Renegade (Special Tactical Units Division 3)

“No?”

“No.”

“Well, maybe I lucked out.” She took another bite. “For instance, this particular bar is—let’s see. Vanilla with fudge.”

“Vanilla with fudge, huh?”

“You mean,” she said, with wide-eyed innocence, “yours isn’t?”

He knew damn well hers tasted exactly like his—a combination of oats, raisins, sticky stuff that approximated caramel, and little black dots that were either seeds or best left as a mystery.

“No way,” he said solemnly. “Mine is strawberry.”

“Of course.”

“Of course?”

“Remember that little ice cream stand? The one up the beach? Each time we went there you’d read through the list of flavors and then you’d say, “Well, I think I’ll have strawberry…”

Her words died away. So did her smile and his.

“Declan,” she said in a shaky whisper, “I’m so sorry. So terribly sorry.”

Yeah. So was he.

For a minute there, he’d let his memories take over.

The long afternoons on the beach. Ice cream cones—vanilla fudge for her, strawberry for him—at a little place the tourists never seemed to find.

They’d found a lot of places like that, ones that were secrets known only to lovers.

A coffee shop that they’d decided made the best lattes in the world.

A tiny cove nobody ever visited except the two of them—and a pod of dolphins.

A hole-in-the-wall just outside town that served hot dogs with chili.

Hot dogs with chili? Annie had said the same way someone who’d never read Alice in Wonderland would say A rabbit with a watch?

Then she’d taken her first bite, rolled her eyes and said Oh my God, Declan, I think I’m in love.

She’d laughed and he’d laughed—and, fuck, what a bad thing to remember, because what he also remembered was that as he’d watched her dig into the hot dog he’d thought, What about being in love with me?

And all the time, all the goddamn time, she’d been living a lie so big he could hardly get his head around it, playing a game before she went back to her real life.

But he wouldn’t mention it, wouldn’t question it, wouldn’t say a word…

“How could you have lied to me all those months?”

So much for not saying a word. Even worse, he sounded like a pimply-faced teenager whose girlfriend had tossed him aside for the high school quarterback.

Yeah. But it was too late to call back what he’d said. What the hell. He might as well go for it.

“Did you hear me, Annie? Why did you lie to me?”

That was better. Now he sounded the way he felt. Cold with anger, not numb with pain. This was not the time or place for this. The logical part of him knew that, but did she really think the I’m sorry she’d tossed at him a while ago was going to make him forget what she’d done?

“I never lied about us,” she said, looking stricken. “About you and me.”