All his life, he'd gone for what he wanted. Made it happen.
He didn't plan on losing Ginger. Not now that he'd finally pulled his head out of his ass and realized his life wouldn't be worth a damn without her.
Isabel was one of her closest friends. He needed her on his side.
Not long after Ginger left him on the beach, he was walking into the diner for the first time since learning of his father's relationship with Isabel. She was making coffee behind the counter when she looked up and saw him.
"Connor."
"Ginger's pregnant," he said, not bothering with small talk. "I love her. She doesn't believe me. Help me find a way to convince her."
Isabel didn't look nearly as stunned as she should have.
"She took the test at my house."
Ah, that's why she was walking back down the beach that morning.
"I know she loves me."
"Yes," Isabel said. "She does."
"She's being stubborn."
"You hurt her."
"I know. And I want to spend the rest of my life making it up to her."
"You're really going to have to grovel."
"Trust me, it's going to be groveling like no one has ever seen before."
Isabel finally smiled. And for the first moment since Ginger had walked away from him, he felt like maybe everything might work out after all.
And then the phone rang just as someone said, "There's a fire. Across the lake."
Connor ran outside, looked up at the sky and had to blink a couple of times to clear his vision. Smoke was still billowing up out of the trees on the other side of the lake.
Right at the spot where his great-grandparents' cabin sat.
He was half in his car when he realized Isabel was opening the passenger-side door. "I'm coming with you."
He pulled out of the parking lot in a flurry of dust under his tires. The speed limit was forty-five on the road around the lake, but his speedometer continued to climb. Sixty. Sixty-five. Seventy. Seventy-five. And still, Connor tried to drive faster, because the closer they got to Poplar Cove, the worse the situation looked.
Please, he silently prayed, I need to know Ginger's safe. Please let her be safe.
In all his years of fighting fire, he'd never prayed harder, never wished for the safety of someone more.
Ginger meant everything to him. Everything. And if, by some horrible chance, she got caught in the fire ...
No, he couldn't let himself think it.
If he did, he'd be lost. Completely lost.
"They're out there, fighting it," was the only thing Isabel said during their drive, the terror of her words filling up the car, making it impossible for Connor to reply, to soothe her fears.
Finally pulling up beside the cabin, he jumped out of the car. Ginger.
Where the hell was Ginger?
His eyes scanned the property quickly, just as he would in any other fire, only this time it was taking everything in him to keep the panic at bay. To try to keep from losing it.
He couldn't see her.
Where the fuck was she?
Someone grabbed his arm, but it wasn't Ginger so he didn't break his stride, didn't turn his focus from his search for her.
"Connor, she's up there. On the roof. She's trapped by the flames. And she's already inhaled so much smoke."
Finally, it registered that his father was speaking. "I tried to get her off," his father was saying, but Connor was already halfway up a ladder propped up against the side of the cabin.
He didn't have any turnouts and was wearing tennis shoes that would melt almost instantly if he came face-to-face with fire, but none of that mattered. The only thing that mattered was getting Ginger off the roof as quickly as possible.
Seconds later he was on the roof, looking straight into flames. And then, as the afternoon breeze came in, good and strong, moving the smoke and flames away for a split second, he saw her.
Ginger was standing in the back corner of the roof, holding a hose, still wielding it to try to fight the flames despite the fact that she was in mortal danger.
Too high off the ground to jump and with fire coming at her from both sides, Connor knew that anyone else would have been screaming. Crying. Begging for help.
But even through the flickering flames, he could see her focus, her determination to save his family's cabin.
Amazing. She was amazing.
In his turnouts, maybe he could have run through the flames to her. But if he tried that in his shorts and tennis shoes, they'd both die up here. He had to find a way to her, and fast, since the flames were growing hotter, the smoke thicker with every second that passed.
He knew he should be running, looking, finding, but suddenly his feet wouldn't move.
Jesus, he was frozen.
A chilling wave of panic moved through his cells one by one, further paralyzing him, making it hard for him to breathe, to think. His chest clenched as the possibility that all was lost became more and more real.
And then, he heard a voice calling out his name. Ginger's voice. Followed by the horrible sound of her coughing out the smoke she was inhaling.
Smoke and flames clouded his vision, but just hearing her voice, hearing her yell for him to go, to get off the roof, to save himself--it broke the deadly spell that had tried to wrap itself around him.
An unexpected smile moved across his lips. Never in his life had he thought to love someone as much as he loved her.
He would save her. And himself.
Because they deserved a life together.
All fear leaving him, he went to a place of pure instinct and muscle memory, a place where everything he'd learned from his decade of experience fighting deadly fires came into play. Quickly scanning their surroundings again, he decided his best option was to make a running jump for the large poplar tree directly beside the house. It was the same tree that had dropped the widow maker on them. But now, he gave thanks for it.
Gauging the distance between the gutter and the tree, he pushed aside any voices or thoughts that wouldn't get him where he needed to go and jumped.
As he landed, the bark bit into his palms, the skin on his bare knees, hard enough that he could feel the warm trickle of blood down his shin. Holding focus, he climbed up one limb and then over to the next, again and again, until he was as close to Ginger as he could get.
