Hell, no. But then again, he’d known it wouldn’t be. “I can’t do this as casual as you’re looking for, and survive it.”

She nodded and played her toes in the sand for a moment. She still smelled like smoke. There was a cut visible on her ankle. Damn it. “Red.”

“I know. You don’t want to go back. You don’t want to go forward. I know.”

He sighed and opened his mouth. “Maybe we could start over from a new place. In the here and now.”

Her head whipped up. “Really?”

He was insane. A glutton for punishment. “As friends.”

Her eyes went bright with emotion and before he knew what she meant to do, she leaned in, pressing her mouth to his jaw in a kiss he was certain she thought was sweet but fired his engines like no simple little peck ever should.

“So,” she said. “Friend. What do you do in the here and now for fun? I know you run.”

He shuddered and made her laugh. “I don’t run for fun, but for necessity. There’s a huge difference.”

Her gaze ran over his body. “It works.”

“No.” He waggled a finger in her face. “None of that.”

“None of what?”

“That look.”

“What, I’m just standing here,” she said innocently, lifting her hands.

“Yeah, you’re just standing there. Looking at me like I’m a ten-course meal and you’re starving. Stop it.”

“Why?”

He shifted uncomfortably.

“Why, Joe?”

“It makes me hot.” You make me hot.

Her smile was slow, pure sin. “It’s supposed to.”

“Okay, clearly we need rules for this,” he decided, and scrubbed his hands over his face. “Lots of rules.”

“What, like friend rules?”

“Yeah. No funny looks. No—”

“Kissing?” she asked. “How about kissing?”

“Definitely no kissing. I can’t handle it, Red. I mean it. I can start over. I can be your friend. I can do anything you want except fall for you again and watch you walk away when it’s time.”

She sipped from his shake.

“Red?”

“I hear you,” she said softly.

He only hoped that was true.

Joe and Kenny met to exchange interview information. They sat in Kenny’s office over fast food, their files spread out in front of them.

They were taking a good, hard look at Braden. “He’s relatively new at Creative Interiors,” Joe said. “No one really knows him.”

“We’d better run him through the system,” Kenny said, making notes. “And then go talk to him.”

“And I think it’s time we take harder looks at some of the others as well. Stella and Gregg. Did you know they’d failed at their own shop?”

Kenny looked up. “How long ago?”

“Fifteen years. According to Summer, this came from Stella, and Gregg wasn’t happy about her telling the story.”

Kenny let out a low whistle and began writing again. “Interesting.”