Dom chuckled.

It was an amazing sound.

Erin blinked and suddenly her eyes widened and she looked at him-she really looked at him-and the thought came to her with such blinding clarity it almost hurt.

This guy’s awesome.

And…

I could really, really love this guy.

And…

Stupid or not, I think I already do.

Dom was hugging Martin and smiling, but suddenly his gaze shifted and he was looking at her. Their gazes locked and she knew she ought to look away but she didn’t.

Big, gentle, kind, clever, he was so damned sexy that if the kids weren’t here she could have had him on the spot.

It must be the shock, she thought, stunned. To be thinking of jumping him, right here, right now…it was totally inappropriate.

But, oh, if she could…

He was looking a question. She tried to pull herself together-and failed.

‘I…I…’ She couldn’t think of what to say next.

‘Are you okay?’

‘No,’ she managed. ‘I’m a bit shocked. I’m a bit full of smoke. If…if you don’t mind I need to go see if the house is still standing. It…Maybe it’s important.’

‘We’re all fine,’ Dom said. He couldn’t move. He had his arms full of Martin but Erin was so choked up, the need to leave was imperative. She went to rise but Dom’s hand came out and gripped her wrist, holding her down.

‘You really are okay?’ he demanded, sounding worried.

‘I really am okay,’ she managed. ‘I’m just a bit…a bit…Well, we’re fine. But if you don’t mind, I left my shoes in the house and I need to see if the firemen have saved them.’

‘Your shoes,’ Dom said blankly.

‘And my Easter egg,’ Nathan said from behind them.

‘And my pogo stick,’ Martin whispered.

‘Of course,’ Erin said. ‘See? I need to save shoes and egg and pogo stick.’

‘But-’

‘I need to go, Dom,’ she said, more urgently this time, but then as his hold on her wrist tightened she couldn’t help herself.

She turned to face him, head on. His face was right there. His eyes were on a level with hers. His mouth…

Yeah, okay, his mouth. Inappropriate, inappropriate, inappropriate.

What the hell. He was tugging her closer.

She let herself be tugged.

And kissed.

What had she expected?

A feather kiss? A kiss of reassurance, friendship? It stood not a snowball’s chance in a bushfire of being anything so tame. His kiss-his demanding hold-his touch-were an affirmation of the blast of emotion that had just hit her.

His kiss was…hers.

That’s what it felt like. Here was an unlocked link, an open part of her that had been left free, waiting for the right connection. It was a connection of heat, of want, of need, of everything she’d been waiting for all her life. Here it was, in this one kiss.

In this one man.

Everything faded. Everything.

To an observer maybe the kiss was light. She couldn’t melt against him-Martin was already there. She was somehow kissing him-being kissed-over the top of Martin’s head. But Dom’s kiss was as demanding as hers, taking comfort, taking heat, taking whatever she had to give.

Dom. Her hero.

Her man.

In the last couple of days, her world had been blasted apart. Or maybe her world had been blasted apart twenty or more years ago with the death of her brother and sister, and maybe it had taken until now to come out from under the rubble. Since her siblings’ deaths she’d been drifting, trying to make sense of everything, but nothing quite had. She’d been trying to make herself three people.

But she couldn’t be what she was supposed to be. Her tumble down the cliff had shown her just how stupid that ambition was. She’d nearly died. And now again tonight…This was the only life she had. This was her life. Hers.

And now it felt like she was giving that life away-but gaining so much in return. Dom. A life for a life. It felt right, it felt wonderful, and it felt like the other half of her whole had slipped magically into place.

The kiss extended far past the point where a casual kiss would have stopped. For she couldn’t break the link. Dom was leaning against the fire truck, his arms full of Martin, his legs draped with dog, but he was kissing her just as much as she was kissing him. Their mouths were fused in a searing blast of heat that left the rest of her weak and useless. Every fibre of her being was focused on that kiss.

Somewhere behind them a window broke. The smash of broken glass hauled them out of their thrall. If it hadn’t, maybe they’d still be kissing. For both of them this night had meant terror, and in this kiss both of them had found release.

But it was more than that.

As Erin pulled back she knew it was far, far more than that. But Dom was looking confused, and the boys were looking at her in confusion as well.

‘Kiss us, too,’ Nathan whispered, and she gave a shaky laugh and did just that.

