The Firefighter's Family Secret Read online

  All It Takes Is One Spark...

  A month ago, Colton Barlow was a decorated Atlanta firefighter haunted by a tragic accident on the job. Now he’s taking the grand tour of a North Carolina town he’s never heard of—and being welcomed into a family he didn’t know existed! His newly discovered half brothers aren’t the only ones making Colton feel right at home. If he isn’t careful, Stone Gap—and one winsome wedding planner—could steal his heart.

  Rachel Morris doesn’t see many sexy strangers passing through her tiny Southern town. And falling for the hunky firefighter sure wasn’t part of her life-on-hold plan. But is Colton here to stay? Are they both ready to say “I will” to a future together?

  “I’m Colton. Colton...Barlow.”

  The name sounded strange still, but it was beginning to grow on him.

  Confusion muddied her eyes. “One of the Barlows? With Jack, Luke and Mac?”

  “Sort of. I’m their half brother. From Atlanta. Firefighter, novice fisherman and decent first baseman.”

  He didn’t know what made him give her that mini-résumé, but then she laughed, and it made his day. “Pleased to meet you, Colton Barlow from Atlanta. I’m Rachel Morris. Expert fisherwoman and not-bad shortstop.”

  “Maybe you could teach me a thing or two about catching the right one.”

  Her smile reached into her eyes, made her entire face brighter. A flirty tease lit in those green depths and toyed with the edges of her lips. “Is that what you’re here for? Because we don’t sell matches made in heaven. Just fishing poles and garden rakes.”

  “I’m just talking trout and bass. Definitely not long-term commitments.”

  “Just what this town needs. Another confirmed bachelor.” But she laughed when she said it.

  Colton racked his brain for something else to say. To prolong the moment before he had to leave. He liked Rachel. And it had been a long, long time since he’d met a woman who interested him like that.

  THE BARLOW BROTHERS: Nothing tames a Southern man faster...than true love!

  Dear Reader,

  I’m so excited to go back to Stone Gap, North Carolina, and visit with those handsome Barlow brothers again! The Firefighter’s Family Secret might just be my favorite book, because it’s all about how families can fail, yet still love each other and stick together. No one is perfect, as the Barlow brothers learn in this book, and those imperfections sometimes test everything you thought you knew about yourself.

  That’s a concept I explore often in my books—once you peel back the lies you tell yourself and the lies you tell others, what kind of person are you underneath? Once my characters get honest with themselves and with those they care about, that’s when they can find true happiness. That’s definitely part of the story in The Firefighter’s Family Secret (considering it has the word secret in the title, that makes sense!).

  I hope you enjoy Colton Barlow’s story and this next visit with the warm and loving Barlow family. Welcome back to Stone Gap—and to the worlds I am so blessed to create. Thank you so much for reading!

  Shirley

  The Firefighter’s Family Secret

  Shirley Jump

  New York Times and USA TODAY bestselling author Shirley Jump spends her days writing romance so she can avoid the towering stack of dirty dishes, eat copious amounts of chocolate and reward herself with trips to the mall. Visit her website at shirleyjump.com for author news and a booklist, and follow her at Facebook.com/shirleyjump.author for giveaways and deep discussions about important things like chocolate and shoes.

  Books by Shirley Jump

  Harlequin Special Edition

  The Barlow Brothers

  The Tycoon’s Proposal

  The Instant Family Man

  The Homecoming Queen Gets Her Man

  Harlequin Romance

  The Christmas Baby Surprise

  The Matchmaker’s Happy Ending

  Mistletoe Kisses with the Billionaire

  Return of the Last McKenna

  How the Playboy Got Serious

  One Day to Find a Husband

  Family Christmas in Riverbend

  The Princess Test

  How to Lasso a Cowboy

  Midnight Kiss, New Year Wish

  If the Red Slipper Fits...

  Visit the Author Profile page at Harlequin.com for more titles.

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  To all the unsung heroes in my life, who put out a helping hand to others when they need it most. You make the world a better place.

  Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Excerpt from Wed by Fortune by Judy Duarte

  Chapter One

  The last thing Colton Barlow expected while visiting Stone Gap, North Carolina, was for opportunity to come knocking.

  He wasn’t a man given to living by the seat of his pants, and, in fact, most everyone who knew him would say Colton was deliberate. A planner. A man who set a course and mapped his route carefully. It was how he had always approached a fire on the job—assess the situation, know the risks and variables and plot the battle with care. Rushing into a blaze with no forethought was what got people killed.

  And Colton Barlow had already made that mistake.

  He’d spent the past six months trying to settle back into his job. Most days he did okay. Some days he was lucky if he could shrug an arm into the heavy turnout coat. But he told himself he was fine, just fine, and everything was on track.

  Until the information that upended his life, told him everything he thought he knew about himself was wrong and led him to a small Southern town and three half brothers he hadn’t even realized existed until a month ago. For almost thirty years he’d been Colton Williams—his mother’s last name—and now it turned out he was a Barlow. That last name still felt like a new pair of shoes—a little uncomfortable, a little odd. Maybe if he kept thinking of himself as Colton Barlow, the name would grow on him.

