“Only if I can borrow Birdie’s binder for the Spring Fling.”

“You’ve got a deal.” He moved to where he’d dropped his jacket by the door and picked up a big purple binder.

Hannah wasn’t expecting such a large, full binder. Oh boy! Her friends were right; he wasn’t giving her a handout. This would definitely be a fair tradeoff.

She accepted the hefty binder from him and moved to the other side of the front door. “I’ll just set it over here until we’re done.”

“I need to take some measurements. Do you mind if I go in the kitchen?”

She shook her head. “Be careful. It’s still a mess in there. It’s taking them a bit to get the ceiling fixed.”

“No worries. As a firefighter, I’m used to moving carefully through rooms.”

“You’re a firefighter?” She didn’t know why this caught her totally off guard, but it did. After seeing the scars, she should have guessed.

He nodded. “Been one for years.”

The thought brought her no comfort. None at all. It just drove home the dangers of his occupation—dangers she was intimately familiar with now.

“I’ll be right back.” He moved to the kitchen.

She welcomed the alone time. It gave her a moment to compose herself. She didn’t want to say or do anything to make this arrangement awkward for either of them.

She waited in the front room and answered some texts on her phone about cake orders and a couple about the upcoming wedding shower. At this point, she felt like she was being pulled in a million different directions, but she assured herself it would be all worth it in the end.

And then Ethan returned to the showroom. When their gazes met, her stomach dipped. There was something about him that drew her in. She wanted to know him better. And that wasn’t good with him having such a dangerous career.

She wasn’t going to get involved with a firefighter and that included Ethan. The risk to her heart was just too great. She still had the scars from losing her firefighter father. She couldn’t go through that again.

She was better off staying focused on the task at hand—getting her bakery up and running. It was what her father had taught her—stay focused. As a child, she was forever getting distracted by this or that. She’d start one project only to get partway through and go do something else.

When she was seven or so, her father would take her out to the vegetable garden. He would assign her a task and he’d give her so long to do said task. If she completed it in time without getting distracted, he’d give her a treat. Sometimes it had been money, sometimes it had been a prize of sorts, and other times it had been his praise. They were all worthy prizes because all she’d ever wanted was for her father to be proud of her. Would he be proud of her now?