Jaci Burton - Hope Flames

After water-skiing, they stopped off at a small cove and anchored so they could swim a bit, playing in the water together, splashing each other and climbing up on the oversized inner tube to soak in some sun. By the time the sun started sinking, they got back on the boat to head toward the dock.

“Ready to pack up and head back home?” Luke asked.

She looked over at the cabin. In a couple of short days, she’d grown to really like it. “Not really. But I guess we have no choice.”

Luke cast a grin her way. “Yeah. Forgot to buy a lottery ticket again.”

They gathered everything up and packed the truck, then did one more check of the cabin to be sure nothing was left behind. They’d swept the floors and washed the dishes, stripped the bed, which Luke assured her would be taken care of by the cleaning people who stopped by.

It was time to head out. They got the dogs settled in the backseat of the truck, and Luke pulled out.

Emma was relaxed but exhilarated. She decided that someday she was going to own a boat. She liked being out on the water, had enjoyed water-skiing and tubing. She might also buy a cabin like the one Luke’s family owned. It would be a great place to bring her children.

Someday. When she had kids.

She didn’t know when that was going to be, though. She was already over thirty and had a mountain of debt from college loans and buying the practice. When was she going to stop and have kids? When would she take time off to even have children? She was the single owner of her practice. It wasn’t like someone else could take over for her while she took a few months off to have a baby.

She let out a sigh.

“You okay over there?” Luke asked.

She smiled at Luke. “I’m fine.”

“Tired?”

“A little. It was a long weekend. But I had a great time. Thanks for bringing me to the cabin and to the lake.”

“I had a great time, too.”

She went quiet again and wished she hadn’t pondered buying a cabin and a boat, which led her down the road to having kids.

She’d wasted so much time all those years ago, when she could have been in school, could have gotten her veterinary degree, could have gotten her entire life started so much sooner.

She’d made so many mistakes.

Love—or what she’d thought at the time was love—had made her do stupid things.

And it would be wise of her to remember that love wasn’t her priority. It had been once, and it had cost her dearly. Falling in love again could be disastrous for her.

Of course, how was she going to have those kids she wanted if she didn’t fall in love?

She rubbed her temple.

“You’re quiet again,” Luke said sometime later.

“Oh. Thinking.”

“About?”

“Um . . . work stuff.”

“No. No work stuff until tomorrow. Banish those thoughts. Think about warm sunshine and the lake. And hiking.”

She looked over at him and he grinned at her. Her lips curved. “Okay. I’ll definitely think about hiking.”

By the time Luke pulled into her driveway, she had a full-blown headache, brought about, no doubt, by too much thinking. Much as she tried to push all those “what ifs” and “should haves” to the back of her mind, they kept pummeling her and wouldn’t go away.

Luke helped carry her stuff into the house.

And now another question inserted itself into her already-too-cluttered mind.

What happened next? Now what was going to happen between the two of them?

“I had a fun weekend with you,” she said as she walked with him to the door.

He pulled her against him and wrapped his arms around her. “Me, too.”

The question hovered on her lips, but she refused to ask it. Instead, she brushed his hair off his forehead. “Get some sleep.”

“You, too.” He kissed her, and not a quick good-bye peck, but a bone-melting, deep kiss that curled her toes and woke up everything female within her. A kiss that made her want to ask him to come inside and crawl between the sheets with her so she could have him one more time before this idyllic weekend came to a final close.

Instead, he took a step back after the kiss and took a deep breath. “I really should get out of here, before I ask you to let me stay.”

And she took a deep breath. “You really should go, before I ask you to stay.”

He cocked a half-smile. “’Night, Emma.”

“Good night, Luke.”

He turned and headed back to his truck. Emma shut the door, the dogs sitting there, watching her.

“Come on, girls. I need some Tylenol and my bed. We’ll worry about everything else tomorrow.”

LUKE WALKED THE Whitehall Pharmacy with a grimace.

The pharmacy had been burglarized late the previous night, the alarm dismantled, and the back door expertly jimmied.

