Down and Dirty

  At his telling lack of response, all the emotion that had been simmering just beneath the surface erupted in a snarl. “Who the hell do you think you are?”

  Chapter Twelve

  Shane kept his eyes on the snowy back road, but he didn’t need to see her to know she was beyond furious. He did a perfunctory soul-searching but couldn’t find even a morsel of regret for his actions, so she was shit out of luck if she expected an apology.

  “It wasn’t just the cold, Cat.” He tried to keep the emotion from his voice and stated the facts, hoping she would understand, but resigning himself to the consequences if she didn’t. He wasn’t going to lie to her no matter how much the truth pissed her off. “I didn’t want you to find her.”

  The words hung in the air between them until she started to sputter. “I don’t understand. You like being a hero so much that you didn’t want to miss out on the glory? If that’s the case, then I don’t even know who you are.”

  Her lack of faith in his character cut deep, but he didn’t let it show. Emotions were high; it had been a rough day on everyone. “Obviously not. And maybe I phrased that incorrectly. What I meant was that I didn’t want you to find her because I didn’t think she was going to be found alive.”

  He gave her a second to process what he was saying, then continued. “It’s freezing, we didn’t know how long she’d been out or if she’d managed to find shelter. Jesus, Cat, we’re right next to a huge lake. Do you have any idea what it’s like to see a child who’s drowned?” He shook his head and tried to block out the memories of a recent monsoon rescue effort. “I come in with a can-do attitude with every job, but if I had to put a number on it? Gracie’s chances were less than fifty percent and dropping with every hour. If she hadn’t made it… Seeing something like that weighs on you.”

  He gritted his teeth against the twinge of guilt that crept in. “I care about you too much to watch you go through that. We needed someone inside to help Maggie and keep the teams nourished and warm. You were as good a choice as anyone.”

  “Her parents were out there,” she argued, fists balled on her thighs.

  “That wasn’t my call. If there had been something I could do to dissuade them, believe me, I would have. You didn’t need to be there. And face it, you did help, Cat. Maggie needed someone badly, and I know the team appreciated everything you did. I don’t think some of them would have been able to stay out as long as they did if not for you guys keeping them going with the coffee and dry gear.”

  She was quiet for so long, he wondered if she was going to respond at all. Then she blew out a weary sigh and slumped deeper into the seat. “I thought we were past this. I thought you’d accepted that I don’t want a guy who feels like he needs to take care of me. I can take care of myself.”

  There was no anger now, which should have been a good sign, but somehow the resignation and sadness in her voice was far more chilling.

  “Just take me home, Shane.”

  For the rest of the ride, they didn’t speak, but he could feel her fortifying the wall between them, brick by brick. He thought about pressing her, pushing for a resolution, but he’d used the last reserves of his energy back in the woods, and neither one of them was in a good frame of mind for a conversation. By the time they pulled into her driveway, he wondered if she’d drifted off.

  “Did you want to come in for a minute? I can make you a hot coffee to go, and I’m sure I can find a dry pair of socks to fit you.” The offer was clipped, delivered in much the same way a DMV employee might ask an impatient driver to take a number, and forced him to reconsider putting off the rest of their conversation.

  He turned to face her. “Look, I know you’re mad at me right now, but let’s not leave things like this. I need you to understand that I wasn’t trying to hurt you back there.”

  “The thing is, I’m not even mad. I was mad. Now I’m just like…whatever.” She angled toward him and took his still-chilly hand in her gloved one. “This wasn’t your fault. You’re a hero, and you saved that little girl’s life today. I think you’re an amazing person, and I let that sway me. I always knew we weren’t right for each other.”

  “Come on, Cat. I just wanted to protect you.”

  “That’s the problem. I don’t need protecting.” Her green gaze was clear with resolve. “You think because you kept me from choking or bandaged my knee that I need you to take care of me all the time? I hate to break it to you, but I wouldn’t have needed saving if you hadn’t been there fucking my head all up. And I don’t want the man in my life assuming he knows what’s best for me. I need a companion who wants to have dinner followed by some good sex, then sort of do our own thing so I can get back to taking over the world, solo. That’s not you, Shane.”

