a lot of pressure being the only child. When it’s just you and two adults, well, let’s just say sometimes they forget you’re a kid.”
“I guess I can see your point.”
“If my dad had it his way, first I’d have been a boy and then I’d be a thoracic surgeon.”
“I see. So what was your major in college?”
“Liberal arts.”
Gunnar barked a quick laugh. “I bet Daddy liked that.”
She went quiet, stared at her boots, took a sip or two more from her beer. “To this day I hate hospitals. Can’t stand the sight of blood. Probably has to do with a Christmas gift I got when I was eight.” She pressed her lips together and chanced a look in his direction, then quickly away, but not before she noticed Gunnar’s full attention. That must have been enough to encourage her to go on. “I got this package, all beautifully wrapped. I’d asked for a doll and it looked about the right size, so I tore it open and found the ugliest, scariest, clear plastic anatomical ‘Human’ toy with all the vessels showing underneath.” He smiled and shook his head, feeling a little sorry for her, but she’d chosen the entertaining route, not self-pity. It made her tale all the more bittersweet. “If you removed that layer there was another with muscles and tendons, and under that another with the organs.” She glanced up and held Gunnar’s gaze. He sensed honest-to-goodness remorse for an instant, but she kept on like a real trouper. “It had this scary skeleton face with ugly eye sockets.”
Under other circumstances, this might be funny, but Gunnar knew Lilly, under the guise of funny stories, was bearing her soul on this one, and he had the good sense to shut up and listen.
“Anyway—” she looked resigned and took another sip of beer “—all I wanted was a doll with a pretty face and real hair I could comb.” She shrugged it off and pinned him with her beautiful stare. “What about you? You have brothers or sisters?”
“One kid sister named Elke.”
“You close?”
He nodded. “It’s just the two of us now.”
“Sorry to hear that.”
“Well, that’s how it goes sometimes, right?”
Lilly tipped her head in agreement. “So what made you become a cop?”
He couldn’t blame her for taking her turn at asking questions. But since he was on the hot seat, he went short and to the point—Just the facts, ma’am.
“My dad.”
“Family tradition? Was he a cop, too?”
Gunnar opened his mouth but stalled out. How should he put this? “No.” She’d been flat-out honest with him so he figured he owed her the same. “I guess you could say he was a bad example. Did some time for making really poor choices. Took our good family name and stomped it into the ground.”
She inhaled, widening her eyes in the process. “I see. But look at you—you’re an honest, upright citizen.”
“That I am.”
An old Jon Bon Jovi track blasted in the background, and to change the subject, he thought about asking her to dance, nearly missing when they called out his name for pool. “Oh, hey, our table’s up,” he said, relieved to change the subject. “You ready?”
She passed a smile that seemed to say she was as ready as he was to drop the subject of messed-up families. There was something else in that smile, too, like she might just surprise him tonight, and to be honest, he hoped she would. After that story about her father, he’d decided to go easy on the new girl in town, since it sounded like her childhood had been as rocky as his.
Lilly followed the hunk with the sympathetic green eyes to the pool table against the back bar wall, the one closest to the bathrooms. What had gotten into her, opening up like that, telling a near stranger about her messed-up family? She could blame it on the beer and his Dudley Do-Right demeanor, but knew it was more than that. It was part of that scary feeling that had started taking hold of her in the past year, that twenty-eight-to-thirty-year-old-lady life-change phenomenon—and the desire to connect with someone in a meaningful way. The thought made her shudder, so she took another sip of beer before glancing up.
Holy Adonis, that man filled out those jeans to perfection. Out of his neatly ironed uniform, he still cut an imposing figure. Extrabroad shoulders, deltoids and biceps deeply defined, enough to make him an ideal anatomy lesson with every muscle clearly on display. Far, far better than that old plastic doll. With those thighs, and upper body strength, he could probably single-handedly push an entire football blocking sled all the way down the field. Or flip a car in an emergency. The guy was scary sturdy.
He’d stepped in when things had gotten sticky with Kirby at the bar, like it was second nature. Gunnar’s family had been through the wringer with his father going to prison. Apparently that had influenced his career choice.
She continued to watch him. There was something sweet and kind about his verdant eyes with crinkles at the edges. He hadn’t let the tough times or stressful job turn him hard. And his friendly smile. Wow, she liked his smile with the etched parentheses around it. That folksy partial grin gave him small-town charm, and the self-deprecating, beneath-the-brow glance he occasionally gave added to that persona, though nothing else about him gave the remote impression of being “small.”
She finished her ale, had really liked the crisp, almost apple taste, and chalked her cue while he racked up the balls in the triangle. She’d played her share of pool in college dorms, enough not to humiliate herself, anyway.
“Eight-ball okay with you?”
She nodded. It was the only game she knew.
“Stripes or solids?” he asked.
“Stripes.”
“Want me to break?”
“Sure. Thanks.”
Once Gunnar set everything up, he waved the waitress over and ordered some chips and salsa with extra cheese. She’d eaten a salad for dinner, and the beer was already going to her head, so she wouldn’t sweat the extra calories.
When Ingé brought the food, he joked with her and gave an extra nice tip. Lilly liked friendly and generous guys—guys who maybe wanted to make up for their pasts. A couple of cops, probably subordinates since they referred to Gunnar as “Sergeant,” lined up nearby to watch the game, looking amused. “Go easy on her,” one of them said.
“Don’t worry, miss,” said one of the other men sitting at the bar, who looked big like a construction worker. “He’s a gentleman. Right Gun-man?”
From the way people talked to Gunnar, always smiling when they did, some calling him Gun-man, others Gun, and the way everyone responded to his casual style, she could tell he was liked and respected by his peers. She’d also noticed that Kirby had taken Gunnar’s firm hint, and kept quiet. Adding up all of that, plus the company of the charming police officer, helped her relax and let her usual guard down. This Gunnar was a nice guy. Gee,
