Capturing Kate (12 page)

He stirred. “Vital. I like that.”

“My job makes me feel that way, too, you know?” She rolled onto her side to look at him in the dark. Now that her eyes were acclimated, she could see his shape, and his eyes, shining in the moonlight that trickled in through the curtain gap and filled the room with silver dust.

“Yeah?” Their faces were close, and she could see his neck move as he swallowed.

“Uh huh. Well, the water plant thing was different—that’s the biggest, most challenging thing I’ve done. My usual stories are more local and positive. You know, taking the important news and getting it to people—writing about it in a way that makes them want to read and learn—I think it’s like I’m helping glue people together. Keep them from being isolated.”

“My job is opposite. Lots of isolation.” His expression grew guarded.

“What do you mean?” She wanted to touch him.

“I work in secret frequently. Like now—I don’t go deep undercover; that’s for other team members. But I stay isolated and help guide the team from a safe location. I have to lay low and keep a quiet profile so I don’t attract attention. The adrenaline rush when we finish a case is incredible. And then, even though I know it’s going to be a long, difficult road, I do it again.”

“If it’s lonely, is it worth it?”

He moved a shoulder. “It’s what I know, Kate.”

“That must make it hard on—a relationship,” she ventured.

“Yeah. My relationships don’t work out well,” he said, his voice low. “At first everything is great. But my job takes its toll. I can’t talk about the details, and at first my partners usually think that’s cool and exciting. A boyfriend with a top secret clearance job. But it gets old. I disappear for weeks at a time on business. I can’t tell her where I’m am. Sometimes I won’t call for an extended time frame. No social media. You will never find me on Facebook or Instagram.”

“But surely with the right person, those things could work?”

“Probably. But when my work takes me—for example, places like this,” he gestured around the dark room, “for weeks at a time, it’s not easy to find someone. Or to stay connected to someone.”

“What if you did cut back?”

“I can’t.” His voice was firm. “It’s part of me by now. And nobody’s been worth it.”

Her voice felt cooler. “Maybe you need to give someone the proper chance.”

“Kate, it’s difficult. What if I made big changes for some woman, and then we didn’t end up working out? You don’t leave a job like this and come back to it. And what if I resented her for it and took that out on her? The relationship would fail, and I’d be stuck.”

“Well, if you think of your relationships as getting stuck, that’s not helping,” Kate argued. “A good relationship moves both of you forward in your lives toward your goals.”

“So that’s why it’s easier for me to stay single, stick with short-term relationships where we both know there’s no pressure,” he insisted.

“So, but…” She wasn’t sure why, but she felt compelled to argue. “There are other ways in life to get the thrill of the chase, and the whatever, dopamine hits. What if you found a person who likes to travel to exotic places with you? Or maybe you could do extreme sports, like hang-gliding, rock climbing. You seem fit enough.” She glanced at his abs, the ripples barely visible in the dim room. “Or someone who likes your kinky sex games?”

“I find plenty of women who like my kinky games.” He sounded like he was smirking, and this made her self-conscious. He’d seen her ass. He’d spanked it! And then he’d turned her down for sex.

It hadn’t just been a punishment; she understood now that his kind of spanking always had something sexual about it, even if no sex happened right afterwards, or ever—because it was happening in her mind, then and now. His dominance, his attitude, his strength, and his control—all of that sparked her arousal. She was dying to touch herself. To be touched.

“I meant a real person. Someone you care about.” She bit her lip, wondering about the array of women who blinked into and out of his life. She imagined rows of identical beautiful Bond girl models in varying colors. A silent Barbie vending machine with long legs and globes of plastic breasts in coffee, cream, and ivory.

“I don’t know, Kate. It’s a risk. All of those things might not be enough. And then she and I would both be miserable. My work is my life. I can spend eighty, a hundred hours a week on it. It’s what I live.”

