She put on a pair of gym shorts so the wound was easily accessible and then pulled on a T-shirt, not bothering with a bra. One, she didn’t have that much up top to worry over, and two, Cole had already seen everything she had. They should be well past the coy and modest stage by now.

After putting on socks to keep her feet warm, she carefully made her way back toward the living room. Cole wasn’t there, but she heard noise from the kitchen, so she went in search of him.

He was just placing the steaks on a platter to take them outside when he looked up and saw her.

“Hey,” he said softly. “Feel better?”

“You have no idea,” she breathed. “Almost human again.”

He set down the plate with the steaks and wiped his hands on a towel. Then he picked up a medicine bottle, shook out a pill and handed it to her.

“Just a sec, I’ll get you some milk to take it with. Not a good idea to take these on an empty stomach.”

She took the pill and waited while he poured a glass of milk and pushed it toward her on the counter. She sipped at the milk, grimacing before finally popping the pill into her mouth and drinking more to down it.

“Not a milk fan?”

She shook her head. “I don’t even like the smell of it. I get my calcium by eating cheese. Lots of it.”

“What would you like to drink with dinner? I’d offer you a beer but it wouldn’t go too well with that painkiller you just took.”

“Tea or water is fine. I’m more focused on the steak anyway. I’m already drooling over it and it’s still raw.”

He grinned. “Girl after my own heart. I’m a big fan of cow.”

“Oh, I’m not particular. I’ll eat a chicken or a pig with as much enthusiasm.”

He glanced down at her bare leg and frowned. “That wound looks pretty nasty. We should get another bandage on it.”

“Yeah, I thought you could help once you got the steaks on. I wanted to clean it in the shower. Plus the hot water felt good on it.”

“Can you make it outside or you want me to go put the steaks on then come back for you?”

She took a hesitant step forward, gripping the countertop. “You lead and I’ll follow. I’ll do my very best not to take a header.”

He smiled and picked up the platter, placing the tongs on top. As he walked out of the kitchen to the French doors overlooking the patio, she followed slowly behind him. By the time she made it to the door, he was already putting the steaks on the fire.

She stepped outside and breathed in the honeysuckle-scented air. Crickets chirped in the distance and the low hum of tree locusts rose in the evening air. The sky was covered with the pale shade of dusk and the sun was barely clinging to the horizon as it slipped lower and lower.

It was a perfect evening for a cookout.

She took a seat at the table and stretched her leg out to its full length underneath. The pain medication was already dulling the vicious ache, turning it to a more tolerable hum.

“It’s beautiful here,” she said as Cole lowered the lid to the grill.

“I like it. It’s close to work but it’s still private. I don’t have to worry about tripping over anyone when I’m here. It’s kind of nice after coming off a mission to hole up away from the world for a few days.”

“Steele had been bugging me to move out this way. You know, before that last mission and all.”

Cole studied her intently. “And? Were you considering it?”

“I don’t know,” she said honestly. “Before, I would have likely given it thought but probably would have put it off or made an excuse. I was comfortable in my routine and I liked that work was a world away from where I lived.”

“And now? You said before like things have changed, or at least your thinking has.”

She gazed over the pond, watching as the first firefly popped and glowed a line over the water before blinking off again.

There was something mesmerizing about fireflies. Something that took her back to her childhood when things were simple and summer days were spent chasing dreams.

It was a wake-up call that so much of her adulthood had been spent being unsatisfied with herself, her relationships and her jobs.

When had she changed from a laughing little girl dreaming of changing the world to a cynical adult who believed the world wasn’t savable?

“P.J.?”

Cole broke softly into her thoughts, and she realized he was waiting for a response to his question.

“Now I’m not so sure. It was actually the night you came into the bar when I had this moment of realization that I was still living in the past by hanging around in Denver. There’s nothing for me there. No reason to stay. No ties. Nothing. At least here I’d be closer to work if nothing else.”

“You’d have me,” he said.

She lifted her gaze to his and their eyes locked. He didn’t flinch away. Didn’t try to hide anything from her.

