He’d heard it probably a hundred times since but it never clutched and clawed at him like this rendition. That’s when he remembered. Today should have been their fourth anniversary.
It had been a dumb move but he couldn’t help himself. He closed his eyes to let his mind drift back to a time when the mere sight of Nicole Jamieson made his skin catch fire and his dick so hard he had to pause in his stride.
After a few seconds he could almost feel his bride in his arms again. He saw in his mind’s eye her lopsided smile of happiness that trembled with the audacity of what they’d just done. Above it all was that look of trust in her wide green gaze.
Her eyes on him. That’s all it took. He’d known from that first glance. She did, too. The force of attraction was undeniable. Insoluble. Magnetic. Meant to be.
Maybe that was because she’d kissed him before they had even exchanged a word. In answer to that kiss, he’d dragged her out on the dance floor and hauled her in against him to do a slow grind that left the other patrons of the D.C. law enforcement hangout feeling like maybe they should go home and give the couple some privacy.
Their sixty-day courtship contained every idiotic love cliché in overdrive.
When it went to hell, the explosion had left craters in more lives than their own.
A hailstorm of darker memories had struck him so hard Scott had had to open his eyes to keep from drifting away to the ugly place that he had fought too long and too hard to come back from.
When the song was over, he’d bought a beer, to celebrate his return to the human condition. And then another. Suddenly, making that phone call hadn’t seemed like the sorry-ass loser idea it was.
Why the hell did I just let her go?
Scott stared at his empty plate as if it were a Ouija board. Two years later he still didn’t have the answer. What he did know was that he didn’t deserve Nikki. No surprise there. From that very first night, in the back of his mind, he had known it was just a matter of time before she realized that, too. He had never been able to live up to anyone’s expectations, not his family’s nor even his own. He simply wished on everything holy that Nikki had discovered that truth about him another way. She deserved so much better than the way it went down.
Scott winced. Nikki not only left him, she had left the D.C. police force. That was a real shock. She was good, had great instincts, and a way with the public he’d never had. She’d have quickly climbed the ranks, if she hadn’t wrecked her career by running from him.
So when he’d learned, purely by accident a few months ago, that she had become a Montgomery County, Maryland, police K-9 officer, he’d done a little digging until he came up with an address and phone number for her. He’d told himself he’d never use either. He just needed to know where she was. Just that. Until he could make amends.
Now he’d gone and stirred up a hornet’s nest by calling her.
Scott.
That’s all it took, the sound of his name in her voice. The longing had flooded back, nearly bending him double with regret and desire. Things he could—should—do nothing about. Not that that was going to stop him. He owed her. Some things he couldn’t change. Other things he was going to try to make up for.
He reached for the fresh beer the bar girl set before him and tried to empty it in a single swallow. It was like swallowing glass. He’d made that call to prove something. He’d learned something else. Something that presented a real danger to his plans.
He was still in love with her.
*
An hour later, as he crossed the parking lot with the intention of sleeping off the beer in his truck, Scott felt the sudden tingle of approaching danger without even a visual cue.
It came as the distinctive sound of approaching Harleys, identified before seeing the bikes. The pipes were ugly. Loud and percussive, they announced riders whose most gentle thought about the general populace was that they would all go deaf. These were one-percenters.
From one second to the next, Scott went from slightly buzzed to stone-cold sober. Because he knew his life might depend on it.
As a pair of bikers came roaring up the two-lane blacktop out of the darkness, Scott did a quick mental survey of his situation. A pancake holster holding a SIG P239 fit snug in the small of his back. A .38 was strapped above an ankle. A sheathed Ka-Bar strapped to the other. Enough, maybe.
This wasn’t his first encounter with bikers on this trip. That’s why he was armed with more than a handgun. A cop knew there was always the chance that some criminal out there somewhere would recognize him, and maybe held a grudge. Paranoia was a good state of mind for a cop. It was crucial for a former undercover narc. Tonight he was dressed as a civilian and would act as one, unless provoked to do otherwise.