Page 12 of Finding Forever

“Want to elaborate?”

She gives me a look, and I find myself holding my breath. It feels like she’s weighing whether she can trust me with something personal, and I want that trust.

“All right, here’s the abbreviated version. I thought I had it all. A degree in marketing, a good paying job, marriage to a cute financial advisor. But after two years of marriage, I divorced my husband and quit my job.”

She sets her bowl down. Her eyes look sad. “It turns out financially advising a yoga teacher includes home visits, my home by the way, to go over her portfolio in all sorts of flexible positions. That’s where I witnessed her enthusiastically receiving her dividends in the form of loud and high-pitched orgasms.”

Her voice stays steady, but her eyes don’t.

Rage flares hot and immediate. “You’re fucking kidding me.”

“I wish I was. Or, at least at the time, I wished it wasn’t true. Now I’m glad I didn’t waste any more of my life on him.”

“You walked in on the cheating bastard?”

She nods. “I’d come home from work early with a migraine. I walked in on her screaming like a banshee, not good even without the migraine, while Ted did her from behind. On my bed with the pretty quilt, which I later burned.”

Kit is beautiful and possesses a kindness and generosity of spirit that seems to glow from inside. How could a man who’d taken a vow to love and cherish her have been so utterly careless with her heart?

She stands. “More soup?”

“No.” Exhaustion is pressing down hard. “But when this is over… I’d like to take you out.”

“That’s not necessary.” She reaches for the tray.

“I don’t mean because I owe you.” I force myself to stay awake. “I mean because I want to. Like on a date.”

She studies me long enough that I brace for disappointment.

“Okay,” she says finally. “I’d like that.”

I nod, closing my eyes and listening to her moving around the kitchen. I don’t know how she cleans up in the dark. I hear the distant sound of my clothes tumbling in a dryer. There’s an odd feeling in my chest, an easing of the dissatisfaction with my life that’s been plaguing me. I don’t want to call it loneliness, but whatever it is, Katarina O’Shea lessens it.

***

When I wake, low light flickers in the room. An old kerosene lamp is lit on the dresser, its wick turned low. Kit is lying beside me on top of the quilt, a small blanket pulled up over her. She’s on her side, facing me, ethereally beautiful in the shadows. I want to touch her, to trace my fingers across her brow, along her cheekbones, down the slope of her nose.

You’d think being shot and in pain my mind wouldn’t turn to sex, but it does. Earlier, when she’d been kneeling to help me put on the sweatpants, I’d been slammed with the fantasy of Kit on her knees doing something entirely different. That had resulted in me snapping at her not to turn on the flashlight. She didn’t need to see the evidence of those thoughts tenting my underwear.

In what feels like forever, but it’s been only hours, I’m in deep with her on so many levels and I’m sinking fast. It scares the shit out of me, but strangely, I’m okay with that.

I ease out of bed, careful not to wake her. My shoulder throbs in time with the ache in my head. I pick up my phone from the nightstand. No notifications, not that I expect any. It’s just after midnight and my battery is low. I spot two tablets and a water bottle. I swallow the pills, then move to the bathroom and flip a switch. No light confirms the power is out.

My dry clothes are on a chair. The floor is freezing but pulling on socks one-handed sounds near impossible. With my gun and the flashlight, and Penny following me, I make another tour of the downstairs windows, looking out, searching for any evidence of Briggs. There’s nothing. The fucker could be frozen to death out there. I can’t find it in me to care.

When I come back, she stirs.

“Luke.”

That soft smile makes me want to kiss her. Bad. I dip my head and brush my lips over hers. I pull back before I act on the impulse to go further.

She pushes up to her elbow. “Why are you out of bed?”

“I checked outside again. No sign of Briggs.” I finger her blanket. “It’s cold. You should have gotten under the covers.”

She blinks. “I didn’t want you to think I was hitting on you.”

I bark out a laugh. “In my dreams, Katarina.” Her gaze flies to mine and I give in to temptation and touch a finger along her cheek. “There’s something about you. But besides not being in any shape to do anything about it, I’ll always keep you safe. Even from me.”