left—” he eyed her intently “—and personally, I think that I’ve lost too much time with my best friend already.”
Best friend. He probably had no idea how comforting that sounded to her. Or how much she had missed him, Lila thought.
“Me, too,” she agreed softly. And then, because she thought that maybe she’d admitted too much, she focused on what he’d said about the capricious nature of the kind of life police officers led. “When the kids all opted to go into the force, I was both so proud and so scared. A big part of me just wanted them to be safe. To sit in cubicles where nothing more serious than a paper cut threatened them.”
“You sit in a cubicle,” he reminded her, humor framing his mouth. “How do you like it?”
Lila laughed. Checkmate—or was it touché? she wondered. In any case, he had her. “I hate it.”
He nodded, knowing that she did. He couldn’t help wondering why, after Ben had died and the man’s hold over her went with him, she hadn’t asked to be put back in the field in some capacity.
“Wouldn’t wish an existence they’d hate on your kids, would you?”
“No.” Which was why she’d never told even her daughters, Riley and Taylor, how she felt about their choice of a vocation. “But I still get knots in my stomach at times, worrying.”
“All parents worry—if they’re worth their salt.” It was a given. He worried about all of his kids, even Janelle, who was an assistant to the D.A. All of them dealt with the criminal element every day. There was nothing reassuring about that. But some things were just out of his hands.
However, the direction of the conversation was not and he got it back on track. “So, what’s your answer?”
Lila raised her eyes to his quizzically. Something quivered in his gut. “My answer?”
She did innocent well, Brian thought, amused. “I wasn’t distracted by the sidebar, Lila. Dinner? Tomorrow?”
Lila moved the mug aside. She’d had enough beer. Taking in a breath, she let it out slowly, as if by doing so it somehow signaled the beginning of a new journey. One that promised to be far more pleasant than the one she’d just been on.
“Dinner. Tomorrow,” she echoed, confirming the engagement.
Something like the burst of sunshine went off in his chest. He didn’t try to explore the reasons behind it. “Great. I’ll pick you up at your place. Seven o’clock all right?”
Now that she was living alone, dinner no longer had a set time. It was dictated by the contents of her refrigerator and her desire to nibble.
“Seven o’clock is fine,” she assured him. Warmth spread through her as she felt him looking at her. She wasn’t quite sure how to handle this, so she pushed it aside for the time being. Glancing at her watch, she realized that a lot more time had gone by than she’d thought. “I’d better get going.” She flashed him a grateful smile. “I’ve kept you long enough.”
He began to protest that it hadn’t been nearly long enough, then thought better of it. She was still skittish, even though that was difficult to reconcile with the Lila he knew. So instead, he rose from the booth, signaling that he was ready to go, too.
As Lila slid out, he leaned over to quietly tell her, “The tap will be put in place tomorrow morning. I’ll send Manny Lopez over.” The senior computer tech was both exceptionally competent and quiet. “What time do you leave for work?”
The precinct was only ten minutes away, but she liked getting in early. “Seven-thirty.”
“Manny will be there at seven.” It was before his shift, but he knew he could prevail on the man to come in early. “It shouldn’t take long.”
“Are you sure he won’t mind putting in the extra time?”
Manny, a widower, had a daughter who had been caught shoplifting last year. Brian had made the charges go away, keeping them off the police blotter in exchange for Rachel “volunteering” for community service and counseling.
Nodding, she preceded Brian as they made their way to the door.
“Come back soon,” Shawn called after them.
Brian glanced over his shoulder toward the bartender. “Count on it.”
“I’m talking to the cute blonde, not you, Cavanaugh,” Shawn responded.
Lila laughed and raised her hand above her head to wave goodbye.
“You have an admirer,” Brian told her as they walked out.
“Shawn was always a good guy.” She turned around at the entrance. The night air was chilly. The temperature had dropped drastically since they’d gone inside. Lila turned up her collar, wrapping her arms around herself. “So are you, Brian.”
Then why had she avoided him? But he knew better than to ask the question this early in their reconnection. If he did, she might find a reason to cancel tomorrow night. And he was really looking forward to tomorrow night.
“Hang on to that thought,” he told her as they walked back to the precinct parking lot.
He was whistling when he got home twenty minutes later. Even walking into the dark house didn’t bother him the way it usually did.
Ordinarily, the darkness and silence assaulted him the second he pushed open the front door. But not tonight. Tonight, this was the house where a lot of living had gone on, where four babies had grown up to be upstanding adults.
And where, tonight, he felt like a kid again.
Though Brian had never looked toward each birthday with increasing dread, he could feel his usual zest for life waning these last few months.
Maybe it was because everyone in his family had now paired off. That didn’t just include his own kids but Andrew’s and Mike’s, as well. Eleven members in all, every one of them married and in the family way—or getting there. Even Andrew, who had been on his own for so many years, was now reunited with the wife only he had actually believed was still alive.
Rose Cavanaugh had disappeared one morning after an argument with her husband. All the evidence had pointed to her death, not the least of which was the fact that her car was discovered in the river. Her body wasn’t found, but it could have easily been swept out to sea, and that was what everyone believed.
Everyone but Andrew.
He never gave up hope, and over the years, every spare moment he had found him poring over one dead end after another, until he finally found her. But even that hadn’t been a total success. Rose had been working at a diner upstate and was a victim of amnesia. She had no recollection of the husband and children she’d left behind.
Undaunted, Andrew displayed ultimate patience and somehow got her to come around, to remember.
So there they all were, paired up and happy while he pretended it didn’t matter to him that he was always stag at the endless family functions.
Well, tomorrow night he wasn’t going to go stag. Tomorrow he was going out with Lila.
“Don’t go getting ahead of yourself,” he murmured to himself. Methodically, he removed his jacket and then his holster with the service revolver. The former he slung across the back of a chair, but he placed the latter on the third shelf of his bookcase, the way he had been doing for the past twenty-some-odd years. “It’s just dinner, just catching up on old times.”
And maybe, finally, making a few new ones, he added silently.
“You talking to yourself now?”
Reaching for his gun, Brian swung around toward the sound of the voice, the weapon aimed and ready to fire. Andrew was standing in the doorway, looking more amused than angry or distressed.
“Easy, Quick Draw.” Andrew