by Lucy Monroe
She was partially right about him not understanding. He couldn’t imagine allowing anyone to have that kind of power in his life; however, there had been a time he’d left behind the life he loved because that was what this woman wanted.
“You must have loved him very much.”
“I don’t know.” Kitty’s blue eyes clouded with confusion and pain he didn’t want to see. “Maybe I loved him once.”
She’d given up her education, her family…She’d given up Tack for Nevin Barston. Of course she’d loved him. And Tack didn’t like dwelling on that truth any more today than he had eight years ago.
She shrugged, a move he was quickly learning to dislike. It was way too noncommittal for the Kitty Grant he’d known. No way he could be sure when Kitty had started changing, but change she had. When they’d been friends, she would have argued her point of view, even in the face of irrefutable evidence.
The woman standing in front of him wasn’t about to do that.
The truth of the difference between Kitty then and Kitty now hit him hard and right between the eyes. Shit. Piss. Damn.
That urge to take a little trip south and beat the ever-loving shit out Nevin Barston washed over Tack again.
“It’s complicated, Tack.” Kitty made an aborted move with her hand. “And I’ve had a really long day.”
Oh, he believed it was complicated all right. However, Tack knew the flames of her nature might be doused, but he refused to accept that an ember didn’t still burn somewhere deep inside her.
“Kitty, I know you’ve been through hell—”
Kitty interrupted before he could go any further. “I go by Caitlin now.”
“Well, maybe you need to find Kitty again.”
“And you think I’m going to just because you use that name?” She might not realize it, but there was a tinge of the old Kitty snark in that tone.
He grinned. “I don’t know, but I’m not calling you Caitlin.”
“You haven’t changed.”
“You’re wrong about that too.”
“Too? What else am I wrong about?”
“You’re stronger than you think.”
“Because I finally divorced the monster who claimed to love me?” She laughed, the sound hollow, no amusement in it at all. “That was an act of desperation, not some grand stand.”
“You still did it.”
“He was out of the country. If he hadn’t been, I would never have had the courage to take the first step and walk out.”
At first Tack didn’t know how to respond to that. Kitty so afraid of her husband she wouldn’t have left him while he was near enough to do something about it? The idea boggled Tack’s mind, but it pissed him off even more. His hands curled into tight fists, but he did his best to keep his anger from his face after Kitty’s earlier reaction.
Nevin Barston was one lucky son of a bitch that he was in LA right now.
“Why didn’t you call?” She’d needed help; she had to know Tack would have been there.
“Would you have answered?” she asked, with an apparently genuine desire to know the answer.
Because she didn’t already.
Had she forgotten everything they were to each other?
“How could you doubt it? Even if you hadn’t been my best friend for most of my life, you were from Cailkirn. Anyone in this town would have helped you.” But him most of all.
“You were the last real friend I had and I treated you like crap.” Remorse infused her words and her self-disgust was clear.
He couldn’t argue with her, though, even if he felt like he should. She was just so damn fragile right now.
Thankfully Miz Alma called them to the table, her tone impatient, before Tack found himself saying things he shouldn’t.
* * *
Careful to separate the roast, potatoes, and vegetables evenly, Caitlin pushed half of the food her aunt had put on her plate to one side. She was concentrating so hard it took her a moment to realize her aunts had bowed their heads for a blessing. His head bowed but his eyes open, Tack stared at her, whether in reproach or confusion at Caitlin’s eating ritual she couldn’t tell.
Heat shooting into her cheeks, she quickly dropped her hands into her lap and dipped her head.
The simple phrases Aunt Alma spoke washed over Caitlin with the comfort of forgotten familiarity. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d engaged in something so homey as blessing her food.
There had been a time when such activities had embarrassed her; then she’d come to long for them, and now she engaged with a gratitude few would understand.
Just as with her food rituals, there was safety in these comfortable customs that had been passed from one generation to the next.
“It is so good to have our girl home, isn’t it, Tack?” Aunt Elspeth asked after they’d begun eating.
He smiled at her aunt, the expression lending warmth to the hard angles of his face. He’d had the features of a boy the last time she’d seen him, but now he was a man. A very good-looking man, who wore confidence like the new sexy.
Not looking at Caitlin to include her in the warm expression, he said, “Sure.”
Her aunt was appeased, but Caitlin knew his single-word answer had hardly been a ringing endorsement. She didn’t blame him. In fact, Caitlin was kind of glad he didn’t look at her just then.
She was finding it unexpectedly difficult to control her reaction to him. Getting the best of the genes from both sides of his family, the Scots and the Inuits, Tack had always been attractive. However, now he was hotter than anything LA had to offer. His chocolate-brown eyes were set under a raven’s brow, and his nose was perfectly proportioned for a man’s face above his square jaw.
He’d been muscular before, but now his six-and-a-half-foot frame was as solid as a rock.
She’d never seen Tack as being sexy in the past.
No, that wasn’t true, and Caitlin’s healing required self-honesty now. She hadn’t allowed herself to be attracted to her best friend. Falling in love with Taqukaq MacKinnon would have meant staying in Cailkirn, and that was something Kitty Grant had been determined not to do. Funny the difference eight years could make. Because nowadays, Caitlin looked at Cailkirn as the one place of safety in the whole wide world. The only home her heart would ever long for.
