“And you actually wanted to have a kid with this guy? Jesus, Ginger, don't you have any sense at all? What the hell do you see when you look in the mirror? Who do you think you are?”

The answer was easy. A girl who had never been good enough for anyone, no matter how hard she tried.

“You're coming with me.”

Grabbing her hand, he pulled her out of the kitchen, up the stairs, into her bedroom, not stopping until they were standing in front of the full-length mirror, her back to his front.

“I've never admitted this to anyone before,” he said in a soft voice, “but do you know how hard it was for me to look at my burns for the first time?”

She swallowed hard, instinctively covering his hands and arms with her own, gently stroking the raised scars.

“When they unwrapped the bandages that first time and I saw the wreckage of what had once been perfectly good hands, perfectly good skin, I wanted to cry like a baby. But I couldn't. Not with everyone watching. Not when everyone expected me to be the tough firefighter.”

She'd never thought about how hard it was on men like Connor to get injured and feel like they couldn't break down, not even once.

Staring at the two of them together in the mirror, Ginger felt that her concerns about her weight were incredibly petty. How could she have spent so much time worrying about her size when her body was, essentially, perfect. Sure, maybe she didn't fit into the current cultural norms of perfection, but she could run and jump and swim and paint. What on earth did she have to complain about?

Connor stroked her hair back from her face. “If you're thinking I just told you all of that to invalidate your feelings, think again.”

“But it's true. My issues are nothing compared to what you've been through.”

He squeezed her more tightly around the waist, pulling her closer against his rock hard chest and thighs.

“Here's how I see it. I've had a couple of rough years with my body, but before that everyone told me how great I looked, how strong I was, how well-built. Crazy as it seems to me, I get the feeling no one has ever said those things to you before now.” Holding her eyes in the mirror, he asked, “What do you see?”

Ginger's chest was clenched and tight. “Just me.”

“Really? Is that all you can see, sweetheart? There isn't anything else?”

To have such a big, strong man be so gentle with her… she could feel herself melting in his arms.

“I don't know,” she whispered. “I don't know what I see.”

His hands and arms still wrapped tightly around her, he whispered, “Then how about I tell you what I see? You're strong.” Her breath came faster as he pressed a kiss just above her left ear. “You're beautiful.” He spun her around to face him and cupped her face in his large hands. She blinked up at him and got lost in his blue eyes.

“And every time I look at you, you completely take my breath away.”

He slowly undressed her and she drank in every touch, every caress, every path of his fingers across her skin.

He ran his lips, his tongue, his fingertips over every inch of her skin reverently as her clothes seemed to disappear and she trembled everywhere he'd touched.

When she was finally naked, he said, “Turn around, sweetheart.”

She couldn't do it. Not with years of self-hatred coming at her. She was stunned. She'd thought she'd beaten down the beast within, had been so confident of her triumph.

But he was already turning her in his strong hands, forcing her to see something she wished she could hide from forever — just as she'd forced him to see it in himself the night before.

God, how she hated this fear. So she forced herself to look.

And lost her breath.

“I look so small compared to you,” she whispered.

With Connor behind her, all six-feet-plus of him, she looked tiny. She'd never before thought that word in relation to herself. But he was so big, so broad, that instead of taking note of her bumps and lumps, she saw her br**sts, heavy with arousal, the way her skin glowed from the afternoon sun that covered her on the porch as she painted, the fact that her lush curves were the perfect contrast to Connor's hard muscles.

“Tell me what else you see.”

“A woman I don't think I've ever seen before.”

“She's beautiful, isn't she?”

Looking herself straight in the eye, she tried out the word in her head first to make sure it was really true.

“Yes.”

“Let me show you just how beautiful you are, Ginger. Let me love you.”

The four-letter word exploded in her head, filled her completely.

There was no longer any room for doubt. Not with Connor seeing her beauty like no one else ever had. Not when he wanted so desperately to make her see it too.

It would be easy, so much easier just to tell herself that she was confusing sex with love like she had with her ex-husband. But she wasn't that naive young girl anymore.

She was a woman who knew her own mind, a woman who knew her own heart.

And yes, oh yes, she loved him.

Turning back around in his arms, she pulled him against her and then she was on the bed and he was sliding into her in one thick stroke, working to heal her with his body as she'd tried to heal him with hers.

His name on her lips as they rocked together, she got lost in the slip and slide of their bodies, the delicious friction of his skin on hers, the way he filled her so completely.

And when he sent her reeling over the edge it was the most natural thing in the world for her to take him with her.

She'd fallen asleep in his arms, utterly content to listen to his heart beat beneath her ear as her eyes closed and she let exhaustion take her. Now she woke up alone in the bed as the sun was setting to the sound of the phone ringing again, alone in the bed again.

In the end she spent a good hour fielding phone calls from not only Connor's brother, but a dozen of his friends on his hotshot crew. So many people who cared about him. So many people who wanted to be there for him.

For every call she picked up, another voice mail came in. His mother sounded like she'd been crying and Ginger was selfishly glad that call hadn't come through. She wouldn't have known what to say. Just when she thought the lull in calls might mean that the rush was over, the phone rang one more time.

“Hi, I'm sorry to bother you again. This is Connor's father. Is he there?”