LITMIR.BIZ

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men he worked with on a daily basis. “Randy Fowler isn’t somebody I’d trust to have my back. He works the night shift and he recently moved his mother into a fairly pricey nursing home in Jackson. He’d bitched about the cost for months before he moved her, but now suddenly he’s not complaining anymore.”

      “Was he particularly close to Walker?”

      Daniel shook his head. “Not that any of us noticed, but he and his wife were friendly with Jim Burns.”

      “Is there anyone else that you can think of?”

      “Not really. I’ve worked with these men for years, and in most cases I grew up with them. Ray McClure is a local. He was a surly and lazy kid who never changed. As far as Randy Fowler goes, he isn’t a local, but was hired in from Tupelo about six years ago. He keeps himself a bit distant from the other men.”

      He took a drink of his coffee and eyed her intently. “Are we ever going to talk about that night in New Orleans?”

      She froze and a faint pink color filled her cheeks. “I was hoping we wouldn’t.”

      “I think we need to. I feel like there’s a snapping gator between us in the room every time we’re together,” he replied.

      She took another sip from her cup and carefully set it back down on the table. “That night in New Orleans was completely out of character for me. I had recently lost my partner to a domestic altercation gone bad. I didn’t want to be at the conference in the first place. I went to the bar to be alone and drown my grief in booze.”

      “And then I showed up.”

      For the first time since the day she’d arrived at the station in her official capacity, she smiled. The beauty, the memory of that smile punched him in the stomach.

      “Yes, and then you showed up and you were charming and easy to talk to and suddenly you looked better than the booze.” Her cheeks flamed a deeper pink. “It was a wild, crazy night that shouldn’t have happened.”

      “Why did you use the name Lily?” he asked.

      “My mother called me Lily from the time I was a little girl. Mom’s name is Rose and she always told my father he had two beautiful flowers in the family. But it didn’t take me long working in law enforcement to realize that people took me far more seriously as Olivia, which is my legal name. So I stopped being Lily and became Olivia and I named my daughter Lily.”

      “I have to admit I thought about you over the years. I wondered what had happened to you, if your career had taken off and if you’d found love.”

      Her eyes radiated surprise that was quickly masked. “It was only a month after that conference that I married and then got pregnant immediately. Phil was a great husband and father.”

      “Tell me more about him.” Daniel said, wanting to know what kind of a man had captured her heart.

      She leaned back in her chair and her features softened. An irrational stab of jealousy raced through Daniel. “Phil owned a small but successful restaurant. He had a huge heart and he loved me beyond reason. Even after my daughter, Lily, was born, he encouraged me to pursue my career. Along with my mother’s help, we made a good team, me working law enforcement and him running his restaurant, and then he had a heart attack and died.”

      “Are you hoping to marry again?”

      “I’m open to the possibility. I had a great husband and I know how good marriage can be, but if it doesn’t happen I’m good alone with my mother helping me raise Lily and my career that consumes me.”

      “How old is your daughter?”

      “She just turned four.”

      “I’m still attracted to you.” The words fell from his mouth before his brain had fully formed them.

      She cast her gaze away from him and out the nearby window where darkness had fallen. “I’m only here temporarily and I’m your boss. Any kind of a personal relationship between us would be completely out of line.”

      She looked at her wristwatch and then grabbed her purse. “Speaking of my mother and my daughter, I need to get home.” She stood and looked toward the garage door. Daniel had a feeling she was escaping from the conversation rather than simply deciding it was time to go home.

      Daniel got up to walk her to the door. “If it’s any comfort, nobody knows about that night. I never mentioned it to anyone and have no intention of ever talking about it.” He opened the door and punched the button inside to raise the garage door on the side where she had parked.

      “I appreciate that. I’m here to do my job, Daniel, and nothing more.” She stepped down the stairs to the garage floor and hurried to her car.

      When she’d driven out and away, Daniel closed the door and returned to his chair at the table to finish his coffee. At least they’d talked about it, he thought.

      However, she’d said nothing to tamp down a simmering desire that had grown inside him from the moment he’d seen her again.

      More importantly, she’d told him all the reasons why they couldn’t and shouldn’t get involved again, but she hadn’t said the one thing that would have shut him down permanently.

      She hadn’t said she wasn’t attracted to him and in the omission of those words, he held on to just a little bit of hope that he would have her in his bed once again.

      * * *

      OLIVIA HAD A restless night. Both Lily and her mother had been asleep when she’d finally gotten in. She’d gone into Lily’s room and kissed her sweet, sleeping daughter on the cheek and then had zapped a plate of leftover meat loaf that her mother had made for dinner.

      By ten thirty she was on the futon, but sleep remained elusive as she played and replayed her conversation with Daniel in her head.

      She hadn’t wanted to talk about that night. She hadn’t even wanted to think about it. She had spent far too many nights while married to Phil thinking about that single night of madness with Daniel.

      Phil had been in love with her and she had loved Phil, but she hadn’t been in love with him. He was a good, solid man and she’d been the best wife she could possibly be to him during their marriage. But it had been the one-night stand with Daniel that had haunted her dreams.

      She was awakened the next morning to kisses being rained on her face and the scent of bacon filling the air. “Mommy, you didn’t kiss me good-night last night and so you have to kiss me a zillion times this morning,” Lily said. She was a vision of little-girl innocence in her pink cotton nightgown and with her dark hair sleep tousled around her head.

      “I think I can manage that,” Olivia replied. She grabbed Lily and pulled her onto the futon with her and then proceeded to deliver kisses all over her daughter’s face and neck.

      Lily’s giggles rang out, sweet music to Olivia’s ears.

      “Okay you two...breakfast in fifteen minutes,” Rose said. “Lily, you can help me set the table while your mother gets ready for work.”

      Olivia took a fast shower, dressed in a pair of tailored black slacks and a white blouse and then joined her mother and daughter at the table for bacon and pancakes.

      Breakfast was always a joy when the three of them shared it together. Rose had been a loving, nurturing mother to Olivia and once Lily was born, she’d become beloved Nanny and had watched Lily whenever Olivia and Phil were at work.

      Rose was a wonderful mix of common sense and naïveté. She had a good sense of humor and a fierce love of her little family. She believed the world was a good and happy place, and Olivia never brought the evil she worked with home to share with her mother.

      Many times over the years Olivia had downplayed the danger she’d faced at work in an effort to protect her mother from worry.

      “As usual, a great breakfast, Mom,” Olivia said.

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