“You get what?” Rand asked.
“You’re the Redstone security guy. Guess I’m going to jail, huh?”
Rand didn’t answer him directly. “You want to tell us how you got into this mess?”
Doug sighed. “Man, I just wanted to get out of this place. I hate it here. It’s so lame.”
“So, you’re saying you did it because you were bored?” Kate asked.
He grimaced. “That makes it sound stupid. It was more than that. I hate it here. My dad…we haven’t been getting along. Ever since mom died, he’s been mad at everything. Especially me.”
“Do you know he’s been here ever since they brought you in?”
A look of wonder crossed the boy’s face. “Yeah. He said he couldn’t have stood to lose me, too. I didn’t know he felt like that.”
“That’s probably why he got so strict with you. He loves you, Doug.”
“He said that, too,” the boy said, looking a little embarrassed.
Kate brought him back to the subject. “So Talbert made you an offer you couldn’t refuse?”
“He made it sound really cool.” The boy’s expression said he knew how foolish he’d been.
Rand took over then. “What did he tell you?”
“That Redstone owed him, and he was going to collect. That we could sell those things for a lot of money. And he picked me to help him. And stupid me, I picked Tim to help.”
“What did you get out of it?”
“He was gonna pay me when he sold the stuff.”
“Did he?”
The boy lowered his gaze. “No.”
“Do you know why he picked you?” Kate asked softly.
“He told me it was because I was smart,” Doug said. Then, finally, he looked up at them. “But that wasn’t why, was it? It was because of my dad. Because he worked at Redstone. And I could get the van, and the uniform, and the keys. That’s all he wanted.”
“Afraid so,” Rand said. “But you were smart enough to figure that out.”
“Big whoop,” the boy said bitterly. “Oh, yeah, and I told him about the night guy, how he was always goin’ in the back room and sleeping on his shift. Dad was always complaining about it. That’s when he decided how we were going to do it.”
“And he always waited up there on the hill for you to drop off the shipment?”
Doug nodded.
“He let you take all the chances, do all the work for him,” Kate said. “What a great guy.”
“Yeah.” The boy looked away, toward the pole that held the bag of clear solution that was dripping into his arm. Then he looked back at Rand. “So…are you here to, like, arrest me or what?”
“Or what,” Rand said.
“Huh?”
“You’re not going to get off easy.”
“I know.” His voice was very small.
“I had a long talk with Josh Redstone on the way here.”
The boy swallowed hard. “That’s the big Redstone guy, right?”
“Yes. The one who doesn’t like being ripped off.”
The boy shifted uncomfortably in the hospital bed. “What did he say?”
“He’s throwing the book at Talbert. Your former partner is going to spend a very long time in a cell wondering if it was worth it.”
Doug lowered his eyes, and Kate guessed he was certain he was going to face the same fate.
“As for you,” Rand went on, “he said he figured it would take you working for him at least until you graduate high school to pay him back.”
Doug’s head snapped up. “Huh?”
“And then, providing you do graduate high school, and stay out of trouble, you get a shot at a Redstone job.”
The boy stared at him. “You mean, for real?”
“The operative phrase there is stay out of trouble,” Rand warned. “Josh will give anybody a second chance. But betray his trust, and you’ll regret it.”
“But what about what I did?”
“Don’t go thinking it doesn’t matter. It does. And the minute you step out of line, those charges come back. But for now, they go away.”
The boy looked away, but not before Kate saw his eyes start to brim with tears. Rand tactfully gave him a moment to get himself under control.
“So is it a deal?”
The boy swallowed hard again. Then he looked at Rand. “Ye-ah.” His voice cracked. He flushed, then cleared his throat and tried again. “Yeah. It’s a deal.”
When they left the hospital, Kate looked up at the morning sky, which at the moment was blue and cloudless, what the locals called severe clear.
“You know,” she said, “I’ve never been prouder to be associated with Redstone.”
“There’s a whole lot of us who’d walk into fire for Josh Redstone, and never think twice about it.”
And just like that, it was there in front of her. His job here for Redstone was done now. He would be off to his next assignment, off to the next fire that needed to be put out, somewhere in the vast Redstone world.
When the phrase “it’s over” had gone through her mind up on the hill, she hadn’t taken the thought to it’s natural conclusion. The relationship that had been built mostly on proximity and circumstances would also come to its natural conclusion.
The interlude was over.
And she was never going to be the same.
Chapter 23
“Where would you like to go?” Rand asked.
Kate hesitated. Would it be better for this conversation to happen in a public place, where she’d be forced to at least somewhat hold herself together? Or here, in her house, where she could freely fall apart, and hate herself for it later?
She’d taken the day off work, her boss happily okaying the time off. Everyone was happier now that the thief had been caught and much of Redstone’s property had been recovered from the storage unit Talbert had rented. Each pump would have to be retested and resterilized for safety; Redstone wasn’t going to take any chances, despite the cost. But it was still better than having to replace them all.
