A line of fire can reveal more than danger-it can expose the truth someone has spent years hiding. When veteran firefighter Ava Hale returns to the ridge where a devastating blaze once changed her life, she finds far more than burned earth waiting for her. A silent pattern lies beneath the ash, a design built with intention, and the one man who understands its meaning steps out of the shadows the moment she arrives.Kade Mercer has always operated at the edge of control, studying destruction the way others study maps. His presence sparks old instincts in Ava-sharp focus, rising tension, and the unmistakable pull of unfinished understanding. Their past connection is tangled in a night neither of them can forget, a night where Ava saved one life but lost pieces of herself she never reclaimed.Now the patterns between them resurface with unsettling precision. Every choice Ava makes reveals another layer of Kade's true purpose, and every step she takes draws her deeper into a truth she has spent years avoiding. The danger surrounding them is real, but so is the clarity she finds in the fire's echo.In facing the valley again, Ava must confront not only Kade's intentions-but the part of herself that has been waiting to break free.