Chapter 119 - Without Love

Jon's question caught Cate off-guard. She lay completely still and silent, listening to his heart beat under her ear as he held her close. God, she didn’t want to answer him; she didn't want to think about Kevin. But she heard herself respond, her voice hoarse with emotion.

"He… he never loved me." she almost whispered. "It was all a lie."

Jon closed his eyes , wincing slightly at the pain in her voice. He didn't want to ask her to relive what was obviously a terrible time, but he needed to understand. He had to know how to help her, so she could come to realize how he felt about her.

"Cate, look at me," he commanded softly. He held his breath as she hesitated, then raised her head. Her eyes met his, and he saw her vulnerability. "We both have our sad stories, Cate," Jon said softly. "Will you please tell me?"

Looking into Jon's blue eyes, Cate suddenly felt a sense of serenity. She didn't know why, but she wanted to pour out her heart to him. Even though she wasn't sure how he would react. "Jon… " she whispered, then took a deep breath. "Okay," she agreed.

Jon's heart squeezed. "Come up here," he said gently, shifting his body under hers. Understanding what he meant, Cate sat up and allowed Jon to move further to the side of the hammock, maneuvering unsteadily until there was room for her to lay beside him. She settled back down onto the hammock beside Jon, snuggled against his chest with her head on his shoulder. Once she was again safe in the circle of his arms, Cate took a deep breath then began. Her voice was at first hesitant, then evened out as she confessed her past to Jon.

"When I married Kevin, I thought I was in love," she began. "We met on duty, on a mission out of Africa. He was the aircraft commander of the transport that pulled me, two other agents, and a bunch of cops out of Somalia back when shit was going down over there." She felt Jon's arms tense around her at the mention of the war zone. "It was a no-notice evac; a "hot zone" as we call it. Kevin's crew came in on a Special Ops mission to get us."

Cate took a breath, pausing as the memory of that mission flashed through her mind. "We flew to a base in Spain, where we had to debrief before we could come back to the States. The plane had maintenance delays -- Kevin later told me that it had sustained battle damage as we evaced-- so we were stuck in Spain for five days. I was tired, pumped on adrenaline, and relieved to be out of Mogadishu in one piece." Jon heard a little smile creep into her voice. "Well, let's just say I played as hard as I worked, back then."

"The aircrew invited me and a couple other officers out for dinner. We went, had great Spanish food and even better sangria, and really enjoyed ourselves. There was instant chemistry between Kevin and me; by the end of the evening we couldn't keep our hands off each other. I ended up in his Q room that night, and pretty much the rest of the time until the plane was fixed." Cate raised her head and gave Jon a sheepish little smile. "Kinda slutty of me, huh?" she asked self-depricatingly.

Jon chuckled. "Not at all. You were single, he was single, you were attracted to each other… believe me, I get it."

Cate lowered her cheek back to Jon's shoulder, snuggling closer against him. "Yeah," she sighed softly. "Well, you can't trust lust. Anyway, we flew back to Jersey -- that's where we both were stationed -- and started seeing each other pretty regularly. Within six months we were engaged, then we decided we didn't want to wait to get married. He was flying tons of special ops missions and I was getting ready to deploy again, so we just wanted to hurry up and be married."

"Where did you get married?" Jon asked, having a feeling he knew the answer.

"Vegas. Graceland Chapel, in fact." Cate answered quietly. "Flew in, got married, flew home."

"Sounds familiar," Jon responded, a little ironically.

"Yeah," Cate agreed softly. They lay together in silence for a moment, then she took a deep breath and continued. "Anyway, what I didn't know then was that Kevin was already cheating on me. Even while we were engaged." Her voice wavered slightly at the statement. "I was too dumb, to head-over-heels for him, to even see the signs. Looking back, I can't believe I was stupid enough to miss them."

She sighed. "But then again, he just swept me off my feet. He was dashing, handsome, charismatic, and … and well, the sex was amazing." She sounded almost apologetic. "I just couldn't see through the passion and fire to realize there was nothing behind it. At least not for him."

And that's what you think is happening between us, Jon realized. But Baby, it's not like that at all… He gave Cate a little squeeze, but kept his mouth shut. He didn't want to interrupt her, now that she was finally talking.

"What I couldn't see then was that I was just some sort of conquest for him, a trophy to adorn his fucking Top Gun ego." Cate's voice turned bitter. "We were the perfect hotshot couple, in our little military world. He was the dashing pilot, I was the exotic Secret Agent. We were young, good-looking, and a little bit wild. And we were both all about work; we had big career aspirations and neither of us wanted kids. It seemed like the perfect match. He understood what I did, why I couldn't talk about my job, why I had to travel for weeks or months at a time, and where I wanted to go in life. I understood the same thing about him. Or at least I thought I did."

