Page 72 of Through the Fire
“Whatcha doing at the tower with Wes?”
He recognized the voice as Hugh Murdoch’s and eyed Kit to see how she was taking the teasing. She just grimaced in a good-natured way as she picked up the mic again.
“None of your business.”
A long, exaggerated sigh came over the radio, and Kit met Wes’s gaze. Her long-suffering but amused expression made him smile, and he loved how it felt as if they were a team, the two of them against the rest of the town. If he had Kit on his side, the gossip and the stares of the rest of the area residents didn’t matter. With just that small gesture, Kit had turned things around so that it felt like they were the normal ones. For the first time in his life, Wes felt like he was on the inside of something, and he felt a huge surge of affection for Kit for making that happen.
“Greenie,” Hugh continued on the radio. “Spill. It’s been a rough day…and week. And year. I need a distraction, and my soap is in hiatus right now. Help a partner out.”
The dispatcher spoke before Kit could. “Mind taking this gossip session off channel one in case there’s a real emergency?”
Kit snorted before raising the mic. “Excellent idea. Good night, Hugh. Stay safe.” She replaced the mic and walked away from the radio. “I don’t know how Grace—Hugh’s girlfriend—doesn’t strangle him on a regular basis. I consider myself pretty even-keeled, but he tests my patience sometimes.”
Wes tried to imagine riding around in a vehicle with someone for eight or more hours a day and shuddered. For him, that would be hell—unless he was able to partner up with Kit. She’d be the only one he’d be able to tolerate being in such close quarters with for an extended length of time. Most people made him feel tense, but Kit had the opposite effect. She actually relaxed him, making him feel calm and almost unbearably excited at the same time. As she sat on the couch, curling her socked feet underneath her, he couldn’t look away. There was a sinuous grace to her movements that fascinated him, making him feel as if he could happily watch her do simple daily tasks for hours on end.
Her gaze turned curious, making him realize that he’d been staring. As much as he wanted to keep watching her, he knew it would make him come off as strange.
As he sat on the opposite end of the couch, he hunted for a socially acceptable question and finally came up with “Do you like working there?”
Tilting her head, she glanced down as if considering the question. “Right now, it’s challenging,” she finally answered, sounding as if she was picking each word carefully. “I think it’ll get better once I get to know the people and the area, and my partners learn that I can be trusted.” She gave him a quick glance, and he wondered if she’d realized too late how much that last bit revealed. “It’s been a hard few months for Monroe and its police force, so it’s natural for everyone to be…cautious.”
Even though he was isolated geographically, he couldn’t have missed the news about the lieutenant who’d been arrested for working with the people who’d attacked Monroe. Kit was right about it being a hard few months for everyone in the area, especially law enforcement, but he still felt a strong need to defend her. Why couldn’t everyone see how trustworthy and good Kit was? Wes had known immediately, and everything she’d said or done after that had just confirmed her integrity. “Are they making it hard to do your job?” he asked.
She smiled at him, a surprised yet open grin that made him blink from the brilliance of it.
“What?” he asked, still a little stunned.
“You live up here by yourself, rarely interacting with other people,” she said.
“Yes.” He spoke slowly. Although her words were accurate, he wasn’t sure what she was getting at.
“I didn’t expect you to be one of the most intuitive people I’ve ever met.”
“Intuitive?” He said the word slowly, feeling it out. No one had called him that—ever. “I don’t feel like I’m intuitive.”
“You are.” The way she sounded so certain made him start to believe it was true. “How else could you have managed to get your crazy-ass neighbors to trust you? And whenever we talk, you always know exactly how to sort out my scattered thoughts.”
He considered that for a long moment, feeling that unfamiliar warmth in his chest spread even more. Intuitive. It wasn’t a word he’d ever attributed to himself, but he really liked that she saw that in him. “I’m not sure if you’re right,” he said finally, “but I hope you are.”
The silence that fell after that wasn’t awkward, although it wasn’t exactly comfortable either. The sparking tension between them reminded Wes of the air right before a thunderstorm rolled in, when everything was still and charged and thick with anticipation of what was about to come.
Breaking their eye contact, Kit placed her water bottle on the rough-hewn wood of the coffee table. Wes sat back, surprised to find that he’d been leaning toward her. With the tense moment interrupted, he felt like he should say something, and he glanced around for inspiration. He was still hunting for words when she spoke.
“Do you have any cards?” she asked, making him frown.
“Playing cards?” When she nodded, he glanced around again, as if he could pull them out of thin air. “No.”
“Board games?”
“No.” He was the worst host in the world. It had never occurred to him to have any cards or games, since he simply played on his tablet or his computer when he had the urge. That reminded him that the tower wasn’t completely out of entertainment options. “Want to play Call of Duty?”
“Oh yeah.” She beamed at him. “Although I need to warn you that I’m really, really good at it.”
“Yeah? Controllers.” The robot cat retrieved them and zipped across the room to offer them to Wes. “Then I need to warn you that I’m probably better. Screen down.” A large monitor lowered from the ceiling to hang six feet in front of the couch.
“Enjoy those delusions of superiority while you can,” Kit warned, teasingly elbowing him in the side. His skin lit up at the touch. “I’m going to enjoy destroying you.”
He stared at her until she glanced over and made a face.
