‘Damn,’ Janna muttered under her breath. She gave the toddler in her arms a sideways glance, cringing at her own language. ‘You didn’t know, obviously.’
‘He made me think he was keeping it. That he was going to live there and we’d …’ She didn’t know how to finish that sentence anymore.
‘Live happily ever after?’
To Kait’s surprise, her sister didn’t sound condescending. In fact, her down-drawn mouth and glossy eyes spoke of a sadness she could relate to. If there was anyone who knew what it was like to be let down by someone who claimed to love you, it was Janna.
‘Something like that.’ She gave a noncommittal shrug, reaching for her purse.
‘I’m sorry, Kait.’
Janna’s apology dragged her attention away from her escape, and she gave her sister her full attention. Being sorry was a long way from pointing out the warnings she had so blatantly ignored, as she’d expected.
‘I know I haven’t kept my mouth shut about my feelings regarding him, but I’m sorry it didn’t turn out the way you wanted it to.’
It was just another fairytale that had turned into a nightmare for the Davenport sisters. ‘Thanks, Janna.’ She turned and headed for the door.
‘If it means anything, I didn’t want to be right.’
She sighed. It did, it meant everything. ‘I didn’t want you to be, either.’
‘I guess it’s better you found out now, rather than later,’ Janna continued. ‘How did you find out?’
Her desire to retreat to the complete silence of her car was immense, but Kait couldn’t be rude. First, her sister knew the diner schedule; Kait was heading into work more than half an hour earlier than needed. Second, Janna was being supportive, and she wanted to hold on to that as long as she could. ‘Zach’s the realtor he’s selling to. Turns out they’ve met a few times. He showed me the contract.’
Janna’s forehead crinkled in bewilderment. ‘Then why didn’t Zach tell you about it before now? He could have saved you a lot of pain, too, I’d think.’
She stared at her sister as the question settled in between them. Focused on Branch and his lies of omission, she hadn’t really given much thought to Zach’s role in the situation.
She was now.
Janna was right again, and Kait had a sinking feeling that the answer to her question meant everything, too.
A few days ago, Kait saw the spirit of Christmas everywhere she looked, from the banners on Main Street’s lamp-posts that boasted Happy Holidays! to the glint in passersby eyes as they bustled about with their paper shopping bags and barely contained anticipation.
Now, her own Christmas cheer had been replaced by a thick veil of pessimism, and no amount of multi-colored lights or holly berry wreaths or promises of Christmas morning delight was going to permeate it.
Christmas miracles were for people whose hearts were still in one piece.
She parked her car behind the diner, thankful there were designated spots for staff there. It was early, most shops hadn’t even officially opened yet, but both sides of the downtown street were lined with vehicles. There were two things Port Landon took seriously: shopping local, and Christmas. Put those two things together and you ended up with a very crowded Main Street.
The winter air bit at her cheeks as she slung her purse over her shoulder and made her way out onto the street. There was a back door available for staff, but Kait disliked using it, not keen on the idea of having to walk through the busy kitchen to get to the staff lockers where she deposited her belongings each shift.
The front door seemed farther today, though, thanks to the icy wind, and she kept her head down, chin tucked inside the collar of her coat as she made a beeline for the door without looking around. A second later, she wished she had.
‘Kait.’
She whirled around, hearing her name despite the voice being unidentifiable against the wind’s relentless blowing. Hands in her pockets to shield her bare fingers, she froze. Not from the chill, but from the sight of him.
Her eyes met his, then she turned around, intent on leaving him on the sidewalk, alone. Where he deserved to be, as far as she was concerned.
‘Kait, wait,’ Branch called out. ‘Please!’
Her chest tightened as she spun back toward him. ‘I have to go to work, Branch, and I have nothing left to say to you.’ She didn’t want to give him the chance to upset her any more than she already was.
He jogged the last few steps to close the gap between them. ‘I get that, I do. But if you won’t talk, at least listen to what I have to say. Please.’
