Returning to the Broken Firefighter (Curvy Wives of Blackwater Falls #6)

Chapter 1 - Cade

The smoke is thick enough to choke on even through the mask, and my eyes are already watering as I push deeper into the second floor of the burning apartment building. The heat presses against my turnout gear like a living thing, relentless and hungry.

"Clear on the left!" Griffin's voice crackles through my radio, muffled but steady.

I move right, sweeping my gloved hand along the wall, counting doorways.

The building is old, built in the seventies when they gave a damn about solid construction but not so much about fire safety.

That means thick walls and narrow hallways, a maze when you can't see three feet in front of your face.

"Cade, you got anything?" That's Dallas, our captain, his voice carrying the edge of command that comes from years of military service before he ever put on a firefighter's helmet.

"Not yet." I push open another door, dropping low where the air is clearer. "Checking the last bedroom now."

The apartment is empty. Whoever lived here got out, thank God. I can still hear the sirens outside, the shouts of the crew working the hoses, the crack and groan of wood that's about to give up the fight. Familiar sounds. Comforting in their own terrible way.

I back out, pulling the door closed to contain the spread, and key my radio. "Second floor east side is clear. Coming out."

"Copy that. Hudson and Asher are wrapping up west side. Let's move, gentlemen. This building's not going to hold much longer."

I'm halfway down the hallway when I hear it: a sharp crack above my head, the kind of sound that makes your stomach drop even before your brain processes what it means. I look up just in time to see a section of ceiling give way, raining debris and embers.

Training kicks in. I throw myself backward, hitting the wall hard enough to knock the breath from my lungs. A chunk of burning beam crashes down exactly where I'd been standing two seconds ago.

"Cade!" Hudson shouts.

"I'm good." I cough, pushing back to my feet. My shoulder throbs where it connected with the wall, but everything moves the way it should. "Just redecorating. Coming down now."

I make it to the stairwell and take the steps two at a time, emerging into the chaos of the first floor. Rowan is there, directing the hose team, his face streaked with soot and sweat. He spots me and jerks his thumb toward the exit.

Outside, the morning air hits like a blessing. I yank off my mask and helmet, dragging in deep breaths that taste like ash and spring rain. The sky is overcast, threatening a storm that will either help us or make everything worse depending on when it decides to show up.

"You good?" Asher appears at my elbow, his dark eyes scanning me for injuries.

"Yeah." I roll my shoulder. It's going to bruise, but nothing's broken. "Ceiling had other plans for me, but I declined the invitation."

He snorts. "Your dance card's full enough without adding structural collapse to it."

Dallas strides over, his captain's helmet tucked under one arm. At forty-two, he's the oldest on our crew and the most unshakeable person I've ever met. Eight years of working together and I've never seen him lose his cool, not once.

"Good work in there," he says, his gaze moving between us. "Building's a loss, but everyone got out. That's what counts."

It's what always counts. Lives over property, people over things. The math is simple even when the execution isn't.

Griffin joins us, pulling off his gloves. "Fire marshal's going to have questions about the wiring in that place. I saw some setups in there that looked older than my grandfather."

"Not our problem right now." Dallas nods toward the engine. "Let's pack up and get back to the station. We've been at this for three hours and I can hear my coffee calling."

The crew moves. We’ve worked together long enough to anticipate each other's movements. I help Hudson secure the equipment while Rowan and Asher handle the hoses. Griffin's already in the driver's seat of the engine, running through post-call checks.

My hands are steady as I work, muscle memory taking over. They're always steady during calls, during the chaos and the heat and the split-second decisions. It's only later, when I'm alone in my apartment with nothing but my dog Scout's judgmental green eyes for company, that the tremors start.

"You're quiet." Hudson's voice pulls me back to the present. He's watching me with that expression he gets sometimes, the one that says he's reading all the things I'm not saying.

"Tired." It's not a lie. I'm always tired these days, running on four hours of sleep and too much coffee. "Looking forward to a shower and twelve consecutive hours of unconsciousness."

"You're not on the schedule for tomorrow, right?"

"Not unless Dallas hates me."

"I heard that," Dallas calls from where he's talking to the battalion chief. "And I don't hate you, Lawson. I just hate when you're well-rested and bored. You get ideas."

Asher laughs. "Remember when he reorganized the entire equipment bay because he couldn't sleep?"

"It needed organizing," I protest, climbing into the engine. "Half that stuff hadn't been touched since the nineties."

"It was alphabetized by manufacturer," Griffin says, pulling the engine into traffic. "That's not organization, that's obsession."

"Alphabetization is a perfectly reasonable system."

"For books, maybe. Not for rescue equipment."

The familiar banter washes over me, comfortable as worn-in boots. This is what I have now, what I've built in the eight years since I left everything behind. A crew that's more family than most blood relations, a job that matters, a life that's simple and contained and safe.

Safe for everyone, including me.

We're ten minutes from the station when the radio crackles to life. Not the emergency band, the regular station line.

"Engine 7, this is base." That's Maggie, our dispatcher and also Captain Dallas's daughter. She works the desk three days a week while she finishes her degree in emergency management. "You guys need to step on it. Someone's here at the station asking for Cade."

I feel five pairs of eyes turn toward me. I shrug, genuinely confused. Nobody comes to the station asking for me. I don't have family, and my friends are all sitting in this engine right now.

