* * *
BLOOM WAS IN her office late Saturday morning, just a few miles from The Lemonade Stand, having finished with her last client. She had a busy day planned—shopping to do, friends to meet in LA for a coffee house concert one of the women was playing in, a run on the beach—but was taking a moment to reflect.
To breathe. And be present.
Her speech the day before—and the lunch following—had been successful beyond her hopes. Lila had names of volunteers, counselors had Lila’s card and many of her peers had exchanged cards with each other—those with specific domestic violence training and those without. She’d given out contact names for members of the High Risk Team.
And she’d talked Lila in to staying for lunch, her treat. She’d seen the woman, who was in her fifties, smile more that day than she could ever remember.
And hoped it wasn’t just a reflection of the success of the morning. Bloom had no idea what Lila’s personal life looked like. The woman was like a phantom—at the Stand seven days a week and some nights. She had an apartment someplace close by, but didn’t appear to have any family. Or friends.
Which wasn’t natural. And raised Bloom’s professional radar above comfort level.
If anyone deserved to be happy, it was Lila.
And she hoped she was.
Because she had a few minutes before she had to leave for the city, Bloom caught up on enough world and state news that she’d be able to contribute to conversation at dinner that night.
A headline caught her eye. Because of the name. There couldn’t be too many prosecuting attorneys named Trevor Banyon in Southern California.
He’d been arrested on gun running charges. She wanted to open the article. Like a bystander wanted to get closer to a car accident. You just had to see. To know.
But she knew better. Reentering any part of Banyon’s life would take her places she didn’t need or want to go. She’d left her past behind. And wasn’t going to let it pull her back.
The past was an unhealthy place for her. The present, which contained her hopes for the future, was the road she was consciously traveling. A road that was already giving her a happy life.
Closing the news app, she gathered her things, planning to leave straight for LA from the office. Her overnight bag was in the trunk of her six-year-old hunter green Jaguar.
A gift from Ken—Dr. Kenneth Freelander—after he’d verbally brutalized her the first time. Before he’d started drugging her to keep her in line. She loved the car, as she’d once loved him. And kept it as a reminder that lemons could always be made into lemonade. That thorns had roses.
That it was up to her what she saw when she opened her eyes in the morning.
Out of the office, door locked, she nodded at a couple of people she knew, professionals who shared her office building, as she walked down the hall. Shared the elevator with a woman and a young girl, presumably patients, as they’d pushed the button for the fourth floor, which housed all pediatric and dental specialties.
Bloom exited the elevator and then the building, blinking as her eyes adjusted to the bright sunlight. Even in July the California coastal air wasn’t smoldering with heat. But it was warm enough to be a comfort to her skin after spending several hours in air conditioning.
A man approached her on the sidewalk. She moved to one side in preparation for their eventual passing, not really noticing him any more than she noticed any of the other patients who came and went.
But she noticed enough to take a second look. Did she know him? Was he, perhaps, the husband of one of her patients? The tempo of her heart upping just a small notch, she looked more closely. If he was an ex...
Hand on the jeweled canister of mace attached to her key ring, Bloom made one deft move with her thumb, unlocking the release.
And almost as quickly returned the safety catch. She did know the man. But not because of any of her patients.
She knew him because of herself.
Detective Samuel Larson was the man who’d saved her life.
HE ALMOST DIDN’T recognize her. Hell, what was he thinking? If it hadn’t been for the fact that he’d memorized every bone in that face when he’d studied the crime scene photos, he wouldn’t have recognized her. Her high cheekbones and that little bit of a squaring off of her chin gave her away.
That and the slight bit of crookedness on one side of her jaw.
That auburn hair, more brown than red but with a hint of fire that had drawn his attention every time, was longer now. Softly curled.
Her body stood straighter, was fuller without losing the slenderness that drew eyes to her when she walked.
Bloom Freelander had...bloomed. His body took note.
WTF.
Had he left his mind back at the cottage? In the toilet he’d cleaned?
Still several yards away she didn’t appear to have seen him yet. Which gave him time to get his head out of the plumbing and back to the case at hand.
Maybe the fact that he was dreading the next minutes, the fact that her life could very well depend on his ability to force her to do his bidding, was the reason he’d gone so far south.
He’d thought about her often over the past couple of years. Had wanted to check in on her. But he’d had no reason. No right.
Had thought it was not good or fair to remind her of the time in her life she was working so hard to escape.
Maybe he’d hoped he’d run into her. Maybe, when he’d been at the beach, or the grocery store, he’d kept an eye out for her.
Fate hadn’t seen fit to bring them together.
But it had damned sure seen fit to put her in danger again.
He was no fonder of the fates at the moment than he was of his overresponsive nether region.
No doubting now that she’d seen him. She was staring right at him.
As if she couldn’t believe it was he? Or was trying to place him?
Didn’t matter.
Either way, it was showtime.
* * *
“DETECTIVE LARSON.” Bloom slowed down, stepped off the walk into the grass as he drew closer, so as not to block traffic into and out of the building. If he had a medical appointment, she couldn’t keep him. But...she’d thought of him so often during her months of healing. Wanted to let him know that he’d helped. A lot.
“Dr. Freelander...” He stepped off the walk, too.
“I told you,” she said with an easy smile—something she’d been unable to give him when he’d known her. “Call me Bloom. Dr. Freelander is someone else in my mind. My former self. And the nemesis of my former self, too.”
“Did you get your divorce?”
From anyone else the question would have been rude. But Sam Larson had been in every intimate crevice of her life as he’d built the case that had put her diabolically intelligent and demonic husband behind bars.
“I did,” she told him, smiling again. “It was final just last month.” Because Ken had fought it tooth and nail. From the throne he seemed to think he sat on in his prison cell.
Detective Larson’s frown was something she remembered well. It gave her stomach a sexy little jolt to see it now.
Not an altogether