"Time to get off the roof now, sweetheart."
Leaping from the limb he was on, he landed on the roof again, only this time, he could feel the heat of the tiles beneath the soles of his shoes.
She ran to him, threw her arms around him. "I knew you'd come."
That her faith in him could be so unwavering when he'd failed so many times before moved him more than anything ever had. She started coughing again and it took every last bit of control to keep his voice easy.
"And I knew you'd be up here with a hose," he said, pushing the teasing words past the lump in his throat in the hopes of keeping her calm. "I'm going to need you to hold on to me and not let go."
"Okay," she scratched out, coughing even as she climbed onto his back, her arms and legs tight around his neck and waist.
Her soft warmth against his back made him feel invincible, as if there wasn't anything he couldn't do.
How, he wondered even as he ran across the roof, had he not seen it before? Firefighting. Not firefighting. Who cared? It was all just details.
Because as long as Ginger was beside him, he could do anything.
Reaching for the tree, he jumped. But once they were in midair, he realized he'd misjudged their combined weight and that they were falling faster than he'd planned. Fortunately, Ginger was one step ahead of him and he felt her let go an instant before he could stop her. Together, they grabbed the only branch left to save them from the final fifteen feet to the ground.
Just as his hands went around the tree, he heard the air knock from Ginger's body as sh
e slammed into the limb. Tightening his right grip on the tree, he reached out with his left to grab her.
He wanted to tell her a thousand times over how much he loved her but hanging from a tree while a fire raged all around them wasn't exactly great timing. Especially since two dozen people were rushing under the tree, all talking at once, throwing a ladder against the trunk, reaching for them. He'd have to be happy with once.
"I love you," he said as he helped her climb down the ladder.
Her lips opened, but all that came out was more ragged coughs, and then the paramedics were taking her from him.
Everything in him wanted to hold on to her, but he couldn't deny years of disaster experience. The medics needed to check her out ASAP, needed to do something to calm her coughing, to make sure the baby stayed with her through the shock.
One of the local volunteer firefighters was telling everyone to clear the area. Bystanders went back to their boats that were pulled up on shore, but his father remained at his side as the volunteer firefighters crew ran onto the beach in their turnouts and began the work of keeping the fire from spreading.
Connor didn't let Ginger out of his sight, not for one second, even as the fire chief approached Connor and Andrew on the sand.
"This is your house?"
Even as Andrew said yes, Connor knew what the chief was going to say.
"We've got to put our focus on putting the current fire out, so that it doesn't spread to the other houses down the lake. My gut is that your cabin is already too far gone, but if we've got the manpower to work on it later ..."
Connor knew that if he stayed to help, with just one more set of hands and legs, he might be able to tip the balance in favor of keeping the house. But he had to take care of the woman he loved.
The paramedics had made her lie down on a stretcher and as they lifted her into the ambulance, her eyes were locked on his.
"I have to go," he told his father. "I need to stay with Ginger."
He expected to hear anguish from his father as their family camp burned before them. Instead, Andrew told him, "Ginger needs you far more than a bunch of smoking old logs do."
Connor pushed through the back of the ambulance just as they were shutting the doors.
"Hey, you can't--" one of the paramedics started to say, but Ginger's soft voice cut through his protests.
"I need him," she managed before she lost her breath again and one of the paramedics covered her mouth and nose with an oxygen mask.
"I'm here, sweetheart," he said as he slid into the seat beside her.
He held her hand, stroked her hair. They were putting an IV in and her eyes were already closing as the oxygen, the hydration, made their way into her depleted system.
"She's pregnant," he warned the paramedics. "Be very careful with her."
She was asleep by the time they got to the local care center. The paramedics quickly took her away to be examined by a doctor and even though he knew he couldn't be there, it killed him to have to be separated from her at all. He wanted to be beside her when she opened her eyes. Wanted to keep her safe in his arms and never let her go.
Connor was pacing the small waiting room when Isabel, Josh, and Andrew rushed inside. Isabel threw her arms around him. "You saved her."
She wasn't crying as she said it, but it was clear that she'd only just stopped. "Are you all right?"
"No, I'm not. Not until I know Ginger's okay."
"And the baby."
All he could do was nod.
"Ginger is a tough cookie," Isabel said as she squeezed his hand. "She'll be all right. They both will."
Just then, Josh tugged on his mother's sleeve. His face was white, his eyes wide, his fists clenched.
"Mom. I need to tell you something."
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
"I STARTED the fire," Josh said.
It was just about the only thing that could have snapped Connor out of his anxiety about how Ginger was doing.
"What happened?"
The kid scrunched up his eyes, a couple of tears squeezing out. "I went out back, to the woodpile behind our houses. To smoke."
Isabel's mouth was pinched, her face pale with horror. With fear. Andrew moved behind her, put a hand on her back, and Connor had a feeling his father's support was the only reason she was able to stay upright.
"But it made me sick, so I ground it out under my shoe. The leaves started smoking and burning so I stomped them out." Josh took a shaky breath. "But I guess I didn't get it all out."
