Flash Point (Kilgore Fire Book 2) Read online

  Text copyright © 2015 Lani Lynn Vale

  All Rights Reserved

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the author. The only exception is by a reviewer, who may quote short excerpts in a review.

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Dedication

  To my family- without y’all, I would have no reason to write. Without y’all, I’d never have picked up my first book.

  Love y’all.

  Acknowledgements

  FuriousFotog AKA Golden Czermak: As always, thank you for giving me such a beautiful photo to work with.

  Quinn Biddle: You are absolutely stunning. Thank you so much for letting Golden take such awesome photos of you.

  Asli- I think you get just as excited as my mom does now to read these. Thank you for loving them like I do.

  Danielle- I’ve made a true friend in you, and I thank you for everything you’ve ever done for me.

  Other titles by Lani Lynn Vale:

  The Freebirds

  Boomtown

  Highway Don’t Care

  Another One Bites the Dust

  Last Day of My Life

  Texas Tornado

  I Don’t Dance

  The Heroes of The Dixie Wardens MC

  Lights To My Siren

  Halligan To My Axe

  Kevlar To My Vest

  Keys To My Cuffs

  Life To My Flight

  Charge To My Line

  Counter To My Intelligence

  Right To My Wrong

  Code 11- KPD SWAT

  Center Mass

  Double Tap

  Bang Switch

  Execution Style

  Charlie Foxtrot

  Kill Shot

  Coup De Grace

  The Uncertain Saints

  Whiskey Neat

  Jack & Coke

  Vodka On The Rocks (7-6-16)

  The Kilgore Fire Series

  Shock Advised

  Flash Point

  Oxygen Deprived (8-4-16)

  I Like Big Dragons

  I Like Big Dragons and I Cannot Lie (8-18-16)

  Table of Contents

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Epilogue

  What’s next?

  Bonus Story

  Prologue

  Crash and burn.

  -Coffee Cup

  Masen

  There are times when you realize you’ve screwed up…and there are times when you realize that you’ve broken something so perfectly that it will never be the same.

  I couldn’t say that what I’d done was on purpose, but I knew only a few short hours after it happened—when my sister was on the brink of death—that I’d screwed up.

  I’d lashed out in grief.

  I’d done something that would never be able to be fixed…not without him giving me another chance.

  And that chance was long gone.

  Booth, my boyfriend…now ex-boyfriend…would never give me another one.

  Not after the ugly things I’d said to him.

  Not after that.

  I closed my eyes as tears of frustration poured down my face.

  “What’d you say?” My big sister rasped, her breathing so harsh and ragged that I was scared to look at her.

  “I said some ugly things…I should’ve,” I shook my head. “I should’ve been more understanding. I know he tried.”

  “What’d you say?” Daniela asked again.

  The breath in her lungs rattled her chest as she inhaled and exhaled.

  I looked over at her finally, my heart squeezing in my chest as I did.

  “I told him I never wanted to see him again, and that,” I choked. “That I didn’t love him anymore.”

  My sister’s eyes closed as she exhaled.

  “I know you’re scared,” she said in such a soft voice that I could barely hear her. “But you’re going to need him.”

  My throat swelled, and I felt like I could barely breathe.

  “I know,” I cried, tears rolling down my cheeks in torrents now.

  I laid my head down on the bed next to her hand, and she lifted it up to place it on my head, sifting her fingers lightly through my hair.

  My sister was my best friend.

  And she was dying.

  Doctors didn’t think she’d make it past this weekend.

  And that’d been what I’d called Booth about.

  I’d been so happy to hear his voice, that low, deep rumble that I hadn’t heard in over a month and a half.

  But that quickly fell apart when he said he couldn’t come home. That they wouldn’t let him.

  He’d sounded distraught.

  And maybe he was.

  But I was dying inside.

  My heart was literally breaking into a million tiny pieces.

  My sister’s breathing was shallow now.

  It wouldn’t be long.

  She’d likely not make it through the night.

  At least that was what the nurse said that came to check on her an hour ago.

  We were to call her as soon as we thought it’d gotten to the point of no return.

  How do you know what the point of no return is?

  Is it just something that you instinctually ‘know?’

  Is it something that’ll just be my guess?

  My sister had Cystic Fibrosis.

  She was diagnosed with it when she was five and had a life expectancy of thirty-one years.

  Except she wasn’t going to make it.

  Nowhere close, actually.

  She was twenty-two. The same age as Booth.

