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CHAPTER 2

T RINA

When I walk into the break room, I’d like to say I’m surprised by what I see—five grown men gathered around the television, intently watching last night’s episode of Find Your Fiancé .

“I hate to break up whatever this is,”—I gesture to the group of them—“but there are multiple fire alarms going off at that apartment renovation project down the street. I need one of you to go with me to check it out.”

Thompson jumps up. “I’m with you, Captain.”

I nod at him. “I think it’s most likely a false alarm, but be ready in case we call for backup.” Thompson and I head for the garage, but I stop and turn back to the crew, the show already engrossing them again. “Hey, guys?” A few of them glance over at me. “She picks the hot one in the navy pin-striped suit.”

I wear a smirk on my face as I turn and jog to the fire engine with groans and huffs following at my back for giving them the spoiler. When I get to the engine, Thompson’s already in the driver’s seat and I climb into the passenger side, then we’re off.

“Geez, it’s excessively cold out today, even for late January. Don’t you think, Captain?”

“Meh. I don’t know. It’s Ohio. You expect that the frigid air will burn your face in the winter.”

Thompson chuckles. “I guess. But I’m gonna quit complaining because when it was in the nineties last June, I thought I was gonna melt and I swore I’d stop lamenting how cold our winters are.”

The group of men I spend twenty-four hours with every third day are like siblings to me. They’re the kind of brothers where you’re close and would do anything for each other—literally give your life in our case—but rarely tell them how much they mean to you. Being the female captain of six men would be a challenge if there were one or two of them with too much machismo. Fortunately, I’ve been with this group for a little over a year and the minor kinks we had at the start are all ironed out and we’re a well-oiled machine. Thompson’s our newest shift addition, replacing my sister’s late husband, Teddy, after he died in September.

Two minutes later, Thompson pulls the engine up outside the two-story apartment building that is being renovated from eight small apartments to four luxury ones. We both jump out and I survey the scene. A group of men in carpenter pants and T-shirts that read Alero Construction stand gathered on the sidewalk. They look miserable, wrapping their arms around their chest to stay warm.

“I don’t see any smoke. Let’s touch base with the foreman, then head in and check it out.”

Thompson nods and we approach the building, getting to the old sandstone steps at the same time as the foreman. By now, the workers gathered off to the side have noticed me and—newsflash—the fact that I have breasts. So, just as their boss opens his mouth to speak, the hooting and hollering from the peanut gallery starts. Their boss’s handsome cheeks turn red and his eyes narrow before he whips around to address his crew.

“Enough! Show some respect.” The group of young men immediately fall silent. Hmm, impressive.

“I’m Captain Flynn. Tell us what’s going on.” I pretend the men hadn’t been catcalling at me. Truthfully, it’s not that uncommon, so I usually ignore it. Once in a while, it gets bad enough that it pisses off one of the men on my shift and they say something. I’ve instructed them all to turn a deaf ear to it. We’re representing Elladine and have to be above reproach. The last thing I’d want is one of my colleagues to get reprimanded at work for getting into an altercation—physical or verbal—with a citizen on my behalf.

“Sorry about those idiots.” I simply nod, so he gets on with it. “Smoke detectors have been going off intermittently this morning, but a few minutes ago, several started going off at once.”

“And the building is empty?” He nods. “Have you been doing any welding or electrical work today?”

The man shakes his head. “Just some demo on the upper level and some drywall work on the main level.”

“Okay, thanks. Stay out here and we’ll check it out.” I don’t wait for a response and Thompson and I head into the building.

We spend the next twenty minutes going through each section of the building. It’s so dusty in here it’s like someone took bags of baking flour and bombed the place.

“Let’s check these smoke detectors.” I reach up and pull one down and, as I suspected, dust is filling the detection chamber. I show Thompson. “Can you pull that one over there down and check it?” He does and finds the same thing.

I walk back out the front door and find the foreman, asking him to come in with me.

