Page 26 of Secret Squirrel

I frowned as I remembered our deal. “You know, she was supposed to give me three personal questions. She ducked out on me.”

“Because you didn’t go after her when you should have.”

“Well, I can’t go after her now. That would look desperate.”

“No shit,” he muttered.

“So…what should I do?”

He pulled out a chair and sat down. “Let’s eat and think on it.”

It was as good a plan as anything, so I pulled out my chair and sat down. After several minutes, I jerked my chin at him. “So, you got any ideas?”

He looked up at me. “Yeah, I forgot about it as soon as I started eating. You’re on your own, man.”

5

RAE

I hobbled into the diner and sank into the booth across from Cash in the back. Neither of us was looking too good right now, and as much as I wanted to get to work on what happened yesterday, I hadn’t been expecting the early morning wake-up call.

“You look like shit,” he muttered, taking a sip of his coffee.

“That’s a high compliment coming from you.”

“Seriously, why did you leave yesterday? I thought for sure Duke would talk you into staying.”

I rolled my eyes at him. “Clearly, it doesn’t bother you too much or you wouldn’t have called.”

Through bruised eyes, he glowered at me. “I had to get away from Eva. She’s driving me up the fucking wall.”

I smirked at him. “You wanted her.”

“Yeah, but she’s so emotional right now. I don’t know what it is.”

“Well, you did almost get blown up,” I said slowly. “Maybe that has something to do with it.”

He raised his eyebrows slightly as he thought about it. Men were so dense. “Cash, remember you were shot in the neck? I’m guessing finding out you were almost blown up brought back some bad memories.”

He snorted at that. “Yeah, the last time I was kidnapped from the hospital.”

I stared at him like he was stupid. “I meant for her. Bad memories forher.”

“Oh, right,” he nodded, rubbing his hand over his face. “Fuck, I must have hit my head harder than I thought.”

“Tell me about it.”

I sighed and sank into the seat. My body was killing me. Duke’s bed was so fucking comfortable that when Cash called, I almost told him to fuck off. A major part of me wanted to snuggle back into bed and wait for Duke to return. But the need to find out what happened yesterday pushed me to get out of bed.

“So, you went home with Duke.”

I raised an eyebrow at him. “I thought you had something urgent to talk about.”

To his credit, he didn’t try and push the subject. He quickly switched to work mode. “We need a lead, anything to go on with that plane.”

“I’ll get on it right away.”

He nodded, but didn’t look altogether comfortable. “Don’t push yourself. Yesterday was…”

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