She stared at him, the hurt sneaking in and squeezing her heart. She wrapped her hands around the fat, scared cat, who came compliantly, even happily, pressing her furry face into the crook of Summer’s neck affectionately. “Mew.”

She hugged Socks close, feeling unusually awkward and out of her element. He didn’t want her here. Didn’t want to see her. “Did you fight the fire?” she asked.

“No, I’m a fire marshal.”

“So…you’re investigating?”

“Yes.”

That was somehow both unsettling and comforting. “It was an accident last time. A terrible accident.”

His face softened. “I know.”

“Is it this time?”

“I’ll find out.”

He sounded so sure, so confident. So unlike the Joe she remembered. His radio squawked, and he reached for it, talking into it with a shocking, easy authority.

He bewildered her, this man who felt both familiar and so much like a stranger. There was a lot to say to him, and yet nothing to say at all. Cuddling Socks, she turned away, giving him privacy, and taking a moment for herself as well.

The knowledge that the warehouse was probably a total loss dragged at her, fatiguing her all the more. She wondered if her mother and Aunt Tina would rebuild for a second time, and glanced back at Joe.

He was still talking into his radio, and didn’t appear to notice she’d left.

So she kept walking, surrounded by people and still somehow more alone than she’d felt in years. Utterly, completely alone.

Chapter 3

Chapter 3

Fifteen minutes until the staff meeting, Walker.”

Buried in paperwork at his desk inside the San Diego Fire Department’s central headquarters downtown, Joe looked up at his micromanaging, anal chief. “I’ll be there.”

With a curt nod, Chief Michaels moved on, stern frown still in place, ready to terrorize the next underling.

Joe let out a breath, not intimidated—no one intimidated him anymore—but frustrated. It’d been a hell of a week, and not just because of the blast from his past a few days ago, though that certainly hadn’t helped, especially in the thick of the night when the dark dreams sometimes came back, when he dreamed he was still hopeless, helpless, when the only bright spot in his life had been Summer.

But even that he could shove aside in the light of day. He’d been doing so for years.

It’d been seeing her again.

Facing who he’d once been.

The chief poked his head back into Joe’s office. “Don’t forget, you’re presenting on prevention.”

Joe didn’t jump, didn’t do anything but cut his eyes to the clock. He had thirteen and a half minutes left. “I’ll be there,” he repeated, and when he was alone, got up and flipped over the WELCOME sign to STAY OUT! before shutting the door firmly.