Elisabeth Naughton - Wait for Me

“Trusting.” The sarcasm tightened her spine. “The woman I knew would never have blindly gone along with just anything. It didn’t strike you as odd at all? You just accepted everything he told you?”

“He was a doctor. He said he was my husband. Everyone around me supported that. I never questioned it because I never had a reason to.” Her anger kicked up. “You don’t know what it’s like to wake up with no memory, with no idea of who you are. Until you do, don’t pass judgment on me.”

Silence stretched over the room. Her words hung in the air between them. Every time they talked, things just seemed to get worse. Kate drank her beer and counted the seconds that ticked by on Ryan’s watch. The low din was like a cannon going off in the room.

“Were you in love with him?”

His quiet voice brought Kate’s eyes up. He didn’t meet her gaze, instead kept looking out the window. But she didn’t miss the way his whole body tensed as if in preparation for the answer.

She didn’t want to lie. But she wasn’t overly elated about the truth, either. For the first time, she felt torn.

“Yes,” she said more hesitantly than she intended. “I thought so. Now…”

His intense sapphire eyes turned to her.

She lifted a shoulder and let it drop. “Now I don’t really know. I don’t know much of anything.”

“Shit.” Ryan’s jaw tightened. He pushed from the chair and went back into the kitchen to get another beer.

Kate took a deep breath and tamped down the frustration and guilt burning in her chest that she shouldn’t even be feeling. “Do you think there will ever be a day when we can have a conversation without you swearing at me for one reason or another?”

“No.” His tone was cold and impassive, his eyes fixed out the window toward their kids.

She stood. “Well, we must have had one hell of a marriage if this is any indication. What on God’s green earth ever convinced me to marry you in the first place?”

“I hate to bust your bubble, babe, but we’re still married.”

“You don’t have to remind me.” She was well aware of that fact now more than ever, and the reality of it was the only thing that made her rein in her emotions. “Look, Ryan, I know this is hard for you. I understand what you’re going through, even if I can’t relate. I’ve tried to put myself in your shoes a hundred times, and I can’t. But it doesn’t mean I don’t care.”

She wished he’d look at her, but he just kept staring out that damn window. “I’m not going to lie to you. There’s something about you that…intrigues me. Although what it is, I have no clue. You’re obnoxious, obtuse, rude and cold. And every time I’m around you, I’m reminded of those facts. You’re living up to your heartless reputation, Mr. Harrison.”

The look he sent her could have turned flesh to stone. She knew from his reaction what she’d said had hit its mark, so she softened her tone when she added, “And even with all that, I’m still at a loss, because even though I may not have memories, I can still feel things. Yesterday at the park, it was like an odd sense of déjà vu. I recognized something about being close to you. And I felt something I haven’t felt before. But I don’t know what it means. I don’t know if it’s just recognition of something we once shared, or if it’s something pushing me toward you. And frankly, at this moment, I can’t even think about it. I don’t even want to.”

She ran a hand over her hair. “I’m overwhelmed. I have to think about Reed and what’s best for him. And how to get Julia not to hate my guts. And what the hell I’m supposed to tell my parents when they show up.” She massaged her throbbing scar. “It’s more than I can handle. And I can’t even begin to focus on you until I get some of those things worked out first. I don’t want to hurt you any more than I already have, but I can’t lie to you and tell you that I didn’t have feelings for Jake or pretend like the last year and a half with him didn’t happen, because it did. Neither of us can change that. All we can do is try to make things easier for the kids from here on out.”

He was so quiet and still, she half expected him to explode at any second.

“I can accept that,” he finally said. “The kids are a priority for me too.”

He set his beer on the counter and stalked toward her. “But you accept this. I’m not that patient. I’ve been through five years of hell while you’ve been off having a life. I’m not going to just sit back and let you figure everything else out first and put me on the back burner until you’re ready to deal with me.”

He moved closer, and she stepped back until her feet hit the wall. His face was only inches from hers, his breath warming her skin, causing a trickle of awareness to course through her. She smelled the soap from his shower, felt the heat radiating from his body. And had a sudden, wicked, insane urge to wrap her hand around his neck and pull his mouth down to hers.

Which was off the charts insane.

