Katie was beyond frustrated. By the time all the details had been handled it had been a very long day. She was tired, yet she couldn’t fall asleep. Even the sound of the rain, which had begun again just as she arrived home, didn’t help lull her.
She finally gave up for now, pulled on a pair of lounge pants and a long-sleeved T-shirt, and shoved her feet into her favorite shearling winter slippers. After what had happened at the library following the party she should be nothing but glad it was over, and that no one had been seriously hurt. That is, if you didn’t count a wicked gash and copious bleeding as seriously hurt, as Gavin obviously didn’t.
She kept replaying the moment when she’d realized the wetness she’d felt when he’d touched her hand was blood. Remembering the bright, unmistakable redness of it when she’d flipped on the light. Reliving her horror as it dripped from his hand to splat on the floor.
That moment should have warned her, but she’d been too swamped by the images in her head to think clearly. But now she had to admit the truth. No matter how ridiculous it was, no matter how foolish, she was getting herself in a tangle over this man.
She supposed it was only natural. How did someone who’d lived, for the most part, such a quiet, unobtrusive life, come in contact with someone like him and not get sucked into the vortex? Gavin de Marco was a force of nature, one to be reckoned with, and she obviously wasn’t immune.
On the thought, her cell phone signaled an incoming text. She’d forgotten to even get it out of her purse, and if she hadn’t already been awake and pacing, she probably wouldn’t have heard it. She frowned, wondering who’d be texting her after midnight. As she walked to the dresser, where she’d left the purse, she tried to rein in her thoughts that it had to be more bad news.
She pulled the phone out and read the text.
From Gavin.
Hope you don’t get this because you’re asleep.
She let out a sigh, then tapped the screen to bring up the keyboard. I wish.
Are you all right?
She blinked. Read it again. He was asking her? I’m not the one who got carved up with a hunting knife.
It was barely a slice.
That should have had stitches right away.
Not enough to put up with what a trip to the ER would have caused.
She stared at that one for a moment. It had not occurred to her what kind of commotion Gavin de Marco showing up in an emergency room after a knife attack would create.
Never thought of that.
No reason you should. Quinn came by. He stitched it up.
She blinked. Then she remembered Quinn Foxworth’s military background and realized he was probably quite capable. His work might lack a bit of finesse, though.
Ouch.
She got back a smile. A bit. Sorry it was messy. Try not to let it remind you.
She stared at the screen. It was true, she hadn’t seen dripping blood even on a small scale since that awful night, so she couldn’t say the memories hadn’t slammed into her mind. But practical concerns, especially in those moments before she knew he wasn’t horribly injured, had pushed them out again.
She tapped at the keyboard again.
Too late.
The moment she hit Send she wished she hadn’t. The last thing she wanted to do was whine to him, of all people. He was the one physically hurting. She was just dealing with memories. She—
Answer the door.
What? She stared at the phone. A split second later a quiet knock came on her front door.
For an instant she thought of not answering. But she could hardly pretend she wasn’t here or hadn’t heard it when she’d just been texting him.
She sucked in a deep breath and walked to the door. She spared a brief thought for her no doubt tousled appearance, then decided after tonight she didn’t care.
He, on the other hand, looked none the worse for wear. He’d changed, thankfully discarding the blood-soaked shirt. He wore a heavy, cable-knit sweater that looked too damned sexy on him. He certainly didn’t look like he’d nearly had his throat slashed mere hours ago.
Life was damned unfair sometimes.
“You’re not all right,” he said without preamble.
“I’ll be fine.” Cutter was with him, she noticed. The dog stepped forward and automatically she patted his head.
“You should be sleeping,” Gavin said.
She couldn’t hold back her wry laugh. “Not likely.”
“That’s why I’m here. To go over what happened tonight. Get you past it.”
“Again? To get past it, you want me to hash it out all over again?”
“Yes. Ignoring it doesn’t work.”
She couldn’t deny the truth of that. She’d tried too often to ignore the emotions that those memories, those awful images, brought on. She’d only succeeded in delaying them, which in turn only seemed to intensify them when they finally broke loose.
