“You are someone,” I said softly.
“Someone better.” His words were so quiet, I almost didn’t hear them.
“Start by being better than sleeping uninvited on your ex-girlfriend’s couch.”
“Ouch.” He nodded. “I needed to see you. To talk.”
“We can talk. Not tonight. I have work.”
This time he didn’t give me attitude for it. He pushed off the doorframe, all those lean muscles and ink sliding away from me.
This was right. I knew it was. My heart skipped for a doubtful moment, second-guessing my decision, but I knew Cooper and I were done.
“Give ’em hell, chief,” he said with the playboy grin that had started us dating in the first place. That twinge of electricity hummed over my skin again, a reminder of what we weren’t anymore. Maybe a clue to what we could be eventually: friends.
“Always do,” I said. “Pick up your backpack on the way out.”
“So I’ll see you? Around?”
Those brown eyes were soft with hope, with need. There were shadows in his face, in his eyes I hadn’t seen before. The time he’d been away hadn’t been easy on him.
He was asking me for a second chance.
I was good at that. At giving people second chances. In some ways, it was my job to do so. It was also in my nature.
“In this one-road sinkhole of a town? Count on it.”
He chuckled and I shut the bathroom door. I listened for the sound of him walking away. Finally heard the creak of footsteps.
I leaned on the sink and stared at myself in the mirror.
My eyes, which had a habit of shifting from gray-blue to cloudy green, were stark against my pale skin, my pupils dilated. I looked like I’d just seen a ghost.
“Ghost of an old relationship.” I pulled off my T-shirt and sat on the edge of the bathtub to untie my boots. “I’m over him.” It sounded weird on my lips, but it also sounded true. “When the hell did that happen?”
An image of Ryder came to my mind unbidden. Ryder at the Fourth of July beach bonfire, shirtless while he played tackle volleyball with a bunch of the Wolfes and Rossis. Ryder showing Roy’s little grandson how to skip rocks on the flat wash of shallow waves. Ryder, dripping wet and muddy, strong arms and muscled back flexing as he tirelessly filled and hauled sandbags, working through the night with half the town to save the Murphy’s place from the flood.
Ryder. Ryder had happened. Ryder had happened to me, and I hadn’t noticed. Hadn’t wanted to notice.
I paused and rubbed at my face, trying to scrub away the images and the realization. I was falling for Ryder. No. I had fallen for him. Cooper coming back had just flipped the switch on the neon sign in my head that spelled “Ryder” in swirly, lovesick loops, a giant cartoon-y arrow pointing down at my heart.
Great. I didn’t have time in my life for sleep, much less for a relationship.
Whatever was between Ryder and me would have to wait. Until we had an extra hand at the station. Until I’d figured out who was blowing up garden patches in the middle of the night. And it would absolutely have to wait until after the Rhubarb Rally. Adding Ryder into my life before then—if he even wanted to be added—would be madness.
There was enough crazy in this town without me adding more to my life.
Chapter 7
WHEN I looked out into my living room after my shower, I was relieved to see that Cooper had taken his backpack and left my house. I spent five minutes I didn’t have tucking away Thanatos’s contract in the family vault in the basement, because we never left contracts at the station, then standing in front of my closet trying to decide what to wear.
I had a dress. Three, actually. Well, two, if you didn’t count the one I wore to funerals.
Of the two other dresses, one was a spring sort of number, soft yellow with a splash of watercolor petals falling from shoulder to hem. The other was black, short, and tight.
I bit my bottom lip. Was this a dress sort of thing, or should I wear my uniform? I stared at my uncomfortable dress shirt, slacks, and badge. Too formal? I didn’t want to scare off my new employee. We needed the help. And as long as this person was able and willing (and not Dan Perkin), I wasn’t about to say no to hiring him or her.
“Burgers and fries at a brewery is jeans all the way.”
