by Jaycee Clark
Landon had seen she’d been having a good time, so of course he’d stopped it. She realized she was fidgeting with her glove and stilled, her stomach tightening. For just a moment, she’d dared to relax. She should have known better.
Would he be quiet all the way home?
Would he demand answers, all of which would be wrong? Landon was confusing at best, scary at worst.
There was a time when she’d thought he was a wonderful man, someone she had things in common with, someone she’d always admire and respect. She knew now that wasn’t true. Landon could lie so well. His charm and smiles hid who he really was until she felt trapped.
She just didn’t know how to get away from him. He was always there. At her apartment, at work, always at work, and now in her head. That’s what scared her the most. The man was in her head and she—
“Did you have to make such a cake of yourself?” he asked, interrupting her thoughts and startling her.
There it was. She almost sighed. Landon quiet was still better than when he demanded answers, wanted to talk about whatever else she’d done wrong. And she always did something wrong. “I didn’t, Landon.”
He leaned in close to her. “You damned well did. It was embarrassing. Others remarked on it.”
She looked down at the sidewalk and wished again she hadn’t come tonight. Who, if anyone, had said anything and what was said? Had she made a cake of herself? She hadn’t thought so.
“I sim-simply danced with the man.”
“You flirted with him.”
She knew better than to argue with him. He hated if she talked back, and she’d learned the hard way not to.
She glanced up at him out of the corner of her eye. A muscle twitched in his jaw and the line between his brows deepened.
Her stomach tightened even more, burning. Maybe she could get another ride home? But with whom? All those inside were his friends so she wouldn’t ask any of them.
Cabs weren’t stopping. Though if one showed up before the valet brought Landon’s car around . . .
Tired, she turned to him. “No. I did not flirt, Landon. I merely danced and talked with someone. There is no harm in that.” Something flickered in his dark eyes and she swallowed. “I’ll—I’ll get a cab home until you’re in a better mood.”
Quick as a snake, he reached out and grabbed her arm, jerking her to him. How could handsome be so cold?
“Are you calling me a liar?” he asked her, his voice slithering across her skin, his dark eyes glittering at her.
She froze. Stupid, very, very stupid. She knew better, but a part of her was tired of Landon and all his restrictions and his quick temper. She’d learned, though, not to be herself, not with Landon.
“I don’t believe I said that at all, Landon,” she said calmly. She tried to twist her arm away, but he tightened his hold on her and pulled her even closer, leaning down into her face.
“Either you’re mine or you’re not, Katherine. You do not flirt with other men. Ever,” he hissed. “And you never, ever make a fool of me.”
Her arm would be bruised tomorrow.
“You are my fiancée,” he bit out, “and you should act like it.”
“I didn’t—”
“Ah, the darling affianced couple of the evening,” a voice drawled.
She knew that voice. Closing her eyes, she took a small breath and jerked her arm away from Landon’s hold. Surprisingly, he let her go.
“I’m sorry, was I interrupting?” Kinncaid asked as he nodded to the valet. “Richie, good to see you again. How’s your mom doing?” he asked the young valet attendant.
“Good, Mr. K. Thanks for asking.”
“Tell her I said hello, and if you get tired of working this gig, call. Your old spot’s always open.”
“Thanks, sir.” The young man took off smiling.
Kinncaid turned back to them just as the valet brought Landon’s Mercedes to a gentle stop near the curb.
Damn.
Landon stepped closer to her at her back and chills danced over her skin.
“I had meant to tell you, Doc, thanks for allowing me to dance with your lovely fiancée. You’re a lucky man.” His dark blue eyes rested on her, then dropped to her arm, where she realized she was rubbing it through her glove. She stopped.
Landon snorted. “Yes, well, she’s learning.”
Shame warmed her cheeks. Couldn’t they just go? She wasn’t a bone to be snarled over.
Something flashed in Kinncaid’s blue eyes as they rose from her arm to meet her own eyes before he looked over her shoulder. “Something so beautiful should always be cherished, never mistreated.”
“I completely agree, Mr. Kinncaid,” Landon said. “But sometimes the treasures must learn how to shine.”
Kinncaid made a noise in his throat. Some sort of growl or grunt. A cab pulled to the curb behind Landon’s car even as a shiny blue Stingray pulled in behind the cab.
Kinncaid shifted as she did.
She’d had enough.
“Good night, gentlemen. I’d say it’s been enjoyable, but I was taught not to lie.”
Not daring to look back, she jerked her hand away from Landon when he reached for her, walked to the cab and climbed in. Both men were staring after her.
Kinncaid’s lips were tilted up at the corners.
Landon’s lips were pressed together and the muscle bunched in his cheek.
Her hands trembled as she climbed into the cab and gave him her address.
She’d pay for leaving Landon standing there. She knew it, she just had no idea how to get away from it. With her work, her job she’d worked hard for, she didn’t want to give it up. Giving up meant saying Landon had won another part of her. If she quit, she’d be giving him what she knew he’d want, though he hadn’t said that. Sighing, she leaned back and met Kinncaid’s eyes as he grinned and tilted his head at her.
