style="font-size:15px;"> He saw her shrug in silhouette. “Just getting some air. Seeing how many constellations I can remember and wondering for the one millionth time why I can tell you exactly where the Big Dipper is but I can’t tell you anything really important.”
He nodded. “Well, you know the doctors said—”
“I know what they said,” she cut him off. “It was more of a rhetorical question.”
“Right. Sorry.”
“Why are you out here?”
“I was leaving, but I’m glad to catch you before you left. You know, back in the bar...the dancing. That probably wasn’t a great idea.”
She frowned. “Why not?”
“You might go back to the job, or at least to the department, someday. You don’t want to change the way the guys see you, and believe me, they’re looking at you differently these days.”
She shrugged a second time.
“I don’t care. And it’s really none of your business.”
She’d gotten up from the table, intended to walk past him. He caught her arm gently, stopping her. He left it there for a beat, then dropped his hold.
“There’s something else.”
“What?”
“Joe’s family. They want you investigated. Including any past reports or problems.”
“Why?”
“They’re grieving, looking for explanations.”
“So they think they can pin his death on me?”
“They can’t, and their accusations are unfounded, we know that. But it would be advisable to keep, well, a lower profile, I suppose. Until things are settled.”
Now he was talking stupid, too. It was the truth about Joe’s family, but none of this would impact the investigation. They had no grounds, medical or otherwise, to think that Erin was at fault.
Bo was telling her what he needed to tell her. For his own reasons. It might not be right, but that was something different altogether.
“Screw that,” she said flatly, trying to step around him.
The night air lifted her scent. It surrounded him, mixing with the sweet evening aromas of fresh grass and recent rain. Though distracted, he reached out, stopping her again. He knew he shouldn’t.
“So now what? What next?” he asked.
They were close. She looked up at him, and the irritation in her face melted into something else. Bo didn’t know if it was his imagination or wishful thinking, but heat arced between them the way it had back in the bar.
The way it always had.
“I don’t understand this,” she said, stuttering a bit, unsure. Rattled.
“What don’t you understand?”
“Why I― What this thing is with you.”
“What thing would that be, exactly?”
“Why I feel...when we... I don’t know you. I don’t even think I like you much,” she said, shaking her head. “But when I look at you, I...”
She remembered. Or some part of her did.
He took her chin between his forefinger and thumb.
Bo’s heartbeat was racing, too. He should walk away, call a cab and leave. He should let this be.
But he wasn’t going to.
“I think I know what you mean. I feel it, too,” he said, his voice a whisper.
Her eyes widened, and without warning she turned her cheek into his palm. The light rub of her skin on his set his blood on fire, and sense evaporated. Everything was lost to the night except being close to her, finally. Bo wanted to be closer.
He put his hand at the back of her neck, bringing her forward until she bumped up against him. Then they were kissing, and it was the first time he could breathe in months.
He thought it would be a quick, gentle kiss, but need came on so hot and sudden it knocked all the sense out of him. Her arms wrapped around him, and she was pressing into him as she always had, as hungry as he was.
Bo pulled her in tighter, parting her lips and kissing her as passionately as he could. Still it wasn’t enough.
She was breathing hard as he slipped his hand along the small of her back, up under the edge of her shirt. Her skin was cool from the night air.
He explored her throat before working his way up to her lips again, but she pulled away, as if suddenly realizing what was happening. At the same time, voices rose in the lot behind them.
Bo couldn’t think straight. He reached for her again.
“Erin, don’t—”
She pushed past him and ran down the sidewalk.
He stared after her, cursed under his breath, some little thread of clarity returning.
What had he just done?
If his place in the investigation had been iffy before, he’d just made it a lot worse. No one knew about his previous relationship with Erin—they’d seen each other in off-hours, never telling anyone. If the department found out now, well, things could get complicated. At best, they’d take him off the case. At worst...well, he didn’t want to think about it.
They could think he was covering for her. They could think he was ethically compromised in any number of ways.
As he strode through the lot, reaching for his phone with slightly shaking hands, he couldn’t help one thought that kept going around in the back of his head as her scent and taste still lingered. No matter what happened, it had been worth it.
2
ERIN DREW HER hand back quickly as she saw the blood well on her fingertip.
“Stupid thorns.”
She was sorting roses for arrangements, making sure only the perfect, healthiest ones made it into the bouquets. Her fingers were freezing, but she couldn’t do the work with gloves, so she’d risked the thorns.
Rinsing off the wound, she grabbed a paper towel from the rack and held it until it stopped bleeding. It was only one of about a dozen scrapes and punctures she’d gotten from the flowers that day.
Working for a florist wasn’t something she wanted to do, but it was something to do. She wasn’t a paid employee, but Kit said she could always use the free help, and at least it kept her busy. Erin couldn’t hole up in her house all day doing nothing until her memory came back. Then she really would go
