“He’s the master at good. Look, I love the guy, but—”

“I’m sure you two will be very happy together.”

“You’re funny.” He shook his head. “Look, neither Zach nor I have ever really needed a woman in our life.”

“I know. I get it.”

“No, see that’s the thing. Zach looks at you differently. He has from the beginning. If you leave, it’ll be like losing his parents all over again. Or his brother.”

“He lost his brother?”

“Caleb moved to L.A. the day Zach turned eighteen, pretty much deserting him. Can’t blame the guy. He hadn’t signed on to be a parent, but still, it was rough on Zach. He’s not good with opening up. He’s afraid.”

She tried to picture the big, laid-back, easygoing Zach Thomas afraid of anything. After all, the man faced danger every single day on the job without so much as a flinch.

But that wasn’t the same.

In a way, work was much easier because it was pure testosterone and adrenaline. Putting himself on the line probably made Zach feel better about his losses, almost as if he were offering himself up to fate, as well. And as a bonus, he never had to open up emotionally, except with these guys, the brothers of his heart.

She got that; she’d done the same with her chosen career.

But Cristina and Dustin had managed to find something real, and Brooke wanted that. It was time, past time, to get it for herself, because if she’d learned anything today, it was that life was too damn short not to go for it. She stood up.

“What are you going to do?”

“It’s…complicated.”

“The best things are.” Aidan hugged her. “I hope it’s good complicated.”

“I hope so, too.”

“I TRIED CALLING you, Zachie.”

Zach sat at the side of Phyllis’s hospital bed. “I’m sorry. I can’t find my cell phone. I think I lost it in the warehouse fire.”

“Don’t worry.” Her voice sounded shaky. “You asked me not to demolish the house if someone asks, and I won’t. I was just telling Blake the same thing.”

“Blake came here to see you?”

“Yes. He wanted to talk about my house fire.”

“Why?”

Phyllis had a razor-sharp memory, but she’d been too doped up on meds for anyone to take advantage of that. Until now, apparently. “Because he was there. Yes,” she said at his surprise. “It finally came to me. It was Blake I saw standing on the perimeter of my property, holding a blowtorch.”

The air deflated from Zach’s lungs. Blake at the scene just before the fire, with an ignition device…“Phyllis, are you sure?”

“Well, when I brought it up, he said no, my memory was all twisted from the trauma, but…” She shook her head. “But I don’t believe it. I remember.”