Page 9 of Deathtoll

All right, work talk she could handle. “For?”

“Zip-line course in the woods. More of an obstacle course, actually, with some zip line.”

“That’d be great. Some people grow bored with the gym and yoga classes after a while.” The men and women at Hope Hill were all military vets, used to a higher level of action. “And exercise out in fresh air, in the woods, will do a world of good for mental health too.”

Kate didn’t add,Let me know if you need help.

She didn’t want to work late with Murph, then walk out together. She didn’t want to feel that draw towardhisapartment on the premises, a place that a short while ago used to betheirs.

The living room with its big masculine leather couch where they’d made love a dozen ways: lying down, sitting up, her bent over the soft round arm and Murph behind her, and…

Then the kitchen… She couldn’t bear thinking about the table, the counter, or the fridge door cold against her back.

And,God, she could definitely never face the bathroom—the tuborthe shower—ever again.

To say nothing of the bedroom and the bed. Or any horizontal surface in the apartment really. And also any vertical.

Heat spread through her.

Let’s go back there,her body said.

Fortunately, her body didn’t get to make decisions for her. She was a grown-ass woman.At work.

She cleared her throat.

“Good luck,” she told Murph. “I hope we get the grant.”

There.Everything all professional. And now they could be done.

Except, Murph rubbed a hand over his mouth as he watched her, and she knew he wasn’t going to let it go.

He didn’t. He dropped his hand and asked, “So, we’re just going to pretend everything’s all right?”

Kate braced herself for what he was going to say next, but her first patient for the day appeared in the doorway,thank God, saving her from an uncomfortable conversation.

“Hey, Murph. Ma’am. Dan Washington.” The former Navy SEAL—Kate had read his file already—glanced between her and Murph, not missing the tension in the room. “I have an appointment?”

“Hi, Dan. Please call me Kate.” She stood to shake his hand, then gestured toward the open door that led to her treatment room. “Why don’t you go in and get comfortable? Take off everything except your underwear, then slip between the sheets on the table. I’ll be with you in a minute.”

As Dan limped by them, Kate headed to the door behind her desk, the small private bathroom that opened from her office. “I’d better change.”

She worked in scrubs to save her regular clothes from the massage oils.

For a second, Murph made no move to leave, and it was all there in his eyes, how she’d undressed in front of him a thousand times before.

She couldn’t now. “We need to find our boundaries.”

“Why?”

She needed to find out who they were without the sex, which they’d fallen into pretty fast at the beginning. The chemistry between them had been instant. It had distracted them from everything else in Ohio too. But she’d carried her own baggage into their relationship, and Murph had carried his. “Using sex to distract ourselves from our problems isn’t healthy. If we want to move forward together, we’ll need to build a better foundation first.”

He shoved his hands into his pockets and rocked back on his heels. “What problems, exactly?”

“Our relationship has been completely unrealistic. We’ve never even had a fight. We couldn’t. We were in an emergency situation. We had to stick together.”

“You want to fight?”

“Don’t make me sound like I’m crazy. Most couples break up and make up all the time. I don’t even know what you look like when you’re mad at me.”