He grabbed one and a scotch for himself. She’d kicked off her pumps and had settled into one of the chairs by the window, her long legs crossed. Her toenails were painted red and her feet looked smooth. He poured the airplane-sized bottle of scotch into a glass and took a sip.
She was silent as he poured another drink. When he turned around, she was facing the window with her back to him. “When we get home, I’ll find a new job. Flora’s better. Your mom’s cast is off. You guys don’t need me.”
No! Not yet.
“And I passed the California boards,” she said.
“When did you find out?”
“Last week.”
“Well, great. Good for you.” Suddenly, everything hurt. His head, his chest. She no longer needed him. There would be nothing to keep her in his house, in his life. He had to do something to...to what? To keep her by his side.
“I should get back to doing what I do,” she said.
He forced a smile, even though it felt like one of his linebackers pressed into his chest with his foot. “Instead of cooking meals for a spoiled football player?”
“I love cooking for you,” she whispered. “I’ve loved every minute of it.”
The truth smacked him right between the eyes.
You’ve fallen in love with her, idiot.
It wasn’t just that he wanted her in his bed. He liked her. He admired her. He respected her. She made him laugh. She understood him. She was kind and giving and smart.
She’s perfect for you, idiot.
He was in love with Kara Eaton. Head over heels, can’t think straight, want her next to him always kind of love.
And, he needed time to win her over. To make her fall for him, not just into his bed. Superstitions about his game or this need to protect his heart seemed ridiculous now. Whatever her past, Kara Eaton was the greatest game he would ever play. Winning her was the only score that counted.
First, he needed to set her straight about the blond.
“We should talk about last night.” He took the chair across from her.
“Last night?”
“Don’t play dumb,” he said.
“You’re a grown man. It’s none of my business what you do.”
“But?”
“But nothing. I was surprised, that’s all. I don’t get how you just sleep with someone you know you’ll never see again—that means nothing to you.”
“It’s not an everyday occurrence. I’m not Kyle.”
“I don’t know what that means.” She stood. “I’m going to have a drink after all.”
He watched her cross the room. “It means Kyle’s a player. I’m not. Last night was a moment of weakness. I was lonely.”
She whipped around to face him. “How could you be lonely after the day we shared? The evening? The fire?”
He opened his mouth to speak but no sound came out. Kara’s cheeks flamed pink, and her eyes glittered with the intensity of a feverish child.
“Seriously? Lonely?” She twisted the top off a bottle of vodka and poured it into the glass. He hadn’t thought a liquid could be poured so that it appeared angry in the glass, but this one did.
“Kara, I-I’m.” Jesus. Now he was stuttering. “I’m sorry.”
“For what?” She lifted the glass to shoulder height. For a moment, he thought she might hurl it at him.
“I’m not sure, actually. I don’t understand why you’re so mad at me. You rejected me last night, not the other way around.”
“I’m mad at you because...because you’re so...you’re so...so. God, I don’t know.” She tossed back the entirely of her drink and slammed the glass onto the table.
He rose to his feet and moved closer to her. “So what?”
“So infuriating. So all-consuming. So dangerous.”
“Dangerous?”
“I can’t stop thinking about you,” she whispered. “It’s awful. You’re driving me crazy.”
“What kind of crazy?”
She stared at the floor, her voice throaty. “The kind that keeps me up at night. The kind that imagines what it would be like if you slipped into my bed instead of staying in your room.” She took in a quick breath. “Seeing that girl come out of your room made me so...so.” She sputtered and glared at him.
“So what?”
“So jealous.”
“Oh.”
“I’m not the jealous type.”
“Kara, you have this wrong.”
Her eyes filled. She waved her hand in front of her chest. “We’re wrong.”
He clenched his teeth until his jaw ached. “No. We’re right. Don’t you see that?”
She looked up at him. Tears dampened her thick lashes. “I see that we can’t be together.”
“That girl meant nothing.” He wrapped his hands around her upper arms. “I took that woman to my room last night because I wanted you so badly I thought I might lose my mind. I went to the bar to search for a replacement.”
“A replacement?” Her nostrils flared. “What does that mean?”
“No, not like that. Well, kind of like that.” His voice deepened as he struggled to find the right words. “Nothing happened with her. She passed out in my room, and I couldn’t get rid of her.”
“But you brought her there to sleep with her?”
“Yes, but once I got her there, I realized there was no way. I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t follow through with any of the women I met with Kyle last week. No one is you. You’re driving me crazy. Trust me, I think about you being down the hall too. I haven’t slept well since you moved in.” He paused as he took in a deep breath to gather courage. “Kara, I’m in love with you. I want you in my life. Today. Tomorrow. Forever.”
“No, don’t say it. This can’t be. There can’t be an us. I can’t be with you, Brody. Not now. Not ever.” She jerked away from him and ran to the door. Before he could react, the door slammed behind her.
HE RAN AFTER HER, DOWN the steps to the stretch of beach below the parking lot. A fat moon had risen over the water, lighting his way. Silver sparkles danced in the waves. Fine sand gave way under his shoes. She had stopped at the water’s edge and collapsed on the sand with her arms wrapped around her knees.
