Out of Turn (8 page)

“You’re lucky you didn’t do more than bruise them,” he said, dropping his hand and moving away. “You don’t have any padding. Your ribs are right under the skin. And trust me, a fractured rib is a total bitch.”

My breath finally came back and I dropped my shirt, giving him a wan smile. I was absurdly disappointed, which made no sense at all.

After I’d shrugged into a short-sleeved button-down shirt that I left unbuttoned, I followed him out the door. The shirt sufficed for modesty’s sake.

Kade opened the door of his Mercedes for me. “You got a new car,” I observed, sliding into the leather seat. Of course, the car was black. I doubted he’d ever buy a different color. It just… suited him.

“Got sick of the old one,” he said before shutting the door and rounding the car to get in the driver’s seat. It even had one of those new ignitions that you start by just pushing a button instead of turning a key.

Kade’s two-door Mercedes coupe had seats that blew honest-to-goodness cold air on your ass. The interior was amazing, a little
Mercedes-Benz
etched into each windowsill lighting up when Kade opened either door. The engine was a gentle purr as Kade drove and I would’ve bet my next paycheck that the car had cost six figures.

Even if I didn’t have money,
it was nice to be with a man who did.

“So where’s the Lexus?” he asked as we headed toward downtown.

I’d been dreading this. “I’m really sorry,” I said, “but I had to sell it.” Kade had bought me that car and it had hurt to let it go, but sometimes life necessitated doing things you didn’t really want to do.

“Why?”

I couldn’t tell whether he was mad—Kade was infuriatingly difficult to read—and I really didn’t want to tell him why. But I wasn’t going to lie, either.

“I-I just… had to,” I stammered, looking away from him. “It was kind of expensive, you know? And I needed the money, so…” I shrugged, hoping he’d fill in the blanks.

“So you sold the car and used the money to go back to school?”

“Yeah.” I looked over at him. “Thank you, by the way. I hated selling it, but it helped pay my tuition.” Something occurred to me then. “How did you know I’d gone back to school?”

Kade’s reply came easily. “Saw the books in your apartment.”

Oh. Well, that made sense.

It was the height of the summer season, so we had our pick of movies. The latest superhero flick was my choice and Kade bought the tickets. I offered to pay for mine, but he just shot me a look, so I shut up. Movie tickets were expensive, so I wasn’t all that bothered when he paid.

“I need popcorn,” he said once we were inside. He headed for the concession stand and I followed in his wake.

“We just ate!”

“You can’t watch a movie without popcorn. It’s a rule.”

“Whose rule?”

“Mine.”

I laughed and stood next to him as he ordered a jumbo popcorn (extra butter), two Pepsis, and two boxes of candy. I had to bite my tongue so I wouldn’t protest the cost. Good lord, it was more expensive than if we’d gone to a sit-down restaurant somewhere. On the rare occasion I went to the movies, I smuggled my snack and Pepsi in my purse. It had been years since I’d splurged on honest-to-God movie theater popcorn.

So if you went to the movies with a man and he paid, did that make it a date?

The errant thought flitted through my mind and I hurriedly shoved it away. How ridiculous. Kade Dennon wasn’t the kind of man who went on dates. He was the kind of man who walked into a place, crooked his finger, and a dozen women came running, hoping for a chance to be in his bed. Dates were unnecessary.

Besides, he was… Kade, a drop-dead (sometimes literally) gorgeous man who had danger and sex oozing from his pores. He killed people for a living and enjoyed doing so. And when he wasn’t hunting someone, he was hacking
into something, usually highly secure, which was coincidentally, highly illegal.

He could definitely do better than me, just a bartender from Rushville, Indiana.

Kade made us sit in the very top row and stuck me in the corner seat.

“Why are we sitting way up here?” I groused. I liked to sit somewhere in the middle and close to the front.

Kade rolled his eyes as he sat, one ankle resting on the opposite knee. “Have I taught you nothing? Like I want someone sticking a knife in my back. Or yours.”

Oh. I hadn’t thought of that. I sighed, suddenly tired. I’d briefly forgotten that Gage was trying to kill me.

“Here, you hold this,” Kade said, handing me the popcorn. He dipped his fingers in the bucket and extracted a handful, munching on it as his eyes scanned the theater.

