Chapter Thirty-Five:

Ryan saw Kirsten stride past his open door. Her pace was determined and business like. He put down his pencil and slid off his stool and went to his doorway in time to see her disappear into her office. He knew that she'd had an appointment with Kate, for a final viewing. Maybe Kate had hated it? He swallowed. He'd done everything exactly to her specifications, how could she hate it? Even he had gotten a thrill from seeing it completed. No, it had to be something else. He straightened up as her door opened again and she saw him.

"Ryan, I need to talk to you," she went into his office, leaving him no option but to follow, closing his door behind him. He watched Kirsten stop and turn. Her expression was tense, worried and that made him frown.

"What happened?"

"I'm worried about Kate,"

"Worried? What about? Didn't she like it?" Kirsten stared at him in puzzlement.

"Like what? Oh, no…she loved it. No, we got talking about…other stuff. You mainly," Instantly Ryan tensed.

"And?"

"I know that you proposed to her, I know that somehow it ended badly. And I think I know why" Ryan folded his arms.

"Why?"

"Her parents Ryan. They made her life a misery before she left, scarred her so much that she's terrified to marry anyone, let alone you," Ryan just looked at her.

"I would never treat her badly"

"When you're that scared Ryan, you're not rational. I heard stories about the Cole's. This was after he died but my dad knew him, or at least knew of him, he wasn't a nice man," Ryan listened.

"He was controlling, cruel, he treated Kate's mother like a possession, and Kate too I suppose. He wanted her to marry some guy of his choosing, whether she wanted to or not. My God, it's barbaric,"

"Which would explain why she left when she did" he muttered. He took a deep breath. Kirsten frowned.

"Before she left, she told me that she had to leave Newport Beach before it killed her" he admitted. Kirsten's eyes widened.

"You knew where she went" Ryan just shrugged. Kirsten just stared at him.

"The cops were all over you, they were convinced you knew where she went and you lied," he sighed.

"She was eighteen and determined to leave. She was miserable here, there was nothing that they could do and in hindsight it was the right decision because she got lucky and hit the big time less than a year after she left," Kirsten slowly shook her head.

"I didn't think that you would blatantly lie like that,"

"I did it for her" he admitted.

-----

Ryan watched the rain patter down the windscreen. For a moment, it was the only sound inside of the car and it was hypnotic and calming at the same time. He turned his head. The door was closed; Mia would be inside, spending time with her grandparents and her aunt. Briefly he closed his eyes, leaning his head back on the seat. Despite all of the bad feeling that existed between him and Julie, she loved her grand daughter and he wasn't that much of an asshole to deny her access to Marissa's only child. He leaned forwards and turned the key, listening to the car purr to life.

He hadn't been home long when he heard the doorbell ring. He frowned. No one had called to say that they were planning to drop in, he expected his friends to do that, to call in advance. Had he forgotten to close the gates? Anyone who knew him knew he wasn't fond of surprises.

He opened the door and any words he was going to say died in his throat as he stared at Kate standing on the doorstep. Her car was parked behind her and her hair was only a little bit wet, raindrops dampening her skin. For a second they stared at each other, both wanting the other to speak first.

"What are you doing here?" he asked her eventually. It took her a second to reply, her eyes widening slightly. She swallowed.

"I…I came to see Mia," she replied, her eyes darting past him to see if she was around.

"She's not here. She's with Julie and Jimmy, overnight," he told her. Her eyes flew to his. Disappointment flashed across her face.

"I didn't know. I should've called…I'd better go…" she turned to leave. He reached out and grabbed her wrist. She spun around and looked at him.

"You don't have to…go I mean." He shrugged.

"I don't know…" his gentle grip tightened slightly.

"Coffee. Conversation…friends?" she took a deep breath. It was so tempting. She looked into his blue eyes, dark blue irresistible eyes and she swallowed again.

"Okay. Coffee. Conversation. Whatever" she agreed and he let go of her. He stood back as she came inside.

She felt awkward being here. She'd had nothing but silence since her letter. Her cowardly way out. It hadn't been fair to Ryan to do that but her head and her heart had been a whirl of questions, contradictions and confusion and she honestly felt that finding her own space would help. She just missed him all the more. She watched him walk ahead of her. Blue jeans and a white t-shirt, the sleeves tight over his upper arms. His feet were bare. She sucked in a deep breath and hoped she was doing the right thing.

Chapter Thirty-Six:

Ryan watched her shrug out of a slightly damp denim jacket and drape it along the back of one of the dining chairs. Her red t-shirt clung to her upper body and he swallowed at the memories, of what he remembered was underneath. He felt his body react in the same treacherous way. She looked at him. He looked back at her, like a rabbit caught mildly startled, in the headlights.

"Umm...Coffee...right…" he turned, seeing the brewed coffee in the machine. He couldn't remember if it was fresh or not. Right now he was finding it difficult to remember his own name.

