Love's Kindled Flame

By: Mary Manners | Other books by Mary Manners
Categories: Mainstream Romance, Contemporary, Short Stories
Word Count: 3,669
Heat Level: SWEET
Published By: Pelican Book Group

 

After the death of her husband, Jeanne doesn't think she'll ever find love again--not with three rambunctious sons in tow, but when a fireman, Ryan Palmer comes to her rescue, she learns that triumph--and love--sometimes really does follow tragedy.







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Love
Love's Kindled Flame

Available in: Adobe Acrobat

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Excerpt

Jeanne juggled Tommy in one hand and a sack of groceries in the other. Tommy’s diaper needed changing…the soggy mess leaked onto her sunflower-yellow cotton blouse, leaving a wet spot. His sweaty head lolled against her chest, a tiny thumb stuffed in his mouth as he continued to nap through the chaos of car doors slamming and his brothers scrambling up the sidewalk.

“Jackson, can you and Seth please each grab a bag of groceries from the trunk and carry them into the house?”

“I can get them both, Mama.” Seth bowed his chest and craned his neck just a bit higher. “I’m a big boy now and Jackson’s arm’s still bandaged.”

“It doesn’t hurt no more,” Jackson piped up, rubbing the offensive bandage that wrapped his forearm from wrist to elbow. “At least not too much.”

“It doesn’t hurt anymore,” Jeanne corrected as she rushed up the walk. “And you can each carry one bag. Hurry inside. I have to run ahead and change Tommy’s diaper.”

“OK, Mama.”

Tommy began to squirm in her arms as he woke from a nap, and Jeanne hurried through the living room to the kitchen. The strong odor of charred wood and melted wiring burned her sinuses as she dropped her sack of groceries on the counter closest to the doorway—the only corner of the kitchen that had been left unscathed by the blaze that flared up when Jackson tried to boil soup on his own nearly two weeks ago. A quick survey of the room told her the fire had really happened—the fire that had singed the tender flesh on Jackson’s arm and reduced their quaint little kitchen to a gutted, charred mess.

“Mama, look who’s here.” Jackson rushed around her and dropped his sack on the floor. “’Member Mr. Ryan from the fire department?”

Jeanne turned to find Ryan Palmer standing in the doorway. Of course, she remembered him…the soft-spoken, take-charge firefighter with intense blue eyes and unruly waves of black hair.