That thought didn’t settle well in his gut, and he pushed it aside, focusing on something that settled very well indeed. He kissed her. Not a long, deep one that his body wanted, but just a little taste. It was enough to make her smile and caused her already sparkling eyes to sparkle even more. But some of the sparkle faded when she opened her mouth to say what he figured she was about to say.
“Yes, I’m sure I want to go to the reunion with you,” he said, cutting her off at the pass.
“Even though it’ll give folks something to talk about?” she countered.
“Even though,” he assured her. “This is Last Ride. Talk is inevitable.” And, yes, Rosalie and he were getting more than the lion’s share of it.
“FYI, I’ve heard the rebound talk that Reggie mentioned,” she said.
So had he. “Are you on the rebound?” he came out and asked.
She sighed, took her purse from the foyer table and followed him out onto the porch so she could lock up. “No, and that’s the sad part.”
Gabriel hadn’t expected that answer. “Sadder than you walking in on your fiancé with his hand in another woman’s panties?”
“In a way. I just wasn’t that torn up after the breakup,” she said, and he led her to his truck. “I should have been because, hey, engaged to him and all that.” She paused. “But after I got past the initial shock of seeing him with another woman, I felt relief. And vindication.”
He was sure he gave her a blank look. “You’re going to have to explain that.”
“Well, my parents thought Reggie was the one, and while I knew he wasn’t perfect, I kept thinking that I was in my thirties and that maybe it was time to settle down. But what I was doing was settling, not settling down. Big difference.”
Yeah, it was, and that difference explained why Gabriel had never married. He’d liked a couple of women, could have probably pushed it to being in love with one of them, but he always figured falling in love shouldn’t require pushes like that.
“I had convinced myself that I loved Reggie and could have the perfect life with him,” she went on. “But when the bubble burst, it was liberating. I could do a proverbial nanny nanny boo boo at my parents for pushing me to marry a cheater, and I could see that my life was already perfect.”
For some reason, that tightened his chest. Did that mean Rosalie had ditched all plans for another serious relationship, for a chance to find that no-push required to fall in love?
“Perfect,” he repeated, mulling that over.
“Sure. I have my own house, a job I love, and I live in a town I love. Not many people get that.”
No, they didn’t, and when it all came together, thenperfectdid indeed apply.
“I still have to put up with texts from my mom,” she went on, “telling me not to get involved with you again. But I’d get those no matter where I lived or what job I had.”
Gabriel had figured her mother wouldn’t keep her disapproval about him to herself. “How many texts are you talking about?” he asked.
“Two or three every day. Apparently, my mom is worried I might sow some wild oats with you or use you to get back at Reggie. I would never do that.” Rosalie stopped, shrugged. “Well, I wouldn’t use you or anyone else to get back at Reggie, anyway.”
She sighed, looked at him, and he heard the unspoken signal that she was done revealing her heart to him. But Gabriel wouldn’t forget a word of what she’d said. He couldn’t add to her nearly perfect life. In fact, if he pushed—there was that word again—he could cause her a boatload of unhappiness. That should stop him from wanting her so much.
It didn’t.
“So, what’s going on at the police station?” she asked.
He doubted this was just small talk. After all, they had competition for the most gossiped about topic right now. “We’re getting several calls an hour for Hamish sightings,” he told her.
Rosalie’s eyebrow lifted. “People have actually seen him?”
“No,” he couldn’t say fast enough. “Peoplethinkthey’ve seen him. So far, the sightings have turned out to be any man in town over the age of eighty, an odd-shaped haystack, a pitchfork in the haystack and Elmer Gentry’s bull calf that had gotten a shirt from the clothesline stuck on his head.”
She frowned. Made a face. Then smiled. “This must be trivial compared to your previous duties.”
Gabriel shrugged. “All in all, my first week on the job has been, well, varied and interesting.”
Now she just looked confused, as if he might be lying. He wasn’t.
“Everybody thinks being a military cop is about dodging bullets and going into combat,” he explained as he drove toward the school. “Most of the time, it’s not. I started out just like many rookie cops by responding to domestic calls, making DUI arrests, going on patrol and doing lots of paperwork. Later on, after I made rank, I went on some deployments, but when I was stateside, I supervised the younger cops and coordinated the more serious criminal investigations with the local civilian authorities.”