Love Undecided

by Denise Wells

  Love Undecided

  Denise Wells

  Copyright © 2018 by Denise Wells

  Cover Design: Shari Ryan, MadHat Books

  Editing: Ellie McLove, Gray Ink

  Publicity: Linda Russell, Foreword PR

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any mistakes or misrepresentations are the authors alone.

  This book is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  For Courtney Jo McMillon Bonelli

  December 7, 1975 - April 13, 2016

  You are missed every day.

  Be in love with your life. Every minute of it.

  Jack Kerouac

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Chapter 48

  Chapter 49

  Chapter 50

  Chapter 51

  Chapter 52

  Chapter 53

  Chapter 54

  Chapter 55

  Epilogue

  Kat’s Sudden Death Playlist

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Also by Denise Wells

  Chapter 1

  Kat

  My breath catches when I see him walking up.

  He looks good, as in really good.

  I’d asked him to meet me at a newer restaurant that we’d not been to before when we were a couple, just so there wouldn’t be any competing memories to mess with our heads.

  Or maybe just my head.

  Because we can’t be together.

  And it doesn’t matter how bad either of us may want to be.

  Not that I want to be.

  No matter what my bestie, Remi, says. Or how many pictures of Brad I still have hidden in my house.

  We’ve been over since the first time I found out I was dying. And the fact that I’m actually still alive changes nothing.

  If having a terminal illness has taught me nothing else, it’s definitely taught me that all goodness comes to an end. And most times that end is heinous. I mean, whenever you get too used to goodness, it turns bad. Everybody knows that.

  Well, everybody but Brad apparently.

  Because nothing bad ever happens to Brad, at least not until me.

  I’m Brad’s bad.

  “Hey,” he says, softly.

  “Hey.” I don’t really know what else to say past that.

  The waitress saves me by coming to take our orders, I include a glass of Viognier with mine, Brad raises his eyebrow at me but says nothing. I don’t care, I need some sort of fortification to get through this. The only other thing that I’ve done that was this hard was returning his ring when the cancer first came back.

  We play at small talk until the food arrives. I’m gonna need more to drink. Half my wine is already gone.

  So, I bite the proverbial bullet and sort of start the real conversation. “How’s Stacy?”

  His girlfriend.

  He looks at me curiously. “She’s doing well.”

  “And, the two of you are doing well?”

  “Are we doing this again Kat? If so, why?”

  I stay silent, hoping it’s a rhetorical question.

  “She’s not you,” he says. “But I guess we’re okay, considering.”

  “Considering?”

  “Oh, come on.” He runs his hand over his face and looks at me pointedly. “This is really how we’re going to play this?”

  I look back, hoping I appear innocent.

  He continues, “You know I care about her. She’s a sweet girl.” He sighs loudly. “How’s the guy?”

  “The guy?” I ask.

  “Bauer.”

  Why does he care about Bauer? They don’t even like each other.

  “Uh, fine, I guess. Working hard, all that stuff.”

  “And the two of you?” he asks.

  “The two of us?”

  “This is how we are playing it, right? You ask about Stacy, I ask about Bauer.”

  “Okay….”

  “So, the two of you are well? You’re happy?”

  As in how we work as partners when I consult for the SSPD in solving crimes?

  “Sure,” I say, shrugging my shoulders. “I mean he’s smart and thorough. And he knows what he’s doing, which is nice.”

  He raises his sunglasses, purposefully I’m sure so I can melt in his eyes.

  “Kat, I don’t want it to be like this. Fuck. You know I’m still in love with you. I’m just hoping you’ll eventually realize you’re still in love with me too.”

  I have realized that, but I’m not about to admit it to him.

  “Let’s be real, he’s never going to be as good for you as I am,” he says.

  “Why would—”

  “Let me finish,” he says. “No one is going to be as good for you as I am. You don’t belong with him. The same way I don’t belong with Stacy.”

  “But, I’m not—”

  He interrupts me again, telling me all his reasons for feeling the way that he does. For why he’s right and I’m wrong.

  I wait for a break in his tirade, and gulp the remainder of my wine, signaling the waitress for another, fully prepared to keep drinking until I have to pour myself into an Uber.

  Because now is when I break his heart.

  Again.

  “You need to let me go,” I tell him. “Even if you aren’t with Stacy, we won’t work. I can’t be with you. Your mom died from the same fucking disease that I have, I can’t be with anyone who has seen me the way that you have.”