Kaitlyn closed her eyes and wondered when and how her life had become so complicated.
Chapter 2
Autumn 1969
She was not going to marry that man.
Kaitlyn O’Reilly looked at the diamond ring winking from her nightstand. She wanted to know what she should do. How to get away from him. Was there a how?
She thought of all the women she’d talked to in the emergency room at Sinai Hospital, the ones she’d helped, the ones she hadn’t.
How stupid she’d been. How naïve. She really had no clue, had she?
Kaitlyn wished she could talk to Grammy about it all, but that wasn’t going to happen.
Grammy was in Ireland and she was here in America, now wasn’t she? Being her own person. Being a big girl.
As an RN in one of the major hospitals in Baltimore, she loved her work. Loved her job. Or she had.
Did she love the man who had given her the ring?
And the bruise? Or bruises, as there’d been more than one?
Sighing, she got up and grabbed a sweater off the hook by the door.
The cabin was quiet. Quiet and peaceful and still she didn’t know what exactly to do. It wasn’t like Landon would just let her walk away. She knew that. The esteemed surgeon would not appreciate being jilted by a mere nurse; he’d never allow it. He had plans. She wanted away from him, wanted to be free, but she couldn’t stay in Baltimore if she broke the engagement, she couldn’t. There would be no way. He’d make her life hell.
He already made her life a living hell.
She didn’t want to move. That’s what it would take to get away from him. He was smooth, well-liked, and a successful surgeon at the hospital. Her friends were split over him.
Rainey told her to ditch his ass and come up here to clear her head. So she did. Or tried to.
Rainey and her husband, Oliver, were nice to let her borrow the cabin for a couple of days. Her other friends weren’t as vocal as Rainey.
Nievan, a young Irishwoman, devout as Kaitlyn’s own grandmother, said Landon was a nice man and she should give him another chance. Ever
yone had bad days.
Bad days?
Was that all it was? Bad days led to her getting hit?
He’d lost a patient just before the first time he’d turned on her. Maybe Nievan was right, but that didn’t make it any better. She and Nievan had a lot in common. Orphaned, raised by grandmothers, both in Ireland. How they’d both landed in an ER rotation in Baltimore was anyone’s guess.
Rainey, on the other hand, was all American and full of women’s rights. Rainey and Oliver had both been at the music festival at Woodstock.
Kaitlyn, always the good girl, always doing what she was told, enjoyed her free-spirited friends. Why was she always so . . . so good? Why?
Because she wanted her own family. She wasn’t a feminist like Rainey, though she believed in women’s rights. She wasn’t the placid Irish girl like Nievan either. Kaitlyn was somewhere in between and she had no idea what to do.
There was no one like Grammy she could talk to, no one who really got her.
No one knew what she went through. No one could.
He’d been so charming at first. She’d been herself and he’d always bantered with her. Just a small swap of words here or there in the hallways as they’d met or went about their days. He’d asked her to dinner and she figured, why not? He was a man all the single nurses—and even some of the married nurses—wanted to spend time with. He’d bought her flowers, listened attentively about her work, something she had found most men did not have an interest in, let alone what else she wanted to do. As they’d spent more time together, she thought she’d found love, found Mr. Right, and by the time she realized he was not someone she wanted to spend her life with . . . Well, she was trying to figure that out.
Had she really loved him? She had thought she had. Did she still?
And she’d tried to break it off with him, several times. None had worked. None had been as blatant and to the point as this last one had been either. Maybe this time he got it?
No, she knew he hadn’t.
Forget this, she was going for a walk, going to get out and clear her head.
“Please, God, I just need a sign.” A map would be good, but she knew that wasn’t going to happen.
She stepped outside and pulled the wooden door closed. The shaded wooden porch of the cabin was cool, as the air here in the mountains was cooler than it was in the city. Today was bright, the sky blue, the leaves a cacophony of colors. Brilliant gold, deep rust, bright orange, flashy red, nutty browns. She pulled in a deep breath, decaying leaves, wood smoke, and the lake mixing together to meld into autumn.
Her hands twitched. She wished she could paint the colors. It had been a long time since she’d painted. Her parents had given her art lessons for years before they died. After the accident and the move to Ireland and Grammy, well, art lessons were a thing of the past.
She still missed drawing, though, missed the smell of paint and seeing what she could create on the canvas.
Sighing, she tucked her sweater tighter around her and folded her hands under her arms.
Maybe the air would clear her mind, tell her what to do. Well, she knew what to do—get away. The question in her mind was how. He was controlling.
He’d already told her if she didn’t quit her job after they were married he’d make sure she did. She believed him. She had no idea how Landon would make it happen, but she knew he would and she knew without a doubt she would not enjoy it.
She didn’t want to quit.
Kaitlyn O’Reilly was not a quitter, not because some man wanted her to.
She hadn’t been one of those women either who had ever been scared of a man, but here she was hiding in a cabin by a lake.
She hadn’t told him she was leaving yesterday. Hadn’t told him she was or wasn’t going to quit.
She was supposed to work this weekend, but she’d called her boss and begged off. Asking her to please, please not mention her taking off to Dr. Goldburg.
