you’d rather skip the day-to-day reports,” he offered. “Some people just want the results without all the notes.”
Suddenly she realized what he meant, and she felt a chill of disbelief. How could he expect to find her children alone? “J.D.—”
“Either way’s okay. But I thought you’d probably rather stay up to date, and I don’t mind calling whenever something happens.”
Oh, no. He couldn’t possibly believe she’d stay at home waiting for a phoned report. “You don’t need to do that,” Kirsten said.
He didn’t even seem to hear her, he was so focused on his list of options. “Or if you’d rather I phoned at a certain time—”
“You don’t need to do that, either,” she interrupted, clenching her fists in the folds of her bright-flowered skirt. “Because, J.D., I’m coming with you.”
For the second time in the past few hours, J.D. experienced the same sucker-punch sensation he remembered from the nights his father would come home. He knew better than to show any sign of surprise, but he could feel the strain of keeping his voice level. “You are?”
“Well, of course.” Kirsten sounded more defiant than he could ever remember hearing her. “You can’t think I’d send you off alone to bring home my children. They don’t even know you!”
He hadn’t viewed that as a problem, but obviously she did. Having her with him on the search, though, would present an even bigger problem. “You want to come along?” he asked, struggling for a coherent response.
“I am coming along.”
“Kirsten, wait a minute.” He wasn’t prepared for dealing with this, for spending that much time with her. Not when he’d realized, from the moment she’d opened the door for him, that she was still everything he remembered…and more. “I wasn’t—” he stammered. “I mean, what if Brad tries to call you here?”
She twisted her hands even deeper into the soft fabric of her skirt, drawing it tighter across her body and making him wish he could close his eyes. “I’ll keep checking the answering machine,” she said, and in her voice was a thread of steel he’d never heard before. “J.D., there’s no use arguing about this. I’m not letting you go alone.”
He could understand her wanting to see her kids at the earliest possible moment. And he couldn’t very well back out of the case, not when he’d already promised his help. But neither could he tell her how barely five minutes together was making him want her as much as ever. “What if I told you,” he countered, “I can work faster by myself?”
That argument didn’t seem to impress her. “How can it slow you down having somebody along?” she protested. “I can share the driving, if we need to drive anyplace. I won’t be sleeping, anyway, so that’ll let us keep going twenty-four hours a day.”
It might come to that, if they didn’t strike gold in Seattle. “Yeah, it’s just…”
“These are my children,” Kirsten said evenly. “And Brad’s telling them I need a break from them—” She broke off and took a deep breath, then burst out in a cry that tore his heart, “J.D., they’re somewhere out there thinking their mother doesn’t want them!”
Other children had known that for certain and survived, but there was no denying how much the knowledge hurt. And he hated to see Kirsten imagining her children in such pain….
“I’m going with you,” she repeated, and he closed his eyes for a moment.
“All right.” He would deal with it, J.D. told himself. Twenty-four hours, two days, hopefully no longer…he could get through that if he had to. Look at it as penance for having failed to warn her back in January after that Super Bowl conversation. He took the car keys from his pocket and reached for the door again. “I’ll pick you up at six-thirty tomorrow morning.”
“What?” She sounded as startled as he’d felt just a minute ago. “Where are you going?”
To clear his head. To get himself ready for spending an undefined amount of time with the only woman who’d ever made him want a life he could never have. “To the photo place,” he answered shortly. “And then the Hyatt.” He hadn’t bothered with a reservation, but there shouldn’t be any problem getting a room in Tucson during a hundred-degree summer.
“You don’t need to stay at a hotel!” Kirsten protested, gesturing toward the Saltillo-tiled hallway behind her. “I have a guest room.”
Another situation he hadn’t been expecting. “Ah. Well…”
“It’s not really decorated yet,” she apologized, with the first note of hesitation he’d heard from her. “The movers just finished unloading a few days ago, and I’ve been doing the kids’ rooms first. But we can save time getting to the airport tomorrow if you’re already here.”
Kirsten Laurence inviting him to spend the night under her roof? His skin felt tighter than ever, which he knew was all the more reason to refuse her offer. A woman like her had no business with a man like him…and yet he couldn’t quite make himself say no. “You don’t even know me anymore,” he reminded her.
“I know you.”
She said it so simply, so certainly, that he felt as if she’d just touched him. Touched his face, his hands, his heart, with the same achingly graceful innocence he remembered from their last and only summer together. “Well…thanks,” he mumbled. If she was willing to give him the gift of such trust, there was no way he could refuse it. “But I’ll call you from the photo place before I come back here, because I can always stay at the Hyatt. Stock up on those little shampoos.”
Looking both amused and impatient, Kirsten straightened her shoulders. “We’re going to be traveling together, anyway,” she told him. “And your staying here is no different than us staying at the same hotel.”
Caught by surprise at her practical turn of thought, he nodded in acceptance. “Okay, good point.” He’d never worried about sharing a roof with anyone else on a job, and Kirsten obviously saw this as nothing but a business arrangement. Which proved he’d made the right decision eight years ago. “See you in about an hour.”
He still hadn’t opened the door before she interrupted with another offer. “I can have some dinner ready by the time you’re finished with the pictures.”
“No, that’s okay,” J.D. said. He couldn’t expect her to take him in and cook dinner besides, as if he were an invited guest. “Thanks, anyway.”
“Oh, well, if you ate on the way down here…” she conceded, as if there could be no other reason for his refusal. “I just didn’t want you going hungry.”
The mixture of embarrassment and concern in her voice struck him with vivid clarity. He’d heard that tone before, eight years ago, nine, ten…. In spite of all the polish Kirsten had acquired, all the trappings of a custom home and vacations with Brad in Europe, she was still a nurturer at heart. And even though he didn’t need it, had never needed it, the realization touched him.
“You’re still looking out for me,” he said softly. “Aren’t you?”
“I guess so,” she admitted, looking a little shy.
