Page 11 of Deep Cover

As he cleaned her cut, he studied her, forcing himself to keep it clinical. She’d changed in last six years—the girl he remembered had only the promise of maturing into a woman.

Her hair was still deep brown with a reddish warmth he didn’t remember, or maybe he’d just forgotten, the details of memory sanded down by time.

Her hazel-green eyes used to go soft when she looked at him and now they gave him absolutely nothing.

Light freckles scattered across her nose. And there—just above her left brow was a scar, fainter now, softened by years.

That memory sliced through him, a blade between his ribs.

He remembered exactly how she’d gotten it. On one of their first dates, they’d hiked up some overgrown trail in a state park. She’d slipped near the top and gone down hard on the jagged edge of a rock.

It had bled like a stab wound compared to how small the cut actually was. And Rivers had torn off a strip of his own shirt to press against it while she cursed at him in a way that made him fall a little bit in love right there on the trail.

Afterward, he’d gotten her ice cream at a roadside stand with only two flavors, and she’d smiled at him over the cone as if the whole ordeal had been worth it just for a small vanilla cone.

He cleaned her wound with antiseptic and she didn’t so much as blink. Meanwhile, he stole glances at her face. He used to be able to read every flicker that crossed her face. Used to know from across a crowded room exactly what she was thinking just by the angle of her chin.

Now he had a locked door between them, and he was the one who handed her the key to shut him out.

“Ryss.” He kept his voice low and felt her jerk anyway. “Let me explain—”

“Don’t.” She didn’t even look at him.

He tried a different angle, a lighter one that might shatter the ice she’d encapsulated herself in.

“How’s your family? Your mom still doing the—”

“I’m not interested in catching up right now.”

He swallowed the rest of whatever he’d been about to ask and went back to the cut, taping gauze over it with hands that weren’t as steady as he needed them to be.

“Anything else hurt?” He watched her face closely, prepared for an explosion that never came. He almost wished she’d tell him how much he’d hurt her when he left and pour out the years of pain he knew he’d given her to carry.

She held his gaze long enough that he understood, with total clarity, how much she hated him in this moment.

The icy façade she gave him wasn’t just cold—it had teeth.

Quietly, she said, “My knee.”

Her pants were loose enough to work upward, and he crouched to inspect the injury, too damn aware of her shapely calf and her milky skin. He found her knee swollen and starting to bruise along one side.

He made a noise and crossed the room to the supply cabinet, aware of her tracking him. He located an ice pack and activated it, then returned to press it gently against Caryssa’s knee.

“Well,” he said, forcing a lightness to his tone even as he knew how wrong it sounded the second it left his mouth, “you wreck your knee on ice, and the cure is also ice. Funny how that works.”

He waited just a beat before hope died.

She’d never been a woman to laugh easily—she was serious without being cold, at least back then. When Caryssa laughed, he always felt as if he’d won a prize.

Right now, he’d give a hell of a lot to even see a twitch at the corner of her mouth.

He held the ice steady as the silence hung between them, and he deserved every second of it.

“Your hand’s not swollen,” he said after too long. “Won’t stop you from wearing jewelry. Rings. Whatever.”

He was fishing, and they both knew it. He hated how badly he needed the answer when the truth might gut him. The idea that she might have a husband. Kids. The house and yard and the life he’d once pictured with her.

He didn’t want to hear the life he wanted so bad might belong to someone else.