"Swingers?" Laura couldn't keep the look of naked shock off her face. She had sensed something different about the Carsons and this retreat, but she hadn't expected that.
Yvonne Carson smiled, nonplussed as she applied her lipstick in the mirror.
"It's the reason this retreat is normally private. Not every couple participates every year, but they are all open of mind and closed of mouth. It's necessary considering how many of us are in the public spotlight. The media would have a field day if they knew."
"So why tell me?" Laura asked, her composure returned. "Surely you knew right away that my husband and I had no idea."
"I did," Yvonne confirmed. She cast a sidelong glance at Laura as if trying to decide how much she wanted to say. "I'm not sure why Mr. Stewart added you both, but I have to assume it's because he thought you would be a good fit. I take it you have never considered….erm, sharing?"
It was on the tip of Laura's tongue to snap back the words absolutely not but she refrained, remembering her cover. If she and Mr. Steele were supposed to blend in at this retreat and figure out who was trying to sabotage it, then she had to make sure the others thought they belonged there. If that meant feigning an interest in partner swapping, then she would have to do so. It wasn't as if Mr. Steele belonged to her anyway.
Still, the very idea of seeing him with someone else right in front of her bothered her in a way she couldn't fully understand. She hadn't allowed him to get close to her for the longest time, so it surprised her to realize how much of a claim she felt she had on him and his loyalty. She wanted him to want her, and only her. It's why his flirting bothered her so much – even when in the best interests of a case.
"I've really never given it much thought," she finally admitted to Yvonne, hoping her voice stayed level. "But I admit that the idea is intriguing."
She smiled, hoping she had sounded believable.
"It doesn't make you jealous?" Yvonne's eyes twinkled as she spoke – almost as if she was teasing Laura. She knew Laura was uncomfortable and was provoking her to see whether she would react.
"My husband and I are both adults," Laura replied evenly. "I don't own him. Frankly this might be refreshing. I've been feeling rather smothered by him lately."
She was surprised at how honest the last sentence was. She had been feeling smothered, but she hadn't been able to figure out why. Even before the shooting, she had been wanting to pull away from him, scared of how close they had been getting.
It was almost as if the more Mr. Steele proved himself trustworthy, the more Laura wanted to keep her distance. She had no idea what she was afraid of. All she knew was that she needed space to figure it out. Maybe this would allow for that space.
Yvonne seemed to buy it for now. She snapped her lipstick case shut and nodded.
"It's good that you came at the beginning of the week," she stated. "It will give you time to get to know everybody. We use the week and the activities as an excuse to mingle and flirt. At the end of the week we have a key party in one of the convention rooms. You don't have to participate if you don't want to. Everything is consensual here. We don't force this lifestyle on anybody."
"And Mr. Carson doesn't get jealous either?" Laura couldn't resist asking. It was such a foreign concept to her and she found herself genuinely curious.
"Roger has seen me with other men before," Yvonne replied smoothly. "Intimately. So has your own husband, as a matter of fact."
"I beg your pardon?"
"Ask him about my film, Mrs. Quintain."
Yvonne winked and left Laura in the bathroom feeling rather conflicted.
"I have to say," Steele mused back in their room that evening, "this case has had a few unexpected twists, hasn't it?"
"I'll say," Laura said, annoyance clear in her voice. She hadn't been too keen on learning how Steele recognized Yvonne Carson. He couldn't blame her and he was more than a little embarrassed to have told her about it, even if he had been barely a teenager at the time. "Feisty French Fillies? Really?"
"I think we're getting off point, Laura," he said, desperate to get away from that subject. "We have a case to solve. These accidents have been harmless so far, but who knows what could happen if they escalate?"
"You're right," she agreed, her mouth set in a tight line. "We have to have a look at the boathouse that had the kayak in it and we need to question a few people discretely. I imagine there are going to be more than a few axes to grind at a place like this."
"Oh?" He said curiously. He had been trying to work out how she felt about the unorthodox nature of the retreat ever since they touched base after lunch but to say she was being tight lipped about her feelings was an understatement. Normally he would assume that she would be fundamentally against the concept of an open relationship, but lately her behavior had been so unpredictable that he no longer knew what she was thinking. Did she even want a relationship from him? And if she did, would she want to see other people as well?
He considered himself a liberal man by modern standards. He had been involved in more than a few loosely defined relationships and didn't generally consider himself a man prone to jealousy.
Prior to Laura, women had always been distracting entertainments and little more. If a woman he was seeing was also seeing other men, he didn't tend to ask questions. It was easier to cut them loose if they had other attachments.
