Ginna Gray - The Prime Objective

Ten minutes later he returned to find the bathroom door still shut. He rapped his knuckles against the panel. “It’s me, Kate. I have food.”

Silence.

Jack might have been concerned if he hadn’t known Kate so well. “Coffee, too.”

After another beat of silence the door opened and she emerged, tight-lipped and silent. Automatically, Jack made mental note of every detail of her appearance.

For a woman who designed jewelry, Kate wore little herself except when she presented her designs to prospective clients or went to gala affairs. Day-to-day she rarely wore more than earrings and a couple of rings. This morning she wore simple gold teardrops in her lobes and a fine gold chain around her neck. Not a ring in sight, Jack thought with a bitter glance toward her left hand.

Only marginally tamed, her hair framed her face in an auburn halo of soft curls. As usual, her makeup was minimal—blush, lip gloss and a few sweeps of mascara. Kate had long ago given up on trying to hide her freckles.

She wore sneakers, jeans, a long-sleeved, blue-and-yellow plaid flannel shirt over a fitted little yellow T.

“Breakfast is served,” he announced, and made a show out of pulling out a chair for her at the tiny table in the corner.

The combined scents of soap, toothpaste and floral shampoo wafted to Jack’s nose as Kate stepped around him and sat down. Standing behind the chair, he bent to scoot the chair in beneath her and inhaled a deep breath. Instantly desire surged through him again.

He gave a mental curse and gritted his teeth. Nothing, it seemed, not even anger, could override his attraction to this irresistible, maddening woman.

She smelled heavenly and she looked fresh and wholesome and so damned cute with her little nose in the air and that pouty mouth that he ached to toss her onto the nearest bed and ravish her.

Instead he sat down in the other chair. As though he hadn’t a care in the world, he helped himself to a muffin and a heap of scrambled eggs.

Neither Jack nor Kate spoke. She did not so much as look at him throughout the meal. Though set, her expression was calm, but he knew that her quick mind was busy searching for a way to avoid the discussion they were about to have.

Jack took his time, but when he finished eating he poured them both a third cup of coffee, then leaned back and eyed Kate.

“Well?”

“I’m not in the mood, Jack.”

“Too bad. We’re not leaving this room until we have a talk. I had hoped to get this over with last night, but you were sound asleep by the time I got out of the shower.

“I came here to help you, Kate and I promise you, I will do everything I can to find out what’s going on and to protect you. Colleen, too, when we find her. But the price you have to pay is an explanation. Which is long overdue.

“C’mon, Kate,” he prodded when she remained silent. “You’re a fair person. You owe me that much, and you know it.

“Actually, that whole affair wasn’t like you. You’re not cruel or self-serving, but hitting me with a divorce when you knew I wasn’t in a position to do anything about it was both. So what possessed you to blindside me that way, Kate?”

Her chin snapped up. “Would you have given me a divorce if I had waited until you came home and asked you for one?”

“Of course not.”

“There’s your answer. I was trying to avoid a big fight.”

“I don’t get it. Why did you want a divorce? We had a great marriage. We enjoyed each other’s company. Our sex life was terrific. We got along well. Hell, we’ve never so much as had a serious disagreement. So what was the problem?”

“What do you think the problem was, Jack?” Kate challenged.

He could see that she was striving to hold on to her composure and keep the discussion civilized. That in itself told him that her temper was on the rise, but he’d be damned if he could figure out what she had to be angry about. He was the injured party here.

“You’re going to have to enlighten me because I don’t have a clue,” he said with a nonchalant shrug that hid his pain. How could she have done this to him? To them? “Our marriage was fine when I left the last time.”

She rolled her eyes. “No, Jack. It wasn’t fine. And the fact that you are unaware of that should tell you something. I didn’t just wake up one morning and say to myself, ‘Gee, I think I’ll divorce Jack.’ The problem had been building for years, almost from the beginning. I was unhappy! No. Not just unhappy. I was miserable.”

“Miserable how?”

“I was always alone. And lonely.”

He stared at her, dumbfounded. “That’s it? That was your big problem?” Jack shook his head. “I don’t believe this.”

“Whether you believe it or not, it’s true.”

“Okay, let me see if I’ve got this straight. You missed me, so you divorced me. That doesn’t make any sense, Kate.”

“Jack, you were hardly ever home. You’d be gone for weeks, sometimes months at a time, then show up out of the blue, stay a few days. If I was really lucky, a week or two. But then you’d be off again. I never knew where you were or what kind of dangerous mission you were on. I couldn’t even call you or write to you except through channels, and I was always aware that every word was monitored. And you’d go long periods of time without bothering to get in touch with me.”

“I called when I could, Kate. You know that. I also came home when I could. If my long absences were a problem why didn’t you say something?”

“It’s not as though I didn’t try, Jack. But every time I brought up the subject you would cajole and tease me and turn my concerns into a joke. Either that or you’d distract me by seducing me. After a while I realized that you didn’t want to hear that there was a problem. Because if you knew you might have to make some changes.”

“You’re wrong.”

“Am I? I don’t think so. I used to tell myself that eventually things would get better. That either you’d get tired of the constant stress and danger or that you’d get too old for field work and the agency would reassign you.

“Then September eleventh happened.

“Of course, I knew immediately that things were only going to get worse, and they did.”

“I’m sorry, Kate, but it couldn’t be helped,” he murmured, watching her. “We were scrambling after that attack.”

“I know. I know. That’s why I kept quiet for so long. But then months turned into years. Finally I realized that I couldn’t wait forever. As much as I loved you, I simply couldn’t live in limbo any longer.”

Her use of past tense made Jack’s stomach knot. Despite the divorce, he’d believed that, deep down, Kate still loved him. What they’d had together had been too deep and powerful to just disappear. Ever since he’d received her message, he’d been certain that, on some level, perhaps even a subconscious one, she regretted whatever impulse had driven her to end their marriage and wanted him back.

Fear gave his voice a harsher edge than he intended. “So you just threw away an eight-year marriage?”

The accusation snapped Kate’s tenuous control over her temper. She shot to her feet and began to pace and wave her arms. “Don’t you get it, Jack? What we had wasn’t a marriage.”

“What? That’s crazy. Of course we were married.”

“Oh, no. Marriage is about a couple building a life together, being there for each other through all the pains and joys and all the everyday, mundane minutiae that is part of living. Most of the time you were halfway around the world and I was alone in Houston. I didn’t feel as though I had a husband. Just a part-time sex partner. Yet I wasn’t single, either. I was just a toy that you kept on a shelf and took down now and then when you had time to play.”