Page 6 of Beyond the Badge: Crew

“I’m pretty sure you worked together.”

“We did?” He wracked his brain trying to remember a fellow DEA agent with the same last name.

“I think it was about eighteen years ago. Luis Cabrera. Remember him?”

Oh fuck.

Crew almost swallowed his tongue and a sharp pain shot through his chest.

How the fuck could he forget? Not the part about working with him—because they did work a case together—but the most important part. Luis Cabrera was now the agency’s principal deputy administrator.

And that was a huge fucking deal.

“You’re right. I know your father. But you’re also wrong. I’m not his age.”

A small smile curved her lips. “Hmm.” She took her time taking in his salt-and-pepper hair and beard. “You look like it.”

Jesus Christ.“I went through a rough divorce. Gotta go.” He began hoofing it away from the building and out to the parking lot.

She followed him, somehow managing to stay close on his heels even with her much shorter legs. “I heard your divorce was ugly, but wasn’t it years ago? You haven’t recovered yet? Are you still pining away for your ex?”

“I’m already regretting this,” he muttered, lengthening his strides, hoping to leave her in the dust. “I grayed early,” he tossed over his shoulder.

“From the divorce?”

“From pain in the ass women in general.” And she certainly qualified as one of those.

Luckily he had parked in a visitor spot near the building. That meant he could escape more quickly. He stopped next to his girl and grabbed his helmet.

It hit him then. Who she really was. Like a two-by-four across his forehead.

His chest tightened painfully, and he spun on her. “I not only remember your father, I remember you.” That might have sounded like an accusation, but he didn’t give a shit.

Oh yeah, he remembered her now.

At the time he met her, she’d been an outgoing, mouthy ten-year-old. Also, at the time, she was cute. With pigtails.

The woman before him was no longer cute. And she no longer had pigtails.

He rubbed at the burn growing in his chest.

Her eyebrows rose when she asked, “We’ve actually met before?”

Her attempt at sounding clueless was a joke.

One he didn’t find funny.

“Mmm.” And now, even though she was a damn adult, he felt like a dirty old man for checking her out earlier.

If she was ten at the time—he did a quick figuring in his head—she now had to be twenty-eight or close to it.

Old enough, but alsoso very not.

He hoped he had masked the panic from his face well enough. He slammed the brakes on his spinning brain. “How’s your father?”

“Busy. But he always makes time for me and I’m sure he’ll be interested in hearing that I’ll be working with someone he knew and worked with personally.”

Just fucking great.

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