Bev hurried down the steps and walked briskly toward the center of town, a few short blocks away.
Slater closed the door and looked at Catalina.
“A couple of investigators?” he said.
“It was the best I could come up with on the spur of the moment. It has the benefit of being true, not that it matters.”
“It doesn’t?”
“Nope.”
“You don’t think they’ll believe we’re just colleagues working a case?”
“Oh, I’m sure they’ll believe that part.” Catalina hefted the picnic hamper and turned to go back to the kitchen. “But they’ll leap to other conclusions about our relationship.”
Slater followed her into the kitchen. “What kind of conclusions?”
“In small towns, two people sharing space in the same house equals a couple.”
“Is that a problem for you?”
“No. What happens in Fogg Lake stays in Fogg Lake. Unlike, say, Las Vegas.”
“About yesterday.”
She froze for a split second and then very deliberately took an egg out of the hamper and cracked it into a bowl.
“Nothing happened yesterday,” she said. “Aside from the fact that someone tried to kill you and kidnap me, that is.”
“Something very important did happen for me,” he said evenly. “I’ve spent the past several months wondering what that radiation had done to me. Yesterday in Royston’s safe house I got the answer.”
She picked up another egg. “This is about the icer thing?”
Slater crossed the small space to stand directly in front of her. “A lot of people who understand just what that means would panic if they knew exactly what I have become.”
She cracked the egg into the bowl. “Maybe later. I’m a little busy at the moment.”
Energy whispered in the atmosphere.
“I’m trying to thank you for taking my new talent in stride,” he said. “For acting as if I’m normal, or as close to normal as people like us get. You are making this a lot harder than it should be.”
She turned to face him. “Neither one of us qualifies as normal, but neither one of us is crazy. Neither one of us is a blank. Neither one of us is a monster. What’s more, we are both in control of our talents. There is no need to thank me for affirming that state of affairs. I’m sure that in time you would have figured it out on your own.”
Slater was starting to look wary. “This was supposed to be a simple case of me thanking you. But I get the feeling I’m missing something here.”
“All right, fine, I’ll spell it out. I do not want you to kiss me because you’re grateful to me.”
“Huh?”
“Did I misread the situation?”
Slater narrowed his eyes a little. The heat in the atmosphere got more intense.
“Yeah,” he said. “You did misread it. I do want to kiss you, but not because I’m grateful.”
“Why, then?”
He caged her, his hands gripping the edge of the counter on either side of her. He leaned in close but he did not touch her.
“I would like very much to kiss you because I think you are so damn hot that you could single-handedly set this house on fire, to say nothing of setting me on fire. I’ve been burning since I ran into you on the street in Seattle yesterday morning.”
The shock of his words hit first. Men did not generally talk to her like that. Actually, they never talked to her like that. Previous conversations with men about sex tended to fall into one of three distinct categories. The first group of males said things like I need discipline. Those in the second group told her she was a control freak. Last but certainly not least were the guys who advised her to talk to a sex therapist about her inability to have an orgasm.
Slater wanted her; really wanted her. He wanted her the way a man was supposed to want a woman. But the real shock was the realization that she wanted him.
She put the egg down on the counter with exquisite care, because the shivery thrills snapping through her made her feel a little unsteady. She finally understood the true nature of the strange tension—the bone-deep sense of awareness—that she had been experiencing ever since she and Slater had collided on the street.
So this is it. This is what passion feels like. You’ve been waiting for a man who would climb the tower wall to get to you. Now here you are about to jump straight into his arms.
Wrong time. Wrong place. Wrong man.
Maybe not the wrong man. Maybe this is the only man you’ll ever meet who can make you feel like this.
She put her hands on his shoulders to anchor herself, because she knew that whatever happened next, it would shatter the walls of her fortress.
“Do it, then,” she said. “Kiss me.”
The sensual heat in his eyes went up a couple of degrees.
“Sure,” he said. “But here’s the deal. You have to kiss me, too.”
She was breathless now. “You’ve got a deal.”
She kissed him, hard and fast and with a sense of desperation. He wrapped his arms around her and took her mouth with a fierce intensity that was unlike anything she had ever experienced. But it was her own response that truly blindsided her.
It thrilled her to know he was rock-hard because of her. His scent compelled her. He was strong enough to handle her if she lost control. She would not frighten him or damage his ego or make him wonder about her sanity. In his arms there was no need to hold back.
She could have sworn she felt a storm of energy swirling in the kitchen. She would not have been surprised if they did start a fire.
When she finally surfaced for air, the compelling heat in the atmosphere threatened to draw her back down into the depths. For a few beats she stood there in his arms, struggling to steady her senses. The fire in his eyes made it clear that he was fighting his own inner battle.
“Wrong time,” he finally said.
“Right.” She got her breathing under control and turned around to pick up the egg that she had set down on the counter. “Wrong time.”
“But there will come a right time,” Slater said.
It was a vow.
CHAPTER 22
If you go inside you will go mad. You will throw yourself into the lake and drown.
Catalina stopped in front of the deceptively narrow entrance to the cave complex. She could do this. She had to do this. For Olivia’s sake.
Slater studied the opening in the rocks.
They were both wearing day packs filled with the usual things sensible people took on a hike—spare flashlights, bottles of water, first aid kits and some energy bars. Slater had added a couple of additional items to his pack—the vintage telephone and the card file that he had taken from Royston’s vault.
She had been offended when she saw him stuff the phone and the file into the pack.
“You don’t trust my neighbors?” she had said. “You think they’re going to rifle through your things while we’re gone?”
“When I’m working a case involving hot artifacts, I don’t trust anyone,” he had said.
She had not made any more comments about trust or the lack thereof. She had other things to worry about, things like incipient panic.
“That’s it,” she said. “That’s the entrance to the cavern. Once you get inside there’s a short tunnel that leads to the big chamber where the murder went down.”