She bit back a laugh. “Actually, I wrote one, but tore it up a few minutes ago.”
From somewhere back in the apartment, Deanna called out, “I made her do it, so you can thank me.”
Startled, he looked over her head toward the sound of Dee’s voice, then touched Kate’s cheek with his fingertips. “Look, if you don’t want to go, just say the word.”
He was so different from what she would’ve expected of someone with a background like his. Where was the superficial charm, the arrogant, offhand sense of entitlement that so many of the fraternity guys wore like a badge of honor?
Remembering his gentle defense of the little boy at the corner store, she fought the urge to lean into his touch. One date. What could be the harm? Just one evening, and she’d back away from all the temptation before her...before it was too late.
“That note was...um...a mistake,” she admitted.
“I’m glad.” His eyes twinkled. “Tell your friend that I owe her a favor. Are you all set?”
She grabbed her purse and denim jacket from a bench by the door. Out in the crisp night air, their hands automatically caught and held as they strolled through the fallen leaves covering the sidewalks.
The sweet scent of burning leaves drifted on the breeze, coupled with the aroma of cinnamon-laden apple pie emanating from one of the 1940s stucco bungalows they passed on their way to the campus theater.
“I hardly know you,” Jared said, “yet I feel like I’ve known you forever. Is that weird?”
She angled a teasing glance at him. “Maybe we were siblings in another life.”
He laughed. “Believe me, I don’t think of you as my sister.” Silvery moonlight painted the campus in shimmering, eerie shades of gray. In the shadows of a massive old oak, he stopped and turned to her, lifting her chin gently. “In fact, I’ve wanted to do this since the moment we met.”
He hesitated, giving her a chance to pull away, then lowered his mouth to hers for a brief kiss.
It was as if she’d been touched with fire. Sensation and longing spread through her, and she reached up to wrap her arms around his neck. “One more?”
This time, he kissed her longer—still chaste, still holding back, but in that kiss she felt such connection, such longing unfolding inside her, that at first she was only dimly aware of the single word echoing through her heart.
Forever... Forever...
And she knew that no matter what happened in her life, no matter what happened with this relationship or with any others, she would never forget this moment in Jared’s arms.
THE IRONY OF THE PLAY’S romantic conflicts amused her, though she scarcely heard the actors speak. Instead, she was aware of Jared’s woodsy aftershave. The warmth of his arm next to hers. The surreptitious glances of some of the other students in the theater.
For this one precious night, she felt like the wealthiest princess in the world—flying high and savoring every moment.
Afterward, they lingered at a coffee shop, talking until the lone waitress stopped mopping the floor and told them it was long past time for the place to close.
With obvious regret, Jared stood, flipped a five-dollar bill onto the table and ushered Kate outside. “I think I could’ve stayed there till dawn, if she hadn’t told us to go. Next time, we’ll have to try that all-night diner on Fourth.”
Next time? Maybe... Kate’s heart lifted, even as reality started to nip at her thoughts. “What would your mother say if she knew you were hanging out with someone like me?”
“Like you?” The surprise in his voice was palpable. “What wouldn’t she like?”
“Who have you dated before—girls from your country club? Your social circle?”
“Yes, but...” He faltered. “That’s just ’cause they were attending the same school, I guess.”
“I don’t think we should see each other again.”
At that, he stopped short and gently swung her around to face him. “My family has nothing to do with this.”
“No?” She took a slow breath as she gathered her courage. “Mine does...and I think yours would take issue with that.”
“Our families don’t matter.”
They would. He just didn’t know it yet, and if she could save them the embarrassment and awkwardness of that revelation, they’d both be better off.
But then their eyes met. Locked.
Looking up into his strong, chiseled face, she saw his eyes melt as he stared down at her, and her heart expanded until it barely fit in her chest.
She’d dated a few boys in high school. She’d had a girlish attraction to some of the coolest guys at school, and after seeing the Star Wars and Indiana Jones movies, she’d had a silly crush on Harrison Ford.
