My gaze fixed on her mouth, and I pictured kissing them. Dragging my focus outside, I scanned the nearby options. “How about that diner?”
“Sure.” She pulled into the parking lot.
Several minutes later, we sat across from each other in a booth at a diner that served breakfast all day and blue-plate specials. She had a plate of blueberry pancakes, and I’d ordered the hungry man special with eggs, bacon, pancakes, toast, and hash browns.
While we ate, I asked her questions about herself. She remained reserved, revealing little, until we were halfway done with our meals.
She put down her fork, and her gaze drifted out the window. “My father was killed by a demon.”
My heart panged. “Oh, I’m sorry.” I put down my fork. What an ass I was to encourage her to bring up something painful. I searched her haunted eyes, seeing her serious nature in a new light. “That must have been difficult to go through, especially since you were a kid.”
She swallowed and glanced down at the table. “It was. My mother was a wreck for a long time. Since I was the eldest, I took over caring for my younger brothers. I have two.”
“Where are they now?” I asked.
“My mother is still in Maine, where I grew up. My brothers moved away. I started working at an affiliated supernatural network up in Portland but transferred down here a few years ago to have a change of pace.”
“That’s around the same time I moved to Salem,” I replied.
“From where?” She cut off a piece of blueberry pancake and moved it around her plate before she resumed eating.
“The Carolina coast.” I picked up my fork and took a bite of scrambled eggs.
“Is that where your family lives?”
The bitterness twisted my gut. I swallowed my eggs and washed it down with orange juice. I didn’t talk about my family often, but since she came forward about the pain in her past, I figured I could open up to her. “My mother’s human. She married a golfer around ten years ago, and they moved to Myrtle Beach. I don’t know where my father is.”
“What do you mean, he’s missing?”
“Or dead. I don’t know what happened to him. After cheating on my mother repeatedly, she finally kicked him out when I was five. I never saw him again.”
“Oh, Lucas, I’m sorry.” She placed her hand on my lower arm and then pulled it away.
The warmth in her caring glance disarmed something deep inside my chest. I swallowed. Before I let these painful memories crawl under my skin, I had to shift the tone. “Once I moved up here, the Network connected me with knuckleheaded roommates, who I now consider my brothers.” I flashed her a mischievous grin. “And then I found a dream job that lets me meet beautiful women like you.”
She furrowed her brows as if confused at the abrupt shift in my tone. “Are you flirting with me?”
“Maybe,” I teased, using the reply she’d overused earlier. “Running into you the other night was a definite highlight.”
One side of her mouth curled up into a wry smile. “Don’t you mean falling on me?”
Falling for you.
Where did that thought come from? It was in my head, so I couldn’t even blame it on my dragon. Still, he’d planted the seed, damn dragon. Zoe was just another woman I wanted to sleep with. Right?
My dragon snorted.Wrong.
Chapter 7
Zoe
Back at the Network, Lucas followed me into my office. I sat at my laptop and plugged info into a report, specifically on the faint trace of dark magic outside and the reluctance of staff to talk. I scanned through the notes from others, trying to see if I missed anything, so I could figure out my next step in the case.
Why I’d told him anything about my family was a mystery to me. I kept my private life private. Something about his good-natured attitude must have gotten under my skin. It definitely wasn’t this foolish attraction that fluttered about inside, which I couldn’t seem to squash—yet.
Lucas sat in a chair and placed his hands behind his head. “Guess I should just sit here and look pretty while you do the sleuthing.”
I glanced up, shooting him a look. “You can do better than that.”
