The last thing Special Agent Michael Gallagher expected was for his investigation into the death of mob enforcer Tony Dulbecco to lead him straight to the town of Harmony Harbor and Shay Angel.

The woman was tougher than anyone he knew, and so damn beautiful she’d haunted his dreams from the moment he first saw her ten years before. She’d been riding a Harley down Main Street on a hot summer’s day, her long hair whipping behind her in the wind, cool and confident with a lithe body that stole his breath as surely as she’d stolen his heart.

To this day, she still held a piece of it. She didn’t want it though. She’d made it clear she didn’t want anything to do with him. He didn’t blame her. But a heart wants what it wants, and no matter how hard he tried to get over her, nothing seemed to stick for long.

That was the problem with a first love that couldn’t, or wouldn’t, be his last.

Automatically, Michael reached for the cell in the console of his SUV, curling his fingers into a fist when he realized what he was doing. He’d been fighting the urge to call Shay the entire drive from Boston to Harmony Harbor.

He passed the domed clock tower situated on the hill overlooking the harbor. It was a view he was familiar with. William Gallagher, his great-grandfather many times over, had settled the town of Harmony Harbor in the early seventeenth century.

Michael had mostly fond memories of the summers he’d spent there and at Greystone, the family’s estate. Built to resemble a medieval castle, the manor sat on five thousand acres of woodland and oceanfront property west of town and now served as a hotel. Members of his family still lived here, including his uncle, cousins, and grandmother.

Lately, he’d been playing with the idea of moving into one of the cottages on the estate. He was tired of his life in the city. But Michael wasn’t a fan of the commute. It was a solid hour’s drive from headquarters in Boston, and that’s if both the weather and traffic were cooperating. Neither had been cooperating today.

At least for Michael. Oliver James, the senior agent he’d been assigned to, had beaten Michael here. James’s black Crown Vic idled in front of the Salty Dog. The pub sat on the corner of Main Street and South Shore Road—a twenty-foot wooden sailboat mast secured to the red brick building. At the top of the mast, in the crow’s nest, sat a fiberglass bulldog that looked a lot like the bar’s owner, Charlie Angel.

As Michael pulled into a parking space across from the pub, James’s long-legged swagger brought him to the passenger side of the Range Rover. Six foot five and built like a linebacker, the guy could pass for The Rock and had the personality of a pit bull. They’d been working together for less than a week, and James had already tried to have Michael transferred out of organized crime and into white-collar crime three times.

He had the door open before Michael had come to a complete stop. “You got some explainin’ to do, pretty boy. You weren’t exactly forthcoming about your past with the Angels,” James said as he filled the passenger seat with his bulk and pulled out his cell phone. Tapping the screen, he brought up an old newspaper article from the Harmony Harbor Gazette.

“I’m surprised the lady still talks to you after your family had her put away. Five years for a first offense . . . ” He shook his head, making a face like the thought of a teenage Shay Angel in prison made him sick.

Michael remembered the feeling. It had taken him years to shake the guilt. Still, he felt the need to defend the indefensible. “She stole my car. They found her with it at a chop shop. There was nothing I could do. I tried.”

He’d been hurt at first. He’d loved her and thought she’d loved him too. But as his mother had been only too happy to point out at the time, Shay had been using him. She’d played him. She was a con just like her uncle.

Years later, he saw things differently, more clearly.

There was no denying who Shay was back then. She had been a con, a grifter. Her uncle had trained her well. Nevertheless, that long-ago summer, she’d loved Michael too. She’d been nineteen; he’d been twenty-four.

His partner eyed him and nodded. “You loved her, didn’t you?” Without waiting for Michael to respond, he continued. “Bet that went over well with the governor. Shay Angel was lucky she wasn’t put away for life.”

James wasn’t far off the mark. Only it wasn’t Michael’s father but his mother who’d been pulling the judge’s strings. Maura Gallagher had big plans for her youngest son. Michael had been chosen to follow in his father’s footsteps to become governor one day. No way was Maura about to let him squander his life and his love on a petty criminal with no social standing or family fortune.

He didn’t plan on sharing any of that with James. The man already knew more about his personal life than Michael wanted him to. “You might as well get started questioning the staff at the Salty Dog.” When they’d initially called the pub to check on Charlie’s whereabouts, no one had seen him in the past twenty-four hours. He also wasn’t answering his landline or cell. “I’ll give Shay a call. She might know where he is.”

“Something tells me Shay Angel won’t be happy to hear you’re investigating her uncle for murder.” James adjusted his seat into the recline position.

“What are you doing?”

“Getting comfortable. Everyone’s been telling me what a brilliant lawyer you were, so I figure it’s the perfect opportunity to see you in action. That way I can judge for myself.”

All he’d need was James heckling him from the sidelines. Michael pushed back his navy wool coat and pulled his wallet from his back pocket. “Coffee’s on me,” he said, offering his partner a ten-dollar bill.

