“What’s her deal? I’m assuming you dug into her background.”
“Couldn’t find anything. Not even mortgage records for the house, nothing. So either they have a friend on the force who buried their information, or I’m getting rusty. I’ve got to be careful, though. Don’t want to get caught snooping between losing my job at Worldwide and the restraining order… so who knows…”
“You should have checked the asylums.” His comment earns a snort from me in response. “I mean the only advice I can give you is the next time you fall in love, make sure that you’re the crazy one.”
My laugh comes out long and deep. Such a typical comment from the former playboy himself. “Well some say love is a serious mental disease,” I say with a shrug. “Guess that proves something I’ve spent a lifetime trying to prove.”
“What’s that?” he asks.
“That my sister is crazy,” I state matter of factly.
He laughs and shakes his head before staring out to the ocean around us. “Look, man, I know how hard it is… but everyone’s life is like a story. Maybe that chapter of your book is closed…,” he says, his voice fading off. “Then again, maybe you need to open the damn book back up and rewrite the shit you didn’t like. Don’t accept it, Tanner. Some people say you can’t change your fate. I’m living proof that you can. If you don’t like the ending, change it,” he finishes with a shrug before duck-diving under a wave as I’m pushed toward shore, my mind toying with the truth in his words.
Colton’s analogy rings in my ears but brings a smile to my lips as I make the drive home down the coastline. My mood is the best it’s been in a while, so I’m glad I took the offer of a day on the water to get away from my doldrums right now. After the guy talk, I feel like my head is back on straighter than it has been in the last month, an affirmation that I need to hold on to the anger a little tighter and let go of the want a little more, because what I need to do is forget all about her.
My cell rings through the Bluetooth as I exit the freeway, and for the first time in two weeks I decide to pick up Rafe’s call.
“You’re finally talking to me again?” he asks with a chuckle, and I feel the smile tug at the corners of my mouth.
“I’m slowly forgiving you.”
“For what? Saving your ass? Thank you is what you should be saying.”
I sigh into the line. “Don’t press your luck.”
“Regardless, you sound good.”
“I feel good,” I answer as I try to figure out where he’s going with this.
“Feel good enough to head back into action?” he asks, which stuns the hell out of me so much that I miss my own street.
“What do you mean?” There is a cautious tone to my voice, and I’m not sure exactly where it’s coming from. Maybe getting back on assignment is just what I need to distract me from the temptation of seeing her again.
“You haven’t seen the news today, have you?”
“What do you mean?” I ask as I turn down my street, noticing William finally moved his beast of a car because I can actually see my house when I turn on the road. Thank God. At least some other neighbor was the asshole and told him to move it before I did.
“The U.S. embassy was bombed. On your old stomping grounds. An ambassador and an agent lost. Figured you’d want a chance to report —”
“When?” Immediately I’m sitting taller in my seat because it’s been a long time since this has happened; it’s usually a precursor to a military campaign of some kind. And a military campaign means I have something to occupy me overseas to avoid the temptation of knowing where she is and that she doesn’t want me. Somehow distance seems like it will help.