  Booth and my sister had actually been friends, but the moment we made eye contact, the rest had been history. He’d been mine for two years, much to my mother and father’s chagrin, at first anyway. Now they didn’t much care about the age difference. Then, they did.

  Well, not anymore.

  A wet cough had me looking back up at my sister, studying her face.

  Her color was nearly gray, and I knew it wouldn’t be long now.

  She’d caught an infection, and she’d been in and out of the hospital for the last three weeks.

  They’d finally told her that there was nothing else they could do but put her on a respirator, and Daniela had decided to come home instead.

  Come home to die.

  The bedroom door opened and I turned to see my mother and father come in holding hands.

  “Sorry it took us so long,” my mom said. “The car had a flat.”

  Our car was falling apart.

  Daniela’s medical bills were killing my parents, but they’d never complain.

  We’d been running on tires that were so bald that they were illegal, and we all knew it.

  But there was nothing we could do.

  I was working full time but had taken off for a week.

  My mom and dad worked at the hospital.

  My dad was an X-ray tech and my mom was a billing specialist.

  They worked the same shift, and it was good that they did or they wouldn’t be able to have only one vehicle.

  “I love you,” my sister said. “I love you all.”

  Two hours later, my sister took one final rattling breath and died.

  ***

  I stared at the plot of dirt, heartbroken and sick to my stomach.

  My parents were on either side of me, their arms wrapped around my chest and shoulders.

  “I miss her,” I whispered to them.

  My mother gasped as a sob wracked her body.

  “I do, too.”

  My father’s lips pressed against my hair, and it was all I could do not to cry.

  I wish you were here, Booth.

  ***

  Four months later

  I waited at the airport gate for him.

  But he never showed.

  Everyone else did.

  But him.

  He never came.

  My eyes fell on Aaron. His best friend since he was in fourth grade.

  “What’s going on?” I asked Aaron.

  His eyes were cold.

  “Why do you care?” He snapped.

  I stepped back at the harshness in his voice.

  It was more than evident that Aaron wasn’t happy with me.

  “I…I…” I closed my eyes. “I need him.”

  Aaron laughed.

  It sounded hideous and wrong. Not the Aaron I was used to.

  “You
need him?” Aaron asked. “Well that was more than obvious when you broke up with him in the middle of his fucking deployment.”

  A tear slipped out of my eye.

  “I didn’t mean it,” I said. “I didn’t mean it.”

  Aaron’s hand touched me lightly on the cheek.

  “Well, he thought you meant it. And that’s why he’s currently trying to kill himself,” Aaron said bluntly.

  “What?” I gasped, grabbing onto his hand in desperation.

  Aaron looked down at me with cool eyes.

  Not the same ones that used to look at me with laughter and happiness when he saw me with his best friend.

  “He stayed,” he said. “The unit that replaced us lost their medic to an IED the first day they were there,” he swallowed. “Booth volunteered to stay.”

  My mouth gaped open.

  “He did what?” I whispered in agony.

  Aaron nodded and pulled his hand away from mine.

  “You broke him, baby girl,” he said. “Now you get to watch while he tries every trick in the book not to leave that place alive.”

  I sat down heavily on the first chair that I could, watching Aaron’s back as he hurried away.

  My mind was all the way across the world, though.

  With Booth.

  With the man that I’d broken.

  I dropped my head and stared at my shoes.

  You broke him, baby girl. Now you get to watch while he tries every trick in the book not to leave that place alive.

  ***

  2 years later

  Twenty years old

  I wasn’t dressed well.

  I was in sweat pants, a long sleeved t-shirt of Booth’s, and flip flops.

  My hair was a ragged mess that needed washed three days ago.

  I’d just taken my nursing final and was walking to my car from the school when I looked up and saw him.

  Booth.

  I hadn’t seen him in two years.

  He’d done everything he could to ignore me.

  In fact, this was the first time I’d seen him in all that time.

  Even though I’d called him. Wrote him letters.

  I was pretty sure his mom hated me.

  Not that she’d ever treat me unfairly.

  But I could see it in her eyes.

  She blamed me for her son not coming home.

  So it was unbelievable that he was currently standing in front of me, leaning against my Jeep.

  My heart started to pound, and my breathing started to come in panicky breaths.

  My feet itched to run towards him.

  I came to a stop two parking spaces away from him.

  He watched me.

  I watched him.

  Neither of us spoke.

  Then he opened his arms, and I started running.

  I hit him with the full force of my body, slamming into him so hard that he went back a step into the Jeep’s door.

