His face was serious. Mouth perfect. She didn’t even dare look at his eyes for fear that her knees would buckle.

“Oh, yeah,” he whispered. “There it is.” He ran his thumb over the scar, and Em sort of forgot how to breathe. Was it in-in-out? Or...oh, wow, those eyes—oops, she’d looked—were so beautiful. All of him was so—

Lazarus came tearing into the room, Sarge hot on his heels. The cat veered under a couch; Wonder Pup didn’t steer that well and crashed into Em’s legs.

Emmaline stepped back. Cleared her throat. She was still in uniform. It was probably against some rule to kiss in uniform.

“Sarge, go lie down,” she ordered. The puppy gave her a reproachful look. “Do it,” she said.

He obeyed, giving her a mournful eyebrow as only a German shepherd could.

A timer went off in the kitchen, and Jack went back behind the counter.

Fat snowflakes began falling from the sky.

It was utterly romantic here, even with the demonic sounds the cat was making from under the couch. “Is he okay?” Emmaline asked.

“Oh, sure. That’s his normal.”

Jack seemed irritatingly unaffected by her scar-touching. Men. Such mysteries. She sat back down at the counter and watched him stir and nudge and adjust the heat. Captain Seduction one minute, Chef Ramsay the next.

Em had always had a thing for Gordon Ramsay, now that she thought of it.

“Can I ask you a question, Jack?” she asked.

“Sure.”

“Why me? There are a lot of women in this town who’d love to go out with you. Who fantasize about going out with you. Who’d run their grandmothers over with a tractor to go out with you. Why are you interested in me?”

“I don’t know,” he said. “I’m a guy. We don’t think that hard. Is ‘because you’re good in bed’ a sufficient answer?”

A surprised snort of laughter escaped. “Um, no.”

He poured her more wine. Such nice manners. “I have a question for you, Officer. Why won’t you go out with me? And don’t give me that bullshit about me still having a thing for Hadley or having PTSD.”

“You do have a thing for Hadley. And you’re the poster child for PTSD.”

“I’ll pretend I didn’t hear that and await your answer.”

Em covered by taking a sip of her drink. It really was fantastic. She’d never paid much attention to wine descriptions—it was wine, how bad could it be?—but when Jack identified the flavors the way he did, she really could taste them. Guess it wasn’t just blowing smoke after all.

“What if Hadley wasn’t in town?” he asked when she failed to answer. “And what if those kids didn’t...crash? Would you go out with me then?”

“Well, you were never interested before, so I’d have to say no.”

“Maybe I could say you were the one who was never interested, whereas I always thought of you as the hot hockey chick.”

Another snort. Must stop doing that. “You never asked me out.”

“You never gave me the time of day.”

“If you were pining for me, you hid it well.”

He gave her a tolerant look. “I wasn’t pining for you, Emmaline. I did think you were the hot hockey chick. We all do.”

“Which explains why I’ve had two dates in three years.”

“Maybe your sweet and gentle personality has something to do with that.”

“Oh, bite me.”

“I rest my case.” He smiled. “You don’t have to have a sweet and gentle attitude. You do have to at least smile once in a while. You’re a tiny bit guarded—has anyone ever told you that?”

“No, as a matter of fact,” she lied. She took another sip of wine. Make that a chug. “Then there are your looks.” Shut it, Em, her brain advised.

“I’m hideous?”

“A little. I’m sorry to be the one to tell you.” He smiled, and her mouth went dry. “No...you’re...incredibly good-looking. It’s a consideration.”

He looked at her as if she were a complicated algebra equation. “So you’re not interested in me because I’m incredibly good-looking, since your ex was also good-looking and he broke your heart.”

“In addition to the other stuff. And drop that expression. It’s not as dumb as it sounds.”

“Good. Because it sounds very dumb.”

“Well, it’s not. It’s very complicated and intelligent.”

Or not. Maybe it was dumb. Maybe she should eat something before drinking any more wine.

She took another sip just the same. “Jack, I think you want to be with me because I’m here, because we’ve already done the deed and because you want a distraction from your troubles.”

“All of those things are true. I also like you.”

For some reason, those words scared the living bejesus out of her.

He liked her. She already loved him. It wasn’t like she didn’t know that already.

Crap.

This was exactly the kind of situation that led to doom and despair, to whining to the Bitter Betrayeds, to crying in one’s pillow, to that unutterably bleak knowledge that you loved someone who didn’t love you back. Jack wanted a distraction. He liked her; that was it.

“I should go,” she said, clearing her throat.

He turned off the stove and came around to her side of the soapstone counter, and Emmaline swiveled on her stool to keep him in sight. That was a mistake.

He braced his hands on either side of her and leaned forward. Oh, he smelled good. Like laundry detergent and wine and food and smoke.

“Don’t go,” he murmured.

Then he leaned in closer, and rubbed his cheek against hers, and she felt the scrape of five o’clock shadow, the heat from his body. His lips brushed her jaw, and her legs went weak and hot, and a nearly painful throbbing began in her girl parts.

“Jack,” she managed.

“There’s chocolate cake for dessert.”

She swallowed. “Is that your idea of foreplay?”

“Yes,” he whispered, kissing the spot where her jaw met her throat, so, so softly. “Is it working?”

She leaned back a little and looked into those clear, smiling blue eyes. “Yes,” she heard herself say.

Then his mouth was on hers, soft and smiling, and she’d been an idiot, because for two weeks now, she’d been putting him off when she could have been kissing him instead. His hand went to her head and started tugging at her bun, which of course wouldn’t come out without a crowbar and a map to the seventeen bobby pins, but no, nope, he was doing it, her hair was loosening, and then his fingers were sliding through it, and a few bobby pins pinged on the floor. His mouth was on her throat, causing flashes of heat to spark through her. Without her thinking about it, Em’s hands slid up his ribs and onto his chest, feeling the solid, warm muscles shift and slide.

Then he pulled her into a standing position, holding her close, which was a good thing because she wasn’t 100 percent sure her legs were working. She tugged his shirt out of his jeans, feeling the warm, velvety skin sliding over muscle.

She took off her utility belt—oops, should’ve thought of that before, didn’t want to accidentally shoot the guy—and draped it over the chair.