A Better Man. Emilie Rose

      CHAPTER TWO

      “LET’S GO. I’LL PREP the room when I get back. We’ll have to hurry in case Madison needs me.” Piper snatched her purse and headed out, eager to get this encounter behind her.

      Then maybe Roth would go away and forget her. Again.

      “Your enthusiasm underwhelms me.” She heard the teasing note in his voice and didn’t need to look to know he was smiling. His smiles used to turn her to mush. But she couldn’t let them have that effect now.

      After locking up she followed him into the parking lot.

      He scanned the busy-for-Quincey streets. “Traffic’s picked up from what I remember.”

      “Over the past few years we’ve had several mom-and-pop antiques stores open up. That makes Quincey a mecca for weekend shoppers.” She hoped that meant the shopkeepers would be too busy with their customers to notice her comings and goings or her lunch partner. “The diner will be packed. There’s a barbecue place ten miles south of here.”

      “Afraid to be seen in town with me?”

      She couldn’t risk someone stopping by their table to ask about her son. “I don’t have the time to wait for a table or be constantly interrupted by people welcoming you.”

      “I don’t think the welcomes will be a problem. I’ll drive.” He led her toward a big black truck.

      She caught herself admiring the way he filled out his jeans and couldn’t force her gaze away any more than she could stop a freight train with her pinkie finger. Roth still looked damned good. Better than any of the slim pickings in town, for sure.

      An old familiar hunger trickled through her—one she hadn’t experienced in so long that she almost didn’t recognize the budding tension in her belly. When she did she tried to pop the bubble by focusing on the wreckage he’d made of her life when he’d said goodbye.

      She clung to the hurt and anger like a shield, but no matter how much his betrayal stung, she didn’t—couldn’t—hate Roth, because he’d given her the most precious part of her life. Josh.

      He opened the door and she climbed into the high cab. When he slid into the driver’s seat she fastened her seat belt and took shallow breaths through her mouth to avoid the tantalizing aroma of his scent. It didn’t work.

      He put the truck in gear and hit the highway. “If you didn’t go to vet school, what have you been doing since I last saw you?”

      Raising your son. She held her tongue and searched for an acceptable answer.

      “Right after you left, my father’s great-aunt fell and broke her hip. She needed live-in help while she recuperated. I was available.”

      “I don’t remember your aunt.”

      “She moved to Florida when I was a baby.”

      That earned her a quick look. “Florida? You left Quincey?”

      His disbelieving tone raised her hackles. “I was going away for college.”

      One corner of his mouth lifted. “You were going to commute. The chief wasn’t about to let his baby girl live in a dorm with all those wild college girls.”

      True. She couldn’t deny she’d been sheltered and her father had been—and still was—overprotective, which explained the sad state of her social life. She might be thirty, but he still treated her like a child.

      Scratching at a spot on her scrubs, she searched for a way to give Roth enough information to satisfy his curiosity without revealing too much. “I was ready for a change of scenery anyway after…”

      “Our breakup?”

      “Yes.”

      “Why didn’t you go to school after you finished playing nurse?”

      “It took Aunt Agnes longer to recover than expected. By then I’d lost my financial aid and reapplying for everything was too much of a hassle. I went to community college for a veterinary assistant degree instead. As long as I’m able to work with animals, it doesn’t really matter in what capacity.”

      “There’s a substantial difference in salary.”

      “I was never about the money, Roth. You know that.”

      For a moment his somber gaze held hers, then he focused on the road. “That’s what you always said, but you weren’t used to doing without or eating wild game or macaroni every night. You were the chief’s little princess.”

      “And you only asked me out to get under my father’s skin in retaliation for him riding your back.”

      “Best bet I ever accepted. Then I fell for you, Piper. Fell hard.” He shook his head. “But we were so damned young.”

      The memories made her chest ache. “I heard your mother’s moving back. I’ll bet she’s happy you’re going to be here.”

      “I wouldn’t know.”

      Surprise rippled over her. “But she knows you’ve been appointed chief, right?”

      “If she does, she didn’t hear it from me.”

      “Why not?”

      He hesitated, a muscle bunching in his jaw. “We…had a difference of opinion.”

      “About?”

      “Several things. And after I joined the Marines communication was never easy.”

      “You’re a Marine?” Her eyes raked him again. Military service could explain the short hair, chiseled physique and perfect posture.

      “Was.”

      “How long have you been out?”

      “Four years.”

      She waited for him to elaborate. Most men liked to talk about themselves. Why couldn’t he be one of them? Instead, getting information out of him resembled an inquisition. “What have you been doing?”

      “Working with the Charlotte-Mecklenburg P.D. SWAT team.”

      Her pulse stuttered. All this time he’d been only a few hours away. “You never mentioned an interest in the military or law enforcement when we were together.”

      “Never considered either.”

      “Then why enlist?”

      His dark gaze stabbed her again. “Your father didn’t tell you?”

      “Tell me what?”

      The hum of his radial tires on the blacktop filled the cab for so long she thought he might not answer. “After he arrested me for jacking Gus’s car the chief gave me a choice. Enlist or jail. Either way, if I ever came near you again, he promised my mother would pay.”

      Her breath caught at the unjust accusation. Her father had known how much she loved