“How long ago was this?”

“Early last year it ended, started the year before.” She hesitated before she told him, “It lasted about a year.”

“Fuck, it took that long to find an infection?” Deck bit out.

“It was rare,” she repeated.

“Jesus,” he muttered.

“I’m fine, honey.”

“Scared you shitless, Emme.”

Her mouth shut.

“Keep sayin’ it’s fine. Keep sayin’ it isn’t a big deal. It wasn’t the first but it was the last,” he told her.

“You’re right about that for the then. But it’s okay now.”

“I can see that,” he returned. “And you say it but you aren’t gettin’ it since you were sick for a year, had no f**kin’ clue what it was, which would scare anybody and it scared you. It ended well, but you don’t deal, you don’t get over it.”

Her chin jerked back before she said in a tone that was an accusation. “I forgot how smart you are.”

“Glad you’re remembering.”

“I also forgot how annoying it can sometimes be.”

It was then he burst out laughing and when he was done, she no longer looked peeved but was grinning.

Their beers came. They both took a sip then set them aside.

“So, you got sick, why was a new look necessary?” he pushed, and she again shrugged.

“You’re exhausted like I was, you’re too exhausted to go out and get haircuts. Trust me, haircuts are the last thing on your mind when all you want to do is get to work, go home and go to sleep. And my hair grows fast, apparently. And I found I kinda liked it so I let it keep growing. Then, after it was done and I was getting better, but none of my clothes fit, my friend Erika… do you remember her?”

Deck nodded. Erika was one of her limited posse. Elsbeth didn’t like Erika either. This was because Erika was beautiful and intelligent, both scarily so, especially for someone like Elsbeth.

“Well, she wanted to make me feel better, and have clothes that actually fit,” Emme went on. “So she took me out on a day of beauty. She’s a personal shopper and she’d been dying to get ahold of me for years anyway. She took me to have my hair done, had a makeup artist teach me how to do my face, took me out and we tried on a bunch of clothes. Most of them don’t fit anymore because I put on twenty pounds since then but somehow, I got bit by the bug.” She leaned and whispered conspiratorially, “Don’t tell anyone in Denver. I put on my old clothes and wear a wig when I go home. I don’t want them to know I’ve turned into a fashionista.”

“Lips are sealed, baby,” he said through a smile but watched her blink again, surprise lighting her eyes before she cloaked it and sat back.

He let that go when she kept talking.

“Anyway. Now that super-smart, see-into-thoughts-with-the-power-of-his-mind Jacob Decker has made me think on it, I’m wondering if maybe being sick like that didn’t wake me up somehow. Teach me to stop and smell the roses. And by that I mean pampering myself with visits to excellent stylists, spending mega bucks on salon-quality products for my hair, regular facials and way too many trips back to Denver to drop a load on clothes.”

“Not a crime, Emme,” he noted.

She grinned and replied, “Luckily, no.”

“Elsbeth take your back?” he asked.

Another blink, this one more surprised, and she asked, “Pardon?”

“Elsbeth, through this shit, she take your back?”

She held his eyes and she did it a long time before, slowly, she said, “Jacob, honey, I haven’t spoken to Elsbeth in nine years.”

He felt that heat in his chest as he stared at her.

His voice was gruff when he asked, “What?”

“She, um… ended things with you, and I,” she shrugged, “ended things with her.”

“No shit?” he asked.

Her eyes unusually hit the table as she murmured, “I don’t like stupid people.”

Jesus Christ.

“Emme,” he called, and it took some time but she lifted her eyes to meet his. When she did, all he could get out was, “Babe, you two were tight.”

“She threw away something good. I know you know that, Jacob, because it was you she threw away so I don’t want to bring it up and hurt you but I… well, I knew why. And like I said, I don’t like stupid people. I don’t have time for them. So I haven’t seen her in years. She asked me to her wedding. I didn’t go. Mutual acquaintances used to tell me about her but I moved up here about three years ago. I go home often but just to see my folks and friends, none of whom was really close with Elsbeth so,” she shrugged again, “I have no idea what’s happening with her and she definitely has no idea what’s going on with me.”

