I’d reached the spot between the bushes where Kate had hidden her things, but there was no trace of her or her blankets. Perhaps she really had checked into a hotel. I regretted not asking her more questions about her life on the streets and what she was planning to do with my money. But it was too late for regret. I decided to do a lap around the café. If I didn’t find her, I’d go back to the car.
“Kate?”
The only response was the howling of the wind.
I shivered, blasted by a particularly forceful gust of wind, and wondered if I’d lost my mind. It was freezing cold, and I was drenched from head to toe. I couldn’t get sick. Every day I’d lose at the office would be a disaster for the hotel and the Pearl Gala. And yet here I was, risking it all for a woman I barely knew.
“Kate?!”
“Snowflake?”
I stopped. Had I imagined it? I spun around, but I couldn’t see Kate anywhere.
“Over here!”
It was definitely Kate! I turned in the direction her voice had come from. At first, I couldn’t make her out, but then I saw her on the café veranda. Although it had a roof, she looked just as wet as I was. I ran towards her and leapt over the wooden balustrade to join her under the roof. I stopped in front of her. Her wet hair was plastered to her head, and instead of the leather jacket, she was wearing a raincoat that was far too big for her.
“What... what are you doing here?” she stuttered. We stood face-to-face, but she still had to shout to make herself heard above the storm.
“I came to pick you up.”
“What?”
“You can’t sleep out here tonight.”
Kate looked at me with confusion. She tried to blink away the fat raindrops caught in her eyelashes. “And where should I go, in your opinion?”
“To the hotel. You can stay there for the night.”
She shook her head. “I can’t.”
I frowned. “Why not?”
She didn’t reply. She didn’t have to. Even in the darkness, I could see the uncertainty in her eyes, the caution that a life on the streets had instilled in her. Kate knew my name, but at the end of the day, I was a stranger. I could take her anywhere, do anything to her.
I took a step back, aware that my size and stature might seem threatening. A flash of lightning bathed us in bright whitelight. “I don’t want to hurt you, Kate. I just want you to be safe. The storm is going to get worse. This is just the beginning.”
She crossed her arms and looked at me. In her bedraggled state, she seemed younger than she had when we’d first met, probably because of her big, round eyes. “Why are you helping me?”
I smiled. “Because I’m a good person. You said so yourself.”
“I said you’re an honest person. That’s different.”
I paused. “But you said you trusted me, didn’t you?”
Kate bit her lower lip and hesitated, then nodded. Despite the cold, I felt an unexpected jolt of warmth in my belly.
“So come with me,” I said. “If I really wanted to kidnap you, I wouldn’t be standing in the rain arguing. I could just throw you over one shoulder. There’s no one here to stop me, after all. Come on. You must be cold. You can have a hot bath at the hotel.”
Kate took notice at my last words. Her gaze drifted from me to the dark clouds. A loud rumble sounded, no longer distant. It was close, very close. It wouldn’t be long before the eye of the storm reached us. “OK, but we have to take my things with us. I’m not going without them.”
“Sure. There’s room for them in the car. Where are they?”
She led me around the veranda to her sleeping spot. She had pushed together three tables that had been chained together, along with the chairs. The structure was covered with a tarpaulin made of bin bags, which she had weighed down with rocks. It was crafty, but it probably wouldn’t withstand the storm for much longer. Kate had stowed her blankets and rucksack beneath it.
“Come on, let me help you,” I said and grabbed a couple of blankets.
For a moment, it looked like she would stop me from touching her belongings, but she didn’t protest. We gathered them and ranto the car, tossing everything onto the back seat instead of in the boot so we wouldn’t have to spend a second longer than necessary in the rain. Mr. Hammond had turned the heating up full blast, and Kate let out a contented sigh next to me.
