Dinner had gone over well, as she knew it would since she’d made her favorite recipe, so Kate assumed they’d continue their conversation after she got the kitchen cleaned up. She knew she’d thought wrong, though, as she turned around after washing the last dish and saw an empty chair where Roman had been sitting at the island just minutes before.
Discouraged, she wondered if she had said something wrong again. It seemed like she was always doing or saying something that made him back away. Just when she thought they were past the point where whatever about her that made him uncomfortable bothered him, he turned into a ghost once again.
Maybe he didn’t feel like she did. The thought had crossed her mind. It wouldn’t be out of the ordinary for someone like him who helped women in need as a job to have a hard and fast rule about getting involved with a client. It probably made sense for him to keep every woman he worked with at arm’s length. How effective could he be at protecting someone if he had feelings for her?
Kate slumped against the kitchen island and wondered if she should just be honest with him. She quickly dismissed that idea. The mere thought of trying to have that conversation—trying to tell him that even though she knew they were complete opposites that she had developed feelings for him—just the thought of it made her cringe.
Never in her life had she heard or seen that kind of honest admission of how someone felt turn out successfully. Only in the movies and in books did that happen. In real life, you told someone you had feelings for them and they more often than not sat with a forced smile as they mentally scrambled to find a gentle way to let you down easy. While she’d never herself admitted she had feelings to a man before he did, she’d witnessed enough emotional car crashes with girlfriends to know a session of true confession wasn’t what she wanted to do with Roman.
Even if the image of him staring at her with his mouth agape as she told him how she felt made her think it might all be worthwhile just to see him like that.
But no, that’s not the kind of woman she was. Independent, yes. Courageous in the face of people after her, maybe. Emotionally brave, though? No way.
She knew her limits, and bearing her soul to a man who routinely turned away whenever she got close was at least three steps past her hard line. Kate had no illusions about the kind of men she found attractive.
Tough, quiet, even sullen, they tended to be the brooding kind of guys other women ran away from like they were on fire, and for good reason. Those men required a strong woman who didn’t need to be fawned over day and night. They never failed to be there when you needed them, but they weren’t exactly sweetness and light, and they rarely remembered birthdays and anniversaries.
Roman was exactly the type of man she’d always wanted. Looking around the living room and not seeing him anywhere in sight, she couldn’t help but think that every time anyone had ever said to her to be careful what she wished for in a man, they’d been more right than they could ever know.
Pushing the idea of actually telling him how she felt about him out of her mind, she resigned herself to continuing dropping subtle hints and hoping he reciprocated at some point. It wasn’t brave or brash, but it was her style and she couldn’t change it for him or anyone else.
No matter how much she wished she could.
Kate looked around at Butcher’s home and shrugged. “Another night at home alone. Oh well. At least I know the terrain of that landscape.”
She wasn’t tired, but still she headed for the bedroom she’d claimed earlier in the day. At least if she spent her time in there it didn’t feel like she was constantly chasing after Roman trying to get him to speak to her. That’s not how she wanted to spend her night.
Instead, she settled into bed and prepared to watch back-to-back episodes of Dateline. She’d never really been a huge fan of television shows devoted to solving mysteries of lost people or murderous boyfriends or girlfriends, but recent events in her life now made them more interesting. She just hoped she didn’t end up as the subject of one of them someday.
The first episode involved an ungrateful niece who had slowly poisoned her uncle in order to receive his estate worth nearly half a million dollars and a life insurance policy of over two hundred thousand dollars. After almost an hour of wishing the awful woman dead for her horrid behavior, Kate sat back on the pillows and watched as they sent her to prison for the rest of her life.
Not exactly cheery nighttime TV but at least she could be sure others in the world were going through worse than her.
The next episode focused on that famous child who had gone missing in Portugal a few years back. Still to that day, no one had ever found her body or any trace of her anywhere on Earth. After fifteen minutes of that, Kate changed the channel. An hour of that story would make her want to throw herself into Lake Pontchartrain.
Glancing over at the clock on the nightstand, she saw in big red numbers it was way too early to go to bed. Nine o’clock was a fine time for farmers to go to sleep but not her, especially since she didn’t feel tired.
But what else could she do? She had no idea where Roman had hidden himself, and leaving the house didn’t seem like a good idea since she had no idea if the people who may be after her had figured out where she was yet.