The waitress came and slid the mozzarella sticks in front of Emme, Emme murmured, “Thanks, Sarah,” the waitress replied, “No probs,” and was off again.

Emme shoved the plate to the middle of the table and offered, “Help yourself.”

She took one.

Deck took one.

He ate it whole, swallowed and shared, “Elsbeth isn’t happy.”

Her head snapped up from looking at the sticks, she chewed, swallowed and asked, “You’ve talked with Elsbeth?”

“Fucked her in Denver last summer.”

Her mouth dropped open.

Deck didn’t know why he said it and he further wouldn’t know why he kept talking.

Then again, he’d talked open and honest to only three people in his thirty-seven years of life. His dad. Chace Keaton. And Emmanuelle Holmes.

“Did it before I knew she was still hitched. Found out she was still hitched when I heard her talkin’ on the phone to her husband even though she tried to hide it. Told her she was a piece of shit, walked out. Before I did that, I had to get dressed so I listened to her tell me how her life was in the toilet and her husband was an ass**le. Still left. First time I saw her since back when, and, I’ll admit, babe, I looked her up, she took me up on a get-together, chatted me up until we hooked up. Now I hope it’s the last time I ever see her.”

Emme continued staring at him with lips parted. It was cute. It reminded him of the old Emme when they’d talk politics and he’d say something ridiculously conservative in response to something she’d said that was ludicrously liberal and he did it just to get a rise out of her.

She finally got over her surprise and stated, “Okay, her husband being an ass**le, not a surprise. He was that before she married him. He’ll be that forever. He’s probably trying to find ways to be that from beyond the grave, working with gypsies to do it or something.”

Deck felt himself smile as Emme kept talking.

“But, she went for you?”

“Got played, Emme. She told me lettin’ me go was the worst mistake of her life.”

Her shoulders shot straight and she replied instantly, “It was. But cheating on her husband with you without you knowing you were doing it isn’t the way to rectify that mistake.”

And there she showed another something he forgot or buried.

Emme had fire.

It was cute. It had always been cute.

Women like her, it was hard to be cute. She was not small. Elsbeth had been five foot six but teetered around on high heels every day, even in jeans or shorts, so she could be five nine or ten. Emme was five nine; now with high heels she wore with more naturalness than Elsbeth who’d probably put on her first pair at age three, she was six foot at least.

Being tall, curvaceous, intelligent, women like that could be alluring, sexy, a lot of things, but not often cute.

Emme pissed, was cute. When she showed her fire, he always thought so. During a discussion. In defense of a friend.

Fucking adorable.

And no less now.

Shit.

“Got that right, baby,” he muttered through his grin, her eyes again got that weird light before she hid it, shook her head and reached for a stick.

“She’s whacked,” Emme declared.

“Reckon she always was.”

Her eyes lifted to his, held steady and she whispered, “She always was.”

Deck stared into her eyes and his chest seized at what he saw.

Just turn the dial.

Jesus.

She gave him that kaleidoscope and told him to turn the dial, find more beauty.

And f**k him, she was standing at his door the day after Elsbeth dumped him for a rich man who could give her the life she grew up having and Emme had offered herself to him as friend, or maybe even lover. All he had to do was turn the dial.

And he’d been so f**ked up by Elsbeth, the promise of her, the beauty he thought he’d lost by not doing what she wanted and losing her, that he didn’t see it. He didn’t see he had something even more beautiful right in front of him.

Until nine years later.

Fuck.

Him.

Before he could capture that moment, she looked away, shoved more mozzarella stick in her mouth and grabbed her beer to wash it back.

She didn’t want that moment. Maybe back then. Now she had a man. Her mind might not be going there. He might be wrong and it might never have gone there. Not where Deck’s seemed to be going every other second, her sitting across from him. But she had a man and f**king him over like Elsbeth f**ked over her husband by using Deck last summer would never enter her mind.