When he reached her, he sat next to her and wrapped his arm around her shoulders. Waves roared and crashed to shore. In the silence between the rise and fall of waves, his heart seemed to thud against the bones of his chest. Stars winked at him, bright and optimistic. “Kara, I love you. I don’t care what you were running from, just that you ran to me. Please, look at me. Tell me what’re you’re thinking.”
“We both know I have to leave you.”
“Why?”
“Because I’m in love with you too and the longer I stay, the worse it will become.”
“You’re in love with me?” he asked.
“Yes. Desperately. But my past makes it impossible for us to be together.”
“Whatever your secrets are, I don’t care. I just want to be with you.”
She trembled and looked up at him with enormous eyes. “Brody, no. It’s bigger than that.”
“All my life, I’ve played by the rules. I’ve worked harder than anyone else. I’ve sacrificed a personal life for football. It’s served me well. I got what I wanted. But I’ve changed. You’ve changed me.” He teased her bottom lip with his thumb. “I don’t want to go home without you. I don’t want to watch you walk away from me and close your bedroom door. I don’t want to be anyplace you’re not. I know it sounds crazy, but I’ve decided. I want you next to me for the rest of my life.” He smiled. “These months with you have been the best of my life. I don’t want to look back and think about what could’ve been with us, just because I was too stupid to realize that a good woman by my side will enhance every aspect of my life—even my game. It wasn’t a woman who messed up my head, it was the wrong woman. The right woman does the opposite. You’re the right one, Kara. The only one. Don’t cry. I’m telling you I love you.”
Tears spilled down
her cheeks faster than he could swipe them away with his thumb. “I’ve loved you from almost the first moment I met you.”
“I’m going to kiss you, and after that, I’m going to take you into my room, and I’m going to kiss you some more until you tell me to stop.”
He leaned closer and breathed in the sweet scent of her skin as he pressed his mouth to hers. She immediately responded by wrapping her arms around his neck and kissed him back. He groaned and slipped his hands beneath her blouse.
A light came between them. What the hell? He drew away from Kara. The bright light blinded him. He put up his hand. It was a police officer holding a large black flashlight. “You two know this beach is closed this time of night?”
“No, sir, I wasn’t aware of that,” Brody said as he lifted Kara to her feet.
The officer was next to them now. He shined the light into their faces. “Well I’ll be. It’s Brody Mullen, isn’t it? How are you, man?” Shadows from the flashlight made it hard to see, but the officer appeared to be middle-aged, with thinning hair and large ears.
“Just fine.” He wrapped his arm tighter around Kara’s shoulders. She was shaking. Had the officer scared her? “We’re staying up at the inn. Just enjoying the moonlight.”
“Looked like more than that.” The officer slapped him on the shoulder and let out a little burst of laughter. “We don’t want to have to arrest you for indecent exposure.”
“No, sir,” Brody said. “We’re just leaving.”
“Good man. Sorry to break up your party, but I don’t know if it’s safe out here this time of night. Best to take your pretty girl back to the hotel.”
“Yes, sir. Got caught up in the moment.”
The officer nodded his head as his eyes skirted Kara’s body. “Can’t say I blame you.”
Brody went hot. Keep your eyes on her face.
“Okay, then, we’re out of here,” Brody said.
“I’m Officer Murphy.” He pointed his light up the embankment. “I’ll walk you to you the hotel there.”
Fantastic.
“Thank you, sir,” Brody said. “We’d appreciate that.”
“Would you mind a photo first?” Murphy flashed a sheepish grin. “I’d love to have proof for my boys that I actually met you.”
For God’s sake. Could this guy take a hint? He tightened his grip around Kara. “Sure. No problem. Make it quick, though. She’s cold.”
Murphy had already pulled out his phone. He crossed the sand to stand next to Brody, obviously preparing to take a selfie. Kara trembled next to him. Then, like an electric current shocked her, she jerked from his embrace and crossed her arms in front of her face, the way he’d seen famous people do when followed outside of nightclubs or restaurants. “Not me. I can’t be in the photo.”
“Come on now, don’t be shy,” Murphy said.
“I don’t want to be in the photo,” she said. “Period.” Kara stumbled across the sand toward the stairs.
“Just take the photo,” Brody said. “I need to get her inside.”
“Sure, sure.” The officer snapped the photo.
Kara was halfway up the stairs. He called after her, but she didn’t turn back to answer. “Gotta go,” Brody said.
The officer didn’t bother to respond. He was too busy looking at his cell phone.
He caught up to her just as she reached the front doors to the inn. Before she could go inside, he pulled her into his arms. “Don’t run from me.”
“You were right, Brody. I lied to you. I have a secret that could cause your family harm. The people I’m running from, if they find out where I am, they’ll kill me and everyone I love. The longer I stay around someone as high profile as you are, the more chance I have of being caught. And the more chance there is that something will happen to you or your family. The cop out there—he’s a perfect example. My God, I was kissing you on a public beach. I can’t live like normal people. I have to be a mole.”
