Grant might have been here before him, but he’d only been around in the field a few years. “I can do that,” he said.

  Guess being with Dahlia put him in a better mood than he thought.

  “I’ll send you the case in a few minutes to look it over so you’ve got an idea of what is going on. You’ll get more information tomorrow.”

  He knew how it worked, so he left his boss’s office and went to tell Grant they’d have a road trip. It was less than two hours there but could be a long day too.

  “Sweet,” Grant said. “You think we are staying the night?”

  “No,” he said. “The case file is coming in soon.”

  He knew what he’d be reading tonight and he hoped Grant did the same and they could debrief on it on the drive in.

  Hours later he was home on his deck, a beer at his hand and his laptop in front of him.

  His eyes were crossing over the numbers, but he was following along well enough. There had to be a better way for him to organize it though. Reading the numbers in a summary wasn’t as easy as if he had a chart or a graph.

  Maybe that was what he’d talk to Dahlia about. He’d bet she was good at those things.

  When his phone went off, he saw it was a text from his father, so he replied back work was fine.

  Not a minute later his phone rang and it was his mother. It was almost as if it was her way to see if he could talk before she bothered to call.

  “Hi, Mom.”

  “Hi, Hugh. How are you doing?”

  “Good,” he said.

  “That is better than not bad,” his mother said, laughing.

  “There is that,” he agreed.

  “Are you still seeing Dahlia?”

  He should have figured that was what this call was about. “Yes,” he said.

  “So it’s been a few weeks now?”

  “It has,” he said.

  “Are you sleeping any better?” his mother asked.

  “The same,” he said. Which was why he’d be up half the night working in the hopes of tiring his brain out completely.

  “I had hoped maybe if your personal life picked up, mentally you could disconnect some more.”

  “It doesn’t work that way and you know it.”

  If anything, it might put more pressure and stress on him to keep them separate.

  To make sure Dahlia didn’t see all the things he tried to talk to Keri about.

  His ex didn’t want any part of it. What made him think someone he was just starting to date would want that drama in her life?

  “Are you bored there?” his mother asked. “You’re not used to the small town living.”

  “I thought it’d help some,” he said. “It is in some ways, but I’m getting out and doing things.”

  “That’s good to hear. What have you done?”

  He told his mother some about the area that he’d explored with Dahlia. “She finds the history of the area interesting. She missed out on American history as a kid. Or at least detailed versions of it.”

  “How is that?” his mother asked.

  Guess he slipped without thought. “Her father is a doctor with Doctors Without Borders. She’s lived all over the world, moving every few years. She has dual citizenship. Her mother was a teacher and home-schooled her and her siblings. They all moved to America when they turned eighteen for college and have stayed here. Well, the youngest is in med school not far away, the oldest was in Japan and just moved somewhere else.”

  “That’s fascinating,” his mother said.

  He snorted. “I’m not so sure she feels that way.”

  They hadn’t talked much about it, but it was the impression he’d gotten.

  Other than her saying how much they’d missed out on in life and that there were times she didn’t feel as if she fit in, she kept quiet about it.

  Maybe that was what her comment meant about fitting in with her coworkers and them all finding out about the two of them having sex last night.

  He’d heard the embarrassment in her voice. Even saw it on her face last night.

  He was thrilled she’d made the first step and took the pressure off of him on when to do it. Now it would be easier.

  Yet it didn’t feel that way this morning when he was wondering if he should reach out to her or not.

  He gave it a few hours and felt that was best.

  The fact she didn’t ask what he was doing tonight helped him somewhat. He wouldn’t have wanted to cancel on her and needed to get what he could read on this file.

  “It’s always easier for other people to think something of someone’s life that didn’t live it,” his mother said.

  “I know that well,” he said.

  “Keri didn’t deserve you,” his mother said.

  “I’m sure she feels otherwise,” he said.

  No reason to get into this again. He didn’t need to think about his failed marriage.

  He’d tried as hard as he could to keep it together, but you couldn’t force someone to think a way they didn’t believe.

  What Keri had in her mind as a perfect marriage just wasn’t going to work with his job.

  Not that he’d ever change his career, but he knew that was part of the appeal to his ex too.

  She couldn’t have one without the other. It didn’t work that way.

  Their marriage was almost doomed to begin with.

  Then when Kevin entered his life, the tiny rock the boulder of their marriage was balancing on just crumbled and everything came crashing down.

  “I’m sorry for bringing it up,” his mother said.

  “It is what it is,” he said. “And sorry to cut this short, but I’ve got some reading to do before I take a road trip tomorrow.”

  “I’ll let you go,” his mother said. She’d never ask for details about his work. She never did with his father either. No one could give the information and it was best people were in the dark. That was one thing drilled into a significant other’s head. For their safety, they didn’t need to know names or cases or workloads.

  Before he went back to his file, he sent an email to Kevin’s parents to check on the kid. It’d been months, but he wanted to know.

