Ace

ACE

There was nothing like the adrenaline rush of a fire call. Sirens blaring, the engine roaring beneath my boots, voices coming through my headset as we confirmed assignments.

It was exciting. Thrilling, even. It gave me purpose.

There was no such feeling now. Tonight, all I felt was dread.

Bill Hart’s old house was on fire.

The man had dropped dead of a heart attack while tending to his elderly mare in the stable back in the spring. One minute, doing something he’d done every day for years. Decades. The next, gone.

I still hadn’t gotten used to it. 

He’d been good to me ever since his niece and I had dated in high school.

Zoe Williams. The fucking one who’d gotten away.

Who I’d never really gotten over.

Because one day we were making grand plans for our lives together like love-struck seventeen-year-olds did, the next she was on a flight to Germany to go back to her parents. Her father had made it very clear his daughter had plans and they didn’t involve a podunk town and a kid who was going to go nowhere in life.
The fire truck rounded the final bend in the road, my seat belt tightening across my chest as I leaned into the turn.

Dispatch had reported one occupant, already outside.

One occupant. It sure as hell wasn’t Bill. I didn’t even want to think if it might be Zoe. Except who else could it be? I wanted to think my adrenaline was flowing because of the fire, but was it because there was a chance that my girl was back?

As Wynn, my friend and a volunteer firefighter, turned the engine down the dirt driveway, I took in the scene. One story house. Wood siding. It had seen better days back when I was a teenager. Now, over ten years later, it looked even more worn down. Faded and peeling paint. Sagging roof. Smoke spilled from the left side of the dwelling by the garage. No flames visible which meant it was isolated. The fire hadn’t spread. Yet.

Wynn brought us to a stop, and I unbuckled and jumped down from riding shotgun, hitting the packed dirt hard.

We still had a chance to save the house. We needed to move.

“Get a line to the garage,” I called. “Establish the water supply!”

My crew moved without hesitation, getting the engine connected to the tender for water. As the chief, I was a paid resource. An employee of the city. The rest were volunteers. They may spend their weekdays fixing tractors, running businesses, or working construction, but they took this job seriously.

Since taking the job last year, I’d made training a priority, and they’d shown up for it.

I knew what they could do. I also knew it was my responsibility not to ask them to do something stupid because this particular house mattered to me.

Everyone in town was a neighbor or friend.

A broken sob drew my attention toward the far side of the house.

Fuck. Me.

It was possible I’d need Wynn and his medical skills because I was about to have a fucking heart attack.

A woman stood barefoot, dead leaves swirling about her ankles, hand pressed over her mouth as she stared at the smoke wisping toward the sky. Her wet hair hid most of her face, and a thin silk robe was doing very little to hide her curves, especially as the droplets from her hair soaked the fabric.

I knew that hair. That body. It was visceral, as if my fucking soul recognized her, even after all this time.

I stalked her way, my heavy gear clinking against my back.

“Zoe!” I called.

She spun around, eyes widening as she saw me.

I stopped breathing.

Thirteen years. It’d been thirteen fucking years since I’d seen this woman. Yeah, woman because she wasn’t seventeen any longer. She’d had curves I’d loved to explore back in the day, but now she’d filled out. Fuller hips, rounder face. Softened into a gorgeous woman.

Thank fuck for think bunker pants because my dick was as hard as a charged line.

Her brown hair was shorter now, falling just below her chin, the damp strands framing a face I’d spent too much time trying not to remember. 

“Ace?”

Her drying hair whipped in the cool breeze and she tucked it behind her ear. I wanted to do that for her. Once, she’d given me permission to touch her. To make her mine in all ways. I wanted that again. I wanted to feel how silky her hair was. To see if her skin was as soft as I remembered. If her scent was the same.

Fuck, if her pussy tasted just as sweet.

I stopped right in front of her, forcing her to tip her chin up. Her gray eyes were like a sucker punch as they found mine beneath the brim of my helmet.

Zoe Williams was back in Devil’s Ditch.
Her hands didn’t reach for me, didn’t pull me down for a kiss. No, they held a pale blue, silky robe closed around her.

Fuck. She was barely dressed. If I could see the outline of her nipples through the thin fabric, then so could the rest of the crew.

Ignoring the job that I was here to do, I stalked off, grabbed a blanket from the cab of the truck, returned to her and wrapped it around her almost-bare body.

“Ace, what are you doing?” she asked, trying to shift away. “You need to put out the fire!”

My crew was working around me. I might be the chief, but they knew what to do. Lines were charged. Entry happening.
While I stood in front of Zoe. The only woman I ever loved. Crazed. Obsessed. Feral.

Bill Hart’s house could burn. So could the entire world.

I only had eyes for her. 
Zoe.
My girl.
MINE.

“No one’s allowed to see you like this except for me.”