He was angry. At her? At himself? And his whole body raged, stiff and tight and pulsing. “I said no, Jamie. Not here, not now, not without a better reason than dreading tomorrow.”
If he didn’t think dreading tomorrow was reason enough, then he was right that this wasn’t the time or place. And he wasn’t the man. Good thing Jim Beam wasn’t so righteous.
“Good night then, Ranger Sergeant Kellen Harding,” she said, walking away with a wobble, but without a single look back, and picking up the whiskey bottle before opening the screen door. “I’ll do whatever it takes to deal with tomorrow. And I’ll get help from whomever will give it.”
No matter how very very much I want it to be you.
KELL HAD ARRANGED FOR Jamie’s session with the forensic hypnotist to happen in Midland at eleven. The hypnosis was their sole purpose for making the trip; there was no excuse to put it off until later in the day.
The claustrophobic three-hour drive would’ve had her worrying herself into a state of exhaustion had she not been struggling to keep her stomach from upending all over the floor of Kell’s SUV.Spending the night with Jim Beam had not been particularly smart, but it had worked as a preemptive strike against freaking out; all she had on her mind this morning was not getting sick. Thankfully, Kell hadn’t brought up her drinking, or anything about last night.
“I don’t drink like that very often.” She closed her eyes, opened them quickly when her nausea insisted on looking at something besides the blood-red interior of her eyelids.
“That’s good to know.” And that was all he said, his right hand on the steering wheel, his left elbow on the padding where the window met the door. His face was close shaved, his shirt starched and pressed. He wore his white hat and dark sunglasses. Jamie hadn’t seen his eyes all day.
He hadn’t had as much to drink last night as she had, so she didn’t know if he was hiding bloodshot whites or dark purple half-moons beneath. Maybe he just didn’t want her to know when he cut his gaze toward her, if he did, how often, how thoroughly he looked her over, what he was visually searching for. Maybe he just didn’t want her to see his disillusionment.
“I mean, I’m not an alcoholic or anything. I drink sometimes, when I can’t sleep.” Or when I do sleep and the nightmare comes back.
“You don’t have to justify anything to me, Jamie.”
Right. He was going to turn her life upside down, but didn’t want an explanation for her reaction to having that happen. Well, she didn’t want him looking back and thinking her a slutty little lush.
“I’m not justifying anything, Kell. I’m explaining what went on last night, what you saw. That wasn’t…me,” she said, though the words rang false because the woman he’d seen was exactly who she was.
She put on a good front for her mother, her neighbors, her coworkers and friends, the world, but the real truth was too sad and broken to let anyone see. Anyone, apparently, but a man in a white hat with a gun.
He looked over at her, his jaw taut, his mouth grim. She couldn’t see his eyes or his forehead, but could tell his face wasn’t happy. She could tell, too, from his voice that was gritty and sharp. “Don’t you think I get that? Yeah, we just met, but I know your case inside and out, and that includes the person you are.”
She wanted to believe him, but it sounded a lot like he was making nice to get her to shut up about it. And, really, she wanted to shut herself up about it. She didn’t know why it mattered so much that he think good things about her.
Except she did know. It mattered because of that kiss. Last night’s blood-alcohol level hadn’t kept her from remembering, reliving the feel of his mouth, his hands, his…everything dozens of times since rolling her protesting body out of bed this morning.
She wanted to kiss him again. She wanted to kiss him while sober. She wanted to kiss him in broad daylight or with the room’s lights blazing. She wanted to kiss him and remember things the Jim Beam meant she’d forgotten.
None of that would happen, however, until he remembered something other than his disappointment in her. At least she assumed it was disappointment that had him keeping such a stiff distance between them.
“Did all that reading about me make you curious?”
“About?”
Oh, now he was being purposefully thick. “Anything in particular? What author I most like to read, or my favorite restaurant, or where I’ve traveled, or if I like to go fishing, or maybe know how to kiss?”