Kate had used the time off to mentally prepare herself for this ending. At least she thought she had.
Out, she thought. Out to a restaurant would definitely be better. Because if they stayed here, she had nowhere to run. And she would spend the evening steps away from her bedroom, wondering if there would be one last night in his arms. She didn’t know if that was what she wanted, or if a clean, quick break would be better.
She’d known going in that the relationship would end. She had thought that knowledge would protect her from too much pain. And she’d told herself over and over not to let it become anything other than what it was, a brief, perhaps foolish but very pleasurable interlude.
But somewhere along the line her feelings had gotten way out of control, and the pain of what was coming was already almost more than she could bear. And it was only going to get worse.
So, now you’ve been a complete fool twice in your life. Congratulations.
By the time they had gotten to the restaurant and ordered dinner, Kate was too unsettled to eat. And Rand was acting so darned normal it was adding to her edginess. Finally, when she’d been picking at what was usually her favorite dessert, a luscious crème brûlée, for several minutes, she couldn’t stand it any longer.
“So, when are you leaving?”
Rand looked up from the bill he’d been adding the tip to. “What?”
“You’re done here now. Where’s your next job going to take you?”
His brows furrowed slightly. “I have no idea. I’ve got reports to do on this, then I suppose I’ll find out what’s next after that.”
She tried for a nonchalant tone. “Well, it was fun while it lasted.”
His mouth quirked up at one corner as he signed the check. “This case was many things, but I’m not sure fun is one of them. I should have had it resolved a lot sooner.”
Kate took a deep breath. “I didn’t mean the case. I meant…us.”
&nbs
p; He set down the pen and looked at her steadily now. She had the uncomfortable feeling, not for the first time, that he numbered mind reading among his many talents.
“As in it’s over now, go away?”
So much for nonchalance, Kate thought as she felt color rise in her cheeks. But she wanted this over with, so kept on. “Well, you will now, won’t you?”
“There’s paperwork to do, so I have to go back to Redstone headquarters, yes.” His tone was flat, neutral. “What’s your point?”
“Nothing. I mean, I knew it was coming, that this would never work…long-term.”
He leaned back in the upholstered booth. “I see. And why is that?”
Damn it, you know why, Kate thought. Don’t make me spell it out. But he said nothing, and she realized that was exactly what she was going to have to do.
“I’m too much older than you. I’m broke, you’ve got money. I live here, you need to be down south. You globe trot, I like to stay at home.”
“I’m blond, you’re brunette,” he said.
“Don’t laugh at this,” she said, a little stung. “These things matter.”
He was silent for a moment, then started ticking things off as if they were a grocery list.
“Your age doesn’t matter, eight years isn’t that much anyway. Money doesn’t matter, there’s enough. I like it here, so that doesn’t matter either. Redstone was built on airplanes, don’t forget. I can fly anywhere, anytime.”
“It matters to me,” she said, feeling bombarded and wondering if there was anything he didn’t have a quick answer for.
For a moment he was silent, just looking at her. She held his gaze with an effort. Then a glint that made her feel very wary came into his eyes.
“Don’t forget kids,” he said.
She blinked. “What?”
“I want kids.”
“Well that proves my point,” she said. “I’m too old to start having kids now.”
“I won’t point out that you’re hardly too old, not in today’s medical world. But even if it were true, there are other options.”
“Rand—”
“I want it all, Kate.”
“And you should have it. So go find it,” she said, even as the images of him doing just that, finding what he wanted with some other woman, made her stomach knot.
“What if I want it with you?”
Kate’s heart leaped. If only, oh, if only. But now that the reason they’d been thrown together no longer existed, she knew better than to think that was foundation enough for what he wanted. She thought she’d had much more than that to build on when she and Dan had married. And she knew so much better than Rand how easily a relationship, even a marriage could be destroyed.
“You know it wouldn’t work. There’s just too much in the way. We’re too different.”
Something flickered in his gaze. She wasn’t sure what it was, but when he stood up a few minutes later and said they should leave, she knew it had to have been to surrender to the inevitable.
The drive to her house was mostly quiet. And, from where she sat, miserable. When he walked her to her front door, she didn’t know what to do or say. For a moment they just stood there, the silence between them stretching out like a parched desert.
And then he moved, swiftly, pulling her into his arms and kissing her hotly, completely. His mouth was relentless, probing, tasting, demanding, and by now her body knew too well how to respond. Too fast she was careening out of control, ready to throw away every bit of common sense she possessed and tell him she’d changed her mind.
And then he pulled away and released her.
“You’re wrong, Kate,” he said softly. “But I’m not going to talk myself blue to convince you.”
And then he was gone, leaving her on her porch, going from overheated to shivering in the cold air in the space of seconds.
“Well, Katherine,” Dorothy Crawford said, her voice stern, “I must say, that wins the prize for being the stupidest thing you’ve ever done.”
Kate stared at her grandmother across the kitchen table in the house she’d grown up in. She’d barely walked in the door and both her grandparents had started in. Obviously Rand had told them…something.
