Chapter Nine
Kat knew before she opened her eyes that Dean had left.
Hell, she was pretty sure she’d known as she’d drifted off the night before in his arms that he wouldn’t still be there when she woke. It had been in the way he’d clutched her to his chest, in the look in his eyes before he’d kissed her.
Dean was the sort of man to run, and given Kat wasexactlythe same, she could spot the signs a mile away.
So when she opened her eyes to find the bed empty, it didn’t surprise her.
Disappointed sure, but not surprised.
Still, she’d gotten what she needed, right? Sex was all she’d ever wanted from men, or at least all she’d ever expected of them. She’d never been the type to try and get them to stay, to beg them to give her time. In fact, she’d been the one to drive them off more often than not.
So why the hell was it that Dean skipping out left this aching pit in her stomach?
She sighed before rolling over, ready to start her day. A dull ache in her lower stomach reminded her of him, and despite herself, she smiled.
Ithadbeen a good night, and more than worth a bit of discomfort come the next day.
Kat showered and dressed before venturing into the living room. It wasn’t a shock to find Bradley there, sitting on her couch, book in hand.
He’d gone back to his ranch the day before to check in, which was why Dean had been her babysitter for the day. Funny enough, she found herself relieved to see him.
Bradley and she had enough of a past that while things weren’t necessarily easy between them, they were familiar.
“Do you always sleep in so late?” he asked.
Kat glanced toward the clock. “It’s only ten in the morning. Not all of us feel the need to get up at the ass crack of dawn. Don’t put your neurosis on me.”
He didn’t lift his gaze from his book as he responded. “Long night?”
“Not really any of your business, last time I checked.”
He made a soft sound as he turned the page. “You working this morning?”
“I should.” Yet the idea of facing that empty page felt too difficult. She still hadn’t gotten anything new up on her site.
“Should?” Bradley finally shut his book, a sign that he’d picked up on something he planned to give his full attention to. “Normally dragging you away from your work is like herding cats. You having trouble?”
Kat let out a sigh as she sat down beside him. “I just can’t seem to concentrate. It’s like…each time I sit down, nothing comes out.”
“Whether or not you want to admit it, you went through a trauma. It’s gonna take a while to get back on your feet, to get back to normal.”
Kat shook her head, unwilling to allow Jerry to have the credit for her current funk. “I think I’m just tired. I just need to focus better, to lock myself in my studio and not come out until I have three new images.”
“You can hammer a screw all you want—won’t ever work.”
“Your country wisdom can’t fix everything, you know.”
“Anything it can’t fix must not be that important.” He set his book down on the side table then turned toward Kat. “I’m serious, though. I know you like to keep going, but the fact is, sometimes pushing through isn’t the best choice. I remember when you had that client who wanted you to redo an entire campaign, and you stayed up for three days trying to fix it.”
Kat suppressed her shudder as she recalled it, back in the days when she did commercial work for businesses. The client had been a man who knew nothing about marketing and even less about art, and despite all the work she’d put into his campaign, he’d done nothing but complain. She’d spent weeks on it for him to trash the entire idea without anything else to offer up. “That guy was a dick,” she said.
“He was, but that’s not my point. I found you damn near delirious from a lack of sleep, food and way too much coffee.”
“If I recall, I was convinced that I needed to invent a new color to make it all work.” Kat laughed softly at that, at how hopeless she’d felt about the whole thing.
“Yeah, and you kept saying you weren’t really an artist, that you couldn’t do it, that you were going to end up on the streets like your mother said you would all because you pursued art.”