Flashback Read Online Free Page A

close-distance relationship, and he’d told himself he had no choice but to break things off, even though that had really just been an excuse.
    He’d broken things off because she’d scared him, she’d scared him deep. And apparently, given the hard kick his heart gave his ribs, she still did.
    She’d been able to get inside him, make him feel things that hadn’t been welcome, and, yeah, he’d run like a little girl.
    He felt like running now.
    But this time it was Kenzie who turned away. Dustin unfolded a blanket and wrapped it around her shoulders, while Brooke checked her pupils, then dabbed at the various cuts on her face.
    Kenzie sat still, eyes closed now, looking starkly pale but alive.
    Alive was good.
    She huddled beneath the blanket, cradling a wrist, nodding to something Brooke asked her. Aidan knew that Brooke and Dustin, both close friends, would take good care of her. They took good care of everyone, which meant that Kenzie was in the very best hands.
    Still in the thick of the organized chaos around him, Aidan took a second to let his gaze sweep over her. She really did seem as okay as he could hope for, and he told himself to turn away.
    He was good at that. After all, he’d learned to do so at a young age from his own family, who’d shuffled him around more than a deck of cards on poker night. Yeah, he was good at walking away. Or at least good at pretending he didn’t care when others walked away from him.
    And after all, he’d done the same to her.
    God, he’d been cruel to her all those years ago. Not that he’d meant to be. Going through the academy had been a life lesson for him. He could belong to a “family.” He could make long-lasting friends. He could love someone with all his heart.
    But loving his fellow firefighters like the brothers they’d become was one thing.
    Loving Kenzie had been another entirely.
    Since she’d left, he’d seen her only on TV. As a rule, he didn’t watch soaps. He didn’t watch much TV at all, actually. If he wasn’t working, he was renovating the fixer-upper house he’d bought last year, emphasis on fixer-upper. If he wasn’t doing that, he was playing basketball, or something else that didn’t cost any money because the fixer-upper had eaten his savings.
    But there’d been the occasional night where he’d sat himself in front of a game and caught a promo for Kenzie’s soap. There’d also been the few times at the station where one of the guys had flipped on the TV during her show.
    Three times exactly—and yeah, he remembered each and every one. The first had been five years ago, and she’d been wearing the teeniest, tiniest, blackest, stringiest bikini in the history of teeny-tiny black string bikinis, her hair piled haphazardly on top of her head with a few wild curls escaping, looking outrageously sexy as she’d seduced her on-screen lover. It’d taken him a few attempts to get the channel changed, and even then it hadn’t mattered. That bikini had stuck with him for a good long while.
    The second time had been a few Christmases back. She’d been wearing a siren-red, slinky evening dress designed to drive men absolutely wild. She’d been standing beneath some mistletoe, looking up at some “stud of the month.” Aidan hadn’t been any quicker with the remote that time, and had watched the entire, agonizing kiss.
    The third time had been for the daytime Emmys. She’d accepted her award, thanking Blake for always believing in her, and then had thanked some guy named Chad.
    Chad.
    What kind of a name was Chad?
    And where was Chad now, huh? Certainly not hauling her off a burning boat and saving her cute little ass. Guys named Chad probably only swam when playing water polo.
    In the ambulance, Dustin said something to Kenzie, and she opened her eyes, flashing a very brief smile, but it was enough.
    She was okay.
    Aidan