thought. “Some things don’t change,” she reminded him. She saw him raise an eyebrow, waiting for her to elaborate. “There are still bad guys out there for you to catch.”
“Not me,” he said, and she was certain she heard more than a slight note of regret.
The same sort of regret she felt, watching her children suit up for work while she went in to spend her days behind a desk. What she did was necessary, but there was nothing like the rush that came from knowing you’d saved someone’s life or that you’d stopped a murderer from killing again.
“That’s for the others to do.” His eyes met hers. He could see his former partner in there. The one he’d shared so many thoughts with. “You know, sometimes I really miss the old days.”
Something almost electrical zipped through her.
Lila cleared her throat, looking away. Who would have thought, after all this time, that she would still feel this pull, this magnetism dancing between them? This “thing” that went beyond the friendship she and he had forged over the six-year course of their working relationship?
After everything that she had been through, it was still there, still alive.
Maybe for you, but what about him?
She wasn’t prepared to find out.
“Me, too,” she agreed. Did he suspect? Did part of him know how she’d once felt about him? How she probably still felt about him? Banking down her thoughts, she took refuge in her children. It was a safe move. “I miss having the kids all living at home—I even miss the arguments.”
“Not sure I’d go that far.” Brian laughed. “But I do miss the sound of someone breathing in the house besides me.”
About to take another sip of her beer, she stopped and nodded vigorously. “Oh God, yes. Of course the dog’s there, but it’s not the same thing. I love her dearly, but she just doesn’t hold her own in a conversation.” Brian laughed. She’d forgotten how much she liked the sound of his laughter. It was warm and rich and deep. And disarming. She heard herself saying, “You know what’s the worst? When I wake up from a nightmare and still think they’re living at home. When the realization sinks in that they’re not, it’s just awful.”
“I know exactly what you mean.” He paused for a moment, debating whether or not to ask and if she’d considered it prying. He assuaged his conscience by telling himself that friends didn’t pry, they expressed concern. “You have nightmares?”
Maybe she shouldn’t have said that. He was going to think she’d become a drama queen. Like his wife. Too late now, she thought. He was obviously waiting for her to elaborate.
“Sometimes,” she finally admitted.
“About anything in particular?”
Yes, about Ben. About the way he looked when he washed up on shore. But out loud, she said, “About that night.” It wasn’t a lie. Sometimes she had nightmares about that. But not nearly as often as the other. “It never quite leaves me.”
Life had changed quickly after that night. They had never really had a chance to talk about it. Ben was always standing guard, limiting his access to Lila. And then she’d left the force and he’d gone on to become the chief of detectives. And a widower.
“Maybe you should have gone to the department shrink,” he suggested tactfully, knowing it wasn’t what she wanted to hear, but maybe it was something she needed to hear. He saw her closing up before his eyes.
“Ben didn’t have any use for shrinks.”
Husband or not, Brian never got the sense that the man had her best interests at heart. “Ben wasn’t the one who got shot.”
“No, not then,” she said softly.
Damn, he’d walked right into that one with his size-twelve feet. How could he have not remembered? There’d been a bullet to the head at close range. “I’m sorry. That just came out. I didn’t mean—”
She didn’t want him feeling guilty. Not when he’d always been there for her. “I know you didn’t.”
She was right not to tell him about the other nightmares. The ones about Ben being shot, about his being beaten and tortured and clubbed in the face. His teeth were all destroyed in an obvious ploy to hide his identity on the off chance that his body would wash up on shore. Which it had.
Lila could shut it down during the day, but at night, it was a different story. Asleep, she envisioned all of it on a recurring basis.
That, too, made her hate going to sleep in the empty house.
Brian could almost see her pulling away. He knew her well enough, even now, to pick up on the signs. Maybe it was time to revert back to why she’d sought him out. “About this not-so-heavy breather of yours—”
Lila waved her hand, dismissing the topic. “Forget it.”
“No,” he replied in the soft, no-nonsense voice that his detectives had learned could not be opposed. “I won’t. It was important enough for you to break your self-imposed exile and come look me up.”
Because it was more than a little true, she took exception to his words. “There was no self-imposed exile.”
“Then why have you been avoiding me all this time?”
Shrugging, she went for the obvious. “We work on different floors.”
“But not different countries,” he pointed out. “Last time I looked, the station had elevators and a phone system. I know, I used both.” When he heard she was back and then again when Ben had been murdered, he’d tried to get in touch with her. To no avail. “And every time I tried to get in contact with you, you were either dashing off somewhere or your machine would pick up. Eventually, even someone as thick-headed as me takes the hint.”
“There were no hints,” she insisted, feeling guilty about having treated him that way. Feeling guiltier
about lying now. “I was just busy.”
“Twenty-four, seven?”
She was in too deep to abandon the lie now. “Twenty-five, eight,” Lila countered. What good would it do either of them for him to know that she hadn’t been up to facing him, not up to having to defend her husband to someone who’d once been her best friend?
Would all that ever be completely behind her? Would she ever be able to be as open with Brian as she once had been? God, she hoped so.
“I’m not as fast as I used to be,” she told him.
One eyebrow rose in a silent, skeptical declaration. “Ha. That’ll be the day. There is no slowing you down.”
He made her laugh. He always made her laugh, she recalled. Even when things at home were unbearable, she could always count on Brian to divert her for a little while, to come through and make things seem better.
She looked at him now and wondered if she could still count on him. Or if, ultimately, time had changed that, too.
