It was approaching midnight when Sarah turned from the road and started up the access road to Tyler’s house. She could see lights on and was a little disappointed. It would have been nice to rouse him from sleep and ruin that for him for him too!
She drove fast towards the house, making as much noise as she could and just as she got there she saw him come out of the front door onto the porch. His cool demeanour and amused face annoyed her and at that moment she would have liked to plough this car right into the side of the house, that ought to wipe the smile from his face.
“Do you think this is all some kind of game?” Sarah said as she pulled herself clumsily from the car, not noticing the engine was still running. Tyler stopped smiling, and she was glad of that, but his face held only confusion now.
“Did you come all this way to chew me out again?” he asked.
“Yes,” she said, “And you’re going to hear me out!” Tyler nodded and then turning back to the house said,
“Kill your engine and I’ll go put on a pot of coffee.” Sarah looked at the car and then sighed; this night wasn’t going well for her at all. She leaned in and turned off the ignition and then walked into the house after Tyler.
He was standing on the far side of the kitchen island waiting on the coffee pot. He leaned calmly against the kitchen counter, his arms folded and a look of keen attention on his face. To Sarah he bore the look of an insolent teenager who knew the principle couldn't do any lasting damage to him. This was enough to set her anger in motion again
“What is it you don’t get in all of this?” she shouted at him
“There’s nothing I don’t get,” he said back, not shouting but his tone firm.
“That’s not how it seems to me!” she cried back, “People are dead all around us and you still continue to lie and keep secrets!”
“Not all secrets are bad things, Sarah. What I don’t understand is why you can’t see when someone is trying to protect you!”
“I don’t need protecting!” she shouted.
“You do!” Tyler shouted back, “If from nothing else then from yourself,” he finished with a little less force. Sarah was about to snap something back, what she wasn’t sure, but this stopped her. The coffee pot hissed and they both looked at it. “Coffee’s ready,” Tyler said, turning to it and taking down two cups. Sarah watched him as he did this. She turned his words over in her head trying to figure out what exactly he meant. She was touched by the idea he would want to protect her, but she didn’t really understand how he felt he was doing this.
“Carson is on me, and I have to live with that,” Tyler said, his back still to her. She saw his hands on the counter edges and his shoulders slumped; she could only imagine the look of sadness on his face. “Putting you at risk at the same time would have been too much. I didn’t know what Spalding had planned, or if he was going to be there. I thought he might try to kill me.” Sarah could hear tears in his voice but still he didn’t face her.
“Then why did you go?” she asked, her anger melting to pity and sorrow faster than ice melting in the hot sun.
“I had to try to save Carson,” he said and his arms crumpled at the elbows and his head went to the counter as Tyler shuddered with sobs. Sarah rushed round the island to him and put a hand on his back,
“You didn’t kill him,” she said, “You didn’t know Spalding was out to get him.” Tears were running down Sarah’s cheeks now too and it was for so many different reasons. Tyler turned to face her and when he saw she was crying he took her in his arms and they hugged like that for a long time in the kitchen, each of them thinking of their own failures and regrets but not speaking of them any more. When the embrace broke they locked eyes for a moment and then each leaned in simultaneously for a long lingering kiss, a kiss that continued on up the stairs and into Tyler’s bedroom where they fell into bed together.
They didn’t talk anymore and they made love and then they slept, each exhausted, in one another’s arms. No, it would be fair to say nothing went as Sarah had planned that evening at all.
Chapter 45
IT WAS A HARD THROBBING noise, that was what it was. Sarah woke slowly, unsure of the world around her. Above her was dark and the smells were different. Then she felt someone against her side and realised she was naked. She turned in shock and there was the sleeping form of Tyler Ford. It all came flashing back to her and she sat up, not sure if she was happy or angry about what she had done. She knew it had been good, but did that make it a good thing?
She planted one foot softly on the wooden floor and then knew what the noise was. It was her phone down on the island counter top where she’d left it last night when she came in. She stumbled around in the dark and gathered up enough of her clothes to be getting on with and then shuffled out the door hoping not to wake Tyler up. She thought she’d succeeded and she dressed in the hallway fast, a sock was missing and her silk vest, but that wasn’t the end of the world.
Her phone was vibrating again as she rushed down the stairs, creaking noises all about that she just knew was going to wake Tyler. She lifted the