The corner of his mouth twitched. His hand on the steering wheel tightened, his knuckles like jagged peaks. “Who’s your favorite author?”
Sigh. It was better than talking about the weather, or traveling in complete silence, though she’d much rather know what he thought about kissing her. “I’d have to say Tess Gerritsen. She writes a suspense series about a Boston police detective and medical examiner.”
“Hmm.”
“What does that mean, ‘hmm’?”
He shrugged, continued to face straight ahead. “I would’ve thought you’d prefer something less…gruesome.”
Because of what she’d been through? “It’s storytelling. It’s entertainment. I’m not looking to forget what happened to me by escaping my reality. Or to work my way through it by projecting my experience onto a piece of fiction. It’s just…reading.”
“If you say so.”
He didn’t buy it, or else he was being contrary to keep her at bay. And that really didn’t make any sense when everything else he’d done was about keeping her close…unless the kiss had made him change his mind.
“What’s your favorite restaurant then?”
Fine. She’d play along, but only because she wanted to see if he’d make it through all five of her options, or if he’d stop when he reached the last one. “I’m not sure I have a favorite, but there’s one in Junction called Isaack’s where the cheeseburgers are the best I’ve ever had in my life.”
He chuckled at that, a funny, rough sound, glancing in his side-view mirror before signaling and changing lanes. “How do you feel about fishing?”
Moving right along here…though he’d skipped asking about where she’d traveled. Was he in a hurry to talk about kissing her? Or just wanting to get it over with ASAP? “I’ve never been.”
That earned her a glance, one she couldn’t read because he was still hiding behind his dark glasses.
“I’m not sure I’ve ever met anyone who’s never fished,” he told her, then asked, “No opportunity, no interest, what?”
“Both, I guess. Though I’ve eaten my fair share of things that live in the sea. And lakes, streams, rivers, swamps.”
“Swamps?”
“Crawfish. Frog legs. Alligator. You know. Swamp things.”
Kell shook his head, giving a soft snort that she interpreted as disbelief. He didn’t seem the type to be disgusted by things that weren’t everyday food. “You’ve never been fishing, but you’ve eaten frog legs and alligator.”
“I didn’t have to catch them, just order them,” she said, her headache easing along with some of the tension causing the drive to be so uncomfortably difficult. Funny how talking helped simplify things, when keeping them bottled up and hidden away made a more “out of sight, out of mind” sense.
And, no, she was not going to stop and apply that realization to the last ten years of her life. Or wonder why she’d talked more about what she’d seen and suffered to Kell Harding than she had to another soul in years. Crawfish and frog legs and alligator. That was the ticket, the always safe subject of food.
She leaned into the corner of the seat, shifting to see him better. “In case you didn’t notice at dinner, I’ve got a big thing for food. I’ll try anything, and I love almost everything. My mouth was definitely made for eating.”
“That must be why you taste so good.”
And just like that, there was the kiss.
8
THE KISS. They had to get it out of the way or today was going to be a bust, which was why Kell had put it out there. Thinking about Jamie’s hypnosis to come had gotten lost in thinking about her mouth. But she was wrong.
Her mouth was not made for eating.It was made for the way she’d used it last night, and he was surer than he was about never wanting to eat alligator, that she could use it for even more. Those things, all intimately imagined, were giving his body hell.
“I don’t think I’ve ever had anyone tell me that I taste good,” she finally replied, and as he glanced over, he saw her face color with the implications of what she’d just said. “Though I’m sure it had something to do with the JB.”
Nice recovery, he thought, amused, though they both knew he hadn’t been talking about the booze. “I swear, Jamie. If it had been any other time or place…”
He let the sentence trail, not sure why he was giving even more air to the subject instead of allowing it to breathe its last and drift off to die. Unless that wasn’t what he wanted, to let it go, to forget.
“Yeah. You said that last night,” she reminded him.