Free Hearts on Fire by Bree Roberts Page B

he’d gotten an opportunity to train as a smokejumper out in Idaho. An opportunity he couldn’t pass up.
    And he hadn’t asked her to come with him.
    Surprise, shock, anger — pretty much all the things she was feeling now — had eventually been replaced with disbelief. She’d thought, on Valentine’s Day of all days, that he’d been on the verge of asking her to marry him. Was certain of it.
    Instead, he’d said goodbye. On Valentine’s Day. And just like that, the man she’d dated for two years was gone.
    She blinked away the image, but the memory still stung, and moisture filled her eyes unbidden. She quickly blinked them away too, but the burning on her cheeks was not so easily dismissed. In two days it would be Valentine’s Day again, and she’d managed to quell the hurt she still felt after all this time. Only now, the hurt was standing a few feet away and was looking sexier than ever.
    “Looks like your boyfriend’s back.”
    Jess wheeled around to level her sharp, icy stare at Danny, and the smirk on his face quickly faded.
    “Uh, kidding. I think I … oh, look at the time.” He nervously backed away from the hot-tempered Jess. “See you at Mo’s I guess.” He sauntered off under that gaze that would have withered the sturdiest of men.
    Jess quickly followed, not wanting to encounter Cort Cavanaugh here where he’d ended it. She needed to think, to calm herself, to prepare for the eventual confrontation. To erect a facade of disinterest. Inside, her blood pressure had spiked, blood raging through her veins, on the verge of popping a vessel at the slightest provocation. Her heart had flip-flopped, torn between anger and sorrow for what had been lost just one short year ago. A trail of unease snaked through her gut, gripping it in humiliation.
    What was he doing back here? Why hadn’t anyone warned her? Not that she would have called in sick to avoid him, but to ready herself emotionally. She wondered if he had come back alone; wondered what kind of friends he’d made in Idaho; what kind of women he’d dated, and if any of them were here now, too.
    Dismay wracked her insides with the knowledge that she’d have to see him every workday if he was back to stay. She yanked open the exit door of the fire department’s brick building, fumbling in her backpack for her keys as she bolted for her pickup. Being around him was going to tear open the old wounds in her heart and in her pride that she’d so carefully stitched up.
    Perhaps she’d talk to Chief Clay about a shift change. Leaning her forehead against the cool metal frame of her truck, small relief washed over her with the simple solution. Different shifts meant they’d only see each other during joint training exercises. Or funerals.
    If ever a woman needed a drink, this was the time. The team, now off duty for two glorious days, was heading to Mo’s Bar & Grill on 5th, and Jess hopped into her pickup to join them. She brightened with the realization that she had two days to get her act together.
    Two days before she’d have to see Cort Cavanaugh again.
     

 
     
     
     
     
     
    Chapter Two
     
     
    Music and laughter spilled out into the street as Jess stepped through the heavy wooden door of Mo’s Bar and Grill, and jingling bells clanged against the door as it closed behind her. The air smelled of beer and whiskey and fried food. The room was dominated by a large oak bar on the right with ceiling-high shelves of bottled merriment and escapism towering over the bartender as he wiped down the already spotless surface of the bar. A smattering of patrons occupied the barstools and dining tables, chasing away the chills of winter with the fire of booze.
    Before her eyes could adjust to the low light of the interior, she heard Danny call out from the left side of the bar and immediately headed over to join him and the other guys from her shift.
    “Here’s the hero of the hour,” Tommy called out, and a group of four beer mugs sloshed