Undercover Hunter
Page 25
She’d gotten more banged up than she had realized in her fight with Calvin and was covered with healing bruises on her arms and side. “Kind of an interesting shade of green and purple,” she agreed.
He reached out and touched her arm, running his fingers lightly down it. “Want me to wash you?”
“Cade, you’re dressed! Just go wait for me. I won’t be long.”
“Ah, you are getting better.” He smiled and closed the door. For a while after she’d battled Calvin, she’d needed his help washing her hair and back because she was so sore. Cade, as she well knew, had enjoyed it entirely too much.
Days of paperwork and questioning had been wearying, but they had spent their nights together, pushing all the bad things into the background, discovering each other.
DeeJay was sure she had never felt so complete and happy. Except for the dreams. She wondered if she would ever be able to bury her memory of what she had seen in that barn. Seeing those boys for real had been entirely different from seeing photos of an old crime scene.
She had dealt with murders before, had even seen battlefields, but the cold-blooded quality of this had struck her to her very core in a different way. Kids. Just kids. Not even old enough to have done anything really wrong. Deprived of a chance to experience life, through no fault of their own.
Sweet’s eyes haunted her, too. Dark and hard in those last moments she had spent with him, they had seemed inhuman. But as well she knew, he was perfectly human. People wanted to believe serial killers were different, but she knew better. They were humans, not demons. Badly twisted humans, but they did nothing the species hadn’t done before in one way or another.
Still, his eyes haunted her.
Sighing, she turned off the water and stepped out onto the mat, reaching for one of the thick, fluffy towels the hotel had provided. They were luxurious, too.
Her thoughts turned to Cade, and an increasingly familiar uneasiness filled her. She’d had the feeling that he’d withdrawn from her in some way. Oh, he was with her every night, but something had changed, and it worried her. Had he decided they weren’t a long-term thing?
She couldn’t blame him if he had. She knew she wasn’t easy to get along with, and she had already warned him she had a habit of picking fights to break up relationships. Maybe they’d been living in a state of distraction until after they had solved the case, and now they were facing reality again. All of it. Maybe he didn’t think they fit well.
And maybe he was right. She’d lowered the guard on her heart but not all the way. She didn’t even know if she was capable of it. He had to sense that, so maybe he felt he couldn’t trust her.
She supposed she was going to find out and probably very soon.
* * *
An hour later they were seated in an elegant Japanese restaurant. He wore a suit with a string tie, and she wore a red satin sheath with long sleeves. The color set off her dark hair and eyes, and she knew it. Strutting her stuff to try to hold off the inevitable, she thought sadly as she pretended to smile and laugh, when she knew the end must be near.
Cade ordered way too much sushi. She figured he was making it their meal. She was perfectly content with that, and complimented the flavors. The fish was fresh, the wasabi biting and the pickled ginger out of this world.
For dessert, they received small plates of fresh fruit and tiny bowls of lime sherbet. She began to lose her appetite as she grew more aware of a tension in him.
Finally, she asked, “Cade, what’s wrong?”
He put down his spoon and pushed the sherbet aside. “What makes you ask?”
“I feel like you’re tense. And I’ve been feeling as if you’re trying to pull away from me. Do you want to end this?”
He stared at her from inscrutable eyes, then astonished her by calling their waiter. As soon as the check came, he placed cash on the tray.
“Better to discuss this someplace more private.”
She was right, she realized. He didn’t want her to make a scene. That could mean only one thing.
They took a cab back to the hotel in silence and rode up to their room without a word. At last they were alone, facing one another across the suite’s sitting area, a space that suddenly looked like an immense gulf.
Her nerves felt stretched to breaking. Finally, she said, “If you’re done with me, just say so. I can handle it.”
“I’m sure you can.”
The words fell into her heart like stone. Here it came.
“The problem,” he said slowly, “is you.”
“Me?”
“I don’t know what you want. I’m not sure you do, either. You let me just so close but no closer. I need you to let down those walls.”
“Why?” Pain pierced her. “So you can hurt me?”
“No.” He shook his head a little. “So I can love you.”
She felt as if she’d just gone over a sharp bump in the road and left her stomach behind. Her knees suddenly felt weak, and she reached out to steady herself against the back of a chair. “Love me?” she repeated, her voice thin.
“Love you. All these weeks we’ve known each other, you’ve been focused on the job. I get that. I have, too, but when we’re alone together, even when you talk to me about yourself, I feel there’s this place inside you I can’t reach. That nobody can reach. I want to reach it, DeeJay, because I’m out of my mind in love with you. But you have to let me in.”
A hot tear rolled down her cheek as understanding slammed home and left her speechless.
“It’s okay,” he said quietly. “You are who you are. But it’s up to you. If you want me, I’ll hang around and try to get past those walls however I can. I don’t want to lose you. But I feel I’ve haven’t won you. Or even really found you.”
She saw him start to turn away, and the sight made her feel as if huge hands were tearing her heart in two. “Cade?”
Galvanized, she stepped toward him.
“I didn’t mean to make you cry,” he said, his back to her.
“Cade, look at me.”
He turned and waited.
“You have found me. All of me. I know I’m broken, but I don’t want to be. And I’m scared to death of losing you. Please...be patient with me. I’ll die if I lose you.”
He tilted his head a little. “Really?”
“Have I ever lied to you? You got to see the scared, scarred parts of me I’ve never shown anyone. Don’t you get how much I trust you?”
“I’ve been feeling you don’t.”
“Then you’re wrong.” She stepped closer. “Cade, please.”
Now he stepped toward her, and his expression was softening. “You trust me?”
“Completely. I didn’t want to. I admit it. I was so afraid of being hurt again. I’m still afraid. Terrified. But I let you in anyway, and I wasn’t kidding when I said I’d die if you left me. I couldn’t stand the pain of losing you.”
He closed the distance to wrap her in his arms and hold her so tightly she almost couldn’t breathe. “I won’t leave you unless you tell me to. But DeeJay?”
“Yes?”
“Do you think you might ever love me?”
Her heart split open the rest of the way, and understanding filled her with absolute certainty. “I already love you. I am in love with you.”
As she spoke the words, she knew they were the truest she had ever spoken, and when his mouth sealed her words with a kiss, she knew that somehow everything was going to be all right.
With Cade, the future seemed full of promise.
“I love you, DeeJay,” he said when he let her catch her breath. “Don’t you ever try to get away, because I won’t let you. Fight with me all you want, but remember this.”
“Mmm?”
“That no matter how many fights
you pick, I’m going to stay.”
Joy rose in her then, a feeling she’d been without for so long she had forgotten how it felt. Blinding, healing, warming joy.
When he swept her up in his arms and carried her to bed, the shadows of her past remained behind. If they ever returned, she knew now how to banish them—in Cade’s arms.
* * * * *
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ISBN-13: 9781460344880
Undercover Hunter
Copyright © 2015 by Susan Civil Brown
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