His thumb hovered over the cell phone keys as he debated whether to press number one. Just then his cell rang. He glanced down, his heart giving an electrified thump at the name showing up on the screen. It felt like the sun had just come out. He rolled his eyes at himself, wondering when he’d lost his game. All he could think was thank God James wasn’t there.

“Hey, Shay, I’m glad you’re okay. My partner said—” Michael began before she cut him off.

“I know exactly what your partner’s saying, Michael. But what I don’t understand is why you didn’t tell me my uncle is a suspect in a murder investigation? The least you could’ve done is given me a heads-up.”

He leaned back against the seat, releasing an aggravated breath. “I called this morning to ask if you’d heard from Charlie or knew where he was. You didn’t pick up.”

“I listened to your message. You never said anything about Charlie.”

Okay, so that didn’t help his mood any. “I would have, if you’d returned my call like I asked. You didn’t. But I guess I should’ve known you wouldn’t. It’s not like you returned any of them over the past ten months.”

“I told you to stop calling. I wasn’t going to change my mind.” She gave a low, humorless laugh. “We would’ve ended up right where we are, Michael. You on one side of the law, me and my family on the other.”

“That’s what it all comes down to for you, doesn’t it? You can’t get past that day to remember the time before. It was good, Shay. We were good. We had something special. Something worth—”

“We were kids. We didn’t know any better.” He heard the steely resolve in her voice. Trying to change her mind would be like trying to break down a cement wall with a toothpick. He should’ve known that his investigation into Charlie’s possible role in a murder would be the final straw for her. God only knew what would happen if he ended up being the man to arrest her uncle.

Talk about karma, he thought as the reality of the situation finally hit him. If he’d subconsciously been holding out hope that he and Shay would eventually find their way back to each other—and he knew damn well that he had—it was now completely and fully eradicated.

He’d lost her for good.

He reached in his pocket for an antacid and popped it in his mouth. “You’re right, we were just kids,” he agreed, even though to his mind twenty-four and nineteen no longer qualified as kids. “And, Shay, I don’t know where you’re getting your information, but at this point, Charlie is merely a person of interest, not a suspect.”

“Yeah, and you probably have some land in Sweet Bay you want to sell me too,” she scoffed, referring to swamp land north of Harmony Harbor. “You forget who you’re talking to, Michael. I know the score.”

“Okay, fine, believe I’m the bad guy in this if you want to, Shay. All I need to know is if you’ve heard from Charlie in the past few days.”

“I haven’t. But, I just left a message on his landline and cell phone for him to call me. When I hear from him, I’ll let you know, or you’ll hear from him yourself.”

“Is it unusual for him to take off and not let anyone know?”

“Charlie? No. Every now and again he gets a wild hair and takes off. He was complaining about the weather when I talked to him last week. He said he might come out for a visit. He likes to gamble, you know.”

Oh yeah, Michael knew the man liked to gamble. Charlie had been the reason Shay had stolen Michael’s Corvette. Her uncle couldn’t pay off a gambling debt. Shay had intimated that the men Charlie owed money to weren’t exactly the forgiving kind. Which reminded Michael of why they were even talking. “Did Charlie ever mention a man named Tony Dulbecco? He may have referred to him as Fat Tony.”

There was a long pause; the sound of laughter in the background, along with the clink of glasses and someone playing sax. “No, doesn’t ring a bell.”

As a former prosecutor, he’d developed the ability to know when someone was lying to him. Like everything else in his life, Michael had put extensive time and effort into learning how to pick up the slightest inflections in witnesses’ voices, or the minute movements that gave them away.

Which was how he knew Shay had just lied to him. “You’re sure? And before you answer, remember I’m not the enemy. Charlie could very well be in danger. Do you have any idea why Tony would get in touch with Charlie?”

There was a heavy silence over the line before she said, “Maybe Dulbecco liked a game of cards and heard Charlie knew where the action was.”

 “I see. Charlie was running the games out of the bar, then?”

She laughed. It wasn’t a laugh shared with friends. “Come on, I’m not the one getting paid the big bucks, Special Agent Gallagher. You can’t expect me to do your job for you.”

So it was going to be like that, was it? He rubbed his fingers across his chest. “Enjoy your night out, Shay. I’m glad you’re okay,” he said, and went to disconnect.

“Michael, wait. I’m sorry. I just . . . Look, thank you for trying to help. I appreciate it. I really do.”

There was a pause, and then he said, “If you’re ever in Boston—”

“I don’t think that’s a good idea. I—”

“No, you’re right. I shouldn’t have mentioned it. Take care, Shay.”

As he disconnected, he fished in his pocket for another antacid. The pain was different than the typical dull burn of his ulcer. This time it was the deep ache of yearning for something he finally had to admit was lost to him for good. Like he so often did, he looked for something positive to focus on. The only thing he came up with was that he’d put that part of his life on hold waiting for Shay, and now he could move on.

Funny thing was, until today, he thought he had.