A Love Worth Living

by Skylar Kade

  She pasted a moderate smile on her face. Too much and his bullshit meter would go off. “My phone died. I’m so sorry I slept through—”

  With one hand he waved aside her complaints. “Carrie, it’s not just this morning.” He grimaced and took her hand. “The files you submitted yesterday had some serious errors that need to be corrected.”

  Carrie dug fingernails into her leg. “I’ll come in and fix those today.”

  An emphatic shake of his head deterred her offer. “I’ve got Stevens working on them. And before you protest, I’ll make sure you get a final look at them when you come back to work.”

  “Tomorrow, then.”

  He inclined his head and raked her over with his expert eyes. “When you come back to work.”

  Cryptic much?

  He patted her on the back of the hand—shit, just like her dad used to do—and left her alone in the alcove to battle her tears.

  She didn’t know how much time passed before familiar footsteps approached. From the corner of her eye, she watched David fold down onto the bench next to her. “I hear you’ve got the day off.”

  Miserable, she nodded. Speaking wouldn’t be wise.

  “How about we go home?”

  Home. The word sounded so inviting when he said it. She took his outstretched hand and let him pull her up. Maybe she could glide on his pity and avoid the conversation that lurked in his eyes. Yeah, with those odds, she might as well buy a lotto ticket.

  The return trip was quiet until they reached her door. David again tended to her locks and ushered her in.

  “Thank you—”

  He groaned and hauled her against his lips, bringing down her defenses with a brutally tender kiss. He broadcast everything in his touch, as she’d suspected he would. Artifice wasn’t in David’s repertoire, and that was the very reason their lips hadn’t met last night—she knew he would undo her.

  A sob escaped her mouth, and he took the opportunity to sink his tongue against hers, lighting nerve endings she hadn’t known she had.

  Her arms looped around his neck to absorb his fortitude, and he tore away from her mouth, though his hands never stopped caressing her face. “You used me, and I’d let you do it again, Carrie, because I can’t seem to find good sense where you’re concerned.”

  His next kiss echoed the first but turned the volume up to eleven. His lips clashed with hers as teeth and tongues fought for dominance. Carrie tasted his conflict and the tears she hadn’t realized she was crying again.

  “Shit.” He ended the kiss and rested his head against hers. His thumbs swept away the wet trails on her cheeks. “Carrie, don’t cry.”

  But the floodgates had opened, and she couldn’t stop now. Oh hell. She turned to hide in her room until he left, but David scooped her up into his strong, safe arms and sat with her on the couch.

  She froze, unsure what to do, now that she was cuddled onto his lap. She wasn’t savvy about crying-woman protocol. And no one had ever held her with such care. With infinite patience, he stroked her hair and said nothing as she cried out her anxiety.

  She so didn’t deserve his tenderness, especially not after the way she’d treated him. But despite knowing better, she couldn’t bring herself to push him away.

  She calmed by degrees as he gently rocked her on the couch. Carrie could see him rocking his child that way, with the utmost love. She could see herself smiling at them, her husband and daughter.

  Carrie fought for her next breath, knowing any show of stress would compel David to ask questions she wasn’t willing to answer. Strengthened by desperation, she buried the images deep inside, where she locked up everything else.

  “Better?” He tilted her chin up until their eyes met.

  She wasn’t, but she nodded anyway. This was as close to “better” as she might ever get.

  A small smile edged his mouth. “You’re a terrible liar.” His arms tightened as if anticipating her escape. “Do you want to talk about your nightmare?”

  She shuddered. “I’d rather not. Thank you for putting up with me, but I’m much better now.” She moved to stand, but his arms held her tightly in place.

  A thrill of arousal zipped down her body to heat her core. His body, hot and hard, pressed against her so intimately, proved a temptation she hadn’t calculated for.

  Her attraction to David had never surged past her self-imposed relationship boundaries, the safeguards she’d erected to keep her heart safe from close bonds. It had kept her heart intact her whole adult life.

