Grady needed a drink. He wasn’t the type to hang out at bars or drown his sorrow with Johnny Walker, but what happened today beat the crap out of him.

He was a damn dad. That was the biggee.

He’d never wanted to be a dad. Hated being tied down. Didn’t need to make his mark on the world or have someone carry on his genes or legacy.

He had a huge family, willing and eager to do the breeding—fill the world with Harts.

But now that he was a dad. Hot damn! He rather liked the feeling.

Especially with a little girl.

The sweetest, cutest, little spitfire—Jessie. She’d insisted her dog would come back to her, and she wasn’t taking no for an answer.

When she was reunited with Betsy, the happiness and relief glowing on that little face had Grady’s heart humming in harmony.

He and Linx sure made a perfect child.

Except she belonged to someone else. She had adoptive parents, a family, and a home that didn’t include him.

A boulder of pain crushed him as he strode through the swinging wooden slat doors of the Sixty Miners Saloon.

“Look what the dust storm blew in.” Paul leaned on his elbows over the counter. “What are you having?”

“Whiskey on the rocks.”

“That bad, huh?” Paul jiggled a ball of ice into a rocks glass and poured some no-name bourbon over it. “Heard you put out a fire at your place.”

“Kind of hard not to when I was the first one on the scene.” Grady knocked the amber liquid back, burning his throat as the heat spread down his gullet. “Makes me miss smokejumping.”

“Like I said, don’t let me hold you.” Paul’s eyebrows lowered into a dark scowl.

Grady glanced at the bleak surroundings around the mostly empty bar. “This place isn’t hopping. Why are you hiding here?”

“You know why.” Paul’s eyebrows lowered. “This was the last place Salem called home. She rented a room right up there.”

He pointed to the ceiling. Like a lot of old-fashioned buildings, living quarters sat above the business.

“So you bought all of it, and you feel at peace? Like her spirit’s resting here?”

“Sort of.”

“She’s gone. You know that.”

“Thanks to you.” Paul’s voice roughened. “You jumped and you made it. Why didn’t she?”

“Freak change in the wind,” Grady said. “The fire makes its own weather.”

“Whatever you said to her got her confused.” Paul slammed a fist on the counter. “Why won’t you tell me?”

“It doesn’t matter anymore,” Grady said.

“Matters to me. You know, closure and all that. Were you sleeping with her? I mean, like you say, it doesn’t matter now, does it?”

“I never touched her after she hooked up with you.” Grady took a deep swallow of the whiskey, emptying it. He slapped the rocks glass on the counter. “Another one.”

“She was pregnant.” Paul whipped up another rocks glass and filled it. “Was it yours?”

“Unlikely.”

“That’s what she said you’d say.” Paul’s left eye twitched as he glared at him.

“She told you?”

“No, she didn’t. She said you would deny it, just like you denied every other woman you knocked up.”

“You should check her dates. When was the baby due? Or when did she say it was due?”

“She couldn’t tell without an ultrasound,” Paul said. “She died before she could get one.”

“How do we know she was pregnant?”

“Why would she lie? Especially with all the guys who could have been the father.” Paul scratched his few days’ growth of beard.

“Drama? Stirring up trouble in the team?” Grady shrugged. “Salem struck me as being an attention hog.”

“I was going to marry her no matter whose baby she had.” Paul pursed his lips and drummed the counter with his fingers. “But my parents froze all my assets. They wanted to wait for a positive paternity test.”

“Might have been wise to know. You know, for health reasons.” Grady finished the whiskey. “I’m going up to Redstone tomorrow to check out those suspicious fires. Some psychopath is running around burning down firefighters’ houses.”

“Thought all the causes were natural,” Paul said. “Dry lightning strikes, stuff like that. Media thinks there’s a curse.”

“Right, but whoever started the fire at my parents’ cabin did it on purpose. Investigators found evidence of an accelerant, and since I was on it shortly after it started, it didn’t burn everything down.” Grady kept his eyes focused on Paul, detecting a slight flinch, before he pulled his face into an impassive mask.

“Your fire’s unrelated, obviously.” Paul grabbed a rocks glass and started polishing it. “I’m thinking it’s the Colsons. Kind of convenient for them when one brother’s the sheriff, another one’s the fire chief, their uncle’s the mayor, and the judge is married to their aunt.”

Grady made a noncommittal sound and put down a couple of bills to pay for his drinks. “Except the guys who lost their houses all slept with Salem. Strange coincidence, isn’t it?”

“Go to hell,” Paul grumbled and turned away from Grady.

* * *

Tami rushed over to the Mountain Dog Rescue Center with a tub of cherry moose track ice cream. She hugged Linx tightly. “Is he gone? Did you tell him?”

“Yes, he didn’t take it well. I mean, at first, he was understanding, or maybe just shocked, but after he thought about it, he got angry.”

“That’s expected.” Tami hustled to the kitchen and took out two bowls. “You want chocolate sauce?”

“Yes, with whipped cream and a cherry on top.” Linx moaned, holding her throbbing head in both hands.

“That bad, huh?” Tami blew a tendril of her blond hair from her face and dug into the ice cream.

“He’s pissed off that I didn’t tell him. He’s hurt. Crushed. All the things I wanted him to feel for hurting and crushing me.”

“And?”

“I feel like crap.” Linx cradled her bowl of ice cream and sank onto the sofa. “It’s like I got my revenge and now it’s hurting me more than him.”

