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comparison.”
    And far less admirable, judging by her faint undertone of disdain. It was probably too subtle for a Mundane to catch, but mage senses were keener.
    His gut tightened, but he shrugged. “The money’s good. I set my own hours.”
    “So you, what? Treat injured staffers’ bumps and scrapes? That can’t be much of a practice.”
    He shot her an appraising look. “Why do you care?”
    Her sunglasses hid her eyes, but pink washed over her cheekbones. New tension hummed inside the car. “I don’t, particularly. It’s a puzzle. I like solutions.”
    A snappy retort sprang to his tongue, but he swallowed it. Despite her denial, she wouldn’t have asked if she truly didn’t care. Temptation welled inside him, surging into his throat and gnawing at his gut. He wanted to tell her the truth, just as he’d wanted to all those years ago.
    She was the only woman who had ever made him think in terms of forever. He’d hidden his med school worries over doing something wrong, being responsible for someone’s death, from almost everyone. Cami… Mel… had been the one person he’d trusted with his fears. The things she’d shared about her unhappy childhood had given him the courage to confess his doubts, even to tell her a little about Krista’s death. Of course, he hadn’t risked revealing the real reason his best friend and musical partner had taken her own life, but the parts he did share meant something to him.
    Mel’s reassurance, her faith in him, had soothed his heart.
    Seeing her again and remembering how she despised him burned more than he would’ve expected. Coming clean now, telling her he’d lied about his whereabouts because he was studying magic, was lunacy. She would disbelieve him at best, freak into terror or disgust at worst. Her mom’s public claims to precognition and aura reading, along with her insistence on tossing tarot cards and crystals into casual conversation, had made Mel an outcast among the kids in the small farming community where she’d grown up.
    He got that, so he totally understood her dislike of anything paranormal.
    But the fact remained that if she’d trusted him when they were together, if she’d been more open to learning what he really was, he wouldn’t have to feed her his cover story now.
    “I like having time for research,” he said. “Every couple of years, I fill in for a physician, usually a GP or family practitioner, who wants to take extended leave. I also help with the youth sports league and volunteer at the hospital free clinic and as needed at the Wayfarer Community Shelter.”
    He did those things in between treating the venom wounds, broken bones, and other assorted battle injuries of his fellow mages. He was a trauma surgeon and an ER chief, and even more often than he’d like a battlefield medic. He was all the things she’d expected. Too bad he couldn’t tell her that.
    “What about you?” he asked. “Why the Bureau?”
    “You may remember my dad was against music as a career. He refused to help with college tuition or expenses if I majored in it.”
    “He wanted you to do something practical, like teach, then come back to Essex and help him, your sister, and her husband run the farm.” He passed a slow-moving truck before he finished, “That’s why you majored in computer science and hid the music minor.”
    Mel raised an eyebrow. “I’m amazed you remember all that.”
    “I haven’t forgotten anything about you.” The words came out softly, not in the light tone he’d intended. Idiot.
    The flush in her cheeks deepened. Stefan jerked his eyes back to the road, and a wave of grief washed over his heart. Once she’d held all his hopes. Now they made awkward chitchat like strangers.
    Which they were. This sucked.
    He cleared his throat. “Anyway, why the Bureau?”
    She looked out the window at the passing woods of pines and live oaks with Spanish moss dangling from the branches. “During my senior year at Georgetown, my