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“A drug deal?”
He fell back on a particularly irritating habit he had developed the last time they'd been together. He didn't answer.
She sighed. “I just wanted to see if you would be honest with me this time. I know you're a fed. I know you work undercover. I know you were setting Drake up for the bust last month and that he thought you were buying into his drug cartel with your 'rich wife's' money.”
Daniel's eyes were narrowed now, his mouth set in a display of irritation. “Anything else you want to tell me about myself?” he asked too politely, releasing her hands and crossing his arms over his chest in a gesture that she interpreted as self-protective.
“Why didn't you tell me what you are before? Why did you lead me to believe you were a con man?”
“I didn't say that. You did,” he reminded her.
“Yet you didn't correct me. Why?”
“I thought you would be safer if you didn't know everything.”
“That's not the reason. Not entirely, anyway.”
He glared at her, his temper mounting visibly. “I didn't want you romanticizing what I do. I'm no movie hero. I chose this career because the money's pretty good, I get bored easily in more routine jobs and I'm sort of a danger junkie. Not for any more noble reason.”
“Okay, I get the picture. You're a tough-guy cop.”
His scowl only deepened. “I just didn't want you to confuse the boy I was with the man I am now.”
“Because, of course, I'm too stupid to know the difference.” This time she was the one who spoke with exaggerated civility.
He grunted impatiently. “I didn't say that.”
“It was sort of a given from the way you said it.”
“Look, I know you're not stupid. It's just—”
“You knew I had a big crush on you when we were kids.”
“Maybe. And then you—”
“I told you I was in love with you at the resort.”
His throat worked with a hard swallow. “Yeah. That, too.”
“And you thought I had confused the two of you. Boy and man, I mean.”
“Well—”
She couldn't help smiling at him, though she knew it was shaky. “I know you're not the same person you were thirteen years ago, Daniel. Neither am I. We've both had full lives since we parted back then. But there's still a connection between us, I think.”
Maybe the direction the conversation was veering into worried him. He abruptly changed the subject. “How did you find me this time? And how did you learn what I do? Your uncles?”
“I found you because I talked to your aunt again. Even though she doesn't know exactly what to do, she has her suspicions. She was able to give me enough information to track you.”
“Damn it.”
“If it makes you feel any better, no one else has ever contacted her about you,” she told him. “I really like her, Daniel. She's a very shrewd woman.”
He merely scowled.
“As for what you do—well, I figured that out for myself. It took me a while and a little digging, but mostly I just knew you had to be working on the right side of the law. The Daniel I knew wouldn't work with drug dealers when drugs had already cost him so much.”
He looked broodingly at her. “I told you not to romanticize me.”
