by Debra Webb
Chapter Fourteen
Katherine sat on the front pew in the deserted hospital chapel. The room was lit by what looked like, in her opinion, upside-down seashells posing as wall sconces. They didn’t provide much in the way of illumination, but she supposed that they had been selected for the ambience they provided rather than the candlepower. An elaborate crucifix overwhelmed the front of the room, but its presence was somehow comforting.
She’d spent several hours in the waiting room, but felt restless, and she’d eventually found herself here. Katherine shifted on the hard bench and surveyed the chapel once more. Did being in a place like this put you any closer to God? she wondered. She frowned, trying to remember the last time she’d been in church. Too long ago to recall, she decided. Or lost forever thanks to the amnesia she’d suffered. Was this confusion and uncertainty residual effects of her slowly returning memory?
But not being able to remember her spirituality or lack thereof didn’t stop her from reaching to that higher power now in her time of despair. Katherine had prayed, pleaded with God to spare Raine’s life. She closed her eyes and fought the hot sting of tears. She should probably go back to the waiting room, but she felt too numb to move, and too dazed to deal with the police and the other assorted agents and investigators lurking there.
She clasped her hands in her lap. Her skin felt unnaturally cold and more than a little clammy. She needed to sleep, but couldn’t. The very thought of food sickened her. Raine was still in surgery and no one would tell her anything. The only thing anybody wanted to do was ask questions. She shuddered when her last images of him replayed before her eyes. So much blood. Raine had been unconscious for several minutes before help had arrived. And the paramedics wouldn’t have arrived then—even before the police—had it not been for an anonymous tip called in on a cellular phone.
Ballatore no doubt.
When they had arrived at the emergency-room entrance, Raine had looked so pale. Katherine swallowed tightly at the memory of the hospital staff wheeling him away from her. He had to make it, he just had to.
And then what?
He had told her that he wasn’t coming back. Raine had intended to walk away and never look back. How could she possibly believe that he had changed his mind? If she hadn’t made that call to Lucas, there would have been no reason for him to see her again. It was only his sense of responsibility to save her from Dillon that had brought him to that park, she felt sure. Even then, after he’d been shot, he had told her to go. Her heart squeezed painfully at the memory. He knew now that she had been sent to find him. That made her his enemy—a traitor. He would probably never forgive her, amnesia or not. But she just couldn’t think about that right now. She had to concentrate on willing him to live.
She was so very tired. Her eyes closed in exhaustion. Maybe if she could marshal the strength to walk back to the waiting room, some of the vultures would have gone by now. She shook her head at the improbability of it. Would her life ever be normal again?
Normal? Ha! Had it ever been normal? On cue, her heart fluttered in her chest. Hardly, she admitted ruefully.
“Katie?”
Recognition washed over her, bringing with it a sense of having come home. She turned around slowly, her gaze lifting to meet the man who had spoken.
“Daddy.” She breathed the word, her head whirling from sensory overload. Images, voices, sped across the landscape of her mind, too fast to analyze fully, and all belonging to the past she had forgotten. With warp speed, she was back. Her life, her family, the fact that she loved pepperoni pizza and chocolate ice cream, it was all there!
Before Katherine realized she’d moved, she had rushed into her father’s arms. He held her tightly, his arms strong and reassuring. The tang of Old Spice as familiar as the man himself. How could she have forgotten this man? The man who’d been both mother and father since she was eight years old.
He drew back to look down at her, cradling her face in his big hands. “Little girl, you gave me a hell of a scare,” he said gently.
Everything hit her at once, the good as well as the bad. The old doubts and fears, the overwhelming sense of not quite measuring up flooded her. Katherine wilted in her father’s arms, giving in to the tears she had managed to hold at bay for the last few hours.
She had failed. She’d had such high hopes for her career at the Colby Agency. Now she would lose the man she loved as well as her job. A heart-wrenching sob tore past her lips.
“Shh now, Katie.” Her father held her tighter. “Everything’s going to be fine.”
