Kate sat sideways, on her crossed legs, so she could face Shane as they talked. Suddenly one of the large double wood doors opened and a young lady dressed in an attractive dress and heels, brought two more martinis on a tray, and placed them on the table. Without a word she took the two empty glasses and left, closing the doors behind her. Shane held Kate’s hand, stared at the fire, thinking he had died and gone to heaven. He remained quiet…reflective.
After a moment of silence, Kate asked, “Shane, is something wrong?”
Shane looked into Kate’s concern-filled eyes, and said, “Kate, nothing could be more right. I just can’t believe I’m here with you, after weeks of dreaming about you, trying to find the courage to speak to you. It’s almost unbelievable. And to be with you here, in your home, this wonderful room, with the fire…it’s so perfect.”
Kate found it refreshing that a tough guy like Shane was really so sensitive. He was as she hoped he would be, not overly impressed with himself, but kind, caring, considerate, appreciative, and loving.
Shane smiled and squeezed Kate’s hand gently. Kate laughed and said, “So you’re not disappointed we left the casino?”
Shane returned the laugh and said, “Kate, I couldn’t be happier or in a better place. This is so much more intimate and private. It’s a perfect place to get to know you. But I have to ask you….” Shane trailed off.
When he stopped mid-sentence and looked down, Kate asked, “What, Shane?”
Shane looked up and hesitated, as if afraid of the answer. He summoned his courage and asked, “Why me, and why now? I mean, you don’t look like a girl who brings a stranger home from a casino to your own Shangri-La, especially on a first date. And how do you know my real name?”
Kate started to reply, but hesitated as though being very cautious. She released Shane’s hand, stood and walked to the fireplace. Kate gazed into the fire, as if searching the embers for the right answer. “Shane, I wasn’t going to approach you, but I couldn’t help it. You see, this isn’t really our first date.”
Kate glanced at Shane and saw the look of disbelief on his face. “Kate, I’m too young for dementia, and I could never have forgotten meeting you, let alone dating you. I mean it would be impossible for me to forget you. How can that be?” His confusion prompted Kate to continue where she had been afraid to go.
Kate turned toward Shane, with a serious look that he wasn’t sure he wanted to see often. But a moment later, she laughed a little playful laugh like she had discovered the way to break the news and save the day. To his surprise, Kate’s mood turned in a moment. She now seemed to enjoy her ability to bewilder the man who had everything figured out, or so he had always thought.
“So, you really don’t remember me, Shane?” Kate asked, walking to a nearby bureau. “If I show you a picture of us together, will that jog your memory?” Kate teased, savoring the moment.
Shane looked stunned, as he racked his memory for an explanation. Kate took her time, allowing him to search his mind, but he clearly made no progress.
Shane finally said, “I guess a picture would have to help me some…maybe.” He felt out-maneuvered at every turn, but his curiosity was peaked. He stared at the drawer in anticipation, as Kate strummed her fingers playfully on the bureau top.
Kate opened the drawer and retrieved a small photo album, bound in leather, and sealed closed with rawhide twine wrapped around small brass posts protruding from each cover. She unwound the rawhide slowly, and then almost danced back to her place on the loveseat, teasing Shane coyly all the way. Kate leapt back into the seat next to Shane, while folding her legs under her in one move. Shane was amazed at Kate’s agile and athletic body, but tried to focus on the photo album, instead of her beautiful bouncing breasts.
“So, Shane, what do I get if I prove your memory wrong?” He smiled now, completely intrigued and thoroughly enjoying the game for the first time.
“What do you want…that I can afford?” He emphasized, looking around the room.
Kate laughed, and thought long and hard as she stared into Shane’s eyes. He felt she could see right through him to his very soul. He wanted to look away, afraid she would see something she didn’t like, but he was mesmerized.
“Like a cobra powerless to stop gazing at the mongoose long enough to get away,” Shane teased.
