Trial by Fire (28 page)

“I’m not crazy.” He punctuated each word as though ripped from his throat with barbed wire. His face paled and his eyes darkened with raw emotion.

Pure, unmitigated fear.

“Of course not! I’d never believe that, and you know it. You’ve got to work through this, and if you can’t trust me, you should give counseling a try.”

“I’m not afraid, and I’m not having some stranger messing around in my head,” he hissed, pushing to his feet. “And for the record, I
do
trust you.”

Rising, she studied his growing fury with sinking dread. “No, you don’t,” she said quietly. “Otherwise, you’d share the important stuff with me.”

“What in blazing hell are you talking about?” he demanded, sweeping an arm to indicate the entire house. “I’ve shared my home, my bed, my whole life with you. Everything! What do you want from me?”

Your heart.

“I only want you to let me in,” she whispered instead. “Let me help you, like real partners do for each other.”

“What, you want me to open a vein so you can watch me bleed?” He gave a nasty laugh. “Not gonna happen.”

His words were a slap in the face. Stung, she struggled to speak past the burn in her throat. “How can you say that? This isn’t about me, it’s about
us.
” Getting angry herself, she threw her hands up. “This is pointless. Apparently, you don’t
enjoy
having me around enough to take our relationship past the superficial stage of playing bedroom bingo.”

Jerking backward, he bumped the bathroom counter, anger morphing to shock. Hurt. “Superficial? You think making love to you means nothing to me?”

“I’m beginning to think so,” she retorted. God help her, the lie had erupted before she could stop it. He wasn’t the only one hurt.

“Just remember those were
your
words, not mine.” The spark in his beautiful chocolate brown eyes died. Snuffed, like the flame of a candle. His expression went Arctic, chilling her to the bone. “I guess I was right not to spill my guts so you could stomp all over them.”

Ohh, she’d played right into his hand. He’d orchestrated this scenario, maybe subconsciously, but still. He was running scared for some reason, and he didn’t want to accept the unconditional love she’d willingly give. Not now, not ever.

“Seems we’re at an impasse, Lieutenant.” Turning, she strode into his bedroom, grabbed her overnight bag, and began to stuff discarded clothes inside with her toiletries. “I’ll call my sister to come get me.”

“No,” he said from behind her. “I’ll drive you home.”

A heated protest formed, but she decided against refusing. Howard could have her home in ten minutes, versus the hour it would take Grace to drop whatever she was doing on her one day off and drive here from her condo in Nashville. While she and Howard sat in horrid silence, trying not to look at one another.

A no-brainer. “Fine.”

Fifteen agonizing minutes later, Kat tossed her bag onto her sofa and listened to Howard’s truck drive away.

He wasn’t coming back. In spite of Grace’s advice, she’d pushed too hard, asked for what he wasn’t ready to give and perhaps never would be.

And she’d lost him.

She tried to stop the storm. Didn’t want to feel as though her broken heart had been scooped from the ragged hole in her chest. But the deep, hitching breaths became sobs as overwhelming loss flattened her.

Kat sank to the sofa, buried her face in her hands, and wept.

God help him, he’d longed to tell Kat. To hold on to her as he recounted the night he fled his mother’s garden in terror, and was almost murdered by his own father. How he’d cried for months afterward, inconsolable in his grief at being abandoned by the one person in the whole world he loved and trusted.

Or at least that’s the way his nightmares recalled the events as they became more defined. More than thirty years later, it was hard to know what was real and what might be the fevered embellishments of a little boy’s tormented mind.

And there was something else, a truth Kat might’ve hit upon had she pushed a tad harder.

Deep down, something in his psyche was stopping him from fitting all the pieces of that horrendous night into place. His own brain was at war with what his subconscious knew and what he’d keep hidden at all costs. A secret that would tear him in two. Finish him once and for all.

If he allowed the veil to lift and let the evil inside, he’d be destroyed.