“It’s not ever…going to be fine,” she stammered. “I really screwed up this time. And Raine…Raine’s…” She couldn’t say her worst fears out loud. She just couldn’t.
“Don’t say it, Katie.” He patted her back as he gently rocked her from side to side. “From what I hear, you did a tremendous job and that fella you brought in is going to be just fine.”
…and bring him in either way. Victoria’s words rushed into Katherine’s head, pushing aside all else.
She drew back and swiped at the tears streaming down her cheeks. “How do you know he’s going to be fine? And I didn’t do a good job. I blew it,” she blurted, her words tumbling out over each other. “I failed. I’ll never be like Joe.” She shook her head. “Never.”
A deep frown marred her father’s features and sadness filled his coffee-colored eyes. “Katie, I don’t want you to be like Joe. I want you to be yourself.” He smiled, and some of the sadness disappeared. “I love you just like you are. I always have. Don’t you know that?”
Kate realized then that he did love her. Her father hadn’t held Joe as a measuring stick of success, she had. She threw her arms around his neck and hugged him close. “I love you, Daddy.” Just as abruptly, Katherine pulled away. “How did you know I was here? So much has happened, I didn’t even think to call you.”
“That’s what I was about to tell you.” He glanced back over his shoulder. “Nick brought me here.”
Katherine followed her father’s gaze to the tall black-haired man who stood waiting at the back of the chapel. “Nick?”
A wide smile broke across Nick’s handsome face as he slowly closed the distance between them, his limp a bit more pronounced than usual. “Hey, gorgeous,” he said as he pulled her into his strong embrace.
Katherine hugged him back. Nick Foster was a good friend, as well as her co-worker at the Colby Agency. “Thank you for coming,” she managed to say past the lump rising in her throat. He wasn’t her husband or her boyfriend. He was simply Nick, her friend. And he had given her the book of matches. You never know when you’ll need ’em, he’d said. The man always carried matches, despite having quit smoking more than two years ago.
Katherine frowned as she remembered that Nick hadn’t been the same since a job he’d taken around that time, in Mississippi. She didn’t know the details, but she sensed something bad had happened, and it was still eating away at him.
Nick held Katherine at arm’s length and gave her a slow once-over with those assessing green eyes of his. “Technically I’m here on business.” He smiled when he had completed his visual survey and seemed satisfied with Katherine’s well-being. “But you know I would have come anyway.”
Katherine moistened her dry lips. “Victoria knows, doesn’t she? I’m surprised she didn’t come herself.” Katherine knew her voice sounded stilted, but it was the best she could do under the circumstances. She had worked so hard to make a place for herself at the Colby Agency. How had she managed to screw up so badly?
“She’s at Bethesda checking up on Lucas,” Nick explained. “And, yes,” he added quietly. “She does know. I had to tell her. When I arrived at the rendezvous point to find you and the target gone, and your car in a ditch, we knew the assignment had gone sour. I couldn’t risk not telling her.”
Katherine nodded numbly. “Do I still have a job?”
Nick chuckled. “Are you kidding? The whole agency is talking about
how you tracked down some big-time secret-agent guy. You’ll have to tell me the whole story one of these days.” He playfully chucked her under the chin. “Hell, Katherine, you’re a regular celebrity back in Chicago. I plan to throw you a victory party when you get home.”
Home. Katherine frowned at the emptiness that word suddenly conjured. What good was home or a career without the man she loved? How could she go back to her old life and just forget about Raine? “I should get back to the waiting room. There may be news about Raine by now.”
“He’s doing great. They moved him to recovery,” Nick told her. “When I stopped in the waiting room looking for you, I heard the doctor giving the detective in charge an update.”
Katherine closed her eyes and breathed a heartfelt sigh of relief. Thank you, God. Raine was going to be all right and that was all that mattered. She would learn to accept and live with her heart condition—but she wasn’t sure she could live without Raine.
