And for the first time since Blaze came back into her life, Johanna wondered if she'd mistaken a second chance for a temporary stop on his way somewhere else.
* * *
Blaze knew he was losing her halfway through lunch.
Johanna still sat across from him at the waterfront table. She still answered his questions, still nodded occasionally while the harbor breeze drifted softly through the restaurant patio.
But emotionally, she had already started retreating.
Watching her retreat twisted something inside him.
He recognized the fear creeping in, the instinctive retreat, and the emotional distance already beginning to build behind her eyes.
He’d seen that same fear years ago when Baltimore first became more than a fantasy and he was younger, restless, andtrying to prove something to himself before he understood that ambition and loneliness weren’t the same thing.
Blaze leaned back in his chair, jaw tight, while Johanna pushed food around her plate without eating.
Dammit.
He should’ve told her sooner.
Not because Seattle mattered, but because Johanna mattered enough not to have found out like this.
“You really thought about leaving Sheraton Beach again?” she asked quietly after several long seconds.
The hurt underneath the question twisted low through his chest.
Blaze answered honestly anyway. “Yeah. I figured there wasn’t anything keeping me here anymore. Seattle was offering the promotion to lieutenant I’d been working toward for years.”
Johanna nodded once like she expected that answer. And somehow that made it worse.
Blaze rubbed one hand slowly across his jaw. “That was before us.”
Johanna looked up then, and the sadness in her eyes hit him harder than anger would have.
“There’s always been an us, Blaze.”
The truth of it settled heavily between them again.
Because she was right.
Even during the years apart, unfinished emotion had remained stretched tightly between them like a live wire neither one had ever fully walked away from.
She didn’t raise her voice, accuse him of anything, or make a scene. Honestly, that would’ve been easier. Instead, she grew quieter. And Blaze had always known silence was more dangerous with Johanna than anger ever would be.
The restaurant buzzed softly around them while sunlight shimmered across the water beyond the patio railing, butsuddenly everything at the table felt tight and unbearably heavy.
He exhaled slowly. “Jo—”
“You always wanted Seattle.”
Her voice stayed calm, but Blaze recognized the strain underneath it.
Years ago, he used to talk about Seattle constantly. He talked about the mountain rescue units and the advanced emergency response programs like they were part of some bigger future waiting for him somewhere else.
Johanna turned toward the ocean view, blinking once like she was trying to steady herself before her emotions became too visible.
“So what?” Her voice remained painfully calm. “You were just going to tell me eventually?”
