Fighting the Flames (Firefighter Romance #1)(7)

She closed the door as quietly as she could, and tiptoed down the narrow hallway with that dreaded dirty white carpet. Soon, she was past the two guest bedrooms and peeked around the door of the open master bedroom.


It was still dark inside and she heard the faint sound of his breath, the rhythmic in and out with just a hint of a snore on the inhale. Jessie stepped inside, walking quietly across the white travertine floor and reached him on his usual side of the bed. Just as she was about to touch his shoulder, to gently wake him from sleep, another soft breath caught her attention.

Jessie froze. It couldn’t be true. Curled up next to her maybe-fiancé was a—Really? Again?—another woman.





Chapter 4


Her first instinct was to scream, but what good would that do. She turned around and did her best to walk quietly back the way she came.

Outside, a dog barked and black clouds started forming in the north. The leaves in the street floated past. She saw all this happening in a haze of disbelief.

Turning around to close the front door, Jessie reinserted the key, this time to lock it. The creaking floor gave her little warning. The key ripped from her hand as she looked face-to-face at Derrick.

“We need to talk,” he whispered. “Outside.”

Jessie turned to run but he caught her arm. He turned her to face him and said, “I know this looks bad Jessie, but I can explain.”

“Explain?” I scoffed. “Don’t worry. I know enough about the birds and the bees. No explanation needed.” She jerked her arm, but couldn’t pull away. “What’s there to talk about anyway? I guess you couldn’t even wait until I got back for your answer.” I say, feigning disgust. “I was going to surprise you this morning.”

Holding up her left hand, she noticed Derrick turn pale.

“Jessie, I haven’t heard from you all summer, and the way we left things, well…”

“Derrick, I understand that some of the fault was mine, but really, I would have thought you could keep it in your pants until I got back. That was our deal, wasn’t it? At least, I thought so.”

“I tried calling you so many times and you never answered, not once. You never returned my texts. Can you blame me for misunderstanding?”

Deep inside, she really couldn’t blame him, but she wasn’t quite ready to admit it. Seeing him in bed with another woman reminded her too much of catching him with Cindy.

“Misunderstanding? You make it seem so innocent. Did you ‘misunderstand’ our commitment to each other while you were banging my friend? Did you ‘misunderstand’ then? Seems to me you ‘misunderstand’ a lot of things.” Jessie’s fingers were getting tired of all the air quotes and she lowered them to her side, feeling like a petulant child.

He cursed and ran his hands through his hair before scuffing them both across his face. “I’ve f*cked up… again. I know that. But I hope, this time, you’ll hear me out before you run away.”

Run away. That has been her MO since she was little. She could remember her daddy telling her of the times she packed her Barbie suitcase as a little girl, ready to set off into the wild blue yonder whenever things didn’t go her way. He told her he finally hid the suitcase in the attic, but that didn’t deter her. She just packed a grocery bag and, once, he found her walking down the road nearly a mile away. She was six years old at the time.

So yeah, running seems to be her specialty. Jessie mentally ran from the evidence of her dad’s affair, pushing everyone away—including Derrick—in the process. Then she ran away to the beach, where she ran into the arms of a man who allowed her to lose all those terrible memories for a while before running away from him.

Would this forever be her legacy? The girl who runs from her troubles?

“Listen Derrick, now is probably not the best time to discuss this. Why don’t we get together tomorrow for lunch at a neutral location and we can talk?”

He heaved out a sigh of relief and she felt a moment of sympathy. Then, she just wanted to laugh. She honestly couldn’t believe how unaffected she was by this whole thing. That, if nothing else, gave her a lot to think about.

“That sounds good, let’s meet at our favorite place at eleven tomorrow morning.”

“Your key is in the door, and you can keep the bottle opener key chain,” she said, trying to lighten the mood a little. Another trait of hers, sarcastic humor. It must run in the family.

She turned to walk away, then stopped. She pulled his ring from her finger and held it out to him. “I think it’s best that you keep this for now.” Derrick’s face transitioned through a myriad of emotions—sadness, anger, despair—as she placed the ring in his palm, yet he said nothing… only folded the diamond in a fist so tight his knuckles whitened.

Remarkably, she wasn’t even upset about this whole fiasco this morning. Driving past the turnoff to Silver Creek yesterday was more painful than finding another woman in Derrick’s bed. You’ve really done it now Jessie. One bad decision after another. Lisa’s gonna love this, being right again.


There was only one thing left to do… go devour some ice cream and wallow in her stupidity at Lisa’s house. There is no way she could lie to her sister about this, but ice cream might help deflect most of what she knew was coming.