Resigned to an early night, she slid under the covers and pulled them up over her head as she mumbled, “Guess it’s time for sleep, Farmer Kate.”
“Let go of me! Let go!” she screamed, desperately trying to pry her arm free from the man’s hold.
She sat bolt upright in bed and searched the dimly lit room for anyone near her. She saw no one. The sound of her heartbeat pounded in her ears, making it impossible to hear anything else. Her mouth was parched, so dry that she couldn’t imagine how she screamed at all. Licking her lips, she tried to moisten them, but nearly panting in terror didn’t help much to fix the problem.
Had she screamed? Or was that all just a nightmare?
A very vivid nightmare of a man grabbing her while she slept in that very bed she sat in now.
As she struggled to separate reality from her dreams, Roman flung open the door and ran in, stopping dead right in front of the bed. His head swiveled left and then right as if he was searching for something, and Kate noticed he wore a different pair of pants and a shirt she hadn’t seen on him before that moment.
Had he gone out shopping when he disappeared from the kitchen?
Finally, he said, “I heard you scream. What happened?”
“I don’t know,” she said shaking her head in disbelief. It had all felt so real. “I guess I had a nightmare.”
At hearing there wasn’t some murderous killer there in her bedroom, Roman’s shoulders sagged. If she didn’t know better, she would have said he looked disappointed.
“I thought something happened to you,” he said, taking a step back toward the door.
“No. Sorry. I guess it was just a nightmare.”
He stood there staring at her for a few moments before turning toward the door. “Okay, good night,” he mumbled gruffly.
But she didn’t want to be by herself in that room for the rest of the night. She wanted someone next to her so if she had another nightmare she wouldn’t wake up terrified and alone.
Just as he opened the door, she said, “Don’t go. Stay with me?”
It came out as a question because she truly didn’t know if he’d say yes. For as much as he said it was his job to protect her, he seemed to only want to do it from a distance. Staying with her all night would shrink that distance he kept between them to almost nothing.
Although Kate had a feeling if Roman could find a way of putting space between them as they spent the night together in that room, he would.
Slowly, he turned around and without saying a word, nodded as he closed the door behind him. That he agreed to stay surprised her. She’d expected him to find some way to do his duty while putting himself anywhere but in that room with her.
Roman looked around for someplace to sit, but other than the bed, the only other place to sit was on the floor. She had a sense that he considered that choice as he looked down once and then a second time toward his feet before taking a step toward the bed.
“You can sit here with me, Roman. The bed is actually pretty comfortable,” Kate said with a smile.
A few seconds passed by as he thought about her offer, and then he sat down next to her on the other side of the bed. He still didn’t say anything, which only encouraged her to fill the empty space with more words.
Looking down at his long legs stretched out in front of him, she said, “Those clothes look new. Where did you get them?”
“I ran out after dinner and found a store. I got you some things too. I took a guess at the size, but if anything, they’ll be too big, not too small.”
She had a feeling she should be insulted, but the way he said that with sincerity made her not want to argue with him now. Turning to face him, she said, “Thanks. I’m sure they’ll be fine. I guess you figured after a few days we either needed to wash our clothes or find new ones.”
Roman grimaced and shook his head. “No. I got us clothes so if anyone has seen us and described us to the police by describing our clothes, then we won’t look the way they think we should.”
That made sense. In fact, changing their clothes made perfect sense now that he explained it that way.
“Oh. Well, thank you just the same.”
A few moments went by in utter silence, and all Kate could think was there had never been two people alone in a bed who had less chance of sleeping together than the two of them. Roman seemed more standoffish than ever, if that was possible, and she couldn’t imagine anything she could say that would make him warm up to her.
Just as she’d suspected, he’d found a way to make it feel like even though they sat so close on that bed their legs touched, it felt like they were separated by a million miles and a world of silence.
Dejected, she let out a sigh and slid under the covers before turning her back to him. “Good night, Roman.”
“Good night.”
That’s all he said.
She lay there feeling his left leg press against her back and her butt, chastising herself for not knowing what to say. If Eve were there, she’d already have him stripped naked and she’d be riding him like he was some wild stallion.
Kate didn’t have to wonder why she was still single. What was happening, or not happening, right before her eyes told her all she needed to know.
