Shaking her head as she threw the flowers down, Miss Parker sighed and looked out the window. Looking at the phone, she frowned briefly. She half expected Jarod to have called already. Making her way back to her bedroom, she froze just inside the room. Someone else was in there.

"It's just me, Miss Parker."

She knew that voice and her guard relaxed a bit. "You know, it's generally considered rude to come into a lady's bedroom without her permission. How did you get away?"

"Escape plan B, remember?" He replied with a crooked smile.

"How was it down there?" She asked with a throughly amused smile.

Jarod laughed shortly. "I'm hoping my next pretend isn't as a sewer worker."

"That's assuming that I won't take you back in."

"You need me out for now," he countered. "Your father just left?"

She nodded. "Yes. He didn't say that it was you that broke into his house."

"I heard. You lied to him."

She jerked her shoulders. "Like father, like daughter." She let out a shuddering breath and leaned against a wall. "We were so close to finding the truth, Jarod."

He moved close to her. "You'll figure it out. So will I. The question is, what becomes of us when we figure out all of the answers?"

Her blue eyes were haunted as they gazed into his. "That is the question," she answered. "Maybe better people?"

"Or more complete, at any rate." He kept coming closer, as if she were a magnet drawing him to her. His fingers trailed down over her cheek, and unlike her father's touch, it didn't make her want to pull away. Instead, it made her sway closer to him.

His hand cupped the back of her head, feeling her wet hair sliding through his fingers. "We have some answers. Now we can ask better questions."

She smiled slightly. "Optimist," she groused.

"I have to be," he replied, before gently capturing her lips with his.

Moving closer, she returned the kiss with no hesitation. Once they broke the kiss, he rested his forehead against hers.

Her emotions were in an uproar. "Where do we go from here?" she asked.

"After tonight, I guess the chase will begin once again."

Her smile was a bit sad. "So tonight's just a space out of reality?"

"Unfortunately. But no one has to say that these spaces could never come again."

Capturing his hand in hers, she raised an eyebrow. "Stay?"

"I want to."

"How about until I fall asleep?"

He smiled. "I can do that," he said just before kissing her once again.

Miss Parker woke early the next morning. Stretching in her bed, she noticed the indentation where Jarod had lain the night before. His scent still lingered on her pillow. Her eyebrow quirked as she saw that his scent wasn't the only thing that lingered on the pillow. A pink rose, still tightly budded, rested there as well, along with a note. Picking it up, she unfolded it.

'Let the chase begin again. Until next time. -Jarod'

The rose was wonderfully fragrant as she brought it up to her nose, and a soft smile graced her lips. That chase had begun again, but so had the chase to the truth. She was also looking forward to the next time the chase would halt for a night and she and Jarod were once again just two people, not hunter and prey, or cat and mouse, just two people that had been hurt and took solace from each other.

The End