“So, I’m nearly positive that your issue is all this dust from the demo and the sanding of the new drywall. See this here?” I show him the smoke detector I’m holding. “All of this dust is messing up the electronics in the sensing area. Do you have a shop-vac around so I can show you how to clean it?”

I spend the next five minutes showing him how to clean the detector and explaining that they’ll need to do all of them.

He, Thompson, and I walk out of the building. “If you’re not almost done here, consider a dust mitigation system, too.” He smiles with his eyes and reaches into his pocket.

He hands me a business card, and I read the name on it: “Joe Alero, Owner.”

“I’m Joe,” he says with a flirty grin. “If you ever need any residential construction or remodeling work, I’m your man. I give a discount to firefighters, nurses, and police, and I owe you a favor for helping us out today.”

“You don’t owe us anything. We’re doing our job.” I smile politely at him before Thompson and I walk back to the engine.

As we’re climbing back in, one worker yells out, “Hey, gorgeous, why don’t you take my number, too? You can play with my hose sometime.”

I roll my eyes and don’t acknowledge him. But, as Thompson pulls away from the site, I watch in the mirror as Joe Alero sends all the men inside except for the one with the poetic parting words. It’s clear by their body language the creep who made the pervy comments is getting reamed.

* * *

BEN

All I want is to have one celebratory beer with my partner, Rachel, since we’re finally done with the fraud case we’ve been working for months. It’s eight-thirty p.m. and I’m tired. Too tired to be dealing with this asshole who is determined to ruin my peace as Rachel and I sip our drinks.

I watch discreetly as the barmaid, Vicki, tries not to engage too much with the man. Yet she seems to recognize that if she totally ignores him, he’ll likely escalate. Vicki has worked here a long time and lived in Elladine even longer. So, she knows Rachel and I are detectives and that we won’t leave here without this situation being resolved.

The dude slams his glass down on the bar. “Another, ye wench!” He’s the only one who laughs.

Now, I’ve had enough. I turn to the rude loudmouth.

“I think it’s time you apologize to the lady,”—I gesture to Vicki—“then call it a night.”

The beefy dude turns to face me and, even with him sitting, I’m guessing he’s only an inch or two shorter than my six-foot-four. “Wasn’t talking to you, man. Damn, all you people in this little town are sensitive as fuck.”

Rachel stands and walks about twenty feet away and I’m sure she’s calling for one of the patrol units to come as backup.

I stand and glare at the man. “I don’t care who you were talking to. Not sure where you’re from, but you’re in Elladine today, and we show some respect to our fellow citizens around here. How about you take your leave for tonight?”

The stranger stands, and, like I thought, he’s only slightly shorter than me, but he’s much bigger. He probably has forty pounds on me. Fortunately, he’s pretty doughy and, though I’m lean, I run almost daily and weight train to keep my strength up as I never know what I’m going to encounter during my work.

“How about you fuck. Right. Off.” He pushes me in the chest with his hand to enunciate each word. “I’ll stay exactly where I am. I ain’t got nowhere to be in the morning, since some slut pretending to be a firefighter got me fired from my job today. Real men used to be able to say whatever they wanted to a bit?—”

Before he can finish, I’ve grabbed his arm and have it twisted behind his back with his face pressed down on the bar. When he started talking, it only took me a nanosecond to figure out he was talking about Trina. There isn’t a single day it’s A shift at Station Three that I’m not acutely aware of. That I don’t keep my ear attuned a little more intently to the dispatch radios, worrying about a major fire she might be called out to. She may hate me, but the feeling is definitely not mutual. Hell, my life would be a lot less complicated if it were.

Rachel walks over and works on cuffing the guy and I lean forward so he can hear me loud and clear. “Remember those three wimpy shoves you gave me a minute ago? Congratulations, you just assaulted a police officer. Oh, and that firefighter? She’d kick your ass down the street and back again and barely break a sweat. Enjoy your weekend in jail. You won’t be seeing a judge until Monday morning.”