  He really just needs to move on with his life. Get married, have babies, coach little league, and host Sunday barbecues.

  I feel the tears start to streak down my face. I look away from him toward the water, hoping the ocean breeze will blow them dry before he has a chance to see them.

  But I keep talking, “I can’t ask you to commit yourself to a life of caretaking and hoping for miracles. To living in constant anticipation of when it will resurface and how. Always seeing me as a helpless, weakened victim, with one foot in the grave. That is no way for you to live.”

/>   “Fuck, Kat.” He leans forward again, resting his forearms on the table, the muscles in his arms flexing.

  “Baby, don’t cry.” He reaches across the table and cups my face, using his thumb to gently wipe away the tears.

  I blow my nose in my napkin, it makes one of those goose-like honking noises and I start to laugh.

  Then I can’t stop.

  I’m laughing and crying so hard I have to scoot my chair out and bend over. Brad comes around to my side of the table and kneels in front of me and pulls me into his arms. One hand strokes my back while the other strokes my hair and he murmurs comforting words in my ear.

  When I stop, he leans back, his hands on either side of my face.

  “God, you’re beautiful.” The look in his eyes so sincere, I get lost in them.

  Again.

  Before I realize what’s happening we’ve leaned in and are kissing.

  I’m not sure if I kissed him or if he kissed me, but it feels amazing. He groans and deepens the kiss, one hand coming around the back of my head, keeping it in place. His tongue plunging, his lips commanding, the combination intoxicating.

  He tastes so manly, like mint and lemon and home.

  He tastes like I’ve come home.

  I moan and lose myself in the kiss, not bothering to come back to reality until I hear a throat clear, and a small voice asks, “Brad?”

  I pull away and look up to see Stacy standing behind him, her face frozen in disbelief, with eyes wide, mouth agape, and one hand at her neck.

  He stands and turns to look at her.

  “Aw, Stace… Shit….”

  She looks between Brad and me. “I wanted to make sure you were okay… but I can see now you are fine. So… I’m gonna go.”

  And with that, she turns and runs away.

  Brad stands there looking like he’s been shot.

  “FUCK! I’ll be back.”

  He turns to leave, then looks back and points at me.

  “Kat, don’t move!” he growls, and he runs after her.

  I sit there, stunned.

  What the fuck just happened?

  I stand up, throw a bunch of money on the table, and head for the nearest bar, pulling my phone out to text my besties, Lexie and Remi, as I go.

  Shit. Fuck. Piss. Shit. Fuck. Piss. Shit. Fuck. Piss.

  Chapter 2

  One Week Before

  Kat

  I start to feel uneasy as I walk into the police precinct. Which is silly since I’ve been here plenty of times before to do the same thing I’m here to do today; help solve a crime. I just don’t know yet what type of crime, and Detective Sherman was not forthcoming with any additional information when he asked me to meet him here.

  I pause a moment to see if my pinky finger is tingling, my only indication that whatever I’m sensing is more premonition than it is emotion, but I feel nothing. Premonition is almost too strong a word though, what I feel is more like that flash of instinct you get from your subconscious when something happens; that brief moment before the logical mind has a chance to take over and negate it.

  It started after I had a brain tumor removed last year and woke from the surgery being able to feel things that are about to happen with surprising accuracy. I don’t offer myself out for hire, and I can’t get feelings on command, but I have been able to help the local police with solving a couple of small crimes and the San Soloman Investigative Homicide Team (SSIHT) with apprehending the Kriss-Kross Killer.

  Which is how I first met Sherman, he’s the lead investigator for the SSIHT. An acronym that my brain immediately reads as ‘SSHIT’ every time. He didn’t look happy when he asked me to meet him this morning. Then again, every time I’ve worked with him, he’s been unpleasant and never looked happy. So maybe that’s just his normal face.

  I tell the woman at the front desk that I am there to meet with Detective Sherman. She raises her head to me.

  “Oh, you must be Kat?” She seems surprised, almost.

  “I am.”

  “They are in conference room 3 – up the stairs and to the left. You can’t miss it.”

  “They?” I ask.

  “The task force.”

  Shit.

  This isn’t just a little low key gab session with Detective Sherman about something he’s stuck on. This is another case they need my help on.

  A case with a task force.

  Which means a big case.

