Love and Wargames: A Bad Boy Hacker Romance (24 page)

Chapter 23

Caleb

Los Angeles

Present Day

Ugh. My fucking head.

I swear to god — if I ever stumble upon Elijah
fucking
Hart again, I’m going to punch him in the face. Seriously. How a full-body tranquilizer manages to make me feel like Nurse Ratchet sawed into my head and scooped out my brain using her fingers, I’ll never know.

I head straight for the bathroom for a bottle of aspirin, refusing to even turn on any lights along the way. It’s like the world’s worst hangover and if the nausea in my stomach tells me anything, it’s about to be one of
those
hangovers.

My dry tongue rejects the handful of pills I shove inside. I try to gather some spit to swallow them down but it’s like sandpaper in my mouth.

I stumble through the loft with half-open eyes and navigate the kitchen to find an empty glass.

I pause and look around the abandoned room. “Boxcar?”

He was here last night. I remember his arm around me and his warm body pressed against mine. Mostly, I remember not even questioning it like it was always meant to be that way.

I fill the glass with water and choke down the pills lodged beneath my tongue.

“Boxcar?” I ask again, instantly regretting the volume in which I chose to shout it.

There’s no answer, which obviously means he’s gone. No surprises there. Our last moment in this place before last night wasn’t exactly a happy one. I said
fuck you
and he replied with
I love you
and I didn’t do a thing to reciprocate no matter what my heart told me.

My emotions take a swift turn towards annoyance and then my eyes fall on the brown envelope sitting on the counter.

It takes me a moment, thoughts fighting together in my brain to come out over the splurge of pain and misery, but eventually, I remember what they are. I remember everything.

The envelope is a bit crinkled but it’s the exact same one I touched two years ago. When I never got a response from Boxcar concerning our divorce, I assumed he torched the documents and ran off. I never for a second thought that he actually
kept
them. He dodged my communications for two months after that and eventually I stopped trying, especially when he made tracking him down damn near impossible.

I open the envelope and I slide the papers out.

This moment has drifted through my head many times over the last two years. I imagined how relieved I’d feel for it to be over and done with; for Boxcar to go on living without the constant threat of my death lingering over him. Now that the moment is here, I stare down at my old signature and his next to it and a cold darkness strikes my chest.

Bartholomew Carson. My ex-husband.

I never thought I’d be anyone’s
wife
. I’m not even sure I ever wanted to be. Sure, I’ve had boyfriends but they all eventually bailed. I was too emasculating or I didn’t wear the right kind of make-up or my hobbies were strange. They all found something in me they didn’t like.

Except Boxcar.

I thought our differences made us weaker but in the end, they had the opposite effect. When I think of us together, it’s not the moments of anger or frustration that stand out anymore; it’s the good, tender moments that do. The way he always caressed my face before a kiss or the gentleness in his voice, even when what he was saying was harsh or blunt.

And now, he gives me this. The thing I’ve wanted for two years. It’s the last thing he wanted but he made that sacrifice anyway — along with taking that bullet for me. He didn’t have to do that and just like that night in Afghanistan when he plowed into that warehouse to save me, I feel an overwhelming urge to smack him for it.

I shove the forms into the envelope and drop it back onto the counter.

Chapter 24

Boxcar

Los Angeles

Present Day

I drop the last of the overpriced, outside cameras in the garbage sack and toss the thing over my shoulder. Designing the ultimate home security system for a beautiful Hollywood actress and her live-in bodyguard is a dirty job but there’s no one out there more qualified than me. I also owe him — a lot — so I won’t be charging him a dime for my time. Not that I would anyway. The challenge is, honestly, the most fun I’ve had in ages outside of the twenty minutes I spent in Caleb’s bed yesterday.

As I step back inside the house, the soft murmuring of voices pulls me towards the kitchen where I find Fox and Dani bent over the counter, facing each other with serious, somber expressions. Dani’s short, black hair falls over her face, casting deep shadows of doubt across her perfect, pale skin. That plastic surgeon did a
bang-up
job
fixing up the Gash Seen Around the World. You can’t even see it unless you’re really looking for it, unlike Fox’s identical scar on his freshly-shaven face. I guess Dani made him drop the beard but he looks far more handsome without it, if you ask me.

I drop the sack to the floor near the garbage can and Fox looks down to catch what’s inside.

He sighs. “Seriously?”

“Dude—” I shake my head and slide onto the stool by the counter. “Trust me.” He and Dani share a nervous glance, she looking far more fearful than Fox. “Guys, I have this completely under control.” I open my laptop. “The system I’m custom-building here is going to be amazing. I did the same thing to my own place in Boston.”

“You owned a 4.3 million dollar house in Boston?” Dani asks.

“No, an apartment near—” I blink. “Is that how much this place costs? Good for you.”

She sighs loudly and stares across the counter at Fox.

“Let’s just…” He waves a hand to try and calm her down. “Let’s give him the benefit of the doubt before we make any calls.”

“Calls?” I ask. “What calls?”

He scratches nervously at the scar on his cheek. “We’re a little concerned…”

“About what?”

“About the assassins that know where we sleep, Boxcar.”

“Pfft! Don’t be. They only know where
you
sleep. I made sure that they wouldn’t know Dani lives here. And besides, those two are going to be
very
busy for a while. I have a bounty hunter tracking them down as we speak.”

“There’s also a
bounty hunter
who knows where I live,” Fox argues. “On all counts, we should probably move.”