Her words took a moment to sink into his consciousness. She had lied to him. Her presence could put them in danger. “God, Kara. That was all I asked. You promised me that my family was not in danger.” His stomach lurched. He might be sick.
“I’m sorry, Brody. I’m so sorry. I would tell you what it is, but that would put you in more danger.”
Chapter Thirty-four
Kara
She’d lost him forever. She knew it by the look on his face. Her teeth chattered. Fear and anger welled up inside her. Why did she have to live this way? Hidden from the world? She wanted to tell the man she loved the truth. How could she possibly leave him? He was part of her. Could she survive the severing?
He grabbed her by the shoulders, almost shaking her. “You’re going to tell me the damn truth. Do you want to talk here or in the room?”
Her teeth chattered. “The room.”
Inside, her legs crumbled. He picked her up and carried her to his room. Once he unlocked the door, he kicked it open and set her on the bed.
He stood, looking at her with his arms crossed over his chest. “You will tell me the truth. Right now. You owe me that much.”
“It’s bad. As bad as you can imagine.”
He moved to her and put his hands on the sides of her face, searching. She flinched under his scrutiny. “Tell me.”
“Once I tell you the truth, you’ll understand why we can’t be together,” she said.
He jerked away and sat in the chair by the bed. “Fine. Talk.”
She wrapped her arms around her middle. “My father was a money launderer for drug lords in Columbia. He was involved at the deepest level and had been for most of my life. I helped the state build a case against him and testified against him. And now many people, including him, want me dead.”
“I don’t understand.” His expression was a combination of shock and curiosity.
“I was staying with my father at his country estate in Upstate New York. I woke in the middle of the night to shouting from the yard. When I went to the window, I saw my father shoot a man. The next morning, I went to the police. They turned me over to the FBI. They’d tried for years to make a case. They asked if I would help them by bugging my father’s office and trying to trap him into a confession.”
“Jesus, Kara.”
“So, I did it. I placed the bugs in his office. I got him to talk, to tell me his stories by playing to his ego, using my gift for functioning under pressure. But he never broke, never confessed anything to me. But over months, they got the information they needed through his bugged phone calls. They had enough to make a case against him as well as his boss in the cartel. Because I was a witness for the state and testified against them during the trial, my only choice was to go into witness protection. So, that’s it. I’m in the Witness Protection Program. These are vengeful people my father worked for. Dangerous people. They can call hits from wherever they’re incarcerated or hiding. They kill you and put you into barrels with chemicals that will make all traces of you disappear forever.”
Brody stared at her without blinking. She took in a deep breath. “The agency created every important document I needed to start to start life as a new person. New name, birthplace, social security number. One day I woke up and was no longer Kara Boggs, but Kara Eaton. My father is Patrick Boggs. You may or may not have seen the news coverage.”
He nodded. “Yeah, I remember the headlines. Vaguely.”
“They sent me to Cliffside Bay. To this little town no one’s heard of because they knew I would be safe there, as long as I never said a word to anyone about my past.”
“It was like you were traded,” Brody said.
“A bit, yes.”
“God, Kara. I don’t even know what to say.”
“It’s okay. You don’t have to say anything.” She knew he would say good-bye soon. It was too much. But at least she’d been able to tell him how she felt about him. At least now he knew the truth. No more lies.
“Jesus, what you’ve gone through. How did you have enou
gh courage to do what you did, knowing you would have to give up your life?”
His questions caused a new flood of tears. “It was an easy decision, once I knew what he had done. I saw him kill a man. And, the FBI agents felt sure he had my mother killed.”
“What?”
“He found out she was working with the Feds. Someone ran her off the road.”
“So that part of your story was true? Your mother died when you were ten.”
“Yes. I’ve told you ‘almost truths’ since the day I met you. I tried to tell you as much about myself as I could without giving my past away.”
“Did you ever suspect anything growing up?” he asked.
“I’m ashamed to say, I had no idea. None. I was naive and spoiled. Just a regular rich girl with her head in the clouds about how money is made—that kind of money anyway. We had several homes and took vacations and had beautiful clothes. Drug money paid for it all, even my education. I feel sick thinking about it. When I treated drug addicts in the E.R. every night, I had no idea that my own family had contributed to their demise. Drugs erode lives and families, while the people who profit make damn sure their own kids are protected. I thought I was so lucky. I thought we were rich because my father was a clever businessman. So, really, I had no choice. I had to give up my life. It wasn’t mine to begin with.”
All color had drained from Brody’s face. His eyes shined too brightly in the dim room. “I can’t even imagine what you’ve gone through.”
“I’m nothing. Traded to a new life I didn’t want.”
“You’re not nothing, Kara. You’re still you. You just have a different name.” Brody tapped the side of his head. “Not what’s inside. They can’t take that away from you.”
“They may as well have.”
He sat next to her on the bed. “Why didn’t you tell me? I could keep your secret. I will keep your secret. I have every reason to. The last thing I want is for you to be hurt.”
“The officers instructed me never to tell another living soul who I really am—not lovers or spouses or even future children. It’s too risky, because even people close to you can turn on you in a moment of anger and expose your secret.”
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