Smoky Mountain Sweethearts. Cheryl Harper

to pack up the gear the medic had scattered on the tailgate of one of the service trucks. It was hard to imagine what dinner with such a strong, healthy guy might be like. It had been years since she’d tried to carry on a conversation anywhere other than seated next to a hospital bed.

      “Half a second ago he was ready to toss you into the reserve’s jail for wasting resources,” Sam muttered as he urged her toward the car, his arm wrapped securely around her hips. “Now’s not the time for making heart eyes anyway.”

      “Reserve jail. Is that a real thing?” Avery tried to put on the brakes, pushing hard against his urging with her feet, but he was too strong. Gentle, but insistent and strong. “And heart eyes. What does that even mean?”

      Sam rolled his eyes. “You know what I mean. The emoji.” He fluttered his eyelashes in a ridiculous way. “Flirty, love, heart eyes.” He reached around her to open the door to his mother’s car so that Avery could slide easily into the back seat. Avery studied Regina Blackburn’s oblivious face and then her mother’s interested expression. Neither was good at pretending they weren’t watching this conversation with way too much investment.

      “Flirty love eyes,” Avery said slowly. “I don’t remember how to do that, Sam. Come on. He’s a nice guy doing his best to encourage me to return to the trail.”

      The muscle in Sam’s jaw twitched but he straightened his shoulders. “Sure. Nice guy. His wife left town with another guy. That’s the kind of nice he is.”

      “Samuel Blackburn, you don’t blame the man for his wife’s terrible decisions,” Regina said with a scandalized yank of her cardigan. “You know better than that.”

      Sam bit his lip. “Right. I’m saying he still has a wife.”

      “You were warning me away from a guy, doing a service as...what? An old friend? Nemesis? Frenemy? What were we?” Avery slid deeper into the soft leather seat and sighed with relief as her tired muscles melted into puddles. “Doesn’t matter. I don’t need a man and I certainly don’t need a bossy one, Sam.”

      “Unless you’re stuck on the side of a mountain?” Sam asked slowly.

      Good point. Not that she’d let him know that. “I would have gotten myself down. If you’ll remember, I was always able to rescue myself. No need for the knight to come racing in.” Avery ignored the sore ache of her knee, determined to make sure that Sam Blackburn, his mother and hers listened. If she’d gone up searching for a revelation, it had taken getting stranded to understand it. “I’ve been through harder things, Sam. Tonight all I had to do was keep putting one foot in front of the other. I can do that.”

      He rolled his eyes. “Yeah. Duh. AA, nobody doubts that.” He shut the door firmly and walked off, both hands braced on his hips. From this vantage point, it was nearly impossible to miss that Sam Blackburn had grown into the kind of man that drew women like bees to the sweetest flower. He was tall, with broad shoulders. Here in the light, she could see the sprinkling of gray at his temples, the only sign that he’d celebrated birthdays of his own. Handsome and strong, the qualities every woman stranded on the side of a mountain hoped for in her rescuer. It was too bad his personality was stuck in high school.

      His tough talk had been all that had kept her from falling apart more than once that evening. He goaded her into saying and doing things she wasn’t sure she could.

      By acting like a jerk.

      There were times when they were kids that he was no longer acting, but tonight, it was impossible to ignore the fact that he’d given her enough indignation to power through.

      Neither Regina nor her mother said anything as they pulled away from the trailhead parking lot and out onto the dark two-lane road headed back to town.

      And the silence was starting to get to her.

      “I’m sorry I didn’t start down sooner,” Avery mumbled. When she was younger, hitting her mother with the apology before she could dig deep into her aggravation had been a good strategy. That, coupled with Janet’s worry over Avery’s health, might be enough to postpone the lecture until morning. “I could have driven your car home, Mama.”

      The tense silence that followed her statement was enough to convince Avery that nothing was going to postpone the lecture boiling inside her tiny mother.

      “We will talk about this when we get home, Avery,” her mother said succinctly. She didn’t turn around in the seat, but Regina glanced back in the rearview mirror, confirming for Avery that her mother was in a high state of mad at that point. Only good manners and being in the presence of company were saving her from a thorough speaking-to.

      Resigned to accepting her fate, Avery rested her head against the cushion and closed her eyes. They were close to the rolling hills of Sweetwater when Regina said softly, “You know, Sam’s single.”

      Avery slowly opened her eyes in time to watch her mother thump her head against the headrest.

      “I’m saying, if he’d find a nice girl here in town, the need to run off to bigger and better fires might disappear.” Regina waved her hand. “In smoke.”

      “Good one, Ms. B. Smoke. Because he’s a firefighter.” Avery covered her wide yawn with one hand. “What I don’t get is how that fits into this conversation.”

      “I think he was jealous.” Regina turned down the narrow street that led to their houses. “Of poor Brett Hendrix, who is a good man. He’s got kids and that woman did run off and leave him with zero help.” She tsked as she shook her head. “He needs a good woman.”

      “But not me.” Avery slowly opened the car door after Regina put the car in Park in her driveway. “Good to know.”

      “I’m saying,” Regina said as she shut her own door, “that if Sam is warning you away, maybe he’s got some interest.”

      Avery skidded to a stop and braced her hand against the low fence that marked the boundary between the two lots. “In me. Interest in me.”

      Regina shrugged.

      “They nearly put each other in the hospital at least three separate times, Reggie,” her mother said drily. “I’m not sure we want to put them back together, especially in close quarters.”

      The rest of their conversation was lost as Avery forced one foot in front of the other, climbing the porch steps carefully to keep as much weight off her aching knee as possible.

      She’d better find a painkiller before she passed out for the night because it would be hard to sleep. The front doorknob turned easily. Avery refused to consider how often her mother left the doors unlocked.

      Avery stared up at the flight of stairs that would lead to both the bathroom, home of all medicines in her mother’s house, and her comfy bed. The overwhelming fatigue convinced her to make a quick stop in the living room. She’d eased down and smacked a pillow into the proper shape when her mother stepped inside.

      Knowing her efforts were doomed, Avery nevertheless attempted a diversion. “You don’t care if I sleep on the couch tonight, do you, Mama? My knee’s making its opinion of the stairs clear.” She made sure to wince theatrically when her mother paused in the doorway, her hands braced on her hips, terry robe gaping over a hot-pink sweatshirt. “If you’re wearing sweats, what’s with the robe?” Normally, the woman who wouldn’t step foot outside the front door without lipstick would not be caught outside her home in anything less than easy Saturday chic.

      “Sleep on the couch. That’s fine.” Her mother closed her eyes and Avery waited until the tense silence became too much to bear.

      “And what is with Regina? There’s no way Sam is interested in me.” Avery shoved another pillow under her knee and stretched out on the cushions. “He’s the one who dared me into swimming across Otter Lake in November.” It wasn’t impossible. She’d proved that. But it wasn’t smart. A quick trip to the emergency room for a light touch of hypothermia was a significant reminder. “He’d be