That One Heartbreak (The Heartbreak Brothers Next Generation #3)

Chapter 1

Chapter

One

“I’m not going on a date with your neighbor’s son,” Kate Connelly told her mom over the phone. She had it jammed between her shoulder and ear, freeing up her hands to yank open the kitchen cupboard and pull out the cereal boxes for breakfast.

Granola with added protein for James, because at fifteen years old he had a thing about not having big enough muscles. Frosted Lucky Charms for eight-year-old Ethan – Kate hated the things but she’d long since given up the fight for him to have at least one meal a day without added sugar – and boring old cornflakes for Addy who at six was the fussiest of them all and hated anything that wasn’t plain.

“Why not?” her mom asked, sounding put out. “He’s single.”

Kate would have laughed, but she knew her mom was deadly serious. And this was one of the many reasons why she was thankful that she’d moved far, far away from her hometown. “Because he has six kids,” she pointed out, grabbing the milk from the refrigerator. Dammit, she’d forgotten to switch on the coffee maker. They were going to be late.

“So? That just shows you he’s the settling down type,” her mom countered.

“That would make nine kids between us.” Addy lumbered into the kitchen wearing her Sunday dress. At least one of her kids was up on time.

“And? People have big families all the time.”

Yeah, but Kate could barely cope with her three. Between school and the after-school activities, the housekeeping, and holding down a job, she was never quite sure what day it was, let alone which kid it was time to pick up.

Thank goodness the end of the school year was in sight. She couldn’t wait for the warm days and the long evenings.

“Mom, it’s not happening. Anyway, he lives two hundred miles away.” She could still remember Ray from when she was a kid. Ten years older than her and a momma’s boy. Not that there was anything wrong with that. She had two of her own momma’s boys, after all.

But a man wasn’t what she needed right now. Unless he was willing to do school drop-offs and pick up cereal from the grocery store when the boxes were empty and do something about the backyard, then she wasn’t interested.

“But if you two fell in love you could all move back here,” her mom said, sounding whiny. Kate checked her watch. They’d been talking for exactly two minutes. That was usually all she could handle. She loved her momma to pieces, but damn, if she didn’t get her own way she let you know it. “It’s been two years, Kate,” her mom added softly.

And there it was. The reminder that twenty-four months had passed, because yeah, she hadn’t gotten out of measuring the time in months yet. Funny how people expected that to mean something. And funny how little time two years felt when you’d spent most of it in some kind of weird half-life.

“Mom, I have to go. The kids need breakfast,” Kate said quickly, needing this conversation to be done. “I’ll talk to you soon, okay?”

“But what about Ray?”

Kate ended the call without acknowledging her mom’s question right as James walked into the kitchen, wearing a pair of old sweatpants and a t-shirt. He already looked so much like his father it caused her chest to tighten. “We’re leaving in twenty minutes,” she told him. “Where are your Sunday clothes?”

“I’m not going to church,” he mumbled, grabbing the granola and pouring it into a huge bowl. She winced, knowing the price of the stuff, but didn’t say anything.

“Of course you’re going to church. It’s the one day of the week that we’re all together. Now go get changed.”

He poured milk into his bowl. “I’m going to the station. They have some space for new junior firefighters.”

And just like that her heart felt like it was doing a loop-the-loop. She was so not ready for this. Even less ready than she was to think about dating again.

She should have known he’d want to go. James had always hero worshipped his dad, after all. And since Paul had been a firefighter, James wanted to as well.

But she couldn’t stand the thought of it. Which was probably why he was trying to blindside her. Because if he’d asked, she would almost certainly have said no.

“Not this week,” she told him. “We need to talk about it first.” When she was ready. Which would probably be never, if she was being truly honest.

“When?” he asked.

“Soon,” she promised.

His lips were tight as he looked up at her. He could be as stubborn as his dad was, too. If Paul was here, he’d bark at James and that would be the end of it.

If Paul was here, they’d both be at the station for fire training.

“Mom, I can’t find my pants,” Ethan said, running into the kitchen in his shirt and boxers and nothing else.