Tami sat down next to her. “He’s not as bad as you made him out to be. He has a heart.”

“I know, and I’ve hurt him again. I keep hurting him, and now that he knows Jessie’s his daughter …”

“Is he going to leave them alone?”

“I don’t think so. He says he wants to fix it, then we got into a fight.” Linx twirled the chocolate sauce into the ice cream and licked her spoon.

Ginger woke up and squealed from the playpen, obviously hungry—or maybe she heard Tami and wanted cuddles.

Linx set her ice cream down and picked the puppy up from the playpen.

“I’ll warm up a bottle,” Tami said, surprising Linx and getting up. “You should see the website. People are signing up in droves to adopt her. We ought to put up a webcam on her. They did that with the baby otter and tons of people watched.”

“That’s an idea,” Linx said. “Maybe I should get security cameras, too. Then I'll catch my mom when she dumps off her latest creations.”

Or snag an arsonist.

Linx snuggled with the puppy while Cedar rested her head on her knee. Now that Tami was here, everything would be okay.

Okay, for her. But what about Grady?

She had a family to support her. She had friends. This was her hometown, and most of all, she had contact with Jessie.

But Grady? He was locked out in the cold.

It wasn’t fair.

And she’d done this to him.

Tami returned with the bottle. “Why don’t I take care of this little sweetie and you go find Grady. I know you’re not done with him.”

“This time, we’re done.” Linx blinked as the tears pooled from her eyes. “I got the idea when he left that it was our final goodbye.”

“What about Jessie?”

“What about her? She’s the pastor’s daughter. He’s not going to get the adoption overturned.”

“He’s not going to leave this town either.” Tami pursed her lips. “I’ve gotten to know Grady, and he doesn’t seem like the type of man who would leave his flesh and blood. For all that rolling stone bluster, he’s really close to his family. He has a twin sister.”

“I know, but he feels disenchanted by the big family scene. Just like me.” Linx held the bottle for the puppy who suckled greedily. “He told me he doesn’t feel like he fits in. His twin sister’s a fashion designer and the apple of his parents’ eyes. His big brother’s a fireman and a natural born leader. His baby sister’s sweet as pie and his baby brother’s the family clown. As for Cait, well, you know how organized and efficient she is. How does a dyslexic kid who was always getting into trouble compare?”

“Wow, you know that much about him? I thought he barely spoke.” Tami picked up her bowl of ice cream.

“Only when he’s drunk.” Linx let out a chuckle. “That’s when the filter flies from his lips.”

Among other things.

“How many of these drunken bitch sessions have you had?” Tami gave her a side-eyed smirk. “Or were you two too busy making little Linxes?”

“Always with protection, well, with one or two slip-ups.” Linx grinned sheepishly.

“What if he’s had other slipups and all those women he knocked up were real?” Tami scratched the side of her head. “Maybe this rolling stone has left a trail of moss.”

“Ewwee. That sounds gross when you put it like that.” Linx couldn’t help laughing.

“Think Salem’s baby was his?” Tami recovered from the laughter first.

“Maybe, but it doesn’t much matter now. It’s kind of sad, isn’t it?” Linx sobered up as the puppy finished the bottle.

“What’s sad?”

“That of all the pregnancy scares, no one had his baby except for me.”

“Heard you almost lost it, too.” Tami had been at college when all of this went down.

“Yes, weird, isn’t it? Salem found me on the floor with my water broken and she drove me to the hospital.”

“She saved your life.”

“And I saved hers by carrying her out of the fire when she got impaled by that firebrand.” Linx’s shoulders slumped as the weight of Salem’s death pressed on her. “After Jessie was born, she stopped calling and coming by. I never figured out why she broke away from me.”

“Some friendships were meant to end.” Tami gave Linx a hug. “I know it hurts when someone you thought was a friend fades away.”

“We never had any words, no arguments or upset. And then, she died.” A sob caught Linx’s breath, and she put her face down on Ginger and let the tears roll. “She was a piece of work, but I still miss her.”

Linx told Tami everything about the intercepted text messages, the fake phone number Salem had given her, claiming it was Grady’s, and the fake messages she sent between them.

“Why, that bitch! Er, sorry, witch!” Tami clapped a hand over her mouth. “I’m thinking she wasn’t exactly a good friend. Maybe she was only keeping an eye on you because you had Grady’s baby.”

“Why would she care either way?” Linx felt her heart contract and expand, pulsing and aching. “All she cared about was smokejumping and getting on the fire crew.”

“So she could sleep with Grady, that’s why,” Tami exclaimed. “Once she had you two safely broken up, and the baby given away, and you out of firefighting, she went back and jumped what, three or four seasons?”

Linx could only nod mutely.

If Grady had known about Jessie, things would have been different, and he might not have slept with so many women. He might have become a responsible father.

And pigs might be able to fly.

But still, Grady Hart wasn’t an ogre.

She’d seen him speaking to Jessie, reassuring her that he’d find her dog, and then later, when Grady did find Betsy, she’d noticed how attached Jessie got to him.

She should have made sure Grady knew, because then, the blissful picture in her dreams, the one where Jessie held both their hands as they strolled down a country lane, chasing butterflies and picking flowers, would have been real and true.

“I should have trusted Grady over Salem.” Linx bowed her head.

“You know, it’s not too late,” Tami, the eternal optimist, said.

“I hope you’re right, but somehow, I think you’re wrong.”