Abi Newell pushed her shopping cart through Fresh Market. She’d finished work at Deer Valley Resort early this afternoon and wanted to grab a few things before she went to visit Grams in Midway. If she picked up a few basics for Grams, it would keep her off the roads. Grams was a scary driver in the summer, terrifying in the winter.

Abi came around the corner looking for spiral pasta noodles when something much more tantalizing filled her vision. Stone Ryland. He and his fellow firefighters were all congregated around a couple of carts. Blue, their captain who was built like a tank and obviously in charge, looked like he was giving out shopping lists. Stone wasn’t as big as his captain, but he definitely had muscles in all the right places. He was a little over six feet, lean, and his face was the perfect sculpture of manly lines. You’d think he was a pretty boy, with his too handsome face and dark hair that was just long enough to curl slightly, if you didn’t look into his grayish-blue eyes. Those eyes were all too often cold and fathomless. Like he’d seen more pain in his short twenty-five years than anybody had any business seeing. She would blame it on his job, if the two of them weren’t best friends and she didn’t know his tragic past. Firefighters definitely saw their share of heartache, but Stone had pain carved into his soul.

Yet those eyes were different for her … sometimes. Sometimes they thawed and became a true blue and she glimpsed the warmth she knew was deep inside him. The warmth she wished she could bring back. Forcing herself not to get melancholy, she looked at the other firefighters. She knew them from Stone’s descriptions of them: Nikola the handsome foreigner, Jeremy the prankster, and Dax the superficial playboy. She didn’t see Wade, who Stone had told her was almost as quiet as him.

“Stone!” She called out. Abandoning her cart, she rushed across the distance and threw herself at him. Her quest in life was to somehow yank Stone Cold out of his freezing shelter. Shock and physical contact sometimes worked.

“Abi?” He obviously hadn’t planned on seeing her here, but he chuckled at her exuberance. He allowed her a quick squeeze, let her feel those hard muscles in his chest and arms and touch her forehead to his smooth jawline, before holding her shoulders and gently pushing her an arm’s length away. She lived for those quick squeezes. Thrills pulsed through her body.

“What are you doing?” he asked.

“Going to Harry Potter Land then making a quick stop at Rodeo Drive to buy a new Kate Spade skirt.” It was the silliest thing she could think of. She tilted her head to the side and gave a little shimmy in her tight skirt. She knew her heels showed off her legs pretty well. “What are you doing?”

He shook his head at her, but she caught the small smile that creased his lips and how his eyes almost thawed. Almost was better than nothing.

The rest of the guys were staring at her as if she might be an apparition or maybe they thought she was a few marbles short. Blue was busy picking out lasagna noodles.

“Abi,” Nikola said, “Surely a woman as gorgeous as yourself would not waste her time with Stone Cold.” He extended his hand. “Nikola.”

Abi reached out to shake his hand, but Stone yanked her back. She loved any time his hands made contact with her skin. “Don’t do it.” Stone warned her. “He’ll try to kiss your hand or something lame like that.”

“Well, somebody should be kissing my hand.” She winked at Stone.

The rest of the guys chuckled.

Nikola finally dropped his hand when it became evident Stone wasn’t going to let her go, not that Abi was about to complain—far from it. She’d spent most of her life scheming to get Stone touch her. Well, except for the sixth months he was married to their best friend Virginia. That six months and Virginia’s tragic death had set the sad tone for Stone’s life.

“We’re still on for Tuesday morning? Nine too early for you?” she said to Stone, ignoring the rest of the men as they stared at her.

“Snowshoeing?” Stone’s brow wrinkled with concern.

“Yes, sir. There’s no way you’ll be able to keep up with me, so you’re going to hate it, but I’ll love it. And you love spending time with me, and that’s all that matters.” She blew him a kiss then waved at the rest of the men gawking at her, probably still trying to work out if she’d insulted their buddy. Stone would know she was teasing him as usual.

She walked away, giving a little sass to her swing. She knew Stone would never look at her as anything but a friend, but she’d never give up hope. Even her sister, Julia, who was usually her staunchest supporter, thought her quest to break into Stone’s rock-hard heart was too ambitious. Yet Abi was undeterred. Until he told her to leave him alone or stopped having momentary thaws, she’d keep whacking away with her teasing and any womanly tools she had at her disposal.

* * *

Abi strutted away with the perfect swish to her hips. Her dark hair was a beautiful contrast to the crisp white shirt that showed off her trim waist. Her legs were the stuff wussy men wrote poetry about. It had felt so good to hold her close and inhale her cinnamon and vanilla scent.

Stone ignored the rest of his crew standing close by. His resolution to never cross boundaries with the woman he loved, but who was also one of his best friends, preoccupied him. Their other best friends, Jace and Virginia, had blown by the boundaries and it had about destroyed all of them. Now Stone was caught in a web of promises and lies that he didn’t know how to break.

Stone pulled in a quick breath when Abi finally turned the corner and caught all the guys staring at him. “What?”

“You’ve been holding out on us.” Jeremy declared.

“Are you surprised?” Blue grunted out. “Stone doesn’t share details about his woman.”

“She is not my woman. Abi’s my best friend.” Only close friend, truth be told, but if he could have only one in his life, Abi was definitely the best choice. His buddies on his crew were friends. They were also annoying, too clever, and obnoxious. Even so, they were great guys that he liked being around, but Stone kept everyone except Abi at arm’s length. Okay, he even kept Abi at arm’s length. He hated it, but it was necessary to protect both of them and the friendship he couldn’t survive without.

“Only Stone would friend status the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen.” Nikola shook his head remorsefully as if Stone had personally injured him.

“Watch it.” Blue and Stone both growled at him.

“My apologies. Lucy is off the market, so she doesn’t count,” Nikola said about Blue’s beautiful Latino girlfriend. Stone noticed he didn’t apologize for gawking at his woman, er, Abi. What could he really do about it though? Abi wasn’t his and never would be.

Blue rolled his eyes and grabbed some marinara sauce.

“And you don’t look at Abi like that or try to kiss her hand.” Stone warned him. He knew Abi dated different men every weekend, but at least he didn’t have to see it in person.

“I think this is more words than you’ve spoken in years,” Jeremy said.

Stone grabbed the cart and started forward. “Are we done here?”

“No, we are not,” Nikola said. “If you’re only ‘friends’ with this beauty, there should be no problem when I ask her out.”

Stone released the cart and had his hands full of Nikola’s t-shirt before anyone else reacted. “Don’t even think about her again.”

Nikola looked amused rather than threatened. It would be a fair fight if Stone threw a punch, but he was pretty sure he could take him. Sure, Stone was stronger, but Nikola had been through a war in his country and was all kinds of resourceful when it came to survival.

“I think this woman is much more than a friend to you,” Nikola said quietly, demonstrating practiced calm in a tense situation.

“Knock it off,” Blue said.

Stone released his shirt and stomped off without a cart. “I’ll grab the French bread.” He stalked away from his crew, anger radiating through him.

“Now, we’ve seen him smile and get angry today,” Dax muttered behind him.

“That Abi is obviously something special,” Nikola said.

Stone couldn’t get away fast enough. Abi was the most special woman in the world to him and the only person who had wrought any emotion out of him in the past seven years. Which was exactly why he had to keep her as a friend. If she ever thawed him enough to extract his secrets, she’d never talk to him again.