"Did they say what it's about?" Dallas asks, keying the radio.

There's a pause. Then Maggie's voice comes back, and there's something in her tone. Uncertainty, maybe. Or concern.

"Negative, Dad. But I think you should get here. Like, now."

Dallas meets my eyes in the rearview mirror, one eyebrow raised in question. I shake my head. I've got nothing.

"Copy that. ETA seven minutes."

Griffin accelerates, not quite hitting lights and sirens but pushing the speed limit. The mood in the engine has shifted from post-call exhaustion to curiosity and something that might be concern.

"You got a secret admirer we don't know about?" Rowan asks, trying for levity.

"Right, because I'm such a catch." I lean back against the seat, trying to ignore the uneasy feeling settling in my gut. "Thirty-six, emotionally unavailable, comes with PTSD and a judgmental cat. The dating apps would love me."

"Scout is not judgmental," Asher says. "She's discerning."

"She hissed at you for twenty minutes straight last time you came over."

"Because I sat in her chair."

"It's my chair. I pay rent on the apartment."

"Try telling her that."

The banter continues, but I'm only half-listening now.

My brain is running through possibilities, trying to figure out who would show up at the station asking for me.

Someone from my old life? That seems unlikely after eight years of radio silence.

Someone I saved? Possible, but they usually send cards or call, they don't show up in person.

The station comes into view, a low brick building with three bay doors and the Blackwater Falls town seal painted on the side. It's home in a way nowhere else has been since I left, since I ran, eight years ago.

Griffin pulls the engine into the bay, and I'm unbuckling before we've completely stopped. That uneasy feeling has graduated to a full-blown anxiety, the kind that makes my skin feel too tight and my chest constrict.

Maggie appears in the doorway to the main building before we're even out of the engine. She's twenty-four, whip-smart, and usually unflappable. Right now, she looks nervous.

"Cade." She catches my eye. "They're in the conference room. I offered coffee, but—" She hesitates, then says quietly, "Maybe you should just go see."

"They?" I pull off my turnout coat, already moving toward the building. "Who's 'they'?"

But Maggie just shakes her head, stepping aside to let me pass.

The conference room is at the end of the hall, past the kitchen and the common area where we keep the television that's always playing sports nobody's really watching.

I can hear Dallas and the others behind me, following at a respectful distance. Whatever this is, they're not letting me face it alone. That's what crew means.

The conference room door is half-open. I can see movement inside, hear the soft murmur of voices—a woman's voice, and something higher, younger.

I push the door open, and my entire world tilts sideways.

Sierra is standing by the window, backlit by the gray morning light.

Eight years have passed since I last saw her, since I packed everything I owned into my truck and drove away from the life we were supposed to build together.

Eight years, and she looks exactly the same.

Different. The same person but more, somehow.

Her light brown hair is longer, pulled back in a ponytail. She's curvier than I remember, beautiful in a way that makes something in my chest hurt with recognition and loss.

"Cade." My name sounds different in her voice, weighted with time and distance and all the things we never said to each other.

I can't speak. Can't move. Can't process the fact that she's here, in Blackwater Falls, in my fire station, after eight years of silence.

Then I see the little girl.

She's maybe seven or eight, standing slightly behind Sierra like she's not sure if she should be brave or shy. She has light brown hair like her mother, but her eyes…

Her eyes are mine.

That same shade of blue I see every morning in the mirror. And her chin, stubborn and pointed, that's mine too. The shape of her face, the way she's standing with her weight on one foot, like she's ready to bolt but forcing herself to stay put—

Oh God.

"Cade," Sierra says again, and her voice cracks. "This is Ruby." She puts her hand on the little girl's shoulder, gentle and protective. "She's your daughter."

The world narrows to those four words. She's your daughter.

I have a daughter.

I have a daughter and I didn't know.

Eight years. She's been raising our child for eight years and I didn't know. The room spins. Or maybe I'm spinning. I reach for the back of a chair, gripping it hard enough that my knuckles go white.

"Cade?" Dallas's voice, concerned, from somewhere behind me. "You okay?"

I can't answer. Can't look away from this little girl—Ruby—who's watching me with my own eyes, curious and cautious and completely unaware that she's just detonated a bomb in the middle of my life.

Sierra takes a step forward, her hand still on Ruby's shoulder. "I'm sorry. I know this is… I should have called. Should have warned you. But I was afraid you wouldn't—" She stops, takes a breath. "We need to talk."

Talk. Right. That's a thing people do, isn't it? They talk. They use words. Form sentences.

I open my mouth. Close it. Try again.

"You—" My voice sounds like gravel, rough and broken. "Eight years."

It's not a question. Not an accusation. Just a fact.

"I know." Sierra's eyes are bright with unshed tears. "I know, and I'm sorry, and I'll explain everything. But first—" She looks down at Ruby, then back at me. "First, I thought you should meet her. That she should meet you."

Ruby is still watching me, and slowly, she smiles. It's my smile, the one my mother used to say could charm birds out of trees before she died and took all those memories with her.

"Hi," Ruby says, her voice small but steady. "Are you really my dad?"

And just like that, the world I've spent eight years building, the safe, simple world where I don't let anyone close enough to hurt or be hurt, shatters into a thousand pieces.

I have a daughter.

And I have absolutely no idea what to do about it.