“I mean I’m not picky, I would take her to bed. I just might need to put a bag over her head first or something.”

That sent the rest of the guys rolling in laughter as the ground beneath me fell away and a sob caught in my throat. How could I have been so incredibly wrong about someone? Any hope, any thought that he was different—that any pretty boy could be different—was annihilated with those hateful, harsh words. Words that forever changed the way I looked at the opposite sex.

Nash Donovan was a beautiful, wicked, and hot flame that burned me when I got too close. He was just the first stop in a journey dotted by disappointment, but somewhere along the way I found my footing. My purpose. I just didn’t know that as soon as I did, Nash would manage to turn my world upside down all over again, and only a fool gets burned twice by the same fire.

Thanksgiving … Eight years later

My fully restored Dodge Charger was eating up the highway as I raced through the cold Colorado night. The massive engine was growling angrily in time with my thundering heart and light flurries of snow dotting the windshield, so I could blame the rapid blinking of my eyes on trying to see through the nasty road conditions and not the emotion threatening to overtake me. None of it registered, neither did the fact that I had to be pushing 120 and that terrified holiday traffic was undoubtedly scrambling to get out of my way. I was in such a fog, such a state of disbelief, that I felt numb and barely aware of what was going on around me. I had just found my uncle Phil, the one and only parental figure I had in my life, unconscious on the floor of his hunting cabin. He was cold and still. He looked like a skeleton, skin stretched over bones that appeared far too fragile. I was racing the “Flight for Life” the park rangers had called in to airlift him to the emergency room in Denver.

Just to add to the danger of the speeds I was traveling and the way my mind was on anything but the road in front of me, I put in a panicked call to Cora Lewis, my coworker and close friend. She was all kinds of take care of business and would rally the troops and get everyone else that mattered the information they needed without me having to worry about it. She would help take care of me, she always did.

I made it to the hospital in record time and surged into the emergency room on a tidal wave of anxiety and fear. I was more familiar with these institutional and sterile walls than I wanted to be—one of my closest friends, my surrogate big brother Rome Archer, had tangled with a bunch of bikers and a bunch of bullets not too long ago and I had spent hours upon hours nervously pacing these very halls waiting to see if he was going to pull through. But right now this visit felt like it might define the rest of my life. The security guard gave me a concerned look. I was used to it. When you had yellow, orange, and red fire tattooed along each side of your scalp and had ink from your collar to your wrist on each arm, people tended to think you weren’t really a very nice guy. Funny thing was that I was typically a lot nicer than most of the guys I loved like brothers, but not right now, and if the nurse who sat behind the desk didn’t tell me where my uncle was in the next second I was going to straight up lose my shit.

I was just about to breathe fire way hotter than the kind inked all over me when I saw her walking toward me. She looked like an angel, even though her name was Saint. It fit her, Saint Ford, healer of the sick and hater of anything and everything having to do with Nash Donovan. She was beautiful, breathtaking, absolutely despised me, and made no secret about it. I had run into her more than once on my unfortunately frequent trips to this ER, where she seemed to be a permanent fixture as one of the attending nurses.

We had gone to high school together years ago, and while I was all for striking up a reunion of sorts, she was having none of it. She made a big production of avoiding me, or giving me nervous, sideways looks like she didn’t trust me or was forced to endure my company. Only right now, in this moment, she was looking at me with equal parts compassion and seriousness in her soft, dove-gray eyes. It left no doubt whatsoever that things with Phil were really, really bad.

She put a hand on my shoulder and I felt like I was going to shatter under the gentle touch.

“Nash …” Her voice was light and I could hear the bad news in it. “Come over here and talk to me for just a minute.”

I didn’t want to. I didn’t want to hear whatever horrible words she was going to have to say to me, but because she was so pretty, because she had the loveliest eyes I had ever seen, I just numbly did what she asked. There were worse people to take bad news from.

We took a few steps away from the nurses’ desk, and I gazed down at her with trepidation. She was fairly tall for a girl, so we were eye to eye when she leveled it at me in a feather-soft voice speaking rock-hard words.

“Did you know Phil was so sick?”

I felt like she was asking me as a friend, or someone who actually cared about what was happening, and not as a medical professional. I knew logically she was just doing her job, but it made me feel better to pretend otherwise.

I didn’t have any words that sounded or felt right to answer her, so I shook my head.

“I recognized the name on the intake paperwork and the two of you look an awful lot alike. I figured I might find you out here.”

I gulped down my thundering heartbeat and nodded my head stiffly. “He’s my only family.” That wasn’t entirely true, but he was the only family I had that really mattered to me.

She sighed and I tried not to flinch when she put a hand on my cheek. I knew she didn’t like me, and for some reason that made the fact that she was being so considerate, so caring, hit home that whatever she was getting ready to lay out for me was way worse than I had imagined.

“He has lung cancer … the doctors are thinking stage four. He has an extensive medical chart. He’s been receiving treatment for a while. We got him settled, gave him fluids, he might have pneumonia, so that’s why he’s struggling to breathe, and his oxygen levels are dangerously low. We aren’t a hundred percent sure why he was unresponsive just yet, but we’re trying to get him awake. The attending doctor called the oncologist that was listed in Phil’s chart. It’s a serious situation, Nash. I can’t believe he didn’t let you know how ill he was.”

I let my head drop on my neck like it was suddenly just too heavy to hold up and her gentle fingers stroked along my cheek. It was startlingly soothing.

“He’s been avoiding me.” It sounded pathetic to my own ears.

She was going to say something else when a tiny, pregnant pixie and a hulking giant came thundering into the room where we were standing. I didn’t recognize the older guy that entered with them, but he had an intent look on his face that was almost scary. He took one look around the empty waiting room and turned on his heel in a way that made it seem like he was on a hunt for information or someone that had answers. The cavalry had arrived. Saint went to pull away and I instinctively grabbed her wrist. I needed my friends, loved my crew of misfits and rebels, but right now I needed her more. I couldn’t explain it. She gave me a wan grin and tugged her arm free.

“I’m gonna go check on him and see if we managed to get him awake so that you can see him. Nash … you should consider quitting smoking.”

The last of her words trailed away as I was steamrolled by a punk-rock pixie and engulfed in a hug I needed like no one’s business. I let Cora do her magic and try and make me feel better. I also let the quiet strength and steady assuredness of the guy I considered my older brother try and ground me. Rome Archer was a rock and I needed that kind of stability as my world was shaking around me.