Hero in Disguise (Reed Sisters: Holding out for a Hero 1) - Page 52

Ah, well, Summer thought in resignation. As Derek had pointed out earlier, miracles did not happen in one night. Still, she thought the Andersons were well on their way to redefining their relationship, even to becoming friends.

And now she and Derek had to work out their own problems. Maybe now that she was beginning to understand him a little better, the reasons behind his seemingly compulsive advice-giving…

Watching Derek wearily massaging the back of his neck with one hand, Summer suddenly frowned as a vivid memory flashed through her mind. Derek flattening himself against the door of the apartment. His hand sliding under his jacket. She’d seen that particular gesture in enough television cop shows to know what it meant.

She thought of the scar on his shoulder. The air of command that came so naturally to him.

“What is it, Summer?” Derek asked, watching her watching him.

“What exactly did you do for the government, Derek?” she questioned him in an odd voice.

He went still. “Why do you ask that now?”

Tilting her head to search his face, she thought of another question she suddenly wanted answered. “Just how did you get that scar on your shoulder?”

He sighed but replied honestly. “I was shot. Three years ago, in Beirut.”

She swallowed. “Then you really weren’t teasing—”

“When I told you I was a spy? No.”

“My God.” She was stunned. How could she not have known?

His mouth twisted. “I was really more of a courier than a spy,” he explained. “I carried things—messages, money, papers, sometimes weapons—into usually hostile territory. Often there were those who wanted to, er, intercept what I carried or prevent it from reaching its destination. That’s how I was shot.”

“And that’s what you meant by not knowing whether you would be around to see your sister grown up,” Summer clarified.

“Yes.” He stood very still, allowing her to absorb the new information about him in her own way.

“Connie doesn’t know, does she?”

“No.”

“Your parents?”

“My father knows. We decided that Mom would worry too much if she knew the truth, though I think she’s always suspected. And Connie, well, Connie talks too much sometimes. It was better if she didn’t know the whole story.”

“And just why didn’t you tell me, Derek?” Summer asked heatedly. “Just what excuse do you have for not telling me?”

He looked surprised that she was so angry. “I didn’t think it was important.”

“Didn’t think it was important?” she repeated, her voice rising. “You made me tell you every detail of my life for the past twenty-five years, but you didn’t think it was important for me to know that the man I thought was a harmless diplomatic attaché was actually a secret agent?”

“Summer, I would have told you eventually. Soon.”

“You had plenty of opportunity. Dammit, we even joked about it. I can understand why you didn’t tell me that first night, but why not later, after we’d become … involved?”

“All right, I didn’t want to tell you,” he snapped. “I didn’t want you to fall for me because you thought I was a movie hero like the guy you described the night we met. If that’s what you were really looking for, then I’m the wrong man because all I intend to be from now on is an ordinary businessman, just as you thought I was all along.”

“In other words, you thought that I was empty-headed enough to fall head over heels in love with you just because I would have been impressed with your courage and your daring?” she asked coldly. “That I would think you were a romantic James Bond, who’d sweep me right off my feet?”

He flushed uncomfortably. “No, that’s not what I thought. Well, maybe I felt that way at first, but—dammit, Summer, I don’t know why I didn’t tell you, all right? But now you know. Does it really make any difference to you?”

She looked at him, long and hard, reading the anxiety in his eyes, the weariness in the lines around his mouth. And she loved him so much she ached. She sighed. “No.”

His expression softened. “Summer…”

She had no intention of making it too easy for him. “I’ll get my things and Connie’s,” she informed him, backing away from his outstretched arms. “I’m tired and I’m ready to get out of here tonight. That broken door makes me nervous.”

Tags: Gina Wilkins Reed Sisters: Holding out for a Hero Romance
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