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Who did he think she meant?
“Yeah. My parents struggled for a very long time. It nearly took them apart.”
“I don’t know how they survived.”
“I think you’d have to hold onto each other. Otherwise, what else do you have?” He seemed to be looking clear through her when he spoke, as if he could impart some wisdom to her soul.
Her voice turned small under the weight of it. “Yeah.”
He looked away, blinking, and oh, why had she brought up his brother? Almost, without thinking, she touched his arm. “I’m so sorry, Rem, for your loss.”
When he looked at her again
, his eyes had reddened.
And there he was, the man she’d met a month ago, before the stabbing. Shelby could just shut up about Rembrandt and his toughened heart. The man was sweet and considerate and…
Had she learned nothing over the last few brutally quiet weeks? A smile, a ham sandwich and a little flattery and she was ready to throw herself into his arms?
Please. She turned away and picked up the cuff link. “Sigma Chi.”
“I think that’s a fraternity at the University of Minnesota.” His voice sounded a little funny, but she didn’t comment.
“I’ll see if I can track down when these were cast.”
“Thanks, Eve. I knew I could count on you.”
Oh boy. She glanced at the sandwich bag. “Thanks for the grub.”
“Yeah, it’s easy to get focused on a case, right?”
He said it like he knew what it felt like to have a case burrow in your mind and never leave, itch you with questions until they were answered. “Yeah, it is.”
“You have to learn to take breaks, let your mind think. You get so focused on something it can keep you pinned to it, and then it will derail your entire life. And your life has to be bigger than the work, the questions, the frustration, right?”
She nodded, but, “Don’t you get obsessed? I mean…there’s this reputation—”
He put up his hand. “That was the old me. The new me knows how to let go, get some perspective, and how to keep the questions from taking over my life.”
She supposed a life-threatening injury might do that.
His phone buzzed and he pulled it off his belt. “I gotta go, but…um. I was thinking. You might want to try Powell Bluff.”
She had nothing. “What?”
“It’s a paint color. Sort of a beige. I think you’ll like it. For your dining room.”
“Oh. Okay…”
He was heading toward the door.
“Rembrandt?”
He turned. And for the life of her, she didn’t know why the words simply formed and bubbled out of her, as if she had unstopped a geyser, but, “We’re having a party on Saturday night. A Fourth of July gig with my family. On the lake. Would you like to join us?”
He stood there in the silhouette of the doorway, dressed in his suit, tall and wide-shouldered, powerful, shadowed, something about him both familiar and yet deliciously mysterious and a smile crept up his face, chasing all her doubts from her brain. “I wouldn’t miss it for the world.”
She turned back to the boards, no longer hungry.
