“When did you cut your hair?”
She turned to look at Caleb, but he was paying an inordinate amount of attention to the road as he slowed and turned into the parking lot of the restaurant. “Couple of years ago,” she said, shifting her attention away from him as he pulled into the parking lot of a little mom-and-pop diner.
She had no idea where they were, but she knew the sort of place. The food would be plentiful, filling and cheap, the coffee would be excellent and they may or may not take credit cards.
“I take it we’re getting dinner,” she said blandly.
“We can eat at the hotel if you’d rather, but I need to get out, hit the restrooms and get some coffee at the very least.”
The second he pushed the car into park, she was out, slamming the door and striding away. Food. I can do food. A break from him…yeah, that works…
It wouldn’t be a bad idea at all to get away from him, to quit thinking about the fact that she missed him, that she was still thinking about pushing that slate-gray suit jacket from his shoulders. That she—
Get it under control.
You’re on a job.
Remember the job.
Get it under control.
She was halfway through the third chorus of her little pep-talk mantra when a hand closed over her wrist. She recognized his touch, his scent, his presence even as her body started to jerk away in instinctive reaction. She slowed to a stop and waited.
Caleb faced her, studying her from under a golden fringe of lashes. When he touched her cheek, his fingers soft and gentle on the scar tissue, she held still. She couldn’t react, couldn’t lean into him, no matter how much she wanted to. She hadn’t ever gotten over him, nor had she tried to fool herself into thinking otherwise. But she’d be damned if she let him see that.
“Was it after this happened?”
“What?”
“This.” He pushed his hand through her hair, then curled it over the back of her head.
She could feel his heat, remembered the way his touch had always made her feel—it was like a drug, heady and euphoric. She’d been addicted, then he left and she came crashing back down to earth. Not going there again. Nuh-uh. She made herself pull away, but managed to resist the cowardly move of backing away. “Yes. I did it the day after I left the hospital.”
She went to go around him, but he wasn’t done. He rubbed the pad of his finger over one eyebrow, feathered it down her nose and then outlined her mouth. “No makeup. No jewelry. Did that happen then too?”
Whoa. Should have backed away. Her lips buzzed under his touch and her heart had settled somewhere in the vicinity of her throat, banging away merrily and making breathing suddenly seem a lot more complicated. “Yeah. Why?”
“Just wondering.”
“Well, your questions are now answered.” This time, she made sure to put several feet between them and she circled around him, giving him a very, very wide berth.
She could still feel his touch, though. And the memory of it, of their time together, was now living large in her mind. All of those memories that she’d fought so hard to suppress, to forget, and now here they were, tormenting her again.
Setting her jaw, she stomped into the diner. Damn you, Oz. Why did you have to do this to me?
“That went well,” he muttered, shaking his head.
He followed her into the restaurant and caught a glimpse of her sweetly curved ass as she slipped into the women’s room. He knew why. She was hiding from him. Sighing, he shoved his hands into his pockets and approached the counter.
It took her ten minutes to come out. The server had already been by twice, but he’d held off ordering because if she didn’t want to eat here, then he wasn’t going to do anything more than grab some coffee. And it was good coffee. Strong enough to wake the dead, but not bitter.
As the caffeine sang its way through his blood, he kept his eyes on the door until it opened and then he pretended to be completely absorbed in the plastic-covered menu. Not that there was anything earth shattering on it.
Simple, home-cooked food. The artery clogging kind, but he had to die sooner or later anyway and as long as he didn’t do it too often, all was good, right?
“Are we eating or what?” Destin asked, dropping into the chair across from him.
“If you’re hungry. The food looks like a heart attack waiting to happen, but it will taste pretty damn good,” he said, pushing his menu over to her.
She hummed under her breath. “Fried chicken. Nobody can do fried chicken the way a place like this can. We’re eating here.”
Twenty minutes later, he had to admit, it was a fact. He’d forget the name of this place once they were out of the little village, but they had a serious way with fried chicken. Chain restaurants just couldn’t even touch this.
“Are you happy working with Oz?” he asked, scooping one last bite of potatoes into his mouth. He could have licked the plate clean, but he figured he’d done enough damage.
“Happy…” She dropped a napkin on the table and leaned back, studying him the way she might have eyed something that had crawled out from under the plate. With acute disgust. “What does it matter to you?”
“Any reason I can’t ask?”
A tight smile twisted her lips as she stood, pulling a neat little black case from her pocket. She opened it to reveal money, a few credit cards and her ID. Well, that explained her lack of a purse. As she pulled a few bills out, she eyed him narrowly. “I can think of a number of reasons for you not to ask. The number one reason…it’s none of your business anymore, Caleb.”
Tossing the money down on the table, she turned on her heel and headed for the door. Caleb sighed and passed a hand over his eyes. He eyed the bills, did a mental tally in his head and added enough to cover his meal plus the tip.
Outside, he caught up with Destin. Instead of unlocking the car so she could hide away from him again behind her laptop and iPhone, he followed her until she stopped by the passenger side. Resting a hand on the car door, he asked, “The entire trip going to be like this? You and me either walking on eggshells or taking potshots at each other?”
Destin just stared at him.
“We used to be friends,” he said quietly. “Maybe it was more than that, but we were friends for a while.”
“Friends.” A queer smile curved her lips and she laughed. The sound was brittle, as sharp and jagged as broken glass.
Just hearing it was enough to cut ugly, nasty gouges into his heart.
Being with her had hurt. It had hurt, even as it made him more complete than he’d ever felt. It had broken him even as it made him. He had never fully been able to explain that to her because she had never fully been able to acknowledge the power of her abilities, or the devastating strength of it. She hadn’t realized what it was doing to her…to him. Hell, he hadn’t understood what he had been letting it do to him inside for a while. After he’d left, he’d tried to act like everything had been fine when he knew it wasn’t.
It had taken months for things to come to a head, but it finally had and he hadn’t had any choice but to face reality in a hard, brutal fashion.
Yeah. Being with her had turned into a wound.
But walking away sometimes hurt just as much.
None of it hurt as much as this did, though. Standing here, aware of some empty void, some pain inside her…knowing it was there, and equally aware of the fact that he couldn’t do a thing to help.