Free Hearts on Fire by Roz Lee

God, why did he have to be such a nice guy? “This was a good idea.”
    “Want to tell me what’s going on? Are you mad because I showed up at your door?”
    “No.” She shook her head. “I’m not mad, but I am concerned you might be under the impression that last night meant more than it did.”
    In her peripheral vision, she saw him tuck his fingertips into the front pockets of his jeans. He’d removed his shoes, too, and there was something strangely intimate about seeing his bare feet.
    “Last night was…incredible,” he said after they’d walked along in silence for a few minutes. “Even if it doesn’t mean a thing, I want you to know it wasn’t just another hook-up for me.”
    “It wasn’t for me, either. I haven’t been with anyone in a very long time.”
    “I know our lives are different, but I couldn’t let you leave without trying to see if there might be a way we could work it out. I’d like to see you again. I don’t know how or when, but I do know I wish you weren’t leaving.”
    She stopped and turned to face the surf. The warm breeze threatened to carry her hat away. Holding it in place kept her from reaching for him. The time had come to tell him why he would never have the things he was asking for. “I had a life like yours many years ago. I lost it all. At first, I tried to go on. I kept my job, but it was the only thing I had left, and after a while, I realized it was the one thing in my life I would have gladly given up if I’d been given a choice.”
    “What happened to you, to the life you had?”
    It had been years, but the pain was still there as fresh as it had ever been. She had only to look below the surface. Wrapping her arms around her middle, she headed down the beach, hoping movement would make the telling easier, because she’d been standing still for so long. Steve fell in beside her.
    “I had a high-powered job in Manhattan that I commuted to five days a week. My husband had a similar job, but he traveled a lot. We rarely saw each other except for an hour or two in the evening when he was home. We had a nanny for our two children.” She choked on the last two words. Tears she had long since given up trying to control streamed down her cheeks.
    “Hey.” Steve grabbed her arm, halting her. He stepped in front of her, his big hands anchoring her where they curled around her upper arms. He felt so…solid. “Something happened to your children?”
    “There was a fire. I rode the train into work every day, and delays were normal, expected. My husband was in Seattle. Marguerite was home with the kids. Michael was four, and Tessa was two. She’d put them to bed upstairs then put in some laundry. She must have fallen asleep in her room. The fire inspector said she died of smoke inhalation. She never knew there was a fire.”
    Steve pulled her against him. His strong arms cocooned her tight against his muscled chest while she cried out the anguish she’d held in for so long.
     
    His heart broke for the woman in his arms. He’d seen plenty of tragedy in his years with the department, but nothing like what she had been through. No wonder she’d been so pissed at him for leaving Meggie alone the other day. The fact that he did it in order to put out a fire must have made it all that much worse for Shannon, given what he knew about her now.
    “I’m so sorry,” he said, resting his cheek on the top of her head. He rubbed circles on her back while her tears soaked his shirt.
    He didn’t know how long they stood there, but it didn’t matter. He hated the reason he had her in his arms, but he couldn’t get past how right it felt to hold her. The more he knew about her, the more certain he was that he’d misjudged her. She wasn’t the flighty, hippy transient he had first thought. He could only imagine the kind of grief that had set her on her present path. If he’d been through something like she had described, he wasn’t at all certain he would have