Page 16 of Colton's Second Chance
His chest clenched at the abrupt shift in the conversation back to the raw topic. “I thought you said we weren’t going to talk about our breakup.”
Noelle turned to stare out the window at the marina lights. “I know. I—”
“But if we don’t talk now, when will we talk about it? You’re leaving town again in a few days. When am I going to have another chance to see you, get answers?”
She stiffened. “Was that why you agreed to dinner, if you didn’t plan to answer my questions about the investigation? So you could corner me into talking about our breakup?”
He sighed. “No. I agreed to come because I’ve missed you. I wanted to be with you. Maybe I even hoped we could…reconnect.”
Noelle’s dark brown eyes widened, bright with what he could only call alarm. She shook her head vehemently. “I can’t go down that path again. It was hard enough getting over you the first time. If I let myself feel anything for you again—”
Eli fisted his hands in his lap. “It just…makes no sense to me, Noelle. If it was hard to get over me, if we had passion and shared interests and great sex, why would you throw that away? Why did you push me out? Was it something I did?”
She was silent for so long, her eyes misted with tears, he’d almost decided she was not going to answer. But finally, after several heartbreaking moments, she bit her bottom lip and raised her gaze to his. “No. You did nothing to deserve the pain I caused you. It was my family that did everything wrong.”
Chapter 5
Eli opened his mouth and closed it again, clearly swallowing the burning questions that had to be bubbling inside him like magma, ready to erupt. Noelle respected his willpower, his ability to shove down the queries. But he was a man of integrity. He’d promised to let the topic rest during their dinner, and he would honor his promise.
“How about this?” she asked, reaching across the table to lay her hand on his. “Tomorrow or the next day, we can make a trade. You have questions about our breakup, and I have questions about my sister’s murder. We’ll meet somewhere quiet and swap information.”
His brow dipped in consternation. “You’re going to hold personal information about our relationship hostage if I don’t give you classified intelligence on an active investigation? That’s apples and oranges, Noelle. Not an even trade.”
A pulse of heat spiked in her core. “When you put it that way, it sounds bad. I only meant we both want information…”
“I can’t barter case information, Noelle.”
She nodded, guilt plucking at her. “Of course not. Forget I asked.”
“But…” His cheek dented, telling her he was biting the inside of his mouth.
She remembered from college this habit of his that told her he was deep in thought. Images of him from those earlier days flashed in her brain. Her chest knotted with bittersweet agony, and she sucked in a sharp breath.
“You mentioned before that you think your work in analytics could help us get a better overview of the case.” Eli took a slow sip of his water. “How would that work?”
Noelle straightened in her chair, the first whispers of encouragement stirring in her since she’d arrived in Alaska. “It’s really not as complicated as it sounds.” She filled her tone with the enthusiasm for her job and the hope that she could offer something to the investigation. “I’ll feed case data into the programs, at which point I can then break the information down statistically or create databases to search for commonalities or use for cross-reference. Tell me what would be most helpful, and I’ll do my best to get the program to run that analysis for you.”
He snorted and gave her a wry grin. “Any chance it can look at the case as a whole and spit out the name and address of the perpetrator? ’Cause that’s what I need it to do.”
Returning an enigmatic smile, she lifted her chin. “You never know until you try.”
After finishing their meal, Eli had asked for a demonstration of Noelle’s analytic programs. “I’m not promising anything regarding the Fiancée Killer case, but I am intrigued to see what you do for a living.”
Noelle vacillated briefly. While she still wanted to avoid an overly intimate setting, she couldn’t miss this opportunity to prove the value she could add to the investigation.
In the end, she had him follow her back to the hostel. As she set up her laptop, she tried not to think about the bed just feet away and how she’d tossed and turned the night before, her body aching for Eli and her mind replaying sensual encounters from their past. Summertime skinny-dipping. All-nighter studying that eventually evolved into sex at dawn. Dinners that turnedinto frisky food fights and creative uses for vanilla pudding and sugar sprinkles.
When the software was up and running, she cast a sly side glance at him. “The best way to show you the program’s usefulness to you would be to input information from the case and let it run a simple algorithm.”
He arched a dark eyebrow and gave a soft laugh. “You’re right, of course.” Turning up his palms, he stalked back toward the front door. “Fine. You’ve worn me down. I’ll call you a hired consultant on the case, which means you’re sworn to protect the information I share with you and keep the details confidential.”
She lifted her chin, relieved to finally be getting what she wanted but also a tad hurt he’d felt the need to couch the access as he had. “You don’t need to call me a consultant before you confide in me with the case information. Do you really not have any more faith in me than that?”
He sighed heavily, dipping his head as he stared at the floor. “Of course I trust you, but this satisfies the department’s protocols.”
“So why didn’t you call me a consultant the first time I asked?”
His head came up, and the muscles in his jaw flexed and bunched. “Because your potential contribution to the case wasn’t evident then. I can’t grant every family member and inquisitive citizen special status on a whim.” He flipped up his palm in query. “Why are you being prickly about this? You got what you wanted.”
