“You really do come here a lot.”

Will laughed. “Yeah, Joey’s the owner’s nephew. We go way back.”

Alicia sipped the wine and found the first sip a little tart, but the second wasn’t so bad.

“So,” she said, edging toward a question that had begun to niggle at her. “I imagine working all day and following people half the night plays havoc with your social life.”

“Social life? What’s that?”

“You know—friends, family, girlfriend… that sort of thing.”

“It was no sacrifice, believe me. My friends didn’t miss me, my folks retired to South Carolina; and as for the woman in my life”—he rotated his glass, staring into the swirling ruby fluid—”she up and left almost a year ago.”

“I’m sorry,” Alicia said, mentally kicking herself for prying. She fumbled for something to say. “I—I guess the long hours of being a cop are tough on a relationship.”

Will grunted. “I wish that had been it. I could have handled that, maybe even worked something out. No… it was just about this time last year she went home to visit her family in Vermont—a little town called Brownsville—and ran into an old beau. They hooked up, the old sparks started burning again, and next thing I know she’s on the phone telling me all about it and saying she’s not coming back to New York, she’s staying in Vermont and marrying this guy.”

“That must have hurt,” Alicia said, feeling for him. He’d delivered the story so matter-of-factly, but she sensed the lingering pain.

“That it did. Took about a million calls and even a trip to Vermont before it finally got through to me that she really meant it.” He straightened and looked at her, as if shrugging off the memories. “But that was then. I got over it. Life goes on.”

And now you think you should find someone else, Alicia thought. Please don’t set your sights on me, Will Matthews. You’ve had enough trouble already.

“How about you?” he said. “How’s your love life?”

Alicia echoed his earlier comment. “Love life? What’s that?” She forced a smile. “Especially when you’re married.”

He blinked. “Married? I thought…”

For a moment she was tempted to morph her story about a traveling beau into a traveling husband, but she couldn’t lie to him. Not after what he’d done for her.

“But you’ve already met my spouse,” she said, smiling as she watched his baffled expression for a few heartbeats. Then she let him off the hook: “The Center. We’re inseparable, you know.”

“Oh!” He laughed. “Married to the job,” he said, nodding. “I know all about that. Got a bit of that problem myself.”

It’s not always a problem, she thought. Sometimes it’s a solution.