“I can’t leave the store, man,” Cliff said. “You’re a firefighter, you rescue people all the time. Go rescue the hot chick, she’ll probably be super grateful.” Cliff waggled his brow. “You’re welcome.”

Shit. Aidan took Lily’s keys and forgotten cookies and strode out of the store. As expected, Lily was still in the lot, sitting in her car, thunking her head against her steering wheel and muttering something he couldn’t hear through her closed window.

He shook his head, braced himself, and knocked on the glass.

Lily startled and smacked her head on the sun visor. Rubbing the top of her head, she turned and glared at him.

He lifted his hand, her keys dangling from his fingers.

She stared a moment and then thunked her head on the steering wheel again.

“How long are you going to pretend you don’t see me?” he asked.

“Forever?” she asked.

“It’s just a set of keys.”

When she still hesitated, he revealed the cookies in his other hand, jiggling them enticingly.

As he’d suspected, that did the trick. She opened her car door a little bit, just enough to stick her hand out for the goods.

Aidan dropped both the cookies and the keys into her palm and then made his move, quickly crouching between the opened door and the driver’s seat so that she couldn’t shut the door on him—though she did give it the ol’ college try.

Damn, Lily thought. He’d always been fast. Whether on a pair of skis on snow or water, or just on his own two legs, the three-time Colorado state champion short-distance runner knew how to move. “You’re in my way.”

“What are you doing here, Lily? Visiting?”

“No.”

“What then?”

No way in hell was she going to admit what had happened to her. Nope. Not saying it out loud. Ever. “Move,” she said instead.

Eyes locked on her, he gave a slow shake of his head.

He wasn’t moving.

He hadn’t shaved that morning, she noticed. Maybe not for a handful of mornings, and the scruff gave his square jaw a toughness that suggested the wild teenager had long ago become a man. She saw now that his T-shirt also had a Colorado Wildland Firefighter patch on the sleeve. The last time she’d seen Aidan, he’d been hoping to get into the fire academy.

Seemed someone had gotten his dream.

“Move or I’ll run over your foot,” she said, and to prove she meant business, she shoved the key in and cranked the engine.

“You’ll run over my foot?” he repeated, eyebrow raised, one side of his mouth quirking in a half grin that was filled with wicked trouble. No wonder half the population of Cedar Ridge had always been in love with him. The other half were either men or dead.