He's first through the smoke. She's the one place he can't face—and the only one now under attack. When Harbor Ridge Animal Rescue erupts in flames, firefighter Cal Dawson charges in... and runs straight into Mara Collins, the woman he left behind.

The fire isn't random. Someone wants the shelter gone—letters, shadows in the trees, a pattern of calculated burns that reads like a threat. Cal smells accelerant, the marshal finds evidence, and the town starts to whisper. As donations wobble and audits hit, Mara refuses to surrender the sanctuary she built or the dogs who trust her—especially Baxter, the loyal old shepherd who seems to sense danger before anyone else. Cal won't walk away this time; guilt and grit tether him to the rebuild, even as the arsonist escalates and the past he ran from collides with the present he can't bear to lose.

Slow-burn heat meets small-town suspense in a second-chance romance where every spark counts: to protect the animals, expose the saboteur, and decide if two battered hearts can risk a future that's built to last.