Chapter 1

The brush of a very wet, very cold nose against her throat woke her up.

“Nee, Daisy,” Hannah groaned as she pushed away her overgrown boxer. “Go back to sleep. It’s not Christmas morning yet.”

But instead of listening, Daisy whimpered and nudged her again. Then, for good measure, pawed her arm.

Though she’d recently trimmed Daisy’s nails, they still scratched against her cotton nightgown, snagging the delicate fabric. And that nose! Ack, it might as well have been a cold sponge dabbing her skin. “Daisy . . . halt, wouldja?” she grumbled as she attempted to flip over on her side.

Daisy responded by barking, pawing at her again, and then licking her cheek for good measure.

Those three things were enough to wake Hannah up completely. Her sweet rescue dog had never woken her up in the middle of the night before. She was also a gut hund. Rarely did Daisy not mind her new mistress’s directives. Propping herself on her elbows, she reached out and rubbed Daisy’s side. “What’s wrong, girl?”

Daisy barked again.

Persuading Hannah to at last come to her senses, and thank the good Lord, too. So much was very wrong. The air was thick with smoke and she could hear a suspicious, strange crackling sound. A noise that sounded an awful lot like fire.

Bolting into a sitting position, she cried out. The small kitchen alcove of her one-room apartment was on fire. Flames were climbing the walls. She and Daisy needed to get out. That minute.

But for some reason, her body couldn’t seem to move.

Daisy whimpered again.

“I . . . I know,” she murmured. Though it was doubtful that the dog could even hear her, the buzzing in the room was so loud. But maybe that was really the buzzing in her ears?

Feeling as if her head were occupying someone else’s body, Hannah continued to stare in wonder at the flames licking the set of cookbooks on one of her makeshift shelves. Noticed that a new line of fire was inching its way toward her. Was this what Paul had seen in the moments before he died?

All at once, it seemed as if every nightmare she’d ever had about her fiancé’s last moments in the explosion and fire at the Kinsinger lumber mill had come to life. All she could seem to do was stare at the fire and feel the pressure of all the fear and debilitating sadness that had overpowered her in those first few months after his death.

She’d thought her state of mind was so much better. Obviously, she’d only been fooling herself.

Daisy whined, grabbed hold of the fabric of her gown, and pulled. It ripped.

That small thing at last jolted her out of her daze. It was time to stop dwelling on the past and get them both to safety.

As she crawled out of bed, Hannah feared she’d waited far too long. The room had grown hot and that smoke was so thick she could hardly see. Only a thin foot of clear air lingered near the floor.

Grabbing the dog’s collar, she started running to the back door. Intent on negotiating the path, she tripped over a piece of singed wood that had fallen from the corner of the ceiling. Awkwardly attempting to right herself, she reached out a hand....

Before she fell, a sharp pain searing through her temple made her cry out. And inhale a thick band of smoke. Her eyes watered; whether from pain, frustration, or the very fact that she was hurting and running out of air she didn’t know.

All she did know was that the door now seemed so very far away.

Daisy barked and nipped at her. Pulling herself to her knees, Hannah forced herself to crawl toward the door. She couldn’t think of anything beyond getting Daisy to safety.

At that moment, nothing else—not even her own fate—seemed to matter.

* * *

The dog’s shrill barking confirmed their worst fears. The house was occupied. The four men and one woman surrounding the ladder truck tensed and listened intently for instructions.

“Rob, you with me. Now,” Brendan, his captain, ordered into his microphone, his usual staccato speech ringing loud and clear in Rob Prince’s ear.

Rob didn’t bother to reply, just checked his equipment one last time and followed close behind his captain. Around them, there was a cacophony of sounds and lights. Two fire trucks, an ambulance, and a number of sheriff vehicles had arrived. Each person was moving in sync with the others, illustrating the benefits of their many hours of training.

It was almost as if his body knew what to do before his mind did.

Ahead of the captain, Jerry used the ax to break down the door. They stood back, cautiously making sure the fresh addition of oxygen didn’t create an explosion.

Luckily, though, only a thick band of smoke filtered out, followed by the loud, spooked bark of a dog.

Cap cursed under his breath. “I hate dealing with dogs.”

Rob knew why. Dogs panicked, and the men entering their home in bulky uniforms looked both foreign and threatening. No, their turnout gear didn’t usually create a sense of calm for any of the people or animals they attempted to rescue. Then, too, their captain had shared once that he had a terrible allergy to dogs. He had no experience with them.

But Rob did. He knew dogs, thanks to Rose, his Rottweiler.

When he saw that it was a white boxer and she was both whimpering and growling at both Jerry and Brendan, he pushed his way through.

“Let me help.” As the other men stepped aside, he reached out a glove to the dog’s neck, murmuring nonsense words as he did so. Immediately the dog’s stance softened and she looked up at him with big, brown eyes.

Causing his gaze to lower and see the woman on the ground.

His heart almost stopped. Was that . . .

No, surely it couldn’t be Hannah Eicher . . . could it?

While he continued to stare at her prone form, Jerry moved around his side. “I’ve got her. You get the dog.”

Hardly able to take his eyes off the body in Jerry’s arms, Rob bent down, murmured, “Gut hund,” something his almost girlfriend used to say to Rob’s dog, Rose.

Still in a daze, he picked up the boxer and rushed her out to safety. He was vaguely aware of his captain and two other firemen searching the house for more people or bodies.

But Rob could have told him that they wouldn’t find anyone else. As far as he knew, Hannah Eicher lived alone. By her choice, not his.

As he walked back outside, holding an eighty-pound boxer in his arms, he knew that if he’d had his way nine months ago Hannah wouldn’t have been living alone at all.

She would have been sleeping in his house, in their bed, as his wife.

But that had been his dream. Not hers.