This was such a bad idea.

She couldn’t think of a way to refuse without being rude. And who was she kidding? She’d rather be with him than anywhere else in the world anyway.

Even if those green eyes of his were too damn perceptive.

Since she’d already cleaned the club, she didn’t have to be anywhere until her shift later. And Finn was right. She had to eat.

Normally she made do with a loaf of bread and peanut butter for one or two meals a day. The latter gave her some protein, and she bought fresh fruits and vegetables when she could.

All the while reminding herself, again, that this wasn’t forever.

But seriously, the thought of a huge burger and fries, and a slice of that pie that Ethan would be eating as his entire meal? Heaven.

So, she’d said okay, despite her better judgment.

They walked the short distance to the diner —after Mr. Mazille caught them first to discuss the importance of instilling respect for the library in Ethan. Finn held the door open for her and his hand fell to the small of her back, like it was just muscle memory for them.

She knew the exact moment he realized it as he snatched his hand away.

And still they found themselves heading toward the corner booth. The one where they’d always sat in high school. Ethan was already at the bar talking to Trey and his Aunt Wavy, a waitress here. Several people said hello to Finn, some recognizing her, others not.

Wavy came over to talk to them as soon as they were seated. “Hey, big bro.” She turned to Charlie. “And hey to you too, Charlie. Good to see you. Ethan won’t shut up about his teacher who threw the book out of the room. I think you’re his hero.”

Charlie winced. “I didn’t actually throw it. I just slid it out the door.”

Wavy laughed. “Well, in Ethan’s eyes, anybody who gets rid of books is a keeper.”

“They weren’t actually. They just made their own,” Finn said. “It was pretty brilliant. Ethan was reading without getting all caught up in the fact that he was.”

“Are you a teacher or something?” Wavy asked. “Honestly, I lost track of you after. . .” They all looked awkwardly at one another as Wavy trailed off.

“After I begged her, in front of the entire town, not to marry Brandon Kempsley and she did anyway?” Finn raised an eyebrow. “Is that what you mean, Wavy?”

Wavy punched her brother in the shoulder. “What I was going to say was after she got married and moved away, jackass.”

“Yeah, I got my master’s in special education, with a particular focus on reading disabilities.” Charlie ignored the part about Brandon and her wedding. Because what could she say? It was nothing but true, even if Finn didn’t know her reasoning behind it.

“So, are you working for Teton County?” Wavy asked. “Sounds like you’re pretty good at your job.”

“No, nothing full-time right now. I’m just doing tutoring a few hours a week.”

Although she was facing Wavy, she could feel Finn’s eyes on her as he weighed her statement. She didn’t dare look at him.

“Oh man.” Wavy sighed. “It must be so nice to just work a few hours a week and still have enough money to live.”

Hysterical laughter bubbled up inside her. Between the tutoring session and this meal, this was the longest she’d sat down in over a week.

“I heard you and Brandon divorced and he moved away,” Wavy continued.

“Yeah. We. . .separated a little over four years ago.” She totally did not want to go into this, so she changed the subject. “You still painting, Wavy?”

Both Finn and his sister looked surprised at the question.

“Oh, I’m sorry,” she backpedaled. “Was I not supposed to ask about that?”

Finn shook his head. “No, I’m just surprised you remember.”

She remembered everything. He had no idea how the thought of him, of what their life could have been, had kept her going for so many years. Wavy would’ve been her sister-in-law. Of course she recalled the younger woman painted. But Charlie just shrugged.

“Yeah, I still love it,” Waverly said. “I’ve got my own place now and turned the garage into a sort of studio. But the Frontier remains my primary means of income, since, you know, gotta pay the bills.”

Charlie nodded. “I understand that.”

Wavy didn’t argue, but her look said she didn’t think Charlie could. And why shouldn’t Wavy feel that way? As far as anybody knew, Charlie had grown up with money and then married more. She smiled weakly and shrugged again.

She expected some sort of scoff from Finn too. He wouldn’t be as silent and polite about it as his sister. But he remained quiet, studying her with those eagle eyes from across the booth.

