Free Falcon Song: A love story by Kristin Cross Page A

need would be for Kate to get the wrong impression about some loud party girl. Now he wished he’d left hours ago.
    Once outside, he tried Kate’s phone but it went straight to voice mail. Next he tried the restaurant, but they said she’d left more than an hour ago.
    When her mom didn’t know where she’d gone either, he felt the hair on the back of his neck tense. Kate had been here. Cody had seen her. But she’d left without talking to Jason and was missing in action and wouldn’t answer her phone. He put his phone in his pocket with a groan, went to his car and drove around Cody’s apartment complex looking for her car, and wondering what he’d been doing while she was there. In thinking about it, he couldn’t think of anything he’d done that would make Kate upset, but then that’s the one thing Cody had said. If Kate sees that girl all over you she’ll be mad. To say he hadn’t done anything and that in all honesty he hadn’t even wanted to be there wasn’t going to cut it. He had been there and there had been a lot of very willing females literally everywhere.
    The fact that it had been the girls after him and not him after the girls wouldn’t necessarily compute with Kate. And she wouldn’t get mad. She knew what this life was like now that they had begun to get a big name. She wouldn’t get mad. But she’d be hurt. She’d be hurt and get quiet and go off where she wouldn’t bother anyone to try to deal with her feelings.
    And she was a rock. She’d come back and go to work and do whatever had to be done like nothing in the world was wrong. But a little more of her tenuous trust would have been killed in the process. He blew his breath out with a rush. He didn’t have any trust to spare just now. Not after what they’d been through the last couple of weeks. He tried to think about where she would have gone.
    Cussing under his breath as he headed for her house, he wondered what she had been doing at Cody’s. He’d thought she would be at work until late. She always was.
    A couple of months ago if he was trying to figure out where she would be, he probably could have found her either at their favorite spot near the lake or on the bluff above the river. It didn’t take a rocket scientist to know she wouldn’t go near either one of those places now. Not after the colossal fiasco of the last night near the river. It had neatly ruined some of their favorite memories. He ran another frustrated hand through his hair. Kate, baby, where are you?
                                              ***
     
    When Kate finally pulled into her parents’ driveway at a quarter to two, she was surprised to find Jason sleeping on the porch swing in the dark.
    When Kate had called her mom to tell her she’d be late, her mother had mentioned that he’d called earlier. And he’d tried to call her phone, but by the time she turned it back on to call home it had been too late to return his call. Not that she would have anyway.
    In all honesty, she had no answers right now. She had no idea what their relationship was at this point. When he’d flown out, she could have sworn that he adored her. Even earlier this afternoon she would have argued that. But after tonight… What was in his head was just about anybody’s guess. For that matter, just about anybody would have a better handle on where she stood and what she needed to do as well. She sighed. Who knew? She looked down at him, sleeping there sprawled on the swing. He was really, really gorgeous.
    The one thing she did know was that she loved him. Heart and soul. Whether that was wise or whether he loved only her back, either of those points could be debated, but she loved him. Foolish or not, it was a fact. And the years they’d had together had forged an unbelievably strong friendship. Looking down at him, she knew that come what may, even come who may, Jason would always be her dearest friend and she would always be his.