“You can’t go wrong with anything they serve. It’s all basic comfort food that tastes like it’s homemade,” he said with a smile Samantha decided she was becoming dangerously addicted to. “We definitely have to get the cheddar fries to start with because it would be criminal not to. After that, I usually go for one of their cheeseburgers, but their chicken strips and chili dogs are good, too. Sometimes I can’t decide, so I end up just getting all three.”
Samantha stared at him, sure he was kidding. But from the sincere expression on his face, it seemed he wasn’t. “Mind giving me your secret? If I ate that much, I would be in serious trouble.”
The smile on his face slipped for a second as he glanced down at the menu in his hands. “I’ve always had a fast metabolism.”
Trey might have been wearing an untucked button-down, but Samantha had seen him in his tight uniform T-shirt more than once, so she had a pretty good idea of the kind of shape he was in, and it sure as hell had nothing to do with a fast metabolism. “Okay. I’ll share some of your cheddar fries, but I think I’ll limit myself to one entrée.”
When their server came over to take their order, Samantha got the classic burger with cheese and a side of guacamole along with an iced tea. She had to bite her tongue to keep from laughing as Trey ordered the chili cheddar burger with double beef patties and a full-sized bowl of chili on the side. And if that wasn’t enough, he also got a large order of cheddar fries with a double serving of bacon.
“Fast metabolism, huh?” she teased after the server left.
He shrugged, his gaze locked on hers, the warmth in his eyes enough to make it feel like someone had turned up the temperature. “I’m lucky that way, I guess.”
Resisting the urge to fan herself with her hand, she picked up the iced tea the server brought and took a sip. “How’d you find this place? I’ve driven past it at least a dozen times and never seen it.”
Trey sipped his beer before answering. “SWAT got called out to a barricaded suspect near here a few years ago. We ended up spending over twelve hours waiting for our negotiator to talk the guy out of the house and this was the first restaurant we saw after packing up. We all fell in love with the burgers—and the prices. We stop by to eat anytime there’s a call in this part of town.”
She pictured all of those big cops in here, eating their weight in burgers and hot dogs. “I get the feeling you and your teammates spend a lot of time together outside of work.”
His mouth edged up. “Yeah. Our team is like a big family. We get together at least once or twice a week in addition to the weekends. And even when we’re not getting together as a pack, smaller groups of us hang out together all the time.”
Samantha stared at him, wondering if she’d heard right. She opened her mouth to ask but was interrupted by the server showing up with a ridiculous plate of fries buried in melted cheese and crumbled bacon. Her mouth watered at the sight and she eagerly reached for a fry, moaning as the combination of cheddar, fried potato, and crispy bacon hit her tongue.
She was helping herself to another when she remembered what she’d been going to say before. “When you were talking about your teammates, you called them a pack.”
Trey paused, a handful of cheesy fries halfway to his mouth. “I did?” he asked, the words coming out light and casual.
She nodded. “You did.”
“It’s just a nickname we have for the team.” He shoved the fries in his mouth, then wiped his hands on his napkin before undoing a few buttons on his shirt and tugging it to the side to reveal a tattoo of a wolf head on one side of his muscular chest. As far tattoos went, it was amazing. And as far as chests went, it was spectacular. “We all have this same tattoo, so we call ourselves a pack. Goofy, I know.”
Samantha laughed, telling herself that made complete sense. But if that was the case, why did she still think it was total BS?
They ate in comfortable silence for a while before curiosity got the better of her. She was tempted to dig a little more on the pack thing but decided against it. After the quick answer he’d had to her first question, he’d probably be prepared and already have a logical answer to whatever other questions she asked about his team.
“How did you end up in SWAT?” She nibbled on another cheesy fry. “Did you go straight into that when you became a cop, or did you do something else for a while first?”
“Actually, when I first moved to Dallas, I worked as a paramedic.” He picked up his bottle of beer. “I was a combat medic in the army for almost six years and was sure that’s what I wanted to do for a living after getting out.”
She’d known he was in the army before becoming a cop because that had been in the personnel record she’d been able to put together on him. But she hadn’t known he was a paramedic. “What changed your mind?”
He fell quiet for a moment, the crease in his brow making her think maybe she’d brought up something he didn’t like to talk about.
“I found out that just because you can do something, it doesn’t mean you want to,” he said softly. “Hell, at one point, I thought I’d make a career of the army. In fact, I was only a few weeks from reenlisting when things changed.”
She sipped her iced tea, not wanting to push. While she wanted to know everything she could about Trey, forcing him to talk about something that obviously upset him didn’t sit well with her.
“I was in a firefight in Afghanistan,” he murmured, pausing to slowly eat another fry before continuing. “I was hurt bad and my best friend was injured even worse, but somehow, we both made it out. The army wouldn’t have let me re-up even if I’d wanted to—they had concerns about internal damage if I ever tried to do another airborne jump—so I got out and joined Dallas Fire and Rescue. The first time I showed up at the scene of a major car accident, every injury and death I saw in combat came back to me, and I realized I’d made a mistake. I left DFR the next day, but I still wanted to be able to help people, so I joined the DPD. I did about a year in patrol before my SWAT commander suggested I join the team.”
Samantha didn’t say anything as the server placed their plates of food before them. Part of her wanted to know what had happened to Trey in Afghanistan, but the other part didn’t. The thought of him being hurt made it hard to breathe.
Not trusting herself to speak right then, she concentrated on biting into her burger. It was juicy and perfectly grilled with the perfect ratio of cheese to beef.
“I can understand why you wouldn’t want to be a paramedic anymore, but I heard somewhere that you’re one of the SWAT medics.” She glanced at him as she dunked her cheeseburger in a pile of ketchup. “That means you treat your teammates’ injuries, right?”
Trey looked confused for a moment and Samantha hoped she hadn’t slipped up and said something she shouldn’t have. “I read in the paper that you’ve received several commendations for using your paramedic skills to treat your teammates’ injuries,” she added.