just a minute.” She drifted down the counter to pour coffee for another customer.
Kip reappeared and hopped up onto the stool next to her. “I figured we could afford fifteen minutes. You could change, too, if you wanted to get out of the suit.”
“There’s a welcome thought. I’ll do that after we eat. I’ve heard we’re having pecan pie. I don’t know if I should have that much cholesterol,” Tam said, her expression as serious as she could make it.
Kip gaped at her, then laughed. “Yeah right. This from a woman who ate a Big Mac in two bites. I didn’t even see you chew the Hershey bar.”
“It didn’t take you too long to eat either, you know.”
“It’s not every day I run from the law,” she whispered.
“Me neither,” Tam whispered back.
Kip plucked a menu from the holder and turned it over to the back. A local map showed access to hunting and fishing areas off Highway 101. “We’re going to continue north along here, then turn.” She traced the path with her fingertip.
With Kip’s head bent over the map, Tam caught the subtle scent of her shampoo. She bit back the gasp that nearly escaped her as she was flooded with the same breathless need for Kip’s touch that she’d had on the gangplank, the same head-spinning desire she’d said no to the night before when Kip had kissed her. She didn’t know how she’d find no again. But she had to.
Their disappearing together to work on the case was suspicious enough. They would be asked if they were having an affair. No one would want to believe them if they said no, but at least it would be the truth.
When this was all over, she would be going back to running SFI, and she would expect her employees to live by the rules that had made their reputation. How would they respect her if she had an affair with a subordinate, with a colleague working on a case with her? And what respect would be left for Kip if she slept with a suspect?
No was the only possible answer.
151
Every nerve in her body was screaming yes.
It’s not like she’s asking. No, Kip wasn’t flirting with her and hadn’t in the least during the long drive. She’d just been Kip.
It worked, telling herself that, until Kip looked up. Their gazes locked. Kip’s jaw went slack. Neither of them was breathing. She shivered with an ache for Kip to peel back the layers, all of them.
Kip would see the truth of her, all the things that had shaped her, left their mark, that she’d found strength in. And for the first time ever in her life, the prospect didn’t frighten her.
The waitress delivered their slices of pie, breaking their attention on each other. Tam hoped she wasn’t blushing. It didn’t help her composure to see that Kip’s hands were trembling.
Several hours later, their progress slowed by snow flurries in their headlights, Kip turned off the highway onto a narrow gravel road that cut between fine-fingered aspens dusted with snow. For another twenty minutes they carefully navigated a steady climb.
The Cherokee had no trouble with traction.
“Where the heck are we?”
Kip glanced across the dark car at Tam. She’d been quiet since leaving the diner. “About a mile from the boundary of the Olympic National Forest. The cabin’s not much farther. This road’s used mostly by Forest Service and loggers.”
Kip slowed and turned left—it was a good thing she was driving. She almost missed it and she knew the way. After a few hundred feet, the A-frame came into sight of the Cherokee’s high beams.
“First things first,” she said. “Let’s get some heat going. You bring in some wood and I’ll start the stove.”
Tam followed her gesture toward the woodpile, looking equal to the task in the clothes she’d changed into at the diner. Kip shook her head at herself. Since when had she begun ordering around her boss’s boss’s boss? Since when had the thought of flannel made her moist and weak?
152
She was glad to see she’d left the cabin in pristine order. As she busied herself with the kitchen stove, she tried to ignore the question that had been plaguing her for the last half hour. Where was Tam going to expect to sleep? Her objectivity was already compromised. She knew where she wanted Tam, but that wasn’t going to happen. But she wouldn’t have any resolve at all if Tam followed up on that naked, honest look they’d shared in the diner.
Her clothes still felt too small and there wasn’t enough blood in her head to power higher brain functions. Her body had plans that didn’t include tracing employee financial dealings.
“Is that enough?” Tamara dropped her third armload of wood into the large crate next to the stove. Kip averted her eyes.
Tam in jeans, with a white tee covered by a blue and green flannel shirt was a devastating image, made all the more worse by how easily she could picture Tam in nothing but the shirt. Was it a newfound flannel fetish? That wasn’t so bad. But she suspected that wasn’t the truth at all. It wasn’t about the flannel.
“That’ll do,” she said. She’d left the stove ready to light and within minutes a hot fire blazed. It wouldn’t take long to get toasty warm up in the loft, where the only bed was. She went about unpacking the groceries and heating water for coffee, then wiping out the already clean sink.
Tam was watching her from the other side of the counter that separated the kitchen from the rest of the open room. The watching made her nervous. When asked, “What’s wrong?” Kip dropped the sponge.
“I—” She sighed. “I don’t do this every day,” she said. She wasn’t used to sharing her cabin, and she felt such a fool, because it wasn’t as if Tam was even asking for more than blankets and the couch.
Tam smiled slightly. “I thought you seemed fairly practiced.”
“Practiced,” she echoed, stunned.
“You showed a lot of aplomb.” She smiled more broadly.
“That’s a funny kind of compliment,” she said. “I don’t think I’ve ever aspired to being practiced at it.”
“Neither have I.” Tamara’s smile turned wry.
153
Kip wiped at imaginary dust to avoid meeting Tam’s gaze.
“Are we talking about the same thing?”
Kip glanced up. Tam was staring at her with a half-amused, half-puzzled expression. “What are you talking about?”
“Being a fugitive,” she said. “Your turn.”
A hot blush swept up Kip’s neck and she felt her ears burn with a red too hot for her olive skin to hide. She struggled for something nonchalant to say, but her voice failed her.
“You’re blushing,” Tam said. “What’s wrong?”
“I’m sorry,” she finally managed. “I—at the moment I’m not thinking of anything but where you’re going to sleep. There’s only one bed. It’s awkward.”
“I was looking forward to the sofa.”
Kip didn’t dare look at her. “I think it’s dangerous to ignore the elephant in the room.”
There was amusement in Tam’s voice. “It’s a pretty big elephant, isn’t it?”
“For me, yes it is. I haven’t behaved typically.” She risked looking up.
For a moment, it was the CEO of Sterling Fraud Investigations who was staring back at her, and in spite of the flannel, she was every inch the woman who had given her a job to do and expected exceptional results. If Tam would only look at her like that all the time Kip knew she could keep to her own resolve.
Then that look eased to something else entirely. It wasn’t the same sizzling desire that had been so palpable in the diner. There was innocence, wistfulness and a passive acceptance that what was wanted could never be hers. The resignation in Tam’s eyes was disquieting, and revealed a fragility that Kip hadn’t known existed. Kip wanted to hold her, but not for kisses, instead to murmur, “It’ll be okay.”