Instead, he’d given in to fear and shoved Kat and her gentle understanding away.

And lost her forever.

The crushing pain in his chest, the absence of her sweet curves spooned into his body and her white-blond hair tickling his nose, wouldn’t allow him to find oblivion. Tossing, he rolled to peer at the digital clock, disappointed to discover it was only one thirty in the morning. Wednesday, the third morning following their breakup.

Another endless day of regrets and the ache that would never cease. Even the station, which had always been a haven, had become a prison where the guys watched him like hawks. All day yesterday, they’d tiptoed around him like he’d contracted a fatal disease. After Jules had ragged him about not getting any and he’d ripped the man’s head off, of course.

With Kat gone, what did he have to look forward to? Coming home after shift change to an empty house, colder and lonelier than ever before because he’d let the best thing in his life slip through his fingers.

Somehow, he had to bear the loss. Kat deserved better than being mired in his hellish situation, much better than his whacked idea of a relationship.
She deserves better than me.

Didn’t she?

Giving up all hope of sleep, he sat on the side of the bed and considered his options. Working out usually helped, but the walls were closing in. Kat’s scent lingered in his sheets, her laughter haunted the air. If he didn’t get out, he’d suffocate.

Decision made, he pulled on a pair of loose workout shorts, a T-shirt, and tennis shoes. He stuffed a change of clothes in his gym bag, grabbed his wallet and keys from the dresser, and was out the door in less than two minutes, heading for Hardbodies by Simon in downtown Sugarland, on the main square. Open twenty-four hours, and bound to be practically deserted this time of night. Perfect.

Half an hour later, he was well into his routine, praying the brutal workout would clear his mind as the short drive had failed to do. Arms, thighs, chest. Every muscle God gave him, he punished with weights, then set the treadmill to a brisk jog and started his usual five miles.

The pounding of his shoes lulled him into the boring rhythm, and he wished he’d remembered his MP3 player and headphones. Classic rock always made the clock tick faster.

Across the room, a burly police officer he’d seen around the gym a few times huffed and puffed on a stationary bike, the spare tire at his middle jiggling with his efforts. He’d nodded in greeting as Howard walked in, not one for small talk. Suited Howard just fine.

At the three-mile marker, the cop left, and Howard found himself alone . . . until a familiar, tall redhead sauntered into the room five minutes later.

Janine.

No big deal. Since their tryst a year ago, they’d crossed paths. Couldn’t be helped, since they shared the same gym and she sometimes stopped by after her evening shift as a dispatcher. No reason to switch to another place, or expect Janine to do the same. They were adults.

She walked over to a set of free weights and began to work on toning her arms. Though she didn’t acknowledge his presence, he knew Janine—or, more accurately, women like her—well enough to know she was aware of his gaze.

Reveling in the attention, like a feline being stroked.

Because he wasn’t dead, he allowed himself to look. Her black sports bra hugged small, pert breasts and left her flat stomach exposed. Matching Spandex shorts were painted onto slim hips and thighs, making her appear even slimmer than normal. Coppery tresses, her crowning glory, tumbled in wild disarray about her shoulders and down her back. He’d never seen her hair bound.

Her wrists bound to his bedposts, but not her hair to her head. No doubt, she was a striking woman, any man’s wet dream. These days, however, he found her stick figure less appealing than lush curves, plump breasts, and ass cheeks filling his hands to overflowing. He had a certain green-eyed angel to thank for that.

He shook himself. Kat wasn’t his, never had been. He’d driven her away, and she’d never have him back.

As though sensing his tension, Janine glanced his way and graced him with a slight smile. Sly, knowing. But she didn’t approach, praise Jesus.

Finished, he decided to call it quits. Cross his fingers and go home, hoping he’d exhausted body and mind enough to get some shut-eye. He turned off the treadmill, grabbed his hand towel from the rail and dismounted, wiping his face.

