The Fireman's Son. Tara Taylor Quinn

death for the first time. Asking himself if there was more he might want out of life before he died...

      “You’re going to fire me,” she said before he got a word out of his mouth.

      Damn her. Reading his mind when she was his girlfriend was one thing. But now...there had to be something illegal about that. Invading a person’s mind against their will.

      “I am.” She’d broken up with him in a few words. He could fire her the same way.

      At least he’d given her the respect of doing it in person.

      He could have texted her. Told her not to bother coming in.

      “I’m going to beg you not to do so,” she said, standing there with her hands at her sides. Not at all challenging.

      And yet he felt...pushed.

      Reese didn’t like feeling pushed. Most particularly not by a five-foot-three-inch woman with a cute ass and a cheating heart.

      “Beg all you want,” he said, meaning to hand her the paperwork he’d already filled out.

      As he turned to pick up the page lying on his desk, she said, “Please, Reese, I need this job.” The pleading in her voice did his injured heart good.

      He picked up the sheet and turned back to her. But he didn’t immediately hand it over.

      Turned out, he wanted her to ask him again. To prolong the moment. He’d had no idea he was such a sick bastard.

      But he also couldn’t believe that Faye Browning had just walked back into his life expecting to work for him as though they’d never loved each other to distraction.

      Probably because she hadn’t loved him that way.

      “It’s not just for me, although, of course, I need the money, but this job, here in particular...it’s...important, Reese. Truly important.”

      She was looking him right in the eye. Not fidgeting. Not even blinking.

      The woman was honestly and sincerely begging him.

      It kind of threw him for a loop and he had to remind himself that she’d texted him to break up with him. Because she’d met another man.

      “Your husband doesn’t make enough to pay your bills?” That was it. Remember Mr. Walker. Had she cheated on him, too? And how many in between him and Reese?

      “I’m divorced.” That seemed to mean more to her than it did to him.

      He almost told her he was sorry to hear it. But he wasn’t. What he was, was pissed. Pissed that she was there at all.

      And pissed that he hadn’t kicked her out yet.

      “Just out of curiosity, who broke it off? Him or you?”

      If she said the guy had left her...if she really was alone and in need...

      “I did.”

      Of course she did.

      And then came to beg him to take her in?

      Uh-uh. No way. In hell.

      Or out of it. He held the termination paper out to her.

      He was done with her.

      “I...have a son... Reese.”

      His hand suspended midair, the paper hanging there between them, he looked at her.

      “His name’s Elliott. He’s... During the day he’s... There were only two places in the country that offered the kind of nonresident counseling and education that he needs, and the other one is on the east coast. I’d have to recertify and...”

      She had a son. His hand dropped to his side. His Faye. The woman he’d thought would be the mother of his children...had a son.

      “He’s severely at risk, Reese. To move him now, after he’s started the program... To move him from Southern California, the only home he’s ever known... Please. Give me a second chance to show you that I have what it takes to be reliable. I’m good at my job. Really good. You’ve seen my credentials and performance reports. I won’t let you, your department or Santa Raquel down.”

      He heard the last part. Couldn’t focus on it.

      “Severely at risk,” he repeated. “What does that mean?”

      When she ran her tongue over her lips, he almost turned his back on her. If she thought she was going to play him with that old maneuver...

      Her kid probably wasn’t at risk at all...

      “He’s at The Lemonade Stand.”

      He froze. “The Lemonade Stand’s for victims of domestic violence,” he said.

      She nodded.

      She’d asked for a divorce. And the kid was with her.

      “Your ex hit your son?”

      She shook her head.

      Then who had? Surely not her. Faye might be a cheater but she was most definitely not someone who would strike out in anger. Ever. She’d had the most trusting, giving, generous, nurturing heart...

      “Who then?”

      “Me.” For the first time since she’d entered the room, her gaze dropped from his, falling to the floor.

      “You hit your son?” The world had gone from ridiculous to unrecognizable. Who was this woman? What had happened to drive her to do such a thing?

      She shook her head. Shuddered. And then looked up again, something new in her eyes as she looked at him. “No, Reese, my ex-husband hurt me, not our son.”

      Our son. That answered that then. She’d been married to her son’s father.

      “How old is he?” He’d never felt so...uncomfortable...in his life. “Your boy, I mean.”

      “Eight.”

      The word hit him hard, right in the gut.

      “You married the guy you dumped me for.” There was just no classy way to get that out there.

      She nodded.

      “And had his son.”

      She nodded a second time. Looking him straight in the eye.

      His disrespect for her lessened a little as he tried to figure out what to do with her. How to get rid of her.

      The man she’d married had hurt her, she’d said. He was trying his damnedest not to process that part.

      “Are you at The Lemonade Stand, too, then?” It was a resort-type place with more housing than most shelters, including cabins for families to live in alone. Or for a mother and one child to share with another mother and one child.

      But...Faye was working for him. She wasn’t a woman finding protection at a shelter...

      The realization hit at the same time she shook her head. “I did go to a shelter, briefly,” she told him. “But just until I could get some counseling. Get my bearings. I’m not in... Frank...there’s no danger there.”

      In spite of himself, Reese cared. If some bastard was going to be coming after Faye...

      “Frank didn’t...abuse me...in the traditional way,” she told him. “And he’s not angry that I left. He was glad I walked out and took Elliott with me.”

      “He wanted you to take his son?”

      Her eyes dropped again. “Frank had antiquated ideas about men and child rearing. He didn’t raise a hand to Elliott. He just ignored him.”

      Reese didn’t get it. Not any of it.

      Faye being here...her son not being abused but being at the Stand... Faye as a victim of domestic abuse.

      And then there