Chapter 3

"Did he tell you he was a hero at his last station?" Keith plunked three open bottles on the table.

Kristi was startled to see Patrick's face turn red. She didn't remember the last time she'd seen a grown man blush.

"Knock it off," he told Keith. "I was just doing my job." He lifted one of the fresh bottles and took a long sip.

"Hey, I was there today and saw what you did," Kristi told him. "You were incredible. I can vouch for that."

"Okay, okay. Next subject, please."

It was obvious praise made him uncomfortable. Kristi tucked that fact away in her memory banks. The guys at the station and the cops she hung out with didn't take much to that stuff, either. They, too, were "just doing the job."

"So, you're new to the precinct." She cocked her head. "I thought I hadn't seen you around."

He laughed, the tension easing from his body. "Should I get a sign that says New Guy?"

"No, that's okay. I'll remember you from now on." She was sure they'd be working scenes together again. Before that time, she'd better get herself under control.

"Like Kristi told you, she's been at five-eight for seven years," Keith told him. "There's nothing about this part of town she doesn't know."

"Well, maybe a little bit." She took a sip of her beer. "But it feels like home here.

Little by little, others joined them, pushing tables together, dragging chairs over. If she wanted solitude, she should have gone someplace else.

She finished her food as unobtrusively as she could and drained the last of the beer in the first bottle. More people came in. Someone dragged another chair over and, pretty soon, there wasn't room to squash a lemon, but it wasn't anything new. As long as Kristi had been at Station 58 and, coming to McNally's, that's the way it had been. It was a place where they could let their guard down and relax, knowing they were in the company of people just like them.

"So, Patrick. Where were you before you transferred here?" she asked.

"North Carolina." His mouth curved in a lopsided grin. "I know, I know. Why the change, right? I get that a lot."

"So what's the answer?"

His face sobered. "I ended up there when I finished my last tour. I was stationed at Fort Bragg for most of my military career, met a lot of people there that I got to know and liked."

"Sort of like a home away from home?"

"You might say." He took a swallow of his beer. "My closest friends were getting hired on by the police force in Charlotte, and I'd met a woman who made me want to put down roots there."

"Oh!" Kristi frowned. "And you left her there?"

"No." His smile was half humor, half regret. "That didn't work out so well."

She lifted an eyebrow. "So you just packed up and decided to try Dallas next."

At that, he actually laughed. "Not quite. I grew up in Dallas. My dad passed away a few years ago but my mom still lives here as does my sister and her husband. I figured I was getting the message it was time to come home. Lucky for me, the Dallas PD had an opening."

So he had a broken romance. Kristi wondered just how badly it had broken and if it left him with a bad taste in his mouth for relationships. And, of course, why the hell did she care? She wasn't interested in a relationship of any kind, but especially with a cop or firefighter. She had her own scars, which she thought she covered quite well.

"They must be very glad to have you back home."

He nodded. "They are." Then he gave that lopsided grin again. "I just have to keep reminding my mother I'm not sixteen years old anymore and restrain myself from minding my sister's business too much."

Kristi burst out laughing. She couldn't help herself. "Sounds like me and my family, only with me it's a brother."

He winked at her. "I'd say that makes us kindred spirits." He paused. "What does your dad have to say about all that?"

The sharp pain that always pierced her heart when she thought of her father stabbed at her.

"He passed away." She gripped her bottle to steady herself. "A few years ago. On the job. He was a fireman."

The look of sympathy and caring that came over his face almost undid her.

"That's tough. Yet you still work at a station."

She began peeling the label on the bottle.

"He instilled his love of the job in me, but I just chose to go a different route. I wanted to go into medicine, but I didn't have the money for med school and all the years of training after that." She looked up at him. "And you know what? After I got my fire science degree and paramedic training, I discovered that this was my calling after all. So it's all good." She took a sip of her beer. "So. Patrick, not Pat?"

He shook his head. "It was my grandfather's name. I wear it proudly." He grinned. "Your turn. Kristi is short for...?"

"Kristi." She laughed. "My mother just liked the name."

"Sounds good to me. I like it, too."

"So, the quiz." She grinned. "Every newbie gets it."

"Should I be afraid?"

"Shiver in your shoes."

"Okay. Let me have it."

"Football or baseball?"

"Football. Hands down."

She clapped a hand to her chest. "A man after my own heart."

Oh, great, Kristi. That was a dumb thing to say.

"Beer or bourbon?"

He chuckled. "Are those my only two choices?"

"At most parties," she told him. "So if you want to get invited, then, yeah, it is."

"I like either one."

"No fair." She pouted. "You have to make a choice."

He shook his head, his very sexy mouth turned up in a smile. "Bourbon with a beer chaser."

Kristi laughed. It was impossible not to. "Okay, I'll give you a pass on that one."