Page 84 of Protect Me
We cuddled, dismissed the kiss and conversation thing without a word for the rest of the evening. Our words still floated through my mind all night, holding off sleep for too long. I woke cranky and sore and more frustrated than ever. One look at Kate’s face as she handed me a mug of coffee this morning calmed the worst of it.
Kate.
Damn, but she could pull a punch. Force a guy to make a move—and wasn’t that her right? If she didn’t, would I move myself? Fifteen years indicated that no, I wouldn’t. I’d lived and worked with men that could frighten a holy man, but none of them came at me with the truth like she did last night. No woman had ever denied such a benign advance.
I mean, cuddling?
Really, Kate?
With a breath, I dismissed my judgment of her. I wasn’t being fair. She’d been open and honest last night, in ways I’d never gifted her. A niggling something in the back of my mind told methat’swhat she wanted. Honesty. Openness. Commitment.
Could I give it?
The question persisted.
The canoe rocked to the side as Kate shifted, readjusting so her legs crossed in front of her. She leaned back, a fishing pole tucked in the bend of her knee, arms trailing along the sides. Her fingertips created ripples in the unbroken glass of the water. Every now and then, she hummed. Like a sunsprite, she soaked up all the warmth and brought it to her dazzling, golden skin.
I looked away for the hundredth time.
No matter how much I admired her,cravedher, I couldn’t silence the voice in my head. The deeper one that floated free at the worst times. The one that promised pain with commitment. That reminded me only fools gave their power and focus and freedom away.
Then Hernandez, Bastian, and Grady are all fools,I thought.
The voice said nothing.
Pain, it promised.Always pain.
Where do you come from?
More silence, then Emma’s face.
I sent her back with a scowl.
A dark horizon loomed ahead if the voice of fear proved to be true. If I couldn’t trust Kate, then what woman could I trust? No one. Certainly no woman I had dated, that was clear. Other women hadn’t been nearly as withholding or honest or fun or terrifying or agonizingly out of reach. Kate was a smooth cocktail, blended and shaken in all the right ways.
A soft gasp drew me out of my thoughts. Kate straightened with a snap. Her line tugged, sending tiny waves onto the water.
“I think I have one!”
“Easy,” I said, reeling my own line in from the opposite side of the boat. “Just like we practiced. Give it a tug, then a little reel.”
Her left hand gripped the pole while her right hand twirled the wheel. The line went taut with a little jerk, then began to pull in. Her line wavered back and forth as the fish struggled, resisting the pull. A glimmer of silver appeared near the canoe. She stopped.
Her astonished gaze lifted to mine.
“There’s a fish on there!”
Laughing, I nodded. “Yes. That’s why they call it fishing. Pull it in.”
“But it will die.”
“If you leave it out of the water too long, yes.”
“I don’t want it to die.”
“Then you can release it.”
Kate frowned at the water. The fish scuttled back and forth, frantic now. “Doesn’t the lure hurt its lip?”
