14
WHEN NURSING A BROKEN heart, it really sucked to live next door to the person who’d done the breaking. Kate found that out late Monday night when she lay on her mattress bed in Aunt Flo’s duplex, listening to Jack arrive home next door.
As soon as she heard his truck outside, she bit her lip to stop her tears. She definitely didn’t want him to hear her through the wall.
She’d been crying for hours. Whimpering like a sissified baby. Wishing she had someone to talk to, but knowing there was no one. Cassie would be too pissed on her behalf to be of any help. Plus, the last thing she wanted to do on the day of the triumph at the store was to tell Cassie someone she thought she loved still looked at her as unworthy.
When Jack had admitted he’d decided to end their involvement because of who she was—a Tremaine—Kate had wanted to die. All she’d heard were his sister’s angry words, the echo of taunts of her childhood, the deeply-buried-but-not-erased voice of her subconscious that had told her she would always be just a trashy Tremaine. Never good enough for decent people. Worthy of sex but not love, fun but not commitment.
Living together, but not marriage.
Even though her heart was breaking, she’d still almost gone back to apologize, to tell him she might have first intended to get involved with him for revenge, but knew she could never go through with it. Because like a colossal fool, she’d fallen in love with him. And it had hurt her to see the pain on his face at her confession.
Pride had kept her walking out the door the same way it had sustained her on prom night when she’d walked home in the rain.
She didn’t sleep more than one straight hour all night long. Kate knew she looked and sounded like hell, so when she called Cassie the next morning, told her she wasn’t feeling well and would be late coming in to help in the store, her cousin hadn’t protested. She felt like a heel leaving Cassie holding the bag at Bare Essentials. Still, she doubted their day would be anywhere near as busy as yesterday had been.
Jack left the house early—before eight. She watched him from the upstairs window, careful not to let him see her. She needn’t have bothered. He never spared a glance at her half of the duplex as he got in his truck and drove away.
Once he’d gone, she cried some more. Ate some donuts. Took a shower. Finally, sick of feeling sorry for herself, she pulled her cell phone out of her purse and called the one person she knew would understand.
Her mom.
* * *
JACK DIDN’T WANT to see anybody Tuesday. He had no interest in being anywhere near his mother or sister. Nor could he stay at the duplex, knowing Kate was right next door.
Sleeping there the night before had been sheer torture. He had lain awake most of the night, thinking about what had happened, replaying the scene at the store. He’d tried to find some explanation, but couldn’t deny the truth. She’d said the words herself. She’d fully intended to get involved with him for the express purpose of hurting him as some kind of whacked-out revenge on his father.
Mission accomplished.
Damn, it was almost easier when he thought he’d never fall in love.
After driving around for a while, he went downtown and parked outside the Rose Café. Across the street, Bare Essentials remained dark, not yet open for the morning. When he went inside the café for breakfast, he took a seat away from the front windows. He really didn’t want to see Kate arriving for work.
After he ordered, he tried to figure out just how much more he had to do for his family. There were one or two more legal issues, but the real estate situation was taken care of, as were the banking problems. At this point, all he wanted to do was to wrap things up and go home to Chicago. He frankly didn’t care if he never saw Pleasantville again.
Just as the gum-chewing waitress deposited a plate full of artery-hardening breakfast on the table in front of him, the café door opened. As Darren entered, Jack looked away. He did not want to talk to anyone, particularly his ex-brother-in-law.
Unfortunately, Darren had other ideas. “Can I sit down?”
“Do I have any other choice?”
Darren took the seat opposite him in the booth. “I need to talk to you. About Angela. She came to see me last night and told me what happened with Kate.”
Jack raised a brow, practically daring Darren to make one slimy comment about Kate. “And?”
“Apparently Kate said something to Angela that made her do some serious thinking. About us.”
“You and Angela?”
“Yeah. She asked me if I’d left her because I thought she faked being pregnant to get me to marry her.”
Jack calmly took a sip of coffee. “Did you?”
Darren answered with a slow nod. “I was convinced she’d made it up, that there had never been any baby. Because I’d overheard your parents arguing about it one night. Your father accused Angela of being like your mother, who’d done the same thing to him.”
Jack could only shake his head. Kate had been right about that much of the story, it seemed.
Before Darren said anything else, the door to the café opened again and Angela came in. Her face was lit up by a huge smile, and her eyes sparkled as she looked around the room. She spotted Darren and walked toward them. Her steps slowed when she realized he was sitting with Jack. Squaring her shoulders, she sat opposite him, sliding easily under Darren’s outstretched arm. The two of them might as well have started cooing like doves.
Jack raised a brow. “I see you’ve worked things out.”
Darren nodded. “Angela made me realize how wrong I’d been.”
Angela had the grace to admit, “I had no idea, Jack, about Mother and Dad. It never occurred to me what Darren thought until Kate accused me of it last night. I had to make sure he knew the truth. I wanted to be sure Darren understood how much I grieved for our very real baby.” She swallowed hard. “I guess I owe Kate one.”
Well, let’s give a round of applause for Kate, matchmaker and revenge seeker extraordinaire.
