“Hi,” Trish said. “Did you need something? Can I do something for you?”
“No, no. I’m fine. Just making some tea.”
“OK. You want some help?”
“I’m managing well, thank you. Do you perhaps want to join me in a few minutes?” Her blue eyes sparkled with mischief. “We can have cookies.”
Trish laughed. “We sure can. Chocolate chip and gingerbread, right?”
“That is correct. If we’re going to do this, we’ll do it right.”
“I just have to make a phone call, OK? Five minutes?”
“Take seven.” Meredith turned back to the kitchen slowly, really taking care with her balance. “I’ll get started on the cookies.”
“Don’t you eat them all!” Trish scolded her teasingly. “If I can’t lift you into bed tonight, you’ll be camping out on the floor with a sleeping bag, I warn you.”
“Oh my goodness.” Meredith giggled a bit; she had so much dignity and elegance and the sound was so out-of-character, Trish kind of loved it. “Slumber party. Could we do each other’s hair and makeup and talk about boys?”
“You bet.” Trish glanced down at the card in her hand. “You know I’m all about the boys.”
“I thought so, missy!”
Trish returned to her bedroom and picked up her cell phone. She was halfway through dialing Kelly’s office number when it suddenly occurred to her that she had no clue what the hell to say:
“I’m sorry for standing your brother up. I was busy paying off a bribe to a scumbag porn producer’s lapdog. Some people’s kids, amirite?”
“Can I please get Keegan’s number? Because of course he’ll want to hear from me! By the way, I’m an ex-porn star.”
“Can I please leave my number for you to pass on to your brother? Because of course he’ll want to call me! By the way, if you google ‘Thalia Flame’, you’ll get an eyeful. And how.”
“I know that I’m way out of line calling you like this after what I did, but please don’t hang up on me. Kelly? Kelly?”
Trish disconnected, stared at the card some more. OK, so maybe a phone call wasn’t the way to go here.
Maybe… maybe she should be a bit more bold and direct. Maybe she should do a brave (stupid?) thing and actually show up in Kelly’s office. Sure, she could refuse to see her, she could call security, she could pretend to not be there.
Or… she could decide to see Trish. Give her a chance to explain in person. Maybe she’d even see how genuinely sorry Trish was, really see it on her face.
She looked at the address, saw that the office was downtown, smack in the center of Denver. Easy enough to find and get to and if things went sideways, Trish knew of a great gin bar in the neighborhood that made the most perfect Singapore Sling known to man. She could take the humiliation of possible rejection on the chin like a warrior woman in front of Kelly and the law office receptionist, then drown her sorrows in gin like a boozy floozy.
Sounds like a plan.
Trish put the card on her bedside table, then headed out to join Meredith for tea and cookies.
**
At nine o’clock the next morning, Kelly was in the middle of reading the transcript from a deposition that she’d conducted over in Kansas when her phone rang. She glanced up, saw that it was Celine on reception. She lifted the receiver.
“Hi Celine,” she said, thinking that now was an awesome time for a coffee break, as she’d been at her desk since 7:10. She stood up, located her shoes under her desk and slid her feet into the towering-high high heels. “What’s up?”
“Hi Kelly. There’s someone here to see you.”
“There is?” Kelly mentally ran through her day, came up blank about anything besides this deposition and its follow-up motions. “Do I have a meeting that I forgot about?”
“No. She says she’s a drop-in and she’s hoping that you’ll see her.”
“Oh.” Kelly blinked in confusion; she never had drop-in clients. “Well… do I know her? What’s her name?”
“Trish. She says you guys met at a wedding last weekend.”
Right away, Kelly felt the urge to kick something really really hard and she eyed her wastepaper basket speculatively. Keegan had called her two days before from The Web Café, asking her if he should leave or wait a bit longer for Trish to show. Kelly had told him that waiting an hour for a woman was more than anyone could expect from him, and he should call it a day and head to his group meeting. The silence down the line had been heartbreaking for everything that he wasn’t saying, but after a few seconds, he’d agreed.
