Katy glanced up at him, her long legs bent in a low squat near the edge of the fire pit. “I’m fine, but you go ahead if you want.”
“It’s lunchtime.”
“Didn’t pack one.”
Gunnar let his grin widen. Score another point for him. “I brought enough for both of us.”
She shook her head and peered down into the campfire ash like diamonds might lie within. “You go ahead. I’m really not hungry.”
“Fine, don’t eat, but you can sit and rest a few minutes. Chief’s orders.”
With a sigh big enough to shake the leaves on the trees, Katy pushed to a stand and walked toward a nearby picnic table. “Aye, aye, sir,” she said as she plopped down on the bench seat.
Gunnar tried to catch her eye, craving just one hit of that impish gleam, but she looked away and cast her gaze into the woods. He watched her for a moment more, enjoying the dance of sunlight across her hair. His fingers twitched, aching to touch the fiery strands. He clenched them into fists and headed to the tree near the lane shading his gear bag.
He opened the bag, fishing inside as he walked. When he reached the table, he popped the tab of an energy drink and held it toward her. “You’re dehydrated.”
She scrunched up her nose. “Thanks, but I don’t like those. I’ll guzzle down some water as soon as I get home.”
He sat down across from her, then set the opened can between them on the table. “But I want you to drink this one.”
“No, I’m good.” Her smile forced, she pushed the can toward him and restated her refusal by slipping her hands under the table to her lap. “You probably need it more than I do.”
He pushed it back, not stopping until it was almost touching her chest.
Her smile vanished. And almost as if a switch clicked in her head, she went as still as a stone. Her complexion paled, and her breathing went shallow. Seconds stretched to minutes as she silently stared into his eyes as though hoping to find the answers to all her unspoken questions. Gunnar knew that look, having seen it every day in the mirror from the age of eight until shortly after turning seventeen, when he’d taken a job on a fishing boat that hadn’t had mirrors. He’d jumped ship in Oslo, called his aunt to say he was fine and would keep in touch, and set off to search the world for those answers.
Hell, he was still searching. “Drink it, Katy.”
She flinched and broke eye contact by simply looking down at the can. “I don’t want . . . I can’t.”
He already knew that. What he didn’t know was why.
“Why can’t you?” he quietly asked.
The woods fell silent again. More seconds stretched to minutes before he saw her entire torso expand on a deep breath and deflate on a violent shudder. “Because—” More seconds passed. “Because the last time I drank something someone gave me,” she said, still looking down, “I apparently spent the rest of the night being ra—being sexually assaulted.”
Well, fuck. “Explain ‘apparently,’” he gently commanded, even as he braced himself for the answer.
“I was . . . I woke up in a motel room the next morning,” she said in a barely audible whisper, “naked, tied spread-eagle on the bed, every cell in my body screaming in pain, and . . . and not knowing why.”
“Who found you?”
“It took me most of the day,” she softly continued, her arms moving ever so slightly, as if she were rubbing her wrists under the table, “before I was able to free myself.”
“Tell me his name.”
“There’s no reason for you to know his name, because he’s already . . . I killed him.”
It took every bit of willpower he possessed, and some he didn’t know he had, not to roar. “Would you mind at least telling me where the bastard’s body is buried?”
He nearly lost the battle when she looked up—not at him, merely toward him—and Gunnar saw tears threatening to spill from her utterly emotionless eyes.
“I believe it’s still buried under several tons of snow on some mountain in the Swiss Alps.”
Of course it was, because I buried it in Idaho would have made too much sense.
She stood, the movement finally freeing her tears to form two damp tracks in the dust on her cheeks. “This conversation is over,” she said, striding toward the trees.
“Katy.”
She stopped and looked directly at him, those two dusty tracks now muddy