Chapter 210
1034 Words
“And she looks amazing,” Kat said to Jim. “I mean… stunning.”
“She’s a beautiful woman,” he said. “Even if she forgets that sometimes.”
“Yeah.” Kat was quiet for a few seconds. “You think she’ll be OK?”
Surprised, Jim glanced over at her. “Yeah, I do. I mean, with some more time.”
She nodded. He observed her face, saw that she looked troubled.
“What’s up?” he asked. “What are you thinking about?”
She shook her head.
“Come on, Kat.” Jim kept his voice low. “Talk to me, OK?”
“It’s just what you said about time.” She sighed. “You think it actually heals all wounds?”
“Honestly? No.”
Kat was startled. “No?”
“No. Healing wounds is one thing; learning how to live with them is another.”
“So… you think that time just teaches us how to live with stuff?”
“Yeah.” He shrugged. “That’s how it works for me, anyway. What do you think?”
Kat gave a mirthless laugh. “In my case, it does neither.”
Jim engaged in a small internal tussle, then decided to just go ahead and ask. “Hey, Kat?”
“Yeah?”
“That bender that you went on… when you just dropped off the planet for a week.”
“Yeah.”
“What set it off?”
She sighed.
“You don’t have to tell me,” he said quickly. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have pried.”
“God, Jim. You know everything else. I see no reason not to tell you the whole thing.”
“You sure?”
“I’m sure. I mean, I trust you completely.” Her green eyes held his gaze, steady and bright. “I trust you with my life.”
At those words, Jim felt his chest start to fill up with a strange emotion. It built, swelled, expanded, moved up his throat. He was horrified to find that he longed to tell Kat that he wanted nothing more than to take her to bed and love her. He forced the words down, suddenly scared to death that they’d break free and loose somehow, just erupt from his mouth and run wild in the world at large.
“The first day that I took off work,” she said quietly. “That was an anniversary of sorts.”
Grateful to have something to focus on besides his almost-desperate need for Kat's body under his, he seized the topic. “What happened?”
“It was exactly five years before to the day that he broke into my house while I was sleeping, and I locked myself in the bathroom to get away from him. It didn’t work, of course. He broke the door down and got to me – and he punished me for hiding. For making things harder for him to get to what was his.”
Jim took a deep breath, trying to stay in control of his rage.
“And it was almost exactly one year later that he beat me bad enough for me to lose the baby.” Kat was quiet. “It’s one hell of a week, and I never cope well with it. The first few days, I just stayed here at my place and tried to pretend it wasn’t happening and I actually did OK. Not great, you understand, but OK. Then the day approached when the baby died, and I just… lost the plot.”
“That was when you went out to Curves?”
“Yeah.”
“Why there?”
“Because I didn’t figure I’d run into anyone I knew, and it’s the kind of place where drinking at ten a.m. isn’t frowned upon. It’s open twenty-four hours, and people leave you alone if you put out the right vibe.” Kat shrugged. “Seemed ideal.”
“I guess so.”
“But things got… out of control. I’m glad Jax called you, to be honest.” She looked up at him. “I wasn’t in a good place in my head. Like, at all.”
“Was something different this year?” he asked. “Harder?”
She nodded. “Yeah. On top of everything else, I was trying to build up the courage to leave Denver. I – I was trying to convince myself that it was time to go.”
Jim leaned back against the back of the sofa. “I see.”
“Yeah. I was getting myself ready to move on. To start all over again, away from all of you. And it was killing me.”
“I’m sorry, sweetheart,” he said.
“I know.” Kat smiled at him. “But I’m glad now that I didn’t run… I’m glad that I’m still here. With you.”
He paused. “I’m glad too.”
“You are?”
“Yeah. I am.”
“Oh.” She knew that was an idiotic response, but she couldn’t seem to think of anything else to say. “I’m glad that you’re glad.”
Jim laughed now, and she smiled. The man smiled rarely, but he laughed once in a blue moon, and so whenever he did, she thrilled to hear it. His laughter was deep and low and sexy, and it rumbled out of that broad chest like thunder. It tickled her to death every single time she heard it, and never failed to charm her within an inch of her life.
“So.” His eyes were warm. “You in the mood for pizza? I don’t feel much like cooking tonight.”
“Yeah, that sounds good. Are we going to argue about the toppings again?”
“Of course we are,” he said. “We argue about every single other damn thing, don’t we?”
“Yep. We sure do.”
They grinned at each other, both wishing that they could shut the other up by kissing them. That would be the best way to end any argument, they thought.
- Writer
