Tommy gave him a long, hard look. "I've been around the block a few times, son, and the real question is how will you live with letting Lydia go? If you really love her and you let her go for the job, you're going to start hating what you do. You'll get bitter and you'll start resenting it. Maybe you'll start having some hard liquor shots between those beers or, G.o.d forbid, getting hooked on something worse to get through the days."

"You're the worst Ghost of Christmas Future ever," Aidan mumbled.

"The bottom line is that to take care of others, you gotta take care of you first." Tommy breathed in deeply through his nose, his lips pressed together for a few seconds. "You know what I live with, son? I get to live the rest of my life knowing the only reason my wife didn't divorce me is because she found out she was dying."

Aidan didn't know what to say. Tommy never talked about his wife. He knew that was true, though, because Scotty had told him about it.

"And now I got two daughters struggling with loving firefighters and you know whose fault that is? Mine. If I'd raised them better and found a better balance or whatever, maybe it wouldn't be so hard for them."

Tommy stood, pointing a finger at Aidan. "I'm telling you right now, son, you do what you need to do. If being a firefighter means that much to you, then leave her alone and let her go back to New Hampshire. Make it as clean a cut as possible. But if Lydia's what you want, you need to make a decision and be okay with it. You don't owe anybody anything."

Aidan stood and extended his hand. "Thanks for the talk. And for not telling me to leave her alone just because I'm no good for her."

Tommy took his hand and, instead of shaking it, pulled him in for a quick hug. "You'll never hear me tell you you're no good. I love you, son, and whatever decision you make isn't going to change that. I'm proud of you."

Tears clogged Aidan's throat, so he only nodded and lifted a hand as Tommy walked out of his apartment. He slowly sank back onto the kitchen chair, and then he pulled out his phone.

Definitely not a text message, he thought. He tapped on Scotty's name and listened to the phone ring.

"What happened?"

Aidan frowned, and then realized it had been a very long time since he'd heard Scotty's voice on the phone. They communicated almost entirely by text, with the occasional email. "Nothing's wrong. I was just wondering if you're busy."

"Not really."

"I could use some company. Your dad stopped by."

"He did? That's surprising."

Aidan agreed. "Yeah. And he said some stuff."

"That's not surprising."

"I could use an ear. Somebody to talk to you, you know? And for me, that person is you, but I should tell you up front it's about Lydia."

"I can be there in twenty minutes. You got beer?"

"Yeah." A sharp sense of relief made him almost breathless for a few seconds. "I appreciate it."

Once he'd ended the call, Aidan set the phone down and cradled his head in his hands. He had twenty minutes to try to sort out his feelings so he could verbalize them to Scotty.

One thing didn't need to be sorted, though, because it was very clear in his mind. He was in love with Lydia Kincaid and he didn't have a lot of time to figure out what to do about that.

AFTER SHOVING THE last of her toiletries into her bag, Lydia zipped it up and looped the strap over her shoulder.

She was out of excuses to be here. She'd even cleaned the room and washed the sheets, remaking the bed so it would be ready for Ashley's next guest. There was literally no reason she shouldn't get in her car and start driving north right now.

No reason at all, except for the fact she didn't want to go.

Standing in the hallway, she stopped, wondering if she was going to hate herself for the rest of her life if she forced herself to leave Boston today. If she left Aidan. She regretted the distance between them already and she hadn't even left the city yet.

She heard a knock on the door and then the low murmur of Ashley's voice, followed by a man's voice. It was heartbreakingly familiar and Lydia headed for the stairs.

"Lydia!" Ashley almost ran into her on the staircase. "I thought you were still packing. Aidan's here. I'll be in my room doing stuff for a few minutes. Until you're done, I guess."

Done with what, though? Saying goodbye? Lydia wasn't sure she could do that. It was one thing to walk away from him when she'd been riding high on temper. But now, when missing him was a constant, painful companion, she wasn't sure she could find the strength.

She nodded at her sister, but she couldn't respond because she was totally focused on the man standing in the living room. Aidan looked like h.e.l.l, which was about how she felt. "Hey."

"You have your bag packed."

"I'm leaving in a few minutes," she said, surprised she could get the words out without having a total breakdown.

"I don't want you to go." He cleared his throat. "I don't want you to leave me, Lydia, because I'm in love with you."

Her breath caught in her chest and she found herself incapable of making words. He loved her, and he wanted to be with her. All she had to do was accept that love and he could be hers. "I don't want to leave you, either. I've been trying to force myself to go but it's obviously not working because I'm still here."

He clenched his jaw for a few seconds and then relaxed. "If you stay with me, I'll hand in my papers tomorrow."

She blinked, sure she'd heard him wrong. "What do you mean?"

"If you can't bring yourself to be a firefighter's wife again, then I'll be something else. Anything else. I don't care."

"You can't do that. You can't just quit being who you are, Aidan."

He took a deep breath, as if thinking about what she'd said. "Being a firefighter isn't who I am. It's what I do. And yes, I can do something else. And I will, because the thing I want to be more than anything else is your husband. That's who I am inside. A man who loves you more than anything else. Everything else is just how I earn a paycheck or my zip code."

