“No,” she whispers. “I don’t think I am.”
She disappears into the bedroom and closes the door softly. I stand in the kitchen for a long moment after she’s gone, staring at nothing. Then I check my phone. One message from Sloane.
Number’s a burner. Rafi’s digging. Don’t get stupid.
I almost smile. That order may have come too late. Somewhere between the beach, the knife photo, and lemon-garlic shrimp, this woman has stopped feeling like an assignment. That’s the kind of gap a man like me cannot afford. Not with her.
I turn off the kitchen light and take up position where I can see the hall, the front door, and the shadowed edge of the porch. Peace can wait. Sleep can too.
Chapter 8
Cole
Kara sleeps. Not peacefully, exactly. Not the deep, loose sleep of someone who trusts the walls around her. Twice during the night, I hear movement from her room. Once, water running in the bathroom. Another time, the soft creak of her bedroom door opening, followed by the quieter sound of it closing again when she sees me awake in the chair facing the hall. She doesn’t say anything and neither do I.
By dawn, the cottage feels like it has survived the night with us. I’ve spent nights in worse places, with worse odds, and less reason to care what happened to the person sleeping behind a closed door. That last part is the problem. I care. Not enough to make me sloppy. But enough that I notice the faint lavender scent of her shampoo when she passes me. Enough that I remember the way she looked in the kitchen last night,safer with a pan in her hand than she’d been with three security professionals in the room.
When her bedroom door opens again just after seven, I stand before I think better of it. She appears in the doorway wearing soft gray lounge pants and a loose white shirt that hangs off one shoulder. Her hair is tangled, her face bare, and there’s a sleep crease along one cheek.
Some women look smaller in the morning. Kara looks real.
“Did you sleep?” I ask.
“Some.” Her gaze moves to the chair. “Did you?”
“Some.”
“That means no, doesn’t it?”
“It means enough.”
“That also means no.”
I almost smile. “Coffee?”
“Yes, please. Unless you think coffee is too much flavor and prefer chewing roasted beans directly.”
“Oh, you are awake.”
“I’m here … barely.”
I make coffee because it is one of the few kitchen tasks I can perform without offending a professional. Kara stands at the island, phone in hand, reading silently. Her thumb moves over the screen once, twice, then stops.
“Vanessa?” I ask.
She glances up.
“She’s been texting since six.”
“Concerned?”
“Yes.”
The word is automatic, but something in her expression tells me concern can be heavy when delivered often enough.
She turns the phone toward me without handing it over.
Did you sleep? I barely did. Please tell me the security people are still there. Honey, I’m worried about your anxiety more than anything right now.
