she was done, her head spun. Her skin was warm. She laughed, wobbling a bit as she handed her glass back to the bartender.
She and Dana finally made their way down off the bar to riotous applause. Several burly men—most of them firemen or cops—happily offered a helping hand.
Dana was a dispatcher and engaged to a firefighter in the unit Erin had worked with. He met her back on the floor with a kiss.
“I can’t leave you alone for a minute, can I?” Scott scolded, but he was grinning. His eyes were warm as he took in his fiancée. Erin averted her eyes discreetly from the deepening kiss that the two were sharing in front of everyone.
Erin cleared her throat. “Okay, well, then, I’ll just go back to the table and eat all of those wings.”
Dana never broke the kiss while waving her away, making Erin laugh. She suspected the lovebirds were going to find some privacy, and she left them to it.
As she walked back to their table, she figured she should have known better. She could hear the boisterous voices of the crew the minute she crossed the floor toward the tables at the back. They saw her, too. No doubt they’d seen her up on the bar, as well.
“What’s up, Buttercup?” Hank shouted.
“Tulip!” Leroy followed up.
“Daisy!” Derek added with a snicker.
The last one got a round of high fives as Erin took a breath and approached the group, smirking at them for teasing her about her work at the flower shop. Her sister owned the shop and had taken her on as soon as Erin was able.
Still, it was a far cry from being a firefighter to working as a florist. Not so long ago, she’d been one of the guys, so she tried to act like it. As if nothing had changed.
“You guys calling each other pet names again?” she asked as she joined them. Giving as good as she got was par for the course with this bunch. “Leroy must be Daisy, since he’s always fresh as one.”
Another round of laughter rose and then settled down as Leroy eyed her from the other side of the long table.
“Someday, when your memory comes back, you’ll pay for that one.” The threat was playful and made with a glint in his eye.
“I hope that day comes,” she said, more serious than she meant to be.
“We do, too,” Pete said as they all became quiet.
Erin frowned. “Sorry, didn’t mean to be a downer. Hand me a beer?”
“Gladly. Nice moves up there, by the way. We never knew you could dance like that.”
“Yeah, me, either.”
She accepted another beer and helped herself to some wings.
“Carry on, then,” she said, waving them on like a queen to her subjects. That succeeded in lightening the mood again.
“Hey, we thought of something that could help with your memory,” Leroy said.
“Yeah. What?”
“You said the doctors told you that things from your life before could help bring your memory back, right? We have a lot of stories we could tell.”
“Those stories are probably things she’d rather leave forgotten,” Pete said with a grin.
Erin smiled. It was good to be around friends who could joke with her about her memory loss. It balanced out the absolute terror and grief that had been frequent, though less so these days.
“I’m game. Take your best shot.”
“Well, there was this time when Riley came running out from that fire at the old folks’ home, carrying the older gentleman, buck naked and thrown over her shoulder,” Pete offered with a wry smile. “They got him on the gurney and he wouldn’t let the medics take him away until he asked her out on a date.”
Erin’s jaw dropped. “That did not happen.”
She liked how they called her by her last name. She felt more like a “Riley” than an “Erin” anyway, in spite of her sexy clothes.
“Oh, it really did. And you said yes.”
The guys made a few lewd comments and laughter picked up, and Derek put a hand on her arm.
“You were being kind. You brought him dinner a couple of nights when he was in the hospital and watched TV with him. That was your date. He passed away a few months later, and his family sent you a thank-you for your visits.”
Erin swallowed hard and nodded.
“There was also the time we told you everyone was dressing up for duty on Halloween and you showed up at the station as Princess Leia. The alarm rang almost as soon as you arrived. You had to change in the truck, which you did, without batting an eye, I’ll add. Though you fought the whole fire wearing the braids. I have to find the picture that made it into the paper,” Pete said nostalgically.
Even Erin had to laugh at that. She lifted her hand to her hair, now boy-short as it grew in after being cut and shaved for surgeries. She couldn’t remember it long, but in most of the pictures she saw, she wore either ponytails or braids. She wasn’t sure if she’d grow it long again. Having it short was convenient, especially for summer. Her sister said it framed her face better, and made her eyes look bigger.
“You always swore like a sailor. More quarters in the jar for pizza night from you than anyone.”
Erin appreciated them filling in gaps for her, but the stories felt as if they were about someone else. She was just getting to know these people whom she had known for years. Men and women who had trusted her with their lives.
She wanted to have it all back, her history with these people. Her whole life. It wasn’t likely; the doctors said the longer she didn’t recall anything, the less chance that she would.
She put her beer on the table as her eyes burned.
“Hey, you okay?”
“Yeah, fine,” she said, pretending to bend to fix the strap on her shoe while she got hold of her emotions.
Apparently, they did this often, getting together for sports or food. Erin couldn’t remember, but it did feel normal. Normal was nice.
When she rose, they were already talking about other things—sports and upcoming vacations. She took a chair near the wall and munched on her wings.
As she licked some of the sauce from her fingers, she stopped and looked up, feeling as if she was being watched. And she was.
Bo Myers sat across the room, alone at his table, his eyes glued to her as if she were the only one there. His eyes rooted her to the spot and sent licks of heat scattering over her skin. She lost track of everything and almost tumbled her plate to the floor, catching it before it fell.
He was the local fire marshal. She’d met with him a few times since the accident. He’d been there when she’d woken up in the hospital.
