And Then He Kissed Me

by Kim Amos

  Audrey shook her head. “I appreciate your concern, but I like it there.”

  Casey lifted a brow. “And I suppose you like all that makeup and this new wardrobe of yours, too?”

  Audrey shrugged. “Who knows? I’m trying some things out. I need to be able to do that without feeling like you’re disapproving every step of the way.”

  “I am disapproving every step of the way.”

  Audrey almost smiled. “Then disapprove all you want, but let me live my life. If I don’t do it exactly the way you think I should, then that’s just something you have to come to terms with.”

  Casey sat back. Audrey knew she didn’t usually disagree like this with her sister. But enough was enough. She was ready to shake things up, and if it meant she had to fight with her sister some, so be it.

  “Fine,” Casey said. “But when someone else gets this great opportunity in Eagan, I can’t help that. And I may not be able to help find a different opportunity by the time you’re finally ready to face the facts. There’s a good chance you’ll be on your own. Is that what you want?”

  Cold unease crept along Audrey’s skin. Her sister may have support and love behind her intentions, but right then she sounded downright threatening. “I’ll happily live with my own decisions,” Audrey replied, sitting up straighter in the creaky booth. “And if I make some mistakes, that’s part of figuring it all out.”

  Casey took a sip of coffee instead of replying, but her disapproval was there, as plainly as if she’d spoken it.

  Audrey adjusted the sparkling bangles on her wrist and prayed she wasn’t falling headlong into disaster all over again.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Kieran watched Audrey exit the Paul Bunyan Diner, observing from the edge of a nearby alleyway. She glided away from the diner in tight jeans and a hot little T-shirt that had him sucking in his breath. She was impossibly beautiful. Several other heads turned her way on the street, leering across overstuffed planters and asparagus signs. She looked like the kind of woman who could do better than him. She deserved an investment banker, he thought. Or a lawyer or a doctor. Someone who didn’t have to keep his past hidden.

  But today, he was willing to confront his mistakes and his past and try for her. He had to do at least that much, or risk wondering what if for the rest of his life.

  And it started with her sister, Casey.

  Audrey moved away, up the street toward Knots and Bolts, while Casey came toward him, her pace brisk, her sensible heels clunking along the sidewalk. Given the way she walked, Kieran wondered if she went anywhere without a purpose. But whatever her mission was today, he was about to interrupt it.

  “Hi, Casey,” he said, stepping out in front of her.

  She pulled up short to avoid plowing into him. But if she was surprised or caught off guard, she never showed it. The woman could play poker with the best of them if she wanted to, Kieran thought.

  She regarded him with her brown eyes—the same color as Audrey’s, technically, but so much flintier. He wondered briefly if his hurting Audrey had added to her hardness. He couldn’t blame her if it had.

  “Kieran,” she said. One word, flat and solitary.

  “We should talk,” he said. “It’s been five years. There’s so much to catch up on.” His words were easy, even though his brain was buzzing with a lost sense of time. It felt like this interaction was years old, and he’d been here before.

  “There’s nothing we need to say to one another,” Casey replied, trying to push past him. But he blocked her way on the sidewalk.

  “I’ve paid back my debt,” he said, lowering his voice. “And I care about your sister. So let’s bury our secret once and for all, because I’m going to try and win Audrey back.”

  Casey’s head shot up. Her features knotted in disapproval. “No.” From her lips, the word had a finality to it that chilled Kieran. Suddenly, the day’s sunlight was too thin around them, shifting from warm honey to weak white. Her chilly manner froze him through.

  “Let’s go and talk about it,” he offered, shoving his hands in his pockets like this was any other conversation, and she was any other person. Like the stakes weren’t unbearably high.

  “Where?”

  “Just up the sidewalk here. Black Bear Bar—we’ll have a drink.”

  “No.” The word came too easily from her lips, over and over. “I don’t want to be seen with you. Come to my car. It’s just down the block here. We’ll talk there.” She brushed past him with an assurance that belied her small size—five foot five, just like Audrey, and rock hard to boot, only not from muscles. From life, he thought.