  But now she was letting David past those long-standing barriers in spite of herself. She should never have let herself get so weak that she turned to him for physical release. This is what she deserved for crossing those lines—a disruption to her professional life and nightmares that upped the ante. She clung to David for one more minute to inhale his rich, masculine scent and absorb warmth from his body. Maybe that would help drive away the memory of his nightmare doppelganger.

  “Carrie, don’t you think you’ve shut me out enough?” His voice was soft, without a hint of condemnation, but Carrie felt like crap anyway. He wanted answers she wasn’t willing to give. A knot settled in her throat, the first sign of bad things to come.

  So she let her mind drift into the white, empty space she used when dealing with a large-scale tragedy normal coping skills couldn’t touch, that place where emotions simply didn’t exist and where she could focus on the facts of a case and bring justice to the dead. Or at least give them the chance for a proper burial.

  She looked up at David and kept her face clear of emotion. “Thank you again for your concern. And I am quite sorry for any pain or inconvenience I caused you.”

  David gripped her chin in his strong hand. A flash of her nightmare invaded her vision and almost ripped apart her calm until she regained her control.

  “Don’t play this game with me, Care.”

  She shook her head, and he let go of her chin. “I am just fine.” She patted his cheek for added measure and stood. He didn’t stop her. “Now, I need to get some things done around the house, so let me lock up behind you. I’m just fine.”

  “Yeah, you’ve said that twice, and you didn’t mean it either time.” Frustration carved lines around his mouth and across his forehead. With a shake of his head, David rose and headed for the door, his loafers silent on the carpet. Hand on the doorknob, he turned back to her. “When the real Carrie gets back, let her know I’m still worried. And I’m not going to let her cope with this alone.” The door clicked shut behind him.

  There would be time to feel bad later. Now was about self-preservation and saving David from herself.

  Carrie mechanically locked the door, flipped off all the lights, and stripped off her clothes in an unaccountably messy pile at the foot of the bed. She slipped under the covers and fell, exhausted, into a blissfully dreamless sleep.

  Chapter Four

  Three long days had dragged on, filled with his usual routine of rock-climbing, hiking at Great Falls, cooking dinner—everything except sharing meals with Carrie. Though he would have welcomed her for their unofficial standing dinner date at 7:00 p.m. every night, she hadn’t showed.

  As he’d gone through the motions of the weekend, he’d thought about her. Her one-night-stand act still ached, even though he understood why she’d been compelled to run.

  But any hurt he felt from being used had been overshadowed by his concern for her. The robot thing she’d pulled Thursday night had him on the edge of panic, because he’d lived through it before, and it hadn’t ended happily.

  After his younger brother enlisted in the army after 9/11, Aaron had been a changed person. Gone was the troubled boy who got into fights at school and was suspended for smoking cigarettes behind the gym, and in his place was a young man with a bright future ahead of him. Aaron had taken to the military life like he’d been born for it—their father’s son, through and through.

  He’d been golden until the day he was involved in a traini
ng accident. A mortar had exploded, killing two of his training partners. The event had thrown Aaron into a deep depression where he locked everything up so tightly he couldn’t feel anymore.

  There lay the deep, dangerous ocean, and Carrie was barely treading water in it.

  David swiped his ID card and waved to the early morning guard on duty before he made his way to Dr. Gunnerson’s office. He knocked on the heavy oak door and turned the knob only when Gunnerson’s gruff “enter” reached his ears.

  “You look tired. I hope you had a work-free weekend, David.” As David stood in the doorway, arms crossed, Gunnerson looked at him, curiosity in the high arch of his brows.

  David shook his head. “I got your e-mail this morning. You wanted to talk about her?”

  Gunnerson shoved a hand through his short, gray hair before gesturing to the one chair that wasn’t covered by papers and boxes. “Sit.”