A million thoughts ran through her mind. Did he care one bit about her? It felt like he had back at the hotel. He seemed to when they were lying in each other’s arms on her bed then. Had she done something to turn him off?
That question itself spawned at least a few dozen more. She’d injured him, barked at him, tried to run away from him, and those were just the highlights. Other than those examples, she’d been difficult since the moment she met him, although she still didn’t know how she was supposed to act when a strange man walked into her motel room. It wasn’t every day that kind of thing happened. To expect her to just be some trusting soul without asking questions seemed a tad ridiculous and foolish.
Unable to simply lay there, she rolled over and looked up to see him sitting there just staring down at her. How strange. She’d expected him to have his eyes closed or at least to have been staring off into space and not at her as she slept.
“Why are you looking at me, Roman?”
Without missing a beat, he replied, “Why do you ask so many questions, Kate?”
His answering by asking another question, especially that one, surprised her. “Because I’m an inquisitive soul. I thought there was nothing wrong with me asking so many questions.”
“There isn’t. I just figured you might like a taste of your own medicine,” he said with smile that also surprised her.
Could it be possible he wasn’t unhappy about staying with her?
“A taste of my own medicine? I’m trying to figure out what exactly my questions cure, but I can’t find anything, to be honest.”
“Certainly not your curiosity, which seems endless.”
Kate’s mouth dropped open in shock at his teasing her. He was actually being cute and playful. “That’s the first time in nearly five days since we met that you made a joke. Well, it wasn’t actually a joke, but it was you trying to be cute. You should try to do that more often. I like it.”
“I’m not a cute kind of guy,” he said after a few moments. “Serious people tend not to do cute too well.”
Liking this side of him, she pushed on his leg with her hand. “Well, you should try it more often. You’re pretty good at it.”
Roman smiled and ran his tongue slowly over his bottom lip. “Just pretty good? I guess I’ll have to try harder next time.”
She watched as the moisture from his tongue made his lip glisten in the dim light. That right there seemed like a definite sign he liked her. Didn’t it?
Quickly, she scrambled to think of something clever to say to keep their conversation going. Of course, nothing came to her. Not a word. Not a clever phrase. Nada.
Exhibit two in the case why Kate Sheridan was still single.
“Nothing to say, Kate? No question for me to answer?” Roman asked in a tone she’d never heard him use before.
It sounded downright…flirty.
Was she completely misreading the signs, or was he flirting with her there in the bed they shared?
“None that I can think of,” she said in return, giving him her best smile in case he had any thoughts at all of making a move.
Which she wished more than anything at that moment that he would.
And then he said nothing. No flirty retort. No lip-lickingly cute anything. He just fell silent.
That was it. Disappointed or discouraged or whatever she was feeling, she sat up next to him and didn’t stop herself when the truth of how she felt and how he made her feel came spilling out in all its messy glory.
“What is with you, Roman? At dinner tonight, we were having a great time, and then poof! You disappeared. No see you later, Kate. No I’m going to head down to the lake and enjoy the sound of the water. Nothing. I had no idea where you went. I just knew you didn’t seem to want to be near me. Again. Now you come in here all ready to do your protective hero shtick, and when you find out I just had a nightmare, you look disappointed. Then flirty cute Roman comes out for a little bit—by the way, I really like him, so if this is a case of multiple personalities, I’d love it if you could tell him to come back. And just when I think we’re making some headway, you go radio silent on me again. What the hell is going on with you?”
Kate had to take a breath after letting all that out, and she waited for him to say something. Anything. But all she got was silence and his usual staring at her with those dark brown eyes that gave no hint as to how he felt about anything.
“Whatever. Fine. Feel free to go back to your room or wherever you were before you came in here. I’ll be—”
Before she could lie and say she’d be fine, he leaned over and stopped her words with a kiss that curled her toes. His lips softly pressed against hers, gently taking what he wanted from her as she eagerly offered him as much as he cared to have. Stuffing his hand into her hair, he pulled her to him so their bodies melded together.
He felt warm and powerful against her, and as he settled her onto his lap, she found out how much she affected him. His tongue slid lightly over her lips into her mouth to tease hers, sending a jolt of need straight to her core.
She wanted him before she knew how incredible he made her feel. Now she needed to have him inside her.