I realized he wanted his hands free in case something should happen. Kade wasn’t wearing his holster—the theater prohibited weapons—but I knew he had a gun on him somewhere as well as a knife that made me shudder to remember the last time I’d seen him use it.

Kade had killed a man in cold blood because he’d hurt me, threatened to kill me.

It wasn’t something a girl forgot.

The movie was decent and I lost myself in it for a couple of hours. I had the feeling Kade only half paid attention, but that was fine. To my surprise, by the time the movie was over I’d eaten my box of candy and made a pretty big dent in the popcorn, too, though Kade hadn’t eaten much more than a few handfuls.

It didn’t escape my notice that Kade was trying to get me to eat. His carefully hidden concern was sweet, though he’d probably make me walk back to my apartment if I said so.

“That movie sucked,” Kade said as we sauntered back to his car.

It was late, the heat of the day finally fading with the onset of night. The moon was full, dispersing the darkness with its silvery wash of light.

“I liked it,” I said, somewhat surprised that he hadn’t.

“That’s because it had a happy ending and the hero got the girl,” Kade said, opening the passenger door for me.

“Well, yeah. I like happy endings, so sue me.”

Kade’s smile held more than a trace of bitterness. “There’s no such thing as a happy ending.”

He shut the door before I could reply. When he got in his side and started the car, I said, “That’s not true. Life is full of happily-ever-afters.”

“Name one,” Kade said.

I thought. “My parents.”

“Both dead.”

Ouch. “Well, they were happy before that,” I argued. “It is possible and it does happen.”

Kade just glanced at me before looking back at the road. “If you say so.”

Staring at his profile, faintly lit by the glow from the dash, I began to doubt myself. Maybe he was right. Maybe there really were no happy endings.

I rested my head against the seat, turning my body more fully to face him. I watched him as he drove and if he noticed, he didn’t say anything. The darkness gave me courage.

“Why did you leave?” I finally asked, hoping I wouldn’t regret the question.

Kade’s eyes flicked briefly to mine. “I told you why.”

He’d told me he hadn’t wanted to stay and watch me marry Blane, that it would be a huge mistake for me to do so.

“That doesn’t explain why you didn’t come back,” I persisted. “Even after…” My voice faltered. “After Blane and I had broken up” was what I left unsaid.

Kade was silent, his only reaction the tightening of his grip on the steering wheel.

I cleared my throat and ventured out onto that shaky limb again. “I could have really used a friend.”

Kade still didn’t reply and I didn’t have the courage to say anything more. An awkward silence descended.

After a few minutes, we pulled into my lot and he turned off the car. He shifted to face me and suddenly the inside of the car felt much smaller. The air between us was heavy, pressing on my chest. I wondered if
I’d said too much, had again made myself stupidly vulnerable to a man who had the power to hurt me.

“Don’t depend on me, princess,” Kade finally said. “I’ll disappoint you every time.”

He went to get out of the car but my hand flashed out and grabbed a fistful of his shirt, stopping him. The look he gave me had me rethinking that move, but I swallowed hard and gamely held on.

“Stop saying things like that,” I said. “You’ve been a friend to me, saved me, more times than I can count. I hate it when you talk about yourself that way.”

“I’m not the hero, princess,” he said roughly. “Hell, I’m not even the good guy. Don’t try to pretend I’m something I’m not.” He untangled my fingers from his shirt and got out of the car.

I was out, too, by the time he rounded the car to my side.

“So am I staying or going?” he asked.

Apparently our conversation was over and Kade wasn’t going to tell me why he hadn’t come back.

That hurt.

I’d thought, perhaps irrationally given his absence, that Kade would be there for me when the chips were down, that we were really friends. But now he wouldn’t even say why he’d come back only when I’d asked him to. Would he have ever stepped back into my life if I hadn’t made that phone call?

Had I done it again? Did I care more about Kade than he did about me? I remembered how Kade had helped Blane when he’d gotten back from deployment.

“Made me go out, do things. Normal things. Go to a baseball game, see a movie, have dinner. He didn’t pity me and he didn’t baby me,”
Blane had said.

I suddenly wondered if that was what going out tonight had been about. And here I’d been hoping Kade had just wanted to spend time with me. What had I thought? That he’d come back because he’d missed me? What a pathetic idiot I was. Foolish, foolish Kathleen.

