Page 50 of Secret Love

Dani steps forward to take it. I snatch it away from her and drop it into the bag with the rest of it.

Caleb chuckles. “If you get busted with that stuff, you didn’t get it from me.”

“Come on, Dani.”

“And if I don’t get my Model 60 back, I’ll kill you myself.”

I shrug. “You know I’d just come back.”

“Yeah, yeah…”

Dani lingers behind me and waves to Caleb. “It was nice to meet you.”

“Take care of him for me,” Caleb replies, flashing a quick wave in return.

Dani gives her a short smile before following me outside. “What did she mean by that?” she asks me.

“Nothing,” I answer, popping the trunk open and setting the black bag inside.

Dani hovers over my shoulder with her arms crossed. “I sensed some friction there…” she hums. “You wanna talk about it?”

“It’s not what you think.”

She slides in closer as I inspect the bag. I grab the bowie knife and smile at the ankle holster Caleb tossed inside, along with enough extra ammo to take down a small army. That’s her style, I suppose. All or nothing.

“Did you two have some torrid desert love affair or something?” Dani asks.

“No,” I answer, zipping it closed.

She scoffs. “Oh, come on.”

“We didn’t,” I say. “She and Boxcar, however…”

“Who’s Boxcar?”

I close the trunk. “Boxcar is our next stop.”

“The guy in Denver?” I nod and gesture for her to get back in the car. We walk around opposite sides and climb in. “What happened between them?”

“Caleb and I met Boxcar in Afghanistan during my second tour.” I start the car and the engine roars with life. “We received intel that an American journalist with knowledge of a secret weapons cache was being held captive in a warehouse in Kabul. We go in but find nothing. No enemy combatants, no weapons, no journalist. Just Boxcar and his laptop. The roof collapsed on the building, trapping him inside. Turns out, he hacked our equipment with a distress signal so we’d come dig him out.”

Her eyes narrow. “Why make up a story about a weapons cache?”

“Because he thought we wouldn’t come otherwise.” I shrug. “Honestly, he was right.”

“I can’t imagine the top brass being happy about him wasting their time.”

“Oh, they weren’t. Boxcar is a good hacker but hacking government equipment is generally considered a no-no. Instead of shipping him back to the States to do jail time, they assigned him to our unit as a civilian intelligence freelancer.”

“And he and Caleb hit it off?”

“Nope.” I chuckle. “Not at first, anyway… Box is a bit of a card but by far the smartest person I’ve ever met. And Caleb, well, she doesn’t fuck around.”

Dani smiles. “I got that vibe.”

“Last I heard they were done but if you talk to them separately you can just see it. They aren’t really done.”

“Sounds romantic.”

“Try telling them that.”

We take off down the road, passing through early-morning traffic at a snail’s pace. Dani leans back in her seat, her eyes flush with deep, silent thoughts until we make it out of Los Angeles. Every so often, her eyelids flutter closed, and she leans her head against the window. She didn’t sleep much last night. Neither did I.

Even now, in the most innocent and vulnerable of poses, I can’t keep my eyes off her. Here we are, closer in proximity than we’ve ever been in our adult lives and there’s no one around to intervene. We could have picked up where we left off five years ago and part of me suspects she wants to. Maybe it was just the booze in her or the adrenaline from getting attacked, but there was something in her eyes. I don’t want to act on it in case I have it all wrong.

I can’t imagine losing her twice in one lifetime.

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