Chapter Twenty-Nine
Rick
The minute Rick heard Kaylee’s bedroom door open, he was wide awake, listening to her footsteps as she walked out the front door.
He snuck out the back and watched from the side yard as she crossed the easement to Josie’s house.
He listened as the door opened and shut, and when she was safely inside, he went back into her house and lay on the couch, waiting and wondering what they were talking about.
His mind had done a lot of wandering over the last few hours, including thoughts of Christmas and his abuela.
When Kaylee had asked him about going home for Christmas, it had taken him a while to realize that he hadn’t been back since he left for college.
There was always something going on, and he hadn’t really celebrated at all since then; his mother hadn’t been big on the holidays, especially exchanging gifts.
Prior to that last holiday, it was usually something they needed anyway, like socks and underwear.
It wasn’t a bad thing. It just wasn’t very cheerful.
Now that he’d tracked down Kaylee and she’d agreed to testify, he realized how sad it was to use his vacation for work instead of spending Christmas with his family. Christmas was the time for forgiveness and making amends. Of love and holiday cheer.
Rick was sleeping on a woman’s couch, who may or may not still hate him. He really needed to find the holiday spirit.
Maybe while he was in town waiting for the bureau to get its ducks in a row, Rick could take advantage of some of the Christmas fun. The Potato Lights Spectacular had been interesting enough, and he wished he’d taken a moment to relax and really enjoy it.
In a small town like this, there were bound to be lots of Christmas events before the holiday. And with Kaylee’s bucket list to accomplish, it gave him the perfect opportunity to put work aside for a bit and have some fun.
Especially if it meant getting closer to the beautiful woman currently next door.
When Kaylee returned, he’d pretended to sleep and hadn’t stirred even when she took a few steps toward him.
Rick thought that she was going to say something, but then he heard the sound of her retreating feet and the bedroom door closing.
He was able to go back to sleep and didn’t awaken again until something scurried up his body.
His eyes flew open, and he came face-to-face with Pumpkin’s beady little eyes, swooping orange and black hair, and chattering teeth.
“Kaylee,” he called in a stage whisper. Pumpkin rested on his chest, watching him as if waiting for a sudden movement to pounce. Rick tried to call for Kaylee again, but the guinea pig scooted closer.
Kaylee’s door opened, but Rick didn’t dare look away from the rodent in case he decided to attack.
“Oh, Pumpkin! I’m so sorry!” Kaylee’s hurried feet crossed the room, and she scooped up her pet, holding him to her chest. Rick let out a relieved breath and scrambled into a sitting position.
“He was plotting my death,” Rick said, watching her lift the lid and put the guinea pig back inside.
“If he’d wanted to hurt you, I think a chunk would have already gone missing from your nose.” She crossed the room and into the kitchen, where he could hear her bustling about. She returned shortly carrying a container of veggies and lifted the lid of Pumpkin’s enclosure to set it inside.
“I guess he wasn’t hungry enough to eat me,” Rick joked.
Kaylee smiled awkwardly. “Not quite.”
She disappeared into the kitchen again, and Rick got up from the couch and, after a brief detour to the bathroom, went into the kitchen, taking a seat at the table.
He watched her silently for several beats, enjoying the way her shorts showed off her curvy thighs and ass when she leaned up on her tiptoes to grab something from the cupboard.
“How did you sleep?” she asked, scooping coffee grounds into the filter.
“I did fine until somebody snuck out in the middle of the night and I had to make sure that they were safe. I finally fell back asleep, only to wake up with the guinea pig on my chest this morning, which was a bit unnerving. Other than that, I slept like a rock.”
Kaylee turned away from filling up her coffeepot with water, the container in her hand. “You heard me.”
“I’m sure everyone heard you; you’re not that stealthy.”
Kaylee cleared her throat. “I just needed to clear my head, so I went to Josie’s.”
“I know. I watched you.”
She made a face, wrinkling her nose with distaste. “Dude, that is so creepy.”
“Dude,” he countered, playfully, “I just wanted to make sure that you got in safely.”
“It’s like fifty feet,” she exclaimed loudly.
“And?”
She huffed, and Rick grinned. “I win.”
“No, I’m just not going to argue with you about something so silly.”
“So I win.”
“You don’t win anything,” she muttered, pressing the button on the coffeepot so hard that he watched her finger bend back.
“No?” He leaned back in the chair, smirking. “Does that mean you’re still upset with me about last night?”
“I wasn’t upset with you,” Kaylee murmured. “It just still hurts to think about Elasia, and I’m trying to work through that.”
Her admission sobered his amusement. “Did Josie help you?”
“Yeah, she did actually.”
“What kind of a counselor is she?” he asked.
“She’s a professional cuddler.”
“Come again?”
“She counsels people while cuddling them. For people who have insomnia or PTSD, it helps.”
Rick stared at her, unsure if she was joking. “So she goes to strangers’ houses and hugs them?”
“Yes, they snuggle together, and she helps them work through their issues.”
“And this is a real thing?”
“Yes, you uncultured dork.”
“Wow,” Rick said, holding his hands up in surrender. “I’m just asking because I’ve never heard of anything like that before. And that guy who walked her home the other night knows this?”
“I don’t think so. She doesn’t really talk about it with anyone because she’s had people be weird in the past. If you consider that the human touch can have healing properties, it makes sense.
When we feel lonely, what do we do? We reach out, call someone, and go to a bar to meet people.
We want to be around others, but some people struggle with social interactions.