  David complied as he took in the books and artifacts that adorned the office. He’d not been in here for months. Gunnerson always came to him or met him for lunch, and the man had redecorated—again—though the clutter never really went away.

  “Thank you for checking on Carrie for me. She mentioned she’d overslept.”

  Keeping his expression neutral, David nodded. Though Carrie hadn’t confided in him as a psychologist, he felt enough of an obligation to honor the spirit of doctor-patient confidentiality.

  “It’s never happened as long as I’ve known her. And while we have only worked together on and off since she was a grad student, it’s out of character, as far as I can tell.”

  “I agree—she’s usually so meticulous. I’m assuming this recent job affected her more than others, but she won’t talk to me.”

  “As I well know. She won’t likely budge on that, so I wanted your professional opinion on an alternative tack. It seems to me every case wears her down a little more, and the mere thought of a day off makes her break out in hives.”

  “I’ve seen that once or twice.” His wry acknowledgment got him a grimace from Gunnerson.

  “She’s one of my most valued employees, and not just because I’ve seen her grow into her own as an anthropologist. She’s uniquely talented, but if she’s off her game, we all lose out.”

  “And you think you have a way around Carrie’s stubbornness?”

  Gunnerson leaned forward to rest his chin on his interlaced fingers. “No—I think we’ll have to go through it. She needs to take some time off. She won’t like it, but she’s slipping, and I can’t ignore it anymore.”

  “I don’t think she’ll go for it.”

  “Well she’ll have to.” He clicked around on his computer then returned his attention to David. “According to the records, she has enough vacation stored up from her years at the California Gunnerson Forensics office to take as long as she would like. And she can either use it to take a little sabbatical, at least a week, or she can schedule in regular appointments with you. She cannot continue on this downward trajectory—for her own good, and for the good of the company.”

  David’s heart cracked for Carrie. He knew how highly she valued her expertise, and to have her professionalism called into question would be a blow to her foundation. He ached to sweep her into his arms while she cried, then make love to her until she let go of everything but the moment.

  David shook his head to clear the untimely thoughts. “I expected her to be edgy—everyone on the Rwanda team has been this week—but I have not seen her like this before. Granted, I don’t know her as well as you, but I’m comfortable labeling her behavior aberrant.”

  Gunnerson nodded and pursed his lips in distaste. “This last trip was a tough one. The mass grave they excavated was filled with children from the genocide.” Ice coated David’s stomach. He almost swore, but caught himself. The other team members hadn’t shared the ugly details during their debriefing sessions, and the case report hadn’t crossed his desk yet. Now he hoped it never would. He didn’t want to read the descriptions or see the pictures from this particular dig.

  But he would, if only to help the team members assigned to the case. His brother had been wrecked by PTSD, and he would do whatever it took to keep the Gunnerson employees safe and sane.

  “She doesn’t talk about herself. I only see the reports.” He’d give anything to have Carrie open up to him—as a psychologist or as a friend. “I get snippets here and there of more personal insights when her guard is down, but she doesn’t talk about work. We’re neighbors. Mostly, we eat dinner at my place and watch TV.”

  “Well, she’ll get plenty of downtime during her time off, if that’s what she chooses. Would you like to help me break the news to her?”

  David groaned and tugged at his hair. This would be one unpleasant confrontation. “Lead on, boss. Better rip the bandage off now, because she’s not going to like this any more if we wait until the end of the day.”

  Carrie’s weekend had dragged on, an endless cycle of sleeping and trying to pay attention to the case files she’d taken home with her on Thursday before the deposition.

  Food had been involved somewhere, but she mostly remembered the emotional fallout from her talk with David.

  After her father’s homicide, her mother had shut down and left Carrie with no one to talk to. By that point, she’d been homeschooled for a year and had lost touch with all the girls she’d once called friends. She’d needed nothing more than to have her mother comfort her.

  Instead, she’d done most of the comforting—along with the cooking, the cleaning, everything that needed to be done to pretend they were still a normal, functioning household.