Jon felt a little pool of moisture against his skin, under her cheek, as silent tears slipped from Cate's eyes. He closed his eyes and turned his head slightly to drop a gentle kiss onto the crown of her head. Cate took another deep breath and continued.

"Within a year I realized it was a mistake. I was constantly TDY and deploying and Kevin was always flying missions. When we were home together we basically just fucked each other and avoided talking about what was really going on. But even then, I didn't realize there were other women." Cate paused and sighed. "I guess I knew, at some level, but I just didn't let myself think about it. I… " Cate paused and swallowed hard. "I didn't admit it to myself until Danny told me."

"Danny?" Jon asked, his surprise evident in his voice. He had meant to keep silent as Cate told her story, but the comment had startled him into speaking.

Cate nodded against Jon's shoulder. "Yeah. Apparently Kevin got into a little trouble when he was on a mission to the Philippines, and an agent had to bail him out. He was with a female officer, in a… well, in a compromising position. It got swept under the rug by Kevin's commander, as most pilot misbehavior does." Her voice turned bitingly sarcastic. "You know -- Boys will be Boys."

Jon kept silent as Cate snorted softly to herself in disgust. His mind flashed back to his own transgressions, back when he was young and wild and caught up in the glory of being a rock-and-roll star. ‘Boys will be Boys’ had been somewhat of a mantra to him then, too. It had certainly helped him and the guys justify all manner of sins.

Jon felt a pang of guilt as he realized what he had done early in his marriage hadn't been much better than what Kevin had done to Cate. Thankfully he had kept it discrete and Dorothea had been tolerant. But in the end, none of that mattered.

"Anyway, there are no secrets in the cop world. Danny heard before I did, and he was the one to break it to me. I was mortified, but in all honesty, not surprised." Cate swallowed, trying to fight back the lump threatening to form in her throat. "You know, it probably says a lot about how invested I was in the relationship, that I was more upset about being pitied by my colleagues when they found out my husband was cheating on me than I was about the actual infidelity."

She cleared her throat noisily, then continued. "Anyway, I confronted Kevin, he gave me the stereotypical crap excuse -- he was drunk, he was lonely, it only happened once, he'd never do it again, he loved me more than life itself, he didn't want to lose me…. All that bullshit. And I was dumb enough to listen." Cate sighed sadly. "I didn't believe him, but it was just easy to make his apology an excuse to not deal with the fact that he didn't love me."

Jon felt like he should say something, but he didn't know what. So he wisely kept his mouth shut and just pulled Cate tighter. He felt her give a little shudder as she drew in a deep breath.

"So, once I knew, it was hard to ignore. A couple months later, there was another girl, a bartender at the Officer's Club. That one was more public; it started to get around the base, outside Kevin's squadron and my office." Cate's voice took on a harder edge. "I got pissed at that one. But instead of dealing with it, I took a short-notice TDY to Italy. While I was there…" her voice broke slightly. "I … I was stupid. I just wanted to hurt him, like he did me."

"You had an affair, too," Jon whispered gently.

Cate nodded against his shoulder. "Yeah. A fling. With another pilot, from another squadron. He was single -- I was no homewrecker -- and basically we just screwed each other silly for about a week. But I felt too guilty, and I broke it off before we even flew back to Jersey." Cate's voice betrayed her misery. "I felt awful, Jon. I just couldn't do it. Not because I really loved Kevin, but because it was wrong. There I was, a married woman, purposely having an affair to retaliate for my husband's infidelity. It was terrible."

Jon's heart clenched at Cate's pain. He knew that Cate had a strong moral compass, and he could imagine how hurt she must have been to drive her to do something that caused her such inner turmoil. Fuck. What is she going to think of me, then? He knew that eventually she would ask the question, given what she was sharing with him. Shit. How am I gonna answer that?

Cate cleared her throat softly again, then was quiet for a minute as she collected herself. "Anyway, when I got back home, Kevin and I just avoided each other for awhile. Then I had the opportunity to take a new assignment and move to another base. I jumped at the chance. Within a couple months, I had moved and Kevin stayed put in Jersey. We basically started to lead separate lives. He kept up his screwing around, and I just threw myself into work."

