he yanked open the door and ground his molars as the wind caught it and clanged those obnoxious bells against the glass. He stomped inside and wrestled the door closed. Rain dripped off his coat and puddled on the mat. As if to punctuate his misery, water trickled from his hood to his nose. He brushed it away with a soggy sleeve.
Why had he agreed to come at all? The answer to that was clear, even before nearly a dozen expectant faces turned to him from the line of tables on the far wall. If he hadn’t at least made an appearance at the diner tonight, his fellow Michigan State Police troopers would have known he was not okay after the events that occurred during his shift. And they’d have had proof that he’d lied when he said he was. How was he was supposed to fake normalcy when the usually delicious scents of frying bacon, cinnamon and fresh-baked somethings were rolling his insides like six-foot swells trapping a boat on Lake Michigan?
“Whoa there, Hercules!” Sergeant Vincent Leonetti called out.
The others laughed the way they usually did at Vinnie’s jokes, but the sound fell flat. Everyone was trying too hard. They all thought he was just sensitive to the type of case he’d investigated tonight. Weak-stomached even. If they only knew. But because they seemed to need him to pretend, Jamie pushed back his hood and started toward the table.
Suicide attempt. Why did they call them attempts? Like a gymnast trying out an amazing, double-twist dismount. That guy’s effort wasn’t an attempt, anyway. It was a frigging success, with blood spatter like a Jackson Pollock painting on the living room wall to prove it.
Jamie had been too late. Again.
Though his face felt hot, a chill edged up his spine and gooseflesh peppered his skin beneath his sleeves. Bile that he’d forced back earlier crawled from his stomach again, lukewarm and bitter. He had to get control. As he turned his head to the side, he hoped to avoid eye contact with any of the officers who knew him too well and yet not at all.
Her gaze snagged his instead.
Jamie could only stare back at her. Somehow, he managed to prevent his mouth from falling open, but keeping his feet moving toward that table was damn near impossible. Sarah. The petite, ethereal beauty who’d never once looked back at any of the Brighton Post troopers when they’d tested their best lines on her. Whose last name no one knew and whose first name they probably still wouldn’t know after two years if it wasn’t emblazoned on her waitress badge and she didn’t have to scribble it on their bills each time she waited on them.
That Sarah was watching him.
Stranger still, her haunting, pale blue eyes were piercing him deeper than an RIP bullet at close range. As if she could see everything he was trying to hide from his coworkers. Everything he wished he could forget.
And then it was over. She looked away and tucked those wavy, dark blond tendrils that fell loose from her ponytail behind her ears. That was one of her nervous habits he’d observed. Twisting her gold locket was another. They were things she did when she thought no one was watching. Now she smoothed her apron and grabbed a tub to bus a vacated table.
Jamie blinked several times. Had he imagined their moment of connection? Wow, his mind had really gone off-road this time. His lips lifted as he reached his coworkers, hung his sweatshirt over the back of the lone empty chair and dropped into it.
That he could smile at all after everything that had happened tonight was as surprising as his reaction to poor Sarah’s simple glance. Of course, she’d looked at him. This was her table. She’d taken note of him only so that she could drop by an extra water glass and more wrapped silverware.
Anyway, just because he’d secretly watched her for months didn’t mean she’d paid any attention to him. And he’d watched her, all right. As closely as a witness expected to give expert testimony. What did it say about him that he could describe her impossibly pale skin and dancer-like movements and could almost feel the silk of wavy hair he’d never touched?
He rubbed the damp sleeves of his Henley shirt as much to settle himself as to relieve the chill. He should have known better than to go out in public tonight.
“Did you drive here or swim?” Vinnie asked.
“Both. Did you see how it was coming down out there?”
Kelly Roberts watched him closely. “It wasn’t raining yet when we came in.”
A few of the others murmured their agreement. He was later than the rest of them, but it wasn’t because he’d let tonight’s events get to him. That would mean he’d allowed his past to seep into the present again, its persistent spread threatening to smother his plan to help at-risk youth.
“We already ordered, but we can call Sarah over if you’re ready.” At the other end of the table, pretty boy Nick Sanchez waggled an eyebrow.
“Oh, he’s ready,” Vinnie said, managing to draw a stilted laugh from the others.
“And who knows? Maybe the earth will shift, and Sarah will be primed like an Indy car engine, too,” Dion Carson quipped.
Jamie pressed his lips together. He hated the way the guys talked about women when they were off work. About Sarah in particular. No matter how many times he’d called them on it, they never stopped.
“If she is primed, you know she’ll be coming right over to me,” Nick added.
The women and even the men frowned at Nick and then shrugged. Now that the post’s resident Adonis, Shane Warner, was married, Nick had the best shot with any woman. Female drivers gawked at him, even when he was issuing traffic citations.
“That’s enough, guys. She’s a person,” Jamie ground out. “Leave her alone.”
Chuckles spread around the table. Had they been baiting him to see if he would react as he normally did? Well, he’d passed that test. Yes, he was Jamie, defender of women and hero to lost kittens. A nice guy, and everyone knew where they finished.
“You guys are lucky she’s still willing to serve at our table at all,” he groused. “And you’re lucky I don’t recommend all of you for another round of sexual harassment training.”
“Please, not that. We can be good.” Dion lifted his right hand to back up his promise. “Anyway, we’re not that bad.”
“And we pay great tips,” Kelly supplied.
Jamie nodded. Sarah probably needed that tip money, too. Working the night shift at a diner in Brighton, a southeast Michigan city of less than eight thousand, didn’t shout financially secure.
The image of her eyes stole into his thoughts again, huge orbs of liquid sky, so striking and yet so...guarded. Were there secrets behind them? Or just regrets, like his?
“Anyway, won’t you guys ever give up on her?” Delia Morgan Peterson called from the head of the table. “She doesn’t want anything to do with any of you.”
“And give up a challenge like that? Never!” Vinnie shoved his fist into the air.
Lieutenant Ben Peterson rested his hand on Delia’s slightly rounded tummy. “If the alien here turns out to be a girl, we’ll have to protect her from guys like you.”
Kelly handed Jamie a menu. “Now would you guys let