Yet they still crave human touch. That’s the whole reason why they encourage babies and mothers to bond skin to skin in the hospital, because that is the first loving interaction that they have. ”
“More power to her. I just don’t know if I could show up at a stranger’s house and hug them for an hour. What if they smell bad?”
Kaylee laughed. “I don’t know, you’d have to ask her. She doesn’t talk about her clients, and I don’t ask.”
“So what did you guys talk about?” Rick got up from the table, grabbed two mugs from the cupboard, and set them on the counter before leaning back against it.
“Why do you ask?”
Rick shrugged. “I don’t know. I was just curious if you may have talked to your friend about what happened between us.”
“And if I did?” she asked warily.
“I mean, are we talking good stuff or mediocre?”
“Are you asking me if I graded your performance for my friend?”
“Well, I-I wouldn’t put it that way, but I mean—”
Kaylee cut him off as he stammered. “What I told her was positive.”
“I’ll take it,” he said, grinning.
“Oh, I’m so glad you approve,” she deadpanned.
“Wait,” Rick said, his eyes narrowing as suspicion snaked up the back of his neck and coiled in his brain. “Would you have actually told me if you said anything bad about me?”
“I don’t know. Depending on whether I wanted to hurt your feelings, I guess I could be trying to spare your ego.”
He didn’t know how he felt about that, and he said, “I hope that no matter what, you’re always honest with me.”
“So don’t spare your feelings, tell you the truth?”
“Yes, one hundred percent. I would rather you not pretend with me.”
“Well, if we’re going to be honest,” she said, closing the distance between them and putting her hand against his chest, over his galloping heart.
“Then I feel like I should tell you that I didn’t sleep well last night because I was going to ask you to join me in bed but I didn’t want to make things weird. ”
“And why would that make things weird?”
“Because you’re a federal agent on duty, and after what happened between us, you could lose your job.”
Rick smiled, reaching for her. “Technically, I’m on vacation so—”
Kaylee jerked back, wide eyes boring into his. “Wait, what?”
The horrified expression on her face was almost comical, with her bulging eyes and open mouth. “The bureau technically didn’t know I was coming here. I took a vacation when I saw you on the Christmas special, and I came here instead.”
Several moments ticked by, and she didn’t speak, just stared at him, her mouth finally snapping shut.
“Kaylee?”
“I’m sorry,” she said, sounding as if she were speaking through a clenched jaw. “You are not even working right now, and you came here to bring me back? Did they even want you searching for me?”
“We’re always looking for you, yes, but were we actively searching? No.”
Before he could get the rest of it out, Kaylee picked a towel up off the counter and twirled it between her hands. “You need to get out.”
“We were just having a conversation—” The towel snapped against his outstretched hand, and he yelped at the sting. “Kaylee!”
“No, no, no, no, no, no, no!” She pushed past him, snapping the towel at him when he tried to touch her again.
“You came here and upheaved my life, all because I gave you the runs. No one forced you.” She picked his duffel off the floor, zipping it up and tossing it at him. “You aren’t getting paid.”
“Well, technically, it’s a paid vacation.”
Kaylee’s expression darkened. “Are you kidding me right now?”
“Plus, it was more than the runs. You poisoned me.”
He used his duffel as a shield when the towel launched at him.
“I gave you MiraLAX.” She chased after him, snapping the towel again, but Rick ducked behind a kitchen chair.
“It’s over the counter.” Another attempt to nail him was foiled by his quick reflexes.
“You were fine.” She sent two consecutive launches his way, and one caught him on the arm. “I just cleared you out.”
“You dosed me with something. That is illegal.” Rick dropped the duffel on the floor and grabbed the towel from her, tossing it back onto the counter. “And stop trying to get me with the towel!”
“You deserve it! I’m sure that whatever you’re doing here is black and white and not sketchy at all, right?
” Kaylee took a few steps toward him, her fists clenched, and he braced himself for the swing, but it never came.
Instead, her voice broke, twisted in his guts like a fork twirling spaghetti.
“How dare you? You show up here, push yourself into my home, follow me to my book club, have sex with me, and this whole time, you’ve been lying to me.
I thought that you were under orders to bring me home, and now I find out they don’t even care about me. ”
“That’s not true. They’re still building the case. Your testimony is important; we have to find bodies, though.”
“Like I said, get out,” she said, waving her hand like he was an unwanted animal who’d snuck into her home. “Go home. If I see you, I’m gonna tell Paulette you’re a trespassing louse.”
“She already called my boss, and he told her that I was a federal agent and you were a witness.”
Kaylee herded him toward the door. “But does he know that you pushed your way into my house and basically have been keeping me under surveillance the whole time?”
Not in so many words. “Possibly. He did tell me to keep a close eye on you.”
“And you tell me to be honest,” Kaylee scoffed, opening the front door. She marched back to the kitchen, grabbed his duffel, and launched it out the door, where it rolled and crashed down the stairs and onto the walkway.
“Kaylee, come on.”
“No,” she said, shoving him after his bag, and he let her. “You lied to me, you played me, and I want you out of my house.”
Rick gave her a brooding look, crossing his arms over his chest. “I’ll get a hotel room, but I’m not leaving town. If I saw that episode, what’s to say that somebody else didn’t?”
Kaylee took hold of the knob. “If they knew I was here, they would’ve been here by now.”
“I’m not taking any chances.”
Kaylee slammed the door, and Rick called through it, “I’m sorry, Kaylee.”
“Take your sorry and shove it up your wahooza!”
Rick turned, heading down the steps toward his duffel, when he remembered his shaving kit was in her bathroom.
The door opened, and something hard hit him in the back. When he swung around, the door was already closed, and on the ground at his feet was the brown bag of toiletries.