Stone Cold Heart (Tracers #13)(77)

She walked over and opened the door wider. “I’ve got beer, Diet Coke, hard lemonade.”

He winced.

“Water?”

“I’ll have a beer.”

She grabbed a Corona for each of them and popped off the tops. She noticed his phone on the bar beside a notepad filled with scrawled handwriting. So while she’d been in a sex-induced slumber, he’d been working. He worked a lot, she’d noticed. Possibly as much as she did.

Sara handed him the beer. “I see you’ve been busy. Any developments?”

“Just checking in with Agent Santos. He’s following up on those background checks.”

“Park employees?”

“Yeah.” He swigged the beer. “Texas and Tennessee, mostly. We may expand it tomorrow if the leads he’s got so far don’t pan out. He has something on a guy near Big Bend.”

“Sounds promising.”

“Maybe.” He combed a hand through his mussed hair. “I feel like he’s closer. Like right in my backyard.”

“What does Santos think?”

“I don’t know. We’ll talk later.”

As in tonight? Tomorrow? Sara didn’t want to ask.

The paper bag of carryout sat right where they’d left it when they came in, and Sara reached inside to feel the cardboard containers. Room temperature.

“We can microwave this,” she said, opening a cabinet. She took out some plates as Nolan unpacked the food.

“You had ravioli,” he said.

“Yeah?”

“They mixed up our order. This is two fettuccine alfredos.”

She stepped over to look. “Can you deal with fettuccine? If you want to go back, I can throw on some clothes.”

“Please don’t.” He gave her a heated look as he took the plates from her hands. “I’m good with fettuccine.”

Nolan took over serving the food, and Sara pulled out a bar stool and sat. She sipped her beer, enjoying the view as he moved around her kitchen, randomly opening drawers. He had muscular shoulders and defined abs. He was tan, too, so she could tell he must run with his shirt off sometimes.

There was no denying it. Nolan was amazingly hot and amazingly nice, and she couldn’t believe he was in her kitchen, shirtless, making dinner.

He got the microwave going and looked up. “What?”

“Nothing.”

He watched her as he took a sip of beer. Then he nodded at the photo taped to her fridge. It was a shot of her excavation team in front of their tent.

“Where was this?”

“Guatemala. That was our ‘mobile housing unit,’?” she said.

“You lived in a tent for a year? I’m impressed.”

“It was pretty nice, actually. Kind of like M*A*S*H.”

He leaned back against the counter. “Were you running to something or away from something when you went down there?”

“Who says I was running?”

He raised an eyebrow.

“Away from something.” She sipped her beer. “My engagement ended abruptly, and I needed a change of scenery.”

“Hmm. Sounds like there’s a story to that.”

“Not a very interesting one.”

The microwave dinged, and he set his beer down to get the food. “This ‘abrupt end.’ Did you leave him at the altar?”

She bristled. “Why would you assume I left him?”

Nolan scooped pasta onto a plate. “Otherwise, he would have been the one running to Guatemala.” He put a fork on the plate and slid it over.

Sara turned her bottle on the counter. It was time to get this conversation out of the way. He leaned back and watched her, waiting patiently for her to open up.

“It was two months before the wedding,” she said. “I got cold feet and started to panic. So we broke up. I canceled all the plans and paid everyone back their security deposits. It was a mess. And then three weeks later, I got on a plane.”

Mess was an understatement. The invitations hadn’t gone out yet, but they were printed. Her mom’s friends had already given her a bridal shower, so she had returned all the gifts and written notes. It was awful. If she ever decided to get married again, she was going to a courthouse.

The bigger mess was Patrick. He’d been furious and humiliated. And his anger wasn’t the worst part, because underneath all that, she knew he was badly hurt.

Nolan brought his plate over and took the stool beside her. She tried to read his expression.

“Sounds like a rough time for you.”

“Me?” She laughed. “What about him? I’m the bitch who hurt and embarrassed him in front of everyone he knows.”

“You’re not a bitch.”

She let the words hang there, not sure how much more she wanted to share. She didn’t talk about this a lot, but she felt obligated to tell Nolan. After all, he’d told her about Michelle, even though the topic clearly made him uncomfortable.

“My dad called me a flake,” she said, surprised the word still stung after two years. “My mom said I’m shortsighted—which is basically code for ‘You’re going to regret it one day that you didn’t snag a husband.’ My brother said I have a mean streak.” She twirled pasta around her fork. “I guess I shouldn’t be surprised he took Patrick’s side. They were friends from college. That’s how we met in the first place.”