The last thing that he’d said before they hung up was, “I guess I shouldn’t have told her about my leg, huh?”
Keegan would have had to tell Trish at some point, Kelly knew that of course. If they’d been heading in the direction of the bedroom, then there was zero choice about it. The girl needed a heads-up and she had the right to not want to sleep with a guy missing a limb.
But something about the way that Trish had looked at Kee the other night over coffee… something about the light in those gorgeous purple eyes. It had given Kelly hope that maybe this woman would have the strength and the interest to work past things, or to at least try. Her response to Kee telling her about his leg had been so damn positive and supportive, and that in itself was so unusual that both Keegan and Kelly had felt hope.
Then Trish didn’t show, Kee was crushed and Kelly was in raging big-sister-mode anyway because her little brother got hurt – and now the nasty twit who caused him pain had actually come wandering into her office. The woman clearly had a death wish because Kelly was going to rip her pretty little blonde head off.
So yeah. She’d see Trish.
For sure.
“Of course I’ll take a drop-in from Trish,” she said sweetly to Celine. “I’ll come and get her now.”
“Thanks, Kelly.”
She checked her makeup in her compact, dabbed some powder on her freckled nose and refreshed her lipstick. She narrowed her eyes at herself and whispered, “‘‘Will you walk into my parlour?’ said the Spider to the Fly’.”
C’mon in, Trish. Ignore the webs hanging everywhere.
Kelly walked down the hall to the reception area and saw Trish sitting there on the sofa. Right away, Kelly’s sense was that something was very wrong. She slowed her roll a bit, took the other woman in as she approached.
Trish looked… nervous and upset. Agitated. Maybe even…
Scared?
It might have had something to do with their surroundings, of course. Killigan and Amos was the largest, most prestigious law firm in Colorado and the reception area more than reflected that. The Eames sofa that Trish was perched on twisting her fingers cost a smidge over $12,000, the art on the walls boasted an original Monet, and Celine was elegant in rose Chanel and freshwater pearls.
By contrast, Trish was wearing her catering uniform from the other night. Oh yes, her white blouse was crisp and ironed, her black pants were smart and clean – but she looked like a diner waitress and that was the truth. If she was feeling a bit overwhelmed by things, Kelly shouldn’t be surprised.
“Trish,” she said, making her voice neutral. “Hello.”
“Hi Kelly.” Trish got to her feet, clutching her purse. “Thank you for seeing me.”
Kelly gave her a long cool stare that she used to great effect on witnesses in the courtroom, then noticed that the zipper on Trish’s purse was broken and the sleeves on her thin coat were frayed. For some reason, these things pierced her. This was not a young woman of means or money and she looked legitimately terrified to be here, but here she stood. Trish withered under the supercilious looks of the filthy-rich and well-dressed people sipping coffee out of the Villeroy & Boch china whilst perusing the financial pages, and she just stood there.
Kelly knew with everything that she had that it had taken some guts for Trish to do this, that she was here because she really wanted Kelly to know something. She immediately scaled down her
anger, though her protectiveness of Kee didn’t shrink even an iota.
“Did you want a coffee?” Kelly asked her gently. “Tea? Water?”
“Oh. Oh, no.” She looked around at the other people in the waiting room, seemed intimidated by the wafer-thin espresso cups. “No, thank you.”
“You sure? I’m having a coffee myself.”
“No, really. I’m fine.”
“OK.” Kelly smiled at Celine, who nodded and got up to make her drink. “This way.”
Kelly led her back to her office and ushered Trish in. “Please sit down,” she said and watched as Trish lowered herself into the deep leather armchair as if she were afraid that it would detonate. Kelly shut the door, went back to her desk and settled in her chair. “So… this is a surprise.”
“I know. I’m sorry.” Trish bit that outrageously lush lower lip, the one that Kelly wished she had on her own face. “I thought about calling instead, but –”
“But?”
