He stroked a hand over her hair. “Why?” he said softly. “Why are you crying?”

She didn’t answer him, and he just shifted until he was holding her more fully. She was such a creature of . . . of strength, that he wasn’t sure how to respond to this. He kissed her temple, whispering silly assurances.

Finally she stopped, and her breath was warm through his shirt.

Hunter held very still, feeling the tension in her body.

“I didn’t tell you the whole truth about my mother,” she finally said.

He waited, knowing this admission hung on a thin line, not wanting to upset the precarious balance of whether she’d keep talking.

“I knew she was going on an assignment,” said Kate. “I wanted to go. She said I needed to keep training.”

Hunter nodded and kissed her temple again. He knew a story just like this one.

His own.

“I went anyway,” said Kate. “I hacked her computer . . . found out what flights she was taking . . . I booked different flights for myself. I found out what her mission was. I followed her everywhere. She had no idea I was there.” Kate sniffed and swiped at her eyes.

“But then I saw who she was after,” she continued. “It was this little restaurant owner, up at one of the fishing towns in Maine. Tiny diner, right on the water. He was using his powers to draw the best seafood. Silly, right?”

She was still crying, and Hunter wasn’t sure what to say to that.

The bad parts were coming, though. He could feel it.

“I didn’t even think it was a big deal,” said Kate. “I mean—is that any different from having a gift that makes you a better cook? I kept waiting to see if he was hurting people at night, or if there was anything worse than that. Mom was learning his routine, so I learned it, too. She had no idea I was there.”

“And what did you learn?” asked Hunter.

“I learned that he had five kids,” she said. “I learned that he was a good man who gave restaurant leftovers to the homeless people in town. I kept waiting for him to do something wrong, and at the same time, I kept waiting for my mother to do the right thing and leave him alone.”

“She didn’t.” Not even a question.

“No. She went after him.”

“And he killed her.”

Kate shook her head fiercely. “She waited until he was alone in the restaurant, and she confronted him.” Now she was crying in earnest. “And you know what he said? He said he understood, and he wouldn’t put up a fight if she promised to leave his family alone. Then he put his hands up and said, ‘Do it.’

“He was willing to sacrifice himself for his family,” she said. “Just like that. He was going to lie down and die to protect them. And my mom was going to take a father away from that family. She was going to kill a good man because it was her duty.”

Hunter’s brain was spinning, trying to figure out how this man had gone from being ready to sacrifice himself for his family to murdering Kate’s mother.

Kate swiped at her eyes again. “She pulled out her gun and told him she appreciated his willingness to do what was right.” A short, harsh laugh through the tears. “Can you believe that? His willingness to do what was right.”

“How did he kill her?” said Hunter.

“He didn’t,” said Kate. She sat up, moving away from him, pressing her hands to her eyes, sobbing into her fingers. “I did.”

“You? But—”

“I shot her. I shot her in the shoulder just to keep her from killing him. And she turned her gun on me, then fired.”

Hunter knelt in front of her, wanting to touch her, not knowing how she’d take it. “Did she know it was you?”

“Maybe not when she fired the first shot. But she aimed at me again. Twice. She knew it was me. I fired back. I didn’t—it was all too fast. I’d been through all that training—I just—it was me or her. She died, right there on the floor of his restaurant.” Kate looked up at Hunter, tears shining on her lashes. “And if I told anyone I did it, they’d kill me. If I told anyone the Water Elemental had done it, they’d send more Guides after him and probably destroy his whole family.”

“So you told them he killed her, and that you killed him.” He paused. “You let him go.”

She took a shuddering breath. “Yeah.” Another breath, steadier this time. “Do you think I’m a horrible person?”

Hunter reached out and stroked the hair back from her face. “I think you’re an amazing person who had to make a terrible choice at a terrible time.”

“I’m a failure. I should have let her finish.”

“No, you’re human, and you did what was right.”

“I don’t know what’s right anymore.”

He’d said those exact words to Gabriel, what felt like a lifetime ago.

So he told Kate the same thing Gabriel had said to him. “Yes,” he said softly. “You do.”

CHAPTER 30

The blankets were warm, and the sound of the water was hypnotic, stealing tension from the air. Kate was pressed against him again, her head on his shoulder, an arm across his chest. Hunter stroked her hair absently, keeping still otherwise, sure she was asleep.

His father had been wrong. This trust felt a million times better than the walls Hunter had built around himself.

“Are you asleep?” Kate whispered, her voice barely carrying above the sound of the waves.

“No.” He turned his head and brushed a kiss against her hair.

She shifted until she was braced on his chest, looking down at him. The moon overhead caught her hair and filled it with golden sparks, leaving her eyes in darkness and her features in shadow. Her voice was full of sorrow. “I’ve never told anyone all . . . all that.”

He touched her face. “I’ll keep your secret.”

