For a second, she stared at him, that smile stuck on her face and seeming less encouraging as it didn’t change. Then she shifted, sitting back in her desk chair. “Um, yeah. Yeah. I could eat. Where?”
“You like Indian?”
“You mean the Taj? I love the Taj. Sounds great.” She got up, slid her laptop into its sleeve and put it into her bag. He liked her bag, an old-fashioned tan leather thing with pockets and brass buckles. She slung it on her shoulder, picked up her phone, and came toward him.
Her coat hung on a hook near the door, near where he stood. Without thinking, he picked it up off the hook and held it out for her, open, meaning to help her into it.
She stopped and cocked her eyebrow at him. “Wait. Are you asking me on a date?”
With their recent history, John felt wary about making a wrong move. He didn’t want to do more to hurt her, but he didn’t know what would or could. Jesus. Women were hard to figure, as a rule, but he had not been this insecure about negotiating communication with one in probably twenty years.
He stood there, holding her coat open, and she stood there, staring at him, until he figured out how to answer. It probably took him one second, maybe two, but it seemed a year at least. “If I were, how would you feel about that?”
At that exact, ridiculously-timed moment—their timing continued to suck—her phone rang in her hand. She glanced down at it before she answered him. “Shit. Shit. It’s Nick. I forgot. Hold on.”
She answered the phone. “Hey, Nick. How’s Bev doing?” She listened for a minute or two, nodding her head, then said. “Okay. I’ll be there.”
When she took her phone from her ear, John said, “No dinner, then, I guess.”
“No, sorry. Nick wants me at their house.”
Restraining himself from asking about Bev, he shook her coat in his hands, reminding her that he still held it for her. As she dropped her bag off her shoulder and let him help her into the coat, he said, “Okay. I’ll see you tomorrow, then.”
“Okay.” She turned to face him. “John?”
“Yeah?”
“Can my answer to your question be I don’t know?”
Not liking the twinge of hurt he felt at that, he set it away and smiled. “It’s not the best answer I’ve ever heard, but if it’s an honest one, then yeah.”
“How about I don’t know yet? I just…I have—”
He cut her off with a wave of his hand. “Your answer is your answer, Katrynn. Whatever it is. You don’t owe me an explanation.” He was disappointed, but he had intended to be slow and careful with her. She’d only just warmed up to him again a few days ago, and he should not have been making a move already. If at all.
“Would you want it to be a date?”
At such a direct question, his choice of answers was limited. He could continue the questioning dance, trying to ferret out her feelings without exposing any of his own, but he was too old for that bullshit. There came a point—for John, it was after Carmen got married and he understood how deeply he wanted the life his siblings were building—when you realized how much time got wasted playing the games, and the lost time became the greater risk. So he would simply answer her as directly as she’d questioned him.
“Yes, I would. If I didn’t, I would have said no when you asked if it was a date.” He sighed. “You know I’m older than you, Katrynn. I don’t really play guessing games anymore. I like to be upfront. I like you. But there’s stuff between us I don’t have my head all the way around, and I don’t want to hurt you more than I already have. I’m second-guessing myself all the time around you, but I don’t want to play these games. I don’t want to push in where I’m unwelcome. I like us as friends. If friends is where you want us, this is the last you’ll hear from me about anything more.”
“I don’t know yet.” Her voice was small.
Wondering what she would need to help her know, but unwilling to put the burden of the answer on her shoulders, he reached out and squeezed her arm, hoping it was comfort she felt in his touch. “Then let me know when you do know. Okay?”
“Okay. Thanks.”
She gave him a smile that was young and grateful, obviously relieved, and John wondered yet again what it was he’d done.
~ 8 ~
Nick’s mother, Betty, answered the door. “Hi, Katrynn. Come on in, honey. Nick’s upstairs, putting the girls to bed.”
Katrynn stepped into the foyer and handed her coat into Betty’s waiting hands. The Paganos’ golden retriever padded down the stairs, his tail wagging, and Katrynn ruffled his ears. “Heya, Cuddles.”
The dog took her love and gave her some back, then padded back upstairs. He was probably busy helping Nick with the girls.
Katrynn watched him go up, then turned to Betty. “Is there anything I can do?”
With a flip of her bejeweled hand, Betty waved her question off. “You know your way around, so just make yourself at home. Did you eat? There’s lots left over. I’ll put a plate together for you.”
“That’s okay, Betty. I ate.”
When he’d called, Nick hadn’t wanted to see her right away. He’d instructed her to come over at eight o’clock, after his family had settled down for the night. She could have gone to the Taj with John.
But she had completely choked. All of the hurt she’d felt since New Year’s, all of her fears about everything about men and relationships, all of her insecurities about herself and her heart, everything she’d thought had faded away, the whole mess had risen up into her throat and choked her. She’d used Nick’s call as an excuse to get herself out of something she wanted.