Wavy took their order. Charlie got the burger she’d been fantasizing about. Finn just told her to have Trey surprise him. Wavy rolled her eyes. Obviously, this wasn’t anything new.

Wavy left and she and Finn stared at each other across the table.

“We spent a lot of hours here,” he finally said.

She smiled. “Actually, for most of that time, I think I was sitting next to you, rather than across from you.”

She’d give anything to be able to do that now. To have his big body corner hers in the booth. To constantly have his arm around her, when it wasn’t misbehaving up her thigh.

Finn wasn’t smiling. He obviously wasn’t remembering the same way she was, or if so, it didn’t resurrect the same sort of feelings. She looked away from those emerald eyes.

He still hated her.

“This was a mistake,” she murmured. Delicious hamburger or not, she didn’t know if she could sit here with all the weight bearing down on them. She began to slide out of the booth.

His hand shot out and touched her wrist before she could. She’d forgotten how fast he could move when he wanted to.

“You and I being within a fifty-foot radius of one another may very well be a mistake,” he said. “But you are not leaving without eating.”

He sat there, staring at her with one black eyebrow raised, as if daring her to argue. Before she could even decide if she was going to or not, another man, just as big and muscular as Finn but with lighter hair, slid in next to her.

“Good timing, Aiden,” Finn said. “I think she was just about to make a run for it.”

Aiden grinned and held out his hand for her to shake. “In my book that just shows you have good taste, if you’re trying to escape from Bollinger. I’m Aiden Teague. I have the dubious honor of being one of his partners at Linear Tactical.”

“Charlie Devereux. Linear Tactical? I don’t think I know what that is.” Aiden didn’t let go of her hand.

Finn leaned back in his seat. “It’s the business Zac, Aiden, and a few of our Army buddies, and myself started when we got out. We do different types of survival intelligence training for anybody who wants to learn. Self-defense, wilderness survival, situational awareness, weapons instruction. That sort of stuff.” He narrowed his eyes at Aiden. “You can stop groping her now.”

Aiden’s thumb continued to rub along the top of her hand. “I’ve lived in this one-horse town for nearly four years now and know I would recall meeting you if we had before.”

“Charlie is Ethan’s tutor,” Finn said before she could respond. “The one I was telling you about.”

Awareness dawned in Aiden’s striking hazel eyes. His hand slid gently off hers. “I see.”

And evidently what he saw, or had heard from Finn, wasn’t good. Or it at least put her in the not-worthy-of-being-flirted-with category.

“But Charlie and Ethan met today,” Finn continued. “And it went very well. Charlie is going to meet with him a few times each week until school starts.”

“Great.” Aiden’s smile was in no way flirtatious now, just friendly. “I love that kid and want to see him do well.”

“I think he’ll do great with the right tools,” she said.

Wavy brought their food over and took Aiden’s order.

“I got a call from Major Pinnock today,” Aiden said as he stole one of Finn’s fries, part of the fish and chips plate Trey had chosen for him. “He’s got some more details on that issue he was discussing with us.”

“Have things escalated?” Finn asked.

She bit into her hamburger and couldn’t stop the moan that fell from her lips. God, it had been so long since she had eaten something this good. Almost everything she put into her body for the past two years had been purchased either because of its low cost or nutritional value. Taste had not been a factor.

Both men turned to stare at her.

“Good burger?” Finn’s voice was a little strained.

“Sorry,” she muttered. Most people were not going to understand how she found a burger almost orgasmic. “Do you guys need me to sit somewhere else so you don’t have to talk in code?”

“It’s not code.” Finn stabbed at Aiden’s hand with his fork as he tried to steal another french fry. “On rare occasions Linear Tactical helps out law enforcement. Evidently somebody is trying to sell state secrets from a nearby military base and they want our assistance.”

And knowing Finn and his best friend, Zac, they loved it, the potential danger, being the heroes. It was why Finn had gone into the Army to start with. Aiden was probably just as crazy. She wasn’t surprised to hear that they had started some sort of superhero school.

She tuned them out as they discussed details. She focused instead on every bite of her burger, not wanting to miss one moment of this meal. Who knew when she’d get another like it?

