Searching for Cate (14 page)

I
n the past few hours, Cate had come close to picking up the phone, calling Lydia and begging off. Each time, she'd stopped herself, recognizing that scrambling feeling inside of her for what it actually was.

Fear.

She was afraid to get close. To anyone. Even Lydia. Looking back, it felt as if everyone she had ever built a bond with had abandoned her. Not of their own free will, but the end result was the same. She was alone. Gabe had been taken from her. Her father had died, her mother had died. Even her identity had died.

It was hard putting herself out there again. Hard to risk incurring that devastating feeling that cut you off at your knees and sucked out all your air again. But she had to admit, she really did like Lydia, and the one time she'd met Lukas, she thought he was exceptionally
nice. And perfect for Lydia. They had the kind of marriage that she'd once thought she'd have, if Gabe had lived.

The bottom line was, it was too late to put on the safety features. She already felt close to Lydia. She might as well enjoy some of the perks.

The moment she'd given herself the freedom to do that, the knot in her stomach loosened and she found herself actually looking forward to getting together with Lydia and Lukas for dinner.

She supposed that in a sense Lydia and Lukas were becoming more her family than the one she'd been trying to get close to. Cate's mouth curved. Just went to show, life never neatly laid itself out the way one hoped it would.

After glancing at the map she had opened on the seat next to her, Cate made a left turn at the next corner. Lydia's address was written on a piece of paper she'd placed on her dashboard. She'd committed it to memory, but it made her feel better to have it handy. Just in case.

As an only child, she'd often fantasized about having siblings, especially a sister. And now, in actuality, she had one. Rebecca. A sister she couldn't seek out or speak to without causing problems. She wondered if she ever could speak to the girl.

Well, until then, she had Lydia. And, to be honest, so far they seemed to be getting along far better than most sisters did. It had taken her less than a day to feel comfortable around Lydia, to feel a rapport setting in. The kind of thing that sometimes took years to develop, if ever, had happened in almost a matter of hours.

She'd always been lucky when it came to partners—after her first one, of course. She and Joe Wong, her second partner, had gotten to a point where they could finish each other's sentences. He'd told her that the bureau wouldn't be the same without her when she left. She missed him a great deal.

Once she transferred down here, she was certain that she'd never be able to get that close to another partner again. She'd held her breath, anticipating another Jack Powell. Jack had been her first partner and highly resentful of having to team up with a woman, one who was thirty years his junior to boot. After nine months of picking away at everything she did, he'd retired, to her everlasting relief. She wasn't sure how much longer she could have held on.

It was only human nature to expect a repetition of the bad rather than the good when she transferred to the Santa Ana field office.

Cate laughed softly to herself. The interior of the car echoed with the sound. It was nice to be wrong and still have things turn out so right.

Evening had long since crept in and swallowed up the landscape, leaving it in darkness as Cate pulled up in the driveway. She parked beside a car she didn't recognize.

Lydia drove the Crown Victoria they used during the day. When she and her husband had come over that first weekend to help her move in, Lukas had been driving an old Mustang he'd lovingly restored. The car to her right was a two-seater.

Getting out, she gave the small vehicle the once-over. It was an original, she decided, a car created out
of the odds and ends of other vehicles. Lukas was handier than she thought. Low to the ground and not very comfortable-looking, the sporty-looking car was probably built for speed. She wondered if he raced it.

Cate reached inside her car and got her purse, then, closing her door, she aimed her remote key chain at it. The car gave a little squawk, telling her it was secured.

She'd stopped by the hospital on her way over here in the hopes that she'd have something positive to tell Lydia about their witness. She knew she could have called instead, but there'd been that secret hope that if she showed up in person, something good might happen.

The power of Me.

She smiled to herself. It was something Big Ted had taught her. The secret of getting ahead. Positive thinking. Firmly believing that you made a difference, that given enough effort, you could do anything you wanted to. In essence, that things happened just because you willed them to.

When she'd looked up at the big man, wide-eyed, completely enthralled at the ripe old age of five, and said, “Me?” he'd laughed and told her that was a good name for it. From that day forward, he referred to his theory as “The power of Me.”

In a way, Cate supposed that she still subscribed to the philosophy. If she didn't, she wouldn't be butting her head so hard against the wall with Joan.

No, I'm not going to think about that tonight. No negative thoughts. I'm just here to have fun with two very nice people I really like.

Cate rang the doorbell. The door opened before the
chimes had a chance to complete their melody. She dropped her hand to her side as she grinned at Lukas. He was wearing jeans and a pullover, and she was grateful she hadn't decided to put on anything remotely formal. Casual made her comfortable.

Walking in, she handed him the pink box embossed with the logo of one of the pricier bakeries in the area. Things moved inside the box as he took it from her.

“I couldn't decide what to get, so I got a little of everything,” she explained. “Sorry I'm late.”

Habit had him looking at the clock over the mantel. “Not late, right on time. Here, let me take your coat and purse.”

Once she shrugged out of her coat, she surrendered both to him. “I didn't realize that among all your other accomplishments, you're a juggler, too.”

He looked at her, puzzled. “What other accomplishments?”

“Building cars.” She followed him into the living room. “That's a real beauty you have out in the driveway. What kind is it?”

“That's not mine.” Lukas hung her coat and purse inside the hall closet and closed the door.

“Then whose—?”

“It's mine. I built it out of whatever I could find in the junkyard while I was going to medical school. It took almost a year.”

She turned toward the source of the voice, although she didn't have to. The moment she'd heard the first word, she recognized it.

Lukas continued holding on to the box she'd brought, studying the two that Lydia seemed so sure
were meant for each other. Had to be a female thing, he decided. They didn't particularly look like a matched set to him. Or happy to see each other, for that matter.