  He knew in his mind he’d never find peace just as Kevin might not either.

  16

  KEEP FACTS STRAIGHT

  “Are you sure I’m not boring you?” Dahlia asked Hugh on Friday.

  They’d just had dinner at his place. He showed her around when she got there.

  She had to say the house was nice. Big for one person, but it was on the river with a nice view and a great outdoor living area that she’d be enjoying nonstop.

  It was where they were now with his laptop open and her trying to show him how to set up spreadsheets to analyze data.

  “No,” he said. “I need to figure this out better. I can read it all in a summary, but it would be clearer if I could see it in a graph. I could ask someone else to give it to me that way, but I can’t explain how I want it until I read it. This way I can figure out how to set it up better myself.”

  She was flipping through a spreadsheet that had tabs on the bottom showing him charts and graphs of information.

  “These are the reports I set up for my bosses. The numbers aren’t the same. Can’t share that,” she said, grinning.

  She’d met with Lily, Poppy, and Rose two days ago. It’d been hard to find time to get everyone together.

  Her bosses had been thrilled when they saw what she’d done and how she’d set up the sales and growth of each part of their business.

  The business as a whole, but broken up into divisions, then each division broken up by product groups.

  Surprisingly, Poppy was the first one asking a ton of questions if it could be broken up even more, by season with product groups to see what she should focus on.

  After that, everyone was throwing questions and requests at her faster than dodgeballs at the nerdy kid.

  Of course she’d only seen that on TV. She’d never played dodgeball a day in her life. She wasn’t sure she wanted to.

  Thinking of the first time she saw it and everyone laughing in college, she’d gone back to her room and done an internet search on it and why it was funny and the rules of the game.

  It almost felt like bullying to her, but she suspected that was part of life and was glad she missed that section of American education. She was positive she might have been one of the kids divided into the nerd group.

  “That’s fine,” he said. “It’s no different than me not sharing names or numbers with you. I’ll never be able to do that.”

  “I don’t want to know,” she said. “It’s not my business. But if I can help you in any way, I’d like to. I know this is boring to many, but I find it fascinating. I can set up these reports with fake numbers and you just go in and plug in the real ones.”

  “That is my goal,” he said. “These all link together?”

  “They do. Not sure that is what you want, but this is an example of what I’ve done. Down here you put the data and then it filters into these graphs at the top. So...let’s say you can’t use this form, if you want to set up fake information, do that, then I can set up what you need easily and you can go back in with the real information.”

  “I don’t want you to do my work,” he said.

  “I’m not. I’m showing you how to set it up. I’m sure you’re the type of person who only needs to be shown something once. I mean, I can give you a crash course in Excel if you want. That might be easier.”

  “I can do the basic things, but this, no way. I could never set things up like this,” he said.

  Dahlia smiled. She knew it was something simple and was almost embarrassed at the pride she felt he was impressed by it.

  “Sure, you could,” she said. “Just takes practice.”

  They spent another few hours working on things and then he said, “We can call it a night. I appreciate it. I think I’ve got a lot.”

  “Do you want me to send you this file? As I said, it’s not real data.”

  All she did was go in and throw silly numbers by the thousands in there. Anyone looking at it would know it was a sample sheet.

  “If you don’t mind, that would be great.”

  “Did you want to look at that manual?” she asked.

  “Not tonight. I know we don’t get to see much of each other and no reason to spend it doing this.”

  “I don’t mind,” she said.

  He’d asked her a few days ago if she could give him pointers and she was thrilled.

  No one she’d ever dated before expressed any interest in her job.

  Shawn did the same work as her so it’s not as if they’d talked much about things.

  Which, looking back, seemed kind of odd to her. Working for the same company, you’d think they’d talk about their work somewhat, but the only time it came up was when he was asking about people.

  Like when Bob was promoted to oversee Shawn’s division. Shawn had all sorts of questions then.

  She should have realized there was more going on, but she was so focused on the fact that Shawn was being a dick to her and how to get out of the relationship without putting even more attention on her.

  Didn’t work though.

  “Another night,” he said. “This was helpful. Just like you cooking dinner tonight when you didn’t need to.”

  “I like to cook,” she said.

  She’d gotten out of work an hour earlier than normal. She never did that, but no one would say a word because she put so many hours in.

  She’d gone home and changed, picked up chicken breasts and some rice and carrots. Simple again. Maybe she should look for some recipes to spice things up more.

  She’d pulled into Hugh’s driveway when he’d said and he was already out of his suit and in shorts and a T-shirt like her. His hair was wet and she assumed he’d taken a shower.

  “And I like to eat, so you know I appreciate it. Do you have plans this weekend? I know we haven’t talked much. Sorry I’ve been gone a lot this week.”

  “Don’t apologize,” she said.

  He’d told her he had to be on the road the past few days. She didn’t ask where he was going or why. It wasn’t her business and he’d told her he appreciated that.

  When he had a chance he sent her a text and that was about it. But yesterday he’d said he was going to have a lighter day and wanted to know if she could get together for dinner.

