Total pages in book: 49
Estimated words: 48039 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 240(@200wpm)___ 192(@250wpm)___ 160(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 48039 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 240(@200wpm)___ 192(@250wpm)___ 160(@300wpm)
He shakes his head slowly, like he physically can’t take in the words. “Savannah, that fire started because—”
“Because of faulty wiring,” I cut in. “Accidents happen. And my father made the choice he made. He saved me. He protected me. That wasn’t you. That was him being… him. You can’t carry that.”
His eyes darken, stormy with pain. “I carried it anyway.”
“I know,” I breathe. “I know.”
Silence snaps tight around us, but this time it’s different. Charged. Magnetic. Pulling us helplessly toward each other.
He takes a slow, tortured breath. “Savannah…”
His voice wraps around my name like a prayer. Or a warning.
Maybe both.
Maybe that’s why I don’t move.
Maybe that’s why neither of us steps back.
The wind kicks up, swirling snow around us. I feel the heat of him, even in the freezing air. My heart stumbles and reorients itself toward him like it never stopped.
He studies my face with an intensity that makes my knees wobble. His eyes flick briefly to my mouth—so quick I wouldn’t have caught it if I weren’t already tracking his every move.
“That night…” he says hoarsely. “I didn’t just lose my house. I lost you. And I’ve spent every day since wondering if anything would’ve been different if I had—”
“Don’t,” I whisper again. “You were sixteen. We were kids.”
He laughs, but it’s a sound carved from pain. “You weren’t a kid to me.”
My breath catches.
Electricity arcs between us—hot, dangerous, intoxicating.
I can feel the gravity pulling us closer. One step. One inch. One breath and we’ll cross a line we won’t come back from.
I shouldn’t want that.
I shouldn’t want him.
But I do.
God help me, I do.
His voice drops to something devastatingly soft. “Tell me what you’re thinking.”
“That we shouldn’t be standing this close.”
He gives a low, humorless huff. “We’re not close enough.”
My pulse jumps. “Axel…”
He doesn’t touch me. Doesn’t reach for me. But his restraint is somehow even more unnerving than if he had.
“I can’t forgive myself,” he says quietly. “Not for the fire. Not for losing you. Not for everything that followed.”
“You didn’t lose me,” I whisper.
His eyes search mine like he’s looking for truth carved into my bones. “Savannah… you left.”
My throat tightens. “Because staying felt impossible. Because everywhere I looked, I saw what I lost. Because I couldn’t breathe here anymore. Because…” My voice thins. “Because if I’d stayed, I would’ve loved you too much to survive it.”
His breath stutters.
A raw, broken sound escapes him—soft, strangled, real. It hits me in the center of my chest.
We stand like that—close, aching, orbiting each other without touching—as snow falls quietly around us.
He whispers, “I never stopped wanting you to come home.”
“I never thought I’d want to.”
Another beat of silence.
“Do you?” he asks.
Do I?
God help me.
Yes.
But the word freezes on my tongue because saying it out loud might ignite everything that’s already smoldering between us.
We don’t move.
We don’t speak.
We just breathe the same cold air, hearts beating too fast, heat building too quickly, two people caught between the ashes of the past and the spark of something dangerously alive.
Finally, I manage a whisper.
“We should go.”
His jaw flexes. “Yeah.”
But neither of us steps back.
Not yet.
Not until the snow drifts heavier and reality presses between us like a wall we’re forced to acknowledge.
Only then do we turn away, walking slowly toward our separate vehicles—not touching, not speaking, but painfully aware that something shifted today.
Something we can’t untangle.
Can’t ignore.
Can’t bury again.
The past didn’t stay buried.
And neither did we.
Chapter Five
Axel
The firehouse kitchen smells like garlic bread and marinara, which would normally put me in a good mood. Tonight it just makes my stomach twist, because she’s here.
Savannah sits at the long steel table, shoulders relaxed, laughing at something Torres just said. Her hair is pulled back in a loose braid, a few strands falling around her face, and she’s smiling—really smiling—for the first time since she came back.
And it’s not at me.
I drop into my usual seat like the chair offended me. Cole passes me a plate piled high with pasta. I nod my thanks, grab my fork, and focus every ounce of energy I have on the food in front of me.
Don’t look.
Don’t look.
Don’t—
I look.
Savannah’s laugh rings like a sparkler popping in the dark. She’s telling the guys a story, one hand gesturing animatedly, and the whole table leans in. Ash, who barely tolerates conversation, looks like he’d pull up front-row seats if she kept talking.
Her cheeks are flushed from the heat of the kitchen. Her lips curve with amusement. And her eyes—bright and warm and so damn familiar—sweep across the table and accidentally land on mine.
The hit is immediate. Sharp. Hot.
Like taking a live wire to the chest.
She swallows, expression flickering just slightly—like she hates that the tether between us still exists. Like she hates that she feels it too.
She looks away first.
I should do the same. I should shove down everything clawing up my throat. I should be normal. Calm. Professional.