by Seana Kelly
“How can he be busy all the time?” Connor grumbled as he replaced his phone in his pocket. “Never mind about that. Jack would love a free breakfast, and I could get a few more retired cronies who’ll jump at the chance to have a pretty woman cook for them.” His grin was infectious, and took some of the sting out of Aiden’s continued rejection.
I excused myself, heading to the restroom. I needed to shake it off. Fuckers gonna fuck. Dicks gonna dick.
“Hello again, Kate. It’s Cady now, isn’t it? I heard you got married.”
That Nancy woman came out of a stall. She looked perfect, as usual, but there was a meanness in her eyes that gave me pause. “Actually, Gallagher is fine.”
She paused at the sink. “But I thought I heard you were married now.” Her voice was sharp and insinuating.
I took a deep breath. This was life in a small town, everyone in your business. “I’m in the process of divorcing.” I tilted my head, studying her. “I’m sorry, what was your name again?” Because fuck her.
Her smile was brittle. “Nancy Wilkins. Well, it’s certainly been a while.” She looked me up and down. “It must be hard, going through a divorce. The failure of love is tragic, isn’t it?” Her tone was solicitous as she asked, “Having a hard time sleeping?”
“What?” I looked at my reflection in the mirror. Did I look haggard? I saw a brief smirk in my peripheral vision. “You know, it’s funny, Nancy. I just don’t remember you at all. I’m sure I saw you often as a child, but—” I shrugged, shaking my head “—some people I remember like it was yesterday, while others, nothing.” I walked out of the restroom, back to Connor.
When he saw me, he tossed his napkin on the table and pulled out some money, leaving it under his plate. “Come on. We’ve got some groceries to buy, and how about we stop off at the hardware store and check out paint colors for the walls?”
Shake it off, Kate. “You bet. That sounds great.”
My mind was buzzing when I dropped Connor off at his place. I had paint samples in my bag and catalogs of dishware and cookware. I couldn’t wait to lay it all out on the table and geek out, choosing colors and designs. “Thanks, Connor.” I grabbed and squeezed his hand. “You’ve turned a monumentally crappy day into one of my best days ever.” I leaned forward and kissed his cheek. “I think you may be my fairy godfather.”
He chuckled. “Pleasure’s all mine.” He hopped out and then leaned back in. “Do some thinking, and we can meet again tomorrow to plan.” He waved. “Have a good evening, sweetheart.”
* * *
A FEW DAYS LATER, I sat on the floor of the diner, Chaucer at my side, and gazed at the newly painted walls. “I love it! Don’t you love it?” I studied the antique gold of the Italian plaster. It was perfect, just how I’d pictured it in my head. I pulled the dishware catalog into my lap, placed adhesive flags next to me and began to narrow down my top ten.
I heard the back door open. Chaucer stood and growled, low and soft. I wasn’t expecting anyone and didn’t realize the back door was unlocked. I would have assumed it was Connor or Bear except for Chaucer’s reaction. I stood silently, braced for what was coming.
“Katherine.” Justin stood in the doorway to the kitchen, his face strangely blank.
My body tensed, readying for the insult. Old habits were hard to break. I reached out to place my hand on Chaucer’s head. The growling stopped immediately.
Justin followed my hand, his gaze resting on Chaucer. “Of course, the dog you keep. The husband you throw out.” He studied me. “I see your priorities and common sense haven’t improved during this little vacation of yours.” He glanced down at the catalog and the notes I was making. A smirk lifted one side of his perfect mouth. “Oh, Katherine, really? Tell me someone didn’t actually hire you to run a restaurant. That is—” he shook his head “—ridiculous. And pathetic.”
He sauntered around the room, studying the layout. “Your lawyer contacted me. She gave me divorce papers to sign. What will you do if I refuse?” He turned to watch me. “Even if I were to sign the papers, it takes months to finalize an uncontested divorce. If you’re thinking you can live off alimony—my money, Katherine—for the rest of your life, you’d better think again. I’d rather be unemployed and living on the streets than give you another dime.” He smiled cruelly. “Whatever will you do?”