Now she was furious with herself. She liked John. She wanted to try. He wanted to try. But when the opportunity had been set before her, she’d been too scared to take it. She could have had a nice dinner with him, one that had no ambiguity afterward, since she’d had to come here after. A dinner. That was it.
Instead, she’d gone home and made herself a turkey and provolone sandwich. Idiot.
“Okay,” Betty said as she hung Katrynn’s coat in the closet. “Well, come get a drink, at least. There’s apple pie, too. And ice cream. There’s probably cookies, too. Lia’s been obsessed with gingerbread lately.”
Katrynn laughed. She’d been around the Pagano family enough to know Betty pretty well, and to know for sure that her first response to trouble was food. “Thanks, but I’m really not hungry. I’ll just get a glass of water.”
They went into the kitchen together, and Betty wiped at the island counter with a tea towel. Katrynn poured herself a glass of water from the filtered tap.
“How’s Bev?”
Betty sighed. “I shouldn’t tell tales, but you were with her today, and I’m so worried. Nick had the doctor here—Dr. Kerr, you know him?”
Katrynn shook her head.
“Well, he’s been our family doctor forever. After he was with Bev, Nick talked to him for a long time. I’m not sure what’s going on.”
None of that had answered Katrynn’s question. “But Bev?”
“She’s resting, and she’s calm now. Nick took the girls in to say good night.” She stopped and folded the towel. “You know what? I’m probably talking too much. I’m going to go upstairs and read. You’re okay on your own down here, right?”
“Sure.”
Betty gave her a kiss on the cheek and went up the back stairs to the second floor. Katrynn took her glass of water and went into the family room. She loved this room above all others in Nick and Bev’s beautiful house. Paned windows dominated the two exterior walls and gave a view of the side and back yard and the ocean well beyond.
This was the most comfortably decorated of the main rooms, too. It was the room where many of the girls’ toys lived, and the television, and the sofas built for little feet to jump on. There was a media room in the cellar, too, but that room felt cave-like. Katrynn liked the view. Even in winter, with the pool covered, the view was lovely.
Since Elisa’s fifth birthday in Dece
mber, a white baby grand piano now took up one corner of the room. To Katrynn’s knowledge, Elisa hadn’t yet taken up lessons, although the piano had been a dear wish of hers.
It was a beautiful piece. The key slip was open. As the minutes stretched while she waited for Nick, Katrynn finally set her glass on a coaster and sat down at the piano. She played lightly, not wanting to disturb anyone, feeling a bit like she was intruding, even though she knew she had run of most of the house—this floor, at least. Except for Nick’s office, of course.
“You’re good.”
At Nick’s voice, Katrynn jumped guiltily and stopped playing. “Sorry. My hands had a mind of their own.”
Nick smiled and shook her apology away. “Don’t be sorry. I knew you played, but I didn’t know you played well.”
“My mom plays. She does lessons, and she taught me and my brother from when we were little.”
He gestured with a sweep of his hand that she was to sit with him by the fireplace, so she followed him and did so.
“Do you give lessons?”
“Me? No. I’m not that good.”
“That was a classical piece, right?”
She blushed. “Yeah. Rachmaninoff. But the intro to the Concerto Number Three isn’t very hard. Most of what I know is popular music.”
His eyes narrowed; she’d made him angry somehow. “Do you always do that?”
“What?”
“Minimize what you can do.”
She didn’t. Except where romance was concerned, Katrynn was confident about what she could do and clear-eyed about what she couldn’t, and those things she couldn’t do, she tended to see as chances to learn. But talking to Nick tonight, she felt nervous and inadequate.
That didn’t make much sense. Yes, he was Don Pagano, and yes, he was intense and powerful. But she had been in this house as a casual guest probably hundreds of times. She had eaten meals, watched football games, played in the pool, gotten drunk, played party games, and just hung out with Nick Pagano and his family. She had seen him in that pool, helping Lia learn to swim in her little pink floatie suit. She had watched him teach Elisa to ride a two-wheeler.
She wasn’t afraid of Don Pagano, because she knew Nick.
Tonight, though, and since he’d come to the shop for Bev, he’d been different. A vibe that was both powerful and impatient was coming off of him, and it made her wary. He seemed dangerous in a way she’d never known him to be.
“No, I don’t.”
“I didn’t think so, and you shouldn’t. It’s weakness, Katrynn.”
Rather than apologize, she said, “Yes, I’m good. No, I’ve never given lessons. I’m not sure I’d be as good at teaching piano as I am at playing it.”
“Thank you. I would like you to teach Elisa, just until she surpasses your ability to teach her. She likes you a lot, and she’s been shy about taking lessons from someone she doesn’t know. You set the price.”
It wasn’t like Katrynn had acres of free time. She was at the shop at least fifty hours a week—often more than that. During the peak times of summer and Christmas, sometimes the shop was basically home.
