Page 42 of Fearless
“I’m going to hang up now,” he told her. “I don’t know how long it’s going to take me to fix this mess of yours, but I expect you to be there when I call back and I expect you to do exactly what I tell you to when I do. I’m going to see you very soon, Kitty-girl. If you’re half as smart as you think you are, I suggest you use all the quiet time between now and then to plan out your apologies.”
Kitty sank all the way to the floor, her phone in her hand for a long time after he hung up. She already knew, no matter what she said or did, it would make no difference. If she went back to him, Ethen was going to hurt her because he got off on it. Hands creeping up to caress the slight rounding of her stomach, Kitty drew a deep, but shaky breath. Well, she guessed it was a good thing she wasn’t going back to Ethen.
He’d taken everything from her—home, money, her job, everything right down to the tiniest shred of self-confidence and any kind of security. He was the reason she had nothing. Didn’t that alone make it okay to use him now? She could pretend to be obedient, couldn’t she? Just long enough for him to buy her a plane ticket. She could pretend long enough to get whatever was left of her things out of his house and then…
And then she would call Hadlee and Garreth to come and get her, so she could start building her life back up again. The right way, this time. Without running away or hiding from anyone.
Once she was home, she’d call Noah. She’d tell him what she’d done and why. She’d say she was sorry. She’d probably cry.
She was already crying, because it already hurt. Which only strengthened her resolve that she was doing the right thing. If she waited another thirty days, like she’d promised, there was no way she’d ever be able to make herself go.
* * *
On the way back to town, Noah stopped at the gas station parked across the street from the only strip mall within twenty kilometers of Cooktown. It had six shops, five of which catered to the tourists who made this little section of Australia a congested hell for eight months out of the year. Of course, they also made life in this tourist town financially possible for the other four, so no one complained too much.
Among those six shops was Bronson’s Pets, where free puppy kisses were advertised on the store front window in great blue and white-trimmed letters. From across the street, Noah read that advertisement while he pumped gas into his truck. No one would ever accuse him of being a hard-ass again, that was for sure. As soon as his tank was full, he drove across the street to see what they had in the way of cat toys.
Twenty minutes and twenty dollars later, he emerged from the shadows of that store with a full supply of catnip mice, bells inside of little plastic balls, and even a metal food bowl with goldfish playing around the outer rim. His next stop was the grocery store and then he was on his way home, with a bag of cracker goldfish bouncing along on the seat beside him. For treats, he thought, as he turned down the long driveway back to his front door. He couldn’t wait to see what she thought of them.
His next thought was how Kitty must still be sleeping, because when he walked into the house, everything was quiet. All the lights were off, but the sun was high enough and the living room bright enough that he could see all the way down the hallway, past his open bedroom door, to the mound of disheveled blankets that made up Kitty’s side of the bed. It was empty now, and Kitty wasn’t anywhere that he could see or hear.
“I’m home,” he called, coming down the hallway. He paused at the bathroom door to knock, but no one was inside. A damp towel on the rack told him she’d taken a shower, but it had been long enough ago for the tub to have dried. A slow knot began to pull from the pit of his stomach up into his chest.
He tapped at her closed bedroom door next. “Kitty?”
When there was no answer, he cracked it ajar on the off chance that she might be changing. But no, this room was empty too, and then he saw her bed.
She’d made it up, but in a very specific way. The sheets were stripped and the patchwork quilt folded neatly across the foot of the bed, as any polite guest would leave a bed once they had no more need of it. The closet door was open. Her clothes were gone. Her bag no longer hung on a hook in the back. Kitty had left.
Noah stood in the middle of his guest room, too bewildered even to be hurt. That would come later as he charged back down the hall, through the kitchen, the dining room, the living room, and back to the kitchen again. His was a small house, it simply wasn’t big enough to hide anyone, not even long enough for him to fool himself into thinking maybe he’d missed her the first time through.
No, she really was gone. He didn’t want to heed what common sense was telling him. In the end, he didn’t have to. At the head of the table where he usually sat, he spotted a slip of white paper. She’d left him a note. In fact, she’d used the same note he’d written her, the one in which he’d promised to be back, to write her farewell. Short and to the point, it read simply: I’ve gone home.
Sprinkled along the bottom were little blotches where her tears had fallen. Noah ran his thumb over them, but those were dried now too.
He was supposed to have thirty days. What had happened? And how much of a head start did she have on him?
He started off walking, but ended up running and made it back to his truck with that stupid letter still in one hand and his cell in the other. He tried Kitty’s cellphone, but his call went straight to voicemail. Swearing under his breath, Noah switched to a different contact number. He took the ruts in his driveway much faster than his truck was used to.
“What the hell, blokey!” he snapped once Garreth picked up on his end of the line.
“What?” was the response he got between chews.
Noah checked his watch. It was the supper hour in America, but he didn’t apologize for the interruption. “You heard me. I thought we were mates?”
Garreth swallowed what was in his mouth. “What’s happened?”
“That’s what I want to know,” Noah shot back. “Are you telling me she didn’t call you?”
“No, she didn’t call me! This is the first call I’ve had all night. What’s going on?”
In the background, a distant female voice called, “Who is it, honey?”
“Noah,” Garreth replied, and then back into the phone asked, “Where’s Kitty?”
“Shit,” Noah said, half under his breath. Shifting into higher gear, he sped back to the main road even faster than before. “Whoever hears from her first calls the other, yeah?”
“Right,” Garreth said grimly. They both hung up and the rest of the ride into town was made in absolute silence.