“You’re just gonna have to deal with me now,” he said in husky voice. “Right along with everything else.”

Those sapphire gems were full of rolling emotions. Emotions and heat and need and challenge. A challenge something deep inside told her she’d faced before.

Instead of grabbing his face and taking a taste of that mouth as her body suddenly wanted her to do, she poked his chest with one hard index finger. “And you’re just going to have to grow up, Harrison. This isn’t all about you. I’m doing the best I can. I’m trying to be sensitive to your needs and Julia’s feelings. Nothing’s easy. For any of us.”

Frustration and anger and loss and fear welled up and overtook her. She curled her fingers into the front of his shirt, moved in until she was close enough to take that taste, but now didn’t want it so much. She was too damned pissed. He wasn’t the only one who could be a jerk when they were hurting.

“And remember this,” she added. “I’m here because I want to be here. I didn’t have to come looking for you. And there’s nothing making me stay except me. So suck it up and deal with it, just like I’m dealing with you.”

She released his shirt with a push, barely enough to move him. But Ryan took a step back anyway. And when he stared at her, his eyes glittered with a mix of shock and anger and, she could swear, a touch of admiration. Admiration that sent a thrill straight to her belly.

Strange yet familiar sexual sparks flared between them. Sparks that told her they’d had this argument before. Not this exact one, but this face-off. This sexually charged confrontation. She didn’t need memories to know the chemistry between them was combustible. She could feel it. Could feel it had always been combustible. But unlike arguments of the past, this one wouldn’t end in sweaty, sexy, passionate sex. She wouldn’t let it.

After everything she’d already been through, she wasn’t setting herself up to get burned again. Especially not by a man like Ryan Harrison.

She stepped past him and headed out into the backyard.

“Don’t worry.” Mitch squeezed Kate’s knee as she leaned against the side of his desk in his home office. “They’re not going to freak out.”

She raised her brow and crossed her arms.

A sly smirk tugged at his mouth. “Okay, they’ll freak a little. But not that much.”

“I still don’t know why I have to be here,” Kate said.

“Moral support.” He picked up the phone and dialed. “I’ve had to deal with them by myself for five years. It’s time you started pulling your weight again.”

He swiveled away and began speaking into the phone.

Kate glanced at Ryan, who was leaning against the doorjamb. She wanted to be outside with Simone and the kids, not shut up in here with Ryan and Mitch. “Is he always this pushy?”

“Pretty much,” Ryan said, crossing his arms over his chest.

“Did I used to like it?”

One side of his lips quirked up in a winsome smile. The first inkling of smile she’d seen on his face. “Not a bit. You pushed right back. Just like you did with me in the kitchen.”

She turned away from the way Ryan held her gaze, looked back to Mitch and tried to tamp down the thrill Ryan’s words sent through her body. Mitch was doing his best to explain the situation to his mother. A frown tugged at Kate’s mouth. “It doesn’t sound like it’s going well.”

“Mom,” Mitch said into the receiver, “I’m putting you on speaker.”

Kate’s eyes grew wide, and she nudged him with her knee and shook her head, but it didn’t stop him.

“Okay, Mom,” Mitch said, “we’re all here.”

The line was quiet. Then Kathy Mathews’s voice chirped through. “Is Ryan there?”

“I’m here, Kathy,” Ryan said, stepping into the room.

“Ryan, is he telling the truth, or is this one of his jokes? Because if he’s kidding on this one, he’s definitely out of the will. You got that, Mitch?”

Ryan glanced at Kate. “No, Kathy. He’s not kidding. She’s real.”

There was silence again. “Is…is she there?”

Kate glared at Mitch. Oh, he was in so much trouble for this. “I’m here, too. He’s not lying.”

The line seemed to go dead. Then they heard sobbing. Followed by Roger’s voice. Mitch picked up the handset, turned off the speakerphone, and patted Kate’s knee. He went through the story with his father a second time.

When Mitch hung up, he let out a deep breath. “They’re coming down tomorrow. I managed to convince them to give you a day instead of jumping on the first plane out of Sea-Tac.”

“Fabulous,” Kate muttered. “That was really sweet of you, by the way, throwing me under the bus like that. Remind me to return the favor.”