. The smoke was so thick as it poured out of the window that she couldn’t see him clearly. But Carly knew without a doubt it was the heroic firefighter who’d saved her son, and now he’d saved Molly.

      She’d needed to thank him and had waited until he’d been checked out by the EMT before approaching. But then an older woman had come by and made a fuss over him. She’d soon realized the woman was his mom. And she was annoying her son. Carly smiled. She would’ve acted in exactly the same way had it been one of her children who’d acted so fearlessly.

      “ADAM? WHAT THE …?”

      He opened one eye to find Dr. Lucy Cochrane on the other side of the stretcher.

      Lucy knelt beside him, opened his jacket and put her stethoscope to his chest. The EMT had already checked his signs and was now working on some of his colleagues. Adam didn’t have the energy to point that out to Lucy so he let her examine him. She was an old school buddy of his brother Matt’s. Bossy, but a good friend to the family. And if Lucy was around, the woman with too many kids might leave him alone. She made him uncomfortable.

      Made him yearn for things he’d denied himself for too long.

      “I heard you’d come back to town. Just as well, or that dog might not have survived. Brave boy.” She patted his cheek.

      Adam resisted the urge to groan. His older brothers’ friends still acted like he was a kid. And they all wondered why he couldn’t wait to get out of town once he’d finished high school. If they’d known the truth, they sure wouldn’t think he was so heroic.

      Lucy listened to his chest and nodded. “Keep breathing,” she said, and put the mask back on his face.

      “Thanks. I intend to,” Adam said with a note of gentle sarcasm as Lucy did a thorough exam under the watchful eyes of the toddler’s mother. He thought again that she looked way too young to have so many kids. She resembled Meg Ryan—skinny legs, flyaway blond hair—and she seemed so vulnerable that Adam experienced an unwanted but overwhelming urge to protect her.

      He wondered where all her kids were now. Had she managed to misplace one of them again? And where exactly was her husband?

      Lucy departed with a promise to return again soon. Adam closed his eyes, then jumped as something wet and slimy collided with his cheek. He opened his eyes. Louella, Mayor Frank Farquar’s pet pig, was standing over him. He wiped the slobber with the back of his hand. What the hell was Louella doing at a fire?

      She grunted at him and went to shove her snout against his face again, but Adam pulled away in time. That was when he noticed Louella’s

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