  She’d lost most of her family, and she’d chosen to protect her mother in the only way she could at the time—by making sure she didn’t need to do more than the bare necessities. Her only way to get through it had been to bury all of her pain and confusion.

  Caring for her mother and going through the motions—as though she weren’t also devastated—had left Carrie exhausted.

  Boxing away her feelings still left her drained. She knew at some point finding a healthier way to cope with her panic attacks would become necessary for her to function, but after maintaining the habit for so long she wasn’t sure if she could. She’d have to figure something out on her own because she refused to waste her time visiting a professional.

  The psychologist she and her mother saw after the accident hadn’t helped, and neither had the handful of grief counselors she and her mother briefly saw a year later when they’d agreed to give it another try. Not one professional had helped her cope with the loss of her father or Grace, and they hadn’t done a damn bit of good for her mother’s recovery either.

  She’d been poised to dislike David too, from the second he said, “I’m Dr. Cameron, the team psychologist,” during her first week at the DC Gunnerson Forensics office. David, though, had disarmed her with his smile and a casual invitation to go out for lunch. He’d seemed so normal for a shrink. No psychobabble entered their conversation, and he didn’t ask personal questions.

  They’d talked during lunch about sports and politics and movies in an endless stream of conversation. She’d spent years perfecting her small-talk skills, but spending time with David—as he’d insisted she call him—had been so easy she almost forgot the risks that came with building relationships.

  The next week, once he’d realized she usually worked through lunch and rarely remembered to bring food for herself, he started packing enough leftovers for two. With just him and the soothing blue walls of his office, she’d bemoaned her apartment-hunting woes, and he’d mentioned a condo in his building was going on sale but was as yet unlisted. She jumped at the opportunity, not thinking of the consequences of being near to him.

  By the time she realized her defenses stood weakly against Dr. David Cameron, she’d already become addicted. He helped her move in, then invited her over for dinner. Wanting to pay him back for bringing her lunch, she agreed under the condition that she buy the food. />
  And their routine had been born. If there was one thing she loved more than her personal and emotional space, it was a predictable pattern. No surprises, no spontaneity, and if sexual tension simmered underneath their routine, she was capable of ignoring it.

  And the whole time their companionship was growing, she’d dodged panic attacks. Her nightmares—except for Thursday’s—had even abated some.

  Once David had woken her, though, the nightmare panic faded, only to be replaced with anxiety about the state of their friendship. She didn’t want to push him away, but she might have done it by sleeping with him. He’d made it perfectly clear he wanted more from her than she could give. Would he be satisfied with going back to the way things had been?

  The pen in her hand clattered to the desk. She wouldn’t be getting any paperwork done until she figured out why it would even bother her to stop spending time with David. That used to be her modus operandi, her preferred way of living—alone, with no deep friendships to tangle her emotions or split her loyalties. Work came first. Always.

  Analyzing the evidence, she examined the circumstances around her night with David. This case, uncovering too many small, innocent bodies to fathom, had shredded her to the point of dangerous vulnerability. She’d not been able to block out her desire for him, not when his strength and his vitality called to her. He was so alive, and she’d seen too much death to ignore him.

  She’d always been admired for her stoicism—was criticized, even, for being unfeeling—during investigations of some of the most gruesome mass graves and grisly murders for which the UN War Crimes Commission contracted her company. But this was the first time she’d dealt with children—not bones, but flesh-and-blood children, since Grace.

  Her daughter.

  She slammed the lid on that box. Not here, not now. Not ever, if she could help it. She’d learned more than a few times on her expeditions that unearthed skeletons often brought trouble. She shut the file she was working on and returned it to the towering stack of unfinished paperwork that cluttered her desk alongside the paper clips, pens and other supplies normally tucked away in their respective places, hidden out of sight in drawers and cabinets. If she had any hope of catching up on paperwork before their next consult for the UN or local law enforcement, she needed to calm her mind.