All I Want(29)

“No. I looked for him but he was long gone. I never heard from him again,” she said flatly, showing no emotion at all. It was so unlike the wildly passionate Zoe that he was coming to know.

“Bet I could find him,” he said, eyes on her face. “And I’ll be happy to run him over for you.” Right after I beat the living shit out of him.

A very small smile curved her lips, relieving him. She liked the thought of him helping her. Progress. “Just tell me what you know about him and it’s done,” he promised.

“Wait.” She turned and stared at him, the smile fading. “You’re . . . not kidding.”

“Fuck no,” he said. “At least Wyatt went after him for you, right?”

Something crossed her face. Guilt? “Why aren’t you telling me that Wyatt went after him for you?”

“Because he didn’t.”

“Why the hell not?”

She squirmed a little and dropped eye contact. And he knew. “You never told anyone,” he breathed.

“Well, it’s not like I was in a hurry to let everyone know I’d been a complete idiot,” she said grumpily, yanking her hand from his.

He took it back and squeezed it. “You should’ve told someone,” he said, pissed for her that she’d gone through that alone, that in so many rough times in her life she’d been alone.

“My parents would’ve expressed profound disappointment,” she said, “and then never let me forget it.”

“But Wyatt—”

“Was killing himself to get through vet school at the time,” she said. “I couldn’t, wouldn’t, take him from that. And Darcy . . .” She shook her head. “She had her own problems.”

“What about your grandparents?”

She shook her head. “They would’ve been sympathetic and way kinder than I deserved,” she said. “I couldn’t do it.”

“So you—”

“Took an extra job to earn back the money I’d borrowed. They never knew.”

“Jesus, Zoe,” he said, sick for her. “You shouldn’t have had to go through that by yourself.”

And he’d just lied to her. Just like that *. It was all he could think about and it was making him sick.

“It was a long time ago,” she said. “I was young and stupidly na?ve, and believed everything everyone said. I learned my lesson.”

She still wasn’t looking at him. Tired of that, he reached out to turn her face to his. “It wasn’t your fault.”

“Hmm,” she said, like maybe she was used to such things. And then he remembered the dentist who’d stood her up and realized she was used to such things from men.

Dammit. And then there was him. No, he hadn’t stolen money from her or specifically set out to screw her over, but he’d sure as hell lied by omission. “Zoe—”

“I swear, if you’re feeling sorry for me I’ll run you over.”

He smiled in appreciation for the sass. He loved a woman who, when backed into a corner, came out fighting instead of giving up. But she was looking at him with those honey-colored eyes that somehow managed to reach right through him, and his smile faded quickly enough. Shit. Was he really going to do this?

She started to get out of the car, but he grabbed her wrist. When she looked at him, he said, “There’s something you need to know about me.”

Her eyes went shadowed and guarded, and he hated himself a little bit. “I’m not a game warden.”

She continued to stare at him, still as stone now. Hell, he wasn’t even sure she was breathing.

“I do work for U.S. Fish and Wildlife,” he said. “But not as a game warden. I’m a supervisory special agent. We’re law enforcement, too, authorized and equipped to perform a full range of criminal investigative activities including search warrants and arrests.”

“So . . . you do chase bad guys,” she said softly. “For real?”

“Yes,” he said. “And occasionally they chase me with a really big f*cking truck.”

She didn’t smile.

“Zoe—”

“Are you really on vacation?”

“I’m on leave,” he said. “Supposedly recouping. But I’m really looking for the guy who killed Ned.”

“The wildlife poacher.”

“Actually, he’s more than that. He’s the ringleader of an international smuggling conspiracy and someone we’ve been after a long time.”

“And you think he’s in Cat’s Paw,” she said.

“I do.” He paused. “And you should know, my being here isn’t exactly USFWS sanctioned. In fact, it’s the opposite of being sanctioned.”

She blinked. “You weren’t kidding that you’re not a big rule follower.”

He found a small smile. Reaching out, he stroked a finger along her temple, tucking a runaway strand of hair behind her ear. “We okay, Zoe?”

The question made her smile, though he wasn’t sure why. “You mean the ‘we’ who are living in the moment?” she asked. “The ‘we’ with the three W’s? The ‘we’ who need to remember that you’re only temporary here in Sunshine to begin with?”