saw her. Her striking pale blue eyes still made a dramatic contrast to her nearly black hair, which now fell a few inches below her shoulders, so shiny and straight he imagined it was like raw silk to the touch.
Her face had lost its youthful softness, but that accentuated her cheekbones and the hint of a cleft in her chin that had always fascinated him. Still slender, still graceful, still stupefyingly gorgeous.
“I had no idea you were in town,” he said.
“I haven’t been here that long.” Her gaze dropped over his face and chest, then instantly returned to his eyes. “Granddaddy had a sudden craving for a raspberry croissant.” The explanation came out sounding a little nervous, as if he’d asked what she was doing at the bakery. Or as if she expected him to be cool and distant because he always was.
Not this time. Not this freaking time.
“Oh dear,” Linda May interjected. “The next batch of raspberry is still in the oven. Will Max take strawberry or chocolate chip?”
“Here.” Declan held his bag out to her, the other hand still clamped on the dog. “Take mine.”
“Your Linda May raspberry croissants?” She lifted her brows. “Do you know the street value for that bag?”
He laughed, the joke so…Evie that it relaxed some of the tension stretched across his chest. They could laugh, right? They always could laugh.
He tipped his head toward a nearby table being wiped down. “How about we wait for the croissants together?”
She considered the offer, her eyes warm with surprise. And maybe a little happiness. She glanced down at the dog as if Lusky had the answer.
He barked once, then lowered his head to gaze upward with a sweet, submissive plea in his eyes.
“He’s begging so I don’t have to,” Declan joked. Kind of a joke. Also kind of one hundred percent true.
As she laughed at that, her shoulders dropped, and he could see the very moment she made the decision. “Then I say yes.”
“Give that dog a treat,” he said, grabbing one from a small bowl on the counter.
It took a few minutes to get coffee, settle into the seats, and tuck the howler under the table with his cookie. But once they did, he took two croissants from his bag and placed them on napkins, and then they looked at each other, suddenly dead silent.
Of course. And now the obvious question. What the hell happened to you, Mahoney?
He swallowed. “So, how’s your grand—”
“I hear you’re a captain—”
They spoke right over each other, then chuckled at how awkward that was.
Evie brushed some croissant flakes from her hands. “Go ahead.”
“No, ladies first.”
She nodded. “Just wanted to say congratulations. I heard you’re a captain.”
Of course she was too classy to open with a demand for an explanation he wasn’t sure he could give. “Thanks. Got the promotion a while ago,” he said, lifting his coffee cup.
“Next is chief?”
“God, I hope so.”
She smiled at him. “Your dream job.”
The fact that she remembered that touched him. But then, he remembered her dreams. “And you, Evie? A veterinary neurologist, right?”
“I am, or, I was.” She leaned back with a sigh. “A few years ago I took the job as head of the Veterinary Neurology Department at NC State.”
He lifted his brows. “Wow.”
“It means I haven’t had a scalpel in my hand for a while. At least when I was teaching, I was also practicing at the animal hospital.”
Teaching. He’d heard somewhere—from Molly, probably—that she’d taken the teaching track at her alma mater. “Never imagined you’d give up the sick animals for a room full of students,” he said.
“They both need me, only in different ways.” She glanced down at the pastry. “I started as a guest lecturer, then took a teaching position and some additional graduate studies to get yet another degree, and then, well, the school made it tempting to take the department-head job.” She lifted a shoulder, making him wonder if there wasn’t more to the story. “It’s not quite the high of hands-on medical work, but I thought it would be a chance to finally have control over my schedule.”
“That makes sense.”
Okay, small talk. Easy. Comfortable. Nothing earthshattering. He felt some air escape with relief, even a kick of happiness. Good to know that they could be transported back for a moment to one of the many conversations they’d had about career plans, more than a few right here in this bakery.
“So…” He dragged out the word, unwilling to get too serious. This qualified as the longest, most