  His family had, so far. He’d finally met the other Barlow brothers—Jack, Mac and Luke—at Jack’s wedding last week, and in the process, he stumbled upon a job opening on the Stone Gap Fire Department.

  A job he hadn’t even been looking for. But once the idea took root in his head of a change, a new start, Colton thought it wouldn’t hurt to at least check it out. Maybe at a new department, people wouldn’t look at him with eyes filled with a mixture of pity and mistrust. Maybe he could finally leave the shadows behind him and begin again. He’d lost his love for firefighting after the accident, and wondered sometimes if he’d ever get it back. Then he’d talked to Harry and the first glimmers of excitement about his job returned.

  That’s what had him turning around almost the minute he g
ot home to Atlanta. He’d returned to Stone Gap, both to have a little time to get to know his brothers and father, and to meet with the fire chief for a formal sit-down. Except Fire Chief Harry Washington wasn’t a formal sit-down kind of guy, more a walk-and-talk, see-how-it-goes man. Which was why Colton was strolling through downtown Stone Gap, while Harry gave him a guided tour of the town.

  “Best apple pie in the county is served right there,” Harry said, pointing at a little restaurant on the corner. A bright red-and-white awning above the Good Eatin’ Café pronounced the same thing in a dark blue curly script. Harry, a short and slightly pudgy man with a white buzz cut, looked as if he might indulge in the pie on occasion. He had a wide smile, a twinkle in his eyes and a friendly manner, which most everybody in Stone Gap seemed to respond to, given how many people had shouted a hello on their walk so far. “And if you ask Viv real nice, she’ll give you an extra scoop of ice cream on top.”

  So far, Harry had talked about the best place to buy a pair of work boots, how to unclog a drain, the top menu items at Mabel’s diner and a whole host of other topics that didn’t have a damned thing to do with firefighting. Colton kept expecting some kind of questions about his skill set, but in the half hour since Colton had met Harry at the station and they’d started walking, nothing related to his occupation had come up in conversation. Maybe Harry was a circuitous guy, Colton thought. One who needed to be brought back around to the real reason he was here. “Sir, if you want my résumé—”

  Harry put up a hand. “Let me stop you there, son. I don’t hire people based on a piece of paper. You and I both know how quickly paper disappears when you set it ablaze. I make my decisions based on the person, not their fancy-dancy credentials.”

  “But surely you want to know if I have experience—”

  Harry squinted in the sun. “Do you like fishing, Colton?”

  The non sequitur made Colton stumble over a crack in the sidewalk. He pushed his sunglasses back up his nose and fell back into place beside Harry. “Uh, yes, sir.”

  Harry nodded. “Good. Go home, grab a pole and meet me down at Ray Prescott’s place ’round three this afternoon. We’ll do the whole formal interview thing then.”

  “While we’re fishing?”

  Harry grinned. “It’s called multitasking, son. Now, if you ask my wife, she’ll tell you I can’t talk and breathe at the same time, and while that may be true, I sure as hell can talk and fish at the same time.” He gave Colton a little salute then strode off down the sidewalk toward the brick fire station.

  Colton stared after him for a long time, then decided that if he wanted a job in Stone Gap—and he still wasn’t sure he did—then he should get a fishing pole. Not that Colton had gone fishing much. A few times with his uncle Tank, but that was about it. He’d been too busy trying to be the man of the family, a job thrust on him from the minute he could walk. Even now, even all these miles away from his mother and sister, he felt that mantle of responsibility. Of course, Katie was all grown up now, and their mother...well, she was what she liked to call “a work in progress.”

  Which meant Colton shouldn’t feel bad about doing something for himself for once. Like going fishing.

  Especially considering how much his life had changed in such a short period of time. A month ago he’d been working for the Atlanta FD, spending his free time working on his mother’s run-down car and urging his sister to take some time off, live a little, someplace other than the accounting firm where she spent a minimum of eighty hours a week. In return, Katie had needled him about being the quintessential bachelor, with an apartment as empty as a store going out of business. Sure, he had the occasional fling, but he wasn’t interested in serious relationships, and he made sure the women he dated knew it. He’d thought his life was more or less complete.

  Then he found out that Uncle Tank—his real name was David, but no one ever called the barrel-chested, hearty man by anything other than Tank—whom Colton had always thought was just a family friend, was actually his real uncle, and that his biological father—a man his mother had never spoken about—lived in Stone Gap, along with the three sons he had raised. Robert Barlow had ignored Colton’s existence for thirty years, a fact that still stung, even though Colton told himself he was far too old to care whether he’d had a dad to teach him how to complete a layup or tell him how to win a girl’s heart.

  But he did care. And working through the roller coaster of emotions that meeting his siblings and father had awakened was part of what had kept Colton here in Stone Gap. A saner man might have just turned his back on all of this and left town forever, but Colton had this need to know where he came from. His mother had called it his curiosity gene, the same need that had driven Colton to dismantle the dishwasher when he was eleven, and ask a thousand questions in every class he ever took.