RAINE FOUGHT the thick blackness that surrounded him. He could hear someone calling his name, but he couldn’t quite rise to the surface of the overwhelming darkness. He couldn’t wake up. He tried, God knows he tried. But he just couldn’t. Sleep, like a millstone around his neck, kept dragging him back into the abyss of nothing.
Later, a lifetime later it seemed, he struggled again to find his way to the surface, to break through that inky veil that hung between him and consciousness.
Finally, by slow degrees, his eyes opened. At first he squeezed them shut again, the light was too bright. But he couldn’t find Kate if he didn’t wake up. And he had to find Kate. He had to tell her that he’d been wrong to walk out on her. That she meant the world to him. That the past didn’t matter. That he loved her. That realization still shook him, but there was no denying it any longer. He would tell her. He doubted it would change anything, but he had to say the words just the same.
But what if she’d already left?
He opened his eyes again. He blinked until his vision adjusted to the sterile, white brightness of the room. He moved his right arm and grimaced. Tubes from a nearby IV were attached to that arm. So he moved his left instead. He touched his parched lips with his fingers. Man, he could use a drink of anything wet.
Raine turned to his right to look at the array of beeping machines next to his bed. Pain speared through him, almost sending him back into the blackness. Frowning and confused, the fingers of his left hand found the bandage wrapped tightly around his midsection. Oh, yeah. He remembered now. Cuddahy, the son of a bitch, had shot him.
Gingerly, he looked to his left, making sure that nothing below his neck moved. His heart bumped into overdrive when he found Kate sleeping in a chair beside his bed. Her long hair fell around her shoulders. Those wide, expressive eyes were closed in what he felt sure was much-needed sleep. Had she been with him all this time?
Raine’s frown deepened. Hell, he didn’t even know how long he’d been here. Had it been days, or only hours? Lucas? He needed to find out about Lucas.
Raine licked his dry lips again. A water pitcher was on the table next to his bed. Maybe he could reach it. He cautiously stretched his left arm in that direction and the room spun wildly. A groan escaped when pain seared through him again. Raine swore under his breath, gritted his teeth and tried a second time.
“Raine.” Kate moved to his side. “Don’t try to move,” She filled the cup sitting next to the pitcher with water, and peeled the wrapper off a bendable straw. “Here.” She placed the straw against his lips and Raine took a small sip.
“Thanks,” he said, feeling tremendously better just knowing she was nearby.
“If you want me to leave now I will,” she said hesitantly. “I just wanted to make sure you were all right.”
He frowned. “I don’t want you to leave.”
“Good.” Kate smiled down at him then. She looked nervous and tired and more beautiful than any woman he had ever seen in his entire life. “You’re going to be fine,” she assured him.
“Lucas?” He had to know about Lucas.
“Lucas is fine. Victoria, my boss, called this afternoon. He has a concussion and a few cracked ribs, but he’ll be out of the hospital in a couple of days.”
Raine nodded. “Good.” His gaze focused on hers. Had she only stayed to make sure he was all right? Would she go now? Now that she’d done what Lucas had hired her to do?
Kate averted her gaze for a long moment before she met his once more. Her eyes were suspiciously bright then. Raine saw the tremendous effort it took for her to gather her courage. He waited. This was the part when she would tell him that her job was done and she had to go back to wherever she’d come from. She was safe now, and he should be pleased that Kate could get back to her life. But he wasn’t.
“I’ve done a lot of thinking during the last twenty-four hours,” she finally said. She smiled crookedly and Raine’s heart ached with the thought of never seeing that smile again. “I made a little list.” She retrieved a small, wrinkled piece of paper from her jeans’ pocket. She studied it a moment. “First I wanted to thank you for saving my life—more than once. And I want to apologize for not telling you the whole truth. I mean, as it came to me. I didn’t tell you everything and I should have. I was afraid—”
“Kate, you don’t have to do this.” He couldn’t bear the hurt on her face or the pain in her voice.
“Just let me finish, okay?”
“Okay,” he relented.