“But I thought you’d hang up on me.”
“Hmmmm.” Kelly gazed at her unblinking and expressionless. “It’s a possibility.”
“I know. I know that you must be upset with me. I mean – I figure that Keegan told you what happened on Wednesday.”
“Or, more accurately, what didn’t happen on Wednesday,” Kelly said dryly. “The date that didn’t take place because one party failed to appear.”
“I know,” Trish repeated. “And I just – I came here to tell you that I didn’t want to miss meeting Keegan. Something happened. I had a personal emergency and I didn’t have his number, and I didn’t remember about having your card until late yesterday afternoon.”
“Why didn’t you call the café?”
“I –” Trish stopped, stunned at the simplicity of the solution that had just not occurred to her. God, that note had thrown her for a serious damn loop. “I didn’t think of that at the time.”
Kelly regarded her with an impassive green stare.
“I promise you, Kelly, I’d never stand your brother up.”
“And yet you did.”
“I did.” Trish was twisting her fingers again. “But I still – I came here because –”
“Because?” Kelly prompted her, though she had a pretty good idea what Trish was going to say next. “Because what?”
“Because I’m sorry,” Trish whispered. “And I was hoping that – that you could –”
This time Kelly waited.
Trish cleared her throat. “I was hoping that you could give my phone number to Keegan. If he wants it, I mean. And then maybe he could – he would call me. If he wants to give me another chance.”
“You think I’m going to give your number to him and get his hopes up again? You think I’m actually going to help you?”
“I don’t think anything right now,” Trish said quietly. “I know I screwed up. I’m just asking if you’ll give him my number. I mean, I’ll never know if you didn’t anyway, right? If you don’t pass it on, he’ll never call. If you do pass it on and he throws it away, he’ll never call.” She shrugged. “It looks the same at my end, no matter what, right?”
“Yeeees,” Kelly said slowly. “That’s true.”
“So.” Trish gazed at her, those eyes so soft they were almost cornflower blue. “Please let me leave my number. You make the choice if you want to tell Keegan that I was here, and if you want to give him the choice to call me or not.”
“Dammit.” Kelly shook her head, leaned back in her chair. “Of course I’m not going to make that choice for Kee. I’d never withhold anything from him – even if I think I know better or I think he’ll do the wrong thing.”
“So….” Trish swallowed. “You think he’ll call me, and you think that’s the wrong thing?”
“No,” Kelly said crisply. “I think the exact opposite: I think he won’t call you and that that’s the wrong thing.”
“You – you do?”
“Look, Trish.” Kelly ran a hand through her hair. “Keegan is a very stubborn man, but he has a huge heart. You know about his leg, of course. What you don’t know is that lots of women who pursued him ran screaming in the other direction as soon as he leveled with them.”
“I had a feeling,” Trish said. “He was so shocked when I accepted the date.”
“Yes, you didn’t run screaming. He told me that you were… well. Sweet. Understanding. Totally non-judgmental.”
“Why would I judge him for losing a leg while saving a kidnapped kid?”
“Those other girls didn’t judge him for being a war hero, Trish.”
“So – what then?”
“For not being the man that they thought he was when they first laid eyes on him. For not being the man that he appears to be when he’s sitting across from you, fully clothed and talking like he’s never had a care in the world. They feel… I don’t know. Betrayed, somehow. Like he’s doing some false advertising. Like he’s presenting himself as whole and physically perfect, but he’s damaged and flawed.”
“That’s the stupidest damn thing that I’ve ever heard, and I’ve heard some stupid crap in my life.”
Kelly gave a small laugh. “Agreed. But it’s Kee’s reality and it’s happened more times than I can count. It’s why he had hopes for your date and why he was so upset when you stood him up.”
“I wish that I could go back in time and change things,” Trish said. “I really do. But I can’t and it is what it is, so all I could think to do was come here and explain. Apologize. Ask if you’ll give my number to your brother.”
