putting a drink and menus on the table, and he smiled at the young waitress.
There was no flirtation―it was simply a friendly smile―but it tripped Erin up. He was in his uniform this time and that alone was striking. But that smile. It was killer. And it was for someone else.
A sharp pinch—jealousy?—grabbed at her chest. On the way to the booth, she passed the server who winked at her as she blew her bangs up, as if needing to cool down.
“Nice to see you again, hon. It’s been a while.”
The waitress had already hurried past by the time Erin could reply. She approached Bo with what she hoped was a casual, friendly smile.
“Hi. I hope you haven’t been waiting long. I needed to go home and change. Crazy as it seems, I manage to make more of a mess of myself working with flowers than I probably did when I fought fires.”
Oh, cripes, she was babbling.
He looked so good, sitting there in his uniform shirt, those long fingers wrapped around a coffee mug.
“It’s only been few minutes. Thanks for agreeing to meet me.”
So few words, and yet he managed to make her knees shake. She sat and found that she suddenly had nothing to say. Maybe this wasn’t a good idea after all.
How the heck did she tell this man that she’d been having hot and heavy dreams about him, and she needed to know if they’d ever had sex? Jumping right in was the only option that came to mind.
* * *
“THE WAITRESS KNEW me. She seemed to know...us. Was there an...us?”
“We used to come here now and then,” Bo hedged, taken aback by her sudden question. She was clearly nervous, and he was now doubting the wisdom of meeting again. Especially here.
He was unsure how much to share. Last night he’d shared way too much.
“With other people, like at the bar? Or together?”
Jill, the server, returned with Erin’s drink, which he’d ordered on reflex. His error became apparent when she stared at the Coke and lime twist for a second, then met his eyes knowingly.
“How long were we together?”
He blew out a breath and leaned into the table, clasping his hands tighter around the mug as he rested forward on his elbows.
“Almost a year. Maybe I should have told you, but...it didn’t seem like it would help. You’d been through enough, and I had a job to do. It didn’t seem...relevant.”
Her eyebrows flew up, and he saw the pulse fluttering hard in her throat. She reached for her soda and took several long draws.
“Are you okay?”
She put the glass down with a sigh. “I’m fine. After last night, maybe even before, I knew, on some level, but I never thought...a year? I thought it might have been a hookup or something. There’s nothing that would have made me think we were dating, not for that long. No pictures, nothing in my home of yours... nothing.”
“You weren’t sentimental that way, and it was over well before your accident. You probably took me off your email and phone. But you were also paranoid about anyone finding out, so we didn’t really text or stuff like that. Anyway, last night is what I wanted to talk to you about. I was out of line. I’d had too much to drink. No excuse, of course. But I wanted to know if you were going to file a report.”
She frowned. “What kind of report? I’ve already given my statement, and I don’t know what else—”
“A report on me, Erin. A complaint. About what happened.”
“Why? Why would I do that?”
She sounded completely shocked, and he withheld his response as their food arrived. He wasn’t really that hungry. He hadn’t slept at all the night before, no wonder, and he’d been a growling bear all day. His supervisor wanted Erin’s case closed, unsolved. There were others he needed to get to, but he couldn’t let this go. Someone had hurt her; Bo was going to find out who it was, if he had to do it on his own free time.
Whatever it took.
“I shouldn’t have done what I did. I know I’m all but a stranger to you, no matter what happened in our past. I had no right. I wanted to apologize, but I understand if you want to report it. I wanted to let you know that.”
Unlike him, Erin dug into her spaghetti dinner as though it was going to save her from certain death. She’d always been a stress eater. He didn’t know where she put it, she was so slim, but she always could eat as much as any of the guys on the crew.
He thought this would be easier. A professional meeting in a public place. He wanted to apologize and reassure her it wouldn’t happen again. Still, she had a right to file a formal report. She was a member of the department, and he was investigating an incident in which she was involved. It was his job to let her know she had recourse.
“I don’t want to file a report, and you have nothing to apologize for. I wasn’t exactly fighting you off.”
She said it with a wry grimace, as if more disappointed with herself than him.
“Erin, if I scared you, or hurt you—”
“You did neither.” Her eyes met his squarely, but then she looked down, unsure again. “I think though...I need to ask you something.”
“Shoot.”
“Do you have a mark or a scar on your hip? Almond-shaped?”
Bo’s heart skipped a beat. “Yeah, I do. A birthmark. You were always fascinated with it for some reason.”
She fumbled her fork and nearly dropped it to the table as she caught her breath, audibly.
“Erin?”
She closed her eyes briefly, as if working up the courage to speak. Her newly short hair sharpened the angles of her cheekbones and her jaw, making her green eyes and her lips look larger and lusher than before. He’d always loved her long brown hair, wrapping it around his fingers and watching it fall over her shoulders, but he liked this new look, too. How it exposed the long lines of her throat and the curve of her neck and collarbone. The soft flesh of her earlobes.
He grabbed for his coffee, his mouth gone dry.
“Tell me what’s wrong.”
She lifted her gaze to his, and this time, it wasn’t veiled or distant, but...there was a spark. She almost smiled.
“I remembered that, then. I remembered...after last night. I remembered a lot. It wasn’t just dreams.”
He straightened, his attention sharpened. “About the fire?”
She shook her head. “No. Not that. Things about you. Like the birthmark. I wasn’t sure if I was just fantasizing, but...apparently it was real. I can’t believe that I really remembered something!”
Paired