-----

Kate watched him go through the motions of preparing coffee. He looked a little jittery, on edge. She wondered how he would react if she told him that right now she was feeling exactly the same way. How would he react if she told him that visiting Mia had just been a ruse, that in reality, she had wanted to see him, to see how he was. Because the missing him part had just been too much to bear and she needed to be in his company again, even if it was just for coffee, conversation, as friends. She folded her arms and walked towards the patio doors. She stood and looked out across the beach. It was hard to tell where the sky ended and the sea began, everything was just a dark, murky haze. Rain speckled the glass and she watched little streams race each other downwards.

"Coffee's ready," his voice was quiet in the silence but her heart still faltered upon hearing it. She turned around and looked at him. He stood a couple of feet away, two cups in his hands, one of which he handed to her. She accepted it gratefully, wrapping her hands around it. He watched her take a sip and that absent semi-smile of satisfaction almost turned him inside out. He should be resentful of the fact that she was here; that she'd just walked back in here and more to the point, he'd let her. But the truth of the matter was that he missed her so damned much. Kirsten had told him about Kate's parents, of their plans for her and everything became crystal clear to him then. A lot of questions had been answered and a new understanding evolved.

"Why didn't you tell me about your parents?" the question was out of his mouth before he could reign it in and her head shot up and she stared wide eyed at him.

"What?"

"You could've told me why you left Newport Beach," her grip tightened on her cup and she looked down.

" You already know why"

"You told me a sanitised version. You didn't tell me the truth," for a second she didn't respond. Then she shrugged her shoulders.

"And have you save me? Like you tried so many times to save Marissa Cooper? I wasn't prepared to let them manipulate me,"

"So you ran instead" she looked up at him then, her eyes fiery with anger.

"It was my life and as far as I'm aware, it still is" she handed him her cup and walked past him.

"Where are you going?" he turned and watched her shrug her jacket back on. She glanced at him.

"Out of here. This is a bad idea," she grabbed up her purse and spun out of the room.

"Wait a minute," he caught up with her in the lobby, grabbing her shoulders and turning her around.

"Let me go Ryan," she instructed him. He looked into her eyes and shook his head.

"You always do this. When you're faced with something you can't or don't want to cope with, you run" he told her. She tried to wrench free but instead his grip tightened.

"You can't keep doing it because eventually you're going to run out of places to run to" she stopped struggling and looked at him.

"What's the point Ryan? Its all ancient history, talking about it won't change anything,"

"Sharing it might help," she took a deep, shaky breath.

"I'm not a victim, I don't need help, I don't need saving,"

"But you don't trust anyone. You don't trust me" she stared at him.

"I do trust you Ryan, I thought you knew that," he let go of her.

"You don't. Otherwise when I proposed, you'd have accepted, you wouldn't have questioned," she frowned.

"How do you know that? Your timing was off," she retorted.

"I know that now. I've never even asked anyone to live with me, never mind marry me, so I made a mistake but it doesn't change the way I feel about you," Her eyes went wide at his admission.

"If Marissa hadn't died, if all of this with Mia hadn't happened, I still would have asked you to marry me" he assured her. She sighed and lowered her head. He caught her, wrapping his arms around her. She rested her head against his chest. She could hear the slow steady drum of his heartbeat.

"Your stepfather was a son of a bitch. He hurt you badly, they both did, but you have to realise that I'm not him. If anything, I was more afraid that I'd turn out like my old man, a worthless asshole who liked a drink and was easy with his fists. You were the one that pointed out to me that I wasn't," she lifted her head from his chest and looked at him.

"And you're not,"

"You always believed in me Kate, now let me be the one to believe in you,"

-----

The storm had gotten worse. Rain hammered against the windowpanes, the sky had darkened ominously. Kate watched Ryan light two fat magnolia coloured candles. Their soft light gave a haunting, ethereal glow to the room. She turned her head when she heard the rumble of thunder. Ryan did likewise.

"Not scared of thunder are you?" she looked at him as he walked towards her and she shook her head.

"I love thunderstorms," she told him. He took her into his arms.

"That's good, because this one looks like it's going to be huge," he told her. She looked up into his eyes, shadowed in the darkness of the room. She leaned towards him, flattening the palms of her hands against his chest. She kissed him.

-----

The candlelight guttered and sputtered as the storm raged outside. Usually Kate would be huddled by a window, an awestruck witness to Mother Nature's fury but right now She went ignored.

The storm died away towards midnight. They lay in the bed, limbs entwined, exhausted but sated. The candles had burned out, the wax hardening in yellowish pools. Neither of them noticed.

The room was filled with bright sunlight. Ryan woke slowly. He lifted and turned his head. He was alone. He shouldn't be surprised, it was her style of coping, confronted with something she couldn't handle she ran. Disappointment sharpened inside of him despite that. He'd really thought he'd made a breakthrough with her. She said that she trusted him but this disappearing act just proved to him that she hadn't.