The Firefighter's Christmas Reunion. Christy Jeffries

       Chapter One

      Chief Isaac Jones commanded the stainless steel griddle in the kitchen of the Grange Hall the same way he did the Sugar Falls Fire Station—with a steady hand and a slight wonder that he’d ended up in this position in the first place.

      Flipping a row of pancakes, he caught the flash of a blue shirt and gold neckerchief out of the corner of his eye. “Hey, partner,” Isaac said to one of the young Cub Scouts balancing three loaded paper plates between two small hands. “Can you find Mister Jonesy out there and tell him we’re gonna need more batter?”

      “We’re almost out of syrup, too,” the chief of police, who also happened to be the pack leader for Troop 1307, said from the pass-through window separating the kitchen from the rows of tables and chairs set up in the main room. “I’ll run to Duncan’s Market and grab everything they have on their shelves.”

      “I knew I should’ve ordered all the supplies before I left,” Isaac mumbled to no one in particular. It might be the last Saturday of October, but Sugar Falls was experiencing an unprecedented heat wave, and the unusually high temperatures meant nobody wanted to linger in the overheated kitchen this morning. When he’d originally volunteered the fire department to cosponsor the Scouts’ pancake breakfast fund-raiser, he hadn’t anticipated that the National Guard would move his unit’s annual two-week training up an entire month. Which meant that he hadn’t been in Sugar Falls ordering supplies for today.

      “What can I do to help?” someone asked over the whirling of the industrial fan behind him.

      The back of Isaac’s neck tingled at the familiar sound of the woman’s voice. His breathing stuttered. He hadn’t seen her in over ten years, and last he’d heard, she was joining the Peace Corps or a similar outfit volunteering in Africa somewhere. So surely it couldn’t be...

      His dread was confirmed the second he turned around. Hannah Gregson.

      His lungs refused to draw air for at least ten seconds as she stood there, her blond hair twisted into a messy knot and her proud shoulders pushed back as though she was ready to take on the world’s problems. She didn’t wear an ounce of makeup, but her complexion was as pure and fresh as it had been the summer after their senior year of high school.

      “Your pancakes are burning,” she said, grabbing the spatula out of his clenched hand and easily swinging her tall, lithe body in front of his to scoop the blackened circles off the griddle.

      Had she not recognized him?

      Sure, Isaac had filled out a bit since he was eighteen, and he no longer sported the longer, fuller curls he’d worn in his youth. In fact, his hair was more of a fade now, a shorter style he’d grown accustomed to when he’d joined the Army after college. But he hadn’t changed that much.

      Of course, the last time she’d seen Isaac was the night of that Labor Day bonfire and neither one of them had been at their finest.

      He cleared his throat. “What are you doing here?”

      “Making pancakes?” She tossed a cheeky smile over her shoulder. It was then that recognition finally dawned in her pale blue eyes and he experienced a tiny rush of satisfaction that she appeared to be as thrown off by his presence as he was by hers. “Isaac?”

      “What’s this about you needing more batter?” Uncle Jonesy asked as he strode into the kitchen at that exact second. The old cowboy took one look at Hannah and said, “Aw, hell.”

      “Hi, Jonesy,” Hannah said, lifting the spatula in a feeble wave. Good. At least she was now aware of the uneasiness circling the confines of this kitchen.

      Jonesy was quick to recover, though, because he stepped around the stainless steel worktable in the center of the room and lifted Hannah up into a big bear hug. She let out a surprised squeak and Isaac’s uncle chuckled. “I heard you were back in town, hon.”

      Isaac’s eyebrows shot to his hairline. He had? It would’ve been nice if the old man had given him a heads-up.

      “I just got back a couple of weeks ago,” she said, and Isaac realized that Hannah must’ve arrived right after he’d left for his Guard training. He hooked his thumbs into his pockets, aiming for a casualness he didn’t feel as he studied her. They never had been able to stay around each other long enough to make things work.

      “I bet your mama and daddy are excited you’re finally back in Idaho.” Jonesy smiled.

      The Gregsons were originally from Boise. Summer kids, like Isaac, who only visited Sugar Falls during the warm months when they were out on school break. After he moved into the dorms at Yale, he’d heard through the grapevine that Hannah had decided to save money by going to Boise State, which must’ve been a real coincidence since Carter Mahoney was also attending that school on a full ride track-and-field scholarship. After hearing that she’d also gone home with Carter for Thanksgiving that same year, Isaac had made it a point to avoid any conversations that had to do with Hannah Gregson and where she was living. Or who she was seeing.

      After ten years, he certainly didn’t want to hear about it now. Rocking back onto the heels of his work boots, Isaac heard the annoyance in his own voice when he asked, “Are you two gonna sit around and catch up or are we going to make some pancakes?”

      “Guess I’ll run out and try to wrangle us some more mix.” His uncle’s gaze shifted between them as he scrubbed the gray whiskers on his ruddy face, probably eager to beat a hasty retreat. Deserter.

      “Then I’ll get started on another bowl of batter.” Hannah passed the spatula to Isaac, her long, slender fingers coming into contact with his palm. A heat that had nothing to do with the nearby empty griddle spread through his gut.

      “You don’t need to help.” Isaac’s tone came out more harsh and dismissive than he’d intended. “What I mean is that the fire department and the Scouts are putting the breakfast on. So we don’t really need any outside volunteers.”

      “Hmm.” She looked around the empty kitchen. “It appears that you’re rather short-staffed at the moment.”

      Okay, so that was slightly true. But he’d rather have no staff than have a bossy do-gooder like Hannah Gregson near him. Her mere presence echoed everything that his venture capitalist mother had drilled into him as a kid. Being an African American woman married to an older white investment banker, Isaac’s mom constantly had to prove herself at her husband’s bank before launching her own private equity firm and taking the biotech world by storm. Whether it was a grade at the science fair