“Yeah, well, I’m still me.”
“I sure hope so.”
Chase exhaled, allowing the muscles in her neck and back to release with her breath as she moved to the perfectly made cot and sat down.
“I figured you’d show up here eventually.” Norah moved her gaze from Chase’s face down to her mud-covered boots and pointed with her chin. Chase immediately pulled at the laces and tossed the boots out the door.
“Well, since we’re going to be coworkers and all.”
“Listen.” Norah’s tone grew cold, and she turned her back to Chase again. “I don’t like this any more than you do.” In fact, she was quite sure she liked it far less than Chase did.
“And who says I don’t like this?”
“You shouldn’t. It’s awkward. And weird. And icky. And I refuse to let it muck up what we’re working on here.” Norah reached up, gathered her long brown hair into one hand, and clipped it to the top of her head, leaving the bare nape of her neck, already sun-kissed from a day down South, painfully exposed to Chase. A shudder raked Chase’s arms, one that left goosebumps in complete juxtaposition to the summer-like air around them, and a part of her, a visceral part she had clearly forgotten to dispose of fifteen years ago, struggled not to reach out and touch her.
“Norah. About before.” It felt like a foolish way to start broaching the past, but how did you start a conversation about the biggest mistake of your life?
Fortunately, or unfortunately—Chase couldn’t decide which—she didn’t need to continue. Norah spun around with gusto, her cheeks flushed and shining, as if desperate to stop her.
“Don’t. Let’s not do this. Not now.”
“Then when?”
“Never, actually.Neverworks best for me.” Norah looked away, leaving no room for Chase to continue the conversation.
“We can’t just not talk about it. What are we going to do? Work side by side for God knows how long and just pretend? Pretend we were never…us?”
“That sounds absolutely perfect. Now, do you have anything to contribute to H7J1 right now?”
“Norah.” Chase’s voice emerged as nothing but a sad whisper.
“Chase. The past is the past. There’s no need to rehash it.”
“Don’t you work with enough epidemiologists to know that history always repeats itself?” Chase wiggled her brow. It was impossible not to flirt with Norah. Not when all they’d ever known was an “us.” Even so many years later, they were anything but strangers.
The fire that flashed through Norah’s eyes told Chase her charming one-liners were not going to be met with anything except a brick wall.
“Don’t do that.”
“Do what?” Chase flopped back onto the cot, the comfort of being in Norah’s force field again taking over.
“Don’t flirt with me. I’m your boss. You’re my subordinate.” Norah’s words were stern, but her cheeks were flushed an even deeper pink, and her lashes fluttered just a bit faster than usual.
“Your subordinate?” No. Too easy of a setup. They weren’t there yet. Blatant sexual advances felt unwanted. “I believe John said we were equals.”
Norah rolled her eyes. “What does John know? And besides, who died and put him in charge?”
“Jesus. I believe it was Jesus, actually. Since that’s about how long John’s been working in the field.”
Norah let out a spurt of laughter, and Chase’s heart ached a little. She used to love making Norah laugh that way—pure, uninhibited. Everything Norah did was so precise, so perfectly planned, and something about making her laugh just felt so real to Chase.
“Fine, so we’re equals. That doesn’t change the fact I want to keep this completely professional between us. And that starts with not bringing up the past.”
“We have to talk about it at some point,” Chase said.
“No. We really don’t. What happened between us is ancient history.”
“Maybe for you it is. But I’d be lying if I said I haven’t spent every day of the last fifteen years thinking about it.”