Even so, she didn’t welcome her reaction to Tack’s twenty-eight-year-old self. And she didn’t think he would either.
The biggest surprise wasn’t that Tack was the object of her fluttering sexual desire; it was the fact that she was feeling that kind of craving at all. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d felt desire. But her body was reacting to Tack like he’d been bathed in aphrodisiacs. She wanted to touch him, taste his salty skin, and inhale his scent. It was such an unfamiliar sensation that Caitlin struggled with following through on her food ritual.
She had to eat the portion of food she’d assigned herself. Her head knew that. The rest of her did not want to cooperate.
Forcing herself to take a bite, Caitlin let the conversation go on around her.
But her reaction to Tack didn’t get any more comprehensible or easy to handle, and every bite was an effort in a way eating hadn’t been for a while.
It took all of her self-possession to stay at the table when what she really wanted was to get up and leave. As happy as she was to be with her family again, she felt them watching her, gauging her mood and her health. Their concern was a balm, but it overwhelmed her, too, pressing in on her, making her feel the need to keep repeating that she was all right. That they didn’t need to worry about her anymore.
Even if she wasn’t entirely sure that was true.
She couldn’t help but feel nauseated just looking at the plate of food in front of her. The half she’d portioned to eat looked like a mountain of meat and vegetables now.
That combined with Caitlin’s unexpected sexual reaction to Tack and the desire to find her old room and hide behind a closed door just got bigger.
&nb
sp; But hiding hadn’t done her any favors in the past and she was doing her best not to revert to what had ultimately become a self-destructive defense mechanism.
So, she ate. Very little and very slowly, but she kept at it and did her best to ignore her response to Tack.
Even if he didn’t hate her for the past, she was never putting herself at the mercy of a man again. Not even Tack. Caitlin was going to die a Grant now that she’d reclaimed her maiden name.
Besides, of all men, Tack deserved a woman who wasn’t glued together like a shattered vase.
CHAPTER FOUR
Tack shifted his tall frame restlessly, kicking off the blankets in the dark. Thoughts of Kitty would not let him sleep.
Even though his father and grandfather had built the bed for Tack’s comfort, he couldn’t settle tonight.
He was pretty sure the size of his bed had been a not-so-subtle hint from the older generations. It was the width of a king and had an extra six inches in length, definitely more than big enough for two people.
No one else had shared it with him in the two years since he’d moved into his custom-designed log cabin.
Tack didn’t have time for a relationship and kept his sex life to tourists or trips to Anchorage in the winter. A healthy adult male with a strong sex drive, if not inclination toward commitment, Tack had been a temporary visitor on a helluva lot of cruise ships moored in the Cailkirn harbor.
He didn’t bring casual sex partners to his cabin. Tack had every intention of sharing his home with a wife and family someday, but until then it was his sanctuary—the way it should be.
It didn’t sound like Kitty’s place in California had been a sanctuary for her. Not even a little bit.
Tack had spent eight years resenting her for ejecting him from her life the minute she got engaged to that bastard Nevin Barston.
Tack had never once considered that Kitty might have caused herself more emotional damage with that decision than she’d done to him. He sure couldn’t ignore that possibility now.
There was no damn question that she’d needed him the past eight years. No matter what Kitty had convinced herself to be true.
Her LA friends hadn’t had her back. That was for sure. If Tack and Kitty had still been friends, no way would Nevin have managed to crush her indomitable will and spirit.
It was a fair bet the man realized it, too, or he would not have pushed her into giving up her friendship with Tack. Assuming that was what happened.
Kitty had implied as much. And maybe eight years ago Tack would have said no one could force her to give up friends she wanted to keep. However, the Kitty he’d seen this evening was a far cry from the stubborn girl who had punched Benji Sutherland on the playground when the older boy had called Tack chief.
A smile twitched at his lips as he remembered. It hadn’t mattered to her that she was pint-sized compared to both boys or that Benji hadn’t had a clue he was being insulting. Kitty had laid into the older boy with impressive fervor and vocabulary for a six-year-old.
They’d all become fast friends by the second week of school, but Kitty’s actions had set a precedent. The feisty redhead had never stood by and allowed anyone to get bullied, not even the best friend that was near twice her size by the time they hit middle school.
Not once.
How in the hell had the girl who had stood up for the world stopped standing up for herself? One thing was for sure—Kitty needed a friend, and no matter how she’d treated him in the past, she needed him now. She’d made one devastating mistake, both for herself and for their friendship. He was man enough to admit to himself that in a way, Kitty had done him a favor.
He would never have stopped loving and lusting after his best friend if she had remained a big part of his life. Years of trying attested to that. Tack hadn’t been able to really let her go until she did it for him.
So, maybe he could forgive her for pushing him away. Didn’t mean he was going to give her another crack at his heart, but that woman was still way too close to broken for him to turn away from her now.
