Chapter Three

They threw their arms around each other and held on as if for dear life.  The only sound heard while they held onto each other was the sound of the slamming door.

Kate was shacking when Robby pulled back a moment later.  He brushed some hair out of her face and just looked at her.  Ever sense they had been attacked and separated he had been worried that she might have been hurt or worse.  “Are you okay?  They didn’t hurt you did they?”  Robby asked as her tears began to fall.

Kate bit her lip and shook her head no.  A thousand silent thank you prayers poured from her heart to God.  She couldn’t speak because she feared that it was only a dream and if she did anything she would wake up and be all alone again.

“Hey, it’s alright.  You’re safe now, I’m right here.”  Robby pulled her in close for another hug as all her unspoken fears poured out in her tears.

Kate pulled back a few moments later.  “I’m sorry.  I was just so scared, I don’t know what’s wrong with me.”  She said, hurriedly wiping at the tears still falling down her cheeks.

“You don’t have to explain.”  Robby looked at her tired face and decided to sit down, pulling her down with him.  Kate sat down next to him, and leaned her head on his shoulder.  “Did they hurt you?”  Robby hated the idea of any of those brutes even touching her, the thought made his blood boil.

“Other then a bump on the back of my head and a few bruises, I’m fine.”  Kate yawned; all of a sudden she realized just how tired she felt.

“How about you try and get some sleep, it been a long day, okay?”  Robby stretched out, inviting her to use him as her pillow.

Kate curled up alongside of him and rested her head on his chest.  The only thing she was aware of was the sound of his heart and how his breathing matched hers in rhythm.  “Robby,” she said just before dozing off.

“Huh?”  Robby looked down at her almost sleeping form.

“My answer is yes.”  A moment later her breathing evened out and she was asleep.

Robby sat there a moment trying to figure out what she meant.  It took a few moments then it hit him, and a smile mixed with relief and pleasure spread across his lips.  Without even thinking about it his fingers found their way into her hair and he ran his hands through the silky strands.  He remembered the first time he had played with her hair…

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“Okay, now what I think we should do over here is this.”  Rebecca hurriedly started talking to the five people on the other side of the stage, directing them on what she wanted them to do.

Robby was standing right behind Kate and he watched as she frustratedly pulled her hair back out of her face.

“Here.”  Robby came up closer behind her and began to braid her hair for her.  It was a little tangled from all the running around she had been going, so he used his fingers to comb out her hair.  “I used to braid my sister’s hair all the time,” he explained.  Kate just relaxed and let him play with her hair.  She had mentioned not to long ago that one of her favorite things was to have her hair played with.

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That had been over 16 months ago.  He hadn’t said anything to her because it had been his senior year and he didn’t want to start anything that would have to end as soon as the school year was over.  His feelings had made the mission trip that year really awkward and had brought back all the memories of him and Sara.  Being so close to Kate made him lose his concentration.  The one time that he had given into one of his urges to touch her, he had ended up giving her a neck and back mesague for over an hour.  Kasei had come to him after that and asked him if he was planning on ‘hooking up’ with Kate.  When he had told her no, she said that from what she had seen, it didn’t look that way.

He had tried to back off right then and there but Kate seemed to be every where, where ever he looked she was there and something seemed to draw him to her.  He had made it through the rest of the mission trips without letting himself slip again.

But then at their last performance, while he was forming her, the intensity of being so close to her caused him to lose focus and he messed up and almost created her as Giving rather then Love.  Afterwards, he had used his mistake as an excuse to pull her into a tight hug and apologize for messing up.

It wasn’t until he had read the little letter in his graduation gift from Kate that it had dawned on him that she might have had the same feelings for him.  But by then he thought that it was to late to start something with her.  As the summer progressed he kept coming up with reasons for them to get together and spend time together, but he never did get the courage up to ask her out.

Then school started and they seemed to be spending more time together, then they had the year before, when they had been going to school together.  Blake began to tease Robby about moving even slower then he did.