Page 45 of Colton’s Secret Identity

“Hard to say. But I’m a believer in the simplest explanation being the likeliest.” He slowed to allow a buck to cross the road.

She nodded. “Occam’s razor.”

“Yep.” He drummed his fingers on the wheel.

“I think Slim now knows that Rex made a deal with you, Dylan. Hank was Slim’s fly on the wall, to keep Rex in line, while Rex thought Hank worked for him, keeping me in line.” The more she thought about it, the more it made sense. “Hank isn’t the brightest bulb. I was able to work around him when I needed to.” She explained about her meetings with Kat at Pixie Hair Salon as needed, changing out of her disguise when she wanted to see her mother. “Hank’s integrity is not something I ever banked on—just like you have treated your hooligans, I imagine. But I could manipulate him to my benefit when I needed to.”

“Right.” Dylan accelerated back to the speed limit. “But while it makes sense that Slim ordered hits on Rex, Bulldog and Hank, it’s also plausible that Rex lost his cool when you escaped and took it out on Hank.”

“Yes, I can see that, too.” She looked out the window to the undulating grasslands. “As much as I love a North Dakota autumn, I always find this time of year sad, too.”

“Talk about a change in subject.” But he didn’t bring up the case again. “Why does the fall make you sad, Veronica?”

“Come on, you know perfectly well why. It’s so anticlimactic after the fall festivities all die down. Don’t tell me that you’ve forgotten all of this. You grew up here, or have you forgotten that, too?” Oops. The words couldn’t be taken back but Dylan didn’t seem affected by the implication. Have you forgotten your roots as easily as you forgot me? Clearly, he’d forgotten the hope of them as a couple with a future.

“You mean the post-harvest time.” He nodded, his head moving slowly from side to side as he took in the recently shorn farm fields that stretched to the horizon. “The ‘amber waves of grain’ are reaped, the fields barren until next year.” The reference to the traditional hymn tugged at her heart, reminded her of why they’d never work out, long-term. Veronica’s heart was in North Dakota; she’d never known anything different. Dylan had left and no longer considered their shared native state his home.

No way was she going to share her deepest thoughts with him, though. She might have shared the most physical of intimacies with Dylan, but she had to keep her heart intact. “Yes, it’s the post-harvest fields that can get me down. It’s a sign of the long winter to come.” The harsh winds, brutal cold weren’t for the faint of heart.

“Winters here are rough, I’ll admit. I miss having the change of seasons in Southern California, and sometimes the snow. But I can always drive out to Bear Mountain for a fix, or on the odd full weekend off, I drive or fly up to Tahoe and snowboard…” He replied quickly enough but his words seemed to lack conviction as they trailed off. No doubt the weight of this case was the cause for his near-monotone. It wasn’t as if he actually regretted leaving North Dakota. She mentally stomped on the spark of hope that alit in her heart at the idea of Dylan missing home.

His home was in California. Had been for years.

Did Dylan spend those fun weekends by himself? Had he ever found a more permanent relationship? Or, like her, had he dated here and there, with no one special enough to commit to?

Don’t go there.

There was enough to focus on with the case, which had already put them in life-or-death scenarios. No sense in volunteering her heart to be broken again.

“We’re going to have to set up camp again, but this time a real one.” Dylan surveyed the spot they’d paid for, after trading vehicles with a special agent who’d remained on scene long enough to inform Dylan and Veronica that there was a tent and cold weather gear in the trunk of the nondescript sedan. There wasn’t enough room for one, much less two, people to stretch out in the small car.

“It’s going to be much colder than the truck was.” Veronica spoke as she marched to the driver’s side of the car. “I’ll pop the trunk and we can get going.” Her profile was a study in determination, and while he appreciated her more professional bearing, he regretted that the easy conversation between them was in the rearview mirror. Along with…

It was never an option.

No, becoming intimate with Veronica hadn’t been smart on so many levels. Yet he knew, deep down, that he’d never regret what they’d finally shared in the back of the truck.

“This is the tent he was talking about?” Veronica tossed a cylindrical drawstring bag at him, which he caught and held against his chest. “We’ll be lucky if this is big enough for either of us.”

Dylan cleared his throat. “Ah, with these temperatures, we may need to bunk together.”

The glance she shot him put the icy in “glacial stare.” “Not happening.” She paused from rooting through the trunk to stand straight and face him. “Please tell me that you don’t expect a repeat of what happened in the big truck.”

“It’ll be tighter quarters in the tent.” The wry words left his mouth without thought.

Veronica kept staring at him, her mouth a straight line. Until he saw one corner twitch, and a slow smile appeared. She shook her head. “You haven’t lost your dry sense of humor, I’ll give you that.” She turned back to their frugal supplies. “But that tells me you agree with me.”

“What am I agreeing to, exactly?” Dylan kept his tone light, hoped she’d see his response as nothing more than banter. As if their lovemaking had meant nothing more than hot sex to him. As if there was nothing between them but their physical attraction. And agreeable working relationship.

“We made a mistake, Dylan. We were using yesterday’s solutions for today’s problems. I’m thinking we each had wanted to take our relationship further, five years ago, but it didn’t happen. Yesterday, these last couple of weeks, we’ve been put in very intense situations. Sex is an easy way to blow off steam, and since we had already had those feelings, in our past, it was a natural outcome. But we agree we can’t let it happen again, right? There’s too much at stake now.” Without pausing, she hauled a second nylon drawstring bag that made clinking noises. “Speaking of stakes, let’s get this tent set up.”

Dylan followed her lead, unable to reply immediately. The sting under his rib cage was his ego deflating, he was certain. If the sex had been that good, Veronica wouldn’t be setting such a strong physical boundary. But what really bothered him was how she’d placed their friendship and once romantic relationship firmly in the past.

He shook out the tent, laid it out flat on a patch of short grass. “You’re absolutely right, about everything except one fact.” He waited for her to dump out the stakes, shake the nylon tethers from the bottom of the bag. Only when she looked at him with an inquisitive expression did he finish.

“I have zero regrets about having sex with you, Veronica.”

Veronica shivered inside the sleeping bag that was labeled for use down to zero degrees. It was her turn to rest while Dylan stood watch. They’d agreed to shift every two hours as the temperatures had dropped and definitely plunged them into the end of autumn. Winter was closer than ever.