Kate was obviously pleased with Shane’s response, and replied flirtatiously, “I want what I have wanted since I was thirteen years old and first met you, Shane. I want another date.” With that Kate opened the album to the exact page and placed the book into his hands.
Shane stared down at a series of photos of his father, himself, one of his father’s clients, and an awkward looking brownish-redheaded girl, all smiling happily back at the camera. He realized that the girl was glancing sideways at him in the picture. He looked back and forth in disbelief from the face of the girl who appeared to be about thirteen, to Kate, who raised her eyebrows, cocked her head to the side and nodded, confirming her own identity. He slowly smiled, remembering glimmers of the past.
He finally said, “The girl who wouldn’t eat shrimp?”
Kate laughed and admitted, “I don’t have that problem anymore, Shane.”
Shane stammered, trying to solve the puzzle while speaking the options, “But how did you…did you…all the time, at the café, or when did you..?” They both laughed aloud over the nonsense of his question, as he blushed slightly red.
Shane again looked down, amazed to look into his father’s eyes gazing back at him from Kate’s album. He finally managed, “But I still don’t understand.”
Kate snatched the book from his hands and dashed back to the bureau, replacing it in the drawer. “There will be lots of time for more questions later,” she said, with a disarming smile.
He began to rise up in protest, but she insisted, “That’s just part of what I win, Shane. I get to keep you wondering for a little longer, and we get to go to the Jacuzzi now.”
And with that, Kate scooped up the trunks from the coffee table and threw them to Shane in one deft movement. As he caught them and stood up, she pointed to the door of a room he could see just off a set of stairs leading downward. He walked to the door, down the stairs, and into a large bathroom and dressing area. He changed quickly and hung his clothes on hangers he located in a large closet in the bathroom. He placed his Glock in a clothes bag he then folded and set under his shoes. He only briefly considered taking the gun with him, but instantly dismissed the idea.
When he emerged from the bathroom, Shane noticed lights on outside in a sunroom set off and below the bathroom through a hallway. From there four more stairs led down to a sunken all-glass room on the terraced back yard, looking up onto “C” hill and out to the forest to the west. Until tonight, he had not even noticed the stars since he had come to Carson City.
He crossed the room toward the sound of water jets, and saw Kate, sitting in the hot tub, backlit by a row of flickering candles. There were two fresh drinks perched on the tile surrounding the large tub. Shane realized he had already drunk almost two of these martinis, and he felt just a little more relaxed than usual. He had lost track of time. He thought to himself, “The now is a gift, that’s why they call it the present.”
Shane stepped into the Jacuzzi, and was immediately greeted by stings from the hot, pulsating water. The surges drove electric-like shocks into the exposed nerve ends inside the damaged flesh in his shin.
“Kate will see my wound,” he thought, as he as he wondered what explanation he would give her.
Fierce stinging, that caused the initial wince of pain, was soon replaced by the feeling of welcome deep-tissue massage, as the hot water ricocheted off Shane’s aching muscles. He was still sore from the collision with Franky’s tree, and now the combination of martinis and water therapy was a potion he welcomed. He sank deeper into the water and, for the first time in a long time, totally relaxed.
Shane reached for his glass and noticed it was colder to the touch
than before. He knew it had been refilled and thought he should slow down a little to keep his composure with Kate. He didn’t want to screw up a good thing on the first date. He took a small sip and put the glass down. The drink was ice water with lemon, and he smiled.
Kate asked, “What happened to your leg, Shane?” with a look of genuine concern.
Occasionally, there is an awkward moment in the life of an undercover operative. It’s the moment when the operative realizes they must choose to tell the truth, or hide behind the protection of the cover story, which is always a lie. The moment almost always involves answering to a person the operative may care about. In that moment, the operative places everything on the line with their decision. It is an extremely difficult choice.