But never had anyone made her feel like Jared did—a soul-deep attraction that she felt with every fiber of her being.
“I want to see you again. Tomorrow night?”
The deep timbre of his voice and its absolute determination sensitized her skin, sending renewed shivers of awareness through her. Every bit of her resolve fled like a fallen leaf on the rising October wind.
She nodded, feeling a little faint.
The obstacles between Shakespeare’s young lovers in the play had been amusing...but they didn’t hold a candle to what lay in her past. One more time...just one more evening couldn’t hurt, could it?
But all the way home she prayed that she hadn’t made a big mistake.
KATE SPENT SUNDAY AFTERNOON in the vet school library, trying to study for her anatomy test on Monday. Mostly, she watched the time tick by slowly...slowly...slowly...taunting her with the imperceptible drag of the minute hand as it made its way around the broad white face of the clock on the wall.
At five, she allowed herself to launch out of her chair and jog home, where she showered, tried on four different outfits, and finally made a cheap box of macaroni and cheese to share with Deanna. Leesa, as usual, was at the stable, where she’d go whenever she had a spare hour or two.
“Hot date,” Deanna mused, a forkful of garish orange macaroni halfway to her mouth. “Whoever could it be?”
Kate fixed her with a quelling stare. “Don’t embarrass me when Jared comes over, okay?”
Her hand at her chest, Deanna feigned astonishment. “Me? Embarrass you? Never.”
“I shouldn’t even be doing this, you know.”
“Why not? He's an absolute doll, and from the look in his eyes, he already adores you. What could possibly go wrong?"
“Charlesburg?”
At that single word, Deanna lowered her fork to her plate, and her other hand dropped to her lap.
“See?” A wave of hopelessness and frustration settled in Kate’s stomach like a cold, dead weight. “I have to tell him, because he’ll find out anyway. Either way...”
“But you aren’t responsible for your family. No one can hold that against you.”
“Headline news? Of course they can. Remember our high school prom?”
Whenever she thought of that night years ago, the embarrassment still sent flames burning in her cheeks.
Because she had lived so far out in the country, she’d offered to drive into town and meet her date at the high school. Phillip had already been inside, standing in a circle of friends, their heads bent together. When one of them spied her, they’d broken apart instantly and her heart had taken a slow-motion dive to the floor.
Phillip turned his back on her, took the arm of Chelsea Goodwin and went out on the dance floor. His other two friends strolled over to Kate, their faint smirks barely hiding their anticipation.
“Is it true?” Wendy exclaimed. “Really?”
Kate stared at them, feeling herself shrink against the cool cement block wall of the gym.
“I mean, I never met anyone related to a murderer before!” Wendy's eyes widened with horrified glee over such a delicious piece of gossip to share.
“I—” Kate’s words lodged in her throat. She knew exactly what would happen next.
Everyone at the prom would hear the story in minutes, and then the entire school. The whole town. She’d gone to live with various relatives since eighth grade. Different schools, different states, but the past always caught up with her, branding her forever with the most terrible time of her life. And she'd be a pariah once again.
So she’d fled from the prom. Deanna had run after her a few minutes later—but only after furiously berating Wendy for her careless words.
. “Forget about what happened back in high school." Deanna enveloped Kate in a big hug, then stepped back. "Jared isn’t like those awful kids were."
“I’d like to believe it.”
“Then do. You’ve barely dated the past four years. It’s time to give someone a chance.” Deanna waggled her eyebrows à la Groucho Marx then settled down at the kitchen table with a stack of textbooks. “Especially Jared. Like, he’s totally awesome. And,” she added with a grin, “maybe he has an equally rad brother.”
Kate rolled her eyes.
“Maybe you misunderstood him and he was going to come next weekend or something.” Deanna looked over the top of her pharmacology textbook. “That has to be it.”
