She looked at him. “I was young and stupidly thought he accepted my career choice.”
“He didn’t?”
“He did, but he got mad every time I did better than him. He wanted to be the big, bad detective, and he told me he would make it before I would.”
Zach’s mouth twitched. “Oh, that’s fantastic.”
“Now, back to the point, you were being a rat bastard.”
He rolled his eyes. “I have to head out of town. It can’t be helped. But I have a replacement.”
Maybe she could just say something came up at work, and she couldn’t make the party. There would be so many people there that she wouldn’t be missed. The Fitzpatricks definitely understood that work could get in the way of your personal life. Their family had served in the fire department about as long as hers had for Baltimore PD.
Well, except Declan, who owned a restaurant.
Dammit. She just thought his name, and now she would lose time thinking about him. Because that always happened when a stray thought about the sexy chef danced through her head. There was so much to like about him, and she had been trying to resist his magnetic pull for months. Not that he seemed all that interested, but she couldn’t get her hormones to understand. She was having dreams about him, like some lovelorn teen. She couldn’t remember ever being this infatuated with a man.
“Don’t. You know you want to be there. But lucky for you, Rowan is in town.”
Before she could respond to that, she heard their cousin’s voice. “Eileen!”
She shot her brother a dirty look before turning towards their cousin. He was making his way through the bullpen, but he didn’t stop to talk to anyone. He was related to them, just like she and Zach, but he was different, like in a unicorn kind of way different.
He was in the Navy, and while he wasn’t supposed to tell anyone, he was a SEAL. She wasn’t sure which team he was on, but he was stationed in California. That military training made him ignore everything but his target, and that was apparently her.
Before she could say anything, he plucked her out of her chair and hugged her. As always, he smelled like the beach. Allsaltwater and freshness. From age five, he always wanted to be in the water. And while she wasn’t happy about what her brother was trying to pull, she had missed Rowan.
“Put me down, you idiot.”
He laughed and did as she ordered. “You know we can tell you love us because you call us names.”
That was true. She was exceedingly polite to people she didn’t like.
“Why didn’t you tell us you were returning for a visit?”
“Wanted to surprise my Ma and Da. I hear we get to go to Fitzpatrick’s tonight.”
She sighed. “I guess you are my plus one now?” His smile widened into a grin. Eileen looked at her brother. “I can go on my own.”
“Noooo, Eileen! I know the Santinis. Marco and I went through training together.”
Kaitlin Fitzpatrick-Santini’s in-laws were legendary in the Marines and Navy. Everyone knew the family, but she understood the reference. He couldn’t say out loud that they went to SEAL training together, not in the open. But she did know that the bonds formed during SEAL training lasted decades for some of them. Marco lived in Hawaii, so she assumed he must still be on teams.
“Fine, but no messing around with the women in that family. I do not need to have that Joey Santini after me, and she will come after me if you break hearts.”
“I will be a true gentleman.”
“That will be a first.”
“So it’s fixed. He can be your date, and I can go do my thing. Win. Win.” Zach smiled like he had solved some great mystery.
“You needed a date? You could have asked me.”
Ugh, there was Bryan again. She turned to look at her ex, who was indeed holding a gym bag.
“She doesn’t need you,” Zach said. It was out of character for him to be so blunt, but he was always like that with Bryan. “Besides, didn’t you just say you had a date?”
Her golden retriever of a cousin looked between the two of them, assessing the situation, and his smile faded. A steely look entered his eyes, and she knew that was his SEAL face, as he called it. She did not need a pissing contest right by her desk. It was hard enough being one of the few women in homicide.