If they tell the truth, the other person may eventually compromise them in some way, endangering their life or the loved one’s life. If they tell the lie, they may be safer, but risk losing the relationship with the person forever. Few relationships recover when it’s eventually discovered that the relationship was built on a foundation of lies…even if they seemed essential to survival at the time. Shane knew this was the reason undercover operatives often did not have relationships.
Even as his mind quickly replayed the options, Shane knew he really had no choice. He had waited all the years since the death of his parents to recover to the point he could find the love he desperately needed. He wasn’t going to risk compromising a possible relationship with Kate. He would tell her the truth and depend on her to never ever betray his trust. He also knew the truth could place her in harm’s way. But after all, any relationship with him might place her in harm’s way!
Shane began slowly, “Kate, I could never tell you anything other than the whole truth. I hope you will appreciate how difficult it is for me to tell you this, and I need to know I can depend on you to keep my confidence. No one can know what I do for a living, or what I am working on right now.”
Kate straightened up in the hot tub, and hit a button that turned down the jets so they could talk more quietly, as she nodded in agreement. “No one can hear us, Shane, and I won’t repeat a word of this, if you tell me not to,” Kate said reassuringly.
Shane read Kate instantly. He recognized truth when he saw it and continued.
“Kate, I work as an undercover operative on special assignments with different law enforcement agencies. I am here in Carson City working an assignment for the local Sheriff’s Office. One night recently, I made entry into my target’s residence to conduct a close-up surveillance. When I left, I had to jump down into a tree in the yard from an upstairs balcony, and I sliced my shin open on a jagged branch.”
Kate’s eyes looked down at Shane’s leg, and back up at him. Shane shrugged, “Not very graceful, I guess,” he said, trying to lighten the moment. “There is a lot more I could probably tell you to convince you I’m not a nut with delusions of grandeur, or trying to give you some romantic line about being a super sleuth, but, it is what it is, and it’s really not very romantic or glorious,” Shane said, looking down at the swirling water. He added, “My target is the Magadinno crime family and the Mexican drug cartels supporting them.” Neither of them said anything for several minutes, as each contemplated how much more they should reveal to the other.
Shane closed his eyes and then felt the water move, as Kate moved closer to him. She took his hand in hers. And as he looked down, Shane watched Kate gently caress his hand and fingers. When he looked up at her, she pressed into him and he felt the soft lips of Kate’s tender kiss. He kissed her back, long, slow and soft at first.
The fire of unbridled passion slowly began to rise. Hunger and yearning replaced the tender testing of first touches, and soon their kisses were long and hard. Passion flowed from one to the other, first in spurts and then in streams. Tentative explorations grew to confident caresses and, as each trusted more, they released more into each other until there was no holding back. They reluctantly controlled their mutual desire, checked by the threat of losing the experience by going too far, too fast.
Kate and Shane were locked in an increasingly tight embrace, born of a gentle caress and fueled with the fire of desire. They explored each other’s mouths with anxious inquiring tongues. At the end of several minutes, neither wanted to stop, but Shane felt he had to tell Kate a little more about who and what he was, if only to make sure she was sure about what she was doing.
He started to say, “Kate…” But she stopped him cold by pulling him back to her and smothering him with her warm, soft, wet, intimate kisses.
Shane was helpless. He lost any pretense of self-control, and so did Kate. They kissed and caressed each other’s nearly nude bodies with hands and tongues, trying to learn and memorize everything about each other. The intensity of this newly discovered obsession spiraled upward at a blinding pace. The heat of the Jacuzzi combined with the heat of lust. After several minutes the two new lovers, chests heaving, not wanting to stop, realized they had to leave the water.
Shane gently pulled Kate upward from the hot tub, realizing there was no way he could hide his erect “package.” He drew Kate close to him and kissed her deeply, probing her tongue and mouth with his tongue, and then pulling back, allowing Kate to do the same. He traced the outline of her luscious neck from her shoulders to her ears, and back again with his tongue, until his whole body throbbed with desire. They stood and kissed for several more minutes, pressing their aching bodies closer and closer until it felt as if they were nearly one being.
