Into the Fire by Suzanne Brockmann

he sat down. “I didn’t come here, expecting…” He shook his head. “She’s, um, really something. I just…um…”
    “It’s okay, you know that? Right?” Hannah said.
    “Is it?” Murphy asked.
    She nodded. “Absolutely.” But she was unable to hold his gaze, and started peeling the label from her beer bottle. “I love you, man. You know that. I’m happy that…you’re happy. I am.”
    “It’s not like we’re getting married,” Murphy pointed out. “It’s just…She’s great, and…”
    “You wanted to do her,” Hannah finished for him. “You and the entire male population of California. Do you know besides the two years she went to camp in Montana, she’s never traveled out of state? I’ve been trying, for years, to get her to come to Juneau.”
    “I’ll get her to come,” Murph said.
    Hannah looked at him. “Heh-heh,” she said à la Beavis and Butthead, and he cracked up.
    “Mind out of the gutter, Whitfield. God.” It was possible that he was blushing. “That’s not what I meant.”
    “I know. I was just kidding.” She turned to face him. “Honestly, bwee, I know she comes on strong, but she’s…She really hasn’t been with that many guys. Don’t mess with her if you’re not serious. Except you’ve already messed with her, so…”
    “Actually, I haven’t,” Murphy said. “I mean, yeah, we kissed last night, but…I would never…In your apartment…?”
    “Really?” Hannah said.
    Murph nodded. “Han. Come on. How long have you known me?”
    Hannah laughed and finished off her beer. “She made it sound as if…” She put her bottle down. “Do you know she once got the girls at camp to give her a necklace with a diamond pendant? It’s not stealing, she told me, if you get them to give it to you.” She laughed again. “Freaking amazing.”
    Murphy wasn’t sure what she was trying to tell him. “If you don’t want me to see her—”
    “You’ll have to blindfold yourself, because she’s pulling up right now.”
    Sure enough, Murphy, too, could hear the unmistakable sound of Hannah’s car’s near-death-rattle.
    “That’s not what I meant,” he said. “And you know it.”
    “Yeah,” Hannah said. “But who am I to tell you what to do?”
    “You’re my best friend,” he told her. “Say the word, and I’ll walk away.”
    “From the first woman in, like, fifty years that you’ve been even remotely interested in?” she countered.
    “Fifty years is kind of an exaggeration,” Murphy pointed out. He was barely thirty.
    “She’s completely into you,” Hannah told him. “Totally, absolutely into you. And from what she told me, the attraction is mutual.”
    “She’s an extremely beautiful woman,” Murphy agreed.
    “And she’s intelligent and fun to be with,” Hannah added.
    “I just always thought,” Murphy started, but then stopped.
    “That the perfect little blond Republican chick from
West Wing
—”
    “Ainsley,” Murphy supplied the name.
    “Right. That she’s going to knock on your door wearing an apron and nothing else?” Hannah scoffed at him. “Don’t be a fool. Perfection is relative, by the way.”
    Murphy shook his head. “I don’t see you going out with that guy Mike.”
    Hannah rolled her eyes. “Oh, good, let’s make this be about me.”
    “I’m just saying.”
    “One of the many—might I add another
many
—reasons I haven’t gone out with Mike,” Hannah told him tartly, “is because I happen to be in love with someone else.” She looked aghast, as if she’d just let slip a state secret. “Just forget it, Murph—”
    But Murphy had to push. “Diaz?” Last night, Angelina had told him she thought Hannah might be interested in one of the younger cops she worked with.
    Hannah looked surprised. “Who? No.” She laughed. “Can I just say
Ew
? I mean, nice guy, but…Ew.”
    “So, who?”
    She rolled her eyes and gave him a rather obvious lie. “This…guy from college. So just…don’t