The grizzly bartender slid him a pint of Guinness and he chugged half before he set the glass back down. Midway through his second pint, after her claims had time to settle, he suddenly found that he couldn’t refute them. All these years he’d been so busy blaming her for leaving. But now he saw that he’d taken the easy way out. He hadn’t wanted to take a frank look in the mirror and ask himself what he’d done wrong or how he’d f**ked things up.

In that instant, he realized why he’d lost it after she left: Way down deep in his subconscious, he’d known that he’d driven her away.

Staring bleakly at the dried condensation rings on the bar top, he realized that although he’d defined his entire life by saving people, in the end, he was helpless with the people he cared for the most. Dianna and her miscarriage. Connor and his burns.

He hadn’t meant to leave her to cope all by herself. Those first couple weeks after the miscarriage, he’d tried to be there for her, but it was so hard to know what to say, to know what not to say. Most of all, he didn’t want to talk about anything that would make her cry any more than she already was. When she finally told him to go back to work, it was such a relief to stop feeling like the clumsy giant tiptoeing around the apartment that he’d grabbed the chance with both hands.

Stupid kid that he was, he’d thought that maybe after both of them had some space to come to grips with what had happened, things would return to how they were before the baby. He’d wanted everything to go back to normal, for the hardest choice to be what kind of pizza to order. At twenty, it had just been easier to go fight fires. To tell himself he was needed on the mountain.

Leaving his unfinished beer on the counter, he headed for the door.

He’d bailed on Dianna once. He wouldn’t bail on her again, even though sticking around was by far the hardest thing to do.

CHAPTER TEN

DIANNA TOSSED and turned in the hard, lumpy motel bed. Not only was she terribly worried about April, but she felt horrible about the way she’d behaved with Sam.

After he’d left the motel, she’d barely had the strength left to strip out of her clothes and crawl beneath the covers. She didn’t remember anything after that, not until two a.m., when she woke up. She was disoriented at first, having slept in two strange beds during the past twenty-four hours.

But quickly, she realized she wasn’t alone.

Sam was only a couple of feet away, which meant she’d never be able to get back to sleep, not when she could hear him shift on the sofa and breathe in his delicious scent.

He aroused her senses like no other man ever had.

As anxious as she was about April, it was still hell on her system being so close to him, knowing that if she wanted to, she could crawl out of bed and wrap her arms around his neck, curl up on his lap, and bury her face against his chest.

And that was just the problem: She wanted to. Badly. Even when they’d been fighting only hours before, he was still the one she wanted to run to for comfort.

And for pleasure.

She’d never been able to resist him, not for one single second. She’d moved to San Francisco because if she’d stayed in Lake Tahoe, she would have inevitably returned to him, despite how empty, how broken their relationship had become.

Again and again while he breathed evenly beside her, Dianna considered waking him up and apologizing for the things she’d said after leaving the hospital. It wasn’t that she didn’t mean them, but lying awake in the dark with nothing to do but think, she realized she could have approached the confrontation differently. She hated knowing she hadn’t given him so much as an inch of space to respond to her grievances.

She’d been on the attack. Intent on full-on, outright damage.

And yet, amazingly, he’d come back to their room. After the way she’d ripped him to shreds, he hadn’t left her to search for April alone. Or taken off altogether.

If she hadn’t been able to push him away last night, then was there a chance that nothing she said or did was going to make him run? Did the fact that he was sleeping in the cramped sofa mean he’d changed?

Propping herself up in bed with the pillows, she watched him sleep soundly, his inhalations seemingly peaceful and even. All hotshots were trained to catch rest wherever they could, and it suddenly occurred to her that she didn’t know if he’d come straight from a fire to the hospital or even how long it had been since he’d been to bed.

Quite possibly, she realized as her stomach twisted into a tight knot, he hadn’t been alone in that bed.

He didn’t wear a ring, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t dating someone. It didn’t mean he wasn’t getting ready to pop the question to some small, cute brunette who worshipped his every move and made him feel like a million bucks.

She hated to think of anyone else touching him. Kissing him.

Sam was a magical lover, paying special attention to every inch of a woman’s body, the curves and peaks, the hollows and sensitive spots. He was a woman’s ultimate dream come to life. Six foot two, tanned and hard all over, with blue eyes that grew lighter or darker with the sun or clouds, with the time of day, with what he was feeling. Women wanted big, strong hands like his on their bodies, wanted to run their fingers through his dark, silky hair.

Her breath came faster as she remembered their lovemaking in full detail, warmth creeping up her body, between her legs, to the tips of her br**sts.

It would be so easy to fall back into bed with him. Way too easy. But they would both only end up getting hurt again.

And yet, even as she remembered how difficult it had been to get over him, she was touched by his willingness to help her now. She hadn’t even had to ask him for help. He’d simply offered it. Even though finding April was potentially dangerous, he hadn’t backed off, hadn’t rescinded his offer.

She didn’t know what to think about Sam sticking with her. Was it simply that he was a hero through and through? Or had he stepped in because she needed him?

These questions ran on repeat through her brain again and again until sleep finally started to settle around her like a blanket.

It was pitch-black outside the thin motel curtains when he woke her up. “Will’s waiting for us. We’ll leave in fifteen minutes.”

She rolled off the bed, took her small medicine bag into the bathroom, brushed her teeth, and applied the tiniest bit of makeup. Sam had always taken his good looks for granted, whereas she’d had to uncover hers and cultivate her appearance so that people would treat her in a way that came naturally to the gorgeous firefighter.