Page 57 of Duplicity

Simon tuned it out. She was the only thing that mattered. “I’m so glad we found you. Are you all right? Did they hurt you?” He touched her cheeks, sliding his fingers into her hair. “Cat, did they hurt you?”

She lifted her hands and gripped his forearms with more strength than he’d have thought she had in her right now. This woman was steel.

Her eyes still didn’t quite focus. “Simon.” She sounded relieved.

Hearing it made him want to thank God she was here and alive. So much healmostdid it.

He opened his mouth to tell her they should go to the car when she shifted and moved close to him. Close enough that her body came flush against his, and her hands slid up his arms to his shoulders. She touched a sore spot on her wrists, and then her lips were on his.

Cat clung to him like she needed it.

Like she needed him.

Simon slid his arms around her and held some of her weight, so she didn’t have to stand on her own strength. He held on to her and let her kiss him for as long as she needed it. It was for her, so she could feel grounded in that moment. So she could know to her soul that she had been found, that she was safe.

But hope crept in.

Slowly at first, like a whisper. Nearly a temptation—something he had a hard time with because of the way his father had warped so many things inside his head. But if there was anything to this hope, then it was her.Everything.

All of her was an invitation to something he’d never had. Even if he’d blown his chance at purity and it had all fallen apart, it still seemed as if he was being offered what he’d dreamed of in spite of all the ways he’d failed.

She kissed him because she needed it.

But in the end, he had to face the fact he needed it, too. He needed to beneeded, and not in the way he had with his sibling, who would always be a part of him, but in a way that was Simon’s and his alone. Catalina Alvarez was it for him.

She pulled away, breathless. Her arms lowered as if she didn’t have the strength to hold them up any longer. He touched his forehead to hers and turned his face so their cheeks touched. “I’ve got you.”

Her breath hitched, but he heard the audible sigh.

The semitruck was gone. Peter sat in the driver’s seat of the car, still on the phone. He flashed the headlights, and Simon nodded. “We should go.”

“Okay.” She held on to him, and he would’ve offered to carry her, but she seemed like she walked well enough and wasn’t about to fall.

Simon opened the back and ended up sliding in beside her like they had on the way to the grocery store where Romeo had been hurt. He buckled his seat belt, but she lay down with her head on his leg, curled on the seat.

Peter glanced at her, then Simon. “Good?”

“Yep. Hospital?”

Peter turned back to the front. “Vanguard.” He pulled a U-turn.

Simon didn’t argue or ask why. They had a paramedic on staff, and the doctor could be called. They didn’t always have to go to the hospital, even if that was where her father and her brother were. Maybe Romeo was done getting checked out.

She had her eyes closed. Simon ran a finger over her hairline and saw her exhale. He prayed she fell asleep since the drive was over thirty minutes. For the first time in a long time, Simon acknowledged what he had always known to be true. God was real.

He wasn’t the problem. God had never been the sticking point.

The issue had been the way others seemed intent to wield Him like a weapon. Like He was theirs to use to control others so they could feel as if they were in authority, the kind of people with all the power. And it was nonnegotiable for those with no power.

He’d never had to wonder if God was real or if His Word was the truth.

What he had to wrestle with was his own connection to that, what he was going to do with it, and how others factored in. He’d been ignoring the whole issue since his father died—maybe even before then. Now, while he asked for Cat to have peace and get some rest before she had to recount what had happened, there was a kind of clarity, with just him and God.

Soon enough, Peter pulled up to the curb in front of the building.

Not many lights were on in the tower, but there were enough to indicate more than a few people were here. Did she have it in her to face them? He never would have, but she probably could.

Peter opened the door. “I can carry her.”

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