But there was nothing to fight. The only danger between them, the memories triggered by a touch too familiar, too intimate for who they were now. It should have been too intimate for who they were then, as well, but that hadn’t stopped Neil, and maybe a tiny little sliver of Cooper’s rage was because of that, too.

“Speaking of,” Neil said slowly. “What’s your agency’s interest in poor, dead James Finnigan?”

“If I told you, I’d have to turn in my cloak and dagger,” Cooper said, and felt Neil’s hand flex, squeezing his fingers too tightly for a moment.

“Always have to make a joke—” Neil began, but applause erupted across the restaurant, distracting them both, and Cooper pulled his hand away.

At one of the small tables near the back, a woman was getting up from one knee and hugging the woman seated in front of her, faces flickering between happiness and embarrassment. She was crying, the woman who had asked, while the other one kept leaning back out of the hug, laughing, to thumb away the tears.

“Who the hell would want to get engaged in a place like this?” Neil said, watching them.

Cooper shook his head. He wouldn’t, personally. But then again, he’d proposed to Park in the hands-down ugliest bed and breakfast he’d ever seen after watching Park sleep off a near-death experience in fur, and hadn’t regretted it for one second.

Cooper suddenly felt a bone-deep desire to be home. To be away from here, away from Neil, and in his own bed with his own fiancé.

“I’m a woman in my late twenties,” Neil murmured. He glanced at Cooper slyly. “Play with me?”

It was a game they’d had, putting other people’s lives on like clothes, something Neil had taught him to do. Cooper used to practice it almost compulsively to get into suspects’ heads and predict their next move or to trace a victim’s last steps. Not so much anymore, he realized, and wondered why.

“For old times’ sake?” Neil added.

Cooper examined the newly engaged couple. “Two small suitcases under the table. Obviously tourists. We might have gotten into town late and didn’t have time to drop them off before the reservation. Or we just stopped by this place for a moment and I made a spur-of-the-moment decision to do it here. I couldn’t wait. Too excited.”

“Too anxious,” Neil countered. “The only appeal of this place is the views, but I bypassed the much nicer tables and chose one by the kitchen so I could sit with my back to the wall. Not comfortable in this space. I’m not crying ’cause I’m happy, I’m overwhelmed by the attention. But I did it here anyway. Why?”