Bookshelf

Controlled Burn

Kilgore Fire, Book 4

Controlled Burn

Bookshelf

Controlled Burn

Kilgore Fire, Book 4

July Dupree and Dean ‘PD’ Hargrove fell head over heels in love. When PD comes home to tell July the good news about joining the SWAT team as a tactical medic, everything changes.

July can’t fathom why PD would want to be a cop in this day and age. Wasn’t it enough that he already had a dangerous job with the fire department? Now he has to add another, even more dangerous, job to the equation? With so many cruel people in the world who make a sport out of hurting cops just because of the badge they wear, she has to make him understand. But when he refuses to listen to her reasoning, she feels she has no other choice but to issue an ultimatum: her or the SWAT team.

Dean doesn’t like ultimatums. He’s furious with July for putting him in the awful position of having to choose between a dream and her.
July never believes for a second that he’d choose the SWAT team over her, but she is wrong.

A year later, they’re both still in love with each other, but neither one is willing to budge regardless of their feelings.

July’s feelings for Dean haven’t changed, in fact her love for him has only grown. But seeing him living his life seemingly unaffected by the loss of what they had breaks her heart over and over each time she sees him.

Dean has a good poker face, though. He’s just going through the motions of his life until finally, the smoldering embers of his feelings erupt into a full-on blaze of emotion, burning through everything but his love for July. When the smoke clears, Dean wants to know if they can reignite the fire of their love or is he destined to live his life in a constant state of controlled burn?

Read an Excerpt

My stomach was crawling with nerves as Dean pulled his shiny truck into the parking spot next to an old beat up truck that looked like it could compete in rock climbing contests on Mount Everest.

Or not.

But it was big and mean looking, so surely it served some sort of purpose, right?

Then again, in the South, where we were, everyone lifted their trucks. Even people whose trucks would likely never see a puddle of water, let alone mud.

My favorites were the cute little blondes who were the size of a toothpick with their jacked up trucks that they could barely maneuver through the Walmart parking lot, let alone a country road where mud would be involved.

Kind of like the girl who was getting out of her jacked up, new model Tahoe next to me with her cantaloupe-sized breasts and unnaturally blonde hair.

She didn’t look like that when we were in high school.

I swallowed thickly as I pushed my hair back over my shoulders.

I’d curled it and had worn it half up, half down, in a semi-updo that would allow the curls to float over my shoulders each time I moved.

I eyed the necklace, the same one I’d worn since high school, and grimaced tightly.

I should’ve taken it off.

It was the only diamond I had, and it hadn’t occurred to me that it’d been the same one everyone had teased me relentlessly about in high school.

“What’s wrong?” Dean asked, his eyes going from my necklace to me.

“I wasn’t very popular in high school,” I murmured softly, my fingers worrying the chain of the necklace as I spoke. “I hated it, in fact. I was the kid everyone loved to pick on and the whore of the trailer park, even though I’d never actually slept with anyone.”

When he didn’t say anything, I looked up at him and smiled at the scowl on his face.

“I wasn’t a whore, obviously,” I informed him. “But you’re going to hear a lot of whispers, I’m sure, and I wanted to warn you before you actually heard them. Don’t freak out. Don’t overreact. Just be calm.”

I looked up at him, and I could see his jaw clenched.

“I’ll tell you this now,” he murmured softly, reaching forward and grasping my hand with his. “If someone in there calls you a whore, and I hear it, I’m going to react to that and you’re going to let it happen. Got it, sweet cheeks?”

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