Free Caught in the Storm by M. Stratton

With dead end after dead end, they were all on edge, just waiting for the other shoe to fall.
    Kat scanned the missing person’s section online every day, sometimes twice a day. She breathed a sigh of relief every time she found no new missing women reported. She knew it was getting to her, but she had to feel like she was doing something, anything, to catch him. So many years had been spent chasing him, trying to find any little piece of information possible and now that they were so close, it seemed the leads were few and far between.
    Without seeming to even think about it, Jackson passed the creamer to her after she refilled her coffee. It was the simple things like that which meant so much to her, made her feel cared for. She looked up with a small smile on her face and saw Evie frowning at the two of them. The last thing she wanted was to get on the bad side of Evie again, especially since she had finally thawed out a little bit toward her. She also didn’t want anything to jeopardize their working relationship.
    “Jackson, can I talk to you for a moment?” Evie said, frowning as she stood up.
    Kat knew what was coming. Part of her wanted to run and hide, and the other part wanted to know what Jackson was going to say.
    “What? I’m busy.” He continued to scan the computer screen, not looking up at his sister.
    Kat knew someone had to clue him in as to what was going on and she tried to kick him gently under the table, but might have put a little too much power behind it, because when he yelped, everyone in the room turned to look at him.
    “Oops,” Kat said. “My foot slipped.” With everyone looking at her now, she couldn’t let Jackson know Evie suspected something was going on between the two of them.
    Jackson rubbed his ankle. “Slipped, my ass. What the hell was that for?”
    “I think she was trying to tell you that if you don’t want to cause a scene in front of everyone, you’d better get your ass up and come talk to me privately. Now.”
    He snorted and stood. “Since when do you ever do anything without an audience?” He laughed when she snorted and said, “After you, my delicate flower of a sister.” Turning to the rest of the room, he said, “If I’m not back in five minutes, call the cops.”
    “Ha-ha. Move it, jerkface.”
    After they left the room, Kat couldn’t stand it any longer and started pacing. When she heard raised voices from the other room, she stopped and rested her head on the cool window, hoping she could just disappear. She jumped when Lexi rested a hand on her shoulder.
    “Kat, don’t worry about Evie too much. She’s stubborn and loyal, but she’ll come around.”
    “I’m not too sure about that. I’m either going to have to sleep with one eye open or move out. She’s not happy.” Kat tilted her head toward the other room when she heard something break.
    Lexi raised an eyebrow at the sound. “And she has a temper, but that’s Anthony’s problem now. Kat, I know something is going on between you and Jackson. If Evie didn’t have her head in the clouds, she would have seen it long ago.”
    “Why didn’t you say anything?”
    “Because you didn’t want me to. I knew you needed some time, so much happened to you, so much you are still dealing with. The attraction between the two of you is so strong even Noah could tell something was up, and we all know how much gets past him.”
    “I heard that, love,” Noah groused from the other side of the room.
    “You were meant to. Kat, only you know what is right for you. You need to follow that. And if it’s Jackson, you need to grab him with both hands and never let go.”
    “That’s just it; my heart says one thing, but my head says something else.”
    “How long have you known Jackson?”
    “A while.”
    Lexi raised her eyebrow at her. “Are you really going to play this game with me?”
    Kat sighed, “No. I’ve known him since you moved here. I needed to know more about you and I thought that