He'd imagined her alone—it hadn't mattered that Laura had assured him Josh was with her. He'd envisioned her alone, frightened, at the mercy of accusations. His overworked imagination had pictured her handcuffed and led off in chains.
And there was nothing he could do but wait.
Now she was sitting beside him, her eyes shielded by dark glasses that made her skin all the more pale in contrast. Her hands were clasped in her lap, deceptively still until you noted the knuckles were white. And she had told him there was no need for him.
He didn't question the impulse, but swung to the side of the road. At the Templeton House cliffs where she had once wept on his shoulder.
She opened her eyes. It didn't surprise her in the least that he had stopped there, there at a spot of both peace and drama. Before she could reach for the door handle, he was leaning across her to jerk open the door himself.
An old habit, she decided. With all that temper swirling around in him, the gesture couldn't be considered courtly.
In silence they walked to the cliffs.
"Why didn't you call me?" He hadn't meant to ask that first, but it popped out of his mouth.
"I didn't think of it."
He whirled on her so quickly, so unexpectedly, that she stumbled back a step, crushed a scattering of tiny white wild-flowers underfoot. "No, you wouldn't. Just where the hell am I on that agenda of yours, Katherine?"
"I don't know what you mean. I didn't think of it because—"
"Because you don't need anyone but Kate," he shot back. "Because you don't want to need anyone who might upset that profit-and-loss ledger in your head. I wouldn't have been of any pract
ical use, so why bother?"
"That's not true."
How could she deal with an argument now? she wondered. How could she handle that brilliant fury in his eyes? She had a terrible urge to simply press her hands to her ears, squeeze her eyes shut so that she could neither see nor hear. So she could just be alone in the dark.
"I don't understand why you're so angry with me, but I just don't have the energy to fight with you now."
He gripped her arm before she could turn away. "Good. Then you can just listen. Try to imagine what it was like to be told by someone else that the police had taken you in. To visualize what might be happening to you, what you were going through, and to be powerless to change it."
"That's just it. There wasn't anything you could do."
"I could have been there." He shouted over the wind that raked through his hair like wild fingers. "I could have been there for you. You could have known there was someone who cared there for you. But you didn't even think of it."
"Damn it, Byron, I couldn't think at all." She jerked away, walked along the cliff path. Even a few steps would distance her from the upheaval of emotion, the avalanche, the flood of it, before she broke into pieces. "It was like being shut down, or frozen up. I was too scared to think. It wasn't personal."
"I take it very personally. We have a relationship, Kate." He waited while she slowly turned around, watching him through eyes guarded by dark glasses. With some effort, he drew in his temper and spoke with measured calm. "I thought I made it clear what that entails for me. If you can't accept the basic terms of a relationship with me, then we're wasting our time."
She hadn't thought anything could squeeze past the pain in her head, the ache in her stomach, the sizzle of shame in her blood. But she hadn't counted on despair. Somehow despair always made room for itself.
Her eyes burned as she looked at him, standing in the sun and wind. "Well, you dumping me certainly puts a cap on the day."
She started past him with some idea of running up to Templeton House, getting inside and shutting everything else out.
"Goddamn it." He spun her around, crushing his mouth to hers in a kiss that tasted of bitter frustration. "How can you be so hardheaded?" He shook her, then kissed her again until she wondered why her overtaxed brain didn't simply implode. "Can't you see anything unless it's in a straight line?"
"I'm tired." She hated, resented, the shakiness of her voice. "I'm humiliated. I'm scared. Just leave me alone."
"I'd like nothing better than to be able to leave you alone. Just walk away and chalk it up to a bad bet."
He pulled off her sunglasses, stuck them in his pocket. He'd wanted to see her eyes, and now he recognized swirling in them the same anger and hurt that twisted in him. "Do you think I need the turmoil and complications you've brought into my life? Do you actually think I'd tolerate all that because we're good in bed?"
"You don't have to tolerate it." She fisted her hands on his chest. "You don't have to tolerate any of it"
"Damn right I don't. But I am tolerating it because I think I'm in love with you."