07 It Had to Be You Read online

  Ali’s Blooms.

  She’d signed the lease and was officially in the space next to the bakery again.

  It was all she’d ever wanted.

  Half the town was here for the opening party, and the other half was on their way.

  “She can nail me any time,” Luke said, and snatched a custard puff from Leah’s tray and stuffed it in his mouth. He gave Ali one more quick kiss, tasting like vanilla.

  She hummed her pleasure. Just looking up in his warm, blue eyes quelled her nerves. He was her rock.

  And she was his, she marveled. He believed in her, trusted her, needed her. Wanted her.

  He’d gone to San Francisco for the Reyes review, but he was still on medical leave, so he’d come right back to Lucky Harbor. Sawyer had offered him a job, and he was going to take it. Ali was over the moon that he was staying here in Lucky Harbor.

  Catching her looking at him, he gestured for her to set the tray down, then nudged her closer with his good arm. Lowering his head, he pressed his mouth to her ear. “I’m never going to get tired of finding you looking at me that way. Like you have to have me right now.”

  She laughed, then looked around to make sure Leah wasn’t too close. “I just had you,” she whispered. Right before they arrived here, in fact. “And I wasn’t looking at you like that. If you must know, I was thinking I can’t believe you’re mine.”

  “Believe it.” He pulled back to look into her eyes. “I belong to you, heart and soul and…” He pressed up against her, making her laugh when she felt him, hard at her belly so that the “and” was clear.

  “Tired of me already?” he asked with a smile in his voice.

  “Not quite yet. You?”

  His eyes darkened, and he kissed her again. “Never.”

  Her heart skipped a beat. “Never is a long time,” she said.

  His voice was low, fierce. And very sure. “That’s what I’m counting on.”

  The End

  Please turn the page for the free bonus ebook

  Blue Flame

  by Jill Shalvis

  Dear Readers,

  I have a thing for firefighters. I always have. There’s just something about a guy who’s willing to put his life on the line for others, isn’t there? The job itself suggests being strong of mind and body and is innately masculine. (With apologies to the women firefighters out there, you’re all beautiful!).

  Years ago, I wrote three romances featuring firefighter heroes. The books have been out of print for a long time now and never made it to the digital age. My wonderful publisher has taken them out of obscurity and is reissuing them as ebooks.

  WHITE HEAT, BLUE FLAME, and SEEING RED are not connected books, so they can be read in any order. Keep in mind they were written a long time ago and are not from this smart phone/digital age. But one thing they do have in common with my more recent books is a sexy, hot hero and a happily ever after.

  Hope you enjoy!

  Best wishes,

  To David, Kelsey, Megan, and Courtney,

  who happily lived on fast food for the duration

  it took me to write this book.

  Love you bunches.

  Prologue

  Dangling from a third-story window ledge wasn’t a good thing. Dangling from a third-story window ledge by the tips of his fingers, with fire blazing all around him was even worse, and though Jake Rawlins had been in tougher situations, at the moment he couldn’t remember one.

  “Go away!” cried the young teen, trembling on the very corner of the flaming roof above him. “Go away!”

  Jake adjusted his precarious perch, and eyed the kid. “I’m a firefighter, I’m here to help you. Just don’t—”

  The boy scrambled out of Jake’s reach.

  “—move.” Damn it. Apparently nothing about this call would be easy tonight. So far, he had a mansion of a house on fire in the dead of the night; occupants caught unawares on a rural street, with the fire hydrant just far enough away to create a sea of hoses at his crew’s feet, all on hilly, uneven land in the outskirts of San Diego county. Oh, and a terrified teen sitting above the inferno, on a roof, holding one arm against his chest as if he’d injured it.

  The winds whipped right at Jake, stirred by the fire itself, trying to tear him from the house. It’d only been two minutes since the ladder engine had malfunctioned, trapping him up there, but it felt like a lifetime. He had at least eight minutes before another ladder engine would arrive. Only problem, the roof wasn’t going to last another eight minutes.

  “Billy! Somebody get my Billy!” screamed the kid’s mother from three stories below. Her terror stabbed at Jake, and fueled him on. Adjusting his grip on the ledge, he reached for the rain gutter, which was thankfully anchored to the house, and began to climb.

  The house itself was nothing but a bright ball of flame around him. No one could get through the inferno to get inside, not until they tamed the fire, which his crew was working on from below. Long streams of forced water flew through the air toward the flames, which only seemed to enrage them all the more.

  “Mom!” Above Jake, Billy’s voice sounded weak and smoke-ravaged.

  Jake got high enough to see him again, and his heart nearly stopped. Shaking in terror, Billy sat about three feet back from the ledge, completely surrounded by flames, cradling his arm and screaming. “Mom!”

  “She can’t hear you from there, buddy.”

  “I didn’t mean for this to happen, I didn’t!”

  Had he started the fire? At the moment it didn’t matter. Neither did the fact that as captain of the malfunctioned engine, Jake was usually on the ground, strategizing and organizing the crew, not straddling a rickety rain gutter thirty feet above ground. Christ, he hated heights. “Hang on, now.” Jake kept his face averted from the heat and flames blasting toward him, but then the kid shifted to bolt away.

  The roof was a goner. A wrong move now, and he could fall through. With no ladder and nothing to brace his foot on, Jake had to use sheer strength to pull himself up, and he felt every one of his hundred and eighty pounds, not to mention the additional sixty-five pounds of gear.

  The kid stared at the flames engulfing the roof, flinching as areas began to cave in. “Mom!”

  “Your mom’s safe. Let’s do the same for us.” With the flames leaping far too close for comfort, Jake reached out for him.

  “No!” Whimpering, Billy crawled backward, out of Jake’s reach and straight into the danger zone. “I don’t wanna go over the edge!”

  Jake could hear more sirens coming closer now. He could feel the mist of the spray his crew were frantically sending around them, trying to keep them safe. “Billy, we need to go.”

  “I want to go through the attic door, the way I came!” Dropping to his knees, Billy scooted away from Jake and the feared edge, and directly toward the flames.

  Jake understood the height issue, and sympathized more than the kid could know, but there was no help for that. They had to get off the roof, and fast, and they had to go the way Jake had come—via the ledge.

  From far below, new swirling lights joined the others, and he knew the other ladder engine had arrived. Relief was cut short by a thundering crash directly on his left. Whipping around, he watched a good part of the roof cave in, including the attic door and stairs.

  Billy stared at the gaping hole in horror. Flames immediately filled it, but unbelievably, the kid took a step toward it.

  “No.” Jake reached out, and got a hold of Billy’s shoe, which promptly came off. Shit. With his other hand, he caught the kid’s ankle, but lost in his fear, Billy thrashed around.

  “It’s okay,” Jake tried to soothe. “I’ve got you—” He took a well-placed kick to his chest, which nearly sent them both over the edge of the three-story house.

  “I want to get down!”

  “Yeah, but not the way the stairs and attic door just went, okay?”

  Another crash, and only three feet away this time, and more of the roof vani