Seeking Her

10

WHEN I PULLED my gaze away from those imagined boots, Kelsey’s eyes were wide and glassy. She had that empty look again.

“Are you okay?”

She turned away from me, clearing her throat, and I wanted to pull her into a hug. I didn’t. But I wanted to.

“Yeah, I’m fine,” she said. A sentence I was getting used to hearing. “Just yawned. Maybe I’m a little tired after all.”

Trying to make her more comfortable, I teased, “You mean I finally get to walk you home?”

She turned around, smiling and composed, but I could still see the heavy sag in her shoulders.

“Come on, then, Prince Charming. Let’s see what this chivalry stuff is all about. I hear good things.”

That might have been the moment when I stopped blaming her for dragging me to bar after bar in city after city. Not that it hadn’t all been miserable as hell. But there was one difference between Kelsey and the way I’d been a few years back.

She tried. She tried so incredibly hard, which is more than I ever did.

So I smiled, and turned to walk her home.

“I haven’t been called chivalrous in a long time,” I said.

This time she looked before she crossed the road.

“Fine by me. Chivalry sounded pretty boring anyway.”

I laughed because she was funny. Despite it all.

She met my eyes. “Tell me something. If you’re not walking me home because it’s the gentlemanly thing to do, why are you here?”

“Back on the serial-­killer bent, are we?”

It was easier to joke than acknowledge why I was really there.

“Nah, you’re not a serial killer. Too soft for that.”

“Soft?”

She threw me a smile before turning onto the street with her hostel.

“Hold on, now. Did you just call me soft?”

I turned her around by her shoulder. Maybe I pulled too hard or maybe she wasn’t quite sobered up yet because she planted a hand against my stomach to keep from falling into me.

I stiffened.

“Well, I wouldn’t call this part of you soft.”

She looked up at me through her lashes, her voice smooth, and want for her punched me in the gut, right where I could feel the heat of her hand bleeding through my shirt. She leaned into me, and the adrenaline pouring through me made everything except the beat of my heart go silent.

“Kelsey,” I said. I was already too sucked in to push her away, but I tried to warn her off anyway.

She tilted her head to the side and said, “How did you know my name?”

Shit. Fuck. Shitty fucking shittery.

“That girl said it. The one you came to the bar with.”

That answer wasn’t any better. Now she’d know I was watching her long before I talked to her.

She reached up to my shoulder and smiled. She didn’t look suspicious.

“Well, then, you know my name, and I know yours. How else could we get to know each other?”

Her hand slid up my abdomen to my chest, and I tensed, barely holding on to my control. I swayed toward her, touching her lightly just above where her waist was smallest. I wanted to touch her everywhere.

She gripped the back of my neck, bending my head down, and I flexed my hands, trying to stop myself from throwing her over my shoulder and taking her back to my hotel room.

She stood on her tiptoes, and her lips brushed my chin. It was a testament to how much I wanted her that I was a few seconds away from kissing her even though I’d watched her be sick on the street maybe an hour or two earlier.

Her shirt was bunched up in my flexed fists and the side of my hand grazed bare skin. I nearly lost it. I cast my gaze up to the sky and growled, “Goddamn it.”

She wrapped her arms around my shoulder, and then reached a hand up to tip my head down toward hers. I let her, even though I was shouting inside to walk away. I was thinking with my dick instead of my head, and I needed to get that under control. I might not have known the real Kelsey, not really, but I knew her well enough to know that if we slept together tonight, she’d be done with me.

Then I’d lose this job and have to go crawling home back to Houston. Then I’d be the one on a downward spiral.

And what would happen to her if I were gone? Would her father send someone else in my place?

For some reason, the thought of someone else watching her and seeing her the way I’d seen her made me irrationally angry. If I was right about the cycle she was on, she needed someone to look out for more than just her safety, and I didn’t trust anyone else to do that.

And if I was honest, I didn’t want to leave. Not just because I didn’t want to go home, but because I didn’t want to leave her.

It was the fascination, I told myself. I didn’t want to go until I knew her story, until I understood.

It was a good thing I was better at lying to her than I was at lying to myself.

Determined, I pushed her away.

Almost immediately, I wanted to pull her back.

Instead, I stepped away. “You should go. Get some sleep.”

She was breathing heavy, and it drew my eyes to her chest, and fuck.

“What?” she asked.

“You’ve had a long night.” That I would not make any longer.

She crossed her arms over her chest, and I knew that armor was coming back up. “That sounds an awful lot like chivalry to me. Boring chivalry.”

I took another step back because she was still too close for comfort, and my control was a thin, thin line.

“This is you, right?” I asked, pointing to the hostel at her back, even though I knew it was.

