And there she was.
She looked the picture of relaxation, nestled at a corner table, wearing an Irish wool sweater and jeans, her feet propped up on the chair across from her, her nose in a book.
Shit.
Now what?
He never actually believed he’d run into her. In fact, if he’d thought there was any chance of seeing her, he would’ve stayed away. In a city the size of Evanston, with the coffee giant on every other corner, the odds of being at the same Starbucks at the same time had seemed miniscule.
Which made it easy to convince himself he wasn’t seeking her out. It wouldn’t be right to chase after Emily. But…well…if the universe saw fit to place them in the same place at the same time, who was he to argue?
The door chimed directly behind him, and a woman pushing a stroller brushed past. Realizing he couldn’t just stand there by the door, staring at Emily all day, he moved to the counter to make his order.
Three people stood between him and the cashier, and the current customer needed clarification on every detail of his order. Did the latte come sprinkled with cinnamon? No? Well, could it? Would there be an extra charge? Could he get the latte with half skim and half whole milk?
Jesus, man, ask if they have two-percent and be done with it.
Rolling his eyes and turning his head a fraction to the left, Mac brought Emily back into his line of sight.
Her head tilted slightly and she flipped the page of her paperback, her eyes widening at whatever she read. He loved watching her face, her every reaction to the story broadcast by her expression. Her eyes hungrily scanned the pages, and he smiled when she covered her mouth with her hand as if she just couldn’t believe what she was reading. She’d be fun to watch a movie with, one of those people who made movies funnier simply because they laughed out loud.
Mac went through the ordering ritual—speak, pay, slide over to the pick-up counter—the whole time waiting for Emily to glance up from her book, but her gaze stayed glued to the pages.
The barista called out his order and he reached for the cardboard cup.
Decision time. He could easily leave here, having never spoken to her. She’d never know the difference.
Or…he could go over and say hello. Bask in the warmth of her smile. Revel in the way she could make him forget things he didn’t want to remember.
Right. And where would that lead? He’d fuck it up. If he took things where he wanted them to go physically, she’d want some type of commitment. Hell, she deserved some type of commitment.
And he didn’t have that on his life’s to-do list.
Walking over to the condiment station, he grabbed a handful of sugar packets and a stir-straw.
On the other hand…It would be rude not to acknowledge her. What if she spotted him walking out of the store? She’d know that he’d seen her and had said nothing. Besides, she’d wanted to pretend their kiss had never happened. Walking out of here without talking to her wouldn’t be acting like nothing had happened. It’d be acting like he’d been so affected by their kiss he wasn’t sure he could be near her and not do it again.
Which was actually the sad truth.
He’d felt something in that kiss. He’d been awakened. And not just because she had literally woken him up.
But he would put those feelings aside. He would pretend nothing had happened. He would do the polite thing and say hello. Because that’s what she wanted.
Decision made, he strode over to her table. “Emily?”
Nothing. She didn’t even look up. Really? It was going to be like that, huh?
The rejection stung.
He started to turn toward the exit when he noticed the flash of a white line in her hair. He looked closer. Ear buds. It was the wire to her ear buds. She was listening to music.
Relief made his body feel almost weightless. He reached for her shoulder and gave it a gentle squeeze. “Emily?”
* * *
One hand to her chest to steady her heartbeat, Emily closed her eyes to compose herself. She knew before she opened them who that warm hand and deep voice belonged to.
This could not be happening. How could it be that in a town of over seventy thousand people she could find herself in the same place as the one man she was doing her very best to avoid?
Maybe she shouldn’t have gone back to the place she’d met him at. This was obviously his neighborhood coffee joint as well.
She pulled the ear buds from her ears. “Mac. I’m sorry. I was just in my own little world over here.”
One corner of his mouth lifted in an unsure smile. “Sorry if I startled you. I thought you were ignoring me at first, but then I noticed your headphones and thought—hoped—it was just because you hadn’t heard me.”
“No, I hadn’t heard you at all. I’m sorry.”
He smiled—a devastatingly full smile this time, the wattage of which had Emily’s pulse skipping a beat. He gestured to the empty seat across from her. “Mind if I sit for a moment?”
Seeing no way to politely decline his company, and determined to follow her own suggestion from last night—that they pretend their kiss never happened—she nodded and removed her feet from the chair she’d been using as a footstool. “Sure, have a seat.”
Lowering himself into the chair, he dumped a handful of sugar packets on the table. He sighed and started tearing them open three at a time and pouring the white crystals into his coffee.
“Had to get some coffee to go with your sugar, huh?”
Mac laughed. “The truth is I hate the stuff, but I think my body is addicted to the caffeine. Can’t seem to get through the day without it now.” He raised twinkling brown eyes to hers. “But I can only drink it with six packets of sugar. Not very manly, is it?”
She grinned. “No, but maybe slightly more manly than drinking mimosa while watching Kathy Lee and Hoda.”
He laughed again, and she liked the way the sound seemed to come from deep within his broad chest. “Hey now, don’t be knockin’ me for watching The Today Show. Guy’s got to get his news from somewhere.”
