The Magnolia Sisters (Magnolia Sisters #1) - Michelle Major Page 0,63

the truck. “Were we ever like that?” He turned to Lucas. “Please tell me we were never like that.”

“Nope,” Lucas confirmed. “You’re too soft to be a player, and I’ve been hung up on Jennie since fourth grade.”

“I’m not soft.”

“Like a damn marshmallow.”

Gray opened his mouth to argue, then snapped it shut again and slammed shut the ladder truck’s side door with more force than necessary. Was that why Avery had cut him off before they’d really begun? He could talk a big game about keeping things casual, but that wasn’t what he did.

“She’s not mine,” he mumbled when Lucas continued to study him.

“But you want her to be.”

“It’s better this way.”

“Man, no.” Lucas shook his head. “I told myself that line for years with Jen. Even believed it for a while. That never made it the truth.”

“You two are different.” Gray waved a hand in the air. “You’re, like, destiny or something. Avery is just another woman who’s wrong for me and out of my league on all the levels.”

“So, right up your alley?”

Gray was about to tell his friend exactly where he could shove his sense of humor when the dispatcher’s voice came over the loudspeaker, calling the company out to a house fire. The main alarm sounded and the crew rushed toward the engine. After donning their gear, Lucas climbed into the driver’s side and Gray got in next to him, all thoughts of joking set aside as he hit the siren knob and the truck headed out.

“It’s the Davidson farm,” Gray muttered as they turned the corner onto the county highway leading out of town. “What’s Mason gotten himself into this time?”

This wasn’t the only call they’d had to the thirty-acre property on the outskirts of town. Mason Davidson was pushing ninety, a third-generation local to Magnolia. His wife had died two years prior, and since then he’d called the station directly at least a half dozen times, most of them for noncrisis issues that he deemed urgent. But it was the first report of a fire they’d received and Gray hated to think the older man had a true emergency.

He cursed as they drew closer to the property. Even from the two-lane road that bordered the fields, he could see dark clouds of smoke wafting up from the old farmhouse. No flames were visible against the blue sky, but where there was smoke...

“Are you ready?” Lucas asked as he turned into the driveway.

Gray nodded, adrenaline pumping through him. “We’ve got this.”

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

AVERY KNEW THE moment Gray woke up, and her heart practically skipped a relieved beat.

“What the hell...” he muttered, glancing around the hospital room with wide eyes that quickly narrowed.

“You’re fine,” she told him, jumping up from the chair where she’d been camped out for the past hour. “You were unconscious when they brought you in, but a full recovery is expected. A few of the guys from the station were in the waiting room earlier. I told Lucas I’d call when you woke up. If you want your friends here...”

He blinked at her, looking angry as a grizzly bear separated from his stash of salmon. “Violet,” he whispered, his voice hoarse.

“Home with her grandma.” She stepped forward, suddenly shy at the intimacy of this moment. “I can call and ask your mom to bring her here if you want.” She glanced at her watch. “She’s probably not asleep yet.”

“I’m going home,” he said, yanking at the tube giving him extra oxygen.

“Gray, wait.” Avery placed a hand on his arm. “You’ve got to calm down.”

He stilled, staring at her pale hand on his sun-kissed skin like she was a poisonous spider perched on him. “I need to get home to my kid. I don’t want her to see me in the hospital.”

“Okay,” she agreed, not sure how to soothe him. “But you have to be discharged first. They’ll want to examine—”

“I’m fine,” he said, the words sounding almost like a snarl.

“You had a bad accident.” She lifted her hand to his forehead, tracing