“You know my brother, Christian?”

“Yes, I do.” The words stuck like cotton in her mouth.

From the look on his face, she could see that Lukas's brother was just as surprised to see her here as she was to see him.

Christian nodded, his eyes on her. Giving nothing away. “We've met.”

Okay, this might get sticky. “Lydia,” Lukas called over his shoulder, “I think it's time to stop babying the sauce and come out here.”

“I'm not babying the sauce,” Lydia informed him as she walked in from the kitchen. “It's ready. And so is everything else.”

As if the statement needed a little fanfare, she pulled off the apron that still hung loosely to her waist, thanks to Lukas's toying with the strings.

“Hi, you made it.” The comment was addressed to both of them. Her voice was warm and cheerful and Cate thought it sounded just a tad hopeful. Why?

“Cate brought dessert,” Lukas told her, indicating the box.

“Something decadent, I hope,” Lydia heard herself saying. Where the hell had that come from? She didn't even care for dessert. Was she nervous? But why? This was just Cate and her brother-in-law, no reason to have this strange unease vibrating through her. Where had all this uncertainty come from suddenly?

Another new sensation she was completely unfamiliar with and didn't remotely welcome. She knew it was all due to her condition, which in a way was a relief because prior to confirming her pregnancy, she'd begun to think she was losing her mind.

She wasn't all that happy about things as they stood, though. Whoever had drawn up the original blueprint for pregnant women had done a poor job of it. From one minute to the next, she never knew what to expect from herself. It felt as if all her emotions had gone completely haywire inside of her, threatening to short circuit.

Like now.

She dug deep for the old Lydia, the one who could plow through anything and still remain unruffled. It was getting harder and harder to drag her to the surface at times like this.

Lydia took the box from her husband and brought it to the kitchen. She put it in the refrigerator after moving a few things around to accommodate it. That done, she turned to the next order of business.

“So, what would everyone like to drink?” she asked cheerfully when she reentered the living room.

“Christian brought sparkling cider,” Lukas told her, producing the bottle. He shook his head incredulously as he regarded the offering.

It was obviously not something Christian usually brought, Cate thought. She caught the sharp look that went between Lydia and Christian. On his way into the kitchen for glasses, Lukas missed it.

Again Cate wondered if there was something going on between the two that she was missing.

“This thing need a corkscrew?” Lukas called back to Christian. They could hear him opening a drawer and rifling through it.

“I don't know,” Christian answered.

He was staring at her, she realized. What was going through his head? Did he resent being set up this way? Did she? She would have thought her immediate response would have been yes, but she honestly didn't know. Evening was the wrong time for her to think about this. The night made her feel far too vulnerable.

“I never bought a bottle of that before,” Christian added.

“What made you buy it now?” Lukas asked.

“Impulse,” his brother answered as he walked into the kitchen to join him.

Lukas turned from the counter, an exaggerated expression on his face. “You? Impulse? That'll be the day.” He looked beyond his brother at Cate, who still remained in the living room, the last holdout. “Christian maps out everything.”

Unfazed, Christian seemed to take the observation in stride.

“It's good to have a game plan.” He glanced at Cate as he said it. “That way, there are no surprises.”

Her father used to tease her that they should have named her Mary, as in the nursery rhyme once said to be secretly about Mary, Queen of Scots and that began “Mary, Mary, quite contrary.” Cate always seemed to relish taking on an opposing point, just for argument's sake, even if she didn't believe in it.

She did it now. “Don't you like surprises?” she asked.

In his experience, the only surprises he'd had tended to knock the air right out of him. “Some are better than others, I guess. But in general, no, I don't like surprises. I don't like not being prepared.”

The optimist that still existed in her liked to believe that surprises were usually positive occurrences. “Sometimes spontaneity is a good thing.”

“I'm sure my wife thinks so,” Lukas interrupted, thinking how quickly Lydia had thrown this evening together. Although he loved his brother, after the week he'd put in he would have been happier wearing his oldest clothes, stretched out in front of the TV, one arm around Lydia, one hand within easy reach of a bowl of chips.

Unwrapping the gold foil, he found that there was no unadorned cork underneath, only a plastic top with a cork attached. He removed it easily enough, no struggling or deletable words necessary. Lukas poured a little of the bubbling liquid into each of the four glasses.

After setting the bottle on the table, he handed out the glasses, then took his own. He looked from one face to another. Was it just him, or did everyone around him seem tense?

He could understand why Cate and his brother were tense. Any way you sugarcoated it, they were in the middle of a not-so-blind blind date. But as for the orchestrator of this possible disaster-in-the-making, he simply wasn't buying Lydia's earlier answer to him. At least not completely.

Although he firmly believed that everyone needed their space, he intended to find out just what it was that had his wife behaving so strangely. Maybe it was just
the stress of the job getting to her. If that was the case, he had just the medicine to prescribe. A nice long cruise, with him in attendance. That would melt the tension right out of her. Unless the ship's name was the
Titanic.

His fingers curved around the fluted glass. “All right, what do we drink to?” He paused, waiting, looking from one face to another.

“New life?” Lukas suggested tentatively.

Cate was positive she saw Lydia turn a shade paler. What the
hell
was going on?

“You mean new friends, don't you?” Lydia corrected lightly. As Cate watched, color returned to Lydia's face.
The power of Me,
she couldn't help thinking. To Cate's surprise, Lydia turned her face and her glass toward her, then raised the latter.

“To my new partner and what looks to be the beginning of a beautiful friendship.”

Nice recovery, Cate thought, silently congratulating Lydia.

The admiration didn't stop her from continuing to wonder what, if anything, was going on between Christian and Lydia. Whatever it was, Lukas was oblivious.