  She jabbed a finger in his direction, her voice breaking. “You fill up the room, even the corners, until there’s no space for anything else. When I’m with you, I can’t think of anything else. It’s a short trip from there to me staying home knitting booties for fun instead of skating roller derby. I’m terrified that I’ll start to like your protection, and I’ll wake up some day to find my bucket list, wrinkled and yellow, stuffed in the back of a drawer next to my dusty nunchucks. Trust me, it’s better that we realized it now before there’s nothing left but resentment and regret.”

  He could feel his jaw tense and again considered trying to stay this discussion until the next day, but he couldn’t help himself. “That’s bullshit.”

  She drew back, a little of the fire back in her eye. “Really? And what’s bullshit about it? It’s always been this way, even when we were young.”

  “I’m so sick of you throwing that in my face. Do you have any idea how hard that was on me? I wanted you so badly, it was all I could think about. But I made a promise to your brother that I would watch out for you. I keep my promises. Always.”

  “Fine then, you want to tell yourself that’s all it is? Fast-forward to present tense. We’ve slept with each other twice and you’re already squashing me again. I’d say that’s a pretty good indicator of things to come.”

  He let out a snort of disgust. “You can downplay it all you want, but we’re not two strangers who banged after a night at the bar a couple of times. I know you have feelings for me and I sure as shit have feelings for you, which is why I didn’t want to see you hurt. It’s called caring about someone.”

  She jerked her head around to gaze out the side window, but he wasn’t having it. “Fucking look at me,” he growled.

  She turned to face him again, teeth clenched.

  “I’d never ask you to give up doing the things you love or to stop crossing things off your bucket list. Those are the things that make you you. I just wanted to shield you from some pain. Is that so wrong?”

  She didn’t roll her eyes, but she didn’t need to. Her hand was on the door handle, and she was clearly mentally checking out of this conversation. He yanked off his seat belt and pulled at his coat zipper.

  “What are you doing?” she asked with a frown.

  He struggled out of his coat sleeves and then pulled his shirt over his head. He jabbed a finger at the symbol tattooed on his shoulder. “I got this last year, to commemorate five years on the job. Five years of triumphs. Five years of failures, and believe me, those stick with you.” A familiar pain welled up as he remembered some of the tougher ones, but he pushed past it. “I’d rather cut off my own arm than have you go through that. The thing is? My job also makes me realize how precious life is. That’s what made me want to come home and be with family.”

  A fat tear dripped down her cheek to her mouth, and she licked it away.

  “And that’s what makes me a hundred percent sure that being with someone you love is worth fighting for, no matter the risks.” He took her hand and squeezed it, but she pulled away.

  “Where is this talk about love coming from?”

  Her voice had gone shrill and her eyes wild. He knew that look. Cat prepping to run for it. “If I hadn’t bee
n drinking that night, we wouldn’t even be here right now,” she said. “All we know is that we’re sexually compatible. Nothing else. I’ve been doing a lot of things that make it seem otherwise, but I’m being one hundred percent real with you right now.” She pulled the door handle and it swung open, letting in a blast of cold. “I don’t want to be in a relationship like this. I don’t want to be a wife. I don’t want to be a mother. I don’t want to want this. This has got to stop, or I’m going to lose my mind. Just because we have great chemistry doesn’t mean we’d make a great couple.” She unlatched her seat belt and started to get out of the truck.

  Anger burned in the pit of his gut and he let it rip. “You said that before, you know. That night in Atlantic City. Like you think this was some spur-of-the-moment thing for me. Like you fucked me right that first night, and now I’m pussy-whipped and decided we should be together forever.”

  She ignored him, scrambling desperately to gather her stuff from the floor, but he pressed on.

