Page 52 of Hunter

“You have some, too,” Hunter said when she handed him the plate.

Dutifully, she cut herself a small slice and added a dollop of ice cream, although she had almost no appetite. She started to say some more about McCourt’s visit, then caught herself. The strain of remembering not to speak aloud was getting to her.

After a few bites, she gave up the effort to eat and simply watched Hunter enjoy the pie and ice cream. He looked like a little boy who can’t believe he deserves such a wonderful treat.

She was too keyed up to do more than nibble at her food. When she couldn’t stifle a yawn, he nodded. “You. . . we. . . should sleep,” he amended.

“Yes.”

Standing, she started to carry the dishes to the kitchen, but he stopped her. “I’ll do it.”

“Thank you.”

“Go to bed.”

She shouldn’t lie down, she told herself. But what good would it do the two of them to sit and stare at each other? Leaning over, she gave Hunter a small kiss on the cheek. She had intended it to be brief, but she clung for a moment, needing to hold him, touch him before she let him out of her sight again. Finally, she detached herself and headed down the hall to her bedroom.

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He prowled through the kitchen and felt a shiver of gratitude when he found the box of doughnuts she had bought. Slowly he ate two, savoring the sweet taste and the soft texture. He thought about finishing the box, then elected to save some for breakfast. He would eat them and drink coffee with a lot of milk and sugar, he decided as he licked his fingers.

He had never chosen what to eat. When to eat. What to do. It made him feel strange as he washed the dishes. Turning, he looked toward the stereo, thinking he would like to hearThe1812 Overtureagain if he couldn’t hear Kathryn singing. But he didn’t want to wake her up, so he hummed the song she’d sung.

A time for every purpose under heaven.

He wished it were true.

He knew it was a lie. For him. He had only one purpose.

The song died in his throat as he began to prowl the house, checking to make sure no additional sensors were monitoring their activities. There were only the tiny microphones he’d found before and the recorder. He hoped.

He had lain in his hospital bed thinking about what to do. Now he opened the utility panel, and went back through the recording, fast forwarded, stopping every minute to listen. He heard someone searching the house. Then the broken words and phrases from the frantic time in the hall when he had come home to her. He had to clench his teeth to get through that part. Methodically, he erased everything that had been said since he got home. The listeners wouldn’t know how much had been recorded because they wouldn’t know exactly when it had been activated by speech or other noises.

After turning off the machine, he started down the hall. He and Kathryn had to talk. Now they could do it in privacy—at least for a few hours.

Quietly he pushed open her door and stood looking down at her in the shaft of light that came from behind him in the hallway.

She had fallen asleep on her back, with her flaming hair spilling across the pillow. The way he had imagined her.

Well, not quite the way he had imagined. The covers had slipped down to her waist, and he saw she was wearing a tee shirt. Yet as he moved quietly closer and waited for his eyes to adjust to the dark, he could see the outlines of her beautiful breasts against the fabric and the darker centers that had made his body tighten when he touched them.

He pressed his hands to his sides to keep from reaching for her.

“Kathryn?” he called out quietly.

She stirred a little on the bed.

“Kathryn?”

Her eyes fluttered open. When she saw him looming over her, she gasped and tried to climb out of his reach.

The terror in her eyes made him afraid she would scream and bring the security men. Flinging himself on top of her, he clamped his hand over her mouth.

She kicked at his legs, struggled to tear herself from his grasp. All he could do was try and hold her still as he told her over and over, “I didn’t come to hurt you. I came to talk to you.”

At first it seemed she didn’t hear him, didn’t even see him, for her eyes were glazed and her frantic struggles continued.

Then, all at once, she focused on him. In the next moment, she went very still, except for the sobs that began to wrack her body.

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