“Okay—” I close my laptop to give them my undivided attention. “No one is moving anywhere. Look—” I gesture behind me at the kitchen table where I’ve stacked boxes upon boxes of new tech I bought on my little shopping spree this morning. “I’ve got new,
non-shitty
cameras to install in every room of this glorious mansion and in every corner of that perfect, green lawn of yours. Noise sensors, pressure sensitivity plates, booby-traps —
the works
.”

Fox smirks. “And on what sleazy politician’s dime?”

I pause. “I’m going to plead the fifth on that one — but it doesn’t matter. Just consider it a generous donation or… hush money, if you will.”

Dani’s little eyes grow wider with concern. “I’ll call the real estate agent,” she says at Fox.

“No one’s calling the real estate agent!” I chuckle. “Trust me, guys. When I’m done here, this place will be an impenetrable fortress.”

The front door opens and a voice echoes in from the front hall. “Hello?”

Fox glares at me as it closes and shoes tap down the hall towards us.

“I said,
when I’m done
,” I repeat. Caleb steps into the kitchen and I point at the doorway. “It’s just Caleb. She’s mostly harmless.”

She gestures over her shoulder. “Did you guys know your front gate is wide open?”

I flinch. “Okay, that was my bad. Sorry.”

“I’ll go close it,” Fox says, his voice dry as sand. “Then maybe I’ll get started patching up the
bullet holes
riddled throughout my living room.”

“Hey — I took a bullet in your house and I didn’t sue you,” I joke. “You should be thankful.”

“It was a
graze
.”

“Pfft, like anyone here has had
worse,
” I challenge. Fox gestures at Dani with his eyes and I swallow hard. “Oh, right. Sorry.”

To her credit, Dani smiles. “It’s okay.”

As Fox passes Caleb, he flashes a quick smile at her and the two of them exchange a kiss on the cheek. “Hey, Caleb.”

“Hey, Fox,” she says. She cranes her neck and calls over her shoulder. “Did you bring me back something Japanese?”

“I might have.”

“Hey, Caleb,” Dani greets.

“Hey, Dani.” Caleb pauses near me and I notice the brown envelope in her hand as she lays it on the counter near my laptop. “
Mostly
harmless?” she asks me.

“I stand by my phrasing,” I defend.

Dani clears her little throat and twists away with a smile. “I’m going to go help him,” she says, her eyes jolting between us with a knowing glimmer.

“Bye, Dani,” I say. She takes off and I wait until her echoing feet disappear out the front door. “Okay —
she
is fucking adorable.”

“I know, right?” Caleb says.

“I didn’t even know the human race was capable of imbuing that much cuteness into one living being.”

She chuckles. “I think she’s already taken, Box.”

“Story of my life.” I shake my head. “Eh, that’s not really my type, anyway.”

“I’m not sure how to take that.”

“Let me know when you figure it out.” My eyes fall down her body. “You feeling okay?”

“Not too bad,” she says. “No side effects to speak of other than a massive headache but a few tequila shots on the way over here did wonders for that.”

“Good,” I chuckle.

Her eyes graze my shoulder. “You?”

I point at it, acting cool. “What?
This?
It was nothing—” She reaches out and flicks my shoulder with her finger, shooting a sharp pain across my back. I hold back my wince. “Okay — that was just mean.”

She chuckles. “Sorry.”

“It’s all right.” I look into her green eyes and the pain disappears. “How did you know I was here?”

“Where else would you be?”

“Decent point.”

She puts her fingers on the envelope and slides it a little closer to me to change the subject. “So, you kept these.”

“I did.”

“Why?”

“Hardcore masochism.”

Her lips twitch. “Box.”

“It…” I give a half shrug. “It never really occurred to me to destroy them.”

She stares at me and I see her running the words through every bullshit detector she has. “Is that true?”

“It’s half-true,” I say. “I don’t know. I guess it was the only thing I had that reminded me of our marriage — as brief and tumultuous as it was. We didn’t exactly exchange rings.”

Caleb stares back at me in silent pause and for the first time, I can’t figure out what direction the wheels are turning in her head. “Boxcar…” She wets her lips, hesitating on her words. “I—”

“Wait—”
I hold up a hand and rise off the stool. “Before you do that thing I know you’re about to do, I need to say something first.” She goes quiet and I shift a little closer to her. “I’ve spent the last two years running from you because I didn’t want to lose you — and
yes
, I know that makes absolutely no logical sense, but that’s the truth. That wasn’t fair to you and what you wanted and I’m sorry.” I push the envelope over to her. “No more wargames, Caleb Fawn. I love you. I always have — ever since the moment I saw you and it didn’t have anything to do with the wild hallucinations brought on by extreme dehydration and heat exposure.” She chuckles softly and my heart swells. “You’re it for me… but I get it if that doesn’t go both ways and I’m prepared to let you go if that’s what you want.”

Her eyes fall to the envelope for a brief moment. “Is that all?” she asks, red flooding her cheeks.

“Yeah,” I smile and shift a half step back. “Go ahead then. Lay it on me.”

She pauses as her lips curl. “Well… before that sudden interruption, I was going to say…” She swipes the envelope off the counter, sliding it fast out from under my fingers. “I love you.”

Fire shoots down my spine. The L-word. Caleb Fawn just said the actual L-word and she said it to me.
“But…?”

She smiles wider. “I love you, Boxcar, and it has nothing to do with how badass you looked holding my revolver, though I’d be lying if I said it didn’t turn me on a little bit.”

I laugh. “Okay…” I take an unsteady breath. “So, what does that mean?”

“It means that you went really above and beyond for me. You could easily have ignored that call they made and ditched me but you didn’t. The man that does that deserves a heck of a lot more than a second chance.”

“You might be right.”