lit our oil lamp. It sputtered a moment, acrid smoke filling the air, then lit, casting a wavering yellow glow over the table.

Jack considered the wine list, but seemed relieved when I said I’d be having a mixed drink instead. I ordered a Caesar, then—seeing the server’s blank look—changed it to a Bloody Mary. Jack got draft beer.

For our meals, we both chose steaks, with vegetables on the side and loaded baked potatoes. Add on an appetizer, plus the bread they brought with our drinks, and it was probably enough calories to last a week. But after grazing on fast food for days, I considered this healthy eating. At least there would be something green on my plate.

“Today go okay?” Jack asked when the server left.

“You mean with Evelyn?”

He nodded.

“It seemed fine.”

He hesitated, his gaze sliding to mine, searching. After a moment, he broke away and nodded, satisfied.

“If you were worried she was going to pester me about the protégée thing, it didn’t happen. She hinted about better jobs, but didn’t pursue it. I think she’s changed her mind about my suitability.”

Another pause, butter knife raised. Then another nod. He speared one of the bread slices with the knife, offering it to me. I took it. Then the server arrived with the appetizer, and I asked how his trip to Illinois had gone.

As I sipped my Bloody Mary, I thought about how long it had been since I’d had something like a “date dinner.” Not that I’d mistaken this for a date, but the general scenario—sitting in a semidark restaurant, enjoying drinks and conversation with a man over a long, leisurely meal—was one I hadn’t experienced in a while.

Three years since my last relationship. Even that had been casual. My last serious one was six years ago, when I’d been “preengaged.”

That had been Eric’s word for it. He’d even bought me a preengagement ring. It’d been a joke, something to placate his mother, who kept looking at me with visions of grandchildren in her eyes, but after a while, I think it became reality for Eric, and maybe even for me, the idea that we really were headed toward engagement. I didn’t need to get married. But I could, with the right guy. And if there was a right guy, Eric was it.

He was a firefighter. My first firefighter, I always teased. When it came to dating, I had a definite “type.” Men in uniform, and it had nothing to do with symbols of authority setting my libido aflutter. I’d grown up in that culture. Lived it, breathed it, loved it. Born to a family of cops. Practically grew up at the station. Raised by the force, as they’d joke. So I’d dated cops, with the odd military officer thrown in for variety. I understood guys like that. I was comfortable with them. Dating a firefighter hadn’t been much of a stretch.

It had been a good time of my life. The right time for someone like Eric. I had my problems, but I’d learned to control them. Then along came Wayne Franco.

When I shot Franco, Eric tried to hide his shock, tried to convince me—and, through me, himself—that it had been an uncharacteristic act brought on by overwork, stress and anxiety over Dawn Collins’s murder.

In the aftermath, Eric stood by me, even when his superiors started “suggesting” he might want to take a vacation, get out of town while all this was going on. Seeing that pressure on him, I did the right thing. I told him I could handle this myself and suggested he step back. To my surprise and, yes, my disappointment, he’d done just that. And I’d realized that he’d supported me not because he believed in me, but because he believed it was the right thing to do, the noble thing to do.

After almost a week passed and he hadn’t called, I phoned and told him where he could stick his nobility.

We never spoke again.

The food arrived as Jack and I were scraping up the last of the crab dip. My steak was a decent size—I’d turned down the “smaller” portion offered by the server—but Jack’s took up most of his plate, so big they had to serve the potato separately.

We both started to eat, quiet for a few minutes, relishing the food. After a moment, Jack paused to watch me, as if making sure I was enjoying it.

“This is great,” I said, tapping the steak. “I haven’t had one like this in a long time.”

“Yeah?”