After a few minutes, Kate took Shane by the hand, leading him back to the bathroom where Shane had changed earlier. She retrieved towels for both of them and they dried off together. She then took Shane’s clothes out of the closet, handed him his shoes, and the clothes bag that held his holster and gun, and said, “Shane, if you trust me, come with me now.”
Shane looked into the face of the woman he was dying to cover in kisses, and noticed the smile was gone from Kate’s lips. It had been replaced by a sexy, serious, yearning expression Shane had recognized immediately, and was not about to argue with. He nodded, and followed Kate out through the sitting room and up the sets of stairs that led to the opposite end of the house.
The room they finally entered was definitely Kate’s room. It was located at the end of a long hallway, not unlike Franky’s upstairs hallway, with rooms going in both directions from the top of the landing. But that was where the similarity ended. Kate’s room was twice as big as Franky’s master bedroom, with a larger balcony that looked the same direction as the viewing room and the Jacuzzi below.
Shane guessed the tasteful furniture was probably Amish, made of lightly stained oak. He recognized good furniture. One of his dad’s hobbies had been making furniture, in their old wood shop. The matching bed was a four-post design with an uncovered canopy. A huge skylight opened over the bed, presenting the viewer an inspiring glimpse of the night sky, moon and stars.
Oversized windows wrapped around two sides of the room, offering unobstructed views of the tree-covered Sierra’s to the north and west. The bed was already turned down on both sides, as if beckoning the new lovers.
“The now is a gift,” Shane thought.
As they arrived at the bed, Shane realized he had been reading the room. It was a habit he thought he might have to break when he was with Kate, as he sensed she had noticed his caution.
“We’re completely safe here, Shane,” Kate said softly. He nodded.
Shane felt secure enough, but knew from experience that no one was ever completely safe. But tonight, he thought, belonged to him and Kate, regardless of what tomorrow may bring.
Kate took Shane by the hand, and pulled him to her. And for the first time in a long time, at that moment, Shane had no security worries. His mind and his body were lost in a growing passionate desire that emerges at the birth of a new love.
In a flash of seconds Shane and Kate were lost in each other again, entangled in each other’s bodies, their fiery kisses fueling thei
r desire to make love. Shane made no moves on Kate, content to let her lead. He instantly responded to Kate’s every touch and gesture, as she explored and caressed him further.
They were soon united in a reciprocating rhythm, trading touch for touch, as their hands, fingers and tongues travelled to the depths of each other’s bodies. Shane felt as if he had known Kate forever, yet each touch was fired by first-time passion. Constrained desire gave way to raw lust. Rapidly building hunger built and surged in waves. Finally, both lovers yielded to the intense craving they felt deep within their bodies, minds and souls.
The sexual fervor grew to the point of confidence that displaced uncertainty, and Kate undressed Shane, slowly and methodically, as if respecting and honoring the body she yearned to claim.
Shane responded by removing Kate’s bikini top, and covering her erect nipples and large, perfect breasts with kisses. He relished tasting the luscious skin he had dreamed about, with his tongue, and he lingered over each breast and nipple before returning quickly to the other.
When neither could stand the intensity any longer, and both were nearly overcome in breathless desire, Shane gently removed Kate’s bikini bottom. He caressed every inch of her buttocks and pubic area. When Shane moved to her thighs and began to probe Kate with his tongue Kate nearly orgasmed. She quickly pulled him back up to her, and buried her tongue into Shane’s mouth, driving the tip deep down his throat.
Kate wanted Shane, and needed him inside her now…yet, she fought the urge to rush, and tried to slow her pace. The lovers mirrored each other’s moves, as they felt those intimate places reserved for making love, they were experiencing together for the very first time.
Shane could resist the primal urge no longer, as Kate teased and stroked him sensually, light strokes alternating with firm caresses. He raised himself on to her body, and entered Kate slowly, but firmly…steadily.
The Case Page 9