The Time in Between by Kristen Ashley
They were standing in each other’s arms beside her Jag in his garage. Midnight was already loaded up.
He didn’t want her to go.
But he would soon be gone, he couldn’t take her with him, so there was no reason for her to stay.
“Okay, Coert,” she replied.
“If she gives a vibe she’s not down with it, you good to come here around one to have some time with me on Christmas?” he asked to be sure.
She pressed closer and smiled up at him. “Definitely.”
“I’m taking your time away from you with your family.”
“They may be going home after New Year’s, but they’re really not going anywhere.”
She was right about that and he was not only glad she looked at it like that, he was glad she had it.
He bent to her and touched his mouth to hers.
He lifted a hint away and looked into her eyes. “Thank you for giving me today.”
“Thank you for the same thing.”
That was when Coert smiled at her.
“I should go, honey,” she said softly.
Yeah.
Shit.
She had to go.
“All right, Cady,” he murmured.
But then he really kissed her.
He took his time and he did not get his fill.
He’d never get his fill.
But he ended it because they had to end it, and he shifted her from her door so he could open it for her to get in.
She climbed in.
He shut it behind her, moved to the pad on the wall and hit the button for the door to open.
She started the car and waved at him.
He lifted his hand back.
Cady reversed out and Coert watched, walking a few feet from her front bumper as she did it, stopping in the open door to the garage.
Snow was falling lightly and he watched through it as she reversed into the street and then drove off, doing it after looking to her side and giving him another wave.
Midnight sniffed the crack in the window at the back.
Coert lifted his hand again.
He watched her go, and when she turned at the end of the street, Coert retraced his steps back to the house, closing the door and moving into his mud room.
The Christmas wrap was bunched in a bag in a corner, the only bag left, all of Janie’s presents were wrapped and loaded in his truck.
Cady had wrapped every one. She’d acted nearly ecstatic to do it (and she was good at it, something he was not).
Coert’s participation in this was that he’d cut strips of tape and line them on the edge of his island so she could grab them. And often, she’d say, “Need your finger.” He’d give it to her and she’d tighten ribbon around it.
That was it.
There was also only one hamper of clothes left, the rest had been laundered, folded and put away.
She’d helped him do that, the only time anyone had helped him do that outside his mom when she was around, a chore he wasn’t big on that had been on his agenda on this day off that he had no intention of doing when Cady became the whole of that agenda.
But she’d wanted to, it was weird but it was clear that was true, so they’d done it.
They’d wrapped presents and done laundry and took a walk with her dog and ate breakfast and lunch and had a shower and sex after in his bed and made out repeatedly and talked.
She’d made him laugh.
He’d returned the favor.
Now she was going home and he was going to his daughter.
He hadn’t even gotten to Janie yet.
But still.
It had already been the best Christmas Eve of his life.
And hitting Kim’s where Janie was with Cady’s pie in tow, it was just going to get better.
“Fast Car”
Coert
Eighteen years earlier . . .
CADY’S HEAD CAME OUT OF the fridge before the rest of her body did, and she did this holding up a half filled jar of Smucker’s caramel sundae sauce.
“We have this,” she stated.
Coert grinned at her. “French toast infused, your word, baby, with cinnamon and topped with caramel sauce. I think that fits, but just to say, next year we gotta be more on top of this Christmas thing. Pretty sure it’s a major Christmas foul not to have maple syrup.”
She grinned back but she didn’t seem to have a problem with that.
On Coert’s part, he was trying not to think of next year.
His vision of next year, Cady would be in it when they again celebrated Christmas and she’d be in it every day in between.
But that vision was hard to force into focus. There was too much in the way. Too much that could go wrong. Too much that could take them away from each other.
Too much that could drive them apart.
He forked the soggy bread out of the cinnamon and vanilla egg batter that Cady made and dropped it on the sizzling skillet. He then tossed another slice of bread in the batter.
As he did that, Cady came up behind him and wrapped her arms around him.
“Love the perfume you got me, Tony.”
She was so short, she couldn’t see him if he turned his head, so Coert did that before he closed his eyes to fight back the pain.
They’d been together just a short time.
And it seemed like just that sometimes with all the things he was learning about her.
Like how damned funny she could be.
Like how he never stopped marveling at how hard she worked and how much loyalty she had for a job that plain sucked.
How, as much as she had to understand in a rational way it was a lost cause, she refused to give up on a family who treated her like garbage (this too close to the bone, Coert tried not to think about much . . . and failed).
And how generous she was in bed. How sweet it was she didn’t have a lot of experience, but she had a lot of exuberance and she had that because she was into him. So focused on him and what they were doing, giving and getting, the way they were connecting, it was unreal.
And unbelievably beautiful.
But other times it seemed like they’d been together for years.