Connor had done this a hundred times, heard the confession of an accidental arsonist, worked to calm the person down. But it was different this time. Not because it was his cabin burning.
"Ginger could have died up there."
The kid really started crying then, had to wipe his nose on his sweatshirt. "I'm so sorry. It was an accident, I swear. I didn't mean to hurt anyone. Especially not Ginger. She's great. I would never want anything to happen to her."
That made two of them, Connor thought angrily as Andrew moved between them.
"I'll go with him to talk to the fire chief. Make sure he doesn't say anything they can twist later to try to pin this on him as anything other than an accident." He put his arm around Josh's shoulders, which were shaking with fear and remorse. "Isabel, you should be there too."
She nodded, turning to say "I'm so sorry," to Connor before she followed her son and Andrew back to the car.
The receptionist cleared her throat from behind her desk. "Excuse me, are you Connor MacKenzie? Ms. Sinclair has asked you to come back to see her."
All his life, Connor thought as he moved through the waiting room and down the hall to the triage area, he'd been the steady one. The guy who everyone could count on to keep it together. Even after his stint in the burn ward, he'd been a rock.
It was almost as if the events of this past two weeks had been put into motion to test him, to see what he was made of.
The Forest Service call.
Losing control every time he touched Ginger.
Learning he was going to be a father.
Ginger throwing back his words of love.
Poplar Cove burning down, one hundred years of history, gone up in smoke.
And now, Ginger lying in a hospital bed.
The curtains were drawn and when he pulled one back to step inside, his heart stopped at the sight of her hooked up to an IV, propped up by pillows, lying beneath a thin white blanket.
"Hi," she said with a small smile.
It was only then that his heart started beating again. She sounded fine and her color was good. But there was no way that he could look at her as just another fire victim, no way he could scan her stats and be satisfied that she was all right.
He told himself to be gentle with her, but once she was in his arms, he couldn't stop kissing her, couldn't help but pull her closer.
His throat was dry, cracked, as he asked, "How is the baby?" His hands automatically moved to her still flat stomach. "Is it--"
She put her hands over his. "Perfectly fine."
The breath he'd been holding came out in a loud whoosh of air.
"Thank God," he said, and then, "Seeing you up there on the roof, I've never been so scared. And when I realized there was no way to get to you--"
It had been the worst moment of his life.
"Nothing else mattered but getting you off that roof."
"I had to try to save the cabin," she said. "Even though I knew you'd be furious with me for not leaving at the first sign of fire."
"Promise me you'll never do something that brave--or stupid--again."
She winced at the "stupid," but held her ground. "I can't make you that promise, Connor, not when something I love might be at stake. Are they going to be able to save the cabin?"
"Probably not."
A tear fell down her cheek. "It's not fair that the first chance you've had to fight fire in two years is becaus
e your own home was burning. I'm so sorry, Connor."
"I don't care about any of that. Not the cabin. Not even firefighting. The cabin was there when we needed it, to bring us together, to make it impossible for us to ignore our feelings for each other."
He wasn't going to hold the words back another second.
"I love you, Ginger. Please, marry me. Not because you're pregnant, but because we belong together."
She didn't pull her hands out of his, but he felt her fingers grow tense.
"I don't want us to repeat a bad pattern, Connor, to do the same thing as your parents and just get married because I'm pregnant."
"My father was in love with someone else when he got my mother pregnant. I'm in love with you, Ginger. He was nineteen. I'm thirty. He wasn't ready to get married, not to my mother, anyway. But I'm ready for this, Ginger. I'm ready for you. For a life with you. With our child."
He watched her try to take in everything he was saying, but even so he knew he had to give her more. After the way he'd hurt her, she deserved every last piece of him, no matter how hard he'd fought to hold himself back from everyone for so long.
"That night you told me you loved me, I've never felt so overwhelmed by sensation before. Not even when my hands were melting. It scared me, Ginger. More than anything else I've ever faced. It seemed easier to go numb."
He lifted her hands to his heart, held them there.
"But now I know I'd rather feel too much than nothing at all."
She'd made herself say that stuff about repeating a bad pattern, even though her heart wasn't really in it. Just to make sure they'd covered all the bases. So she'd know that nothing had been left unsaid between them.
Because when she looked deep into her own heart, she believed that he loved her. Connor wasn't the kind of man who would lie about being in love simply to get what he wanted, to get her to agree to marry him. Connor would never try to keep her in an emotional prison like so many others had.
Connor was her first love.
Her true love.
"I've never felt this way before, either," she admitted. "My feelings for you scare me too. You're a part of me now. In so deep that I'll never just be me again. And all I could think as I was up on the roof and the fire was closing in was that I was never going to get the chance to tell you yes."
Nothing had ever moved her as much as the pure joy on Connor's face.
"Yes? As in yes, you'll marry me?"
"There was never any other answer, Connor. No other choice I could have possibly made. I've loved you almost from that first moment you walked onto the porch. Every time you lost control, I was right there with you, already lost. But this morning on the beach, my feelings were hurt. I wanted to make you work for it."