His cheeks, marred with a couple days’ worth of beard growth, were pink from the cold. Warmth was in his dark eyes, though. It could have been forty below zero, and those eyes still would have harbored more radiant comfort than Kait would ever see in the gaze of another person.
His hold on her made her ill.
‘Give me two minutes,’ he pleaded, his hands up as though bargaining with a skittish animal he thought might bolt at any given moment. ‘I just want to figure out where the hell we went wrong.’
Wait, was he implying she had done something to make this whole thing go awry as well? The final thread of her wavering calmness snapped. ‘Where we went wrong?’ Kait’s eyes widened, unable to believe what she was hearing. ‘This is about where you went wrong, and my closest guess is that it has something to do with the fact that nothing’s changed. You’re still the same man you always were, and I was dumb enough to think you’d changed. So, yeah, I guess maybe we both went wrong, all right, but it was in very different directions.’
‘Kait, I didn’t lie to you,’ he insisted. ‘I’m not selling my grandparents’ house, if that’s what—’
She let out an indignant scoff. ‘Why not now? Don’t botch the deal with Zach on my account.’
‘I’m not botching anything—’
‘Except us,’ she spat. ‘Purely because you’ll never learn. It’s not that hard to be honest with someone, Branch. Obviously, for you, it is, but not for everyone. I will never understand why you didn’t feel you could tell me about meeting with Zach, and I will never, ever understand why you would make up all those lies about you and me being together, about us having a life together—’
‘Those weren’t lies, Kait!’
‘The hell they weren’t,’ she fired back, the smoldering inferno inside her erupting into furious flames. She couldn’t even feel the cold around her now. She was immune to it, armored by her own rage. If anything, she was burning up from the inside out. She had more to say to him than she’d thought.
The flames must have been evident in her eyes because when he spoke again, his tone was softer, less desperate and more imploring. ‘Kaitie, I love you,’ he said. ‘Those three words aren’t enough to describe what I feel for you. You’ve got to give me a chance to explain—’
‘I don’t have to do anything,’ she corrected him sharply. ‘That’s the part you don’t understand.’ She could feel the impending emotional upheaval, beginning in her belly and flooding up into her throat. Soon, the tears would come. In a bid to regain control once more, she shook her head, hoping to fight back the burning she felt in her eyes. ‘You can love someone to the moon and back, but sometimes you’ve got to let them go. That’s what I’m doing, letting you go. And if you love me like you say you do, you’ll do us both a favor and let me go, too.’
He stared at her, shell-shocked. ‘I can’t do that.’
She pulled her hands from her pockets, holding them up. ‘What you can and can’t do, or will and won’t do, is no longer my concern, Branch.’ There was no hiding the pain in her voice, as much as she wished she could hold it in and hide it away from him. ‘I’m letting you go, once and for all.’
Kait couldn’t handle one more heartfelt plea from him. He had said it, those three little words consecutively. It was the first time she heard those words from him in over a decade. But no freedom accompanied the emotional statement like she had spent t
he past decade believing it would, only a raging river of tears and heartbreak. She refused to let the madness go on any longer, turning away from him and escaping into the sanctuary of the diner.
‘Kait! Damn it, Kait, wait!’ Branch followed her inside. His persistence got the best of him, however, and as he reached out, desperate to keep her there, Kait rounded on him, slapping his hand away.
‘Branch, enough!’ Not only was she distraught that he had followed her into her place of employment, she was shocked by his unwillingness to do as she asked. But if he didn’t care about the round-eyed audience watching their entire spectacle with morbid fascination, neither did she.
‘I let you make a fool out of me once, Branch Sterling.’ She enunciated each word, hurling it at him like ammunition, making sure each one hit its mark. ‘I saw the pictures on Zach’s phone, and I know what you did. I believed your lies, and all it got me was a boy pretending to be a man.’
To his credit, he stayed silent, but his mouth slightly gaped and his eyes were fixed on her. She had never been one to air her dirty laundry to the world, but she had Branch’s attention, so her outburst was at least having some effect.
