“I could fall back asleep listening to this,” Chloe says, setting her mug on the coffee table in front of us. She bends her legs up and leans against me. “But I’m hungry, so we should go see your mom.” She looks up at me, smiling, and my heart jumps. Fuck, I love this woman.

“Let’s go,” I say and take another few minutes to get up, untangling myself from Chloe. We put our coffee mugs in the sink and head to the front door. Chloe gets an umbrella from the closet and opens it on the front porch. We huddle together and make a dash for the car. I hold the umbrella and open the passenger door for her, letting her in before going around and getting in myself.

“It’s supposed to storm all day,” Chloe says right as thunder rumbles in the distance. “Lovely weather, though I kind of like it. We don’t get too many thunderstorms in LA.”

“We get plenty in Chicago,” I tell her. “They come off the lake.”

“Along with that lake-effect snow.”

“You miss the seasons, admit it.”

“I do,” she agrees. “I love a white Christmas, though last year wasn’t it like forty degrees here?”

“I think so. I worked last Christmas. I don’t remember what the weather was like.”

“Oh, right. Emergencies don’t take a holiday.” Chloe turns up the heat as I back out of the driveway. “Is it sad to work on holidays?”

“Not really,” I say honestly. “Holidays don’t feel much different than any other day.”

“Now that is sad,” she quips. “I love holidays. My mom always did too. She’d say she’d take any excuse to get family together and celebrate anything, no matter how small. Halloween and Christmas are my favorite.”

“Rory showed me a photo of your house at Halloween,” I tell her. “It was a few years ago, and I felt like punching myself in the face when I saw it, because you looked so happy without me.”

“I think you meant that as a compliment?” She laughs. “And yes, I have a tendency to overdo it for Halloween. A few years ago, I over-themed my yard to look like a graveyard from my series and it kind of grew from there. Charles even dressed up like Marcus and helped pass out candy last year,” she says with a half-smile on her face. “I don’t get too many trick-or-treaters, though. Only those in my neighborhood who know about my over-the-top decorations. They don’t know who I am.”

“Is that a good thing?”

“Yes,” she says definitely with a nod of her head. “It’s weird…I like writing and having people read my books, but I don’t like being noticed when I’m out. And it wasn’t an issue until…” She quickly shakes her head and waves her hand in the air. “It’s not important. I talk about myself too much.”

“Good thing I like you.”

“I am pretty interesting,” she says sarcastically.

“You are, though,” I counter.

“Please. I’m not saving lives like you are.”

“I don’t save everyone.” I mean to say it as stating a fact, but it’s a rather sobering moment for us. I turn on the radio, flipping to the one local station Silver Ridge has. They play only country music, not my genre of choice, yet the DJ has been the same guy—rocking the same mullet—since I was in high school. We ride the rest of the way to my parents’ house in comfortable silence, making small talk about something in the town every once in a while but just enjoying each other’s company for the most part.

“Is anyone home?” Chloe asks when we pull up.

“I’m not sure.” The house is dark and there are no cars in the driveway, though both my parents usually park in the garage. “I guess we’ll find out.” I get out first, opening the umbrella before I go around to Chloe’s side of the car, and we walk hand-in-hand up to the front door. Several cats hang out on the porch, taking shelter from the rain, and Chloe bends down to pet them as I ring the doorbell.

“Doesn’t look like anyone is home,” I say after a minute passes.

“That was anti-climactic,” Chloe says seriously, rubbing the belly of a tabby cat. “And I’m still hungry.”

“Me too. Want to go to Silver Cafe?”

“Heck yes.”

I extend my hand for her. “Let’s go then.”

We hurry back to the car and make the drive back into town. My parents live on the outskirts of Silver Ridge, surrounded by farmland that suited us as children. We had all sorts of livestock growing up, from llamas to a draft horse Mason insisted on showing in 4H but lost interest right before the county fair. Rory showed him instead, and impressed everyone with how well she could control a seventeen-hand-high Percheron when she was only twelve years old. Mom named the horse Barry Manilow and we hated it then. Now, as an adult, I appreciate the silly name much more. We had Barry for four years before he was donated to an equine therapy facility, and he died at the happy old age of twenty-seven, surrounded by his trainers. It’s almost weird how much that sticks out in my mind when I had little to do with that horse. I was in the thick of my residency when he died and didn’t have the time to miss a childhood pet. We had so many of them growing up, anyway.

“Crap,” Chloe groans, wrinkling her nose. “It looks busy.”

We just pulled into the parking lot of Silver Cafe. The parking lot is littered with autumn leaves that got heavy from the rainfall and fell off the trees. I know just by looking at the soggy, red and orange leaves that the air is going to smell wonderfully sweet as soon as I open the car doors.

“A table for two shouldn’t take too long,” I tell her, finding a spot at the back of the parking lot. I put my arm around her and hold the umbrella over us both as we walk. The rain is slowing now, but the thunder booming overhead lets us know the storm is far from over.

“Are you cold?” I ask Chloe when we get into the waiting area of the restaurant. I already gave our name, and we have a short wait time, thankfully.

“I am. That rain went right through me.” She shivers and wraps her arms around herself. I’m wearing a long-sleeved Henley shirt with no jacket. If I had one, I’d take it off and give it to her. Chloe is dressed in black leggings and an off-the-shoulder gray sweater. She’s not wearing a bra, and the faint outlines of her nipples through the thick fabric are doing bad things to me.

“Come here, babe,” I say and wrap my arms around her.

“Mmhhh, you’re so warm,” she says, and steps closer. We could stand like this until the hostess calls my name, and I’d be perfectly happy with it.

“Sam?” someone else calls instead. Both Chloe and I look up and see a woman with short blonde hair standing a few feet from us. Her face is familiar, yet it takes me a second to recall her name. “It is you.” The woman smiles, sweeping her eyes up and down me. “Oh, and hi, Chloe,” she adds with a sigh.

Lauren. That’s the blonde woman’s name.

And by the way she’s glaring at Chloe, it looks like there’s going to be trouble.

12

Chloe

“Hi, Lauren,” I say, offering a polite smile, not that I owe her one.