“You get that he might not call, right?” Kelly said to her. “He’s not going to go looking to get stood up again, or for you to fluctuate back and forth about if he’s worth meeting for a coffee or dinner. Kee is big on certainties and sure things: he doesn’t do fantasy or speculation or ‘maybe’. If you give me your number, I need to know that you fully intend to show up. No bullshit and no excuses. Assuming he calls, I mean.”
“Kelly, I swear to you: if he decides to give me another shot, I’m not going to blow it. Not again. I know that life rarely offers us second chances and so if I get one, I’m going to grab it. I swear to you.”
Kelly stared at her hard and Trish felt like she was under a spotlight and an x-ray machine. She just sat there, asking herself yet again what she was doing in this damn office, begging one almost-total-stranger to pass on her number to another almost-total-stranger.
All that she knew was that she’d felt so safe with Keegan, so respected and listened to. Trish hadn’t had that experience much in her life, and she’d liked it. Very much. She was willing to get on her knees if that’s what Kelly demanded, if it meant that she had a chance to try again.
That feeling of being seen was worth all this discomfort. It was worth everything.
And as woman who’d been seen naked by hundreds of thousands of people, who’d been seen faking orgasms and being cum on, who’d been seen from every angle humanly possible, Trish understood all too well how rare it was to be seen below the surface and beyond the breasts and pussy.
Keegan had appreciated her looks, she knew that, but he’d appreciated her smile and humor and heart too, much more. Just like she’d looked at his face and muscular physique and imagined him naked, but she’d responded so strongly to his charm and intelligence and grit.
If he could look past her surface, past her looks and body, then she sure as hell could look past his. She could see him as whole and amazing – and as missing exactly nothing.
But if he never called, he’d never know that; even if he did call, could she convince him of that?
Maybe, maybe not. All Trish was asking for was a chance.
So she sat under Kelly’s green gaze and waited.
**
Keegan was just taking the last batch of butter pecan cookies out of the oven when his cell beeped to tell him that he had a text, and then it rang. He wiped his hands on his apron, glanced at the number calling, noted that the text that he’d jus
t received from Kelly looked like a phone number and grabbed the phone.
“Hey Kel,” he said cheerfully. He and his sister talked every day, several times a day, but he never stopped being happy to hear from her. “How’s life in the legal fast lane?”
“It kind of ground to a halt this morning.”
“What? Why?” Keegan was alert. “Is Janie OK?”
“Oh, yes, she’s fine.”
“So what happened?” Keegan picked up his coffee mug. “It ain’t like you to hit the brakes at work.”
“Yeah, yeah, I’m a workaholic.”
“You said it, not me.”
“But you think it. And you say it most days.”
“Guilty as charged, counsellor.”
“OK, so… I have something to tell you.” Kelly hesitated and Keegan went into high-alert again, his coffee cup held halfway to his mouth. “I don’t want you to say anything until I’ve finished talking. All right?”
“All right,” Keegan said slowly. “Shoot.”
His sister took a breath. “Trish came to see me at work this morning.”
“She – what?”
“I specifically told you to stay quiet until I finished talking.”
“Oh, come on, Kel. Like that wasn’t gettin’ a reaction from me?”
“OK, OK, you get that one as a freebie. Now shut up.”
Keegan rolled his eyes.
“I can hear you rolling your eyes, Kee.”
He rolled them again.
“Cut it out.”
He huffed out a sigh and said something that might have sounded like, Burned at the stake, I swear.
“That’s better.” Kelly gave a sigh of her own. “OK, so… she just showed up without any warning. Came into my office, sat down across from me and apologized for standing you up. She said that she’d had a personal issue and didn’t have your number.”
Keegan made a noise in his throat and Kelly understood it perfectly.
“Yes, I know that she had my number, but she said that she forgot that she even had my card until yesterday. And it never occurred to her to call The Web Café.”
Keegan (Wounded Hero Book 1) Page 9