But Nick hadn’t asked. And anyway, maybe it would help Bev. “Okay. I could do a couple of half-hour lessons a week. Say twenty dollars a lesson?” She knew better than to tell him she wouldn’t charge him.
“Fifty. And thank you.”
She nodded and picked up her water. After a sip to soothe her dry mouth, she asked, “Nick, can I ask how Bev is doing? I thought that was why you wanted me here.”
He didn’t answer right away, and they sat in the family room, facing each other, in silence. Katrynn tried to find somewhere to set her eyes. She didn’t want to stare at Nick while he thought whatever he had to think.
“I want you to tell me what you’ve seen of Beverly’s…mood lately.”
“Nick…”
“Tell me.”
Katrynn took another drink and set the now-empty glass down. Her heart was suddenly racing. She lifted her eyes and met his. “Bev’s my friend. I feel like I’d be reporting on her, and that doesn’t feel right.”
He leaned forward, setting his elbows on his knees, and Katrynn fought the impulse to shrink back from him. “I found her curled on a fucking bathroom floor with her head torn open. She gave herself a fucking concussion, and she’s been crying all fucking day. Believe me when I tell you that I don’t give a fuck about what you think ‘feels right.’”
That speech should have terrified her. He’d spoken quietly, but malice and fury had flooded his voice. Instead, though, Katrynn got angry right back. Her fight or flight response had chosen fight. “You’re saying you haven’t seen how she’s been flailing? For months? Since Carina was born? It’s news to you that she needs help? And that was before she found out she’s pregnant again.”
He cocked his head. “She told you?”
“Yes. And she’s freaked out. You have to know that. She hasn’t been herself since last summer.”
“She doesn’t want this baby?” Now there was pain in his voice, and Katrynn felt a spasm of sympathy for him.
“Why are you asking me?”
He sat back abruptly, that awful fury abating. “Fuck. I knew she was tired. I thought the rest of it was because Carina’s on the bottle. She beats herself up so much about that, and I don’t understand it.”
So it seemed that, where women were concerned, even Don Pagano was, in the end, just a clueless man. “I think it’s a lot more than just that. But Nick, I’m not the one to say.”
Katrynn realized that she had, in fact, told Nick what he’d wanted her to tell him. She hadn’t given him specifics, but she had let him know that Bev had been wrong for a long time.
Again, Nick was quiet for a long stretch of seconds. Then he sat straight again and said, “Okay. Beverly is not coming back to the shop. Indefinitely. She will stay home, and she will rest, and she’ll get better. I assume you’ll need to hire an assistant manager full time. Do so. Hire the staff you need. Don’t worry about the cost. We’ll balance the books as we always do.”
“Can I…Nick…”
“Tell me.”
How to say this? She supposed it wasn’t any greater breach than she’d already committed. “It’s home that overwhelms her, I think. She told me that she comes to the shop because it’s the only quiet place in her life.”
Oh shit. She’d said too much. Katrynn watched Nick’s eyes as he processed the significance of what she’d just said, and now she was really afraid. Then he dropped his head, and his shoulders slumped, and she realized, in a burst of clarity, that all that anger, that toxic vibe that had been wrapped around him since he’d walked into this room, it was all turned inward. On himself.
When he looked up at her, he seemed like nothing so much as a very tired man. “Thank you, Katrynn. Beverly won’t be back at the shop. Not until she’s well. You handle the shop, and keep me informed. I’ll handle the rest.” He stood up. “I’ll show you out.”
She stood, too. “Can I see Bev before I go?”
“Not tonight. She’s sleeping. But I’ll tell her you were here.”
“And that I love her.”
He smiled. “And that you love her.”
~oOo~
The morning dawned overcast, again, and cold, and really windy—not blustery, but angry. Wind was Katrynn’s least favorite kind of weather. It seemed like real hostility, with Nature throwing things around and in general messing things up.
Katrynn’s little apartment building was something like sixty years old, and though it had been renovated, the windows were still original. The glass rattled in its frames, all around the apartment. She kept thinking that the sheer force of air was going to shatter one or more of them.
Lennie and George didn’t like wind any more than she did. They were fully indoor cats and had seen no more of the outdoors than they could see from the windows, but they did not like those windows to shake. They ran from window sill to window sill, yowling as if t
hey expected Death himself to burst in.
By the time Katrynn got down to the parking lot and to her Honda CRV, she was in a foul mood. Then, as she was getting into the driver’s seat, the stupid wind caught the door and slammed it shut before her head was clear.
She sat in the seat for a few minutes, rubbing her ears, which had been smashed, and trying not to cry.
When she had control of herself, she pushed the ignition button…and nothing happened.
She tried again, and thought she might have heard a clicking noise, but it was hard to tell under the timpani drums of the wind buffeting her car.
Prayer (The Pagano Family Book 5) Page 12