she was fumbling the flowers so much because she hadn’t slept all night, and when she did doze off, he was kissing her again. And more.
Much, much more.
She’d dreamed of him before in hazy, undefined ways, but last night... Well, her imagination had had a lot more material to work with. Her fantasies had been very specific. She remembered the whorls of dark hair on his chest as her fingers had touched him. The hard muscles of his thigh and in particular, a mark on the side of his hip that her mind returned to again and again. It was shaped like an almond, dark against his normal skin tone.
She’d pressed her lips to it, hearing him moan as her hands explored elsewhere.
And there had been apples.
Usually, her dreams were smoky and shapeless, everything occurring in jumbles against a blurred background. But last night she’d seen apples. As if she were looking up from the ground, under a tree full of ripe, red fruit.
When he’d kissed her outside the bar, it had been a surprise, but on a deeper, more basic level, it had been familiar and right.
Her hands trembled as she returned to the roses, sorting them by variety without further injury and putting them in fresh water and into the coolers. Then she headed out front, where she saw that the closed sign had been flipped and her sister was bent over the computer on the counter.
“Evening already? What time is it?”
“Four-thirty. I closed a bit early.”
Kit—short for Kathleen, a name that Erin learned her sister had never liked—looked up from her work, eyeing the front of Erin’s shirt with a smirk. “The roses biting again?”
“How could you... Oh,” she said, looking down to see blood from various scrapes had gotten on the white blouse she wore.
“I told you to wear one of the aprons,” Kit said in true older-sister, know-it-all tone. So what if she had been right?
“I will next time, Kathleen,” Erin said with appropriate sisterly sarcasm.
Kit’s lips twitched with humor.
“Well, it’s good that you remember how to be annoying.”
Erin stuck her tongue out and they laughed. Joking around was good and helped dispel some of the ghosts she’d been wrestling with—and her thoughts about Bo.
“Do you mind if I take off early, too?”
Kit looked at Erin over the top of her glasses, frowning. “You’re going out with the guys from the firehouse again?”
Tension settled between them, as Erin struggled between telling Kit what happened and telling her she wasn’t her mother. Erin could go where she wanted, including out with the crew.
Kit had told her outright that she’d never been a fan of Erin’s chosen profession. The accident had made her even more set against it. Kit didn’t even seem to like her hanging out with the guys, but Erin enjoyed seeing them. She wondered what her sister would think about what happened with Bo.
“I can tell something is bothering you. Spill.” Kit was way too perceptive.
Erin chose her words carefully. “Do you know if I was seeing anyone before the accident? If there was a guy? Someone special?”
Kit’s eyebrows rose. “I don’t think so. You were all about the job and never mentioned anyone. Did you remember something?”
“I don’t know. Maybe. I’ve been having some dreams, and I can’t tell if it’s a memory or a figment of my imagination, but I saw someone at the bar last night, and he was...familiar.”
“How so?”
“You know. Familiar,” Erin said again, with an emphasis that made her sister nod knowingly.
“Well, I suppose you might have hooked up with someone and not said anything. But you never told me about it, not that you would have.”
Erin frowned. Apparently, she and Kit had not exactly been close sisters, though Kit had been there for her every minute since the accident. Whatever tension was between them didn’t matter when the chips were down.
“Did he know you?”
Erin nodded. “There was definite chemistry. The explosive kind.”
Erin couldn’t remember anything about sex, not since making out with her senior year boyfriend in high school and letting him get her bra off. That was her last clear memory.
It was disconcerting, not knowing her sexual history. She’d been on birth control at the time of the fire, so she must have had an active sex life, but she couldn’t remember any of it.
“Well, what did he say?”
“Um, not much, really. I kind of bolted before we talked.”
Kit’s expression was sympathetic. “I know this is hard for you, and it has to be frightening to bump into people, especially men, who might know you better than you know yourself, but maybe he could help. Maybe if you talked with him, he could help you remember. Was he a member of the department?”
“Yeah, he was. We talked, and I left. I guess I, well... Last night was weird.”
“Talk to him if you get a chance. But make sure there are other people around, you know, the usual safety drill.”
Erin had been thinking the same thing. It was clear that there was something between her and the fire marshal, but the only one who could tell her what was Bo. But if they had been an item, why had he kept it secret until now?
“Or maybe it’s better if you don’t,” Kit said, changing gears. “Being with the guys so often at the firehouse could be a bad idea. You should be moving forward, not get stuck in the past.”
Erin couldn’t help the irritation that her sister’s comment spawned. “They’re my only friends. And they help. If I can get my memory back—”
“I think you have to face that you’re not going back to that job.”
“There’s a chance, if I can get my memory back—”
Kit shook her head. “I’m sorry, honey, I know you loved it, but it would be like starting from scratch, even if you do remember.”
“Then that’s what I’ll do.”
“Being with them gives you false hope. Keeps you from finding something new. I don’t know why you’d want to go back to being a firefighter anyway. It nearly killed you.”
Kit’s features tightened with fear and grief, and Erin’s heart softened. The nurses said that her sister had been by Erin’s bedside every day at the hospital. Some nights, too, when things were iffy about her condition. Kit had also taken care of their mother when she was dying, and ran her own business while she was helping Erin.
Erin tried to imagine what it was like for people having to deal with her accident and her amnesia, but she was also tired
