"Not as bad as having your husband walk out at Christmastime the year before."
More than a lone land mine, he'd uncovered a whole minefield. Shoulder to shoulder, he walked beside her toward the crumbling adobe church. Silently. What could he say to fix it, anyway?
And why couldn't he just leave it alone? It wasn't his problem to fix.
Except he knew too well how a loss during the Christmas season killed the holiday spirit for years to come. He didn't make a big mourning deal out of it, but the pail hung there all the same.
He'd been relieved when his mom had finally married a few years ago. She'd found a good man who took her away for the holidays. No cookies-by-the-fireplace family traditions, they'd started a fresh slate of memories that didn't evoke those of the past.
Maybe that's what Kathleen needed, a change of holiday pace to set her life on a new course.
She'd always been a loner, but there was an aloofness to her now, more so than during their Academy days. He'd wondered why, finally concluding she'd just grown more uptight over the years. Now he wondered if he'd been wrong.
Kathleen wasn't aloof so much as wary. A cheating husband would do that to a woman, no doubt. Especially one who put as high a price on honor as Kathleen did. Yeah, that ex of hers had done a real number on her.
Of course, a person only had the power to hurt someone if she cared about him. A lot That Kathleen might still be hung up on her ex shouldn't bother him. But it did.
What was he thinking, anyway? How did he expect to give her some Christmas to remember in the middle of the freaking desert? A fitting setting, no doubt, for a couple of Scrooges hoping to escape the Ghost of Christmas Past
If the cold and coyotes didn't get them first.
Chapter 11
Darkness hugged her like an indigo blanket, pain thickening the texture to more of suffocating wool. Kathleen trudged the last few feet toward the crumbling mission. Silhouetted by the moon and a dome of desert stars, the russet stucco church would provide them with shelter for the night.
Thank goodness Tanner had given up trying to make her talk an hour ago. Silently he strode beside her. She didn't have the energy to devote to anything other than keeping pace with the steps he set. Steps she knew he'd adjusted for her, and man did that gall her.
For once, however, she didn't have the will to argue. It was damned embarrassing to he this wasted from what should have been a simple day's hike.
Her head throbbed from the accident. She didn't know about the rest of her, because she couldn't think about anything other than her aching temples. Too bad there wasn't likely to be a bottle of Motrin stored away inside the abandoned building.
A small portion of her brain still operated as a doctor. That little corner of reason told her she should have stopped an hour ago. Not that she really had a choice. She couldn't lie down and sleep on the desert floor while the night cold and coyotes tore at her.
She definitely wouldn't ask Tanner to carry her. Even if she didn't have his back to consider, pride wouldn't let her.
Rather like a thickheaded pilot on the flight line a couple of weeks ago.
Oh, great. Now that little corner of her brain was insisting on being reasonable, as well.
Kathleen pushed through a rickety picket fence and shuffled up the walk toward the half-open doors that hung off their hinges. She stumbled the last two feet to the steps. Adrenaline seeped from her in a steady flow, now that she no longer needed it. Her legs turned to water. She sagged to sit.
Water. Another thought she didn't need. The moist slice from a Joshua tree earlier had left her feeling decidedly green.
"Come on, O'Connell." Tanner crouched in front of her. "You need to get inside out of the wind."
"The wind's blowing?" Her brain must he more muddled than she'd thought. She tipped her face. A strand of hair swiped at her numb lips. "Well, look at that. It sure is."
She tried to move. Survival training told her it would drop to at least twenty degrees by midnight. Not factoring in the windchill. A wind that carried the bay of a lone coyote.
But she couldn't make her legs work.
So why was she floating? And on such a warm cloud that smelled of leather and soap. And Tanner.
Realizing he must have picked her up, she snuggled against his chest. "You shouldn't be doing this. Did you at least keep your chiropractor appointment this week?"
"Yeah, Doc."
His half chuckle vibrated against her ear. It held a darker tone that made her long for his uninhibited laugh. She wanted to smooth a hand over the worry lining his poster-boy face. "Not Doc."