Page 89 of Fixed Asset

She turned to face me, and I knew what was coming.

“You don’t have to convince me.”

“I can’t betray his trust and tell you who he is.”

“Baby, I’d never ask you to break anyone’s trust.”

“Okay. It’s just, it’s the same as Tom asking to keep a secret—”

Before she could finish, I tagged her around the waist and hauled her close.

“It’s not remotely the same, and I get it, baby. Stop worrying.”

She leaned closer and relaxed.

“Kiss me so we can get to work.”

“Are you asking or commanding?” she sniped.

“Commanding.”

Her eyes narrowed. “Jack.”

“Catarina.”

One side of her mouth hitched up.

Fuck it.

I bent forward and kissed my woman.

Chapter Twenty-Four

“Has it been twenty-four hours since our last flight?” I grumbled as we disembarked the plane on Cedros Island.

The airfield was nothing more than a long runway. No tower. No hangars. One end of the runway was feet away from a bluff that went straight down into the ocean. I was not afraid of flying. I wasn’t a fan of back-to-back flights, but planes didn’t bother me. However, I’d closed my eyes when we came in for landing. Taking off would be worse.

“Just barely.” Jack transferred his duffel to his other hand.

Before we’d boarded the flight, which departed from the same airport we’d flown into yesterday, Jack took me to a mall so I could pick up a few things before we went back to his . . . our house so he could get packed. We’d also made a stop at a Walgreens so I could get toiletries.

He hadn’t probed or given me any weird sidelong glances after the whole Shep incident. He’d said he believed I’d never been with Shep in a romantic way. But sometimes people say one thing but really feel another way. Jack didn’t.

On the plane while Jack was snoozing, I thought about the man who had once upon a time been my friend. A man who had caught me by the ankle before I rolled off the roof of a three-story building. A man who’d kicked in doors and cleared my way so I could gather intel that would further help his team track terrorists. A good man who had fallen on hard times, then disappeared. Over the years, I’d thought a lot about him. Where he was, if he’d recovered, what he was doing.

Never in my wildest dreams did I think he was the infamous Shepherd Drexel.

Though, I should’ve put two and two together. But this was one of those times when it only hit you in the face after you knew. If Jack and the rest of the guys knew, they’d probably laugh their asses off.

My friend’s beloved German Shepherd’s name was Drexel.

But I owed him my life. He’d called that marker. I would never breathe his real name to anyone, thus they’d never know how Shep Drexel got his name. But I knew, and I loved that was the name he picked.

“Why does it raise the pucker factor when the plane that dropped you off taxis away?” Mase asked.

“Because your ride dumped you and now you got no way home,” Pete offered.

“Before we hit the hotel, I wanna stop at the grocery store,” Mason announced.