Rachel has him cuffed, and I read him his Miranda rights as two of our patrolmen walk in. I give them a quick rundown of the charges and hand him off. Then I sigh, throw some cash down on the bar, and tell Rachel to go home.

Me? I’m heading back to the station to complete an arrest report. But first, I have a stop to make.

Ten minutes later, I park in front of the Elladine Fire Department Station Three and swipe my badge. Any cop in my district can get into the fire stations, so that if there’s ever an emergency, we can access the building to provide support.

Once I’m a few feet down the main hall, I follow the sound of laughter to the main break area. When I’m only feet away, I stop and listen for a moment, though I probably shouldn’t. But, fuck, do I miss the sound of her laughter. Or, more accurately, the sound of her laughter directed at something I’ve said or done.

Even when our friend group hangs out, she doesn’t laugh very often, and she hasn’t directed that gorgeous sound at me in approaching a decade. She’d have to stop pretending I don’t exist to actually laugh at something I say.

“All I’m saying is I don’t understand why we have to keep watching reruns of Bridgerton . You realize you’ve probably watched this more times than any of my female friends, right?” Trina’s voice is light and teasing.

“Captain! Why are you hating on Bridgerton ? This is one true love, soulmate type shit right here. We gotta teach Thompson here how to treat a lady.”

“Jesus. Thompson, don’t listen to anything these old fools are saying. They’ll ruin your young brain. What are you? Twenty? Twenty-one?”

“Twenty-one, ma’am.”

“Well, first, I’m not even sure there’s such a thing as ‘true’ love, let alone one true love. And definitely not soulmates. You’ll save yourself a lot of heartache if you learn that lesson now.”

“Does Joe know you don’t believe in soulmates, Cap?” another male voice chimes in, his tone jovial.

Who the hell is Joe? I rub at my chest. Damn, jealousy does not feel good.

Unable to listen any longer, I walk up and lift my hand to knock on the open door in time to see Trina smiling at one of the guys, as she throws a slice of the orange she’s eating at him. She looks up as my knuckles meet the wood. All joy drains from her face, replaced almost instantly with the flat affect she wears especially for me.

“You got a minute? In private?” I ask her.

Trina stands and walks to the door. Before she steps out, she glances over her shoulder at her crew. “Don’t fill Thompson’s head with any of your crap while I’m gone. None of you, but especially you, Gio.”

As she walks past me, I follow her and the ripples of laughter as her colleagues continue their conversation fade away the further we get from the room. It’s clear from what I just saw and heard that these men serving under her have affection for her.

A minute later, she opens another door, flips on a light, and she takes a seat behind a desk—one that I presume is hers—then gestures to the chairs opposite her.

“How can I help you, Detective?”

Okay, she’s going formal.

“I wanted to come by and make sure you were okay.”

Trina squints her eyes at me and frowns like she thinks I’m the world’s biggest idiot—which, with her, I might be—then holds her hands in front of her, palms up. “Why wouldn’t I be? Even if I’m not, it’s not any of your concern. So, unless there’s some police business you need to discuss?—”

“I arrested an obnoxious customer at O’Riley’s tonight for being unruly. Part of his spouting off was about you. About some things he apparently said to you today, and how he blames you for getting fired from his job. I wanted to make sure it didn’t shake you up. And that he didn’t make any threats.”

She sits back in her chair, and her eyes widen. “Joe fired him because of what he said to me? Wow, okay.” She says it more to herself than to me.

Anxiety creeps up into my chest. This Joe character has rapidly become my least favorite person, and I don’t even know him.

I should stop myself from asking the question that’s on the tip of my tongue, but I can’t. “Who’s Joe?” I sneer.

“No one you know.” Her tone is so dismissive I feel my blood pressure rising. “Are we done here?” She stands.

Apparently, she’s finished. But I’m not.

“Tell me why you’re still so angry with me.”

“Go to hell.”

“I’m already there,” I mutter under my breath. The way her eyes narrow tells me she heard it, though.

