Page 50 of Diesel’s Desire

“I’m not asking again right now. I’m just asking if you ever think about it.”

She pulls her hand back, wraps both arms around her knees like she’s protecting herself from the question.

“I think about a lot of things I can’t have.”

“Why can’t you?”

“You know why.”

I do. I’ve heard it enough times from Bone, from Tank, from my own damn head at three in the morning. Badge and cut don’t mix. But sitting here, watching her curl into herself, I can’t make myself believe it the way I used to.

“I kept that ring,” I say. “Seventeen years, Penny. Carried it everywhere. Every run, every job, every night I told myself I was over you, it was right there against my chest.”

Her eyes lift to mine, something soft breaking through the wall she keeps so carefully built.

“Where is it now?”

“That’s the thing.” My jaw tightens. “I lost it.”

Her brow furrows. “Lost it how?”

“Cord snapped. Weeks back. I didn’t even feel it happen till it was too late to look.”

She’s quiet for a second too long. Something shifts behind her eyes, calculation replacing the softness, and I watch her turn cop right in front of me.

“Where were you when it happened?”

“Penny—”

“Where, Evan?”

I don’t answer fast enough. She’s already standing, arms crossed, putting distance between us until she’s standing beyond my reach.

“Was it County Road 9?”

The air goes out of the room.

“How do you⁠—”

“Because we found a ring.” Her voice is flat, controlled, the voice she must use on suspects right before she reads them their rights. “In the mud. At the scene of an armed robbery of a county evidence van. Simple band, small stone. It’s been sitting in an evidence locker for weeks.”

I don’t say anything. There’s nothing to say that isn’t already written all over my face.

“Jesus Christ.” She presses her hand to her mouth like she might be sick. “You were there. You robbed that van.”

“Penny—”

“Don’t.” She backs up another step. “Don’t say my name like that’s going to fix this.”

“I’m not gonna lie to you.”

“You already have. Every single time you didn’t tell me.” Her voice cracks, and for a second I see the girl I proposed to all those years ago, the one who drove away crying. “I knew. Okay? I knew what you do, I’ve always known, I just—I let myself pretend it was somewhere else. Someone else’s problem. Not something I had my hands on in an evidence bag.”

“It’s just guns, Penny. Stolen guns nobody was gonna use for anything good anyway⁠—”

“It’s not just anything.” She’s shaking now, and I can’t tell if it’s fury or fear. “That’s a federal case. That’s my case. I watched the tech bag that ring and I felt sick and I told myself it didn’t mean anything because it couldn’t, because there’s no way—” She stops, swallows hard. “There’s no way the man I love robbed an armed transport four weeks before I let him back into my bed.”

The word love lands harder than anything else she’s said. She hears herself say it too, and her face goes pale.