  Kieran inhaled to steady himself, and followed her down the sidewalk. He stayed a few respectable paces behind. When she slid into her car—a compact silver machine that looked as sensible as it was boring—she already had the key in the ignition. She wasn’t going to give him much time, it was clear. He opened his mouth to speak, but she beat him to the punch.

  “You will stay away from my sister,” she said. “There’s no discussion to have. You need to agree, then get out of my car.”

  Kieran had to admire Casey’s bravado. The woman was half his size but acted like a mob boss.

  “Or you’ll do what, exactly?” Kieran said. He settled into his seat, indicating he wasn’t going anywhere.

  “You know what I could tell Audrey. You understand the deal we made.”

  Kieran chuckled, even though his palms were clammy with nerves. Even though the memory of trying—and failing—to save his mom’s life had his heart grinding with pain in his chest.

  He had to call Casey’s bluff, and pray it worked. “If you tell your sister about the deal we made, it makes us both look bad. Are you willing to risk that?”

  “I’ll deny it.”

  “Except I still have copies of the checks I wrote to pay you back. There’s a paper trail that links us.”

  “So?”

  “Your funds were conditional. You offered them up so I’d leave. Which I did. You think Audrey’s going to look past that?”

  It was Casey’s turn to laugh. “That may be, but I’m her sister, Kieran. You’re just—I don’t know—some guy she banged a few years ago. I’m her flesh and blood. Do you really think she won’t forgive me? We’re family. But you? I wouldn’t be so sure. There’s no guarantee she’ll want anything to do with you when she knows the truth.”

  Kieran wanted to rebuff her words, even though part of him knew she was right. Casey had looked at him with the same disapproving stare five years ago, after tracking him down in his shabby hotel room at the Great Lakes Inn.

  “Guys like you always have an angle,” she’d said at the time. “So I’m asking: What’s yours?”

  Back then, not knowing what a calculating monster Casey was, Kieran had tried playing her with his winning grin. “Lady, I know you don’t like me, but your sis—”

  “I have money,” she’d interrupted, her blank expression never changing. “Plenty of it. And if you need some, then we should make a deal. You should take it, and in return, I never have to see you again. My sister, either.”

  Kieran had tried grinning again, but he could feel the wrongness of it. He figured he looked like a leering jack-o’-lantern.

  The truth was that he did need money. Lots of it. And he did have an angle, because he was trying to cobble together enough money to get his mom chemotherapy treatments for her cancer. The only problem was, he couldn’t walk away from the gambling table. He was addicted, and his sickness meant he was losing more than he was winning. And with every loss, his mom’s cure became more distant.

  Casey was right about him being desperate. The only thing she didn’t know—couldn’t know—was that Audrey wasn’t part of any game.

  “I googled you and you came up in a few low-level poker tournaments,” Casey had continued, her eyes traveling over his open suitcase, shirts and pants spilling everywhere. “The thing I can’t put together is why you’re in White Pine, when all the real p
oker games are north of here, closer to Minneapolis and the big casinos.”

  Because I lost so badly there, he thought. He’d made a scene and they’d kicked him out. Not that he was going to tell Casey that. “Just traveling through,” he’d told her, shrugging, trying not to let this frigid woman unnerve him.

  “My sister likes you,” Casey had continued, picking at a hangnail as if she was bored, “and I don’t. So tell me: What will it take to never see you again? I know you need money. So let’s negotiate.”

  If Kieran he could go back and do it all over again, he would shove her out the door and tell her to get lost. He would find some way to come clean with Audrey and fix his problems with her help. But Casey was Lucifer herself, meeting him at the crossroads of his bad choices, offering him what he needed most—money to try to cure his mom, who was without health care and without medical help. He and Auggie had pooled together what they could. But every time Kieran won at the tables, every time his luck had piles of money stacked up and his mom’s treatment in sight, he kept betting. His luck had shifted, and soon his pockets were empty.