“Sent him packing, did you?” her grandfather said.
“I didn’t,” she protested. Not exactly.
“Then why did he light out of here first thing, headed for the airport? And say for us to ask you why?”
He was already gone? Kate’s stomach knotted. She tried to calm it, telling herself she should have expected this, that he wouldn’t waste any time getting away. I’m not going to talk myself blue to convince you, he’d said. So he, too, knew that it would never work.
“I just pointed out how impossible it would be,” she explained to the people who had been the center of her life since childhood. “Us, I mean. He and I.”
She went on to give them her list of reasons why, wondering just who she was trying to convince. It didn’t help any that after Rand had gone she’d been devastated that he’d given up so quickly, and spent most of the night alternately crying and trying to buck herself up. She’d finally gone to sleep just before dawn, and had awakened disgusted with herself for her own contrariness.
“And,” she said at last, “he wants kids.”
Her grandparents glanced at each other.
“So, you’re going to let an old tragedy cause a new one?” her grandmother asked.
“What do you mean?”
“You’re afraid, because you lost Emily,” Gram said. “And because Dan was a miserable excuse for a human being, and made a reprehensible choice when he abandoned his wife and dying child. Because of him, you’re throwing away a good man who’s crazy about you. Is it worth it?”
It was the longest lecture Kate had ever had in her life from her grandmother. She stared down at her hands, resting on the table with her fingers locked tightly together because she was afraid they would start shaking.
“Do you think we didn’t hurt when Emily died?” Gram went on. “We loved that child to distraction. Still do. But we also want another grandchild. And we’ve always hoped you’d recover enough to, if not look for love, at least accept it if it came your way.”
“You’ve never been a coward before, girl,” her grandfather said gruffly. “Why now?”
She lifted her head to look at them both. She was feeling more than a little shell-shocked. They so rarely criticized her that having all this heaped on her head was beyond disconcerting.
Were they right? Was she simply afraid?
“Are you really going to let that poor imitation of a man, who took so much away from you already, take more?” her grandfather asked.
She didn’t answer. Couldn’t. By the time she left them she was shaken to the core. They never lectured her like that, and that they were doing it now told her how strong their feelings were.
She drove around, wondering over and over, what if they were right?
She thought about Rand’s answers to her objections. Thought about her own reaction. Thought about the pain of the days after Dan had walked out. The exhaustion of the days of Emily’s struggle. The agony of the days after she had died.
So what did it mean if she let the first man to make her really feel since then get away, because of reasons that suddenly seemed just as silly as he had made them sound? And as wrong as her grandparents thought they were?
She tried to think of something else. Anything else. Tried to concentrate on her relief that Mel hadn’t been involved, and discovering that her suspicious activity that day in the parking lot had been because she had cut her afternoon classes that day, and that what Rand had seen her put in the trunk was a co-worker’s birthday gift she’d been taking home to wrap. It didn’t work.
At last she drove out to the lighthouse, to walk on the beach. It was a bit chilly, there was always a breeze here, but she stuffed her hands in her pockets and kept going.
As she passed the white building wit
h the red roof, it occurred to her that this was the perfect place for her right now. Where else should someone as confused as she was be but at a lighthouse called Point-No-Point? At the moment she could empathize with the 1841 sailor who had named it after misjudging how far the point of land extended into the sound.
“I think I missed the point, too,” she muttered under her breath.
She had reached the end of the point. To the north Mt. Baker was wreathed in a cap cloud. To the south Mt. Rainier loomed over its domain, looking too incredible to be real, like a painted backdrop image against the sky.
She sat down on a driftwood log, staring at the mountain the Indians had called Tahoma. She thought about her grandparents, and the love they’d shared for so long. She thought about her parents, and the mistakes they’d made. She thought about her own mistakes, Dan being the biggest.
And finally, at last, she thought about her little girl. The precious child she’d had for so short a time. The child whose last words had been “I love you, Mommy.” She thought of holding, loving another child. And for the first time it didn’t feel like a betrayal. Emily could never be replaced. There was a place in her heart that would always belong to her baby girl, as it could to no other. But did that mean there was no room for anyone else?
She sat there, pondering, until the sun dropped below the Olympics and the air quickly turned cold. It wasn’t long before she was feeling as chilled on the outside as she was on the inside.
That’s three, she thought. Three times you’ve been a complete fool.
But maybe it wasn’t too late to undo this one.
She got to her feet and ran back to her car. She slipped on a mossy rock, and had to scramble to stay on her feet. She dug her keys out of her pocket and had them ready. She barely remembered to turn on the heater before she pulled out. She hit the speed bumps a little too fast for comfort, but she didn’t care.
By the time she got home, she had a plan.
Kate was folding a cotton sweater when her doorbell rang. She dropped it on the bed beside the jeans she’d already folded. She headed for the door, hoping whatever it was wasn’t going to take too long; she didn’t have much time.
In His Sights Page 20