It was the same MO as the other burglaries. They’d gone after the narcotics, and this time they’d scored a decent hit. According to Edgar Whitehall’s inventory, there was more to this than just a junkie scoring drugs for the next high. They’d taken some heavy-duty narcotics, and a large quantity.

“It might be someone trying to score a fix, but I don’t think so,” Luke said to Pete Little, his captain, who’d shown up to review the scene. “This looks too well done. A junkie is going to do a smash-and-grab. Get in and get out in a hurry so he doesn’t get caught. Like we saw over at Emma Burnett’s place.”

Pete nodded and wandered through the back of the pharmacy. “And you think that was mostly because Miss Burnett was on the scene at the time, not because they were in a hurry to snatch whatever drugs they could get their hands on and hightail it out of there?”

“Yes, sir. It’s looking like this might be someone more sophisticated. No one getting high on the drugs he grabs would be this efficient. They wouldn’t care about the alarm or the way they’re bypassing the security systems. They’d just bash in a window or break down the door, grab whatever they could, and get out. You know the mind-set when they’re toasted.”

Luke walked the captain toward the video-surveillance equipment. “They even knew to disable video surveillance. Most of our local junkies wouldn’t even be aware of that or would just wear a hoodie to hide their faces. This is someone who knows what he’s doing.”

His captain nodded. “So what are your thoughts?”

He liked his captain, liked that he wanted his officers to do the investigating. “I’m thinking this is maybe an after-market job. They snatch the drugs, then resell them rather than use them. With the quantities they’re taking, it makes sense.”

“It does. Have you checked out recent drug offenders on parole in the area?”

“We have. None of them have the smarts or the background to pull off something like what’s been happening here. But we’re still checking alibis for the nights in question.”

“We’ve checked in with surrounding cities and counties,” Pete said. “It’s confined to Hope, so it’s someone local.”

“Or someone who wants us to think they’re local,” Luke said. “I wouldn’t put it past an outsider to be targeting our area. A lot of people believe small towns are an easy target.”

“You have a point, McCormack. Follow up on your leads and trust your instincts. This is becoming a pattern in our town, and I don’t want it to continue. Let’s find out who’s doing this and put a stop to it.”

“Yes, sir.”

There were distinct advantages and disadvantages to working for a small-town police force. The biggest advantage was the level of autonomy you got. Because you had a limited staff, you got to do a lot yourself. The biggest disadvantage was all the shit you had to do yourself because of the limited staff. Which meant Luke spent the next several days tracking down and interviewing parolees, checking out alibis, and working with other jurisdictions to see if they had anyone who might fit the MO of these crimes.

Which meant he’d worked a shit ton of double shifts. Not that he minded. He wanted to catch this asshole as much as everyone else on the force did. The last thing Hope needed was a new dealer out hawking the latest in narcotics outside the local middle schools. He’d work whatever hours needed to put this dickhead behind bars.

But working these hours meant he’d had absolutely zero time to see Emma. When he got off work, he managed a cold sandwich and a beer, and then he’d fall face-first into his bed, where it seemed as if only an hour later his alarm was ringing and he had to be back on the job again.

Of course, this was what he wanted, wasn’t it? A fling with Emma, get her into his bed, then forget about her. Get her out of his system.

The problem was, after the long weekend they’d spent together, he couldn’t stop thinking about her. Everything about her still lingered—the way she laughed, the way she smelled, the way she tasted, the way she moved when he was inside her.

And getting a hard-on when in his police car might just get him fired, especially if his captain or one of his fellow officers happened to come by while he was sitting in the parking lot of Bert’s diner waiting for Anita to bring his to-go order out. He’d already missed lunch, and since he’d be working another double shift, he’d be damned if he’d miss dinner.

When Emma pulled in next to him, along with Jane and Chelsea, he didn’t know whether to hide his face or get out and pull her into his arms so he could tell her how much he’d missed her.

She smiled and waved, started to go inside, but then paused, said something to Jane and Chelsea, then came over to his car. She leaned over, and he breathed her in.