Only how did a guy walk away from an almost perfect evening with a woman when he’d never experienced perfect? The firelight warmed the whole room, and being a visual person, Wyatt was acutely aware of every flicker of amber. How it shimmered and danced on Erin’s dark hair, making her look as if she wore an animated halo. How it shifted in energetic and unpredictable patterns over the rustic wood walls. How it lent an effervescent glow to the lighting globes in the chandeliers. And the feelings he had from being here with her filled him with expectation, as if an invisible hand had just opened an equally invisible door to show him a plethora of pleasurable things that he’d been too blind to see until now.

“If anyone ever laughs at you again, I’ll punch their lights out.” She leaned closer as she said those words, and Wyatt suspected that she’d only mouthed them. Her sparkling gaze held his, and her expressions were so vibrant, evocative, and fleeting that he could almost believe he heard the inflections of her voice. “I know how it feels to be the odd one out. To be ridiculed and laughed at. To want so badly to be like everyone else that you’ll do almost anything.”

He sensed there was a story behind her last words, and he wished she would reveal it. He saw old but lingering pain in her eyes.

“Who made fun of you?” he asked.

“Why do you want to know?”

“So I can find them and kick some ass.”

She treated him to another laugh. “I’ve never had anybody want to fight a battle for me. It’s so nice. It makes me want to revise our agreement about being only friends. I’ve never had a big brother—or any brother at all, for that matter.”

Wyatt didn’t want to be her brother. He’d already bumped into that imaginary wall when he’d found himself wishing that his mother had raised her. “Tell me about the very worst time that someone made fun of you,” he said.

The merriment and rosy color drained from her face, and for a moment, Wyatt thought she might not share the memory. “I stole something as a teenager.”

It was hard for Wyatt to imagine her doing anything illegal, but maybe it was because he’d mostly seen her only in a law enforcement uniform. “What did you take?”

“Clothing, one of the hardest things to steal. And it wasn’t that I needed any clothes. I did it on a dare.”

“You stole something you didn’t need,” he mused aloud. “Why? Not being judgmental. Really, I’m not. Did you want the clothes? Were they special somehow, something your parents wouldn’t buy for you?”

“Nothing special about the clothes. I didn’t even care if I wore them again.” Judging by the pensive frown that pleated her forehead, he thought she took a quick mental trip back in time. “I was seventeen and had no girlfriends.” Flushing again, this time with what appeared to be embarrassment, she shrugged and wrinkled her nose. “I know this sounds lame, but I was a teenager, so go figure. I wanted more than anything to be part of this certain group of girls. Looking back, I could have chosen more wisely. They were pretty wild. Wore a lot of makeup, hid out on campus to smoke cigarettes, sometimes pot. And they had turned shoplifting into a fine art. But all of that was what drew me in and excited me.” She offered him a smile. “Cop’s kid, looking for thrills. Wanting to be bad, just because. Breaking the law simply because I resented my father, and it was his life’s goal to uphold it.”