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TWO

      AVA REACHED OVER and pulled the cat into her arms. Noah noted the squirming stopped immediately. Go figure.

      ‘No one calls me Avalanche any more.’

      It was exactly the kind of thing he’d expected her to say. And even though he didn’t know what to do about the nostalgia surging in his chest, he smiled.

      ‘You used to love it.’

      ‘I never loved it.’

      ‘Why would I keep calling you that if you didn’t love it?’

      ‘I’ve asked myself that question for most of my life.’

      He smirked. Then heard the next words come out of his mouth before he could stop them. ‘I’ve missed you, Avalanche.’

      Her eyes softened, and she reached out and placed the oxygen mask back over his nose and mouth. ‘It’s nice to see you, too, Noah—’

      Her voice broke and he frowned, pulling the mask away again.

      ‘Has someone checked you out?’

      ‘I’m fine.’

      ‘I told her she needed to go to the hospital,’ said the paramedic he hadn’t even realised was still there. ‘But she doesn’t believe me.’

      ‘Why? What’s wrong?’

      ‘Nothing,’ Ava said with a roll of her eyes. ‘I’m fine.’

      ‘Elevated heart rate,’ the paramedic told him.

      ‘She’s at risk for cardiac arrest?’

      ‘I am a healthy twenty-five-year-old,’ Ava interrupted as the paramedic was about to give an answer. ‘I have a healthy heart. In fact, I had a check-up at the doctor’s last week and she confirmed it.’

      Twenty-five. The last time he’d seen her she’d been eighteen. A kid, really. Not that that stopped you from treating her like a woman.

      He clenched his jaw. Told himself to ignore the unwelcome voice in his head. But when his eyes moved over her—when they told him she was very much a woman now—the memories that voice evoked became a hell of a lot harder to ignore.

      He shook his head. ‘Smoke inhalation is dangerous.’

      ‘Which is why you should be going to the hospital and not me. I was in there a fraction of the time you were.’

      ‘But my heart rate is okay.’ The paramedic nodded when he looked over, and he gave Ava a winning smile. ‘See?’

      ‘Smoke inhalation is dangerous,’ she replied thinly, with a smile of her own, though hers was remarkably more fake than his.

      It made nostalgia pulse again, but memories of the way things had been before he’d left made him wonder if nostalgia was really what he was feeling.

      But she was right about the smoke inhalation, and because of it—and because he knew his team wouldn’t let him work unless he got checked out—he agreed.

      ‘Fine. But if I’m going, you’re going, too.’

      She opened her mouth, but he shot her a look and she nodded.

      ‘Okay. But we’re stopping at the veterinary hospital first. I need to make sure Zorro’s okay.’

      The fierceness of her voice softened as she said the cat’s name, and he watched as she pressed a kiss into its fur. It stumped him—one, that she could show more affection to a cat than she could to a man she’d basically grown up with and, two, that she could show affection to that cat.

      It was the ugliest cat he’d ever seen.

      He assumed Ava had named him Zorro because of the black, almost mask-like patches on his face. And he supposed in some way those patches were cute. But he couldn’t say the same for the rest of the cat’s body. The orange, brown and white splotches looked as if the cat was the result of a scientific experiment gone wrong.

      He’d never really been one for cats, and perhaps he was just biased against them. But, he thought, eyeing the cat again, he didn’t think so.

      He would never have said the cat was ugly as he looked at Ava, though. Her brown eyes were filled with emotion—love, affection, he couldn’t quite tell—and her tall frame had relaxed.

      And he realised that if he wanted her to get checked out he was going to have to agree to take the ugly cat to the veterinary hospital.

      ‘He’s sitting in the back.’

      Five hours later they’d both been checked out. Noah had been put on oxygen for a portion of that time, while they ran tests, and when he’d met Ava in the waiting room later she’d told him the same thing had happened with her.

      Though the test results had shown nothing alarming, they’d been given strict instructions to rest, and to return if any potentially dangerous symptoms emerged.

      ‘You didn’t have to wait for me,’ Noah told her as she got up and joined him.

      ‘I know. But I... I wanted to know that you were okay.’ She ran a hand over the curls at the top of her head. ‘I’m pretty sure Jaden would kill me if I were responsible for the death of his best man.’

      ‘That’s all I am to you?’ he teased, though it came out a little more seriously than he’d intended.

      ‘No, of course not.’ She paused. ‘You’re also my only way to call the vet and ask about Zorro. My phone’s died.’

      He laughed, and it turned into a cough.

      ‘You’re sure you’re okay?’

      ‘Fine.’ He waved a hand. ‘Just normal after-effects.’

      She bit her lip. ‘I really am sorry. I didn’t mean for you to get dragged into this.’

      ‘I’m glad I was the one who did get dragged into it,’ he retorted. ‘At least I have training.’

      ‘Ah, yes—one of the thousands of things you can do when you have family money.’

      He winced. ‘How did you go from apologising to insulting me?’

      She grinned, and his mind scrambled to figure out why his body was responding. He’d given himself a stern talking-to when he’d left all those years ago. Hadn’t spoken to Ava since then. His body had no business reacting to her smile.

      ‘It’s one of my unique talents.’

       What are the others?

      Now his mind froze, and when Ava didn’t say anything else, he wondered whether he’d said it out loud. But her expression didn’t change, and he put down the strange thought to the after-effects of inhaling smoke. There could be no other explanation.

       Sure, keep telling yourself that.

      ‘So, can I call the vet?’ she asked after a moment.

      He blinked, then handed her his phone and took the seat she’d vacated as she made the call.

      He watched as she spoke to the vet. Watched as she set a hand on her hip and then lifted it, toying with her curls again. She’d cut her hair into a tapered style that somehow made the oval shape of her face seem both classic and modern.

      He supposed those terms would work to describe her entire appearance. He’d always thought her beautiful—with an innocent kind of beauty that was much too pure for him—but with the haircut, and the clothes she wore that suited that cut, she was an enticing mix of classic and modern that made him want—

      He stopped himself. Frowned at the direction of his thoughts. He couldn’t think of his best friend’s kid sister as enticing. He couldn’t think about wanting anything

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