you act. What do you want? And what’s best for Lola? Don’t start something with her again if you’re not sure you can give it one hundred percent this time. I’m not sure she’d survive the aftermath of you running again. And we both know that these days, running is what you’re good at.”
Without waiting for his response, Colt rolled away, heading into the back of the house.
Erik had been dismissed.
But Colt’s words followed Erik out the door and back to his mom’s place. His friend had always been the smart one.
He needed to leave Lola alone. They’d crashed and burned before. Neither of them could survive doing it again.
* * *
IT HAD BEEN six weeks since he’d seen Lola. After his talk with Colt, he’d purposely avoided her so he wouldn’t make another mistake with her.
The last thing he wanted was to hurt her more than he already had.
Honestly, Colt’s words had scared him—a hell of a lot more than parachuting out of a plane into any wildfire he’d faced.
He’d picked up more shifts at the station. A couple of the teams often operated with three men instead of four so it was easy to fill the empty spot, especially when he’d worked with most of the guys before and had a rapport. That history made it easy to blend into a cohesive group.
There were moments when he missed the adrenaline rush of smoke jumping. But with a little distance, he’d realized his chief back in California was right. He’d needed a break. For the last six years he’d been going nonstop. Running from fire to fire in some misguided attempt to make up for what had happened in Sweetheart.
And instead, he’d barreled straight into another tragedy that had cost him a friend and sent him careening into a situation that had almost cost him his own life. Losing Aaron had carried with it a warped sense of déjà vu.
Standing behind Aaron’s widow, listening to her muffled sobs, had ripped something open inside him. And he’d taken the bleeding mess straight into another fire and used it to push himself beyond the point of breaking.
Cut off from the team, surrounded by fire with no way out, he’d been lucky. They’d managed to rescue him. He’d been grateful, until Chief had given him the two-month suspension for ignoring orders.
Restless, it had only taken him a few days to realize he needed to be somewhere other than California, watching news stories about a wildfire his team was fighting but he wasn’t allowed to touch.
So he’d come home to Sweetheart and walked straight into a history that he’d never actually dealt with. Seeing Lola...it had been like a shot to the gut. He’d wanted her. Missed her.
That single night they’d shared wasn’t nearly enough. Nothing between them ever had been. Even back when they were dating, he’d felt this overwhelming need to be with her. To touch her. To listen to her talk and rile her up. Lola was so passionate and interesting...he constantly wanted more of her.
Not smart.
Today Erik had come home from an unusually long shift during which he’d barely gotten three hours of sleep, none of them consecutive. They’d been called out on two accidents. In one, a four-year-old child had been trapped inside the twisted metal of a totaled car. Luckily, they’d gotten him out, and from all reports, he had minor injuries and would be fine.
Then, around midnight, they’d gotten a call about smoke coming from the attic in a two-story house just inside the city limits. That one hadn’t taken long to extinguish, but before they’d even returned to the station, they were sent back out on a medical call.
Erik had dropped into his bunk and gotten forty-five minutes before a three-alarm apartment fire had come in. That one had kept him up way past time for his shift to end.
He hadn’t gotten home until almost 10:00 a.m. and then immediately dropped into sleep. Now it was well past three and he was finally awake. Sort of. His mother was banging something downstairs, the sound of it reverberating through his throbbing skull.
He definitely needed more sleep. Or coffee. Lots of coffee.
Realizing sleep probably wasn’t in the cards, Erik pushed up from the bed and tossed on a pair of sweats, not bothering with a shirt. He could smell whatever his mom was cooking, and it was making his stomach rumble. He hadn’t eaten in hours.
Shuffling downstairs, he paused in the doorway of the kitchen to find his mom rolling out pie dough. God, he loved his mom’s pies. When he was younger he hadn’t appreciated all the sacrifices she’d made for him. As a single mom, she’d worked two jobs to provide for him and still somehow managed to have enough energy to do things like bake homemade cookies to include in his lunches and her famous peach pie for Sunday supper.
“Please tell me you aren’t taking that to the neighbors or something.” Because that was a distinct possibility, and Erik wasn’t sure he could deal with the disappointment right now. Not with his head pounding and his body still begging for sleep.
It would be cruel and unusual punishment.
“Of course not. I know you had a rough shift last night, so I wanted to make your favorite.” His mom beamed at him, and a short burst of love mixed with guilt shot through him.
He hadn’t been home nearly enough since Colt’s accident.
Crossing the kitchen, he wrapped his arms around her and pulled her in for a bear hug. She was a small woman, but somehow he’d never thought of her that way. Not once in his entire life had he heard his mother complain. She always wore a smile, even if it was sometimes lopsided from exhaustion.
“Love you, Mom,” he mumbled into the top of her head before stepping back.
“What was that for?” she asked, staring up at him out of her calm, steady eyes, which matched his own.
“Can’t I give my mom a hug and tell her I love her?”
“Anytime you want.” She offered him a serene smile, turning back to the ingredients spread across the counter. “I’ve also got a roast in the oven. Everything should be ready in a couple hours. I wasn’t sure how long you’d sleep.”
“Great. That gives me enough time to fix the faucet upstairs. The handle keeps falling off whenever I turn the water on.”
“Yeah. I’ve been meaning to call someone in to take a look, but there really hasn’t been a need since you haven’t been home.”
Guilt burned through his gut. “I’ll deal with it. It’ll probably need a new faucet. I can just grab whatever’s handy at the hardware store, unless you want to pick it out yourself?”
“Get whatever you think’s best.” His mom reached out, patting his cheek. “You’re a good boy.”
“Only because you raised me right.”
She laughed, the short burst of sound resonating through his chest and making an answering smile curl his lips.
He’d missed this. Growing up, it had always been the two of them. And while he’d needed to get away from Sweetheart, this trip home was a reminder that he’d run away from more than just Lola, Colt and the accident he couldn’t deal with.
A few hours later, he ran to the store and fixed the sink upstairs. After eating the amazing meal his mom had cooked, he even managed to convince her to indulge in watching a movie while he cleaned up, which was where he was when he heard a car pulling into the drive.
He shifted to the front window so he could see who was stopping by.
But that wasn’t one of his mom’s friends stomping up the front walk.
It was Lola.
What was she doing here?
Erik dried his hands on a towel, tossed it over one shoulder and headed for the front door.
Before