  My arms wrapped around his neck as my legs circled his hips.

  One of his hands went to my ass while the other arm banded tightly around my lower back.

  Raucous calls rose around us, but I didn’t pay them any mind as I buried my face into the skin of his neck and cried.

  This was two years past due.

  And I had not gotten over him.

  Not even a little bit.

  “Come home with me,” I whispered into his neck.

  He growled and opened my Jeep door with practiced ease, pushing me over to the passenger side as he got into the driver’s side.

  He started the Jeep after I handed him the keys, and we drove to my place in silence.

  I didn’t bother asking him how he knew where I lived.

  The man was Booth, after all.

  All he had to do was ask his brother…my mother…or his mother for that matter.

  Oh hell, anyone in town.

  I watched him shift the Jeep. Watched the muscles in his arms flex and bunch.

  His jaw was set tight, and he hadn’t said a word.

  I closed my eyes and reached for his hand.

  He clasped mine tight the moment our skin met.

  He drove like that all the way to my apartment, even going as far as to pull into my driveway.

  I got out, unsurprised to find him leading the way.

  And the moment we got over the threshold of my apartment, he was on me.

  Two years of sexual frustration exploded out from both of us.

  Mouths collided. Skin was scratched.

  Teeth clicked.

  I closed my eyes as arousal bombarded me like a sledgehammer to the stomach.

  Booth’s hands trailed down my back, skimming over the softness of his t-shirt, then dipped down into my pants without the slightest bit of hesitation.

  “Take me,” I urged.

  His hands went to my pants, yanking them down my legs all the while holding me aloft with his powerful upper body, pinning me between him and the door.

  And he still hadn’t said a word.

  Is it weird?

  No, not really.

  Booth was never talkative.

  I swear I only got ‘I love you’ out of him all of five times in our entire two-year relationship.

  But when I did get those words? It made it all the sweeter.

  His mouth came down on mine then, and I lost control.

  Clothes were gone, pants were shucked. Shoes were kicked across the room.

  Booth’s hands were everywhere all at once, and I started frantically grinding myself against his taut, washboard abs.

  He growled something so low I couldn’t make it out, then he dropped down to his knees, looping one leg around his shoulders before he buried his face into my pussy.

  I’d never, not ever, felt something like this. Sometime so primal and full of need.

  Partly because I’d been seeing Booth since I was sixteen.

  And although I hadn’t seen him in two years, I still felt like I belonged to him.

  I was his. Irrevocably.

  And when my orgasm hit me, I was lost.

  In him.

  In our own little world.

  The next few hours continued much the same way.

  And when next I woke, he was gone.

  Without a word.

  And I was left with a hole in my heart.

  He’d said he couldn’t stay. A few of the only words I’d gotten all night.

  Granted, his mouth had been extremely busy, but I’d at least expected a goodbye.

  I took in a deep breath, smelling the soft scent of his cologne on the bed surrounding me.

  And I knew that we were done.

  So done it wasn’t even funny.

  I’d broken him.

  He’d put on a good game face, but if he’d been whole, he would’ve stayed.

  He wouldn’t have gone back to that place…that place that threatened to take him from me every second of every day he was there.

  I pulled the shirt that he’d worn last night into my chest.

  He’d taken back the other one I’d worn to class, I noticed, and left me with this one.

  It smelled like him.

  Closing my eyes, I cried.

  Chapter 1

  Who knew that tight jeans on a woman would make my jeans tighter?

  -Booth’s observations

  Booth

  I was a dumbass.

  I was going to get my heart broken again.

  But I’d almost died—for the eighth time—and I needed to figure out my life.

  I couldn’t keep going as fast and hard as I had been going.

  My body physically couldn’t take it.

  I was thirty years old, almost thirty-one, and I just didn’t heal like I used to.

  What I was able to do when I was twenty was completely different than what I was able to do at thirty.

  I’d been in the military now for ten long years, and I’d been avoiding this for too long.

  Way too long.

  A blonde giant of a man came into the room where I was standing and offered his hand to me.

  “Luke Roberts,” he said.

  “Michael Jones. My friends call me Booth,” I introduced myself.

  “Your brother recommended you highly,” Luke shook my hand and let go.

  The door to the room opened and an older man walked in.

  “Sorry I’m late. My wife decided she needed me to fix a light before I could leave,” the man apologized.

  I blinked.

  “My name’s Allen Shepherd. I’m the Fire Chief for Kilgore,” he greeted me, offering his hand.