I laughed and shook my head. “God, you’re like a villain in a soap opera. Why the hell did I let you tie me up in knots for so long?” I made a shooing motion with my hand. “Go. Twirl your mustache somewhere else.”
He stepped toward me, anger lining his face.
I held up a staying hand. “Justin, you don’t love me. I doubt you ever did. California is a no-fault state. We have no children—”
“Thank God,” he interjected. “You’re so stupid, Katherine. Why do you think you never got pregnant? I had that taken care of before we were even married. I did not want a fat wife running after snotty kids. No. That was not going to be my life.”
I don’t know what happened. He was sneering at me one minute, and then staggering back, blood dripping from his nose the next. I shook out my quickly swelling hand. Where the hell was my bat? “Strictly speaking, I don’t think it’s stupid to love and trust your husband, but, yes, I was stupid not to have seen the kind of man you are, not to have left you sooner.”
Chaucer stepped in front of me, hackles raised, his deep growl vibrating through the floor. Justin stopped, wiping the blood from his lip, uncertainty flitting across his features.
“I wouldn’t if I were you, Justin. Chaucer hates you even more than I do.” It was my turn to smirk. I could read the conflict as clear as day. He was frightened by Chaucer but didn’t want to back down, admit defeat. Chaucer leaned forward and Justin stepped back.
I heard the back door open again. “Katie? Can I talk to you, please?” Aiden stepped out from the kitchen and stopped short. “Oh, excuse me.” His gaze ran over Justin, assessing the situation. Chaucer was still growling, the fur between his shoulders standing up. Aiden moved forward, towering over Justin’s slim athletic five feet nine inches. Aiden’s muscles flexed as he crossed his arms. “Kate, will you introduce me to your friend?”
“He’s not a friend. This is my ex-husband, Justin Cady.”
“So, that’s it, is it?” Justin had found his voice. “You’ve already found another man to take care of you. How long, Katherine? How long before you jumped into some other man’s bed?”
“Gee, I don’t know. I’ve kinda been juggling two of ’em. This one and one that’s even bigger and better-looking.”
Justin spit out, “Whore.” Before he could finish his sneer, Aiden had him slammed against the wall. He’d grabbed Justin’s perfectly pressed white button-down and was holding him by the fabric he’d fisted at Justin’s throat. Justin struggled, turning red.
“Apologize.” Aiden looked huge and frightening as hell as he made the demand.
I put my hand on Aiden’s arm. He didn’t relax his grip, but he let me take over. “I wasn’t trolling for dates on our honeymoon. I didn’t cheat on you throughout our marriage. That was you. Watch who you’re calling a whore.”
It was impossible for him to maintain any dignity while Aiden held him. “Yes, fine, I apologize. That was beneath me.”
Aiden didn’t release him so much as bounce him off the wall.
I straightened my spine. “Why are you here, Justin? You didn’t travel three thousand miles to tell me you think I’m pathetic.” Aiden’s hands fisted. “What do you want?”
Tipping his chin, arrogance returned, he said, “The car, Katherine. I want my car. It’s perfection.”
I smirked. “Yeah, not so much anymore.”
“Side panels and windows can be replaced. The mechanical precision cannot.” His eyes shifted to Aiden, quickly assessing. “I saw it parked
in back. I have my own keys and it’s mine. I’m merely being considerate, telling you I’m taking it.”
A bitter laugh rushed out. “Oh, yeah. You’re nothing if not considerate. Whatever. Take the car. It’s not like I have fond memories of it.” My hand fell to Chaucer. “Or that it fits us. Okay, are we done now? Have you said all the hateful things you needed to say?” Not waiting for an answer, I went on, “Yes? Good? See ya, Justin. Our lawyers can hash out the rest. This is my home now, and as you have no business in Bar Harbor, we never have to see each other again.”