  “That’s so far from the truth. I came back here for you, Cat. Because I’ve always known we’d make a great couple. Since we were teenagers. I was just waiting for you to grow up and realize it, too.”

  She was already out the door when he called after her.

  “My mistake was thinking you ever would.”

  Chapter Thirteen

  Cat revved the snowmobile hard and gave Galen a gloved thumbs-up when he looked back to see if she was set to go. She was more than ready for their trek up the little mountain. Maybe it would clear her head. Nothing else had lately. Hell, who was she kidding? The only thing that could clear her head today would be a lobotomy. Because today? Today, Shane was going back to California.

  An ache settled in her chest, so heavy it took her breath away.

  She’d found out the day before, entirely by accident, when she’d run into his mother at the grocery store. Lacey had seen him over the past two weeks, but according to her friend, Shane hadn’t said a word about leaving. Maybe he hadn’t wanted to explain to anyone why he’d had a change of heart, but she knew why.

  She swallowed the lump in her throat that seemed almost constant lately. Every time she thought of him, she found herself close to tears.

  She watched dispassionately as her brother shot forward, heading up the gleaming white hill. Hitting the gas, she lurched forward and started at a steady clip a short distance behind him. The sun glinted off the hard-packed snow and made the whole place shimmer like it had been frosted in crushed diamonds.

  But even the stunning view barely penetrated the fog of despair.

  This was the first time she’d left her house except to go to work since she’d seen Shane last. She was already two weeks behind on her designs, and if she didn’t get some inspiration and start producing soon, she was going to be in serious trouble. Everything seemed just a little less important now than it had before, and she wondered what would happen if she didn’t turn in her pieces. And forget checking things off her bucket list. All the adventures she’d planned over the rest of her vacation had paled in comparison to the reality of being with Shane.

  It was those kinds of observations that had Lacey clucking around her like a mother hen. Cat could tell how relieved her friend had been when she’d agreed to this outing. She seemed hopeful that it signaled that Cat was coming out of her funk, but in fact, placating Lacey and Galen had really been the only reason Cat had gone.

  Shit was so far from okay.

  Still, she vowed to squeeze some peace out of the day. Lacey had stayed behind at the Thomas lake house and was working on a chicken potpie for their lunch. It had been years since they’d gone snowmobiling, and at the very least, maybe she could turn her brain off for a while and not hurt for a change. No matter how much she wanted to be with Shane, it didn’t change the fact that eventually, she’d wind up resenting him if she allowed him to change her.

  She’d slowed down some while she’d been thinking, and now sped up to close the distance between her and Galen, needing the speed and the icy air stinging her cheeks.

  She’d just taken a tight corner when a white rabbit shot out in front of her. Her heart leaped from her chest and, instinctively, she jerked the handlebars hard to the right to avoid it. She recognized her mistake instantly, but it was too late. The pine stump loomed as she plowed toward it, almost in slow motion. The impact shook every bone in her body, and then she was airborne. Over the handlebars, flying. Her arms pinwheeled and she scrambled for purchase, but the ground came up fast. She braced herself, covering her head with her arms.

  She landed a like a sack of stones a dozen feet away and nausea swept over her. Her ears buzzed like a thousand bees were descending. Dimly, she heard the growl of the other engine coming closer. Galen would flip if he saw her like this. She rolled to her side and tried to stand, to let him know she was okay, but a shooting pain raced up her leg and she fell back in a crumpled heap.

  Well, shit.

  An hour and a half later, after a humiliating ride back to the cottage on the back of Galen’s snowmobile, she lay sprawled on a hospital bed in a paper-thin gown, waiting for the ER doctor to come back with her X-ray results. Truth was, she didn’t need any results to tell her she’d broken her ankle. Again.

  The ache was persistent, and the antiseptic smell of the room was making her nauseous. She closed her eyes in an attempt to meditate. Hopefully it was just a hairline fracture and wouldn’t need setting.

  When her lids fluttered opened a few minutes later, she found herself staring at a pretty blonde woman in scrubs giving her a cool smile. At first she didn’t recognize her, but then it clicked.