“I don’t want to screw up our friendship. I can’t lose that, Cole. It’s too important to me. It’s why I reacted the way I did the morning after, because all I could think was how stupid I’d been to risk something that means so very much to me.”

“You aren’t going to lose me, P.J. Don’t doom us before we even give it a shot.”

She dropped her gaze and returned it to the pond again, counting the fireflies as they danced through the air. More and more were popping into view, and the sounds of night grew louder. In the distance, an owl hooted, sending an eerie shiver down her spine.

Was he right? Was she guilty of not even giving them a shot? Of shooting them down before they even gave it a chance?

She was being a total chickenshit and offering up lame excuses when at the heart of the matter she was just . . . afraid.

“What if it doesn’t work out?” she asked, voicing one of those fears. “What if things end badly between us? We still have to work as a team, and if we fuck things up, it creates tension for the entire team yet we have to work together. Our camaraderie is what makes us so damn good. We could fuck up not only ourselves, but the entire team. Worse, we could end up getting one of the others killed. I don’t think I could live with that.”

“If it ever comes down to that, I’d be the one to leave,” he said quietly. “I’d never force you out, P.J.”

“It would still devastate me,” she whispered.

“Don’t you believe in forever?” he asked. “What about all those romance novels you read? Don’t they preach the happily-ever-after message?”

His words put an ache in her heart. She wanted happily ever after more than he could possibly know. She wanted forever. Problem was, she just wasn’t sure she believed in it anymore. It was why she clung to her fiction so much. She immersed herself in books because there she could be anyone and it was easy to believe in love and happily ever after.

“You’d make an awesome romance heroine. I’m just saying.”

She smiled. “You’d make a pretty badass romance hero too.”

“See? It’s fate. Or destiny. Whatever you want to call it. We’re meant to be together. Wow, I’m starting to sound like a total pussy!”

She laughed, but the problem was, she was beginning to feel the same way. Cole just . . . fit. There wasn’t anything she didn’t like about him, even when he was annoying the shit out of her.

It was fun to bicker and snipe with him. He gave as good as he got but he never carried a grudge. Never took it too seriously. And he didn’t let his ego get in the way of things. She’d saved his ass plenty of times and he never resented her for it.

Her KGI team was everything her first team wasn’t. Loyal. They respected her. They stood by her even when it meant putting their jobs on the line.

The sudden thought occurred to her that she was a flaming hypocrite. It was like being blindsided by a right hook. Her thoughts must have been reflected on her face, because Cole’s brow wrinkled in concern and he sat forward.

“What’s up, P.J.? You okay?”

She let out a disgusted sigh and rubbed her forehead in agitation. “I was sitting here comparing S.W.A.T. with KGI and I was being all smug and self-righteous thinking that my team here is everything my old team wasn’t. I’ve been so pissed at them for so long, but it occurred to me that I’m a huge fucking hypocrite.”

He reared back in surprise. “Why the hell would you think something like that?”

“I turned my lover in for being dirty. I was so self-righteous and so ‘must do the right thing’ and I was so black-and-white back then. There were no reasons, no explanations. No excuses. You were either right or wrong. No in between. And yet here I am, having murdered three men in cold blood and casually plotting the death of a fourth. My hands are so stained with blood that I’ll never wash them clean. At least Derek wasn’t hurting anyone. He didn’t kill anyone. He stole money from losers and drug dealers.”

Cole scowled, his face darkening as he stared back at her. “You aren’t comparing yourself to that asshole.”

She made a sound of impatience. “Look at it objectively, Cole. I turn him in for being on the take. I get hung out to dry and I’m bitter because everyone turned on me. Shit happens here, I go off on my own and kill three men. Who’s the bigger criminal? You guys have every reason to wash your hands of me.”

“Now you’re just pissing me off. It’s not like you to be all martyr-like. Shut the fuck up and give yourself a break. You can’t compare your situation to the dumb fuck you used to sleep with.”

She blinked for a minute and then burst out laughing. Oh God. This was what she loved so much about Cole. He didn’t let her get away with stupid shit and he always gave it to her straight.