LITMIR.BIZ

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seem like a fair trade-off to her. Having her kids around was her life. “The kids are on their own.” She tried to make light of it. “Doesn’t bother me so much during the day, but in the middle of the night…” Her voice trailed off as she shrugged.

      She was trying to dismiss it. But he wasn’t buying it. Lila wasn’t the kind of woman to be afraid of things that went bump in the night. “You don’t imagine the phone ringing.”

      Her eyes met his. “No,” she replied quietly, “I don’t.”

      “Then someone is calling you.” Maybe she’d be more inclined to talk about it away from here, where everything felt so official. “Listen, do you want to get a cup of coffee?”

      The question caught her by surprise. Eight years ago she would have merely nodded her head. Back then, grabbing a cup of coffee with Brian was as natural as breathing. But in the last eight years, by her own design, their paths had not crossed with any regularity. She felt a bit awkward just coming to him like this. It was as if she were trying to open up a part of her past that was supposed to have remained closed.

      So instead of saying yes, she tried to demur. “You don’t have to go out of your way.”

      Brian wasn’t about to take no for an answer. As he’d told her a few minutes ago, there was nothing waiting for him at home and she made him curious. He’d always felt protective toward her, even though he knew there was a time when she would have skinned him alive if he would have voiced that out loud.

      “I’m on my feet anyway, might as well walk toward the door.” He did just that as he spoke. Placing his hand on the doorknob, he waited for her to follow. “The coffee shop isn’t that far off.”

      Her mouth quirked as fragments of memories swirled through her head. “Neither is O’Malley’s.”

      O’Malley’s was where most of the detectives and uniforms at the station went to unwind and wash away some of the stench generated by the things they were forced to deal with. They did it so that they wouldn’t bring the job home with them.

      Brian inclined his head and grinned. It had been a while since he’d been to the watering hole. “Even better.”

      At that hour of the evening, O’Malley’s was fairly unpopulated. One shift was gone and the next had not gotten off work yet. Only those from the previous shift, who had no one to go home to, could be found nursing a beer or trying to beat the odds at a game of pool. For them, O’Malley’s was like a second home. At times, even better than the first.

      Despite the lack of patrons and the dim lighting, Lila felt there was a cheerfulness about O’Malley’s. When she walked through the door, the bar seemed like an old friend who was happy to see her.

      It had been a long while since she’d been here. The last time was when some of her friends had held an impromptu party, welcoming her back to the force. Against Ben’s wishes, she’d gone back to work five years ago, when Frank graduated high school. But the focus of their lives, hers and her friends, was different now. She spent her day behind a desk, fighting a paper war while the people she’d known ever since her academy days were still on the streets in one capacity or another, either as uniformed patrol or detectives. They no longer had that much in common. But she’d kept her rank even though the work she did now didn’t require the experience of a seasoned detective. At times she couldn’t help wondering if pity had played any part in her retaining her rank.

      “Still looks the same,” Lila observed, more to herself than to the man beside her.

      “That’s why Shawn keeps the lights down low.” As with the face of an old friend, Brian was so familiar with the place that, even after long absences, when he walked in, he really didn’t see it. “Table or bar?” he asked, shutting the door behind them.

      “Table.”

      “Table it is.”

      His hand to the small of her back, Brian steered his ex-partner toward a booth near the back of the room. He sensed she wanted privacy. Otherwise, she would have opted for a stool at the bar, the way she used to do when they frequented the place together.

      “Beer?” he asked her as she slid into the booth.

      Nodding, Lila slipped her purse from her shoulder. “Sounds good.”

      He caught himself watching as she took her seat. The woman still had the shapeliest legs he’d ever seen.

      “Be right back,” he promised.

      She watched Brian as he walked over to the bar and placed their order with the man who methodically passed a cloth over one glass and then another. The glasses were lined up like crystal soldiers before him along the bar. He had a few more pounds on him than she remembered, but Lila recognized him immediately. Shawn O’Malley. His hair had some gray in it now, but he still looked powerful enough to take on any three rowdy customers with ease. An ex-cop, he retired early when a bullet sealed itself into his hip, defying excision. O’Malley’s was his pride and joy, and he ruled the place like a benevolent king. He decided when someone had had enough. And everyone knew better than to argue with him.

      Looking in her direction in response to something Brian said to him, Shawn raised one beefy hand in greeting, smiling his crooked smile at her. For just a second Lila felt as if no time at all had passed. In that second, the years melted away and she was a rookie again, a rookie eager to prove her worth and make the world a better, safer place because she was in it.

      Where had the time gone? How could she possibly have gone from her twenties to her forties so damn fast? She didn’t feel any older, she just was.

      Shawn filled first one mug, then another, placing them on the bar. White foam topped off each serving, standing at attention even as he picked up one in each hand.

      “Hi, stranger,” Shawn called, rounding the bar and heading in her direction. His gait was just a bit lopsided in deference to the wound that had brought him to this place.

      Brian walked beside the bartender. Reaching the booth, he slid in, taking the seat opposite her. Shawn placed the two mugs of beer on the table. He flashed her another wide smile as he presented her with her beer. “So where’ve you been keeping yourself all this time?”

      She’d always liked talking to Shawn. He was like a cuddly bear. “I’ve been working at the precinct. Desk job,” she added, watching his expression. She knew the man had no use for desk jobs. They’d offered him one after he’d been wounded and he had turned them down flat.

      But Shawn merely nodded his shaggy head. “Can’t hold that against you. Come by more often. We’ve missed that smile of yours.” Straightening, he wiped his hands and winked as he nodded toward the mug in front of her. “It’s on the house. Yours,” he emphasized, then turned toward Brian. “Not yours. Your puss I get enough of.”

      Brian laughed. “If I’d have known that, I would have played more hard to get,” he said before he took a sip of his beer.

      “I’ll leave you two to talk over old times. You get tired of Mr. Authority here—” Shawn jerked a thumb at Brian “—you know where to find me.” The bartender began walking away and then he stopped. “Oh.” He said the word as if a thought had suddenly found him. Or an afterthought. “I was sorry to hear about Ben.”

      It was on the tip of her tongue to ask what Shawn was sorry about hearing, that Ben was a suspect in the drug cartel debacle or that he had died much too soon. But that stirred up old wounds and she was in no frame of mind for that tonight. So she merely nodded.

      “Thanks.”

      To curtail further conversation on that topic, Lila raised the mug to her lips and took a long sip of the bitter brew. The bartender crossed back to the bar and returned to polishing his glasses.

      She was tense, Brian thought. He could see it in the corners of her mouth, in the slight furrow of the brow beneath her wispy bangs.

      “You don’t come by here anymore?” Brian

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