“And then some, but I found no marriage licenses and hence no divorce decrees. No engagement announcements.”
“That about sums it up,” she said, not elaborating about her love life, though Brad’s arrogant face sliced through her mind for just an instant.
Brad had left angrily, disbelieving that she would have the nerve to throw him out. “You’re a freak, you know that, right?” he’d said when she’d insisted he leave. He’d been gathering his faded jeans, polo shirts and hoodies, along with his much-loved bong and trophies from being a standout soccer player in high school and college. “A fuckin’ freak!”
“At least I don’t cheat,” she’d thrown back at him, along with a pair of soccer cleats, as he’d scrambled out the front door.
“Maybe you should,” he’d screamed. “Maybe it would help.” He’d climbed into his aging hatchback and roared out the drive, nearly backing over a kid on a bike.
Good riddance!
Now, Tate was staring at her.
She felt the need to explain as she plucked a chip from her own opened bag. “I’m different from you.”
He frowned. “Really?”
“Yup. You thought about marriage and decided against it.”
Interested, he leaned across the table. “That’s right.”
“I thought about a dog once,” she said, and swallowed a smile, surprised at herself that she was actually teasing him. What was wrong with her?
“Yeah?”
“Unlike you, I committed. Went to a shelter, saw Rhapsody and, as they say, it was love at first sight.”
“Ever experienced that before?” His turn to banter with her, the corners of his lips lifting almost imperceptibly in his beard shadow. God, was he flirting with her? Is that what was happening here?
If so, she had to close it down. Break this too-comfortable mood.
“Never,” she said, almost icily. “So . . . are we working together, or what?”
“I thought this was already decided.”
“Good.”
“Then let’s make it official. Seal the deal.” He walked to the kitchen, opened a cupboard over the refrigerator and retrieved a bottle of red wine, a Cabernet from a winery in Washington. She recognized the label.
Within seconds he’d opened the bottle and set it along with two stemmed glasses on the table. “I think it should breathe a bit.”
“Or not.”
“Okay.” He poured them each a glass, then touched the rim of his to hers with a soft clink. The bouquet was heady and as she swirled the stem in her fingers, she watched eagerly as the legs of the wine appeared, red drips sliding down the inside of the glass.
Then despite all of the warning bells clanging loudly in her head, it was done. Wondering if she’d just made a deal with the devil, Kara took a long swallow of wine and found that, at least for the moment, she didn’t care.
She didn’t care at all.
CHAPTER 23
“So now she’s MIA,” Johnson said as they waited on the front step of Kara McIntyre’s home. Johnson was on tiptoe, trying to peer through a sidelight, but the seeded glass was nearly opaque.
Thomas had rung the bell, then pounded on the door, even called inside, but there was no response.
“She’s not home,” a female voice said, and he turned to spy Sheila Keegan walking across the snow-crusted lawn. “I’ve called her, tried to catch her at the hospital and waited around here, and figure she must be with a friend or something.”
“Or something,” Thomas said, and glanced up the street to where the white news van was parked under a streetlamp and idling, exhaust visible.
“Everyone else left, Cole,” she explained, walking closer, her face beneath the hood of her station’s winter jacket a little shadowed, but he could still make out the slope of her jaw and curve of full lips.
“Who else was here?” Johnson asked, and Thomas felt his partner sizing up the situation.
Sheila was, as always, way too familiar, and he suspected she did it on purpose with her coy smile and knowing lift of her eyebrows, silently reminding him that they’d once been intimate, that for months they’d shared a bed and ultimately she’d shared a source with him, that he “owed” her.
“Mostly freelancers, though someone from the local paper hung around for a while. I expect some of them will be back. And there will probably be more, once the highway’s open again. Portland’s a mess—it always is in a snowstorm—but the stations, they’ll figure out a way to send crews. This is too big a story to let slide.”