“He was a hero to you.”

“Before and after. He was an instructor at the Quinn and when I was a kid, I used to worry that when I signed up for CFD, he’d treat me like shit. Or worse, take it easy on me. But by the time I made it there, he was gone and he never got to see me in bunker gear.” Luke said he wouldn’t have let her join if he’d lived. It crushed her to think she might never have been good enough in her father’s eyes.

“Eli, heroes don’t all wear capes or fire helmets or badges. They also wear dog tags.” Sometimes she forgot how much this man had given already, between his service to his country and the loss of his parents. “Some of them even wear suits. In fact, I’m going to tell you something I swore I would take to my grave.”

She bit down on her lip, and pushed out quickly, “I voted for you in the last election. Partly because you’re hot enough to melt butter and I’m shallow like that. Partly because you had good ideas and I wanted to see things change. But mostly because of Sean and Logan.”

Something unnameable melted the ice in those eyes, but all he said was, “Alexandra.”

Emotion reigned in her chest. “Whenever I saw you on TV talking about your parents, I recognized someone who understood what I had been through. Losing people we loved in the line of duty. I had never met you and I never expected to, but we had this terrible, beautiful thing in common.” She took his hand and placed it over her breast, trying to tell him with her hammering heartbeat what words seemed inadequate to convey. “My heart stopped beating the day they died, and my family kick-started it again. I know you’re this amazing problem solver and that for the longest time, you’ve managed alone, but if you ever need to talk about it, any of it, I’m here.”

Even when they were no longer they.

Thoughts chased each other across his face before finally settling on a pain that seared her. How had it come to this, where the idea of hurting this man made her chest ache like fire?

“You think you can save me, Alexandra?”

She rubbed her nose against his. “I know I already did.”

He merely smiled at that, the heartbreakingly sexy grin that didn’t just short-circuit her brain but also jerked her heart around her chest like a pinball. Yesterday, she had helped to bring a new life into the world. Witnessing the child’s first breath, a warm puff against the frigid winter air, had filled Alex with a thundering sense of wonder. She felt it again now, the possibilities of life and love.

Eli Cooper might not have her vote this time around, but he had something far more valuable. Her heart.

The wily, manipulative bastard.

 CHAPTER TWENTY

Alex walked into the firehouse, tripping like a schoolgirl through a field of daisies. Feeling that swoop in her stomach that could mean only one thing.

She was in love.

Desperately, hopelessly, draw-hearts-in-dusty-surfaces in love. And boy, did she know how to pick ’em.

Eli Cooper was not the kind of man a girl should fall in love with. Oh, she acknowledged he was exactly the type of hunk women the world over would give their left tit for a chance to kneel at his feet. Which she had, many times. And she didn’t have to surrender any body parts.

But he was bad news for her because he could not be tamed. Put a woman who believed fiercely in the power of love at loggerheads with a man who thinks love exposes him to potential betrayal and the math was always going to be fuzzy. He might have done a smash-and-grab of her heart, but he didn’t love her, maybe never could. Yet . . . She wanted to believe that beneath that jaded exterior there existed a heart that wanted to beat again. She felt these deep pockets of sadness in him, voids she knew she could fill if he’d let her.

At the Wall of the Fallen, she darted a quick glance up and down the corridor and assured herself she was alone. With fingertips to her lips, she transferred a kiss first to the framed photo of her oldest brother, Logan, and then to Sean.

Smiling to herself, she headed to the locker room, passing a couple of the A shift on their way out. They smirked, and one of them muttered something that sounded like, “Gets around.”

“What’s that?”

They exchanged smartass glances and kept walking. Weird. In the locker room, all eyes shot to hers: Derek, Murphy, and Wy.

“Good work, Dempsey,” Murphy said with a sneer. “The union’s endorsed your boyfriend, so I guess you’ll be getting some extraspecial attention tonight. Looks like you’ll need it after that newspaper article.”

“Shut it,” Wy said to Murphy before waylaying Alex with a strong hand cupping her elbow. “With me. Now.”

“What’s wrong? What newspaper article?” She let him steer her to the shower room.

“Been tryin’ to call you.”

Her phone was . . . shit, on Eli’s nightstand. This morning, she’d gone to grab it and he’d gone to grab her and now, no phone. “My battery’s dead. What’s up?”

Was he pissed about Local 2 coming down on Eli’s side? She wasn’t even sure how she felt about it, except that it was one more stepping-stone to victory for Eli and one step closer to when she’d be no use to him. So yeah, it sucked donkey balls.

“There’s somethin’ online about you,” Wy said. “About your dating.”

“My dating?”

He grimaced. “Online gossip shit. But I just wanted to warn you because it’s not nice.”

“Show me.”

He pulled up his phone to the Red Eye site, a division of the Chicago Tribune, Sam Cochrane’s paper. Uh-oh. She froze as he tapped a few links out. “No matter what happens, we’re behind you, Alex.”

She was a visual person so she went for the pics first. So many of them, some better quality than others, but all of them weaving a sordid tapestry with one damning conclusion.

Alex Dempsey went on a lot of dates. It seemed like every instance of her talking with a guy in a bar or breaking bread with a man had been captured and collaged. Hands shaking, she swiped through photos with captions like: A cozy pizza night—what are his favorite toppings? In that one, her date was caught ogling her breasts (they were spectacular!). Another memorialized that super awesome time she’d spilled a drink on her T-shirt. If you squinted, you might see some damp nipple action, which apparently was enough to earn the provocative caption: Find ’em hot, leave ’em wet—an old firefighter maxim.

She’d seen some of them before in the wake of her brief spell as a D-list celeb last summer. Haters gonna hate and all that. She shrugged off her embarrassment. The gutter rags had forgotten that she had sat through every one of those miserable dates, and as itchy as this made her feel, it would take more than a few boob jokes to derail her.

“So what? I had to expect I’d get a few hits since I’ve been dating Eli.”

“Dating. Eli.” Said with all the portent of doom those words inspired in a Dempsey.

“Doing this publicity thing,” she amended quickly.

“Maybe you should read it.”

She readjusted her focus and scrolled back up to the top. A chill stole across her skin at the headline.

America’s Favorite Firefighter Earns Her Title

Quickly she swiped down to the text.

Look who’s been seen out on the town with a variety of suitors over the last year. A regular on the Chicago singles scene and dating websites, Firefighter Alex Dempsey plays hard and dates harder. Whether she works hard, who knows, but CFD’s 24-on/48-off schedule gives her plenty of time to meet and flirt with customers at her family’s bar, Dempsey’s on Damen. Seems she’s found the perfect way to relax—with as many men as possible. Is she offering to clean their hoses or does she reserve those talents for Mr. Mayor?