  God help him, he’d gambled away his mom’s cure. And five years ago, when Casey had offered him money in exchange for his soul—or at least his heart—he’d agreed. He wouldn’t have to return to Auggie and his mom ashamed and desperate. And he could get his mom the medical help she deserved.

  In return, he’d tried to push his feelings for Audrey Tanner away forever.

  The memories had Kieran’s stomach watery with anger and irritation. And shame, if he was honest with himself. Casey was right—Audrey might never forgive him when she discovered the truth of what he’d done. Even someone as generous and kind as Audrey had limits.

  His jaw clenched as he stared out of the window of Casey’s car. But, dammit, he had to try. Even though part of him couldn’t blame Casey for wanting better than him for Audrey, it wasn’t her place to stand in the way.

  “I’m going after her, Casey. I’m going to try and love her the way I should have five years ago. If she’ll have me, I’m never going to let her go again.”

  Casey’s face paled. Her lips pursed. “You’ll lose her when I tell her the truth.”

  “I could always tell her first.”

  Casey glared at him. “You wouldn’t.”

  Kieran met her ferocious gaze. He knew that if he wanted a real chance with Audrey, he would have to tell her. Eventually. Honesty would have to be a pillar of their new relationship. If he could even get that far.

  “I still have feelings for Audrey. And I believe she feels things for me, too. Do whatever you have to, but my path is set.”

  “You’re making the biggest mistake of your life,” Casey said.

  Kieran heard the threat in her voice, but he still wondered: Would Casey really come clean with Audrey when the truth made her look so bad as well?

  This would be the bet, then. This would be the hand he’d play: he would call Casey’s bluff.

  Who knew when it would all play out, but he’d once played a round of poker that lasted three hours. He was used to long games.

  He was even more accustomed to long odds.

  “Bring it on,” he told Casey, and stepped out of the car.

  * * *

  Before work the following Monday, Audrey found herself striding down a south-facing hallway at White Pine High. Her gaze was locked on the room ahead, her steps easy as if it were no bother for her to be in her former place of employment. She could smell the disinfectant tang of the hallways mingling with the doughy aroma of lunch food. She took in the corrugated fronts of lockers and the banner over one hallway reminding seniors to buy their class rings before the school year ended. She walked on, her throat tightening with the knowledge that this was a place she’d loved but one she could never come back to.

  Today, however, the school secretary, Janet Rifflemore, had let her in easily enough. “I’d like to talk to Paul Frace,” Audrey had said, standing at the front desk of the administrative offices. She figured the truth was better than any falsehood she could come up with for seeing him. “I wondered if he might want some pointers about coaching the girls through the last of the track season.”

  Janet’s long face had brightened. “Oh, I bet he would. He was just saying in the teachers’ lounge how tough it is, how much time it takes in addition to grading the spring tests. Here, let me pull up his schedule.”

  Audrey had already found it herself in a stack of papers at home. She’d saved the contents of her old desk, which had included administrative filing. If his schedule hadn’t changed much in the past few weeks, then Paul would be on break before the next class. Which gave her something close to thirty minutes during which to speak with him.

  “What do you know,” Janet said, “he’s got some time between classes right now. If you want, you can check his room, down in the English wing, to see if he’s there. Otherwise, try the teachers’ lounge.”

  Now, as Audrey headed toward his classroom, she prayed silently that he’d be in the first locale. Because no way could she face the teachers’ lounge, answering questions of how was she doing and what was she up to and were things going all right?

  She would happily tell them she worked at a Harley dealership, modeling motorcycles. They probably already knew, frankly, considering how word got around in White Pine. She would even try telling them about how different she felt on the showroom floor, how it was helping her think about changes in the rest of her life. She could explain all about how she was excited to see if she couldn’t improve sales for women there. But once she started chatting about it, she knew she’d see pity in their eyes or hear it in their voices while they all sipped sodas and graded papers and shook their heads at how unjustly she’d lost her job.

