I paid fifteen hundred dollars for one night with my ex-husband. The real price might be trusting him with my heart again.

I swore off firefighters when I divorced Rhett MacAvoy three years ago.

Then my meddling friends dress me in his favorite color, drag me to Huckleberry Creek’s charity bachelor auction, and put a paddle in my hand. By the time the gavel falls, I’ve spent fifteen hundred dollars on one dinner with the man who broke my heart.

Rhett is home from deployment with an injured shoulder, a pocketful of regrets, and a plan to win me back.

I tell myself dinner will give us closure. Instead, he shows up with my favorite flowers, remembers a restaurant I mentioned in a letter years ago, and makes me laugh as if we never stopped being us. Then he takes one look at the crumbling porch he always meant to fix and starts rebuilding it—along with every reason I once believed we could last.

We fell in love young. Built a life. Bought a house. Then watched our marriage collapse beneath missed dinners, broken promises, and the dangerous job that always came first. The love was never our problem. Neither was the chemistry still burning hot enough to incinerate three years of good intentions.
But wanting Rhett again is easy.

Believing he’ll choose me this time is a risk I’m not sure I can take—no matter how determined he is to prove that this time, he’s here to stay.