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  To all the real-life firefighters out there, you are true heroes.

  And to the people in the field who gave me so much help on the research (and shared some amazing stories!), I’m forever grateful:

  Mississippi Commissioner of Insurance and State Fire Marshal Mike Chaney

  The Mississippi State Fire Marshal’s Office

  Chief Deputy Fire Marshal Ricky Davis

  Deputy James “Jimmy” Jackson, Fire Marshal Supervisor

  State Deputy Fire Coordinator Brad Smith

  Chapter 1

  Saying that she went to the annual Firefighter’s Charity Breakfast for pancakes was like saying she watched baseball for the game—when everyone knew that you watched baseball for the guys in tight uniform pants.

  But this time Leah Sullivan really did want pancakes. She also wanted her grandma to live forever, world peace, and hey, while she was making wishes, she wouldn’t object to being sweet-talked out of her clothes sometime this year.

  But those were all issues for another day. Mid-August was hinting at an Indian summer for the Pacific Northwest. The morning was warm and heading toward hot as she walked to the already crowded pier. The people of Lucky Harbor loved a get-together, and if there was food involved—and cute firefighters to boot—well, that was just a bonus.

  Leah accepted a short stack of pancakes from Tim Denison, a firefighter from Station #24. He was a rookie, fresh from the academy and at least five years younger than her, but that didn’t stop him from sending her a wink. She took in his beachy, I-belong-on-a-Gap-ad-campaign appearance and waited for her good parts to flutter.

  They didn’t.

  For reasons unknown, her good parts were on vacation and had been for months.

  Okay, so not for reasons unknown. But not wanting to go there, not today, she blew out a breath and continued down the length of the pier.

  Picnic tables had been set up, most of them full of other Lucky Harbor locals supporting the firefighters’ annual breakfast. Leah’s friend Ali Winters was halfway through a huge stack of pancakes, eyeing the food line as if considering getting more.

  Leah plopped down beside her. “You eating for two already?”

  “Bite your tongue.” Ali aimed her fork at her along with a pointed don’t mess with me look. “I’ve only been with Luke for two months. Pregnancy isn’t anywhere on the to-do list yet. I’m just doing my part to support the community.”

  “By eating two hundred pancakes?”

  “Hey, the money goes to the senior center.”

  There was a salty breeze making a mess of Leah’s and Ali’s hair, but it didn’t dare disturb the woman sitting on the other side of Ali. Nothing much disturbed the cool-as-a-cucumber Aubrey.

  “I bet sex is on your to-do list,” Aubrey said, joining their conversation.

  Ali gave a secret smile.

  Aubrey narrowed her eyes. “I could really hate you for that smile.”

  “You should hate me for this smile.”

  “Luke’s that good, huh?”

  Ali sighed dreamily. “He’s magic.”

  “Magic’s just an illusion.” Aubrey licked the syrup off her fork while managing to somehow look both beautifully sophisticated and graceful.

  Back in their school days, Aubrey had been untouchable, tough as nails, and Leah hadn’t been anywhere in the vicinity of her league. Nothing much had changed there. She looked down at herself and sucked in her stomach.

  “There’s no illusion when it comes to Luke,” Ali told Aubrey. “He’s one-hundred-percent real. And all mine.”

  “Well, now you’re just being mean,” Aubrey said. “And that’s my area. Leah, what’s with the expensive shoes and cheap haircut?”

  Leah put a hand to her choppy auburn layers, and Aubrey smiled at Ali, like See? That’s how you do mean…

  Most of Leah’s money went toward her school loans and helping to keep her grandma afloat, but she did have one vice. Okay, two, but being addicted to Pinterest wasn’t technically a vice. Her love of shoes most definitely was. She’d gotten today’s strappy leather wedges from Paris, and they’d been totally worth having to eat apples and peanut butter for a week. “They were on sale,” she said, clicking them together as if she were Dorothy in Oz. “They’re knockoffs,” she admitted.

  Aubrey sighed. “You’re not supposed to say that last part. It’s not as fun to be mean when you’re nice.”

  “But I am nice,” Leah said.

  “I know,” Aubrey said. “And I’m trying to like you anyway.”

  The three of them were an extremely unlikely trio, connected by a cute, quirky Victorian building in downtown Lucky Harbor. The building was older than God, currently owned by Aubrey’s great-uncle, and divided into three shops. There was Ali’s floral shop, Leah’s grandma’s bakery, and a neglected bookstore that Aubrey had been making noises about taking over since her job at Town Hall had gone south a few weeks back.

  Neither Ali nor Leah was sure yet if having Aubrey in the building every day would be fun or a nightmare. But regardless, Aubrey knew her path. So did Ali.

  Leah admired the hell out of that. Especially since she’d never known her path. She’d known one thing, the need to get out of Lucky Harbor—and she had. At age seventeen, she’d gone and had rarely looked back.

  But she was back now, putting her pastry chef skills to good use helping her grandma while she recovered from knee surgery. The problem was, Leah had gotten out of the habit of settling in one place.

  Not quite true, said a little voice inside her. If not for a string of spectacularly bad decisions, she’d have finished French culinary school. And not embarrassed herself on the reality TV show Sweet Wars. And…

  Don’t go there.

  Instead, she scooped up a big bite of fluffy pancakes and concentrated on their delicious goodness rather than her own screwups. Obsessing over her bad decisions was something she saved for the deep dark of night.

  “Jack’s at the griddle,” Ali noted.

  Leah twisted around to look at the cooking setup. Lieutenant Jack Harper was indeed manning the griddle. He was tall and broad shouldered and looked like a guy who could take on anything that came his way. This was a good thing, since he ran station #24.

  Fire Station #24 was one of four that serviced the county, and thanks to the Olympic Mountain range at their back, with its million acres of forest, all four stations were perpetually busy.

  Jack thrived on busy. He could be as intimidating as hell when he chose to be, which wasn’t right now since he was head-bopping to some beat only he could hear in his headphones. Knowing him, it was some good, old-fashioned, ear-splitting hard rock.

  Not too far from him, leashed to a bench off to the side, sat Kevin, a huge Great Dane. He was white with black markings that made him look like a Dalmatian wannabe. Kevin had been given to a neighboring fire station where he’d remained until he’d eaten one too many expensive hoses, torn up one too many beds, and chewed dead one too many pairs of boots. The rambunctious one-year-old had then been put up for adoption.

  The only problem was that no one had wanted what was by then a hundred-and-fifty-pound