“Second, I want to properly introduce myself.” She essayed another tremulous smile. “I’m Katherine Robertson. My dad calls me Katie, but you can still call me Kate. I lived my whole life in Arlington, Virginia, until I moved out to Chicago to join the Colby Agency. I wanted to be a police officer, like my dad, but my ‘bum ticker’ got in the way.” She released a shaky breath. “I’m a private investigator, and I’m pretty good, despite my physical shortcomings, if I do say so myself.”
Raine felt his lips spread into a grin. “Pretty damn good,” he agreed.
“Lucas hired the Colby Agency to find you because he wanted to help you. He didn’t fully trust anyone in his own organization. He wanted to know the truth about what really happened.” She smiled. “Finding you wasn’t so difficult since you called and left that telephone number on Lucas’s voice mail.” Kate looked away a moment then. “I know I betrayed you, but I was only—”
“Kate,” he interrupted.
“I’m almost finished,” she insisted, then glanced nervously at her paper. “Third.” Kate wet her lips and swallowed visibly. “Could I just do one thing before I tell you number three?”
A mixture of worry and uncertainty tugged at Raine. “Sure.”
Kate leaned forward slightly, hesitated, her gaze locked with his. Her own uncertainty flickered in those deep brown eyes. She inhaled sharply, parted her lips as if she might say something, but closed her eyes and pressed her lips to his instead.
She kissed him softly, sweetly, the essence of hot chocolate lingering on her lips. Raine threaded the fingers of his left hand into her silky hair and pulled her mouth more firmly against his. He traced the seam of her lips with his tongue and she opened, inviting him inside. He stroked her tongue and all those other sensitive spots inside her soft, warm mouth until they both struggled for breath.
“Raine,” she breathed. “Can I…is it okay if I touch you?”
Nipping her lower lip to draw her mouth back to his, Raine responded by taking her hand and placing it on his jaw. He groaned with pleasure when her soft palm stroked his beard-roughened skin. Her answering moan sent heat straight to his groin.
When she broke the contact of their lips again, Raine swore, caught her chin and pulled her mouth back to his.
“Wait,” she protested, flicking a concerned glance at the quickening staccato of the monitor that tracked his heart rate. “We shouldn’t be doing this, you’re hurt.” She licked her lips, no doubt tasting their kiss. “Besides, if I don’t finish this now, I might just lose my nerve.”
Raine exhaled in frustration, but relented. “For the record,” he rasped. “I’d have to be dead not to want you to kiss me.” Despite having just had major surgery, his loins were tight with desire. No one had ever shattered his control the way Kate did.
“Just be quiet and listen,” she scolded gently.
He gave her his full attention and kept his mouth shut.
“Okay,” she said, more to assure herself than him, he decided. “I hadn’t anticipated this happening anytime soon in my life, but that’s beside the point. It did and…and I’m glad.” She leveled her gaze on his. “I love you, Jack Raine.”
He felt stunned. He couldn’t have uttered one word had his life depended on it. Could this woman—the kind of woman he’d never dreamed of having—really love him? Even knowing what she must know about his past?
“I…I know our lives are worlds apart and that it might never work even if you forgive me for not being completely honest with you.” She fiddled with the edge of the white sheet covering him, her attention concentrated there for a time. Raine waited, he had to know what else she had to say, what she wanted.
“And I know that my heart condition is considerably less than appealing, but I…” She looked up then. “I just wanted you to know that I’ll never, ever forget you and—” she swallowed “—that I’ll always love you.”
Raine searched her face, unsure what to say. No one had ever told him that before. No one. He had known that Kate had feelings for him, but he’d never expected her to love him.
She forced a smile. “That’s all I wanted to say.” She looked anywhere but at him. “I should go. You need your rest.” She shoved a handful of hair behind her ear. “Goodbye, Raine.” Kate wheeled away from him. Her movements jerky, she grabbed her purse and coat and headed to the door.
She was almost there before Raine found his voice. “Don’t go, Kate.”
She hesitated but didn’t turn around.
Unsure of himself in this emotional territory, he plodded ahead, “I didn’t get my chance.”