  It might have been a low blow, it was true. But she was determined not just to move on—but to thrive. Never mind her sister. Never mind Kieran, even. She was going to live life as she saw fit, right here in White Pine. She wanted to buy fresh donuts at the Rolling Pin and listen to the church bells sounding across the Birch River on Sunday morning, and meet with her friends at Knots and Bolts, and go to the Asparagus Festival every year. She wanted to live in the town she loved more than anything else. More than any man, more than any job, this town had been with her since she was little, and she knew the streets and sidewalks as well as she knew herself. She would stay here. Because she felt like she could make a difference here. She just had to figure out how.

  The night before, she’d been researching statistics about women and their purchasing power, and she was awed at how many females were taking up Harleys of their own. In Minneapolis they had an all-women riding club she’d found online: the Magnificent Hogs. She knew she needed to get White Pine Harley to see the potential customer base here—and she was determined to be more than a hot ass in some leather chaps.

  It might be time for a new Audrey, and for a new start. But in order to get there, she had to visit Paul Frace.

  She tapped on his classroom door, then pushed it open gently. “Paul?”

  She heard the shuffling of papers, the scrape of a chair. “Yes, how can I help?”

  The next thing she knew, she was face-to-face with the bearded English teacher. They had once been tied together for a three-legged race, she recalled suddenly, during a fall carnival. She didn’t know what year. A long time ago, that was certain.

  “Uh, hi, Paul,” she said, twisting the handle of her purse in her hands. “I don’t mean to bother you, but I wondered if we could talk?”

  “Audrey!” he said, his bushy eyebrows raised in surprise. “What a pleasure! My, don’t you look different.” He cleared his throat. “Please, come in.”

  He ushered her into the room with the manners of someone hosting a dinner party, or inviting her to have a drink. She remembered the way Paul would put his napkin on his lap before eating his brown-bag lunch, or how he’d hold the door for her with spine-stiff formality. Even if he wore pressed khakis and a plaid shirt
and tie, Paul Frace seemed like a man who would be comfortable in breeches and a top coat, more suited for the manners of the late 1800s than the current day.

  “To what do I owe the pleasure?” Paul asked.

  “I hope I’m not intruding,” Audrey said, noting the papers and textbooks scattered across his desk. He sat behind the metal behemoth while she slid into one of the kids’ chairs, feeling suddenly small and ridiculous. “I wanted to talk with you about the track team.”

  Paul shook his head, a beleaguered smile on his face. “I couldn’t be more glad to have your company on this topic. It’s been such a nightmare since they let you go. I don’t feel like I’m doing these girls any kind of service. More of a disservice, actually. Is it wrong that I just want the last few weeks of the school year to be over so someone else can do the job next year?” He leaned his head on an ink-stained hand. “I fear I’ve been an abysmal replacement in your absence. The budget cuts that forced you—” He shook his head, stopping himself.

  “I’m sure you’re doing a fine job,” Audrey said, skirting the issue of her dismissal. “It’s just that I started running with one of the girls, Alexis Belten, and she seems to think the team isn’t being challenged enough. I wondered if my old coaching notes would help?”

  She reached into her purse and pulled out her small notebook filled with practice drills and ideas. The weight of it was so familiar in her hands, the pages battered from years of love and scribbling. She tried not to clutch it too tightly. Paul needed it more than she did, after all. “It’s nothing formal, but I’m not using it and I figured it might be of service.”

  Paul took the notebook gingerly, handling it as if it were the Holy Grail itself. “This is such a gift,” he marveled, “such a generous move in light of what…occurred.”

  Paul was too polite. He wouldn’t utter the words about her being let go. He didn’t know how to say it, and she wouldn’t know how to reply if he did, at a loss to explain how she was ready for what was next, ready to face new things, and holding on to this notebook was only anchoring her to the past. The small book looked so strange in Paul’s hands, but maybe strange was okay. Maybe strange was a door that led to new and exciting things. She blinked against the image of Kieran that flashed in her mind.