“What if you end up alone and miserable because you never stop making work the priority?” She wasn’t trying to poke at him, not totally; she was curious. “My father did that. He worked eighty hours a week for years. Missed all of my soccer games. The science fair. Family vacations. Was out of town for months at a time—even a year, once. All of my birthday parties, graduations. It was all to make our life better, he said. Turned out that he worked so hard that he worked himself right out of our lives. By the time he looked up for air, my mom had moved on and found someone new.” She touched her hair. “And I did, too, without even noticing. My stepdad was always there. He was amazing. My real dad—I barely talked to him. And when he died, it was like losing someone distant.”

“That’s why I won’t commit to someone. I won’t do that to a person. To my family.”

“But you’re doing it to yourself.” Her voice was earnest. “Sloan? Life’s more than work. Sure, I understand that this project is important, getting the nuclear material. It’s huge. And of course you have to see it through as well as you can. But there will be another huge thing, and then another. And after the adrenaline dies down, do you want to be a shell without anything else in your life? The world won’t fall apart if you ease up and enjoy your own life. It’s short.”

“How about you?” His voice was quiet. “Why aren’t you with someone?”

She tilted her head. “I haven’t found that perfect person who gets me. I make time for me and for friends. But I have passion for doing the best work I possibly can at my job, too. I guess it’s the passion I want. You know, not just in intimate situations.” She blushed, glad he couldn’t see it in the dark. “Of course it has to be there sexually. But also, in all of life. It has to be everywhere.”

She took a sip of water from the bottle on the nightstand. “That’s what I was doing with the water plant story, putting in the passion. Mancini kept saying that there was nothing wrong with the water in his plant, that he sent it out clean and that it must be contaminated from old piping in the city system. But I kept digging, and I found Ella, and she gave me the data from the plant that showed internal lead readings were high, too. I care about getting it right.”

He leaned in. “I love that passion, Kate. It drives me, too. Wanting to get things right. Make them right.”

She held her breath. His lips were so close, his eyes glittering in the moonlight, dark and full and mysterious.

“I can’t remember the last time I met someone who got that,” he said, reaching out to touch her shoulder.

“Me, too,” she murmured, riveted by his expression, fierce and tender at the same time. She leaned her head toward his. Now was the moment. Before, when he was spanking her, maybe it wasn’t right, but here, this second, after they’d disclosed their hearts, surely they could let their lips meet, too?

He looked away and turned back over. “Good night.”

She sighed. “Good night.”

Chapter Ten

A few days later, the rain finally stopped. Tree branches hung low and sodden, broken arms, nerveless and dull. The big willow was down, a shot of black scorch showing the lightning’s power. Kate imagined that if she were a child, it would be amazing fun to explore it, climb on it, use it as a fort. Seeing something so powerful downed was disorienting, like walking on the ceiling. The only way through the terror was straight through, by conquering the thing, climbing it with a flag. She almost wanted to go out there now and clamber up the rough bark.

Sloan checked the weather and road reports, then turned to her while she was combing her hair with his man comb, a short black sturdy item that was useless on her snarls. “I’m going into the town for supplies. Tell me a few things you need.”

“Take me! Please,” she begged, tossing the comb down beside her on the bed. “I’m lonely and bored. I need to see something else besides these walls.” She felt antsy, like there was a well of panic in her body threatening to overflow. She didn’t want to be alone. She wanted to banter with him, but he wasn’t in a fun mood.

She wanted to go home.

“You need to stay out of sight. You know why.”

“And you don’t, Mr. Halfway Undercover?”

“I can duck into the general store and out without attracting much attention. I’ve been in there before because of this cabin—I’ve stayed here before, and I won’t pull the interest a new stranger does. We’re running low on food.”

“Fine.” She rolled her eyes and grabbed the comb. “I need conditioner and a better hairbrush. Jeans, size six. Cute tops. Vans sneakers, the ones with the rose design. I like Colgate, not the organic junk you have here. Ugh. Waffles and syrup. Steak and broccoli. Oh, and my life back. Can you get me that while you’re out there? I mean, if it’s no extra bother.”

“Sorry, no new clothes right now. Conditioner and broccoli, that I can do. And this town’s store is too small to stock human lives. The best I could do is a few for a cat.” He smirked and looked at her, and even though she was wearing the baggy sweats, his gaze made her blush.

“I want to come.” She narrowed her eyes at him. “Please?”