Despite his light tone, Emily sobered. She took in the blue smudges that still lingered under his eyes and couldn’t hide the concern from her tone. “So, what’s with the need for caffeine? Are you not sleeping well?”
He looked down, vigorously stirring his coffee with a small plastic straw, and shrugged. “I sleep enough.”
“Are you working a lot of overtime?”
“I’m the on-call evidence tech…so yeah…sometimes I work a lot of overtime. It comes in fits and spurts.”
Emily read between his pauses. “But it’s not overtime that’s keeping you awake these days, is it?”
He looked up, his eyes searching her face. He opened his mouth, but when no words came, he shut it, shrugged, and went back to his coffee.
Emily’s ribs seemed to contract, squeezing against her heart. She thought about the shooting and how Sean suspected Mac was eaten up with guilt. He certainly looked haunted, and she longed to chase his ghosts away, to free him from the torment he seemed to be living with. But she didn’t have that power. He’d have to grapple with those ghosts on his own.
She wrapped her hands around her cup, holding it beneath her nose, the heat of it on her palms starting to radiate through her body. Or perhaps the heat wasn’t all from the coffee…
“If something’s troubling you, it might help to talk about it.” When he didn’t answer, words she hadn’t intended to speak slipped out. “You could tell me about it, if it would help.”
Mac looked up from his coffee. “I bet your clients can’t help but spill their guts to you.”
At his smooth evasion, Emily could see he had no intention of sharing his troubles with her, and she couldn’t decide if she was relieved or disappointed. She should feel relieved, especially since she’d decided she had been allowing her own life to pass by unlived while she unintentionally played counselor to all the important people in her life. But at the moment, the
disappointment was winning out.
She hadn’t offered to listen because she was Mac’s counselor. She’d offered because she wanted to connect, because something in him called out to her, because she wanted—more than she cared to admit—to know the man sitting before her.
“But you’re not going to tell me what’s troubling you, are you?” she asked.
He smiled. “Well, I’m not one of your clients, am I?”
She made herself smile lightly and allowed him take the conversation back in a safe direction. “No, you’re not.”
Steering them further off course, Mac pointed to the ear buds hanging limply over her shoulders and asked, “How do you read and listen to music at the same time? I could never manage that.”
“Oh, it’s not music. It’s an audio book.” Emily wasn’t embarrassed by her disability, but she’d learned over the years that when people found out, they reacted with varying degrees of pity. And there was nothing she wanted less than Mac’s pity. Which was why she hesitated a beat before she explained. “I have a bit of a memory issue. My short-term memory is crap, especially when it comes to things I’ve read or heard.” She sneaked a glance at Mac, who was listening attentively, his expression open. No signs of pity…yet. “If I do something—if I experience it myself, I have no problem remembering it. But if I read about it or if I’m just told about it, it doesn’t always stick. In college I realized that if I listened to something while I read it at the same time I could increase the chance I’d retain the information. For some reason the combination of seeing and hearing is much better than either one on its own.”
“That’s amazing. How’d you realize that would help?”
“My roommate really struggled with psychology…and I was struggling too thanks to my memory leak, but I didn’t want to admit I was having trouble. I mean, psychology was my major, how could I be failing, right?” Emily put her coffee down and avoided Mac’s probing gaze by watching the steam rise from the cup. “I understood the concepts in class, which was more than she could claim. So I tutored her by reading my own notes out loud. We quizzed each other too, and suddenly, I was passing psychology.”
Emily raised her gaze, ready to confront Mac’s reaction. He leaned back in his chair, his warm brown eyes studying her. “That’s a pretty clever way to compensate.” His tone was free of patronization and when she searched his countenance for signs of pity, she found none. He seemed genuinely impressed and…proud? But that was silly. Why would he be proud of her?
“It’s no big deal. Everyone has something they struggle with. Something they need to learn to live with,” she said.
The warmth in Mac’s expression cooled a few degrees and he nodded. “That they do. That they do.”
It had nothing to do with her, that coolness. She knew with a sixth sense—her counselor’s intuition—that his mind had traveled elsewhere. And she didn’t pry.
A comfortable silence stretched between them. Mac sipped his coffee and watched the traffic pass outside, while Emily took advantage of his inattentiveness to get a good long look at him. His eyes were squinted against the sun and fine creases appeared at the corners. They were smoothed out at the moment, but he had a matching set of laugh lines around his mouth. She wagered he had laughed easily and often once, but the Mac in front of her now kept a tight rein on his expression, his face a shield to guard his true emotions from surfacing.
It scared her how much she wanted to see beneath that surface. And not out of some professional curiosity, not out of some need to fix him, but simply because she wanted to know him. To know all of him. It was strange the connection she felt with him.
But fate could arrive at any moment to permanently sever connections, leaving one feeling lost and broken. Her parents’ death had done exactly that. To this day, she was marked by the loss, and though no person was immune to what life had in store, Mac seemed like a riskier gamble than most.
He had a dangerous job and was struggling with an internal emotional mess that further complicated things. Even if Mac remained unharmed on the job, a relationship with him in his current state of mind was doomed to fail. From either codependency or communication breakdown. She’d seen it a million times as a counselor. Definitely not a safe bet.