The thought had me slipping back inside my armor. I wished I hadn’t let my guard down so much with him. It seemed I was doomed to allow men to keep hurting me.

“No, I’m fine,” I said stiffly, wishing I had pockets so I’d have something to do with my hands. I felt awkward now, anxious to go inside.

Kade tried to catch my eye, but I glanced away. My earlier good mood had plummeted.

“Still have your gun?” he asked.

“Yeah.”

“Okay, well, I’m gonna bug out then,” he said. For the first time this evening, he seemed awkward, shoving his hands into his pockets and looking away from me.

“You’re leaving again?” I couldn’t stop from blurting out the question. My insides froze in dismay to think of him leaving again so soon.

He shook his head. “Nah. Got a new place. It’s… not far from here.”

I nodded wordlessly, relieved.

“I’ll probably leave in a day or two,” he said. “I have some business to take care of.”

My stomach was in a hard knot again and I didn’t speak.

“I’ll stop by first, say good-bye.”

I cleared my throat. “Um, yeah. But, I know you’re busy, so, you know, if you don’t get to it…”

If he didn’t “get to it”—what? It was fine? Okay? I wouldn’t care if I didn’t see him? My throat closed up again.

“You should… ah… call Blane,” he said out of the blue.

“What?” I was sure I’d misheard.

“You guys should talk, patch things up.” He still wouldn’t look at me as he said this.

“Isn’t that the pot calling the kettle black?” I said. “You didn’t seem like you were in any mood to ‘patch things up’ with him earlier.”

Kade looked at me now. “I’m still pissed.”

“So am I.”

His lips twisted at my sharp retort.

After an awkward moment, I said, “So, I guess I’ll see you when I see you.”

“Guess so.” Kade’s face was unreadable.

“Thanks for the movie.” I walked past him, noticing his hands were clenched in fists, but he made no move to stop me and said nothing more.

My steps were slow as I climbed the stairs to my apartment. When I reached my door, I glanced back at where Kade still stood in the parking lot, watching me. The sight of him reminded me too vividly of how he’d looked in Denver after he’d stuck me in a taxi bound for the airport.

I couldn’t take seeing him get in his car and leave, so I hurried into my apartment. It was blessedly cool inside for a change, but I knew I needed to turn the air off. Mechanically, I went from window to window, opening each one wide. A slight breeze wafted in, which was nice, but it still got warm fast.

I brushed my teeth and washed my face before climbing into bed. I didn’t bother changing, it was too hot to wear much, so I just shucked my shorts and the shirt I’d thrown on over my cami and lay on top of the sheets. I glanced at the bureau across the room. All my textbooks were stacked neatly on it. None of them had been in the kitchen or living room where Kade might have noticed them.

Huh.

As I lay there, I realized it was the first day in a long time that I hadn’t had a drink. I decided that was a Good Thing. I was even mildly concerned about Gage and the threat he posed. At least, enough to make sure Blane’s gun was fully loaded and within easy reach on my bedside table.

Which didn’t help me at all when I was jerked awake sometime later by someone’s hand covering my mouth.

My eyes flew open and I saw a man standing over me. I screamed, but the sound was muffled under his hand. I struggled, trying to pry his hand off me, only to freeze when he leveled a gun to my forehead.

“Don’t make a sound,” he said. “Scream and you’re dead. Understand?”

I nodded ever so slightly, my eyes glued to the gun.

He slowly removed his hand and I took a deep breath, my brain working frantically.

“Now here’s what’s going to happen,” he said. “You’re going to slowly stand up…”

He moved back and I did as he said. My gaze flicked to my bedside table. The gun was gone.

“Now walk into the living room.”

I could feel the gun pointed at my back as I walked. My hands were clammy with sweat and my heart raced.

“Who are you?” I asked.

“Doesn’t matter.”

“Are you going to kill me?” I’d reached the living room and saw the door to my apartment standing slightly ajar. He must have jimmied the lock and broken in.

The man grasped my arm, turning me back around in front of the couch.

“No. You’re going to kill yourself.” He motioned with the gun. “Sit.”

My knees gave way and I sat heavily. Sweat trickled down between my breasts. The moonlight filtered through the open windows.