Hunter again in the shadows.
“You won’t need to call me to report your progress.”
He frowned. “Why not? Don’t you think you’ll want to know how things are going.”
“Absolutely. That’s why I’m going with you.”
His mind already busy mapping a route and making plans, Hunter barely heard her. When her words pushed their way through his crowded thoughts, shock just about sent him toppling over the deck railing. She wanted to go along? Yeah, right!
He would never have suggested helping her if he thought for one second it might involve spending time alone with Kate Spencer.
“Really, that’s not necessary.”
Not necessary and not at all appealing.
“It is to me. This woman stole my life. My identity, my family, everything. If you can find her, I believe I have the right to confront her to find out why.”
Okay, he would give her that. If he had been in Kate’s shoes, he would have moved heaven and earth to locate this woman who had wreaked such havoc in her life.
He understood her need for answers and her desire to be involved in finding those answers but he didn’t think she quite comprehended the implications.
“If I were flying out there for a quick trip,” he explained, “I would have no problem with you going along. But I won’t be taking a plane. If I go, I’m driving.”
For one thing, he couldn’t leave Belle, especially with Tay and Wyatt leaving for their Cozumel honeymoon in the morning. Since his release, his Irish setter clung to his side like a mother hen watching her chick. Though normally calm and well-mannered, she turned into a nervous wreck if he left her alone for even a few hours.
He wouldn’t put her through the stress of a lonely kennel for a week or two, nor was he willing to subject her to the trauma of putting her on an airplane. The one time he had taken her on a plane before his arrest, she’d been a quivering mess for a week afterward.
He had to admit, Belle was part of the reason behind his sudden desire to drive, but she was by no means the only reason. The thought of taking off across the wide expanse of the United States with the road in front of him and Utah in his rear view mirror seemed just the thing to shake this malaise he’d suffered from since his release.
Those months he had spent on death row sure his life would end there in that miserable prison, he used to dream about hopping on his Ducati and zooming off across the country. When he would lie awake at night in that thin, lumpy cot staring up at cement walls, he had grieved for the trips he had never found time to take, for the scenery he would never have the chance to savor.
The Ducati would have to wait since December wasn’t the greatest time for a motorcycle trip—not to mention the minor little detail that he hadn’t yet taught Belle how to hang on behind him. But he could enjoy a cross-country trip from inside the brand-new Jeep Grand Cherokee he’d bought just days before.
What better way to celebrate his newfound freedom than loading up his dog and trekking across the country—eating in greasy diners, blasting his favorite songs on the radio at top volume, outrunning his past with every white line passing under his tires.
He would have thought his announcement would be enough to dissuade her, but Kate didn’t seem at all fazed by his declaration. “Driving is fine. I don’t mind a road trip,” she answered.
Damn. So much for his peaceful jaunt across the country.
“Don’t you have to work?” he asked, not willing to give it up just yet. “I thought residents worked sixty hours a week without a day off.”
The Christmas lights sparkled in her glossy hair as she shook her head. “I’m free until I start my new rotation on Christmas Day. That gives me two weeks of freedom. This is a perfect time for me to go. I should have thought of it myself.”
Now what the hell was he supposed to do? He couldn’t just come out and tell her she couldn’t go. For one thing, he was oddly loathe to hurt her feelings. For another, from his admittedly limited experience with Kate, he knew she was enough like Taylor that she would push and poke at him until she pried out the reason he didn’t want her along.
He was well and truly stuck. He should have kept his big mouth shut about the whole thing.
It would take them a bare minimum of two days to drive to Miami. Two days alone in a car with Kate Spencer. For a man who hadn’t been sexually intimate in nearly three years, that prospect was guaranteed to be a recipe for disaster.
He couldn’t do it. He couldn’t sleep with his sister’s best friend just to slake his hunger. If he did, he would be exactly the kind of beast he’d been trying to prove to the world—and himself—that he wasn’t.
“Look, Kate—” he started to say, but his words were lost when the door opened and Lynn McKinnon walked out onto the deck, her lovely features concerned.
“There you are, Charlotte!” She winced and reached for Kate’s arm. “I’m so sorry, Kate. I keep forgetting. It’s just that I’ve thought of you as Charlotte for so long. But I’ll get it, I promise.”
“It’s fine,” Kate murmured. The animation of the last ten minutes was gone from her features as she gazed at the small, energetic woman who looked so much like her.
“You’re going to catch your death out here! Is everything all right?”
“We were just enjoying the snowstorm.”
“Your father is still waiting for his dance.”
“Of course.” Even in the pale light, Hunter thought her smile looked strained. “I just need a few more minutes of air, okay? And then I’ll be in.”
Lynn’s mouth softened as she gazed at her daughter, and Hunter thought she would have reached up and grabbed the moon for Kate if she asked for it. “Take as much time as you need, darling. Sam will be there whenever you’re ready.”
Kate managed another smile before her mother slipped back inside, though Hunter was surprised to see a bleakness in her eyes.
He muttered a string of curses in his mind. He couldn’t leave her here twiddling her thumbs while he went off dragon hunting. This was her life.
Of all the people at this wedding gig, he could certainly understand her need to take back some kind of control over the circumstances that had buffeted her for the last six weeks. If finding and confronting her kidnapper would help her achieve some measure of peace—would help her move past her pain and be ready to accept the McKinnons’ love—how could he deny her that?
Surely he was tough enough to control himself around her for a week.
“What time are we leaving?” she asked after Lynn closed the door behind herself and returned to the festivities, leaving them once more in the still, quiet night.
“Early. I’ll pick you up at eight. Does that work?”
“Perfectly.”
Was it just his imagination or did the pinched look
