never be friends. We...avoided each other. It was easier when I moved up to arson.”
She nodded, looking uncomfortable again.
“I should go. I wanted to apologize and let you know I know I was wrong, and that you had the right to report what happened. It won’t happen again, if that helps.” His tone was formal, stiffened by painful memories and desire he couldn’t do one damned thing about.
He took out his wallet and paid their check.
“If you do remember anything else, about the fire, that is, please call the office. You can always talk to my assistant if I’m not in.”
He slid out of the booth, heading toward the door. Heard her feet on the tile floor behind him.
She caught up with him outside, before he reached his truck.
“Bo, wait. Please.”
It was still light out as she followed him down the side of his SUV, between the cars.
He turned on her. “I can’t do this, Erin.”
He might as well be honest about it.
“Do what?”
“Talk about old times. Tell you all about us. It’s over, and I can’t see the point in raking back over it.”
“I hurt you.”
She stated it like a fact, emotionless, studying his face. Bo didn’t want her to see, but he supposed that horse was already out of the barn.
“It’s fine. Over and done.”
She put a hand on his arm. “I’m sorry. For that, and for making you go back over this. From my dreams...from what I can remember, what we had was deep. I can feel it, even if I can’t remember it all.”
Erin stepped in closer. She didn’t look nervous anymore. She was...something else. Bo froze, keys in hand.
“I don’t want to play games. Or be played with,” he said, his voice almost desperate as he swallowed hard, his breath short.
“I don’t want to play games, either. I want to remember,” she said softly, and leaned into him, hips first. Her hands drifted up his torso, over his chest to his shoulders as she pressed in closer.
A second later she was kissing him, and everything else fell away. She dropped gentle, easy kisses along his jaw, as if getting to know it again, mapping him with her lips. He swallowed, turning his face away, trying to get control. To resist. So she burrowed into the hollow of his throat, her tongue darting out to taste him.
He groaned her name. She sighed against him.
“If we parted ways, why does this all feel so right?” she asked, nibbling her way back up to his mouth.
Bo dropped his keys as his arms came around her, and his resolve crumbled, reversing their positions and pressing her into the side of the SUV, his mouth hungry for hers.
He slid one hand up under her blouse, his palm settling over her breast. She arched into the touch, an invitation. If this kept happening, they were going to end up naked in the back of his truck as they had the first time they’d left this diner and couldn’t keep their hands off each other.
“History repeating itself,” he muttered before he sank into another kiss. So much for good intentions.
“WE HAVE TO STOP,” Bo said against her mouth, his hands on her shoulders, pushing her away.
Erin’s entire being protested, and she shook her head.
“No.”
Then his big hands were on her face, making her look at him. His cheeks were ruddy, his eyes hot. There was no doubt that he wanted her.
“I’m not going to do this. It’s taking advantage, don’t you get that? You’re not in any state of mind to be making these decisions.”
That riled her. She might have lost her memory, but she wasn’t so incapacitated that she couldn’t decide if she wanted a man or not. Granted, there were a few extra things going on that might influence whether she wanted this man, but still.
She dropped a hand, planted it between them as she closed her fingers around the erection that bulged against his slacks.
“Erin, don’t,” he almost begged, even as he pressed into her.
She took her hand away, shaken by the desperate look on his face. She’d hurt this man, and even if she couldn’t remember it, she was doing it again.
Shame welled, and she stopped touching him, dropping her forehead against his chest.
“I’m sorry. I—I really want you, though. It’s...crazy, but I do.”
“I know. I want you, too.”
“I could tell.”
He bit out a short laugh, his hands still on her shoulders, squeezing lightly.
Her eyes closed, inhaling his scent, feeling the heat of his body, Erin tried to calm her own need, but her mind had different ideas.
“Oh,” she whispered in surprise.
“What?”
“I can almost smell them, the apples. What the heck is it about the apples, Bo?”
Then she knew. As if she’d known it all the time. She pulled back to look up at him. “It was the last time we were together, wasn’t it? The last time we made love?”
His jaw tightened, and he nodded before his head dropped back, staring upward at the sky as he answered. “Yeah.”
The simple confirmation made another puzzle piece click into place. “So this is June...I was out of commission mid-February through April, and we broke up a month before the explosion, you said. January? So how could we have been in an orchard?”
“It was in October. Our last time. Then I left to train for the new job and came back at Christmas. We officially broke up shortly after that.”
Something pulled at the far side of her memory, but she couldn’t reach it and groaned in frustration.
“I can feel it’s all there, like it’s behind a wall, but I can’t get to it,” she said, closing her fists into his shirt, an expression of frustration more than desire this time.
His arms came around her, holding her close.
But it had happened again. Being close to him loosened up her mind, her reservations, or whatever. Memories, no matter how sketchy, started to form. Whatever he’d been to her, it was strong enough to pull her back in a way nothing else had been.
“It’ll be okay, Duck,” he said, and she thought he kissed her hair.
Her head came up quickly.
“Duck. You always called me that. Why?”
Blood raced through her veins, excitement coursing through her as she remembered another small thing.
“You were always hitting your head on the bar above the seat in the hook and ladder, and I had to remind you to duck so many times, I started calling you that.”
His thumb was rubbing over her jaw, a tender gesture in the wake of the passion that had carried them away a few seconds earlier, though that was still there, too.
She measured her words carefully.
“You said you wanted more from me. I want more, too...from you. Now.”
Her eyes met his, and she hoped he knew what she was asking.
Desire flared in the brown depths of his gaze. Of course he knew.
“It’s not