  Courtney Lockhart DeLollis from MeetMyMate.com. Fabulous.

  “Hey, there. How’s that ankle feeling?”

  “Not awesome,” she admitted. How petty that the pain of seeing Courtney manage to look attractive in her olive-green, ill-fitting scrubs was far more acute than the pain in her leg.

  “I can imagine. Is Shane here?” Courtney asked, taking the blood pressure cuff from its housing on the wall.

  “No, we’re…not together.”

  “I knew that, sorry.” She wrapped the cuff around Cat’s arm and pumped it up, pressing the stethoscope against the inside of her elbow. “I just saw Lacey and everyone else in the waiting room and wondered if he’d been there, too.” The air hissed from the apparatus, and Courtney was silent for a moment before taking the stethoscope from her ears.

  “No. I haven’t seen him.” She bit her tongue to keep from adding, “Have you?”

  Courtney handed her a glass and a Dixie cup with two pills in it. “That’s just Tylenol for the pain.”

  Cat took it and washed it down with the tepid water. “Thanks.”

  “Someone can sit in here with you while you wait. Want me to get your brother?”

  “No, thanks. Everyone’s fussing all over me, and I just want it quiet.”

  “No problem. I’ll let them know you’re doing well and will see them shortly.” She tugged the Velcro off and picked up the rest of her gear. “The doctor should be here in just a few minutes to discuss the results of your X-ray.” She paused and added in a whisper, “But between me and you, I took a peek at the film, and it’s definitely broken. Sorry.”

  Cat should have cared. Having a cast was going to be damned inconvenient. Especially since she was supposed to have four prototype pieces ready for her boss to see by the end of next week. She didn’t do a whole lot of the sewing anymore, so she wasn’t worried about the foot pedal, but even getting around was going to be a pain with the bulky cast and crutches. And still, she felt only a twinge of annoyance over it. The thought of Shane leaving made everything else pale in comparison.

  She looked up to see Courtney still looking down at her, a thoughtful look marring her pretty face. “We were never together, you know,” the other woman said softly. “Not before, and not now. We’re just friends, and to be honest, I haven’t even talked to him in over a week. He took this thin
g with you pretty hard.”

  Some of the tightness in Cat’s lungs eased, and she blew out a breath, trying to keep her tone casual. “I appreciate you telling me that, but it’s really none of my business. We were never together either. Not really.”

  “I know. Can I ask why?” There was no judgment in her eyes, just genuine confusion. “I have to admit, it seems so strange to me. Most people spend a lifetime trying to find someone to look at them the way you guys were looking at each other that night at Sully’s.”

  Cat considered blowing her off with a fib, but found the truth pouring from her lips before she could stop it. “I think I’m better alone. I love my career, I love the path I’ve chosen. I don’t want to veer off and wind up taking someone else’s path, you know? Shane is so strong. He’s a bona fide hero. But I want to have my own life and not just be someone’s sidekick.”

  “So you want a weak guy who will be yours instead?”

  “No. I just want…hell, I don’t know anymore. All I know is that I don’t want to give up my whole identity the way my mother did.”

  “Are you sure that’s the way your mom sees it?”

  “I can’t imagine how else she could see it. She gave up the thing she loved more than anything to support my dad’s career and stay home with us.”

  Courtney cocked her head and gave her a long, searching look. “Have you ever asked her how she feels about that decision?”

  “No.” Nor did she want to talk about this anymore. Cat took another sip of water and cleared her throat. “I’m, uh, feeling pretty tired, so I think I’ll just close my eyes until the doctor’s ready for me.”

  Courtney hesitated, but then nodded. “Okay. I’ll be back to check on you later. One last thought, though. I have years of experience with a controlling guy. The kind of guy who slowly but surely takes over your life, until you feel like you can’t even make a decision about what to wear without his help. That’s giving up your identity. What your mom did? Not the same. Now I’m terrified of giving up even a piece of myself to anyone again, and it’s taken me two years to even get up the courage to try.” She held Cat’s gaze with a frank stare. “But I think I would have tried with Shane. He’s a good man. It’s written all over his face and comes through in everything he does. You’re a fool if you let him go.” She didn’t wait for a response before she turned and walked out of the room.

