LITMIR.BIZ

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things.”

      He smiled slightly, a hint of bitterness there as he dropped his hands from her shoulders and moved away, bending to grab his keys from the ground.

      “Erin, as much as I’d like to help, I’m not about to sleep with you to see if it can help jog your memory. Thanks anyway.”

      She took a step back, giving him some space.

      “It’s not like that, not exactly,” she tried to explain, though she supposed it was exactly like that. She did want to use him, in many delightful ways, and if it got her memory back, even better.

      “What is it like, then?”

      He caught her gaze, and she grimaced in the face of his challenge.

      “Okay, yes, it is about getting my memory back. Can you blame me? I want my life back. My work. My sense of damned purpose,” she said in frustration. “But I think there’s more to it than that. For both of us. These dreams...they’ve been with me since the hospital. I didn’t know what they were, but they get stronger, more...insistent. And I can see in your face that...you want me.”

      He pulled up straight, his body tensing. “That doesn’t mean I should have you.”

      “No, but I think all of this might mean that we left things...wrong. Unsettled. There are still issues between us that need to be...addressed.”

      His eyes narrowed, pinning her. “And you think we should address these issues in bed?”

      Her cheeks burned, but she didn’t let him put her off. She took a step forward, laid her hand on his chest. “In bed, or wherever else seems right. From what you tell me, and from what I dream about, we weren’t exactly...conventional in our choice of places to have sex. Were there others? Other public places? What did I like, Bo? What did I want you to do to me? I don’t remember...but I want to find out.”

      Erin knew she was pushing him, this man she hardly knew, but she also knew it was right. Deep inside, this felt like the right thing to do. She had to get him to see that, to get him past his doubts and uncooperative stance.

      “You can’t remember anything. How can you know what you want?”

      “I know I want you. It’s one of the few things I do know. It’s not taking advantage, Bo. I’m fully aware of what I’m doing, and what I’m asking for.”

      “Do you? Really, Erin? Do you know what you’re asking from me? After you walked away from us? After you were almost killed? You’ve looked at me—or rather, looked past me—for months, like a stranger. Do you really know what you’re asking?”

      His expression was fierce, and Erin was nearly knocked out of her certainty by the frankness of his objections. What he said was true. This wasn’t just about her, but she needed to push anyway. She was desperate. He was her only hope to remember anything. To recapture what she once had.

      “Maybe it would be different this time. I’m not sure. I only know that I need you, and I think you need me. You said you wanted more from me. I’ll give you anything you want, Bo...whatever you need. If you give me...this. Give me a chance to get my life back.”

      He shook his head at her and got into his truck without another word. Erin’s heart, and her hopes, sank. Her eyes burned as he started the engine.

      She’d lost. She’d lost Bo and a whole lot more than that.

      He sat in the driver’s seat with the engine running, not moving.

      She didn’t move, either. Holding her breath that he’d get back out. Change his mind.

      He looked out the window at her.

      “I’m sorry, Erin, but I don’t think this will work. You’ll need to find another way. From now on, please contact my assistant if you need anything.”

      It was all he said, backing up and driving out of the lot.

      Erin didn’t realize she was crying until a breeze picked up and made her aware of the cool sting of tears on her cheeks. She got back to her car, sat there until it got dark. She’d taken her last shot and lost. Maybe her memory would come back, and maybe it wouldn’t, but Bo clearly wasn’t going to be part of it.

      Maybe Kit was right. Maybe she had to stop clinging to this foolish hope and the past. It really was time to move on.

      * * *

      BO STARED BLINDLY at the email that filled his computer screen as he sat at his desk the next morning. It was early, and no one was in yet. He hadn’t slept again. Not after hours of self-recriminations about backing away from Erin. It had been the right thing to do, but it wasn’t what he wanted.

      This, the content of the email, was supposed to be what he wanted. An offer he’d been working for his entire life—a job with the FBI’s Critical Incident Response Group. He’d helped them a few times as a cop and once recently as an investigator.

      He’d use everything he’d ever learned and take it all to the next level. They were asking him back for a final interview, and if it went well, they wanted him to start in August. In Virginia.

      He rubbed his hand over his tired eyes, wondering why he didn’t feel happier. This was important to him. Since his uncle had been seriously injured in the Pentagon on 9/11, it was all Bo had lived for. Until Erin.

      She had made him believe that he lived for something else. For someone else. For a while anyway.

      Erin’s face, her desperation, her crushing disappointment as he’d left the night before, played in his mind’s eye again.

      “Damn it.” He closed the email, got up and went to get himself another cup of coffee, and went to check out the morning’s reports, but he couldn’t concentrate.

      Could helping Erin remember their past relationship trigger her ability to remember other things, perhaps the fire, or anything she saw that could help them? She’d seemed so sure that being with him would help her remember. Or maybe Bo was finding convenient connections, rationalizations to be with her, when he knew it wasn’t ethical.

      He felt like a jerk no matter what he decided. If he did as she asked, he was taking advantage of her situation to have sex with her, no matter how much she said that wasn’t the case. She was desperate to get her memory back, but just because she’d remembered a few tidbits about him―them—it didn’t mean that being with him would fuel any more recollections.

      But walking away had been hard. She needed him, and she was right—he needed her, too. He’d tried to pull that need out by the root, but he’d failed. Their last few interactions had proved that.

      They’d left things unsaid, and they’d never had any real closure. Maybe that’s why she’d been so difficult to get over, even after all this time. And he wanted her so damned badly. It would be too easy to take what she was offering, and what then?

      For her, it was only sex. She wanted him—he knew that, he could feel it. But she was just scratching an itch while trying to get her past back—and if that happened, she’d just remember that she hadn’t wanted him before. Maybe she’d hate him even more for doing this.

      Or maybe something would be different? She’d hinted at that. And she did seem...different. Some things were still the same, but there was no doubt that she’d been through a life-altering experience.

      Could it have altered what she wanted from life? What she wanted from him?

      The chances of her ever going back to firefighting were slim. She had to know that. Even if her memory came back, her physical status after the brain surgeries and her psychological state would all need to be reevaluated. Would the crew trust her as they did before? Could she even walk into a fire, or would she freeze?

      He put the reports aside and looked at his computer again. He’d done some research on the brain damage that she’d suffered, and more reading on amnesia. It was a highly specialized topic. There were different forms of forgetting and different

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