‘You should’ve known back then that I would find out. It’s a small town, secrets aren’t secret forever. But you didn’t learn your lesson.’ Kait let out an indignant scoff. ‘Well, guess what? I found out the things you didn’t want me to know, all over again. I saw the proof, Branch, right there in black and white. Which makes us both idiots – you, for thinking I wouldn’t find out, and me, for letting you make a fool of me once more, and for ever believing a word that came out of your mouth.’
As if on cue, a sob bubbled up and Kait had to clasp her hand over her mouth to swallow it back down. Barely holding herself together, she watched Branch stand before her, confused, shocked, lost. It wasn’t until his gaze focused on a point behind her that she turned to see both Eve and Gerry, the cook, standing near the front counter, ready to jump in as backup if she needed them. She wasn’t sure they had ever heard her raise her voice before.
But she didn’t need them. She didn’t need anyone, not anymore. She couldn’t and wouldn’t put herself through that kind of pain again.
‘Goodbye, Branch.’ She passed by her coworkers on her way into the back room, barely making it there before her tears began to fall.
Chapter 20
Branch
Whatever he expected from his appearance outside The Port, it wasn’t that.
Branch allowed Kait’s anger to continuously erupt in front of him for two reasons. The first one was that she needed an outlet. Even from his vantage point down the sidewalk, he saw the weary lines on her face and the hooded sadness in her eyes. She would spontaneously combust if she held that amount of fury inside her for much longer.
The second reason he let her wrath continue was not only because he was shocked into a speechless stupor by the words spurting from her mouth, but because, in those mere minutes, Branch found out more than he ever would have during normal conversation.
More than he had found out in eleven years.
And now that he had given himself time to think about what she said, Branch was the one who felt ridiculous. He didn’t understand how he hadn’t figured it all out before now.
It was all starting to come together in his head, though. He didn’t care about the fact that a couple of coffee drinkers and a few of Kait’s coworkers had seen him get ripped apart by her verbal onslaught. They would be the talk of the town for a few days, then the gossiping crowd would move on to something more entertaining. What Branch cared about was the truth, and he was closer to it now than he had ever been.
Years ago, he had made a mistake that cost him the life he and Kait had dreamed of, believing the catalyst had been his reckless actions that resulted in the injury of her friend, an event that he felt certain had been misinterpreted as the consequence of one man’s jealous rage. His jealous rage.
Fast forward a decade, and he was about to lose his only chance at holding on to her again, because of lies and deceit.
Except those lies weren’t coming from Branch’s mouth, and the only jealousy that had resulted in reckless actions was from someone else.
Zach.
He was the common denominator in both equations, then and now. Deep in his gut, Branch always suspected Zach would do whatever it took to win Kait’s heart and remove him from the picture, but now he had confirmation.
I saw the pictures on Zach’s phone, and I know what you did.
He had no idea what pictures she was talking about, but considering the context and the fact they were on Zach’s phone, Branch was sure he had found the concrete piece of the puzzle he’d been missing. The pictures she spoke of so venomously were an integral part of the reason she’d screamed at him to leave Port Landon that night. Branch, however, had been so shaken and such a complete mess that he hadn’t stopped to question Kait’s anger. He had just accidentally hit her friend with his truck while trying to get—
Holly.
And what about Holly? Kait had referred to her the night he kissed her in the attic. It was the first time he had heard Holly Raynard’s name in years, and at the time it blindsided him. Even at the time of the accident, he’d barely known her, but he had known her enough to want to make sure she got home safely. In a town as small as theirs, everyone knew everyone in some way. Holly had been drunk out of her mind that night, and he’d had to pretty much drag her to his truck, but that was where his connection with her began and ended.
Not in Kait’s eyes, obviously.