“Let me walk you out.” Aiden held out his hand, leading Justin toward the kitchen. Justin walked quickly through the restaurant and out the back door, with Aiden close on his heels.
I stood, trying to absorb how my day had so suddenly changed. It seemed impossible that I had just been admiring the walls and picking out dishes. Aiden walked in a few moments later. He was shaking out a hand before he noticed me watching him.
Expression tender, concerned, he asked, “Are you okay?”
I was doing fine until he started in with the kindness. My eyes flooded and I turned away. He grabbed my arm and pulled me back to him, crushing me against his chest. But I wasn’t having it. I pushed him away.
“Stop. I don’t like you any better than him.”
His shoulders slumped. “I know. I—” He stuffed his hand in his pockets. “Something you said. I realized I was acting just like—I was being an asshole—”
“Yes. My point exactly. Thank you.” I slapped my thigh. “Come on, Chaucer. We’re out of here.”
“You don’t have a car.”
“But I have feet.” I picked up the catalogs and opened the front door. “Lock the back on your way out.” I didn’t look at him, couldn’t look at him, as I locked the front door. Who the hell did he think he was? Rushing in, looking all hot and fierce, and then giving me his don’t-hate-me-because-I-dumped-you sad eyes.
When we started walking up the street, I realized we were missing something. “Your leash was in the car! Damn it. Even when Justin’s not here, he sucks.” I tapped my leg and said “Heel,” bringing in Chaucer close to my side. How many miles away was Gran’s house?
A few minutes later, Aiden’s truck pulled up next to us, keeping pace. The window rolled down. “Katie, are you really going to walk the two miles home?”
Pfft. Two miles. “That’s nothing, right, buddy?” Chaucer watched Aiden, but kept pace by my side.
“Most of it uphill.”
Sighing, continuing to stare straight ahead, I stopped. “How steep?”
“Very. You’ll probably need climbing ropes, crampons, a harness.”
Bland look engaged, I turned to the open window. “Really?” I needed a special bat backpack so I’d have it at all times.
“Yes, really. And as I’m headed that direction, anyway...” He leaned over and threw open the passenger door.
Chaucer started for the truck. I hissed, and he sat, looking back and forth between us. I pulled my phone out of my back pocket and tapped the screen. “Hey, you busy?...Awesome...Chaucer and I are walking up Main. Could you give us a lift home?...Great! I’ll explain on the ride.” I glanced over at an annoyed Aiden. “And could you hurry? I’ve got a creeper lurking.”
“Please, let me drive you home. I need to talk to you.” He sounded hurt, the self-centered jerk. I was the injured party, not him.
“I need a lot of things, too, Aiden. First and foremost, people in my life who like me, who make me feel good about myself—like the guy who’s racing over here to take me home. What I don’t need is a man who makes me feel like crap on a regular basis. One who pulls me close and holds me tight, who waits until I begin to trust and start to feel steady, and then walks away.”
I grabbed the open door and looked him in the eye. “I’m not here to fulfill your secret adolescent dreams. And I’m not the proxy for every woman who’s ever done you wrong, either. We all get our hearts broken. Grow up!” I slammed the door and continued walking up Main, Chaucer by my side. Bear would find us.
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
Aiden
I DROVE AROUND TOWN, down along the water, up through Acadia National Park, my thoughts cycling. She was right. I had the greatest woman in the world, and I’d dumped her. With extreme prejudice.
I parked by a river and pulled out my phone to look at that stupid pity mug shot for the hundredth time. Those big green eyes, so lost, that fiery hair she’d tried to tame, that adorable look of outrage on her face, it killed me. She killed me.
When the sky turned pink in its setting, I was no closer to a way to win her back than I had been when she’d walked away from me on Main. I was a jackass. A doomed, heartsick jackass. There were a few things I could do, though, and it was long past time I manned up and did them.
I pulled up to Katie’s house an hour later. I didn’t go to her door, instead walking around back to the woodpile. I’d made a promise I’d neglected to keep. That needed to stop. A lot of things needed to stop.
