"I've never lived anywhere but here. Never wanted to. I liked going to school back east. Seeing snow, frost on the windows. The way the leaves look in New England in October. But I always wanted to be here."
She saw the beach steps in the distance. Her aching calves all but applauded. "Margo's lived lots of places, and Laura's done much more traveling than I have."
"Someplace you'd like to see?"
"No, not really. Well… Bora Bora."
"Bora Bora?"
"I did this report on it in high school. You know, a geography report. It seemed so cool. One of those places I told myself I'd go when I took a real vacation. Just a hang-out-and-do-nothing vacation. Oh, thank goodness," she breathed and sank to the sand in front of the beach steps. "I made it."
"And you're going to cramp up if you don't keep moving." Unsympathetically, he hauled her to her feet. "Just walk. You've got to cool down. Why haven't you gone to Bora Bora?"
She walked, for three paces, then bent over at the waist and breathed. "Come on, Byron, real people don't just go to Bora
Bora. It's one of those daydreams. Do you think jogging can dislocate internal organs?"
"No."
"I was pretty sure I could hear my ovaries rattling."
He paled a bit. "Please." He handed her the bottle of water he'd screwed into the sand at the base of the stairs. He whistled for the dogs before starting up the steps with her.
"Normally, I'd just be getting up now, stumbling into the kitchen, where my timed coffee machine would be finishing up its last few drips. Leave the house at eight twenty-five, hit the office at eight forty-five. Have the coffee machine there brewing away and be at my desk with the first cup by eight fifty-five."
"Eat the first roll of antacids by nine fifty-five."
"It wasn't quite that bad." She fell silent as they crossed from steps to lawn toward the house. The dogs winged through the gate, streaking toward their bowls in anticipation of breakfast. "I haven't had a chance to tell Margo and Laura about going back to Bittle."
Byron hefted the twenty-five-pound bag of dog food out of the pantry. "Haven't had a chance?"
"All right—haven't found the right way." She shifted as the nuggets clattered into plastic. "I feel like I'm letting them down. I know that's not right. I know they won't feel that way. They'd understand this is right for me."
Byron replaced the bag, signaling the dogs to chow down. "Is it?"
"Of course it is." She brushed back her hair. "What a thing to say. It's what I studied for, worked for. It's what I've always wanted."
"All right, then." He gave her a friendly pat on the rump and headed in.
"What do you mean by that? 'All right, then'?" She rushed in behind him, scowling. "It's a p
artnership, with all the bells and whistles. I've earned it."
"Absolutely." As a matter of habit, he started upstairs toward the shower. Kate followed at his heels.
"Well, I have. That whole business about the altered documents is just about cleared up. In any case, I'm clear. The rest is Detective Kusack's problem. And the firm's problem. I'll have more control over what's done after I'm a partner."
"Are you worried about it?"
"About what?"
He tugged off his short-sleeved sweatshirt, flung it toward the hamper. "About clearing up the escrow discrepancies."
"Of course I am."
"Why haven't you pursued it?"
"Well, I—" She broke off as he flicked on the shower and stepped inside. "I've been busy. There's not a hell of a lot I could do, in any case, and with Margo being pregnant, and the auction, and Laura tossing me all these details about this holiday fashion show she wants, I haven't had time."