He was practically living at Casey’s with her. He didn’t have all of his stuff there since he had his own place, but he had a good supply of clothes, all the bathroom stuff. He ate breakfast or dinner with her there (or took her out to eat) when she wasn’t working. He spent nearly every night there. Which meant he woke up there nearly every morning.
With Cady at his side.
They’d fallen into that and it was insane how easy it was. She wasn’t moody, demanding, immature. When he forgot, she rinsed his whiskers out of the sink and didn’t bitch, like his last girlfriend did. She didn’t call him all the time to find out where he was or make certain that he was going to be where she wanted him to be, like the girlfriend before that did. She gave him zero shit about anything.
If she was home and he came to her, she acted like he’d been away at war for years.
And in the mornings when they woke up together, she did it like she’d just come out of a really good dream only to find she’d opened her eyes to a dream come true.
In their short time together, they’d had one tough time.
This was when he’d come to her for dinner, she’d been in the kitchen and it was the only time she hadn’t rushed out and right into his arms.
The radio had been playing, and when Coert hit the doorway to the kitchen, he stopped there, leaned a shoulder against the jamb and stared, partially frozen, partially suspended in fear as she kept her back to him, her hands involved in making dinner, but she wasn’t giving herself to him.
Tracy Chapman’s “Fast Car” was playing on Casey’s radio.
Coert hadn’t moved.
He’d leaned right there, his gut burning, his throat closing, waiting . . .
Waiting for her to turn and say she was done. Done with pretending something she didn’t know was al
Done with him.
He wanted to tell her. Who he was. What he was doing. Move away from her but in a way he knew she’d understand. Do that so he could get her far away from him, Maria, Lars and his crew, get her safe and come back to her after it was all over.
Cap wouldn’t let him. Cap told him she couldn’t be trusted. Cap said Coert met her through that crew and he had to assume her loyalty was at least with Maria, maybe Lonnie too. Cap said telling her could put Coert in more danger, he wouldn’t be doing his job if he let Coert put himself in more danger. Cap told Coert he was young, inexperienced, in deep in his first undercover job, he wasn’t thinking clearly, she could be pulling one over on him.
And nothing Coert said would change his mind.
He’d even fucking begged.
No go.
Tom and Malc agreed with him. Agreed that Coert should let her in on who he was, cut her loose, go back to her when it was safe.
But they couldn’t sway Cap either.
So now he was stuck.
Stuck falling deeper in love with a cute redhead with amazing green eyes, who had no idea who he really was but in the first vulnerable, sleepy, open moments of her every day, she looked at him like he was a dream come true.
But now, the situation was worse. What he was learning Lars was capable of. What he was learning were Lars’s goals. The vibe he was getting from Maria that grew creepier and more threatening every time he was around the woman.
Now Coert wasn’t getting off on the adrenaline of being on the hunt, building a case, walking the minefield of undercover work with the end goal of taking down the bad guy.
Now Coert was living in fear. Fear he’d be found out that wasn’t fear for himself, but fear for what they’d do to Cady if he was.
And fear that every day he spent with her he was falling deeper and doing it faster.
She’d already burrowed into his heart. She’d done that before he gave her their first kiss. She’d started doing that in a hallway in a filthy house, telling him she had goals and didn’t wear red.
Now she was clawing into his soul.
And when it all blew up, what then?
Where would Cady be when she learned every second was a lie? Every word. Even the name she said when he had his hands on her, his mouth, when he was inside her.
When, like right then, she had her arms wrapped around him.
Christ, he hated the name Tony. Now not only when she said it, but when anyone did, he had to fight back a flinch, a snarl, a bite.
And that night, the night of “Fast Car,” watching her make their dinner but for the first time leave him out, keep him away, distance herself from him even if he was essentially in the same room with her, Coert struggled with letting it all hang out or letting it just play out. Reaching for the relief he would feel when she got shot of him. Knowing he could come back to her later, fresh, clean . . . no one but Coert. Knowing after it was all done she’d hold the understanding he’d let her go. He’d kept her safe. He hadn’t pushed the lie to the point of no return.
But this was Cady.
She couldn’t even move the first time she’d looked into his eyes.
So when the song was over she’d just turned to him and said softly, “You’re home.”
She’d let the words to the song say everything. She’d let them deliver the message.
But her message, Cady’s message, the one that came from her own lips was home.
Coert had tasted bile in his throat, his feet itching to walk away, his fingers curling into his palms to make fists.
They’d started from less than zero.
But they had everything to lose.
He should walk away.
He should act like a dick to drive her away and explain later.
He didn’t do either.
Because he was trapped by his job.
And he was weak.
And most importantly, he was in love with a cute redhead with emerald green eyes.
“Believe,” he’d whispered.
Without hesitation, she’d whispered back, “I believe.”
