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17
Hell, shit, and damn. What had she done?
The shrill, alarm-like ringing blared through the otherwise silent room and paralyzed her. She stared at Sterling’s naked body beside hers. This had been a mistake. A terrible, terrible mistake brought about by a moment of weakness and insanity. How could she possibly have forgotten about the phone call she received every Saturday night? Especially taking into account the significance of tomorrow’s date. Shame flared hot. Her throat was thick. She couldn’t speak. Her body curled in on itself, withdrawing from Sterling and the brief moment of abandon she’d found with him.
“Ignore it,” he said. “Whoever it is, I doubt it’s urgent. Stay with me.”
Beyond all reason, she was tempted to do as he asked, bury her head in the sand and pretend the past hadn’t happened. But she didn’t have that luxury. She went to her phone, picked it up and did what she did every Saturday: watched the name on the screen, Amanda Hopa, until it stopped ringing and the icon popped up to say she’d missed a call. She pressed her lips together and tried not to cry.
Her mother-in-law made sure Kat didn’t forget her mistakes. She called every single Saturday to remind her. Every Saturday. Kat didn’t answer, but she remembered. Remembered the way Amanda had gone to pieces when the doctors said they hadn’t been able to save Teddy. Remembered the way Kat herself had screamed and cried and fought the nurses who’d tried to hold her still so she wouldn’t worsen her injuries. Remembered the tortured expression on the driver of the other car, as he stopped by her room with nothing more than a few stitches and tried to apologize. She’d shut her eyes and pretended he wasn’t there. The accident may have been his fault, but it wasn’t his alone. She should have seen him coming. Should have been more careful. She’d been a professional driver, damn it, and she should have saved her husband. Instead, her carelessness had killed him.
“You need to leave,” she said without looking up. Even to her own ears, her voice sounded cold.
“But—”
“Go!” she snapped. She couldn’t look at his face. Didn’t want to ruin what they’d shared, but should never have let it happen in the first place.
“Whatever it is—”
“Wecan’t work through it,” she interrupted, then rubbed her eyes, suddenly weary. “I’m sorry, Sterling. I didn’t mean for this to happen, but you need to go now. Please.”
“Fine.” He sounded angry. “But at least have the decency to look me in the eyes and tell me why you’re kicking me out. I know you enjoyed that as much as I did.”
Meeting his eyes was one of the hardest things she’d ever done. “I did,” she said quietly. “But I let myself get carried away and it was wrong. I’m sorry. I wish I could go back in time and undo it, but I can’t.”
“I wish you could, too,” he said, and the words were like daggers sticking into her most vulnerable parts. “If I’d known how you’d react, I’d have saved us both the trouble.”
And there he went, sliding the dagger deeper and twisting it around. Not that she could blame him. He’d be justified in thinking she’d used him for sex and kicked him to the curb after she got what she wanted.
Her eyes stung. Why did this have to be so hard? “Just go.”
She wanted to be alone with her shame. How could she have forgotten Teddy, even for a second? She didn’t deserve to forget, or to enjoy herself. She didn’t deserve to have something—whatever it may be—with Sterling.
He started toward the door.
“Wait,” she said. He turned around, brow raised. “I don’t want you to think this has anything to do with you.” She wrung her hands, hoping he could see she was telling the truth. “You’re great, and what we just did… I mean, wow. But I killed my husband, and I don’t deserve to have another man in my life.”
He strode back to her, took her by the shoulders, and said, “You’re the most deserving person I know.”
Then he dipped his head, brushed her lips, and left without making a fuss.
* * *
Sterling was upand about early. He ate breakfast, collected an extra croissant and a coffee, and went to Kat’s bedroom door. He took a deep breath, then knocked and mentally crossed his fingers she’d feel differently this morning than she had last night. She’d needed some time to adjust and recover, but in the light of a new day, she might see how special the emotions growing between them were. He couldn’t pinpoint exactly what they were yet, but he felt an eternal wellspring of tenderness toward her that he’d never felt for anyone else.
When she didn’t answer the door, he shuffled the coffee and croissant around so he could try the handle. Locked. Perhaps she was asleep. But she didn’t usually sleep this late. It had been a difficult night, but worry niggled at the back of his mind.
“She’s not there.” Brooke stood in the hallway behind him, wearing glasses that magnified her eyes to twice their usual size, with a laptop tucked under her arm.
“Where is she?” Suddenly he was self-conscious, aware that he was standing outside a woman’s bedroom early in the morning.
Brooke shrugged. “She headed out into the bush a while ago with a backpack. Said not to expect her back for a couple of days.”
“She… what?” Of all the things he’d expected, an impromptu camping trip at the crack of dawn hadn’t featured on the list. But all was not lost. He could join her. It would put him decidedly outside of his comfort zone, but she was worth it. “Do you know where she went?”
“No idea, sorry.”
His frustration mounted. “You’re telling me that she’s somewhere in the massive forest out there—” he waved a hand toward the hills, “—and no one has a clue where?”
