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He half smiled. “Maybe time has colored that memory, made me the ‘fanciful’ one, but I could never forget it. As you grew up, I’d see this serious part of you, one that felt things in quiet ways you didn’t talk about to anyone. At the wedding, I realized how long I’d been thinking about being the person you shared those parts of yourself with. Maybe since that moment, though the time wasn’t right until now.”
You have his heart. What kind of message was the universe sending her when a childhood wish, a dream beyond her grasp, came to her just as her world was falling apart?
She’d destroyed someone else’s life. How could she possibly allow love to save hers?
Brick stepped back, still gripping her hand. “C’mon, let’s walk back. I need to feed you.”
Chapter Twelve
They returned to the green space near the parking area to eat their sandwiches. They sat on the same side of the picnic table so they could watch the James River activity, plus be hip to hip, thigh to thigh. After they ate, Brick put his arm around her, and she laid her head on his shoulder. Her mind turned over the words he’d said to her, what she could accept and allow them to mean right now.
She didn’t know the answer to that, but she did want to keep learning more about him. So when they were back in the truck, she had a request.
“Tell me about another case. Maybe one with a happy ending? Do you have those?”
“Sure.” As he backed out of the space, he put his hand on the head of her seat to glance behind the truck, his upper body twisting and thigh flexing as his foot moved from the brake to the gas and back.
What was between them had far deeper elements, but her reaction to his body alone could carry her like a cruise ship on a world tour. She gave herself a good mental shake before he caught her staring.
Sheesh. He’s not that pretty. He has…big ears.
“This one isn’t from our department,” he said, “but the good stories get passed around. Remember me mentioning it’s a good idea to hire a professional arsonist to set your fires? This is about one of those guys, only he wasn’t so smart about who he hired to assist him.”
As he bumped out of the park and onto the main road, Brick tossed her an easy smile. “Carl paid Larry to help him set a fire in a bar. When they broke in after closing, he told Larry to start sloshing the acetone around. Larry was nervous about the whole deal, though. He kept complaining about wanting a cigarette, but Carl told him to shut up and get the job done. So Carl starts the egg timer, which will set off the fire once they’re clear. But when he turns around to tell Larry to bug out, he sees Larry with a cigarette in one hand, flicking the lighter in the other.”
“Oh, no.”
“Oh yeah. Carl wakes up on a patch of grass to find the bar surrounded by firefighters, cops and the arson investigator. Who leans over him, asks if he’s okay, then proceeds to read him his rights.”
As she chuckled, Brick shook his head. “It gets better. This was back when people still smoked in hospitals. Larry’s down the hall from Carl, and Carl keeps telling the nurses to make damn sure he doesn’t get any cigarettes, because he wants the son of a bitch to suffer.”
He winked. “That story was so good it made it into a book called Fire Cops, by Michael and Charles W. Sasser. They brought real police experience to the stories, but ones like that gave you a breather from the more serious cases.”
Which brought to mind the one he was working on. “Was your call at Rufus’s about the Whitfield fire?”
“Yeah. One of the other investigators in our team is going to do a second interview with Colin this afternoon. He’s getting some of the same vibes I am. I gave him my theories and he’ll integrate those angles into his questions.”
“Did you want to go with him?”
“Sure, but I’ve learned to let others do their part of the job. Particularly when I have something important that takes priority.” He squeezed her hand. “I’m a workaholic, so making time for other things helps me maintain a balance. Seems like you struggle with that yourself.”
She twitched, uncomfortable with the topic. “It’s not exactly the same. There’s so much to learn in medical school, they call it ‘trying to drink from a fire hose.’” She sent him an arch glance. “I expect you get the analogy.”
“I do. But Beulah feels you’re pretty on top of stuff.”
“I feel like I have to work twice as hard as she and the others do to earn that compliment. Thinking fast on my feet, putting that info together in a clinical setting, isn’t as easy for me.”
“Could that be a self-fulfilling worry?”
At her quizzical look, he pointed to her stomach. “The more anxious you get, the harder you push yourself. You worry so much about having the right answer at the right moment, could you be creating the mental paralysis that’s slowing you down? If it’s really slowing you down at all. Maybe if you can step back, shift perspective, you’ll figure out the underlying reasons you’re pushing that hard, or thinking that way about yourself.”
“Beulah says I need to shove some Zen up my ass.”
“I like your roommate. And just FYI, there are other things that can be put up there to loosen you up.”
His teasing look made her anxious in a different, far more pleasurable way. It also told her he might be serious. While her initial reaction was hell no, she recalled his fingers stroking her rim, and the aroused reaction she’d had.
“I’ve never done anything there,” she said. “Plus I’m not sure about it. Working an ER rotation, talking to the nurses and doctors about what they’ve seen come in, makes me pretty leery.”