Or about as safe as betting your life’s savings on an injured horse.
With an unstable jockey.
And a broken bit.
That he sparked something in her was not in question. But if she gave herself over to it, would she ever survive losing him? No. If losing her parents had left a big gaping hole in her heart, losing Mac would obliterate it into a thousand tiny pieces. And there would be no stitching it back up.
Girded by a healthy dose of self-preservation, Emily broke the silence. “Well, it was nice bumping into you again, Mac. ’Fraid I have to run, though.” She closed her book, shoved it in her tote, and stood up to leave. “I have to pick up a new cell phone to replace the one Jamie flushed down the toilet.” She smiled, trying to keep her tone light and friendly. Breezy. “You enjoy your coffee.”
Mac scooped up his empty sugar packets and coffee cup, nodding politely. “Good seeing you, Em.”
“Yes. You too, Mac. Take care.” And damn her stomach for dancing a jig at just the sound of her name on his lips.
CHAPTER TEN
“Here. Happy Monday.” Walking into their office building, Sandra handed Emily a Caramel Macchiato, still so hot it burned through the brown cardboard sleeve.
“Why, thank you.” Emily took a long whiff of the coffee drink. “Smells delicious.” And when it came to coffee it really was all about the smell.
The first people in the office that morning, Emily and Sandra placed their drinks on the absent receptionist’s desk and removed their jackets.
“So, do tell. How was blind date number two?” Sandra asked, her smile full of anticipation.
Emily hooked her mid-length trench coat on the rack. “Not even worth recapping. Let’s just say, there was no spark. At least for me there wasn’t.”
Sandra’s shoulders slumped. “Are you saying you don’t have any juicy details to share with me so that I might live vicariously through you for even just a moment?”
Emily laughed. “I’m afraid not.” She thought about Mac’s kiss Saturday night and decided those were some juicy details she preferred to keep to herself.
“Maybe I should help you screen these guys before you go out with them. Clearly, your selection process is flawed.”
They walked further into the suite and Emily paused, one hand resting on the doorknob to her office. “I don’t think there’s going to be a next time. I need a break from dating.”
Sandra nodded, a loyal feminist if ever there was one. “Yeah, who needs men?” She rolled her eyes dramatically. “So overrated.”
Emily chuckled, pushed her office door open, and stepped inside. Her laughter died a quick death at what greeted her.
The complete destruction of her once neat and tidy space.
Jagged triangles of broken glass clung to the frame of what used to be her window. The back of her desk chair lay separated from the seat, a mangled heap of metal and black leather. Her computer monitor was on the floor, detached completely from its stand. Papers were strewn all over, gently rising and falling with the cool autumn breeze coming through the nonexistent window. Her coffee table made a pathetic M shape where its center had cracked and collapsed, as if a giant foot had stomped it into submission. And on the wall, directly behind her desk, written in black spray paint, with long black paint drippings hanging off each letter, were three short words.
Reading the words, Emily lost her grip on the Macchiato. The hot drink hit the floor and exploded from the cup, burning her legs.
The words read, Die Bitch! Die!
* * *
Mac turned over in his bed and stared at his alarm clock. Seven forty-five. He didn’t have to be to work until three in the afternoon. There was no reason to get up this early. And after the piss-
poor night of sleep he’d had he shouldn’t even be awake now. But insomnia chased him as relentlessly as a greyhound chasing the track rabbit. How could a person be so tired and still not sleep?
After he’d met Emily at Starbucks unexpectedly—or as unexpected as it could be for someone who frequented his nemesis coffee shop in the hopes of catching a glimpse of the woman who haunted his dreams—he’d headed straight for the gym to try to exorcise his demons on the speed bag.
His fascination with Emily was getting ridiculous. He couldn’t stop thinking about her after he’d kissed her Saturday night. And it didn’t matter how loudly or frequently the logical part of his mind reminded him that he was not a man who had relationships, other parts of his body—including the soul he’d long thought dormant—wanted to be near her. When he was with her, he began to hope and to dream about the future.
A future he didn’t deserve.
The speed bag had exhausted his body, but had done little to bring sleep. He’d tossed and turned for most of the night reliving past events, both pleasant and horrific, that would all be better forgotten.
His cell phone, still on vibrate, buzzed across the nightstand. He squinted, his eyes adjusting to the bright screen of the caller ID. It was the police department. He was the on-call evidence tech this week, and if his veteran instincts were correct, a business owner had just arrived at work, on this fine Monday morning, to discover their establishment had been burglarized over the weekend.
Well, good. At least he’d have something else to think about.
“McAvoy here.”
“Hey Mac, it’s Daniels. Sorry to wake you, but we’ve got a break-in, and we’re going to need prints and pictures.”
“Ten-four. What’s the location?”
“It’s suite two-hundred at Evergreen Health Services. You know, that complex on Sheridan?”
Mac threw the covers back and swung his legs over the side of the bed. “Is that one of the counseling offices?”
“Uh, I don’t know. Why?”
“Was this just a break-in or was anyone hurt?” Mac knew Daniels probably didn’t know anything about the scene beyond what he’d been asked to call Mac in for, but there was no holding back the questions. He had to know.
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