Chaucer’s huge head watched from the window, but he had yet to alert Katie to my presence. Interesting. I’d chopped three logs into quarters before I heard the back door open.
“Please, leave me alone. Stop doing this kind of thing.” Katie stepped to the edge of the porch, her arms crossed.
“I promised to chop your wood over a month ago. I’m sorry I’m late.”
She sighed. “Is this some kind of weird Maine tradition? In California, when we don’t like someone, so much so that we feel the need to humiliate them in public, we just stop all contact with that person. We definitely don’t trespass on their property to make kindling.”
“Can you turn on the light?”
Mumbling something about a bat, she leaned in the back door. The porch light flashed on. She grabbed a coat from just inside the door and put it on.
“You should have those things on motion sensors. It’s safer,” I said. Chop, chop, chop.
She peered into the dark beyond our circle of light, and shivered. “Whatever. Listen, can you just leave?”
She and Chaucer stood side by side and watched me chop four more logs. When I picked up an armload of quartered pieces and carried it to her wood box, her eyes followed me, brows furrowed.
“Can I ask you a question, Katie?” I put another log on the chopping block.
She hugged herself. “Is it why haven’t I pulled out my granddaddy’s shotgun yet?”
“Can we wipe the slate clean? Pretend we’re meeting again right now for the first time? As if Pops asked me to chop the wood and I came back that same day to do it?”
“No.”
“Can we call it a wash, then? You broke my heart when I was fourteen. I broke yours at thirty.”
“I thought we agreed I was twenty-five. And what the hell are you talking about? I never broke your heart.” She tucked her hands in her jacket and stamped her feet, confusion clear.
“That last summer you visited. It took me nine summers to work up my nerve. I finally approached you to ask you to the bonfire beach party. You turned away from me and laughed, said I was a little kid.” I leaned on the ax, trying to read her face.
“I did not! I would never do that!”
“Except you did.”
Spinning, she stomped to the back door, muttering under her breath. She turned back, arms crossed tightly. “I have no memory of this. None. Are you sure it was me?”
I explained the whole encounter, what was said, what she wore. She gazed off into the night, confusion obvious. When her face cleared, she said, “Are you shitting me? I was talking to Daisy about her little brother, her six-year-old little brother who said he wanted to marry me. I never even saw you!”
She moved away again but stopped. “And even if I had done that, what the hell, dude
? What is the statute of limitations on hurting your feelings? I was fifteen. Are you such a petty man-child that you’d nurse that hurt for fifteen years? Holy crap! If that’s the case, you’ll never get over being dumped at the altar.”
My chest hurt.
“Leave. Don’t make me call another cop to arrest you.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
Kate
I CLOSED AND locked the door, then switched off the lights. When I heard his truck pull away, I walked through the house and stepped out to the front porch. The night was cold and clear, stars blazed in the sky, surf pounded in the distance. It should have been beautiful. I sat down heavily on the top step, the will to move draining out of me.
Chaucer lay down next to me, leaning into my side. I wove my fingers through his fur. “Who does that? Who gets all sweet and romantic, making a person think she’s understood and cared for, and then dumps her, citing an imagined slight from childhood? Men suck.”
I rested my temple on the top of his head. “I thought I loved him, Chaucer.” I remembered Aiden’s arms around me, the tenderness in his eyes, the kisses he trailed down my neck. No. I clenched my fingers in Chaucer’s fur. I wasn’t going to think about that Jackhole anymore. He made his choice. He chose his hurt over me. I wanted to sob. Instead, I stood and walked back into the house, locking the door behind me.
I climbed the stairs. “I got rid of two men in one day. At least I’m becoming more efficient.” Bear had talked to Connor about the Bronco sitting out in front of his house. Connor doesn’t drive anymore. He tried to give it to me, but I said it was only a loan. And then thanked him profusely.
I walked into the bedroom, Chaucer following me. “Our lives are filled with good things.” I hugged my baby. “Let’s get some shut-eye. Lots to do tomorrow!”