  I make my way to conference room 3, stopping to grab a cup of coffee on my way. They are out of paper cups, so I have a choice between two ceramic mugs. I go with the least grungy of the two, which has a picture of Jack Bauer from the TV show 24 on it and a caption that reads ‘Once you go Jack, you never go back.’

  I snort lightly, trying to hold in my laugh as I step into the room. Sherman is off to the side talking to a really big guy I’d never seen before. His back is to me but I can tell that he has soft looking hair that’s just a little too long, broad beefy shoulders, and a great ass showcased in faded jeans.

  Hello there, guy I would totally do naughty sexy things to!

  If he looks this good from the back, I’ll need to brace myself for when he turns around.

  Four other men sit around the conference table with an assortment of coffee cups, notepads, muffin wrappers, and donut boxes in front of them. I know there is a joke in there somewhere, I just can’t think of it.

  Detective Sherman turns. “Kat. Good, you’re here,” he says and moves toward me, motioning for the guy with the great ass to do the same.

  “Chance, I’d like you to meet Katarina Walker. Kat, this is Chance Bauer.”

  Ha! What are the chances?

  I snort as I try to stop a laugh, then raise my coffee cup in acknowledgment. My other hand reaches out to shake his. He looks at me, then my mug, then back at me, blue eyes twinkling.

  “Go on, give it to me,” he says. “I’ve heard every 24 and Jack Bauer joke being in this business. But maybe you’ve got something new, what with having the coffee cup and all.”

  There’s an underlying laughter in his tone and he’s smiling.

  I feel my stomach tighten.

  He’s a dead-ringer for Bradley Cooper, circa 2010. You know, the Bradley Cooper from the A-Team movie? The one with hair that’s just a little too big on top and a little too long at the neck. Hair that’s begging to have a woman run her hands through it.

  Hair that’s begging to get wet in my hot tub and help me create sexy new memories that don’t involve Brad, my ex.

  And now I’m thinking about Brad.

  Again.

  Fuck.

  I need a Brad distraction, just not necessarily in the form of Chance Bauer. I made that mistake before by sleeping with an investigator on a case, which ended up being nothing but trouble.

  Big, embarrassing trouble.

  Note to self, ignore the distraction that is Chance Bauer as well as every other doable male on the planet (read: Brad) and focus instead on the task at hand. Which means no flirting and no suggestive looks or comments. And somehow turning off my out of control libido.

  “Uh, it’s not my cup. I got nothing,” I mumble to him and turn to take a seat at the table. He gives me a glance that can only be described as “curious” before his face goes blank.

  “Ok, now that we’re all here,” Sherman says. “Let me tell you why.”

  And when he tells us what we are dealing with I can’t decide if he’s joking or being serious. Someone, heretofore referred to as The Shower Stealer, has been breaking into people’s houses and using their shower to bathe in.

  When he’s finished, he leaves the water running.

  Since California is in a drought, homeowners are outraged.

  He’s also posting pictures of bathrooms all over social media. And running commentary on the filthy conditions of the bathrooms, including photos of dirty clothes on the floors, whiskers or hair on the sinks, and mold or mildew in the corners.

  When Sherman passes around prin
touts of the pictures and their captions, I laugh.

  Unless this perp is being serious, they’re really funny. I look around at the other guys. Apparently, I’m the only one who thinks so.

  I raise my hand to get Sherman’s attention.

  “This isn’t a classroom, Kat. You don’t have to raise your hand,” he says.

  “True,” I say. “But you’d be amazed at how often it works in real life outside the classroom.”

  I smile.

  He doesn’t smile back.

  I continue, “So, are we actually taking this seriously?”

  “The mayor is taking it very seriously, which is why Bauer has joined us, as a personal favor to the mayor. He has typically worked in other areas and we are lucky to have Bauer’s skill and expertise.” He clears his throat for emphasis.

  “So, what kind of a role am I playing in all of this?” I ask.

  “Well, you know,” he says. “First, we hoped you could see if you get a feel for anything while looking at the pictures. Either online or in print.”

  “It doesn’t really work that way,” I say.

  “We don’t have anything else to go on, Kat. We’ve got four families who have been affected so far.” He glances down at his notes. “The Taylor, Jones, Martin, and Shaw families. Let’s make sure we don’t get a fifth.”

  He looks at each of us pointedly, pausing as he gets to me. “Kat, in addition to reviewing the pictures, you’ll be working with Bauer, visiting the houses of these four families.”