Summer brushed off her hands and grabbed the tray to slide the batter into the oven. “Not as good as my muffins, though.”

Megan couldn’t argue with that. Summer’s chocolate-banana-blueberry muffins were legendary. It was a combination that shouldn’t have worked, but ended up blowing your mind instead.

Lord knew, her daughter hadn’t gotten her cooking prowess from her. Nope, that was all David, who’d had a surprising knack with food. Summer was so much like her father, all the way down to the light blond hair, that sometimes Megan felt as if he were still alive.

“We’ll talk about it after I get dressed.”

“Okay, Mommy,” her daughter chirped, knowing she was on the verge of getting her way. And really, Megan thought with a small sigh, she was all out of excuses for why they couldn’t go and say hello to the firefighters at their local station.

Okay, so they’d drop the muffins off, admire the shiny engines, and then head off to the park for a couple of hours. She wouldn’t let herself get all tied up in knots over the possibility of seeing Gabe. Actually, he’d never told them to call him anything but Mr. Sullivan, even though he couldn’t be much older than she was. In any case, what were the odds that he would be on shift this morning? Or that he’d even remember them?

Megan caught a glimpse of herself in the mirror over her dresser and found there was no way to ignore the lies she was piling up one after the other this morning. Just thinking about the firefighter had her tied up in knots and there wasn’t a darn thing she could do about it.

If he was on shift, he’d remember them. Because there’d been an undeniable connection, a palpable spark, between the two of them.

She stepped away from her mirror and pulled open the closet. Whether she was lying to herself or being brutally honest, one fact remained: She had absolutely nothing to wear to a firehouse on a cold Saturday morning in December.

* * *

Summer skipped ahead of Megan, who was carrying the Tupperware container full of warm muffins. At least half a block ahead, Summer disappeared into the open doors of the fire station. Megan knew her heart shouldn’t be beating so hard. Yes, they’d been walking up a hill, but she was in good shape from the yoga DVDs she worked out with in the mornings.

And then her daughter walked outside with him and Megan’s heart pretty much stopped beating altogether. Her feet stopped, too, leaving her to stand awkwardly on the sidewalk holding the muffins with her mouth hanging halfway open.

He’d been gorgeous in the hospital bed with bandages on his head and a sheet covering most of his body. But now...

Oh, now.

There weren’t words—at least, not in her overwhelmed-with-lust brain—for a man like this. Tall, dark, and handsome barely scratched the surface. Gorgeous, beautiful…each of those adjectives were too pedestrian for his strong shoulders, his lean hips, his bright blue eyes set off against the square jaw and full, masculine mouth.

Megan had to forcefully remind herself that she shouldn’t take a running leap and jump this man. Her dormant libido might have—stupidly—taken this moment in time to spring back to life, but that didn’t mean anything in the grand scheme of things. At some point when she was all alone in her big bed, she’d find a way to take care of her newly raging sex drive. But there was no way she would risk her heart or her daughter’s on a man who might not live to see tomorrow.

That thought sobered her up enough to push her past the embarrassment of her super-obvious reaction to his good looks.

Willing her feet to get moving again, she finally walked the last few yards toward him, making sure to keep her shoulders back and her chin up so that he wouldn’t think she was any more of a loser than she already felt like, drooling over him like that.

“Summer made these for you.”

She handed him the container of muffins and he smiled down at Summer. “Thank you.” He lifted the lid and inhaled, clearly surprised by how good they smelled. “These look like they’re going to be great. The rest of the guys here are going to be begging me for them.”

“You can share them and I’ll make you more!”

Megan had known this was where things would go, that if she relented and let them come to the station once, it would turn into repeat visits.

Just as she was thinking this, he turned back to her, his expression carefully blank. There were no smiles for her, only her daughter. Clearly, he wasn’t any happier to see her again than she was to see him.

Good. Maybe they could keep this visit short.

Summer tugged on his sleeve. “Thank you for the doll. She’s my favorite present I got for turning seven. Her puppy is so cute, too.”

Her solemn thank you had Gabe squatting down to be at eye level with her. “I’m glad. Seventh birthdays are really important.”

Summer nodded. “Now can you show me the fire engine and all the buttons you push for stuff, Mr. Sullivan?”

Nope, short wasn’t going to happen, Megan thought with a barely suppressed groan. But when that smile came back for her daughter, Megan felt her insides go to mush again despite all the tall, strong walls she’d put up to protect herself against his far too powerful allure.

How long had she been searching for a man who looked at her daughter like that? Like he thought the sun rose with Summer, just as her name indicated it should? As though she were important, rather than just some bothersome kid Megan happened to have had with some other guy?

“Sure thing.” He shot a questioning glance at Megan. “If it’s okay with you, that is.”

She was about to reply when she noticed a fading scar on his forehead that ran from his left eyebrow into his hairline, and her legs weakened. His forehead had been bandaged the last time she’d seen him at the hospital and she knew that was where the beam must have hit him after he’d gotten them down the stairs. She wanted to say something, wanted to thank him again and apologize for putting him in that position, but she knew it would come out all weird and wrong.

Instead, she simply said, “Of course it’s okay with me. Summer loves big machines and finding out how they work, don’t you?”

Just like her father had. Only his machine of choice had been an airplane, rather than a fire engine.

Gabe took Summer’s outstretched hand and walked her over to the shiny historic fire engine in the back corner of the station.

Normally, Megan would have followed them, but she wasn’t sure being that close to him for a prolonged period of time would be a good idea. Not when her hormones were still in crazy overdrive.