It would probably be excessive to lick the plate when she was done. She needed to remember that. And more importantly, could she fit a piece of pie in her belly?

It was nice, eating here like a normal person rather than in her car or at the back room in the club, having two handsome men talk shop in low voices while she half listened.

She took the last bite of the burger and dipped a fry in ketchup. It might be nice, but it wasn’t real. She would do her best to remember that.

But Finn had agreed to let her work with Ethan some more. She glanced over her shoulder to where the little boy was sitting at the bar, talking to his aunt and the cook. She had so many ideas about how to help him. She’d spent her entire master’s thesis developing a method of shapes and codes to help children who suffered from dyslexia and other reading difficulties. Ethan’s love of shapes and blocks already made him a perfect candidate.

Her time with him would help balance out all the soul-sucking of everything else. The jobs. The knowledge that her father didn’t have long to live. That the man she’d been in love with her whole life—even when she’d been married to someone else—hated her, or at best barely tolerated her.

She wasn’t going to fool herself into thinking there would be more lunches like this.

It was just one more thing she would learn to live without.

Finn stood as Aiden scooted out of the booth and Charlie excused herself to go to the bathroom. They both watched her walk across the diner.

“Christ, Finn. I hope you’re taking that woman out to get more food sometime soon. Better than what they have here, if that’s the sound she makes biting into something she likes.”

The impression of a zipper was molded onto certain parts of his body after that sound had escaped Charlie’s lips. He dropped back down into the booth with a thud. “Yeah, no kidding.”

“I’m going to assume you’ve only heard fifty percent of what I said.” Aiden chuckled.

Finn tore his gaze away from Charlie’s retreating form. “Fifty may be a little generous.”

“So that’s Charlotte, the tutor you weren’t going to let anywhere near your son.”

Finn shrugged. “I talked to his teacher and she convinced me to give Charlie a chance.”

“She goes by Charlie?”

Finn couldn’t help but smile. “Yeah. I gave her the nickname in high school to try to piss her off. But she loved it. And hell, she’s always been more of a Charlie than a Charlotte.” That actually wasn’t true. She’d been a perfect blend of both: the rich, pampered Charlotte and the feisty, gutsy Charlie who never backed down from a dare.

Who was she now?

That was it, wasn’t it? Finn couldn’t seem to find the old Charlotte or Charlie in the woman he was facing today. But damn it, he couldn’t let this be his problem. Not again.

Charlie, Charlotte, both could take care of herself. She’d never needed him.

He looked up at Aiden. “Yeah, so tell me what Pinnock said again. I’m really listening this time.” They hadn’t wanted to go into much detail in front of Charlie.

“Henry was able to set up a way in for me. Got me on Cline’s radar, the guy shopping around info on the holes in NORAD’s air defense. Henry is calling the mission Project Sparrow.”

“You’re going undercover?”

Aiden shrugged. “I’m not as well known around here as you and Zac. Anybody who knows the two of you would know Teton County’s golden boys are never going to end up on the wrong side of the law. But me? I’m new. A bit more of an unknown factor.”

“You do know you’re not a cop, right? You’ve got no jurisdiction, no real backup. You can’t arrest anyone. You’ll be completely on your own.”

Aiden nodded. “I’m just gathering information.”

Which had always been Aiden’s forte. In the Army, he’d always been the man sent in to gather intel. He could speak at least five languages; Finn had lost count of the actual number. And even more, he had the uncanny ability to fit in to situations, to be the person the target needed him to be. He could become invisible and indispensable at the same time.

He could’ve made a killing in Hollywood, the way he played so many different roles.

“Just be careful.”

Aiden rolled his eyes. “Yes, Mom.”

Finn’s attention was drawn back to Charlie as she made her way out of the restroom. Multiple people stopped her along the way to say hello.

Then they all looked over at him, as if afraid he might feel betrayed. Charlie saw it too and winced. It was a small town with a long memory. No one was going to be quick to forget that the two of them had once been one of the town’s most passionate couples. And that she’d married someone else without much warning and despite Finn’s best attempt to convince her otherwise.

Let Aiden go play undercover superhero.

It would take all sorts of miracles for Finn to get out of his own situation unscathed.