  Now he had a thousand and ten questions for Bobby Barlow, but Colton had hesitated to ask them. Had delayed seeing his father again, because Colton wasn’t so sure he wanted to hear the answers.

  Nor was he so sure his father would want a relationship with him. Colton wasn’t the success that Mac was, the war hero Jack was or the second generation partner that Luke was. Sure, Colton was a firefighter, but he was barely hanging on to the job he had in Atlanta after the disaster that claimed two of his coworkers six months ago. A disaster that Colton could have avoided, if only he had tried harder.

  The memory of that night had a way of stealing Colton’s breath when he least expected it. He’d catch a whiff of smoke or hear a crash, and he’d be there again, screaming into his mask for Willis and Foster. He’d see the burst of flame, hear the crack of the overhead beam, feel the heat crushing his gear. And see the yawning cavern that opened up like a hungry beast and swallowed the best men—and the best friends—Colton had ever known.

  He pinched the bridge of his nose and willed the memory back into the shadows. It took a while, four deep breaths to be exact, but then he opened his eyes and reminded himself he was in Stone Gap, North Carolina, on a vacation of sorts. And about to go fishing.

  Get it together, Barlow.

  He jogged across Main Street, avoiding the lone car going south. He shook his head in amazement. Stone Gap wasn’t a hundredth as busy as Atlanta had been. That alone might be a nice change if he got offered a job at the department here.

  If he even wanted to stay. Living in Stone Gap, becoming part of the fabric of the community, would mean being around his father on a regular basis. Dealing with all those questions that kept needling at his thoughts, the ones he wasn’t ready to face.

  At the same time, it would mean having three brothers, three men who were the kind Colton had as friends back home. Three men he already genuinely liked. A lot.

  He spied a familiar pair of legs sticking out from under the body of a Ford pickup truck at Gator’s Garage, the Barlow family business. Colton hesitated for a moment—this whole thing with his brothers was still so new, he wasn’t sure how to handle things like running into Luke downtown—then decided the only thing to do was to just go over there and say hello.

  Colton ambled into the garage. He’d always liked garages, the smell of motor oil, the myriad tools, the puzzles of the cars that needed fixing. Gator’s used to be run by his father, until Bobby had knee-replacement surgery and needed to slow down. Now Luke was in charge, while Bobby worked part-time.

  Colton took in the pegboards filled with tools, the tall red chests stuffed with parts, and imagined his father here, teaching Luke how to change the oil in a Chevy or rotate the tires on a Ford. The thought made Colton a little envious. Maybe getting to know Luke, Jack and Mac better would help ease some of those feelings. Colton looked down at the work boots below him. “Hey, Luke.”

  Luke pushed out from under the car and grinned up at Colton. He had the same dark brown wavy hair and blue eyes as the rest of the Barlows, Colton included. Looking at h
is brothers was eerily like looking in the mirror. “Hey, Colt. Good to see you! Guess we didn’t scare you off, after all.”

  “I’m not so easy to get rid of.” He chuckled. “Plus, I had an interview with Harry, the fire chief, so I figured I’d come back here and see it through.” Colton shrugged. “Not thinking it’s going to lead to anything, but it’s a shot. Might as well check it out.”

  Luke nodded at that, then got to his feet, grabbed a rag and cleaned off his hands. “Glad to hear you’re staying a bit. You can help me torture Mac now that Jack is off on his honeymoon. But I have to warn you, Jack and I have a good routine going that keeps Mac at the center of a lot of merciless teasing. You gotta be on your toes to hang with us.”

  Colton laughed. He liked the relationship the brothers had. Jack, a former soldier, was a good guy, solid and clearly head over heels for his new wife, Meri. Luke was the prankster of the family, though his heart was with his new fiancée, Peyton Reynolds, and their daughter Maddy, while Mac was the overachieving tycoon who had made millions in buying and selling companies, but had recently met and fallen in love with local girl Savannah Hillstrand.

  “Sounds like a plan.” Colton shook his head. “I still have to get used to having all this family. It’s been just me, my sister and my mom for so long, and now all of a sudden, it’s like I’m tripping over Barlows.”

  Luke chuckled. “We’re pretty much everywhere. Just ask the neighbors, who blamed every broken window and torn-up lawn on one of us.”

  “Rightly so?”

  “You know it.” Luke grinned. “But I’ll never admit to the crimes of my youth, at least not in front of my impressionable daughter, who I’m trying to steer away from my mistakes.” He made a circle in the air. “So between you and me, I was a Goody Two-shoes.”

  That made Colton laugh. “And people are going to believe me when I say that?”

  “Hell, no. But that’s okay. I just blame all my misdeeds on Mac. I love seeing his face get that scrunched-up look.” Luke tossed the rag on the counter then grabbed the clipboard that held the day’s jobs. “Listen, I’d love to sit around and shoot the breeze, but I have a bunch of work on tap for today. Ever since I took over for Dad, this place has been hopping. What say we grab breakfast tomorrow morning, you, me and Mac?”