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"You have no idea," she breathed "Alain"
He set down the plate with the steaks and wiped his hands on a towel Then he picked up a medicine bottle, shook out a pill and handed it to her
"Just a sec, I’ll get you soood idea to take these on an empty stomach"
She took the pill and waited while he poured a glass of milk and pushed it toward her on the counter She sipped at thethe pill into hermore to down it
"Not a milk fan?"
She shook her head "I don’t even like the s cheese Lots of it"
"What would you like to drink with dinner? I’d offer you a beer but it wouldn’t go too ith that painkiller you just took"
"Tea or water is fine I’ over it and it’s still raw"
He grinned "Girl afterfan of cow"
"Oh, I’ with asand frowned "That wound looks pretty nasty We should get another bandage on it"
"Yeah, I thought you could help once you got the steaks on I wanted to clean it in the shower Plus the hot water felt good on it"
"Can you o put the steaks on then come back for you?"
She took a hesitant step forward, gripping the countertop "You lead and I’ll follow I’ll do my very best not to take a header"
He ss on top As he walked out of the kitchen to the French doors overlooking the patio, she followed slowly behind hi the steaks on the fire
She stepped outside and breathed in the honeysuckle-scented air Crickets chirped in the distance and the low hu air The sky was covered with the pale shade of dusk and the sun was barely clinging to the horizon as it slipped lower and lower
It was a perfect evening for a cookout
She took a seat at the table and stretched her leg out to its full length underneath The painit to a more tolerable hum
"It’s beautiful here," she said as Cole lowered the lid to the grill
"I like it It’s close to work but it’s still private I don’t have to worry about tripping over anyone when I’ off a mission to hole up away froing me to move out this way You know, before that last mission and all"
Cole studied her intently "And? Were you considering it?"
"I don’t know," she said honestly "Before, I would have likely given it thought but probably would have put it off or made an excuse I was comfortable in my routine and I liked that as a world away from where I lived"
"And now? You said before like things have changed, or at least your thinking has"
She gazed over the pond, watching as the first firefly popped and glowed a line over the water before blinking off again
There was so that took her back to her childhood when things were si dreams
It was a wake-up call that sounsatisfied with herself, her relationships and her jobs
When had she changed fro the world to a cynical adult who believed the world wasn’t savable?
"PJ?"
Cole broke softly into her thoughts, and she realized he aiting for a response to his question
"Now I’ht you came into the bar when I had thisin the past by hanging around in Denver There’s nothing forAt least here I’d be closer to work if nothing else"
"You’d have aze to his and their eyes locked He didn’t flinch away Didn’t try to hide anything from her
"I don’t want to screw up our friendship I can’t lose that, Cole It’s too i after, because all I could think was how stupid I’d been to risk so thatto lose ive it a shot"
She dropped her gaze and returned it to the pond again, counting the fireflies as they danced through the air More and rew louder In the distance, an owl hooted, sending an eerie shiver down her spine
Was he right? Was she guilty of not even giving theave it a chance?
She was being a total chickenshit and offering up lame excuses when at the heart of the matter she was justafraid
"What if it doesn’t work out?" she asked, voicing one of those fears "What if things end badly between us? We still have to work as a teas up, it creates tension for the entire teaether Our caood We could fuck up not only ourselves, but the entire tea one of the others killed I don’t think I could live with that"
"If it ever comes down to that, I’d be the one to leave," he said quietly "I’d never force you out, PJ"
"It would still devastate me," she whispered
"Don’t you believe in forever?" he asked "What about all those romance novels you read? Don’t they preach the happily-ever-after e?"
His words put an ache in her heart She wanted happily ever after more than he could possibly know She wanted forever Problem was, she just wasn’t sure she believed in it any to her fiction so much She immersed herself in books because there she could be anyone and it was easy to believe in love and happily ever after
"You’d "
She smiled "You’d make a pretty badass romance hero too"