"I would occasionally go "home" to keep up appearances, and because I felt some stupid sense of loyalty to our marriage. But when I did, things were so tense and forced. Inevitably we'd end up drinking, having really angry, stupid sex, then we'd accuse each other of being bad in bed. Then we'd try to talk it out and he'd blame me for being gone and leaving him lonely."

Cate paused again to take a breath. "We unofficially separated for awhile, then one day he called me up and begged me to come back. He said he wanted to try to work things out, to put our marriage back together, because he really did love me."

Jon sucked in a breath at that, reminding himself not to blurt out what he really thought. "Is that when you left the military?" he asked quietly, remembering what Danny had told him.

"Yeah," Cate answered, her voice full of regret. "I left active duty and came to work as a fed. Kevin was reassigned to Ohio, and I worked an assignment to Cincinnati, where Danny happened to be posted. Kevin and I moved back in together and tried to play family again."

"But it just didn't work. I was working erratic hours; he hated his job and started screwing around with a nurse at the base hospital, which he didn't even bother to hide from me. Danny loathed what was going on and made it no secret that he was ready and willing to beat Kevin's ass." Cate chortled softly at that. "Fuck. I should've let him."

"Sounds like it," Jon agreed.

"Yeah. Anyway, eventually we stopped even trying to be nice. We just turned to each other for angry, dirty sex. I told him that was all I wanted from him, since I couldn't even bring myself to cheat on him. He told me…" Cate's voice cracked again. "He told me that all I deserved was to be fucked like a whore. That I didn't deserve to be… to be loved."

Jon couldn't stop a deep growl from rumbling from his throat at that. His arms tensed as he hugged Cate tightly against his chest. "Jesus, Baby…" he breathed. It was easy for him to see now just why Danny held such a deep hatred for Cate's ex-husband.

They lay together silent for a moment, then Jon spoke softly, asking the question that had been in his mind as Cate told her tale. "Cate… why did you stay married so long? Why didn't you just divorce him?"

Cate sighed and shook her head slightly against Jon's shoulder. "I don't know. It… it was just easier to ignore things, I guess. He refused to file because he didn't want me to be entitled to half of his flight pay and retirement. Which I didn't even give a shit about."

"As for me, well… I guess I just didn't want to admit that I had made the biggest fucking mistake of my life. I felt like such a fool, Jon. I fell head-over-heels for this guy, and I just knew that we were going to live happily ever after, like in some damned fairy tale." Cate exhaled shakily. "I guess I just felt like I had made my decision, and that I had to live with the consequences."

"But Christ, Cate… the way he treated you…" Jon blinked away angry tears. "Jesus, that was practically abusive."

Cate shook her head emphatically. "No. Jon, I won't let you look at me like some sort of victim in this." She raised her head to give him a direct look. "I could have walked away. I was perfectly capable. I just… I guess I just believed what Kevin was saying, in a way."

She blinked away unshed tears and lowered her cheek to Jon's chest again. "Before Kevin, I had never felt as intensely connected to anyone. And when it went bad, and he told me I didn't deserve love…" Her voice cracked again. "Well, Jon… maybe he's right. Some people just aren't meant to find love."

"No." Jon replied firmly. He raised his hand to Cate's cheek, slipping a finger under her chin and gently raising her face to look at him. "Cate, that is complete and utter bullshit. Everyone is entitled to love and be loved." He gave her a long, meaningful look. "Especially you."

Cate's eyes sparkled with moisture at the earnestness of Jon's statement. She didn't respond, but just smiled sadly back at him. Jon raised his head to place a soft kiss on her lips, emphasizing his point.

Cate gave Jon a bittersweet smile when he pulled his face back after the kiss. "Anyway…" she said hoarsely. "You know the rest. I got shot, and Kevin saw his chance to run. So finally I was free." She sighed. "And I learned a hard lesson. There's nothing on Earth that could make me go through that again. I finally made it through that Hell, I survived a bullet, I have a great career and amazing friends. I don't need anything else." Her voice broke slightly at her last words, revealing her lie.

Jon didn't say anything. He just brushed his fingers softly against her cheek, telling her silently with his soulful gaze what she wouldn’t let him say to her out loud.

Cate inhaled deeply, then exhaled. She felt oddly calm, like a weight had been lifted. It was done. It was all out there, the whole ugly truth about her past with Kevin. And Jon hadn't run yet. In fact, he was still lying here beside her, holding her even tighter than before.

"Jon," she said softly. "You said we both have our sad stories."

"Yes," he breathed with a slight nod, knowing what she was going to say. He steeled himself for the question.

It came on a whisper from Cate’s trembling lips. "Did you cheat on Dorothea? Is that why your marriage ended?