FOR A MOMENT I CONSIDERED RETREAT. FLIGHT BACK UPSTAIRS to my lab. But my higher centers were already lobbing words like “professional” and “adult.”

Sergeant Oliver Isaac Hasty. Other than deeper laugh lines and the graying-temples thing, he hadn’t aged a bit. No loosening of the jaw. Not an extra ounce of fat.

Ollie had been a corporal back then, on temporary-duty assignment to the FBI Academy in Quantico. Behavioral science training or some such. I’d been teaching a body recovery workshop to special agents.

Ollie and I met over beers in the Boardroom. He was Canadian. I was considering an offer to consult to the LSJML in Montreal. All that week he’d provided insight into my strange neighbors to the north.

The chemistry was blistering, no denying that. But I found Ollie’s view of himself something of a put-off. No matter the topic, Corporal Hasty was an expert, and others knew little.

When the course ended, I headed home to North Carolina, libido frustrated but self-esteem intact. When his training concluded, Ollie drove to Charlotte to visit. No invitation. In Ollie’s world, rejection was not an option.

My marriage had just imploded, and I was still shattered by Pete’s betrayal. And living alone for the first time in two decades. Horny divorcée-to-be. Brawny Mountie. Eros can be denied only so long. Though I wasn’t nuts for Ollie, for a solid week our slap-and-tickle burned down the house.

So what happened? you ask.

Ollie was twenty-nine. I was, well, a wee bit older. I lived in Dixie. He lived in Alberta, damn far away. Neither he nor I wanted to go steady, so no future get-togethers were planned.

We exchanged brief letters and phone calls for a while; no e-mail back then. Eventually, predictably, the thing just died.

And here he was. Sitting face-to-face with player number two in my very short lineup of postmarital lovers.

Hearing footsteps, both men looked my way.

“Dr. Brennan.” Ollie rose and spread both hands, the left missing most of its fourth digit.

“Sergeant Hasty.” Ignoring the invitation to hug, I extended a palm. As we shook, I tried to recall how the finger was lost. Weird, but that’s where my mind went.

“I understand you two know each other.” Ryan remained butt-leaning on the desk.

“Dr. Brennan and I met in Quantico.” Ollie’s liquid brown eyes held mine. “When was that?”

“A long time ago.” I willed my cheeks not to flame.

“Dandy,” Ryan said. “Shall we discuss Annaliese Ruben?”

As I slipped past Ollie and took a chair to his left, I wondered what Ryan knew. Had our long-ago dalliance come up in the course of conversation about Annaliese Ruben? Surely Ollie would not be so crass.

Was Ollie’s history with me the source of Ryan’s current coolness? Ridiculous. At best it had been an episode of catch-and-release, old news by the time I came to Montreal. And Ryan and I had pulled the plug on our relationship over a year ago. He couldn’t be so childish as to harbor a grudge about a fling that happened before he and I met. Could he? Besides, if he knew, it would have been very recent news to him, his iceberg demeanor already in place.