  Cat covered her eyes with her hands and groaned. What the hell was she going to do? It had always seemed so clear before. Avoid emotional entanglements. Since Shane, everything had been a muddy mess. She punched her pillow and had just folded it in half under her head when a familiar voice echoed down the hall.

  “I’m here for Mary Catherine Thomas, please.”

  Cat closed her eyes. Mom was here. So much for being left alone with her thoughts.

  “I’m sorry, ma’am, but the patient prefers to be alone for the time being.” Courtney’s tone was polite but firm.

  The voice that followed was firmer. “Well that’s unfortunate, young lady, because I’m her mother, and she doesn’t have a say in the matter.”

  Cat worked up a smile and sat up right before her mother barreled through the door.

  “You’re getting too old for this, Mary Catherine. And frankly, so am I.” In spite of the bluster, Cat could see the worry on her face.

  Courtney stood in the doorway and sent her a questioning look.

  “It’s fine, she can stay, thanks,” Cat said with a nod.

  When Courtney left, her mother turned back to assess her ankle with narrowed eyes. “Does it hurt badly?”

  “Not too much, no. The doctor will probably put it in a temporary cast to stabilize it and then I’ll have to get it casted for real at the orthopedic surgeon’s tomorrow or the day after, depending on the swelling.”

  “I’ll drive you.”

  “I can drive mys—”

  “I said, I’ll drive you.” Fire crackled in her mother’s green eyes and Cat knew better than to argue. “Now tell me, what happened out there? Galen said you saw a rabbit?”

  “Yeah. Came out of nowhere. I guess I was distracted and before I knew it, I was ass over teakettle.”

  “You’ve been riding way too long to make such a rookie mistake. You should have been more aware of your surroundings, and you never swerve for an animal if you don’t know what you’re swerving into unless it’s—”

  “Unless it’s a bear. I know, Mom.”

  Kitty’s ginger brows gathered into a thunderous frown. “Well if you know so much, missy, tell me what it was that had you so damned distracted that you nearly killed yourself?”

  “Just work stuff,” she hedged, reaching for her cup of water.

  “And Shane.” It wasn’t a question, which was odd since Cat hadn’t told her about the two of them, and Galen wouldn’t have said anything…

  Suddenly it hit her who would have. “Mrs. Decker. What, did she call you and tell you about us?”

  “That’s not important. What’s important is that the two of you talk and try to work this out. Shane is as unhappy as you are, and for what? Because you’re afraid to settle down?”

  She quashed the little flutter in her heart and gave her mom the stare-down. “I’m not afraid to settle down, Mom. I like the idea of having one person to come home to.” She swallowed hard, Courtney’s words playing over in her mind. “What scares me is that I will lose myself completely. Like you did.”

  Her mother drew back, a frown wrinkling her smooth brow. “What are you talking about?”

  “I’m terrified to not have anything of my own and have my happiness dependent on the happiness of everyone around me.” She swiped her good arm across her tear-filled eyes and met her mother’s stricken gaze. “And I’m scared to wind up with my violin on a shelf in the corner of the study, unplayed, gathering dust.”

  “Is that what you think of my life?” Kitty’s voice shook with emotion. “That I’m some martyr who sacrificed my dreams to marry your father and stay home with you kids?”

  Cat moved to stop her. To take it back, because hearing it come from her mother’s mouth made it sound so awful, but Kitty held up a hand.

  “Answer me. Is that what you think?”

  “Kind of.” So why did she feel so silly about saying it now? “You always looked so wistful whenever you went into the room and touched that case. Are you going to tell me you didn’t compromise and give up what you love for your family? That you didn’t change everything for us?”