But Laura was different. The thought of her with someone else filled him with an anger he couldn't understand.
"You don't think a retreat full of couples cheating on one another would cause a few resentments to spring up?" Laura said to him.
"Is it really cheating if they all agree to it?" He knew he was being pedantic, but he wasn't sure what else to say.
"I think that if you really love someone, then you shouldn't feel the need to attend a retreat like this." Laura said firmly, refusing to meet his eyes. "Nevertheless, we need to play along and act the part if we want to figure out who is carrying a grudge."
"Well luckily for us, Roger Carson invited us to go fishing with a few of the other couples tomorrow. Should give us the opportunity to get to know everyone else and to check out the shed that the kayak was in." Steele sat down next to her on the bed tentatively. He was hoping that his physical proximity to her would not cause her to move away as she had been doing the last couple of days.
"Good," she said, obviously unnerved by his sudden physical presence. There was an awkward silence in which Steele attempted to collect his thoughts.
"I know you don't want to discuss what happened between us in the hospital," he finally said after a moment of thought. "And I can respect your wish for now, while we are on this case. But we need to address this at some point, Laura. We can't keep pretending that nothing's changed."
"And what has changed, Mr. Steele?" She asked, throat dry.
"You tell me," he spoke quietly and steadily, but his heart hammered in his ears. She was so close he could touch her if only he dared reach out. "I almost lost you on that last case. It nearly destroyed me seeing you in the hospital. I didn't intend to tell you I loved you that day, but I don't regret it, and I won't take it back."
"I…I don't know what you want me to say," Laura stammered clearly flustered by his blunt honesty and direct blue gaze. So many emotions warred within her. She had written his declaration off initially as a mistake made in the heat of the moment, but the look in his eyes right now told her he had never been more serious. She had never thought he would remind her of it, much less tell her he meant every word. Why wasn't she throwing her arms around him? Why wasn't she telling him she loved him back? Why was his nearness and the scent of his aftershave so terrifying?
After a pause that seemed to last forever, Mr. Steele stood up. His lack of proximity to her made her feel both relieved and extremely disappointed in ways she could not explain. He ran his hands through his lush black hair and pursed his lips, as if trying to find his next words.
He wanted to say the right thing – the exact thing that would unlock whatever fears she had so they could be together. He felt awake for the first time and more than painfully aware how close he had come to losing any chance at happiness. He had treated their relationship as a game, always believing he had time to spare, but now he knew how precarious life was. He didn't want to waste a second of it.
After a long drawn out pause, Mr. Steele sighed. His shoulders slumped with pure weariness. He felt vulnerable and inexplicably sad.
"Right now, I think it's best we just get some sleep, eh Miss Holt?" He hoped his tone sounded lighthearted instead of tired. "We have a lot to do in the morning."
Laura opened her mouth to respond, but was unable to verbalize her thoughts. Mr. Steele nodded, as if confirming something in his mind and went into the bathroom to wash up before bed.
Laura watched him go, feeling a loss she couldn't explain. She wanted to go after him, but her legs refused to move. Every instinct of her body demanded a comfort only he could give. She had been holding herself together thus far, but longed to break down and let go of the mask of strength she had been clinging to.
Ever since the shooting, she had been living in a prison of fear. She was terrified to sleep, terrified to go out alone and terrified that Anthony Chase was waiting for her, lurking around every corner. She was not used to this feeling. She had always prided herself on being fiercely independent.
She had taken this case partly in an attempt to prove that she could still do her job, could still be effective. She did it to prove to herself that she wasn't afraid. But mostly, it was to prove that she didn't need Mr. Steele. She needed to know that if he walked away tomorrow she would be OK. She thought it would be easy, but the nightmares had not gone away and she found herself on more than one occasion wishing that she could tell him how afraid she was.
She had never felt so raw and vulnerable in her entire life. It was like all the safety and self assurance that she had once thought she had had been blown away but Chase's gun and all that was left was a quivering, quaking mass. Could Mr. Steele ever respect her if he saw that side of her? Could she ever respect herself if she allowed him to?
She needed to know that she was still the Laura Holt who once had the guts to open up a detective agency by herself. She needed to know that person wasn't lost forever and if she allowed herself to lean on Mr. Steele the way she so desperately wanted to, she felt like she would never have that answer.
She sighed sadly, hating the fact that her aloof response to his earnest declaration had clearly hurt him, and laid down in bed. He had said they had a lot of work to do tomorrow and he wasn't wrong. The conversation they needed to have could wait.
Tomorrow was another day.
