Page 32 of Deep Cover

“Sir. Shouldn’t Caryssa be going through those?” Rivers asked.

Cannon didn’t look up from his task. “No.” He kept working through them and eventually stopped on one, holding it closer to his face.

“What is it?” Rorke asked.

“The key to your mom’s bedroom,” Cannon said in a flat tone.

The room erupted. Rome choked on his coffee and Rivers burst out in a deep chuckle that made Caryssa dart a look his way before her own face broke into a smile.

“Nice, Cannon. Now you’re reverting to your teen years.” Rorke was smiling too, but it didn’t exactly reach his eyes.

Cannon squinted at the key and then his expression shifted. “This one’s ours. Storage shed.”

He pulled it off the ring and tossed it down on the table. Rome shot out a hand to gather it into his palm. He stared at it for a beat and then passed it to Rivers.

“You’re right. That’s ours,” Rome said.

Rivers took the key, but he already knew what it opened. For much of the year, weather made the road to Sierra base impassable to supply trucks. Deliveries were left in a locked shed a couple miles out, and someone from the team had to haul everything the rest of the way.

The key circled the table and landed in front of Caryssa. She looked down at the object but didn’t pick it up.

Cannon turned to her, all business. “Your order is to go to the Portland office.”

He slid an envelope that arrived with the shipment across the table to her. “Here’s the warrant. And these”—he added the keys to the pile in front of her—”are yours to discover what they open.”

Rivers scraped his chair back before he fully decided to stand. Everyone looked up at him.

“I’ll go along,” he said too fast, panic already climbing his throat.

He’d just gotten Caryssa back. The thought of her walking out that door with someone else, driving away from him and disappearing into the world made his breath stall in his lungs.

What if she didn’t come back. What if this was it—six years compressed down into one shower and a few cutting glares, and then she was gone from his life again?

Cannon’s stare fixed on him. “Take Rorke as your guard. Get him out of my sight for a few hours before I lose what’s left of my patience with him.”

Rivers sat back down slowly, his jaw tight, and made himself breathe through his irritation.

Caryssa didn’t glance his way as she gathered the envelope and keys. He watched her stand and push her chair neatly up to the table. Then she turned and walked out with Rorke a step behind her.

The only thing Rivers had ever wanted was finally within reach again, and already slipping through his hands.

And god, did he want her.

It was a simple truth buried under a mountain of complicated ones.

Wanting her didn’t change anything for him, though, because Younger was right—he couldn’t keep her. Couldn’t offer her a life that wasn’t underground tunnels and hooded car rides and a name that belonged to a dead man.

So what was the point of any of it? The shower, the stolen kisses…the way his chest tightened just watching her walk out?

He didn’t get to choose between having her and not having her. That choice had been made the day he signed the paperwork that ended his old life. All he got to choose was how much of her he let himself have while she was still within reach.

If he couldn’t have Caryssa forever, couldn’t build the house or the yard or the family, then he wanted every hour he could get.

Every look she didn’t mean to send his way—even the glaring ones—he’d store away for after she was gone. Every smile she tried to hide behind her hand. Every second she forgot she was supposed to hate him.

Fuck.

It was going to hurt so much worse when he lost her a second time.