The Love You Crave

50.

Maybe Taylor.

Kimberly likes having an alias. For one thing, it helps her separate her killing life from her personal life. She also likes Sam far more than she thought she would. He grows on you. Like a wart, she thinks, smiling.

What she doesn’t like is her current relationship with her father. Specifically, she doesn’t like the way she’s been treating him. He’s got a life, and she’s a grown woman. They live in separate states, and his job keeps him traveling from place to place on a moment’s notice. She’s only recently begun to understand that part, but she now understands why it’s hard to schedule visits in advance.

And her father has enemies.

And those enemies might decide to come after her, to get back at him. He has to worry he could be leading those sorts of people to his daughter every time he meets her someplace.

Of course, this is one of the main reasons she decided to work for Sam almost a year ago. When he talked about helping her get in shape and learn self-defense, she thought of her father. If she could protect herself, maybe he wouldn’t worry so much about her safety. Then, over months, as she and Sam became closer, she told him about her father, what he did for a living, and Sam said he could provide her with that type of teaching as well. She didn’t have to kill people if she didn’t want to. But wouldn’t it be nice to know how?

From there, it was just a hop, skip and a jump-as Sam would say-to wondering how it felt to kill someone. Not a spur-of-the-moment killing, like with her boyfriend, Taylor, but a premeditated one, like her father routinely performs.

What better way could there be to understand his psyche than to enter his world?

After the breakthrough with Sam today, her head’s in a good place. Her female plumbing seems to have been restored, and she’s on the threshold of what could be a budding romance with an older guy who happens to be her adoring boss. For all the protesting she’s done, she’s secretly excited about having Sam as her boyfriend.

With so many things going for her, she suddenly regrets the phone message she left for her father.

She calls him back, gets his voice mail again. Says, “I’m sorry about the message I left a few minutes ago. I didn’t mean to say those things. I’m booking a flight to Vegas as soon as I hang up. I’m coming today, because we need to talk. There’ve been some major changes in my life, and I want to discuss them with you. I can’t say you’ll be happy with them, but I’m in a happy place. You’ve always said if I’m happy, you’re happy. So we’ll see. Anyway, call my cell if there’s a problem. Otherwise, I’m on my way to Vegas to see if we can be friends again.”