She came to him. Cady always came to Coert.
Right then, that night after “Fast Car,” he’d not gone to her.
He’d rushed her.
Caged her.
Forced her against the counter to take his mouth, endure the desperation of his hands.
Then he’d taken her to the floor and she gave him it all.
And when Coert had made her come, she’d called out the name Tony.
Oh yeah.
He hated the name Tony.
“Tony?” she called, giving him a squeeze when he didn’t reply to her telling him she liked his not-so-sterling Christmas gift of a bottle of perfume.
“Glad,” he forced out, made a noise in his throat and finished. “Next year I’ll do better than perfume.”
And he would.
Next year, he’d give her diamonds.
He felt her press her face in his back. “But I just said I like my perfume.”
Coert fished the soggy bread out of the batter and tossed it into the skillet with the other. He nudged them so they wouldn’t stick.
Then he turned in her hold and wrapped his arms around her.
“Happy about that, honey,” he murmured, bent his neck and touched his mouth to hers.
This was what they had. This was who they were. It was the real them, she just didn’t know how real it was in the way that it right then wasn’t.
But that was what Malc had told Coert he had to keep hold of to stop from losing his mind.
So he did.
Right then, literally.
And he also did it by saying, “I think you should call your folks and tell them we can’t make Christmas dinner.”
Something flashed in her eyes that told him she wanted to do that but she wasn’t going to do that.
He’d met them once. At a family dinner that Cady had set up prior to Thanksgiving with the hopes they’d ask Coert to share Thanksgiving with the family.
They had not and he’d spent Thanksgiving pretending to get drunk with Lars and two members of his crew.
During the dinner they’d had, her dad had been okay. He was a smart man but he was weak and pretty much checked out to anything that was important, like his daughter.
Her mother was a haughty, controlling bitch.
And her brother was the worst of them all.
He wasn’t an asshole. He wasn’t a dick. The word hadn’t been invented for the smug, arrogant, condescending, critical, sniping pissant that he was.
Coert detested him. How Cady tolerated him, he didn’t know.
But he knew it was part of why he was falling deeper and doing it faster.
She didn’t give up on people.
Case in point . . . him.
“We have to go,” she told him.
“We don’t have to do shit,” he replied.
“They invited you,” she fibbed.
“You made them invite me by saying you weren’t coming without me.”
She shut up because she couldn’t argue that seeing as it was fact.
Coert wanted to laugh, howl, put her in his Chevy, take her to Montana and lose themselves under big sky.
“Cady—” he started.
“Tony, it’s Christmas.”
That was when he shut up and it was part about Christmas, part that he had to recover from the blow of another Tony.
He wished she’d come up with a pet name for him. He didn’t care if she called him pookie. Even pookie was better than Tony.
She knew she had him when she got up on her toes, brushed her lips on his jaw and rolled back, saying, “You need to flip the toast.”
She was right.
This was the them they had right now, the real them, and one day, and he hoped to God it was soon, he could let her in on how real they were.
But now he had to flip the toast.
He did that as she moved in and tossed another piece of bread in the batter.
This was part of them too, part of what felt settled, right, like he’d had her for years. They moved around a kitchen together, cooking or cleaning up, like they’d had decades of practice.
“The knife you bought me was sweet too, baby,” he murmured, pulling down plates.
And it was. She couldn’t afford the Swiss Army knife she’d gotten him for Christmas but she’d silenced his objections by jumping him to shut him up, a tactic that worked.
She couldn’t afford more and he knew it (outside filling a stocking for him), so he’d only given her perfume.
He’d made a note of the stocking thing since he didn’t do shit for her stocking, and he felt like an ass because he didn’t. When he’d shared that, she’d silenced that with a kiss. Fortunately, she’d only put little or zany stuff in that. Candy. Silly string. Deodorant. Shave cream.
But the bottom line was that he could afford more than perfume, but he didn’t go there. Not this year. She didn’t know where his money came from and she didn’t ask. But he didn’t want her thinking some grand gesture gift was bought for her with dirty cash, especially when it wasn’t.
And he didn’t want to leave her with something that might be an ugly memory someday if things plummeted south.
Next year.
It’d all be next year.
“Every man needs a good pocketknife,” she replied.
“Cady.”
She turned to him.
“I know that dug deep, it’s a good knife. And it means a lot,” he told her quietly.
The smile that bought him was bright.
He fought back the urge to make out with her because that usually led to a lot more and they’d slept in, they’d already done it under the Christmas tree and they needed to eat and get ready for their command performance at her parents, starting at noon. “No later, please, Cady. I know you have a habit of running late,” he’d heard her mother say over the phone.
He also needed to scoop out the toast.
He did that.
She tossed two more slices in.
They sat with their filled plates at Casey’s kitchen table, where, under it, their knees brushed.