Wyatt laughed and said, “Oh, yeah. I remember now. I was afraid you’d show up with a hair dryer, a curling iron, and an electric blanket.”

She leaned slightly forward. “I wasn’t that clueless.”

“You were pretty clueless,” he insisted, thinking as he spoke that she had an almost magical ability to convey by expression when she was emphasizing a word. When she talked, her whole face went into action. It made conversing with her really enjoyable for him, which was a rare occurrence. Perfect for me, he thought, and then he slammed the door on that nonsense, because, as he had explained in detail to Kennedy, no woman would ever be perfect for him. “And you did good up on the mountain,” he added. “You packed light. You got the things I told you to buy, but other than that, you brought only the bare necessities.”

“And I nearly had a meltdown about feeling obligated to arrest Uncle Slade for making a pet out of a black bear.”

“Oh. I didn’t know about that. Well, I did know Slade could get into huge trouble if you saw Four Toes, and I knew the bear scared you out of ten years’ growth in the cook shack, but I heard nothing about a meltdown.”

The animated expression on her face vanished, and he thought her eyes darkened with what he believed was sadness. He hoped it was only an illusion created by the flickering amber from the fireplace. “That was the night I realized how much I hate being in law enforcement.”

“Ah.” He could think of nothing else to say.

“Vickie was the only person who saw me during my meltdown.” The genuineness of her smile had vanished with the light he usually saw in her eyes. “She gave me good advice.”

“And what was that?”

“To quit law enforcement and go back to school for another degree.”

“Ouch. That’s costly, isn’t it?”

“And life altering. I’m thirty-two, and I’d really like to have children. If I go back to school, I’ll be hard at it with classes for at least two years, and afterward I’ll be saddled with paying off student loans while I travel around to find clinical work. By the time my life is back to normal, I’ll be too old to safely bear a child.”

“A lot of women are having kids when they’re older now,” Wyatt pointed out. “And who knows? You might meet the right guy at the university.”

“Not likely. Granted, there are a few older people who return to college in their thirties and forties, but they aren’t the norm.”

Ben arrived just then with their meals. Carrying a fold-out serving table in one hand and balancing a large tray on his shoulder, he grinned and said, “She outdid herself on the marinara, folks. It’s always good, but my mouth waters when she takes wonderful and inches it up to extraordinary.”

In that moment, Wyatt realized that he no longer felt nervous, and he couldn’t attribute the change to the wine, because he’d barely touched it yet. It was due to Erin and her ability to dispense with airs and pretense. He leaned back in his chair as Ben set an individual platter on the table in front of him. As Ben served Erin, he inquired about the wine. Wyatt had a side view of his face and couldn’t see the motion of his lips, but he could see Erin’s mouth and was able to determine from her responses what Ben was saying.