Read Online Operation Reunion by Justine Davis - Free Book Online Page A

obvious. “Yes.”
    “They weren’t this morning.”
    “I knew you’d be gone this morning so I came over and got them. I didn’t want to fight.”
    The same sort of creeping chill that had overtaken her when she’d realized he was serious this time began to envelop her again. He really had left her. He’d packed up all of the things that had gradually made their way over here—toothbrush, clothes, books, razor, the laptop he kept here in case something came up that was too much to handle on his tablet, all of it was gone. The reality pounded at her in a way it hadn’t when his familiar things were still there, and she realized she hadn’t really accepted it, investing hope in those inanimate objects, hope that he didn’t really mean it.
    Now she knew he had. And was thankful he hadn’t done it before.
    “Then why,” she said when she thought she could speak without her voice wobbling, “did you show up at the post office?”
    He didn’t dodge that either. But then, this was Dane, who was utterly honest, forthright and occasionally blunt. As he was now.
    “This,” he said, reaching into the watch pocket of his jeans and pulling out the square gold key that had been on his key ring since the day she’d given it to him five years ago.
    A shiver went through her. “Dane—”
    He waved a hand. “Let’s not. We’re going to deal with this, give it our best shot, and then...then we’ll see where we are.”
    Slowly, reluctantly, she nodded. She wanted to know now, wanted to hear him say he was back, that things would be fine, that they would pick up their old, familiar life.
    He didn’t say any of it.
    He’s an honest one. Doesn’t just tell you want you want to hear. I admire that.
    Again her father’s voice echoed in her head, as clearly as if he were standing beside her.
    And she wondered if she’d really gotten Dane back at all.
    * * *
    Dane watched as she turned the pages of the old scrapbook she’d dug out of a box in the back closet. It seemed a good idea, to help stir any memories that might help.
    He’d seen it before, had gone through it himself, because he wanted to know everything about her and loved seeing the early pictures of a wide-eyed, dark-haired pixie who had seemingly faced the world with an endless wonder.
    There were several of her and her brother together, with Kayla generally staring up at him adoringly while Chad looked annoyed and sullen. They were eighteen months apart, Dane knew, and he’d often wondered if things would have been different, if Chad would have acted differently toward her, if it had been more.
    She turned another page and there was the photograph he’d been waiting to see. Kayla, now a brand-new junior, off to her first school dance. A worldly high school graduate himself now, about to leave for college, he’d come by to return a borrowed book that evening and found her father chuckling over the fact that she and her mother had been holed up all afternoon, preparing.
    But when Kayla, barely sixteen, had come down the stairs, Dane wasn’t chuckling at all. His odd, shy, bookish, tree-sitting buddy was nowhere in sight. Instead he saw a young, slender woman with graceful curves highlighted by the fitted, strapless, shimmery dress she wore. Her hair was smoothed into a sleek sweep, her eyes seemed huge and luminous, her mouth touched with a color that made him wonder what it would be like to kiss it off.
    And that had taken his breath away.
    She’d come to a halt at the bottom of the stairs and given him an impish smile.
    “Did it work?” she asked.
    “I— What?”
    He knew he sounded like he felt—gobsmacked.
    “I promised you I was going to play the game, do all the girly stuff, just to show them I could if I wanted to.”
    “Kayla.” It was all he could get out, even though she was suddenly looking anxious.
    “It’s like we talked about,” she said, the anxiety echoing in her voice. “Show them I can, then when I don’t, they know it’s