Loved By The Hero (Hero Romance 3) Read Online Free Page B

pulled up a box with six donuts and leaned over the center console to grab a cup holder with coffee. Elaine didn’t have to ask why he had been driving slowly anymore.
    “Can you read my mind, Ethan Mack? I mean, did you wake up this morning and know I was going to tell you we needed to talk?”
    “You seemed conflicted last night, so I figured you would want to talk this morning. Besides, if we weren’t going to talk, we were going to do something else out here.”
    “It’s thirty-two degrees out there!” Elaine exclaimed as she took her lukewarm coffee. It smelled like peppermint and her mouth began to water.
    “It feels pretty warm when I’m between your-”
    “Enough,” she chastised after she swallowed her mouthful of coffee. She smiled at him to soften the blow of her words, and he smiled back mischievously. “I want to talk about Thomas, and-” she stopped as she closed her eyes and tried to get rid of the anger building. “Trey,” she finished quietly.
    Ethan didn’t say a word as he waited for her to begin. He didn’t sip his coffee either, so she knew she had his full attention. “My husband died in a fire. I’m sure you know that from around town, and I’m sure that you know it was a foolish death.”
    “Foolish is a strong word,” Ethan told her quietly.
    “He ran into a building to save a coworker when he knew he had a young son and a wife at home.” There it was, the anger boiling to the surface. She tamped it down and swallowed, but it wasn’t staying down for long. “He put his life at risk and he lost, Ethan. He left me alone with our little boy and put a man’s life at risk and that man almost lost it. He almost died trying to save my husband. If he had stayed outside, that woman might have lived or she may not have, but he would have lived. He would have been able to see his son graduate high school and go off to college. Get married.
    Thomas and I, we’ve been doing okay because Thomas was little and doesn’t remember the weeks that followed after his father’s death. But he knows the loss of his father every day. I can’t bring a man into his life knowing that that man might leave us someday, too. I don’t want him to go through that again, whether he knows it or not.”
    Elaine bit her bottom lip to quiet her rambling thoughts and raised the coffee to her lips, but she didn’t drink it. She knew it would sit sour in her stomach if she did. Ethan was looking out the windshield of his car with his coffee between his legs. When she looked over at him, she found she admired the strength he possessed. Then she got to his face and saw the ticking in his jaw.
    “I didn’t know how to bring it up, but I think it’s about time I told you. Your mother, she came to visit me in the hospital. I didn’t recognize her, but my mother did. She was there while I was in a coma fighting for my life. The scars on my back? They’re from the burns I suffered running into a burning building. I think-” Ethan stopped mid-sentence and pinched the bridge of his nose. “I think that building was the one your husband was in, Elaine. I think I’m the man who risked his life to save another man’s life, and I don’t want you to ever feel guilty for that. You should never feel that way because I go to work every day knowing I might risk my life for a stranger’s. That’s a risk I take, and I’d gladly have given up my life to save his. I’d switch places right now with him to know that Thomas would have his father back and that you would have your husband back.
    I can’t replace him, but I can tell you that I’d never intentionally hurt you or Thomas.”
    Somewhere, deep down inside, she had known it. She had known it the moment her hands had run over those scars, not as vibrant as they must have been a few years ago, but they were still there. He never took his shirt off facing away from her, and now she knew it was because he must have felt ashamed. He must have felt guilty for not