“Uh, yeah, it is, but—­”

“Good. Then I’ll leave you alone.”

I walked backward, my steps stiff. “Good night, Kelsey. Or Good morning.”

Then I rounded the corner. I walked just far enough that she wouldn’t be able to see me anymore, and then I sagged against the building.

Around the corner, I heard her say, “What the fuck?”

What the fuck, indeed.

I TOOK A long ice-­cold shower that night back in my room, mindful that I had crossed enough lines for the evening to not repeat my shower fantasies of her. Then I crashed, glad for the oblivion.

I woke sometime later, the sun bright outside my window and my phone ringing. Bleary-­eyed, I answered, “Hello.”

“Mr. Hunt. I see Kelsey is still spending a small fortune.”

I sat up in bed, suddenly alert.

“Uh . . . yes, sir.” How else was I supposed to answer that?

“Well, get me up to speed.”

I swallowed. “Not that much to tell, sir. We’re in Budapest, Hungary. She’s safe.”

“Yes, but what’s she doing? Where is all that money going?”

I hesitated. “Uh, lots of things.”

“Spit it out, Hunt.”

“Dinners,” I answered. “She meets ­people, and they go out to dinner. Touristy stuff. Museums. Plays. Lots of souvenirs.”

“Really?” He didn’t sound like he believed me.

“Clothes, too.” I added for good measure. “Expensive ones.”

“Of course.” That he believed me about. “Right, well, I have a meeting. You’ll let me know if anything changes.”

It wasn’t a question.

“Yes, sir.”

I hung up and immediately powered up my Kelsey app. I cursed when I saw she was already out and about for the day.

Did that girl never sleep?

After a quick shower, I grabbed my bag and set off in search of her. I expected to find her carbo-­loading to fight a hangover (or maybe that’s just what I would have been doing).

Instead, she was having another one of her quiet moments. Large coffee in hand, she was seated on a park bench in a busy neighborhood square. She wore a light sundress, and her hair was as styled and perfect as ever.

She didn’t look tired, not in the slightest.

I parked myself under the shade of a tree off to her left, far enough away that the busy sidewalks should hide me.

She sipped her caffeine in quiet contemplation, studying a fountain in the middle of the square. I didn’t remember it from the guidebook, but told myself I would look it up later. For now, I pulled out my sketchbook.

On the walk over, I’d started thinking about all the drawings I’d done during our trip so far. A few were from landmarks I’d seen in passing, but most were of Kelsey. I still hadn’t been able to get her face just right, so I’d stuck to sketching her in profile when I could.

Most of my drawings I did after the fact, when I couldn’t sleep or while sitting around in a bar. I wasn’t about to pass up the chance to draw her in real time. Maybe that combined with getting to meet her last night would finally help me get the face right.

I zoned out, sketching first the fountain and then Kelsey.

I’d never been trained in art. I mean, I’d taken a class or two in high school, but I hadn’t exactly paid attention. I’d been preoccupied with other things then and drawing still lifes of fruit hadn’t been all that appealing.

I was observant, though, and I taught myself. I’d had a lot of time for trial and error, too. I’d seen plenty of action in Afghanistan, but there’d also been a lot of sitting around waiting, doing nothing.

When I got to Kelsey’s face, I contemplated everything I knew about her: that familiar empty sadness that shone through on occasion, her admission from last night that she was tired, “bone-­deep” as she’d put it. When I drew her with that in mind, overlaid with a smile, the drawing came to life.

She was frailer in the drawing than she appeared at first glance, but it worked. Her hair and dress blew in the wind, and she clutched that cup of coffee like a lifeline.

I was probably reading too much into this, projecting my memories of myself onto her, but Kelsey was more than just tired. She was sad. And I was desperate to know why.

When I looked back at her to put some finishing touches on her dress, she was gone. My eyes darted around and found her closer to the fountain, amidst a group of preteen boys.

A bigger boy was holding a book over the water, taunting a younger kid, and I watched Kelsey play him. She pretended to need directions, and then when she had the opportunity, she took the book.

She gave it to a scrawny boy in the group who looked at her like she was descended from heaven. She kissed his cheek, and the kid’s face split open in a smile. Whatever she’d done, she’d just made that kid’s world.

I was a little jealous.

And my fascination with her was raging like a wildfire.

Her good deed done, she headed for the crosswalk at the corner of the street. I went to the opposite corner and crossed to the other side of the street, thinking I might have better luck following her undetected from there.

I couldn’t help but notice that her shoulders were a little straighter and the smile on her face didn’t disappear once she’d left that boy behind. I found myself smiling in response.

I was right about her being even more brilliant when the darkness wasn’t hanging over her. It was like the sun had appeared from behind the clouds, and I couldn’t have looked away if I tried.