“Can you put it away? I’m trying to eat here,” James muttered, pretending to gag.

“And I’m trying to get dressed,” Ethan huffed. “Mom, where are my clothes?”

“Check the pile in the laundry room.” She really had meant to sort and fold all those dry clothes last night.

She really needed some coffee. And that’s when she realized that she still hadn’t turned the damn machine on. Rubbing the heel of her hand against her eyes, she groaned when she pulled it away and saw the smudged mascara on her palm.

“Fifteen minutes,” she shouted, loud enough for them all to hear, finally switching the machine on. She’d have to take her mug to go. She pulled out the stainless steel vacuum one she bought when the kids were little.

When she was mom of the year. Before she became a widowed mom of three.

“This milk tastes weird,” James said. He’d already eaten half of his bowl of granola. Kate sighed and picked up the milk jug.

The best by date was two days earlier.

“Does it taste weird to you?” she asked Addy, trying not to sound worried. Addy shrugged. James took her bowl from her and she started to protest.

“I’m getting you a fresh one,” James muttered. “Before we all end up with food poisoning.

And there he was. Her buddy. Her bestie. He came out occasionally, when he managed to fight his way through the teenage hormones and the anger.

The boy she’d met when he was barely two years old and as cute as a button. The one she’d legally adopted when he was three after she’d married his dad and they’d become a family. He was as much hers as Addy and Ethan, and she loved him so fiercely it hurt.

He loved her, too. She knew that. They’d kept each other going over the last two years since Paul’s death.

“Thank you.” She shot a smile at James as he pulled out a fresh carton of milk and bowls, then made him and his baby sister breakfast again.

He even splashed some into her stainless steel mug before putting it back in the refrigerator.

“No problem,” he muttered. “Now, can I go to the fire station?”

“No.” She shook her head. “Not this week. But I’ll think about it. Soon.”

“Why don’t we have any photos from Daddy’s funeral?” Addy asked Kate as they walked up the steps to the First Baptist Church. Kate was holding Addy’s hand, the other gripping her coffee. Could you even take a coffee cup into the church?

Surely they wouldn’t turn her away because she needed a caffeine hit.

Just to be sure, she lingered outside to finish, watching as James and Ethan caught up with them.

“People don’t take photographs of funerals,” Kate told her. Kids came up with the strangest questions sometimes. After losing Paul she’d thought she’d heard them all, but this was a new one.

And she had no idea where it had come from.

Grief was a strange thing. It ebbed and flowed like the ocean. Sometimes the tide would be so low you barely thought about the loss at all, and then it would come rushing back, a tsunami of remembering.

She knew that Addy couldn’t remember Paul as much as she used to. She’d been four when he’d died. Ethan had been six and James – her poor James – had been thirteen.

More than once he’d held her as she broke down, much to her horror.

“Why don’t they take photos?” Addy asked. “I wore a special dress, didn’t I?”

“Yes…” Kate frowned.

“My friend Annabel was a flower girl. She has pictures she brought to school. She’s such a show off. She said she was a princess for a day.”

“That’s because you take photos at weddings, dummy,” Ethan said. “They’re happy things. Funerals are sad things.”

“So we can’t take pictures of sad things?” Addy asked. “We have pictures of dad in the house. Isn’t that sad?”

Kate let out a long breath. “Those pictures are happy. That’s how we remember Daddy. That’s how he wanted us to remember him.” She drained her coffee cup. “Now can we go in?”

“I want to take a photo in for show and tell,” Addy said.

“Of what?” Kate asked.

“Of Daddy’s funeral.”

She ruffled her daughter’s hair. “I don’t think your teacher would like that much.”

“Why don’t you take in something of Dad’s?” James suggested. “His helmet or a photo of him in his uniform?”

“Hey, remember when Dad came into my school to talk about fire safety?” Ethan asked. “I must have been in Pre-K then.”

Addy’s lip wobbled and Kate knew exactly what was coming. “Did he come in to my Pre-K class?”

Kate swallowed hard. “No, honey, he didn’t. He wasn’t with us then, remember?”

“That’s not fair.” Addy pouted. “Did he go to James’ Pre-K class?”