“I know you will. That’s why I told you.” She turned her head and kissed the inside of his wrist.

Then she lowered her head to kiss him on the lips.

It was different now, with no secrets between them, just the night sky to bear witness. Sweeter, somehow. Quieter. She tasted like strawberries and peanut butter, and the feeling of her weight on his chest was just about the greatest thing in the whole entire world.

She teased at his mouth with her tongue, sliding her hand under his shirt and tracing lines on his chest with her nails until he was sure she’d set the night on fire.

He broke the kiss, and it took just about every ounce of self-control he had. “Kate—you’re hurt—”

“Please,” she said, kissing along his jaw, finding his neck. She spoke into his skin. “Please. I need the distraction. Please, Hunter.”

She was crying again.

“Kate,” he whispered. “Kate.” He brushed a thumb across her cheek, stealing the tears.

“Just kiss me,” she said.

Then she didn’t give him a choice. She was straddling his waist, her mouth consuming his every thought, her tongue alive in his mouth.

His hands went immediately to her waist, but that skimpy tank top barely stretched past her rib cage, and he found bare skin, soft and warm and supple.

“Take your shirt off,” she said in a whispered rush—and before he could even consider it, she was already pulling at the hem, dragging it up his body and wrestling it over his head.

And she was sitting on his stomach, her bare legs practically wrapped around him.

He focused really hard on breathing.

Tough, since every breath made her move fractionally, and he was very conscious of every inch of warm skin resting against him.

“Kate—I don’t want to hurt you—”

She leaned down close, putting her forehead against his, the way she had when they’d wrestled around behind the carnival. “So don’t.”

Then she pulled the tank top over her head, and she was in nothing but a bra and panties.

All the breath left his body.

He couldn’t think with her straddling him like this.

Hunter caught her waist and rolled her gently, putting her back in the blankets, then caging her upper body with his arms. “You’re incorrigible.”

“Are you complaining?”

“Ah . . . no.” He kissed her lips, her cheek, her neck. His hand stroked the safe area around her navel, the base of her ribs. When his fingers brushed the thin line of lace along her hip, she drew a quick intake of breath.

He liked that sound. A lot.

He ran his finger under the lace, tracing along the front of her body. She stretched under him, and he bent to run his mouth over her stomach, breathing in the scent of her.

Her hands were in his hair. “You’re killing me,” she whispered.

“In a good way?”

“Yes.”

That made him pause. His hand went still on her stomach, and he rose up to look down at her. “I owe you a full truth, too.”

She dragged a finger down the center of his chest in a way that made his breath shudder and his eyes fall closed.

“Maybe you can tell me later,” she said.

He caught her wrist and smiled ruefully. “At school—when I kissed you in the parking lot—”

“I remember.”

“I told you I’d know exactly what to do if you jumped me.”

“Evidenced by what you’re doing right now, you mean?” That made him blush, which made her laugh.

But then she sobered. “I won’t tease. What’s your deep, dark truth?”

This was harder to tell her than anything else had been. It probably would have been easier if they weren’t both half-naked. He wished he could stop blushing for god’s sake. “I’ve never—ah—”

“Hunter Garrity.”

“What?”

“Are you trying to tell me you’re a virgin?”

If her voice had carried any amount of mockery, he would have denied it. But it didn’t, and he didn’t.

“Yes,” he said.

“I figured.”

“Hey!”

She didn’t smile. Her cheeks appeared extra pink in the firelight now. “No—I meant . . . I am, too.”

“You are?”

She nodded.

He couldn’t stop staring at her. “But . . . you’re so . . . so—”

“If you say slutty, I am going to punch you in the crotch again.”

“Confident!” he said. “I was going to say confident.”

“Look, just because I like what I look like doesn’t mean I sleep around.”

Now he couldn’t tell if he was offending her or if she was just yanking his chain. “No one said you were sleeping around.”

“Ah, I seem to recall a little comment about my inability to say no.”

Okay, maybe he had said that. He put his cheek against hers and whispered into her ear. “I apologize. Forgive me?”

Her fingers raked through his hair again, and she shifted closer to him, pulling the blanket higher to block out the stars. “Not yet. You’ll just have to make it up to me.”

And Hunter realized that maybe a little distraction wasn’t out of line after all.

Hunter awoke at dawn and found himself alone in the blankets. The fire was banked, the water far down the beach at low tide.

No Kate.

He sat straight up. His heart went from zero to sixty.

But then he breathed. She was in the jeep, wearing the spare jeans and bright pink T-shirt Bill had brought, fiddling with her cell phone.

Hunter rubbed a hand over his face, wishing he had access to a bar of soap and a razor. He made do with a swig of water from one of the bottles, pulled his jeans on under the blanket, and headed over to the car in bare feet.

Whatever had changed overnight had him wanting to pull her into his arms and keep her safe forever.