Fight Like You've Never Lost (Summer Lake #14) - S.J. McCoy Page 0,43
home to Texas once the exams are over?”
Leanne chewed on the end of her pen as she looked at Dan. They were sitting in the library, supposedly studying, but she couldn’t focus. Her mind kept drifting to Ryan. He’d been gone for ten days, and he wasn’t due back until Friday night. She should be grateful. She had a lot of studying to do. But she missed him.
“No. I’m staying here for the break this time. What are you doing?” Dan asked.
She made a face. That was the question she kept asking herself. She didn’t know.
Dan raised an eyebrow. “What’s Ryan going to do?”
She blew out a sigh. “I don’t know.”
“Haven’t you guys talked about it?”
She shrugged. Ryan had tried to. But she’d kept putting him off. She knew that he was only supposed to be here for the semester. When they’d started seeing each other—when they’d finally agreed after a couple of weeks of spending all their time together, that they were seeing each other and planned to keep doing so—he’d told her that he had to leave when the semester was over. She’d told him she was fine with that. It was for the best that they had a predetermined end point. It had made it easier for her to relax and enjoy spending time with him, without having to wonder where it might go. She’d thought that knowing it wasn’t going anywhere—that it couldn’t go anywhere—was for the best.
Dan poked her arm. “Where’d you go?”
She brought herself back to the present and smiled. “Nowhere. Exactly like we said.”
Dan gave her a puzzled look.
“Ryan and me. We said from the beginning that we were only going to be together for now—that we weren’t going anywhere.”
Dan laughed. “That was a long time ago. It’s obvious that the two of you are going somewhere. You’re great together.” His smile faded. “Or has he said that it’s over?”
“No. He hasn’t said anything … because I won’t let him.”
“Why?”
“Because I don’t want to face the fact that it’s over, but there’s nowhere for us to go. He has to leave. I have another year to do here. He has his weird job to go do somewhere. Lord knows where.”
“So, you guys aren’t even going to try?”
She shrugged again.
“You don’t want to?”
She blew out a sigh and met Dan’s gaze. “I’d never lie to you, Danno. Of course, I want to. But what we want and what we get are rarely the same thing.”
“You know I’m no expert on relationships, but I would have thought …”
Leanne smiled at him. “You don’t get a say. The closest you’ve come to a relationship is getting railroaded by Olivia.”
She felt bad when she saw a tinge of pink on his cheeks.
“You know I’m only messing with you. If you like her, you like her. Just watch yourself, okay? I don’t trust her.”
“She’s nice enough. Anyway, you’re deflecting. We were talking about you and Ryan.”
“We were. But what we should be doing is studying.”
Dan chuckled. “I was, until you interrupted.”
~ ~ ~
Ryan knocked on Callahan’s door on his way in but didn’t wait for permission to enter.
“How’d it go?” Callahan sat back and folded his hands behind his head.
“It went. I’ve done all I can now. I’ve given Manny everything I collected on Tailor. And he’s got his people pulling together everything they collected in Sacramento.” He shook his head, still finding it hard to believe that a college professor was part of an international money laundering ring.
“What’s up?” Callahan asked.
“Nothing.”
Callahan smiled. “You did a good job. That’s all you need to know.”
“Thanks. I guess I just thought that fighting bad guys would involve criminals and warlords, not college professors.”
Callahan laughed. “You’re telling me you don’t think Tailor’s a criminal?”
“No! He’s an evil bastard and he deserves everything he gets.” He frowned. “Do you think he’ll manage to cut himself some kind of deal?”
“Our job is to bring them in. We don’t get to decide what happens to them.”
Ryan pursed his lips.
“And the look on your face explains why.” Callahan gave him a grim smile. “Don’t get me wrong. I’m with you. If we had our way, justice for guys like him would be swifter and more deadly. But we live in a civilized society. We hand them over to the legal system and our job is done.”
“Yeah. I suppose.”
“Lawyers are a different breed from us.” Callahan raised an eyebrow. “And speaking of lawyers, or at least law students …”