He knew she was thinking about her mother, who had gotten pregnant with her at eighteen. Obviously, her father hadn’t stuck around. April’s dad hadn’t, either.

“You are not your mother,” he told her in a firm voice, hating to see her look so defeated. “The first time I met you, I thought you were like any other beautiful woman. But when I saw how you were hell-bent on getting April back, that was when I knew that you were special. You’re tougher than anyone would guess. Dianna, I don’t even think you realize how strong you are, how smart you are.”

Her cheeks had gone pink at his praise, but she refused to believe him so easily. “If I’m so smart, then tell me why the stick I peed on today turned blue? All my life I swore this was the one thing that was not going to happen to me.” She gestured to the hotshot station with one hand. “Turns out all it took was one hot firefighter to knock me up.”

She laughed, but there was no joy behind it, rather a self-derision that Sam refused to let stick.

“Okay, so you’re pregnant. We can’t change that. But we can try and make it work.”

Honestly, he didn’t know much about good marriages or about happy families, but he’d faced down enough deadly wildfires to know that he was as stubborn as Dianna.

“We’re going to make it work.”

“You mean like your parents made it work?” Dianna countered, still not ready to give in.

Until Dianna, Sam had never told anyone that his parents had gotten married when his mother got pregnant with him her freshman year at college—and that twenty years later, his mom and dad could barely stand to be in the same room with each other. But he’d known that Dianna wouldn’t judge him.

It was one of the things he loved about her.

I love her, he suddenly realized, knowing in his heart that it had been true since the start.

“We are not my parents,” he told her in a firm voice, even though the raw data—a surprise baby and shotgun wedding—sure looked a hell of a lot the same. “And you have to know how much I care for you.”

Her eyes bore into his and he could feel the four-letter word hanging on the tip of his tongue. It was time to bite the bullet and say it already.

“I love you, Dianna.”

A single tear slid down her cheek. “I’ve wanted to hear you say it, but not like this.” Her voice broke. “Not because you have to.”

He reached for her cold hands and pulled her against him, glad when she didn’t fight him, when she let her body relax into his.

“I’ve never done anything because I have to. From the moment I saw you, I wanted you. Now you’re going to be the mother of my child, and our baby is going to grow up with a father and a mother who loves it. We’re going to stay together and be a happy family.”

He didn’t know how he knew all of those things, but as he said them, he believed every last one of them.

He’d thought that Dianna was just a sexy summer fling. But she’d become more than that. Way more.

“Marry me, Dianna, and I promise you, I’ll always be there for you. I’ll never leave you. No matter what.”

He knew he’d never forget the way her eyes looked after he’d said that. So green and clear he could almost see through them into her soul.

No one had ever really cared about her before. No one but him.

And as she said, “Yes, Sam, I’ll marry you,” he vowed to never, ever let her down.

CHAPTER FOUR

BETWEEN THE long drive to the airport and the flight into Vail, Sam had plenty of time for playbacks of their three-month-long relationship. For ten years, he’d tried to convince himself that he’d forgotten her.

But the truth was that he hadn’t forgotten one single moment.

Things moved at warp speed after his quick-and-dirty proposal—and her very reluctant acceptance. The next day he’d moved her clothes and books from her mother’s trailer to his apartment. Eight weeks later the limo hit her and she miscarried. They postponed their wedding and six weeks later she disappeared, leaving her engagement ring on the kitchen table.

No warning. No fights. No giving things another shot.

Just gone.

And getting over her had been nearly impossible.

He’d known better than to trust a woman, but in the heat of the “I’m pregnant” moment, he’d actually thought their relationship was going to be the exception, not the rule.

He hadn’t made that same mistake since.

It didn’t matter how pretty or laid-back the girls he dated were about his crazy schedule. Commitment wasn’t in the cards for him, simple as that. Although he hadn’t exactly turned into a monk, he made damn sure that the women he went out with knew the score. He wasn’t looking for anything serious. And he was religious about birth control, using two methods whenever possible.

Just after seven p.m., the Vail General Hospital parking lot was pretty well emptied out, apart from a throng of reporters smoking and waiting by the entrance. As he paid the driver, he suddenly wondered if they were here to see Dianna.

How could he have forgotten that she was famous now, that she had a whole new life that he knew nothing about? They were no longer on the same playing field. She was a star. And he was still just a firefighter.

But as he moved past the reporters and pushed through the tall glass entry doors into the lobby, none of that mattered. Not when the possibility of Dianna being injured and in pain had his heart racing and his hands sweating. Replaying the past had been nothing more than a convenient way to push away his fears regarding Dianna’s current situation.

Sam hadn’t spent much time in church, but it didn’t stop him from praying now. Please, God, let her be okay was what he sent up as he headed to the reception desk.

A young redheaded woman was watching a soap opera on the TV hanging from the far corner of the room. A half-dozen people were slumped tiredly in their seats waiting to be called in to see the next available doctor.

“I’m looking for Dianna Kelley.”

She stopped watching the TV and gave him her full attention, smiling up at him flirtatiously. “I’ll bet you are. I swear, some women have all the luck.”

He frowned. She wouldn’t be flirting with him if Dianna was in a coma, would she? Or was this just her regular m.o. with every reasonably good-looking guy without a ring who walked into the hospital?