“What’s going on here?” a female voice cut through the beginnings of Addy’s tantrum. “Are you all gonna hang around out here or are you coming in?”

The sound of Shana Wilson’s voice was enough to make Kate relax. She turned around, smiling at her. She and Shana had been friends for years.

“Hey Aunt Shana,” Ethan said. James nodded at her.

“So, are we going in or what?” Shana asked. “Because the quicker this finishes, the quicker we can get to the diner. And I’m determined to get a booth this week. I’m not going to be beaten.” She slid her hand through Kate’s arm. “Go ahead and choose the best pew. Save us a couple of seats.”

Kate watched as her kids hurried in through the church doors.

“You okay?” Shana murmured.

“I’m fine.” Kate nodded. Because mostly, she really was. Yes, there were bad days, but there had been some good ones too. And as time wound on, the good was starting to outweigh the bad.

“You sure?”

Kate smiled. “Apart from my mom wanting me to be the stepmother to six additional kids, even though I almost poisoned my own three with bad milk this morning. Oh, and I’m also the worst mom ever because I won’t let James go to Junior Firefighters, and Addy wants to take a photo of her at Paul’s funeral for show and tell.”

Shana blinked. “What?”

Kate squeezed her friend’s hand. “It doesn’t matter. I’m fine, I really am.”

“Not as fine as that sight,” Shana said, looking over Kate’s shoulder to the town square beyond.

It was only natural to turn around and see what her friend was staring at. But when she did a mixture of pain and longing washed over her. Because the good men and women of the Hartson’s Creek Fire Department were on their pre-training run.

She usually got into church before they ran past. Not just because it hurt to watch them run without Paul. She was getting used to that.

But because she’d pushed every single one of them away after Paul died. They’d tried to help her, but she’d refused their offers. It had hurt to see them, and she’d found it almost impossible to deal with their grief as well as her own, and most importantly, her kids’.

Her throat felt thick just thinking about it. There was a divide there now that she couldn’t quite bridge. They didn’t know how to deal with it, so they just got on with their lives.

Or most of them did.

She went to look away, but then she saw him.

Marley Hartson’s eyes caught hers and she felt every cell in her body tighten up. He’d been Paul’s second in command. His closest friend. The man who was with him when he died.

And the one man she’d pushed so far away she could never see a way back from that.

And it hadn’t been because he had anything to do with Paul’s death. Her husband’s passing had been a freak of nature. That’s what everybody said. Unexpected, and completely sudden.

It was because Marley had been with him. Holding his hand. Seeing the life pass out of her husband’s body. It was too painful to think about.

And yes, there was a certain jealousy there, too. That he’d been there and she hadn’t. When it happened, Kate had been happily filing books away at the library, thinking about what to cook for dinner and where she and Paul would go for their date night.

She took a deep breath and watched as Marley’s jaw tightened, his gaze still on her. The intensity of his stare made her chest feel so tight it was hard to breathe. And she hated that, hated feeling anything. So much better to be numb.

Like the rest of the crew and juniors, he was wearing a blue t-shirt with FDHC embroidered on the left-hand side. There was a tattoo on his left arm, peeking out from his sleeve. That was new. And yeah, she noticed the way his biceps looked bigger than before because she might feel dead inside sometimes but she was still, apparently, a woman.

He had the easiest gait of any runner she’d ever seen. It had to come from his constant activity. Outside of volunteering for the department, he was a construction worker. He worked with his twin brother on real estate developments all over the county. And on the weekends they played in a local band. Like her, he was always busy. And yet she knew for a fact that every evening he ran past their house just to check on them.

Because yes, she’d made it clear she didn’t want his help. But he checked on them anyway. He didn’t know she knew. But she could time her watch by the man.

It felt like a relief as the group of firefighters ran past the church, toward the far end of the town square, to the road that led to the firehouse. She inhaled raggedly as the organ started to play inside the church.

“We should go in,” Shana said.

Kate nodded, pulling her gaze away from the disappearing squad of firefighters. “Yeah, we should.”