In the locker room, he stepped into the shower with a sigh, relishing the play of the steaming water over his tired muscles. He could’ve gone home to shower, but he hated cooling sweat and sticky, smelly clothing on his skin. Got plenty of that at work. He soaped his hair, his entire body, then rinsed, lingering a bit longer.

Finally, he shut off the spray and stood for a moment, the pain suddenly bashing him in waves. His past. The fires, the awful murders. Losing Kat. Going home alone.

He couldn’t do this.

“Forget where your clothes are, honey?”

16

Startled, Howard turned, thinking he should’ve expected this. On some level, maybe he had. “Janine, what are you doing in here? The guy at the front desk—”

“Is half-asleep in his chair.” She smiled, strolling into the stall. She stopped in front of him, placed a hand on his dripping chest. Skimmed a nipple, which puckered under her touch. “My, you look upset, Harry. Ready to . . . explode.”

“Howard,”
he said, gently brushing her hand aside, pretending not to get the double entendre. No use bothering to hide his nakedness from her when she’d seen and tasted all.

The roaming hand drifted downward, over his abdomen. “Ohh, what do we have here?”

Shit. He didn’t want her, but his other head didn’t know the difference. His groin stirred, the shaft thickening under skillful fingers kneading the damp flesh, cupping his balls. He stepped backward, away from temptation, bumping his head on the shower nozzle.

“No offense, but this won’t work. I’m seeing someone else.”

Another lie she saw right through. “Hmm. Which is why you’re blowing off steam at the gym in the wee hours, exercising like you’re trying to make yourself drop. Why you’re still here instead of lying in bed between Mrs. Right’s thighs, and getting harder than a rock in my hand.”

“Janine,” he began. She crowded his space, backed him against the stall. His options were to physically set her away from him—which might bruise her unintentionally—or make her see reason. He hesitated a second too long in deciding, and she went for the kill.

“Get real, honey. She’s not here and I am,” Janine purred, squeezing his sack again. Encircling his rigid shaft to stroke slowly, leaning forward to whisper to him. “I understand how it is, believe me. She ripped out your guts, didn’t she?”

After I ripped out hers
. He remained silent, but she read the answer all the same.

“Poor baby.” The expression on her beautiful face was more hungry than sympathetic. “Let Janine make it all better.”

“I don’t think so.”

Yet despair and lust were a deadly combination. He’d lost Kat, could never have her or any woman permanently. His life was just too much of a mess, and he’d been burned more than once by believing he might have forever. So what did this matter?

Howard groaned as the redhead kissed his bare throat. Allowed himself to imagine her tongue trailing down his wet chest to his stomach. Beyond.

One corner of her mouth kicked up as her eyes met his, sultry. Triumphant. Bringing him crashing back to reality.

“No.” His body shuddered its protest and he moved aside, grasping her arms to carefully remove himself from her erotic manipulations. “I’m sorry, but I can’t.”

She stood, still caressing between his trembling legs. “One part of you says yes.” She pressed her willing softness against his erection. Chipping at his defenses. “What do you have to lose that you haven’t already? ”

All too true. Kat said his lovemaking was superficial.
Her
words. Hadn’t believed in them enough to give him time.

Had hurt him desperately.

His broken heart recoiled from what he was considering even as his arousal demanded release. She was right. He’d lost the lady who truly mattered, and he hadn’t managed to halt the agony splitting his chest in two. “Not here.”

“Your place. I’ll follow you.”

He yanked on his change of clothes while she watched in feral appreciation. Shut down his mind to everything except the course he’d set for tonight. He’d take Janine home, screw her until they were both senseless, until an angel from heaven no longer haunted his dreams. His lonely life would return to normal.

He deserved no better.

Hefting his gym bag, he strode from Hardbodies, Janine on his heels, heart a dead weight in his chest.

With every step, he felt more like he was going to his funeral than to a hot night burning up the sheets.

Steeped in misery, Howard barely registered the two other cars in the parking lot. One belonged to the kid at the front desk. The other?