She was having a hard time believing what she was hearing, but hope was beating like a drum in her chest. "What will you do, if you're not a firefighter?"

"If we're lucky, we'll win the lottery, buy a private island in the Caribbean and do nothing but have s.e.x on the beach every day." When she c.o.c.ked an eyebrow at him, he grinned. "Hey, it could happen. In the meantime, I'm looking into installing fire suppression systems and a few other jobs in the industry. Saving people from fires by preventing the fires in the first place still counts. And if you really want to get away from here and go back to New Hampshire, I'll be right there with you. Maybe we can buy some cows."

Even as his joke made her chuckle, tears made his face blur in front of her and she tried to blink them away. "You love being a firefighter."

Aidan cupped her face in his hands and looked her in the eye. "I love you more."

It felt as if some knot deep inside of her loosened and she could breathe again. "I love you, too."

"You are the most important thing in the whole world to me. I choose you, Lydia. It will never matter what the choice is. It won't matter who or what or why, I will always choose you."

Tears shimmered in her eyes, and she put her hands up to grasp his wrists. "I believe you."

"Good. Because it's the truth."

"But don't hand in your papers," she said in a soft voice.

He looked confused, and he dropped his hands from her face to hold both of her hands. "But you said you love me, too. I want us to have a life together, Lydia."

"I do, too. And being a firefighter is more than your job. It is a part of who you are, and I love who you are. All of you. You were right, before. You're not my ex-husband and you're not my dad. I believe in you, and when you look at me, I know you love me."

He squeezed her fingers. "Promise me, if you ever feel like the job is coming between us, you'll talk to me about it and we'll decide our future together. Me and you."

"I promise." She smiled up at him. "It feels right, you and my brother being together. Having each other's backs. And Danny, too. And Ashley and I will be together at the bar. We'll have a good life together."

"So you'll marry me?"

She threw her arms around his neck and kissed him. "Yes. I'll marry you. G.o.d, yes. Today. Tomorrow. As soon as we can."

"No!" They both looked up at the top of the stairs, where Ashley was eavesdropping with tearstained cheeks. "You're having a wedding and I need time to plan it."

"Can you wait?" Lydia asked Aidan, tipping her face back to smile at him.

"I'm not stupid enough to argue with two Kincaid women, and I like the idea of you in a wedding gown. And that garter thing. You're going to move in with me right now, though, right?"

"I'm already packed. We're not getting cows, though."

He kissed her again. "How about a cat? Oscar was kind of cool, you know."

"Maybe. What should we do to celebrate? I feel like we should do something."

He slid his hand under her hair and kissed her until her toes curled in her sneakers. "How about we go to this little place called Kincaid's Pub and I let you buy me a drink?"

To find out about other books by Shannon Stacey

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Read on for a sneak preview of

CONTROLLED BURN,.

the next book in New York Times bestselling author Shannon Stacey's

BOSTON FIRE SERIES.

Controlled Burn by Shannon Stacey

ONE.

"FIVE BUCKS SAYS she requested Ladder 37 when she called 911."

Rick Gullotti glared at Gavin Boudreau, then shook his head. "That's bulls.h.i.t."

They were back at the station after a run and, as the lieutenant of Boston Fire's Ladder 37, he had to stay in the bay with the guys and take care of the gear. Even if they were being idiots. In the bay next to him, the guys from Engine 59 were doing the same. Stowing the gear, checking tanks and supplies. The ladder truck and the pumper engine that shared the three-story brick firehouse always rolled together, and the guys of L-37 and E-59 operated well as a team.

A team whose members loved to give each other s.h.i.t, Rick thought as Scotty Kincaid yelled from the other side of the bay. "That's the fourth time that woman's needed the fire department in six months, Gullotti. Must be rough when all your emergencies happen while you're still in your lace nightgown."

"Maybe it's you she's after," Gullotti called back.

"It wasn't me she hugged with so much...grat.i.tude."

Yeah, that had been awkward. He didn't mind being offered cookies or invited to stay for lunch, but the hugging he usually managed to avoid. Thankfully he hadn't taken his bunker coat off, so the feel of a curvy woman in satin and lace hadn't gotten through, but he was going to have to be more careful in the future.

"She was definitely grateful." Chris Erikkson-who was one of the older guys in the house, but avoided promotions due to an extreme aversion to paperwork-paused in the act of wiping down L-37's b.u.mper to smirk at him.

Rick's phone vibrated in his pocket, and he pulled it out, antic.i.p.ating a summons from upstairs. It wasn't going to take long for the story to circulate, and he knew they'd have to come up with a way to gently discourage the woman's attempt to date via frivolous emergency calls. Not only was it a waste of time and money but, if it escalated, she could accidentally burn down her house.

But the text was from Karen Shea. She was a nurse he'd dated for a while before she met a guy who had the potential to be the one she wanted to spend the rest of her life with.

They just brought Joe into the ER. Stable, but he took a fall and Marie got upset.