Page 25

"Now we play a game."

"What sort of game?" I ask, hesitant.

His low rumbling chuckle draws the gazes of two women sitting at the bar. They see me and seem to size me up as competition. If they only knew.

"The game is to get to know one another. Sort of like speed dating."

"You've done that?" He does not seem like the speed-dating type.

Sully scoffs and shakes his head.

"No, but some of the guys at work have, and it seems to fit this situation. I want to know more about you. And I'd like you to get to know me better, too."

I bite my lower lip and quickly release it when I see his gaze shift to my mouth. I glance around the restaurant to look anywhere but at him and find the two women at the bar still eyeing us and whispering to each other.

And while I can practically feel their judgment on whether they'd be better suited for the man sitting across from me, I use that same judgment as a catalyst to propel myself forward. "Okay. But I go first."

Sully sits back in his seat and waits patiently while I try to come up with questions. Being studied so closely and under pressure makes thinking up good questions difficult, so I give in and ask a simple one. "Why did you become a firefighter?"

If I wasn't watching him, I might have missed the flicker of pain that crossed his face before he blanked it. But I am watching, and I did see it.

"I've always wanted to be on a calendar," he says, lifting his drink to take a sip.

He says the words smoothly, but his voice is tighter than before. And since there haven't been any Carolina Cove calendars that I've heard of, I try again. "This still counts as my first question— Is that the only reason why? The truth, Sully. If you can't answer questions honestly in a game you brought up…why should I?"

So much for relaxing and just enjoying the evening, I muse. Am I trying to pick a fight? Or just getting to the bottom of what I see as blatant hesitation?

Sully's nostrils flare as he inhales and sits forward in his chair. He puts his elbows on the table and clasps his hands in front of his mouth, but his gaze levels on me.

"I…became a firefighter and EMT because of my sister. She died when I was seventeen. I'd have done anything to save her, but I didn't know how."

I suck in a breath at the pain I see in his gaze, on the face he half hides behind his hands. "Sully, I— I didn't know. I'm sorry. I wouldn't have pressured you if I'd known."

"It's okay."

"It's not." I have just done to him the exact thing I didn't want done to me. That's not okay.

"It is, actually," he counters, sitting back once more. "She's important to me. Just like you are."

I'm not sure what to say to that so I wait.

"Kelsey was…beautiful. She always wanted to be a teacher and work with kids. While she was in college, she met a guy and they got married. She got her degree, then worked to put him through school. Things seemed fine."

A knot forms in my stomach, and I find myself clenching my hands in my lap. "But they weren't?"

He shook his head. "The guy seemed nice enough. Charming. Always the guy to volunteer to do stuff. That sort of thing. But after they were married, I guess he started accusing her of cheating, threatening her. Throwing things. Hitting things."

I flinch at that and shift uncomfortably in my chair. I was married to a wall puncher too. And accused of all sorts of things I never did. Things I'm pretty sure Thad was doing, but I didn't have proof of at the time.

"We didn't know anything about that though. Didn't find out until one of her friends at work told the police after Kelsey died that they'd seen some bruises. I remembered Kelsey always kept a diary as a kid, so I went back and searched her house. Took me all day to find her hiding place. But I found it and some others hidden in an air vent. She'd written all the things she hadn't told us."

I watch him inhale, his gaze distant with the memories and the horror.

"Anyway, apparently things had been escalating for a while, but she never told anyone. Not me or our parents."

"She was…probably embarrassed," I say softly. "People always say they'd never allow anyone to treat them like that, but sometimes it's not easy to walk away because of circumstances or finances. Especially when there are threats and intimidation."

He nods, the movement jerky. "My dad didn't like the guy. Though to be fair, he didn't like anyone she dated. But when she agreed to marry him, our father made his feelings clear. I think after that, she felt she couldn't tell us. Anyway, my parents were out of town for the weekend, and I was home when a neighbor of Kel’s called my parents to say she'd heard shouting and things sounded bad. She didn't know if she should call the cops or not. I got to Kelsey's as fast as I could. I…found her."