Reason to Believe

“I’ll take them!”

That’s what I tell the social worker when my pre-k student and his baby brother need an emergency foster placement. I’ll do anything to keep the brothers from being split up. But my apartment’s flooded and there’s only one house I can take them to on such short notice…his.

Knox Daniels, my older brother’s best friend, offers his new place without hesitation. He’s not moving back to our tiny town until next month—that’s when all our hotshot firefighters are returning for their one and only chance to rebuild our fathers’ fallen, iconic crew.

It doesn’t matter that I’ve been silently in love with Knox since we were kids. It can’t matter that we pretend that reckless prom night kiss never happened. It won’t matter that my feelings for him could destroy his lifelong friendship with my brother and threaten the certification of their hotshot crew. Because I’ll be out of his house long before he gets back.

Except Knox just walked in…a month early. And the icing on this awkward cake? He’s gorgeous as always and I’m covered in baby puke. He takes one look at the boys and tells me we can make this work— We can temporarily fake a relationship to keep them from being separated by the system.

Suddenly, everything matters.