Her Firefighter SEAL Read Online Free PDF Page B

knee. “Do you let people help you?”
    His mouth thinned. “A busted-up knee isn’t a baby.”
    Maybe not, but she’d bet some of the feelings were the same. His life had taken an unexpected right turn, pinwheeling out of control, and he couldn’t live it exactly the same way he had before Khost. Part of him couldn’t bend, couldn’t take dead-on impact, and every step he took was a living reminder of what had happened and the changes that had been forced on him. Her baby was a good thing, a piece of Will and her that would become someone new, someone she couldn’t wait to meet. Kade’s knee...well, she honestly didn’t know how he turned that into a positive.
    “You need to let people help you. You should talk with someone.”
    Right. Like he’d ever talked to someone about his knee and what had happened during his captivity in Khost. “I do things myself, and I’m not talking about Will.”
    “Okay.” He stood up and popped the top on the last paint can.
    She wasn’t done with him yet. “You don’t get to play amateur psychologist with me.”
    “Still got it.” He nodded calmly. “But I do have one question. Are you done living now that Will’s done?”
    And this kind of thing was why she spent half her time wanting to kill him. “There are plenty of things on my to-do list. In fact, I have a date with the hospital in about four months. That’s plenty of living.”
    “Those are to-dos. I mean fun things. You things.”
    “Like bucket list things?” she asked slyly. Kade’s bucket list was legendary in Strong. She wondered if he’d really meant to go there and then decided she didn’t care. He’d left her an opening. She’d taken it.
    “There’s nothing wrong with a good bucket list.” He looked pained as he said it though.
    When Katie Lawson, his then-fiancée, hadn’t believed he was dead, she’d decided to work her way through his bucket list while she waited for him to come home. As Katie’s friend, Abbie had been roped into helping with some of the items. She’d been willing to learn French, for instance, but other items had been way out of her comfort zone.
    “Learn to speak French,” she said, ticking the first item off on her fingers. “Own an island. Fly a helicopter. Write a novel. Run a marathon.”
    What kind of book would a man like Kade write? Since he’d decided to stick his nose into her business, maybe asking him wasn’t completely off-limits.
    “That last one’s out for today,” he said easily, patting his knee. Somehow, she got the sense that he cared more than he let on.
    “Someday,” she said softly, and he grunted in response, probably man shorthand for “I can’t run today, but how does next Tuesday sound?” Kade wasn’t the kind of guy who accepted limitations.
    “Besides, you forgot the good parts.” He pointed his paintbrush at her. “The part with sharks and machine guns and me starring in my very own action movie.”
    “You really want to do those things?” Because she’d bet he’d done at least half of them.
    His smile got wider. “Don’t hold that against me. Katie kept pestering me to make a bucket list, so I resurrected a list I made when I was sixteen. I probably would have painted your living room black back then.”
    And she would have chosen purple. “And number two on your list was playing host to a ménage a trois.”
    Which was definitely something she hadn’t known about him when she’d been dating him.
    He winced. “I was sixteen.”
    “Uh-uh. You need to take ownership of your desires. Own them. Have a ménage a trois . In French . You were very specific. I wondered about the French part though. How is sex with two women—and I assumed it was two women—different if you’re not speaking English?”
    “Your memory should come with a warning label,” he grumbled, getting a little crinkle in his forehead as he eyed the wall. “There. Choose.”
    Paint, she reminded herself. He was offering paint. Not himself, not