  There was no talk about her staying the night and she didn’t bring clothes to do it.

  It was too soon in her eyes for that.

  “Work comes and goes,” he said.

  “No need to explain,” she said. “You were very clear about your job in the beginning and how it affects your personal life outside of work. I don’t have a problem with it.”

  “Thanks. I’ll try to keep you posted. I mean, I don’t want you to think I’m ignoring you.”

  She laughed. “Don’t think anything of it. I’m the least high-maintenance person I know. I know you’re an honest person. If you’re not in touch, there is a reason for it. During the day, we are both working and busy.”

  “But on the weekends we can try to make it for us.”

  She smiled. “In that case…and you can say no, but I have to ask.”

  “What?” he asked. “You seem nervous even though you’re trying to smile. I can detect a forced smile anywhere.”

  “Because you’re good at your job,” she said, laughing.

  “Yeah, that’s a prerequisite of it. Looking at someone and knowing when they are nervous.”

  His tone said he was joking with her.

  “I’m sure most people are nervous of the FBI in general. I was.”

  “But you’re not anymore,” he said, reaching for her hand. He threaded their fingers together and it was the first time he’d done that.

  As sad as it was, it might be the first time she’d held hands with any man.

  “I think I might be if it wasn’t for you, but right now I’m not. My sister Jasmine would like to meet you. If you came into the office she’d meet you but then so would other people.”

  “And you’d prefer not to do that?”

  “Everyone knows we are dating, but I’m not into being the center of attention.”

  “That’s fine,” he said. “Where does Jasmine want to meet?”

  “At her house,” she said. “For dinner. Me, you, her, Wesley, Ivy and Brooks. They wanted to do it this weekend. Tomorrow...”

  “That’s fine,” he said.

  “Really? It’s not too short of notice? Jasmine asked me to let her know tonight. Ivy has been bugging me for days.”

  “We can go,” he said. “I feel bad that they were waiting. Why haven’t you asked me before?”

  “You’ve been busy and we haven’t talked. I wasn’t going to put it in a text.”

  “Shit,” he said. “I don’t want you to feel you can’t ask me something because I’m busy. You can call me. Now I feel bad.”

  “Don’t. It wasn’t important. They know you’re busy.”

  “Do they know what I do for a living?” he asked.

  “I haven’t said anything,” she said. “Not yet.”

  “How are we playing this off tomorrow then?” he asked.

  “I don’t think anyone will bring it up,” she said. “Ivy has just assumed you’re a bean counter because of your suit and I’ve let them go along with it. I might have let it slip to Ivy that I was going to show you some reports I was working on today.”

  She knew her sister would run with that and then tell Jasmine.

  “You’re bad,” he said.

  “It’s not a lie. I just didn’t correct her.”

  “I’d like to think this is more than just a few dates,” he said. “I’m meeting your family and all. It’s up to you to tell them what you want, but know that the longer it goes on the harder it is to keep facts straight.”

  She sighed. “I know. I need to wrap my head around things. I just don’t want them to know about it. Or Shawn.”

  “They aren’t going to judge you. You didn’t do anything wrong,” he said.

  He pulled her hand and had her sitting on his lap. Yep, that was a new move too.

  “Just a poor decision made on my part,” she said. “I was always the sister that didn’t do those things.”

  “Everyone makes bad decisions in their life,” he said. “Myself included. It’s what we learn from them that counts.”

  He made a good point, but it didn’t change the way she felt right now.

  “Give me a bit of time yet and then I’ll tell them,” she said.

  “That’s your choice,” he said. His hands were moving on her thighs, then inside and up and down more.

  She laid her head back against his chest. “Would you think it’s crazy if I told you I never have sat on a guy’s lap before?”

  “No,” he said. “I picture you as someone who isn’t into all of that.”

  “It’s not that I’m not interested,” she said. “I think it’s the men I’m with. No one would be considered a protector. That is what I think of sitting here.”

  He kissed her on the forehead. “You’ve never sat on your father’s lap?”

  “No,” she said. “Not that I can remember. I know my father would read to us at night at times and Ivy always crawled on his lap. He let her stay there for a few years and then Chase came around and got that spot. Ivy was hurt.”

  Her father hadn’t been someone that showed a lot of affection. When Ivy wanted it and didn’t get it, her baby sister was upset and disappointed.

  Their mother was often tired at the end of the day and though they all got tucked into bed and hugged or kissed on the forehead, it wasn’t the same thing.

  “But not you?” he asked.

  “What is it you want to know?” she asked.

  “Tell me about your life…if you want,” he said.

  “You know about it,” she said.

  “I know facts. I don’t know feelings.”

  “You have to share too,” she said. “Do you want to?”

  He sighed. “Depends. There are things I can’t share. I feel as if I told you more than most. That my marriage failed because I wasn’t there for Keri. That I couldn’t give her what she wanted no matter how much I tried.”