She needed to be reminded of who Kitty Grant was at the core of her soul, of the fearless woman who had talked him into attending university twenty-five hundred miles away.
Tack was just the man for the job.
No, he would not love her again, but damned if he’d stand by and watch Kitty Grant live like a wraith among the people of Cailkirn.
* * *
Tack cursed as he realized the new guide he and Egan hired hadn’t completely filled out the paperwork for his first solo tour. Both Egan and Tack had taken Bobby out on an excursion with clients to train him in the process.
Yesterday, he’d taken out his first small group of tourists from Anchorage on his own.
There was no excuse for forgetting the most important form of all: the personal indemnity release. Tourists did stupid stuff and no way was MacKinnon Bros. Tours taking responsibility for the results.
“What did that paper do to you?” a feminine voice asked from his doorway.
He didn’t have to look up to know it was Kitty. Her voice was unmistakable, even if it lacked the lacing of humor it always used to have.
“It’s not the paperwork. It’s who is filling it out—or isn’t, and that’s the problem.” He let his gaze slide up Kitty’s body on the way to meeting her eyes.
Couldn’t help himself or the stirrings of arousal it caused.
Her designer jeans were stressed in all the right places and the green top she wore with them clung to the curve of her breasts, its scoop neck cut low enough to reveal the top swells.
The quilted cream vest she wore open on top looked like silk and the zipper was gold.
It was the kind of thing tourists wore. Cailkirn residents? Not so much.
“Fancy for Cailkirn, don’t you think, wildcat?” The old nickname just slipped out, but he didn’t regret it.
He’d been careful not to use it before, needing to maintain distance from their past, but it was part of reminding her who she used to be, even if it hadn’t been on purpose. He’d given her the nickname when they were still in elementary school because she was always taking chances. She might have looked sweet as a kitten, but she was more full-grown mountain lion inside.
A small gust of air released from Kitty’s bow-shaped lips, glossed a tempting pink. “No one has called me that in years.”
“Considering that was my name for you, I’m not surprised.” It had always surprised him how few people realized who the real Kitty Grant—town sweetheart—was.
“It doesn’t really fit anymore.”
“Come on a hike with me. Don’t try to take the hardest trail or climb the highest point and I might believe you.”
She dropped into the chair he kept in his office for visitors. Which mostly meant his mom, who had a habit of coming by for short chats between his scheduled tours.
Kitty crossed her jean-clad legs and dropped a purse covered in Cs—probably some kind of designer brand—to the floor beside the chair. “I never wanted you to think I couldn’t keep up.”
“Hell, Kitty, you pushed beyond my comfort limits more times than I can count.” He leaned back in his chair, stretching his legs out to make room for the inevitable growing erection between them.
His dick hadn’t gotten the message that the petite redhead was off-limits sexually and had been for a long time. Hell, last night when he’d finally fallen asleep, he’d had his first wet dream in years. Starring Kitty Grant.
It wouldn’t be so disturbing if it had been the girl he’d gone to college with. He’d had a few of those over the years—they hadn’t ended in nocturnal emissions, but he’d accepted a long time ago that his libido and his subconscious were always going to find fodder in her youthful beauty.
Last night’s dream had starred the new Kitty Grant, his imagination filling in the changes in her body. His need to toss his sheets in the wash before coming into work proved his sex drive responded just as viscerally to the
older, thinner version of this woman.
A smile reminiscent of the old Kitty revealed even white teeth. “You never said.”
“Like I was going to admit I couldn’t do anything you could do.”
Her smile turned into a full-on grin and he felt like he’d won the caber toss at the Highland Games. “Good to know I kept you on your toes.”
“You did that.”
The smile slipped and then disappeared altogether as her expression turned introspective. “I don’t push boundaries any longer.”
It didn’t sound like the thoughts going on inside her head were happy ones. “Let’s take that hike and we’ll see.”
He quirked his brow but kept his expression serious to let her know he meant the invitation to be real.
“Um…” She looked tempted, but something around her pretty blue eyes told him she was going to turn him down.
Before she could do it, he changed the subject. “So, not that I’m not happy to see you, but what are you doing here?”
They’d come back to the hike later. She couldn’t hold out for long. Kitty might not have liked living in Alaska, but she’d loved exploring in the wild.
In fact, there had always been so few individual aspects to living here that she’d claimed to dislike that Tack and the Grant sisters could be forgiven for believing Kitty would go to California and realize how much she missed home.
Not one of them had expected Nevin Barston.
Kitty shook her head. “Happy to see me, right.” She winked but it wasn’t accompanied by the flirty expression it used to be…more cynicism now. “Aunt Elspeth sent me over with a currant cake.”
He jumped up from his desk. “And you left it out there with the hungry hordes?”
“I only saw Egan and some blond teenager.” Her tone implied she thought he was overdramatizing.
“Our newest guide, Bobby. Don’t you realize my brother plus an eighteen-year-old can go through one of Miss Elspeth’s cakes in about five minutes?”
Kitty’s small disbelieving shake of her head said she didn’t buy it.
“You’ll see,” he tossed over his shoulder as he hotfooted it into the main reception area for MacKinnon Bros. Tours.