'Hold off on calling just yet.' Kate heard a soft thump and muffled curses, then a clearer, 'Sorry, I dropped the phone while I buttoned my fly. I'll pick you up on the way to my mother's.'
'Do you think they're together?'
'Since both of them are missing, yeah, I do.'
Kate hung up the phone and reached for her coat. She wished there'd been someone she could have called besides Rob. Before she could stop it, a memory of the other night flashed across her brain, and a mortifying moan escaped her lips. She couldn't believe she'd done that particular sexual position. It was hard for a girl to keep her dignity with her bum in the air, but for some reason keeping her dignity hadn't entered her head that night. Then while she'd been basking in afterglow, he'd been in the bathroom plotting his escape. The second the condom had come off, he'd been out the door as fast as his boots could carry him.
At the grange party, he'd apologized. Maybe he was sorry, but Kate figured he was mostly sorry that she wasn't going to have sex with him again. Yeah, she knew that sounded cynical. So sue her. She wasn't going to ever let him hurt her again.
She watched for Rob out the window. A crescent moon provided little light over the wilderness area, and her thoughts turned from the other night to the crisis at hand. If her grandfather was stranded somewhere, he wouldn't be able to see more than a foot in front of him.
Within fifteen minutes Rob pulled his HUMMER into the driveway. Kate shoved her arms into the sleeves of her coat and was at the passenger door before he could put the vehicle into park.
'After I hung up from talking to you, I phoned my mother,' he said as she jumped inside and shut the door. 'No one answered.' He looked behind him as he backed out. The blue lights of the dash shone on the side of his face and filtered through his hair, unkempt, unruly, and unbelievably hot.
That she even noticed in this time of crisis was incredibly annoying. And especially since she thought he was a big old jerk. 'Does your mother ever unplug her phone?' she asked.
The HUMMER stopped in the middle of the street. He looked across at her as he shoved the vehicle into drive. 'No. At least she never has before.' He gave her a reassuring smile that did little to reassure her. 'They probably decided to go off and write poems in the moonlight somewhere and lost track of the time.'
'Do you honestly believe that?'
He turned his attention to the road as he stepped on the gas. 'Honestly? No, but I figured you might believe it and not worry so much.'
She was absolutely not going to let him charm her. 'Aren't you worried?'
'If I wasn't concerned, I wouldn't be driving around at,' he paused and read the digital clock within the navigation system, 'at twelve fifty-two. I'd only been asleep about half an hour when you called.'
She turned and looked out her passenger window as they passed the Texaco and the courthouse. She wondered what had kept Rob up so late. The unwanted memory of him leaving the grange with Rose forced its way into her head. Yesterday, she'd seen him outside his store chatting it up with Dixie Howe. The woman had given him a hug before she'd left, and Kate wondered if he'd been up till midnight with one or the other. Given his past, probably both.
'I went to church with my mother Sunday, and afterward she did finally mention that she had feelings for Stanley. I'm sure that wherever they are, they're okay.'
Kate wasn't convinced. She turned her head and looked at him. 'You went to church?'
'Sure.' He glanced at her. 'It was Easter Sunday.'
'And lightning didn't strike?'
'Ha-ha. You're a regular laugh riot.' He returned his attention to the road. 'I noticed you weren't there.'
She tried not to put any significance in his last sentence. So, he'd noticed she hadn't been in church. Of course he'd noticed. It was a small congregation. 'I'd done a little too much sinning the night before with Tiffer Cladis?'
'Couldn't have been the good kind of sinning, since he's gay.'
No, she'd reserved that kind of sinning for the man across the HUMMER, and look how that had turned out. Which should probably tell her that she should give up sin altogether. 'I ended up at his mother's, tossing back hairy sluts all night and listening to Tiffer's Stephen Sondheim collection. Regina had to take me home around three.'
'What's in a hairy slut?'
'Rum, Triple Sec, pineapple juice. It's Tiffer's favorite drink.'
'I could have guessed that.' Rob pulled the vehicle into Grace's driveway. There were no lights on and no sign of Stanley's truck. Old oak trees and pine all but blocked the weak light of the moon.
'He's not here,' she said.
Rob turned off the HUMMER, and the two of them walked toward the side of the garage. 'I can't see a thing,' Kate complained. Rob stopped, and she ran into his back. 'Sorry.' He took her hand and shoved the tips of her fingers down the back of his jeans.
'What are you doing?' she yelped and pulled her hand free. 'You pervert.'
'I'm giving you something to hang on to.'
'Your butt?'
'No. My belt.' He took her hand again and held it instead of shoving her fingers down the back of his pants again. 'Get your mind out of the gutter, Kate. I'm not perverted enough to stick your hand down my pants.' He pulled her along a few steps before he added, 'Not while your grandfather's missing, and not unless you ask real nice.'
The press of his warm palm against hers heated up more than her hand. She felt it in her chest and stomach. 'Don't worry. I'm not going to ask.'
'You might.'
'You wanna bet? No. Forget I asked that.'
His soft laughter was drowned out by the squeak of the garage door as he opened it. He flipped on the light and looked inside. 'His truck's parked next to her Blazer,' he said and turned to face Kate. The garage light lit him up from behind, kind of like a saint.
She pulled her hand free and stuck it in her coat pocket. Rob Sutter was no saint. He was too good at sinning. 'Do you think they're in the house?'
'Yes.'
'What can they be doing? The lights are out.'
He rocked back on his heels, and the light from the garage poured over the shoulders of his dark blue coat and lit up the side of his face. He raised a brow.
It took her several seconds to understand the significance of his cocked eyebrow. 'Gross! He's seventy. He'll have a heart attack.'
'My mom's a nurse, she'll thump him back to life.'
Kate sucked in a breath. 'Aren't you even a little freaked out about them doing'-she pointed to the backdoor-'that, in there?'
'First of all, my mind isn't going to go down that path. And second, I'm glad my mother's found someone.'
'Well, I'm glad too. That my grandfather has found someone, I mean.' But was she? 'Do you have a key, or should we knock?'
'Neither.'
'What? Neither?'
Rob turned off the light and shut the garage door. 'I'm not going to bust in on my mother.' He took Kate's hand and headed back to the HUMMER. 'I doubt you would have appreciated Stanley busting in on us the other night while we were doing the wild thing in the condom aisle.'
'I don't want to talk about that. It was a mistake. It shouldn't have happened.' Especially since she was fairly certain he was seeing other women now.
'I'm getting really tired of what we can and can't talk about. We can't talk about the night we met. We can't talk about the first night I kissed you. We can't talk about the night we had sex. That's bullshit, Kate.' They stopped by the passenger side of the HUMMER, and Kate reached for the door handle. 'Some mistakes were made the other night. I'll give you that.' He planted his hand on the window and kept the door closed. 'Maybe it shouldn't have happened
