Free The Firefighter Meets His Match (Red Hot Reunions Book 4) by Jessie Evans Page A

a good call, and I’ve got a feeling we’re going to hear good news soon.”
    Jake sighed. “I hope so.”
    “Come on,” Naomi said, taking the empty thermos lid from his hands. “Strip and get into bed. Let’s get this nap started.”
    One side of Jake’s mouth lifted as he wrapped an arm around her shoulders and pulled her in for a tight hug. “I love you. I don’t know what I’d do without you.”
    “You’ll never have to find out,” Naomi said, kissing his scruffy cheek before wrapping her arms around his chest and squeezing tight.
    Minutes later she had Jake tucked in and was rubbing his bare shoulders, her hands sliding smoothly across his warm flesh, sending the soothing smell of lavender floating through the room. In typical Jake style, he was asleep in two minutes flat, but Naomi continued to knead the knots from muscles, hoping her touch would give him comfort, even in sleep.
    After she’d coaxed some of the stress from his back, Naomi covered Jake with his blanket, set his alarm for forty-five minutes—deciding to split the difference between what Jake wanted and what Jamison had suggested—and tiptoed toward the door to heat up the beanbag neck warmer in the microwave, snapping off the light as she went.
    She paused in the doorway, glancing back at the still, sleeping form of the man she loved, grateful that she could be there for him. Against all odds, she and Jake had found their way back to each other, and made a beautiful life and a beautiful family together, with their precious baby girl and another little boy on the way. They’d be adopting their son in the fall, as soon as the birth mother delivered, and had already started work on his nursery.
    A day ago, the future had been nothing but bright, but Naomi had faith the sun would shine again. And she had faith in Faith to do whatever it took to stay safe until she was found.
    Still, Naomi took a moment, standing in the semi-darkness with the smell of lavender in the air and Jake’s measured breathing drifting to her ears to close her eyes and send out another prayer. If she’d learned one thing this past year, it was that there were two things you could never have too much of—love and people praying for you.
    She knew the prayers and love of her family and friends had lifted her out of the darkness after the loss of her first daughter, Grace. Now, she hoped her love and prayer could help do the same for Faith.

CHAPTER ELEVEN
    Lucy
    Lucy twined her fingers tightly through Brandon’s and scooted closer to him on the center boat seat, keeping her eyes trained on the bank, doing her best not to show how scared she was. The floodwater in the subdivision they’d left behind twenty minutes ago had been moving swiftly, but it was sluggish compared to the river’s rushing current.
    There was nothing little about the Little Fork today. It was big and wide and overflowing its banks, barreling to the south with a fury that had Neil clenching his jaw as he steered their motorboat around one dangerous curve after another. One wrong move—a bad read on the current, or a failure to steer clear of the debris clogging parts of the river—was all it would take to send all three of them tumbling overboard.
    They were wearing life vests, but that didn’t mean they were safe. The last time there had been a flood this bad fifteen people had died. One of them had been a rescue worker wearing a life vest, with extensive training on how to stay alive in emergency situations.
    Lucy had no training. She knew CPR and was in reasonably good shape, but she wasn’t the strongest swimmer. If she went overboard, she’d be at the mercy of the river until it decided to spit her up on a bank somewhere.
    But even scarier than the chance of being tossed from the boat was the possibility that she’d been wrong.
    When she had urged Neil to veer left—guiding the boat through a treacherous stand of trees before they left the floodplain and entered the river