By now he knew. By now he’d wonder where she went.
A bird’s call drew her attention.
For now she didn’t want to think of Landon or what he could or couldn’t do. Of what she should do. Of how to get out of the mess she found herself in.
The gravel crunched under her white Keds, and her jeans offered a nice barrier to the chilled breeze blowing off the dark blue lake. Maybe she’d just walk around it, and maybe this time some answer would come to her.
She glanced up. “Please, God. Give me a sign. Something. Anything. I really don’t know what to do here . . .” Great, now she was talking to herself.
The only thing she knew was that it wouldn’t be easy.
• • •
Jock Kinncaid leaned back against the rocks and looked across the lake at the cabins dotting the shoreline. The docks. His cabin was up the shore a bit and behind him. He had a dock he could have been sitting on, but he preferred this strip of beach where the trees shoved their way closer to the lake and rocks almost kissed the water. He laid his book aside and tilted his head back, closing his eyes.
He was tired. Tired of always . . . always doing. Business was better than it had ever been. Kinncaid Enterprises had purchased several prime pieces of real estate across the nation and hotels were being built.
One brother was in law school and another was in the grave. Damn the war.
He had his career. The family business was thriving.
He would have said he had all he wanted.
Something, though, was missing. He wanted more.
More of what, he had no idea—or, well, he did. He just wasn’t sure how to obtain it . . . her. The woman he’d wanted but hadn’t found. Then again, he hadn’t really had time to look with the hotel problems in New York and the construction screwups in Miami. He’d finally been free about a week ago and then he’d looked. He’d learned from a friend in Baltimore who the doctor was, and that the fiancée worked as a nurse in the same hospital. When he’d gone by to talk to her, she hadn’t been there and he’d been told she’d taken time off.
K. O’Reilly. Katherine.
He was standing there wondering if he even had the right woman when another nurse, Rainey, had bounced up and asked him what he wanted, and he’d ascertained that Kay—as she’d called her—wasn’t there. He’d mumbled that he needed a vacation.
Nurse Rainey whoever had told him that this lake was a great spot.
So he’d come here, why not? He needed some time away. Maybe then he’d figure out what to do next.
Months ago, if anyone had asked him if he wanted to be tied down, he’d have laughed. He had liked his variety. Lately, he’d gotten tired of it. All the women were after the same thing. His money. His name.
But one glance across a ballroom, one too-short dance for some medical function, and all he’d been able to think about was Katherine-who-shouldn’t-be-with-the-doctor. Hell, he couldn’t keep up with the charities, they were all the same. He’d gone because of friends. Left a hefty check. But after that he’d thought only of that one dance. Of Katherine and her green eyes and the shadows in them. Green eyes that didn’t smile, though he’d had her smiling.
He should have followed her home that evening. Instead, he’d driven away thinking of the woman with sad eyes. And the dick she’d been with whom he should have punched. He’d seen them talking from inside the hotel before he’d walked out.
Was that it? Was it her who made him want more? That one moment, that one dance?
Or was it when Paul had gotten hurt?
He’d been fine until Paul, a friend, had been in the accident. Not a bad accident, but he’d been hurt nonetheless. Jock had driven the man home from the hospital and his wife had met them at the door. Pregnant and another one hiding behind her. Jock had watched as she worried and fussed over Paul, who had his arm in a sling and a bandage over his forehead.
Jock realized then what was missing.
Someone who cared.
Someone he could care for. He’d stood in that living room near the s
ofa with bright orange flowers on it and watched as Paul’s wife had stressed and worried over him, and he’d seen how Paul worried that she was worried.
Jock realized for all his wealth, for all his success, he didn’t have the simplest, most basic of all needs met.
He wanted that . . . a life with someone.
He wanted the woman who worried about him, whom he worried about because he didn’t want her to worry. He wanted this fictional woman to start a family with him. A family he could pass the business onto one day. He wanted more than a couple of kids because life had already taught him fate was fickle and could take loved ones away in the blink of an eye.
He’d thought of this woman for so long, he wasn’t even dating. Which defeated the whole damned purpose, didn’t it? He knew it did. But he wanted more.
He knew the women from the country club, knew their parents. Knew who wanted him in their family. Or rather, would love to have their families and legacies joined.
And in all his musings, that nameless woman in his mind had red hair, freckles across her nose, and emerald green eyes he could almost make smile.
He’d tried to find out who she was, but his friend didn’t know. He could have gone and found her, looked harder for her, but maybe it was best he stayed out of it.
Or maybe he’d find her still and toss the doctor aside and . . . and what? Who the hell knew.
So here he was this weekend, on the lake alone because none of his friends wanted his sorry ass around, and that was fine with him. He needed to figure out what the hell he wanted to do. He didn’t want to read any more Yeats, he thought, looking over at his slim book.
He needed to get laid.
He needed something to do.
He was not some lovesick jackass like his brother Broderick, who was all about asking that Dainburg woman to marry him. Jock had begged him to wait until after law school. If the woman was any woman at all, she’d wait for him, let him get established. As they were both Kinncaids, Rick had looked at him like Jock had lost his damned mind.