The Last of The Red Hot Firefighters (Red Hot Reunions Book 1) Read Online Free PDF Page A

up and take notice that hadn’t noticed a woman’s attention in a damn long time.
    The irony that the woman was Naomi Whitehouse made Jake’s mouth fill with a bitter taste he knew beer would do nothing to chase away.

CHAPTER SIX
    Naomi
    “I need those cookies. Now.” Aria March, their third business partner, froze inside the door to the future home of Icing , a wild gleam in her green eyes that made Naomi laugh.
    “No, seriously,” she continued. “I need all of those cookies. Right now.”
    “Are they ready, Maddie?” Naomi stood with a groan, her back killing her after an hour of chipping away the old, cracked, black and white tile that presently covered half the floor. “I could use a cookie break.”
    Behind the hideous blue laminate counter they had all agreed had to be replaced no matter what the cost, Maddie slid fresh, salted caramel and dark chocolate oatmeal cookies onto a cooling rack. “Just let them cool for a few minutes so you won’t burn your mouths, and you can each have two.”
    “No. All. All for me,” Aria said with a mock glare in Naomi’s direction as she unwound the scarf from her long, auburn hair and shed her coat to reveal her adorable little baby bump. The black turtleneck maternity dress she was wearing minimized the roundness of her tummy, but she was definitely starting to show
    Aria and Maddie had been friends in high school and attended the same pastry school in Paris. The first time Naomi had seen Aria after returning to Summerville, she’d experienced that full-body pang of sadness that overtook her every time she saw a pregnant woman. But this time the twinge only flashed through her chest for a moment before fading away. She knew she would always mourn Grace, the little girl she’d lost, but she hoped there would come a day when she could look at an expectant woman again with nothing but shared joy.
    Just last Monday, Naomi had signed up with an adoption agency out of Atlanta, and by this time next year, she hoped to have a child of her own. She knew her chances of carrying a baby to term were slim—every doctor she’d visited said it would only be possible with close monitoring and lots of bed rest—and there were certainly no prospective husbands on her horizon. She was thirty-three, financially secure, and past ready to become a mom.
    So Naomi had decided to let go of her dreams of marriage before children, and bringing a child of her body into the world. She felt certain there were children out there waiting for her, children she would love every bit as much as the biological babies she wasn’t destined to have.
    “But I thought you told me not to let you eat ‘all’ the anything,” Maddie said, giving Aria a sideways glance as she set the pan on the counter behind her. “You only want to gain forty pounds this time, right?”
    “Or fifty or sixty,” Aria said, sniffing the air, eyelids fluttering as she inhaled the heady scent of melted caramel and chocolate. “I just don’t know how I’m supposed to resist sweets with you around, Mad. I swear, Lark is going to fire me as soon as she gets a taste of anything you’ve baked.”
    “Your sister won’t fire you,” Naomi said, crossing the room to settle onto a stool across the counter from Maddie. “That’s crazy talk.”
    Aria sank onto the stool next to Naomi with a sigh. “I don’t know. I think Lark’s a little miffed that I’m starting a new business only months before we’ll both be going on maternity leave from Ever After .”
    Ever After Catering , Aria’s sister’s business, was the most successful wedding caterer in Georgia outside Atlanta, and primed to give some of the bigger companies in the city a run for their money.
    “I think she’s got great replacement staff in place,” Aria continued. “But I can tell she’s nervous about having two of us out of rotation for at least six weeks, maybe more if she gets put on bed rest at the end.”
    “She’s having twins, right?”