Linda Castillo - Sworn to Silence

I clink my glass to his, and try not to wonder if the case is really over. We knock back our drinks without breaking eye contact. I know what’s going to happen next. I can’t remember the last time I felt this way. I can’t believe I’m actually thinking about acting on the reckless impulses running hot in my blood.

He takes my glass and sets in on the counter. The next thing I know I’m being swept into his arms. “What are you doing?”

“I was thinking about trying to get you into bed.”

“Funny, I was just thinking the same thing about you.”

He kisses me, but this time it’s not tentative. It’s the kiss of a man who knows what he wants and isn’t afraid to take it. “So are you okay with this?” he whispers.

He’s asking about the rape, I realize. “At one point in my life, I would have run away from this moment and never looked back. Or maybe I would have sabotaged whatever relationship we’d begun.”

“I thought I had the market cornered on the relationship-busting thing,” he says.

“You don’t.”

“Is that a warning?”

“Probably.”

He looks at me with those dark, intense eyes. “No pretenses, Kate. It’s just us. You and me.”

“And our baggage.”

Laughing outright, he carries me down the hall and starts into the first bedroom.

“Wrong room,” I say.

“Sorry.” He backs into the hall and carries me into my bedroom.

He puts me down next to the bed. His eyes go to the old kerosene lamp on my night table. “Does that thing work?”

“It belonged to my mamm .” One of the few things I have of hers. “Matches are in the night table.”

“Don’t go anywhere.” He softens the words with a smile.

My nerves are snapping now. I watch as he removes the globe from the lamp. A match flares, then flickering light fills the room. He crosses to me, sets his hands on my shoulders and gazes into my eyes. “It’s been a long time for me.” He glances away, then back. “Not since Nancy.”

“Two years is a long time to be alone.”

“Plenty of demons to keep me company.”

I think about everything I’ve read or heard about him, and I wonder if the stories are true. If he went rogue after his wife and kids were murdered. I wonder if he would tell me the truth if I asked. I wonder if I really want to know.

He slides his hands to the hem of my sweatshirt. I lift my arms and he pulls it over my head. His gaze flicks to my bra, skims down my belly, lower. He runs his hands through my hair, mussing it. His fingers linger on either side of my face, then he snags the straps of my bra with his thumbs and tugs them over my shoulders.

Cool air washes over my breasts, and I shiver. I’m keenly aware of his hands going to the fly of my jeans. His fingers tremble as he unfastens the button, then tugs down the zipper. Self-consciousness creeps over me. Needing something to do with my hands, I reach for the buttons of his shirt. But my fingers are shaking and I fumble them.

John takes my hands in his and kisses my knuckles. “How is it that you can chase a madman into the woods in the dead of night and not even break a sweat, but when it comes to this, you’re shaking so hard you can’t even manage the buttons on my shirt?”

“I think if push came to shove, I could probably kick your ass, Tomasetti.”

He grins. “I think you probably could, too.”

I try to smile, end up flushing hotly. “I’m not very good at this.”

“Yes you are.” He touches his mouth to my forehead. “Don’t be nervous. It’s only me.”

He unbuttons his shirt and it opens to a solid chest covered with a thatch of dark hair. He’s muscular, but not buff. Thin, but it’s a long-distance-runner kind of thin. My thoughts evaporate when he tugs my jeans down my hips. I step out of them, then watch as he kicks his own slacks aside.

His touch is electric, positive and negative charges skittering over every nerve ending in my body. Slowly, he backs me to the bed, pushes me back and comes down on top of me. Arousal comes in a flash flood. It courses through me with every hammer strike beat of my heart. I arch, wanting him, wanting this moment, wanting too much.

As John eases his body into mine, I feel as if we’re the center of the universe and a kind God has blessed two imperfect people with a perfect moment.

CHAPTER 30

John lay on the bed and listened to the wind drive snow against the windows. Next to him, Kate slept with the quiet motionlessness of an exhausted child. This wasn’t the right time for him to be thinking about Nancy, but he was. For a long time after her murder, he’d been able to feel her. Not a physical presence, but more of an imprint on his psyche. At some point in the last months, he’d lost that. He could no longer conjure her face or the scent of her perfume. She’d become a memory.

He wasn’t sure how he felt about that. For two years, living had been about grief and misery and rage. It had been about wallowing and self-loathing. It had been about punishment. And then it had been about revenge. He’d stopped caring. About his job. His friends and relationships. He stopped caring about himself. Then along came this last-chance case, and Kate with her troubled eyes and pretty smile and secrets nearly as dark as his own. Somehow, he’d been thrust back into the land of the living. Not an easy transition for a man teetering on the brink of self-destruction. He still had a long road ahead, but this was a start.

He should have known there would be guilt. There always was. Because he was alive and Nancy and the girls were dead. Because life went on without them. Because he’d moved on. Sleeping with Kate would bring complications, too. He was in no frame of mind to be taking on a relationship with a woman. He wasn’t very good at making people happy. Eventually, expectations would come into play. He knew they were expectations he couldn’t or wouldn’t meet.

Sliding from the bed, he stepped into his jeans and left the bedroom. He grabbed his coat and keys, then headed for the Tahoe. He didn’t know why he was running away. Maybe because being close to someone took a hell of a lot more guts than being alone.

Around him the night was so quiet he could hear the patter of falling snow. He hadn’t smoked in almost six months, but at this moment he needed a cigarette with the intensity of an addict looking for a fix. Opening the passenger door, he plucked a pack of Marlboros from the glove compartment and lit up. He’d just taken that first heady puff when the front door squeaked open.

“You going to smoke that all by yourself?”

He turned to see Kate standing on the porch in a fuzzy robe and wool-lined mocks. She shouldn’t have looked sexy with her hair mussed and her body lost in the robe, but she did.

“I didn’t want to smell up the house,” he said.

“I could crack a window.”

She did and they sat at the kitchen table and passed the cigarette back and forth until it was gone.

“I feel like I’ve corrupted you,” John said.

“I hate to ruin whatever image you’ve drawn of me in your head, but that wasn’t my first smoke.”

He studied her, liking the way her hair fell into her eyes, and the way she swept it back with her hand. At that moment, he figured he liked just about everything about her. “So who did corrupt you?”

She grinned. “I have this friend by the name of Gina Colorosa. We went through the academy together.”

“Ah, those wild academy days.” Suddenly, he wanted to know everything about her. “How did Gina manage to corrupt a nice Amish girl?”

“If I tell you everything, you’ll have to arrest me.”

“I like Gina already.”

As if remembering, she smiled, then sobered. “I didn’t fit in here, especially after the bishop put me under the bann .” She shrugged. “I was young enough to convince myself it didn’t matter. I was angry and defiant. I saved enough money for a bus ride and moved to Columbus when I turned eighteen.”