After washing the dishes, Kate glanced at the clock on the stove. Almost midnight. She paced the small apartment for a while, then collapsed on the couch with her homework. “Or he had second thoughts. It’s just as well.”
“You could call him. Maybe he forgot.”
“Even if I wanted to, I lost his number. Not that I’d actually do it.”
“You are the most stubborn person I ever met.” Deanna flipped to another page in her book and fell silent for a few minutes before looking up again. “By the way, there was a guy outside this morning—after you left. He pulled his car to a stop in front of the apartment building and asked Leesa and me a lot of questions.”
“He was hitting on you, I bet.”
“Yuck. I hope not—he had to be fifty or more. Sorta bald. Business suit.”
“You shouldn’t talk to strangers, Dee,” Kate intoned, mimicking Deanna’s mother. “I heard your mom say that lots of times.”
“Hey, Leesa and I could run faster’n he could, believe me, ’cause he was pretty hefty. He said he was doing a survey of the building and was randomly picking residents coming out of the door."
Kate made a face. “Did you tell him about the ants? The mold in the bathroom?”
“He mostly asked friendly questions about us. Where we were from, why we’d moved here, our majors and so on. Oh, and how happy we are with the place, of course. He was really disappointed that he missed talking to you, too.”
“How do you know he was who he said he was? Did you call the apartment manager?”
Deanna snorted and threw her hands up in defeat. “Leesa and I aren’t exactly stupid, thank you very much. He was just a business-like older man. You are way too paranoid, but if it makes you feel better, you can call.”
Mollified, Kate sank back against the cushions and managed a contrite smile. “Sorry. Guess I’m just a little edgy...since Prince Charming didn’t show up, and all. Which is just as well, really, because that saves me from any awkward situations later on.”
“Like, when you refuse to go out with him again? You oughta be pretty good at shutting guys down by now.”
She shrugged, but Deanna wasn’t even close. Kate was looking ahead to the situation that might occur if she dared follow her heart and got as far as meeting his family.
She could only imagine what the Mathers’ would think if they looked too deeply into her family’s past.
The specter of a tabloid frenzy would have them barricading their doors.
“YOU’RE SURE IT’S THE same girl?” Sylvia Mathers leaned closer to the entryway mirror and touched the corner of her mouth with a long fingernail, correcting a minuscule smudge of lipstick. “Absolutely sure?”
“Definitely.”
Dexter shoved his hands in his pockets, which was infinitely better than watching him fidget with his watch, his wedding band, and the cuffs of his suit jacket. And once again, Sylvia second-guessed her decision to send her stuffy brother on such an important mission.
“You talked to this girl? The one Jared told me about on the phone this morning?” She suppressed a shudder. “The one he thinks is his dream girl?”
He twitched, averted his gaze. “Not Kate. She wasn’t there. But her roommates were talkative enough. Then I drove clear up to Charlesburg—four hours away—and asked around about her family. As always, you were right. They spell trouble with a capital T. Have you told Jared that you were checking up on her background?”
“You know how he is—always leaping to the defense of the downtrodden and misunderstood.” Sylvia snorted. “So I simply reminded him of his current and future duty to this family. I also reminded him of his ‘long-standing’ commitment tonight.”
“The children’s hospital gala?”
“I told him that he’d promised to be my escort. He brought me home just a few minutes ago. Nice affair, actually. Big crowd, successful benefit.” She reined in a tired sigh. “See and be seen, as they say.”
“Is it worth it, Syl?” Dexter’s voice held a note of reproach. “Maybe your kids don’t care about all of this.”
“My children are my life. And I’m going to see that they take their rightful places in society.”
“Well...maybe they want something different for themselves. Maybe they don’t care about all the status and money and power.”
“Don’t care?” Sylvia lifted her chin. “They’re too young to understand their father’s legacy right now, but they’ll thank me in the future. You can bet on it.”
