“Either you have a selective memory or you were exceptionally hungry. Most of my stuff was as basic as it comes. Now I don’t even have time to cook the basics.”
Zach demolished his first sandwich and went back for the second one. “So what’s a typical day like for Assistant DA Savannah Wilde?”
Savannah shrugged, uncomfortable with where their discussion was leading. If she told him what her average day was like, he’d soon learn that other than work, her life was about as dull and empty as a hollow drum. She liked it the way it was. Safe and predictable was how she coped. Zach was too inquisitive to just let it go at that. He would want to know why a twenty-eight-year-old woman had almost no social life and the only true friends she had were her two sisters. Explaining that might veer too close to when and how she’d chosen this almost monastic lifestyle. She could not go there now. Both Sammie and Bri had told her she was going to have to tell him the truth at some point. They were right. But at what point? She didn’t know. But today wasn’t that day.
Aware he was waiting for her reply, she shrugged and said, “I usually get to the office by seven. When I’m in court, I’m usually there from around nine till around four. If I’m not in court, then it’s a lot of paperwork, phone calls, some fieldwork.” She shrugged again. “You know the drill.”
“So what do you do in your downtime?”
“I volunteer at a crisis clinic close to my apartment.”
“Do you date much?”
Since her dating life consisted of a handful of blind dates that had been about as exciting as watching paint dry, she shrugged evasively and said, “I’m not seeing anyone special right now.”
His eyes held more questions but thankfully he let it go. “Did you get to see your grandfather much after you moved away?”
Feeling safer with this topic, she relaxed and continued eating. “Once a month he would meet the three of us in Mobile.”
“Why Mobile?”
“It was close by for him. And he loved the city. I always thought if he’d been younger, he would have moved there after we left home.”
“I was real sorry to hear about his passing.”
She swallowed around the sudden lump in her throat. “He went quickly and quietly. We’d just seen him the week before, and though he was in his early eighties, he still looked years younger and acted that way, too. It was a shock when Gibby called and told us.”
“I wish I’d gotten the chance to say goodbye to him. He was one of the finest men I’ve ever known.”
“He thought a lot of you, too.”
“I figured he’d be furious at me for what I did.”
He had been furious, much more so than Zach might expect. She’d had to beg him many times not to interfere. If he’d had his way, he would have gone to Fort Benning and literally dragged Zach home.
“He tried to remember …” She cleared her throat. “We all tried to remember the good times.”
Dropping his half-eaten sandwich on the tray, he took her hand and held it against his mouth. “Do you think you’ll ever be able to forgive me?”
“I’ve already forgiven you, Zach. You explained what happened. That’s all in the past.” Shoving the tray out of the way, she turned and softly kissed his cheek. “Now, what about that dessert?”
He grabbed her shoulders, pulled her over to straddle him, and growled against her mouth, “Just so you know, I usually ask for second and third helpings on dessert.”
Savannah lost herself in the magic, forgetting for just a little while that major issues surrounded them. Sometime soon, they’d have to face them. But for right now … for right now, this was all she needed to survive.
CHAPTER
TWENTY-FIVE
When he was a kid, if anyone had told Zach that he’d someday have dinner with the mayor of Midnight at his home, he would’ve asked them what they’d been snorting. It’d never been his dream to hobnob with the elite of this town or any other. He shot a glance at the woman sitting beside him. She was the only elite he’d ever been interested in impressing.
Five days had gone by since the incident with the dead animal on her doorstep. Nothing unusual had happened since then. He was close to thinking that some bored teens had found roadkill somewhere and thought it’d be cool to dump it at