“And the kids better have chosen seats at the end of a pew,” Shana added, completely unaware of Kate’s reaction, thank goodness. “Because we’ll need to make a quick getaway if we want to get that booth.”

“Six kids? Wow. And I thought three were hard enough to handle,” Shana said as they sat in the diner. “Doesn’t your mom love you?”

Kate grinned. Now that church was over she could relax. Sure, she had a list of chores as long as her arms to do when she got home, but right now she knew all of her kids were safe, and she had a cup of bottomless coffee in front of her.

They hadn’t gotten here fast enough for a booth, much to Shana’s disgust. Instead, they were at a table by the window overlooking the town square.

James had said he wasn’t hungry and headed out to throw a ball with some friends, and Ethan was pouring what looked like half of a bottle of maple syrup onto his pancakes. Addy was coloring furiously, her crayon blunting on the paper.

None of them were listening to Kate and Shana talking, which wasn’t a surprise. Her kids had long since learned that grown up conversations were mostly boring.

“My mom’s problem is that she doesn’t think any woman can survive on her own,” Kate admitted. Her mom was the poster child for moving on after bereavement. She’d remarried barely ten months after Kate’s dad had died.

“Maybe she’s right though,” Shana mused, taking a bite of bacon.

“What do you mean?” Kate frowned because Shana never agreed with her mom. After Paul died and her mom flew in to ‘help’ – which meant proclaiming that Kate’s life had ended and she’d never be the same again – Shana had practically frog marched her to the airport as soon as the funeral was over.

“It’s been two years. How long are you going to wait until you start dating again?”

“Forever.”

“Mom, can we go play outside?” Ethan asked, looking through the window. There were a bunch of kids from school in the grassy town square.

“Have you finished your food?”

“Yep.” Ethan shoved the last of his pancake in his mouth and swallowed it down in double time.

“Okay then. But stay within my sight. Between the bandstand and the oak tree.”

“Of course.” Ethan nodded.

“Can I go too?” Addy asked.

“No, you need to stay with me.”

“That’s not fair.” Addy pouted, and it made Kate’s lip twitch.

“Honey, Ethan is two years older than you.”

Ethan sighed, looking like he was eighty, not eight. “I’ll look after her. And James is over there.”

Shana caught Kate’s eye. She knew how protective Kate felt, especially toward her youngest.

“Why don’t you message James?” Shana murmured. “See if he’ll keep an eye on her, too?”

Her chest felt tight, because she hated this. Hated her kids growing up. And yes, Addy was still young, but James wasn’t.

Paul was supposed to be here to help her navigate through this, dammit.

Within a minute James had walked back into the diner to grab his brother and sister, nodding patiently as Kate instructed him to keep an eye on them at all times, and to come get her if there were any problems at all.

“I’m a big girl, Mommy,” Addy said, shaking her head. “You gotta learn to let me go.”

That set Shana laughing, which was probably what they needed at that point. Kate’s own lips started to curl, right until the diner door open and Marley walked in, his long strides taking him straight to the counter.

Twice in one day. Kate took a deep breath and lifted her coffee cup, praying for him to leave quickly.

But then he turned and saw her staring. Oh God. She tried to relax her expression but he held her gaze a moment too long.

There was no smile on his face. She let out a low breath and nodded at him, thankful that Shana was too busy watching Addy and Ethan cross the road to the square with James to notice that the town’s hottest firefighter had just walked in.

No, no. Not hot at all. Just a friend of Paul’s. Or ex friend, whatever you wanted to call it.

Her chest felt weird, like she’d just run a hundred yard dash.

“What can I get you?” the server asked him at the counter. She heard his low voice as he put in an order for a coffee and pastry to go. Watched as he leaned on the counter, his thumb running along the length of his jawline. Felt herself flush like a teenager.

God damn it, what was wrong with her? She blamed her mom and all this talk of needing a man.

She didn’t need anybody. She was fine as she was.

“So come on,” she said to Shana. “Tell me about your date last night.” Because now that the kids were out of earshot, her friend could give her all the gory details.

Shana’s dating life was always diverting. And she sure could use some of that.