“You should be thinking about who you want all this for—you or them.” Dexter regarded her for a long moment, then his shoulders slumped and he turned to the door. “Because I think you’re going to drive them away, and then you’ll have nothing. Nothing at all.”
She clenched her fingers on the back of a chair until her arthritis ached and her knuckles were white, still staring at the door long after Dexter was gone. He had no clue. No clue at all about how hard things were right now.
Which meant, she supposed, that she’d been a success. Smoke and mirrors—her life now amounted to that and nothing more, because Ellsworth had died so young.
A stock market plunge had decimated their investments just before his death, but then he’d always been foolish—too focused on his constituents to pay proper attention to his family’s financial security. One avaricious, sleazy little constituent in particular. She'd extracted quite a cozy nest egg for herself in exchange for her silence after the senator died in her arms on the dance floor of some tacky bar.
He’d been careless about other matters as well—like maintaining adequate life insurance—and he'd left his family in luxurious housing Sylvia could scarcely afford, with mounting debts beyond anything left in the bank.
So now she worked long hours on full commission in an upscale dress shop, on the pretext that she was simply bored and needed something beyond her volunteer activities to fill her time. She found creative ways to keep up a good front—buying designer garments and accessories that had been returned to the shop soiled or damaged, and then discounted. Or skillfully refurbishing the classic pieces she already owned.
But above all, she had a plan—a perfect plan—to ensure that the future would be far, far better.
And her children were the ones who could make that happen.
CHAPTER SIX
PRESENT DAY
Kate rubbed her arms, trying to stir some warmth into her cold flesh. Was it twenty degrees in here? Thirty?
At ten o’clock, the hallway lights had dimmed, leaving just the harsh glare of ceiling lights in the empty hospital waiting room and the glow of the red exit signs at either end of the hallway she’d been pacing for the last two hours.
Bright light taunted her from behind the double doors marked Staff Only. More than once she’d stopped at those doors to res
t her forehead against the frosted windows, willing someone to come out.
Desperately needing to hear good news.
The last announcements hadn’t been promising. Blood loss. Concern about reducing the pressure in Jared’s brain before permanent damage occurred. From the nurse’s grim expression, things were going worse than expected, and there wasn’t a single thing Kate could do to help except pray.
She’d certainly kept the line to God open the entire evening—praying Jared would survive, praying that he wouldn’t have permanent damage. Praying that Casey, Julia, and Sylvia would arrive in time for goodbyes if he was beyond hope, though that thought renewed her silent tears every time.
I wish I could go back...do things right. Take back things I’ve said... I’d be a better wife. A better mom.
The silence of the hospital mocked her as she hesitated at the doors once again, then resumed her pacing.
At the sudden ring of her cell phone she nearly jumped out of her skin, then fumbled to pull it from her jacket pocket. Her heart raced as she squinted at the name on the screen.
“Tom?”
“How are you holding up, Kate?” Jared’s law partner’s voice was warm and sympathetic, but she could hear a note of hesitance, too.
“All right, I guess. No—” She shoved a hand through her hair. “It’s awful, waiting to hear. Casey won’t arrive till sometime tomorrow, and Sylvia’s on her way.”
“But no news is good news, right? He must be holding up in surgery or they would’ve come out to tell you by now. I’m just so sorry I can’t be there with you.”
“I wouldn’t expect you to be. H-how’s Neta?”
“She’s doing okay.” The single word held a weary acceptance that spoke of all the trials they’d been through with his wife Neta’s worsening cancer and coping with their three young children. “I hate to keep you on the phone, but thought you should know that a deputy came out to see me tonight. He left just a few minutes ago.”
“About the accident?”
“And about the deceased. We talked at the house, then drove to the office and looked over the planner that Jared keeps on his desk. We couldn’t find anything about an appointment this afternoon. There weren’t any messages on his office phone, either, and his cell was destroyed in the fire.”
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