Lover Arisen (Black Dagger Brotherhood #20)(113)

As she walked up to the place where she worked, she paused and stared at the building. It was modern, but not in a contemporary architecture sense. Modern for the Caldwell Police Department building was rows of windows you couldn’t open, no adornments or design work anywhere, and six entrances with metal detectors in them. Basically every municipal structure erected in the sixties.

And yet it meant a lot to her.

Trey’s conversation had opened her eyes. Or maybe her new perspective was from Balthazar this morning when he’d accepted her brokenness so easily. Either way, she was seeing everything from a fresh viewpoint.

The idea that she was making a difference for people who had been through what she had? That was a balm of sorts to her pain—and one she hadn’t recognized she’d been applying to the scars she carried on the inside.

A solace she had instinctively identified and self-medicated with.

Funny, how you could take care of yourself without even knowing.

Heading down to the back of the building, she entered the parking lot. Trey had put her car at the far end, right in front of the impound dock. When she came up to it, the backup key fob was in the cup holders in the center console between the seats, just like he’d said. As she got in and started the engine, she felt like she should be checking in with someone. She supposed she had.

Leaving the lot, she glanced in her rear view and watched the gate arm fall back into place behind her. For a panicked moment, she worried whether she was going to have some instinct hit that told her these two or three days off were going to turn into forever. When nothing like that came, she was relieved, even though she’d never been psychic or anything.

The Northway was not that far, but courtesy of a broken water main, she got rerouted and then missed a turn. The next thing she knew, she was in a different part of downtown, less skyscraper, more upscale-ish retail. Passing by some of the shops, she saw things in the windows like dresses and pants and blouses—

The parking spot appeared from out of nowhere, the lineup of perma-parked, grille-to-tailpipe cars broken by a perfectly beautiful metered space.

Why she backed into the vacancy, she had no clue. And when she got out, she was still confused.

But then she looked at the facade of the Ann Taylor store and saw a dress… that also did not make a lot of sense. It was red. A bright red, with a deep V for the bodice and a skirt that was way too short—which for Erika meant it was just slightly above the knee.

“I don’t have any change to put in the meter.”

As she spoke, a guy walked by her and looked at her like he was wondering why he was being informed of this.

“Well, it’s true,” she muttered at his back.

Turning to her car, she told herself she did not need a dress, and most certainly not a dress like that—

The meter had thirty minutes left on it.

Glancing over her shoulder, she pictured herself wearing it in front of Balthazar. Except that was crazy. They weren’t going on any dates.

She needed to be practical and just let it go. God, one good night of sex and she was reimagining her whole life. How ridiculous—

Erika froze. At first, she wasn’t sure whether she was seeing things right. But a blink later, and nothing had changed: That guy with the blond-and-black hair, the one who had helped her save Balthazar’s life, was standing right next to the front entrance of the Ann Taylor store. He was unmistakable, really, and not just because of his size.

There was a glow about him, a shimmer that seemed to emanate from him.

He was staring at her… and then his eyes made a slow scan of her body, traveling from her head to her feet. When they returned to her face, his expression changed, shifting from a reserved mask to someone completely brokenhearted.

As if somebody close to him had just died.

Or he’d figured out she had terminal cancer.

Forgetting all about both parking and dresses she had no business buying, Erika pulled her coat closer to herself and started forward toward him. An uneven lip on the sidewalk caught the toe of her shoe, though, and she pitched forward, nearly pulling a pratfall on the concrete.

When she recovered her balance, the man—or whatever he was—was gone.

Dear God, what did he know about her that she didn’t?



* * *



Ten minutes later, Erika had thrown off that weird exchange she’d had out on the street, and she was in an Ann Taylor dressing room with not just the red dress, but two skirts, a set of leggings, three shirts that did not have a “t” in front of them, and a “kicky, fun wrap” that Kelley, her “sales associate,” had told her was just perfect for the transitional weather of April and May.

Transitional weather for Erika was rain before it turned to snow.

Apparently here in this store, however, it meant something altogether different—and further, all of the “transitional” clothes had to be color-coordinated to her “palette.” Which was not what you tasted dinner with. Oh, and she was a winter? What the hell did that mean?

She was a cold fish?

Ha! Balthazar had proven that one wrong. And then some.

Feeling like an idiot for trying anything on, she dumped her jacket, stripped off her pants and her fleece and shirt, and then shivered as she took the red dress off its hanger. It took a little more effort than she’d thought to square it on her shoulders and her waist, but then the thing was on her right. At least, she thought it was on right. Bending over to give the skirt another pull, she—