come home until he was sick with fear and worry. The nights she was home, when he’d wake and have that strange, lost feeling and come out of his room to find her at the kitchen table or curled up on the couch, her eyes swollen and red from crying, the end of her cigarette glowing like a burning eye in the dark.
He had to remember…
The suicide attempts. The never-ending new starts that always went wrong. Caleb’s name on her lips like an unanswered prayer the day that she died…
Of lung cancer. She never would give up those damn cigarettes until the last few months of her life. And by then it was too late. Lung cancer got her—but Caleb Douglas killed her as sure as if he’d put a gun to her head and pulled the trigger.
Caleb Douglas broke her heart and she never did find a way to mend it again. Justin, just a kid, had been powerless to help her.
He wasn’t powerless anymore.
And damned if he was giving up now.
He was set on a course and it was a just course. What he would do was perfectly legal; he had the power now—power Caleb himself had put in his hands—and he would use it.
In the end, if all went according to plan, there would be big profits for everyone. Including Caleb.
That was the beauty of it. Everybody would win.
At least in terms of the bottom line.
He only wished…
Wished.
It was a word for fools, for helpless little boys who spent too much time alone, for boys with no fathers, whose mothers too seldom came home…
He wasn’t a little boy anymore.
And he wasn’t going to spew his guts to anyone—not even to sweet Katie Fenton who was turning out to be a hell of a lot more woman than he’d ever bargained for.
Those amber eyes were still waiting.
He couldn’t stand the disappointment he saw in them. “I want to see you when we get out of here, Katie. I want to see you and I will.”
And I will.
Now, where the hell had that come from?
He’d been so careful. He’d never actually lied to her.
Not until now.
But then again, he did want to see her again.
Though he knew damn well he shouldn’t, he wanted to keep on seeing her. He wanted…
A whole hell of a lot more with her than he was ever going to get.
He shouldn’t have lied. But the words were out now. No calling them back. In future, he’d just have to keep a closer watch on his tongue.
He silently vowed he would do just that as she watched him with worried eyes.
Chapter Eight
Katie opened her eyes to the sight of the shadowed rafters overhead.
For a second or two, with the soft mist of sleep still fogging her mind, she wondered where she was.
And then she placed herself: the four-poster bed in the Historical Museum. With no windows to let in the light from outside, she couldn’t begin to guess what time it was. There was one clock. An intricate gold leaf ormolu piece with Cupid strumming a lyre perched on top. It sat on the mantel in the “parlor” area.
She couldn’t see the face of it from the bed. Plus, it wasn’t wound and always read ten-fifteen.
And what did it matter, anyway, what time it was? She and Justin weren’t going anywhere until the snowplow finally showed up. They could sleep all day and stay up all night. There was no schedule, just whatever suited them.
Justin…
What was going on with him?
There had been a certain…reserve—a new distance between them, since dinnertime, when she told him she wanted to see him after they got out of here and asked him if he wanted to see her.
He’d definitely withdrawn from her after that. From then on, when she spoke, he gave her single-sentence replies. When she looked at him, his gaze would slide away. Also, it had seemed to her that he was careful to avoid touching her. He kept his distance emotionally—and physically, too.
All evening she’d told herself to let it be. The guy didn’t have to be hanging on her every word every minute of the day. Maybe he just wanted a little time to himself. In such close quarters, there was no easy way for him to claim some private space.
But in her heart, she knew it wasn’t about lack of privacy. It was about them seeing each other after they got out of here.
It hurt a lot, to admit it to herself, but she was beginning to think she’d gotten things all wrong. She’d read more into this thing between them than was actually there.
Oh, not in terms of herself. She knew how she felt. It was real and strong and…maybe it was love.
Or something very close to it—something that could be love, given the time and space to grow.
But just because she was feeling something didn’t automatically mean he had to feel it in return.
She’d gone to bed, however long ago that had been, ahead of him. And she’d lain here waiting for him.
He’d yet to come in when she finally fell asleep.
Was he even here now?
She sat up.
Across the room, the too-short, too-narrow cot lay empty, the star quilt smooth and undisturbed, the flat little pillow without a wrinkle.
He hadn’t even come to bed.
Quietly, carefully—as if there was someone in the empty room she might disturb should she make a sound—she lay back down.
And popped right back up again.
No. This was wrong. If he didn’t want to get anything going with her, well, that was his prerogative and she would learn to accept it.
But she wasn’t going to just lie here, worrying. And what about tomorrow? What about whatever time they had left here until the plow came? If she spent that time tiptoeing around him, keeping her head down and her mouth shut, well, wouldn’t that be just like the woman she’d told herself she wasn’t going to be anymore? Wouldn’t that be like Katie, the cliché?
She needed to clear the air between them.
How, exactly, to do that, she wasn’t quite sure. But it certainly wouldn’t get done with her lying here in bed agonizing over what had gone wrong and him off somewhere in another room doing whatever the heck he was doing.