‘Of course. ’Cos we’re great.’ She kissed Nathan on the tip of his nose; she kissed the subdued Martin on the top of his head; and then, for good measure, she kissed Marilyn’s weird, squashed nose as well. ‘We’re all fantastic. Now, if you don’t mind, I really need to go find a pogo stick and some eggs.’

CHAPTER NINE

AMAZINGLY the fire had been contained to one room.

‘It’s all smoke,’ the firefighters told her. ‘The seat of the fire is a store chest. The fire took hold in a pile of acrylic fleece blankets. It’s spread from there but the bed’s iron, the rug’s wool, the bed had woollen blankets on and it’s mostly the fumes from acrylic we’ve been dealing with.’

‘Then there’s no harm…’

‘There nearly was a hell of a lot of harm,’ the chief said. ‘The fire went up the curtains into the ceiling and there’s insulation there that’s melted. The house is choked with poisonous fumes. I’ve sent my men to clear the seat of the fire but they’re all using breathing gear. Thank God for smoke alarms.’

And for Dom, Erin thought, stunned.

‘How the hell did it start?’ he asked. ‘Do you know?’

There was no point in lying. No one was going to charge a six-year-old with criminal damage. She still had one of the firefighter’s blanket draped around her but she was shivering. The last thing she wanted to do was stand and answer questions, but if this man didn’t get the information he wanted from her he’d have to ask Dom, and all Dom’s attention was needed now.

‘Hell, those kids…’ the firefighter said when she’d told him. ‘They’ll be the death of him.’

‘You’ve met them?’

‘A couple of their predecessors,’ the man said grimly. ‘Doc takes on the kids no one else will touch. He and Tansy…’ He paused. ‘That’s right, she’s away at her sister’s. She’ll have Doc’s guts for garters when she comes back. A right little mother she makes. She and Doc are a great pair.’

That didn’t sound good.

Um…what was she thinking? Fire, life-threatening peril, and here she was wondering about the unknown Tansy.

Around them the firefighters were moving in what seemed organised chaos. There were firefighters everywhere. A team was concentrating on the bedroom on the upper left of the house, but others were uncoiling what looked like a vast vacuum hose.

‘What’s that?’

‘A suction tube,’ the man told her. ‘We’ll get the burned stuff out of the house. We’ll check the roof, put any last embers out, then start sucking out smoke.’

‘Tonight?’

‘Straight away. The smoke causes the most damage. And if I know Doc he’ll want to stay here. He always does. He hates farming his kids out.’

‘You mean this has happened before?’

‘One of his kids stabbed him once,’ the man said, watching the vacuum hose disappear inside the front door. ‘Doc needed fifteen stitches but he wouldn’t go to hospital. Nor would he let the cops take the kid away. The lad was only eight. The cops called us ’cos he’d locked himself in his room and was threatening to set the place on fire, but by the time we got here Doc had talked him out and was hugging him. Blood and all. Can you believe that? The kid’s been reunited with his mother now and last I heard was doing okay. He and his mum still visit. Lots of Doc’s kids still do.’

‘How many?’ Erin said faintly.

‘God knows,’ the man said. ‘All I know is that he and Tansy are heroes. I wish to hell we could get another doctor for the town so he had more time to spare. Now, if you’ll excuse me, miss, I need to suck smoke.’

‘I wish to hell we could get another doctor for the town so he had more time to spare…’

This was not the time to be thinking career moves. But the tiny idea had seeded itself already. The firefighter’s words made it grow.

Her shoes were fine. As was Nathan’s egg and Martin’s pogo stick. Two hours later the house still stank of smoke but it was deemed no longer dangerous. The bedroom where Martin had lit the fire-Tansy’s room-would need major work, but with its door not only closed but sealed so no smell could escape, the house started seeming like home again.

Dom had fielded twenty offers of accommodation that she’d heard, but she’d given up counting.

He’d knocked them all back.

‘Once the smoke is clear we’ll get back inside,’ he explained. ‘It’ll be better for the kids not to move.’

Dom must be feeling weak at the knees himself, Erin thought as she watched him deflect offers, but he wasn’t putting Martin down. The little boy was slumped on his shoulder. Erin wasn’t sure whether he was asleep or not, but every time the voices round them rose, she saw Dom’s arm round him tighten.

With his other hand he held Nathan. He didn’t let them go, once.

‘We’re home here,’ he said, over and over, trying to make his voice normal. ‘The smoke makes everything seem worse than it is. But we’re fine.’