Cutter gave a soft woof. She realized belatedly she was still standing holding her front door, and they were still out on the porch. They were under cover from the rain, but it still seemed beyond rude to keep them standing out there. Especially since Gavin clearly wasn’t going to be easily persuaded that he was the one who should be resting.
With an inward sigh she stepped back and gestured them inside. If Gavin had noticed her reluctance it didn’t show, but she imagined his poker face was pretty good. It had to have been, given his reputation for startling juries with unexpected turns in cases.
“Ty’s pulling the video from the traffic cam near the library,” he said as he stepped inside, bringing with him the scent of rain and the outdoors.
“You really think it’s connected?”
“Doesn’t matter. When somebody comes after me like that, I like to know why.”
“You say that like it happens a lot.”
“Not so much anymore,” he said.
She saw him look around the living room. It wasn’t perfectly tidy. The latest Library Journal was on the coffee table next to her tablet, and the heated throw she used when curled up in her favorite chair to read was sliding onto the floor, but she didn’t care. It had taken her time to get this room just how she wanted it, and she’d been grateful for the distraction of doing so when she’d first moved in. She’d relocated to get away from the scene of tragedy, but at first the new surroundings only reminded her of why she was no longer where she’d been.
But now it was her own place, her own quiet refuge in the woods, and she loved it. She loved the blue and green tones of the outdoors brought inside, loved the textures of the furniture and the patterned rug, and the way the bright, vivid colors of the painting she’d bought at the local arts fair and hung over the couch contrasted with the cool colors of the rest.
Cutter, tail wagging gently, began to inspect the room less surreptitiously than Gavin had. She didn’t think there was anything he could get into that would hurt him, so she let him go and turned back to her human guest.
“This is nice,” he said. “Comfortable.”
“If that’s your way of saying it’s not fancy, agreed.”
His gaze shifted to her face. “Something wrong with that?”
“Not for me. I would have figured you for more of a chrome-and-glass kind of guy.” In fact, she knew it, having seen in her research photographs of the office he’d had at the peak of his renown.
“I had it, once,” he admitted. “Doesn’t mean I liked it. It was part of the image. This, I genuinely like.”
She couldn’t even imagine what it would be like to live like he had. But the tone of his compliment had seemed sincere, so she decided to take it at face value.
“Thank you. I’m afraid there’s no coffee,” she said, “but I have cocoa.”
He shook his head as he sat down at one end of her small couch. “I didn’t come here to make you work. At least, not at that. Besides, the last thing you need is caffeine keeping you awake.”
“No caffeine seems to be required,” she said wryly, walking toward her chair. At least sitting there, safely apart, had been her intention, but somehow Cutter got in the way. And he kept getting in the way, until she had little choice but to sit down on the couch, as well. Strangely, the thing had never seemed so small as when Gavin was barely two feet away.
She looked at him and noticed him glaring at the dog rather balefully. As if the animal had done this intentionally.
Or as if her sitting so close was annoying.
Tough, Mr. Famous Lawyer. It’s my house, I’ll sit where I want.
Of course, she hadn’t intended to sit there. The dog made her. Still...
She shifted in her seat till she faced him. Mr. Famous Lawyer.
“If I asked you something,” she said slowly, “would you give me the truth?”
He raised an eyebrow at her. “I don’t lie.”
She gave him a sideways look.
“I don’t,” he repeated. “Ever.”
“And what about those lies of omission?”
“If I can’t or won’t tell you something, I’ll say so.”
“What’s the difference?”
“The difference is honesty, admitting there is something you’re not saying. Like there’s a difference between something honestly slipping your mind, and withholding something the other person needs to know or should know.”
Her tone was a bit frosty when she said, “And have you decided which you think I did, about my father’s past career?”
He studied her for a moment. “I think,” he said slowly, “that you’re just not used to thinking the way I have to.”
That simply he disarmed her, melting the frost and making her feel a bit of an ache for him, for she couldn’t imagine living a life where you had to think that way all the time.
“How do you ever trust anyone?” she asked, more rhetorically than anything.
“Very carefully,” he said. “But I don’t think that was the question you wanted to ask.”
He waited, silently, giving her room to ask or not. Either choice would tell him...something, she supposed. She hesitated, then admitted she wanted to know badly enough to betray...whatever this would betray to him. And she asked her question.
“Why did you really walk away?”