Cut and Run 5 - Armed and Dangerous

Zane’s cheek. “I didn’t love her. And I wasn’t the one who ended it,” he admitted.
    “I’m sorry,” Zane whispered, even though deep down he really wasn’t. Ty shook his head. Zane studied him for a long moment. “How long ago was this?”
    “Right before Katrina hit,” Ty murmured, frowning as he tried to remember how many years ago that had been.
    “Five years this summer.” Zane said. He paused, swallowing hard before asking, “Do you… does it still hurt?”
    Ty laughed before he could stop himself. He clapped his hand over his mouth as if he was trying to hide the reaction, and he shook his head.
    Zane pushed up to look down at him, not sure how to interpret that reaction.
    “I’m sorry,” Ty said hastily, reaching for Zane’s arm to stop him from pulling away. “It’s just your choice of words is….” He laughed again and took Zane’s hand, pulling it to the side of his stomach, just under his ribs, to let Zane’s fingers rest against his skin. “You feel that scar there?” he asked as he placed Zane’s fingers along a faded scar Zane had noticed before.
    Zane frowned and nodded, feeling the smooth raised line of scar tissue under his fingertips. It went from the front of Ty’s hip to the back, like he’d been grazed. Then his eyes widened. “She did this?”
    “Threw a butcher’s knife at me,” Ty told him, voice tinged with an odd mixture of amusement and irritation. “Her aim was usually better, so I’m pretty sure she missed on purpose.”
    “She was pretty set on ending it, then.”
    Ty shook his head and inhaled deeply as he relaxed back into bed. “It was my fault. She didn’t know I was a Fed,” he said with true regret. “By the time I realized I might have real feelings for her, I was stuck. Couldn’t figure out how to tell her and not blow my cover. She didn’t even know my last name. I don’t know what I was thinking, I guess… I just hoped she’d still care for me after the case was over and I could come clean to her. But then, when Katrina was bearing down, they pulled everyone, UC or not, to help with evacuation and prepare for search and rescue. I went to her and told her to leave, that I’d found a transport for her and her family to get out safely. She refused until I promised I’d go with them. But I couldn’t leave. I had to tell her why just to get her on the helicopter.”
    It was an easy question to ask why she’d been upset, but it wasn’t one Zane needed an answer to. It was difficult when you lived a life undercover, and many people didn’t take kindly to such thorough lies, even for the best of reasons. Ty had given up someone he thought he could love to save her.
    “Why didn’t you go back?”
    “Well… I was sort of afraid she’d try again with a knife that was easier to throw,” Ty answered, laughing. He bit his lip, looking up at Zane with eyes that shined even in the dim light. “No. The hurricane hit. The city just got… wiped off the map, pretty much. For days we did nothing but survive . Pull people out of the water, kids and animals and old people. Me and everyone else down there cried ourselves to sleep whenever we got the chance. All I could do was make sure they were all okay, everyone I’d known, you know, undercover. But every UC in New Orleans that got blown had to be transferred after the search and rescue became body recovery and they started getting people out. They didn’t give us a chance to linger. That’s how I ended up in Baltimore. I never saw her again after that night.”
    Zane didn’t understand. If Ty had really cared for her, or even thought he might have loved her, how had he given her up so easily?
    Ty shifted and looked at Zane with a sigh. “You look… disturbed. You’re wondering why I didn’t try harder to get her back, right?” Ty nodded, as if answering his own question. “I cared about her, I did. But after a week or two I realized that she wasn’t the first thing I thought of when I woke up. And when something would happen during the day, she wasn’t the first person I thought I needed to tell it to.” He looked at Zane and smiled. “Not like you. I wasn’t in love with her. She deserved someone who was.”
    Zane considered what to say. He wasn’t going to give Ty platitudes; they’d be dismissed anyway. “I’m sorry you had to go through that. But I’m not sorry it happened. I wouldn’t have you otherwise.”
    Ty pulled him closer. “Funny how life works,