A shapely brunette who must be a new hire showed them, at his nod, to a very private booth tucked in a corner rather than a window seat. She obviously knew who he was. Noah sat so he could see the restaurant, but no one walking in was likely to notice Cait. They ordered, steak and fries for him, spicy chicken wrap for her. He was a little surprised when she asked for a glass of wine.
They were there early enough, the restaurant hadn’t yet filled up. He was glad of the quiet. They’d be long gone by the time the band set up.
“Tell me how you really are.”
She gave a short laugh. “Oh, fabulous. Can’t you tell? I thrive on tension. Having a guard everywhere I go? One of the perks of surviving a murder attempt.”
“I’m serious.”
Her smile vanished. “You really want to know? It sucks. Everything sucks. I can’t do my job adequately. I can’t live in my own home. Nell’s mad at me. Colin’s mad at me. So we’re all excruciatingly polite, and I can’t even yell at them because it’s my fault they’re mad at me. I ruined my favorite suit, my car is starting to feel at home in auto body shops—wow, glad one of us can feel at home somewhere—oh, and I can’t sleep for staring at the window thinking how quickly someone could break it. I could be dead by the time Colin got his bedside drawer open.”
Jesus. Okay. He’d asked.
“Someone?” was what he said.
“Blake. Is that what you want me to say?”
He hoped she didn’t notice how he was clenching his teeth. “You sound like you’re hoping it’s someone else.”
“Why would I be hoping that?” Cait stared at him like he was crazy. “Oh, my God! Do you know how freaky it would be to have two different people after me?”
“Uh…yeah. I guess it would be,” he admitted. He hadn’t thought of it that way. “It seemed to me you might be determined to think Ralston couldn’t possibly want to hurt you.”
She was still staring, but he had absolutely no idea what she was thinking beyond feeling sure he wouldn’t like it. It had to be thirty seconds before she looked away. “Okay, you’ve got me,” she said. “I do believe Blake would hurt me if he gets mad enough. I’m scared of him, all right? But that’s not the same thing as him buying a gun and trying to kill me from a distance like that. It doesn’t feel right.”
It didn’t feel right to Noah, either. It was one of many things that had been eating at him.
But when he didn’t respond quickly enough, anger sparked in her eyes. “What is it? You think I’m still nursing fond feelings for him?”
Noah shrugged, watching her. “Happens.”
“Well, it’s not happening here.” She was still mad. “I feel nothing but this kind of horror that he can be totally fixated on making my life miserable. Or, God, ending it. And do you know the worst part? It’s trying to figure out how I could have been so blind.”
“Hey,” he objected. She’d said that before, and he hadn’t liked it then, either. He reached for her hand even though the waitress was bearing down on their table with salads. “This is not your fault. Don’t go there. How could you ever have anticipated this kind of crazy?”
She bent her head so their eyes weren’t meeting again. Because she didn’t buy what he was saying? Or because there was something she hadn’t said? His eyes narrowed, but he let go of her hand, nodded a brusque thanks to the waitress and reached for his napkin.
Cait did the same. “I’m sorry,” she said after a minute. “I must be wonderful company. You and Colin have been great, and I keep feeling resentful because I need you. That doesn’t say much about me.”
“I’d resent it if I needed anyone else, too,” he said. The words were barely out when he was hit by a staggering thought. I do need her. And part of that witch’s brew in his belly was resentment, because he didn’t want to need anyone. All week long, he’d battled against the magnetic force pulling him toward her so powerfully, sometimes he almost needed to grab a door frame and hold on to keep himself from being sucked down the hall to wherever she was. And, yeah, that made him angry. He tried to blame her. He kept telling himself he wasn’t obligated to her. Protecting her was her brother’s business, not his.