Afterward they lay on the bed, spent, Karen’s body slick with lovely sweat, still radiating fire. Hauck cooled her, blowing on her chest, her neck. Her hair was a tangled mess.

“Must be your lucky day,” she mused, with an ironic roll of her eyes. “Normally I never give out until at least the third date. It’s a hard-and-fast rule at Match.com.”

Hauck laughed, lifting a leg up on his other knee. “Listen, if it means anything, I promise I’ll still come through with a couple of meals.”

“Whew!” Karen blew out a breath. “That’s a load off my mind.”

She glanced around the cramped bedroom, looking for things about him she didn’t know. A simple wooden bed frame, a night table with a couple of books stacked—a biography of Einstein, a novel by Dennis Lehane—a pair of jeans tossed over a chair in the corner. A small TV.

“What the hell is that?” Karen said, pointing to something against the wall.

“Hockey stick,” Hauck said, falling back.

Karen propped up on her elbow. “Tell me I didn’t just sleep with a man who keeps a hockey stick in his bedroom.”

Hauck shrugged. “Winter league. Guess I never moved it.”

“Ty, it’s fucking June.”

He nodded, like a little boy discovered with a stash of cookies under his bed. “You’re lucky you weren’t here last week. My skates were in here, too.”

Karen brushed her hand against his cheek. “It’s good to see you laugh, Lieutenant.”

“I guess we could say we’re both a bit overdue.”

For a while they lay like two starfish on the large bed, barely covered, just the tips of their fingers touching, still finding each other.

“Ty…” Karen raised herself up. “There’s something I need to ask you about. I saw something when I came to your office that day. You had a picture on the credenza. Two young girls. When I saw you at the game that day, I met your daughter and you told me she was your only one. Then tonight I saw another of her, outside.” She leaned close to him. “I don’t mean to open something up—”

“No.” He shook his head. “You’re not opening anything up.”

Facing the ceiling, he told her. About Norah. At last. “She’d be nine now.”

Karen felt a stab of sadness rush over her.

He told her how they’d just come back from the store and forgotten something and had been in such a rush to get back there. There was his shift, he was running late. Beth was mad at him. They were living out in Queens then. He had bought the wrong dessert. “Pudding Snacks…”

How he had somehow left the car in a rush, his shift in half an hour, rushing back in to grab the receipt.

“Pudding Snacks,” Hauck said again, shrugging at Karen, an empty smile.

“They’d been playing on the curb. Tugboat Annie, Jessie told us later. You know the song—‘Merrily, merrily, merrily… ’” He inhaled a breath. “The car backed out. I hadn’t put it in park. All we ever heard was Jessie. And Beth. I remember the look she gave me. ‘Oh, Ty, oh, my God!’ It all happened so suddenly.” He looked up at her and wet his lips. “She was four.”

Karen sat up, and brushed her hand across his slick face. “You’re still carrying it, aren’t you? I can see it in your eyes. I saw it there the first time we met.”

“You were the one who was forced to deal with something then.”

“Yes, but I still saw it. I think that’s why I thanked you. For what you said. You made me feel like you understood. I don’t think you ever let it go.”

“How do you let that go, Karen?”

“I know.” Karen nodded. “I know…. What about your wife? Beth, right?”

Hauck leaned up on his side, hunched his shoulders sort of helplessly. “I don’t think she’s ever forgiven me. The irony was, she was the reason I was running back to the store.” He turned and faced her. “You know how you always asked me why I’m doing this, Karen?”

She nodded again. “Yeah.”

“And one reason is that I think I was drawn to you from the first time we met. I couldn’t get you out of my mind.”

Karen took his hand.

“But the other,” he said, and shook his head, “that Raymond kid, lying there on the asphalt. I knew there was something about it from the get-go. Something about him just brought me back, to Norah. I couldn’t put it away…his image. I still can’t.”

“Their hair,” Karen said, cupping Hauck’s curled hand close to her breast. “They both had the same red hair. You’ve been trying to make up for that accident all this time. By solving this hit-and-run. By playing the hero for me.”

“No, that part was just my plan to get in your pants,” he teased, deadpan.

“Ty.” She looked into his sorrowful eyes. “You are a good man. That part I could see the first time we met. Anyone who knows you can see that. We all do things every day—walk off the curb into traffic, drive when we’ve had a bit too much to drink, forget to blow out a candle when we go to sleep. And things just go on, like they always do. Until one time they don’t. You can’t keep judging yourself. This happened a long time ago. It was an accident. You loved your daughter. You still do. You don’t have to make up for anything anymore.”

Hauck smiled. He pressed his hand to her cheek and stroked Karen’s face. “This from a woman who walked in here tonight having found out that her once-deceased husband was her new AOL pen pal.”

“Tonight, yes.” Karen laughed. “Tomorrow…who the hell knows?”

She dropped back onto the bed. Suddenly she remembered why she had come. The frustration that bristled in her blood. Hello, baby… It all overwhelmed her a little. She grasped his hand.

“So what the hell are we gonna do now, Ty?”

“We’re gonna let it drop,” he said, running his finger along the slope of her back and letting it linger on her buttock. “Anyway, it’s not exactly conducive, Karen.”

“Conducive? Conducive to what?” she asked, aware of the renewed stirring in her belly.

He turned toward her and shrugged. “To doing it again.”

“Doing it again?” He pulled Karen on top of him, their bodies springing alive. She brushed her nose against his, her hair cascading all over his face like a waterfall, and then she laughed. “You know how long it’s been since I’ve heard those words?”