Burning Desire. Kayla Perrin

flinched when he felt a hand clamp down on his shoulder. “Hey, you all right?”

      Mason faced Tyler. “Yeah,” he said. But he felt the tightness in his chest, one that had nothing to do with the toxic fumes the fire had produced.

      Some people wondered why he had become a firefighter, given that he had been a prodigy of sorts at a young age. At the age of nineteen, Mason had been an NBA top draft pick, with a hefty contract. The eight-figure deal was the kind people could only dream of. However, five years into his career, he had walked away from it all. A controversial decision that die-hard basketball fans still talked about.

      For Mason, it had been easy. Basketball had been something he was good at, but it hadn’t been the burning passion in his heart.

      Ever since losing his mother and brother, his heart told him that he should do something to help people. In a way, by battling every fire, he tried to atone for the fact that he wished so desperately he could turn back the clock and save his mother and brother on that terrible summer day.

      Gritting his teeth, he tried to force the painful memory away. But it wasn’t going anywhere. It was always there, like a physical wound that would never heal. He had learned to live with it, but the guilt prevailed.

      His best friends and everyone else he knew had told him that it wasn’t his fault, and rationally he knew that. He’d been a kid, needing to get away from a turbulent home by going to summer camp, the one highlight of the summer. But in retrospect, he hated that he had left his mother and little brother alone with his father, whom he’d known had always drank too much. If he hadn’t gone to summer camp, wouldn’t he have been able to save them that night?

      It was the “what if” that continued to haunt him.

      “The hoses are back on the truck,” Tyler said. “The guys are ready.”

      Mason nodded. Then he called out to his team, “Stephenson, Eisler, Duncan. We’re ready to roll out of here.”

      Chapter 2

      Sabrina Crawford stared at the photo of Mason Foley on the screen of her Mac computer. It was a candid shot of him, taken while he was standing over a stove in the firehouse. He had been caught midlaugh, and the photo seemed to capture a confident and playful nature about him.

      He was the next firefighter scheduled to come in for a photo shoot for the calendar she was working on with the Ocean City Fire Department. As she had done before each firefighter came into her studio, Sabrina checked out a candid shot of the man in order to get ideas on how best to utilize him in the shoot. Usually something about the man’s eyes, smile or expression would lead to inspiration in terms of what kind of pictures she would take of him.

      But right now, her mind wasn’t coming up with any ideas. How could it, when all she could think about was the letter she’d received?

      Glancing at the letter, which she had discarded on her desk, Sabrina swallowed. A painful lump lodged in her throat as she picked the letter up and decided to read it a second time.

      Sabrina,

      I am taking the time to write this letter because you are clueless. Why on earth would you think that I would ever want to hear from you? You have done enough to destroy my family. The fact that you can’t even figure that out shows the kind of person you are. Selfish and horrible.

      For once in your life, think about someone other than yourself! You need to stay away from me and my family. Forever. Never try to contact me again, you pitiful excuse for a human being. If you don’t heed this warning, I will have to involve the authorities.

      I am being as nice as I possibly can given your harassment, but none of us is interested in having anything to do with you.

      You should never have been born!

      Sabrina felt the same way she had when she’d read the letter half an hour earlier—as though someone had ripped her heart out of her chest. Because although the letter was unsigned, she knew who had sent it. And after simply trying to reach out to her, this awful letter was the last thing Sabrina had expected. The words made her out to be some sort of evil person. And even though she knew she wasn’t the words still stung.

      Especially the part about how she never should have been born. Given the circumstances under which she had come into the world that comment truly hurt.

      Sabrina picked up the tension ball on her desk hoping that the stress from the back of her neck would transfer to the ball. All she had done was reach out to her sister on Facebook. She hadn’t expected such a painful and rude rejection.

      Though maybe she should have. Because not once in her thirty-three years had Julia and Patrick—her half siblings—ever reached out to her. Sabrina was certain that they hadn’t known of her existence for several years—as she hadn’t known about them. But for the past fifteen years at least, they knew of her. Knew of her, but wanted nothing to do with her.

      When Sabrina had turned eighteen, her father decided to finally introduce her to his other children. She had been nervous but hopeful. But those hopes were quickly shot down when Julia and Patrick had said less than two words upon meeting her. They’d made it clear that they wanted nothing to do with her, and that hadn’t changed over the years.

      It didn’t take a psychologist to figure out why. Sabrina was a child of their father, conceived in an adulterous relationship. And for that reason, it seemed that they would never accept her.

      It had been a huge shock to learn she had siblings, and Sabrina was sure that they were just as stunned to learn of her existence. But Sabrina acknowledged that for them, the situation had to be harder. Discovering the truth of their father’s betrayal wasn’t easy to accept.

      Perhaps if Sabrina had never pressed the issue, she would have never known the truth about her father. But when the standard “Your father isn’t in your life” answers weren’t enough for her, her mother had finally told her the truth. That her father didn’t live with them because he had another family. And how that family wasn’t interested in getting to know her. Those had been hard words to accept at the age of thirteen, but Sabrina hadn’t been concerned about people she didn’t know. She’d been concerned about her father. And having another family or not, she hadn’t been able to understand why he never saw her. There were other kids at her school whose parents had gone on to marry other people, but they still spent time with both parents.

      Sabrina had bombarded her mother with questions about her father, and finally at the age of fifteen, her mother revealed his identity. Sabrina had been excited to find out that her father was Gerald Parker. A man her mother had been able to show her articles of in the paper, and stories about on the news. At the time she’d learned of his identity, her father had been a city councilor running for mayor. The father she had always dreamed about, had always wanted in her life, was famous. That reality had filled Sabrina with pride.

      Sabrina could still remember the feeling of nervous hopefulness when her mother had arranged for her to meet him. But all the hopes and expectations she’d had of him had shattered after they’d met. Because the hope that he would become a constant figure in her life proved only to be the wishful thinking of a young girl. Even during their first meeting, Gerald Parker had seemed uncomfortable around her, and Sabrina had been smart enough to know that it wasn’t simply because it was their first meeting. After that, their interactions were few and far between. He made sure to send her gifts on special occasions, but what Sabrina had wanted was his presence in her life.

      As an adult, Sabrina came to understand why her mother hadn’t pushed for her father to be a part of her life. Her mother knew that he would ultimately hurt her by choosing his family over her every time. For one thing, Gerald feared that the secret about his affair and illegitimate child would come out and ruin his career in politics. But Sabrina’s mother, Evelyn, had never tried to do anything to hurt the man she had clearly loved. She hadn’t even given Sabrina his last name, to keep anyone from learning the truth. Gerald’s wife, Marilyn, who had stayed by his side despite his infidelity,