Her face and neck grow flaming red and her shoulders tense. It’s instantly clear she thinks my comment is some dig at her rather than a statement about the fact that loving a woman for the last nine and a half years who can barely tolerate being in my presence is its own special brand of torture.

She sits down and crosses her arms over her chest. “Fine, Ben. You want to do this? You think rehashing long buried shit is necessary? We’ll do it. But know this—we’re only having this discussion once. Then it’s done. And we’re only doing this because you obviously need some closure. So have at it.”

She stares at me with a challenge in her gorgeous eyes. Now’s my chance to back down. A smart man probably would…

“Well, it’s clearly not ‘buried’, or you wouldn’t still be so pissed about whatever it is you think I’ve done to you.” I know it’s the wrong choice of words as I say them, but I’m unable to reel them back into my mouth as they fly out.

Trina gets up and closes the door, then returns to her seat.

“What I think you’ve done?” Her voice is a near whisper now, and the hatred and disgust I see in her eyes is downright frightening. “I really have to hand it to you. How you played the long game with me—five years. Bravo, Ben.” She pauses and does an annoying slow clap. “Though it’s not all your fault. I was the fool who listened to you when you asked me to take a chance on you after five years of telling you no. I was the sap who took it to heart and let you—Elladine’s most renowned player—convince me you were telling the truth when you said I was your dream for the future and that you… that you loved me. That it was only you and me.”

I hate the pain in her voice even more than the disdain, and the way her voice hitches on her last sentence causes a sharp stab in my chest.

“Trina, I?—”

“No, I’m not done.” Her voice is harsh now. She’s forced any hurt out of it. “You took advantage of the things I shared with you about my dreams, and about the lack of love from my parents growing up and used them to craft the perfect lies. All so I’d let you fuck me. Because all I ever was to you was another conquest.”

I jump up, furious now, and lay my palms flat against her desk, leaning across it toward her. “None of those things I said to you are”—I close my eyes and regroup a second before opening them again—“were lies. And we didn’t fuck. We made love and you know it.”

A sarcastic laugh erupts from her, and she looks up at the ceiling. She takes two deep breaths, then returns her glare to me.

“Bullshit. It was just sex to you—a game. Are we done now? Do you feel better?” Her condescending tone grates on my nerves.

“No, we aren’t done. Because you have an inaccurate recollection of what happened. How could you say it wasn’t love? That it was just sex?”

Trina catapults out of her chair so fast it smashes into the wall. “Because you don’t make love to a woman you claim is your future, and then flaunt someone else in front of her three days later because of a fight.” She practically spits the words at me.

“You were embarrassed to let anyone know we were together!” I yell at her.

“Because I was afraid! I was twenty-two years old and had only kissed two other men, only had sex with one before you. Your past and your reputation—it was overwhelming. You’d already been with four other women and couldn’t remember how many girls you’d made out with. Too many to count, you said. You had a reputation, and that made me scared I was another notch in your belt, and I’d look like a fool when all our friends and family realized it!”

“Well, you were wrong, and you walked away from what we had—you ended things with us—because of it. You wouldn’t talk to me. It ruined us.” The sadness in my voice fills the room.

“First of all, you ended things when you stormed out and left me alone in my apartment, in the bed where we’d just been intimate. After you had told me you loved me. And yeah, I wouldn’t talk to you and walked away after you showed me what I meant to you. When you made me watch you let another woman sit on your lap in the diner, play with your hair, and whisper in your ear three days after you claimed you loved me.”

I’m speechless for a few seconds.

“Trina…”

She pushes past me and walks to the door, opening it, and I follow her with my eyes. With her back to me, she stops and says, “You got what you came for and I’m done here. Show yourself out.”

She leaves without another word.

I don’t know how long I stand there, but I can’t leave yet. Regret grips my chest, compressing my lungs and preventing me from taking a deep breath because, for the first time in over nine years, my focus is no longer on how she hurt me but how my actions in the diner that night clearly broke her.