“Kate, I mean it. I need you to stay here, out of trouble. If you stay in the cabin while I’m gone, nothing will happen to you. I don’t want to have to tie you up again—we’re past that, right?” He looked into her eyes.

“Yes.” She tugged a curl free to work on it individually. “I’ll stay here and work on my grooming. Life of temporary idle luxury. I’m fine.”

“Okay.” He gave her a long look, frowned, shook his head. “I have to trust you, Kate. We’re in this together.”

“I know.” She nodded. “I get that. You made that more than clear the other day.” She shifted, reddening at the thought of how he’d pulled down her pants and spanked her.

“All right.” After another long look, he packed up his backpack and headed to the door. “Be careful, Kate. Don’t walk around outside. I’ll be gone about two hours.”

She felt a sick wave of fear, remembering the terror and helplessness when the man at the park had tied her up and taken her. What if it happened again, this time by a person who really did plan to kill her? What if someone came while he was gone and took her?

* * *

He dumped the backpack in the cab of the truck and loped down the driveway to open the gate. Watching from the cabin door, Kate didn’t think twice. While he was unlatching the gate, she moved like lightning. She tugged on her sandals and jacket, pulled the cabin door closed without a sound and climbed up over the back gate into the open bed of the truck. Then she wrapped herself in the black tarp that lay bunched up.

“Please, please don’t look back here again,” she begged internally. She didn’t even know for sure why she’d done it. All she knew was that she needed something to focus on other than being alone in that cabin with her thoughts and her worries.

He didn’t look back. The truck rumbled into life and took off down the bumpy dirt road, and she congratulated herself on her success.

The truck went faster now, and bouncing on the rough road under the tarp wasn’t fun. Her sweats and shirt were wet with rain that had puddled between the ridges in the truck bed. It smelled mildew-y, reminiscent of garbage and deadness, under the tarp, and she couldn’t breathe. And all of a sudden she flashed back to the trunk of the car and—shit. She really should have stayed at the cabin. She pushed the side of the plastic to let in fresh air and gulped it, letting the jouncing of the car knock the anxiety back down, pothole by pothole.

When the truck finally stopped, she took a deep breath. She couldn’t hear much. The door slammed and footsteps receded, and she waited as long as she could manage before peeling the tarp from her body.

Blue sky greeted her, with puffy clouds. The view calmed her, and she watching the clouds drift, allowing her mind to flow, playing a game she’d last done as a child: A rabbit with a gun, pointing down. An elk with Christmas lights on his antlers, who had a grenade in his hoof. An evil clown face with one eye socket all splattered open, as if shot by a close-range—Stop. She sat up, heart racing. God. Already she needed the therapy!

They were in a small town on a main street, a town smaller than Maryville. She climbed down from the truck, trying to look comfortable and easy, as if it were an ordinary thing, a damp woman extricating herself from a tarp and fluffing her hair in the emerging sun. A couple holding hands gave her a quizzical glance, but kept walking, and an elderly man across the street in a straw hat didn’t appear to notice her at all. He was chewing something and staring off down the street at nothing obvious. She figured he was looking into the past, and stretched out her legs.

She had no idea what to do. Maybe she should find Sloan and tell him she was sorry? Or probably she should just wait in the truck. He’d be mad, sure, but he’d get over it. Also, by coming clean to him, she wouldn’t have to suffer in the bumpy back of the truck all the way back to the cabin.

This thought cheered her, and she patted her jacket pocket. She’d washed it in the sink and laid it to dry over a chair, all the while forgetting there was money in the little zipper pocket. She still had that crumpled ten-dollar bill from Lila. God, that seemed so long ago.

Her stomach rumbled, and when she saw the sign ‘Award-winning fresh peach ice cream’ in the window of McAdam’s café, she headed in. That didn’t look like a place that would recognize anyone from the news. Besides, Sloan said nobody even knew she was gone yet. She just looked like a girl passing through town, right? Because it was pretty normal to go on cross-country drives wearing men’s sweats and T’s, a sexy fitted jacket, and strappy sandals. Everyone looked dorky on a car ride.