Branch pulled his rented Escape in front of the door of Forrester’s Auto. The garage had three bays and looked identical to his memories of the building when he was a kid, back when it was still owned by the Robinsons. The only difference was the huge Forrester’s Auto sign above the doors, in vibrant green and white, not faded by years of the sun beating down on it the way the old Robinson’s sign had looked. A Christmas wreath hung on the door into the office, lit up with green and red lights, and a familiar Dodge truck was parked at the side of the building.
‘Thank God,’ he muttered under his breath. Climbing out of the vehicle, Branch was met by the curious eyes of his friend as the door opened up and his head peeked out.
‘Sterling, I forgot you were driving one of those.’ Jason stepped out into the cold, clad in a pair of stained work pants that were probably cleaner than they looked and a T-shirt with a flannel shirt over it. ‘Not sure I’ll ever get used to you driving an SUV, to be honest. Isn’t that like one step away from a minivan?’
Branch ignored the joke. ‘The night of the accident, did you ever hear anything about some pictures?’
Jason’s face grew serious. ‘What?’
‘Pictures,’ he repeated more urgently. ‘Have there been rumors about pictures from that night?’
‘It’s a little early, and that was a long time ago, so you’re going to have to explain yourself a little better. Preferably inside, where the heat’s on.’ He waved him inside.
Branch followed him into a cluttered office, the heat blasting from the electric heater beside the battered desk – well, he assumed there was a desk somewhere under the pile of papers and pens and Post-it notes. Amidst the mess, Jason located his abandoned travel mug and took a drink.
‘Now, what’s this about pictures?’ he asked, his forehead wrinkled in confusion. ‘Who would want to take pictures of that?’
‘Not of the accident,’ Branch explained, shuddering at the thought. He took a seat in one of the two chairs nearest the door, presumably for customers to use while they waited for their vehicles. ‘I just came from The Port, where Kait lost it on me. I think she thinks I’m trying to sell my grandparents’ house without her finding out.’
Jason’s eyebrows drew down. ‘Are you trying to sell it?’
‘No! I told her a few days ago I’d made the decision to stay in Port Landon. I said I planned on fixing the place up. On being with her.’
‘For the same reason I think she thinks I cheated on her with Holly Raynard at the graduation party that night,’ he stated, a bad taste forming in his mouth at even having to say the words aloud. ‘I think Zach lied to her.’
‘Whoa, wait a second.’ Jason was struggling to wrap his head around it all, and Branch gave him the time he needed. He could relate to the breakneck speed of information being thrown at him. ‘There isn’t a person in this town, then or now, who’d believe you would cheat on Kait, man.’
Something sparked in his chest – pride. It felt good to hear that his sense of honor was noticed and appreciated by people other than himself. ‘But maybe they would be swayed if there were pictures that made it look like I was.’
‘You think Canton took pictures of you and Holly, then showed them to Kait.’ It wasn’t a question, and Jason’s features were tight and grave.
‘It’s the only explanation I can come up with. She mentioned pictures on Zach’s phone today, and she asked me about Holly one afternoon when she was at the house. Why else would she do that? I haven’t seen Holly Raynard since that night, and as far as I know she doesn’t even live here anymore.’
‘Last I heard, she was trying her luck in Nashville,’ Jason replied absently, his mind obviously elsewhere. ‘She’s been gone a long time.’
‘Not to Kait.’ Branch’s thoughts resembled the jumbled mess of the desk in front of him. Yet, he had a gut feeling he was right about this. He had no proof, but he had to be right. ‘She’s been thinking I cheated this entire time, I’m sure of it.’
‘Canton never was a fan of you,’ Jason added. ‘And he managed to date Kait for like two years after you left.’
Branch couldn’t hide his scowl. ‘I know, she told me. What I can’t understand is how no one knows about it. I mean, if there are incriminating pictures and lies about me being with Holly that were bad enough to hurt Kait the way they did, to make her think I would be capable of doing something like that, then how does no one else know about it? I’ve never heard anything about this until now, Jay. You’ve lived here the entire time since the accident. Have you heard this rumor?’
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