“You should probably know,” Angela continued, “Darren confirmed what Kate told me. About Dad and Edie being together before he married Mother. I guess…well, it doesn’t make it right, what they did, but I think I can see Kate’s side a little better now.” Angela cast a quick, nervous glance at Darren. He smiled and nudged her, obviously trying to give her courage. “I also, uh, should tell you, I know you only heard part of our conversation. Kate wasn’t the only one who said nasty things, Jack. I was pretty mean to her first.”
Angela expressing regret? He could hardly believe it. “If it’s any consolation,” Jack said, “whatever happened with Armand, whatever revenge you think he got on you? I don’t think Kate was involved. He’s just very loyal to her.”
Angela stared at him. “You’re in love with her.”
He gave her a rueful look. “Crazy, huh?”
“Wow.” His sister bit her lip, looking more nervous. “Jack, one of the mean things I said to her was that you, uh…”
Starting to feel very anxious, Jack leaned closer. “What?”
Darren took her hand, squeezing it to give her courage. “Come on, Ang. New leaf, remember?”
Angela spoke in a rush. “I told her you could never love her. And that you’d never marry a trashy Tremaine woman any more than our father ever would have.”
Jack sat silently for a minute, beginning to understand, to make sense out of what had happened yesterday.
Probably without even realizing it, Angela had pushed exactly the right button to hurt Kate the most. Because in spite of how put-together, confident and successful a woman she was today, there was still that vulnerable, defensive, wrong-side-of-the-tracks kid lurking underneath Kate’s beautiful exterior.
Kate’s childhood had molded her into the striking mix of sweet and tough, gentle and outrageous, smart and self-doubting.
Jack had fallen in love with all of her.
But she didn’t believe that.
“I’ve got to go,” he said. Dropping cash on the table for his uneaten breakfast, he barely spared a glance at his sister.
“I’m sorry, Jack,” she called as he walked away. “I’m sorry I hurt her.”
Not as sorry as he was.
* * *
RIGHT AFTER Kate’s long telephone call with Edie, she hung up, hearing her mother’s words again and again in her mind.
“Oh, honey, don’t you think for a minute I regret loving the man I loved. And don’t think I didn’t know how much he loved me. Heavens, John asked me to marry him more than a dozen times over the years, starting all the way back in tenth grade.” She’d laughed softly, as if remembering something warm and tender. “After Angela grew up and got married, I started to think we could really be together. Then her marriage failed. As did her second. And her third. Pat blamed John for his bad example and guilt made him stay. But we still loved each other. Why do you think I had to leave Ohio when he died? Do you think some narrow-minded people could have forced a Tremaine out?” Her voice had broken and Kate had somehow heard the silent tears she knew were rolling down her cheeks. “It was too painful to stay, Katey. Knowing he was gone.”
After she hung up, Kate shed more tears. This time not for herself. But for Edie.
A short time later she grabbed her purse and keys and went to find Jack. One thing her mother had said rang true…if she loved the man, pride had no place in the equation. Any chance for happiness was one worth grabbing.
She took a deep breath as she slowly drove by the Winfield house on Lilac Hill. No truck in the driveway. Thank God. She needed to see him, but she wasn’t ready to face his family.
She tried the downtown area next, cruising along Magnolia, looking for his golden hair shining in the bright morning sun. She still didn’t see him. Finally, thinking hard about where he might have gone in this town, she turned down a side street toward the Rialto.
Bingo.
Parking her SUV behind his truck, she walked to the front doors and entered the lobby. The overhead fixtures were off out here, but she saw a sliver of light from the main auditorium area. Pushing through the swinging doors, she paused in the back of the theater, looking around in the murky shadows of the cavernous, dimly lit room.
Jack sat in one of the old plushly covered seats in the back row. She saw him there at the same instant he saw her.
“What are you doing here?” she asked.
“I was looking for you. I went to the house, and the store. I finally figured you’d show up here. So I sat down to wait.”
He was right. Eventually, even if she hadn’t gone looking for him, she would have shown up here.
He remained seated, while Kate stood. She didn’t know what to say, now that she had finally found him. There didn’t seem to be an easy way to apologize for admitting what had once been the truth. She really had thought she could set out to hurt this man. This amazing man who’d captured her heart and soul.
It now seemed almost inconceivable.
Finally, as if realizing she couldn’t find the words to begin, Jack stood and extended his hand. She stepped closer, taking it, letting him pull her into the seat next to his own.
Finally she heard him say, “I’m not J. J. Winfield, Kate.”
She bit her lip.
“Maybe J. J. Winfield was someone you once wanted to get even with. But that’s not me.”
“I know,” she admitted. “Jack, as soon as I saw you, as soon as I realized who you were, I dropped any idea of revenge. I knew I was too vulnerable to you.” She lowered her voice. “I already liked you too much. I knew from the beginning I could care for you.”
“I knew it, too,” he said. “I never would have believed it if it hadn’t happened to me, but I knew from the first time I saw you something amazing was going to happen between us. I started to fall in love with you before I even heard your voice or knew your name.”
Her name. Yes, back to the issue at hand. Kate thrust away the thrill of pleasure that had raced through her body at hearing the word love on Jack’s lips. “My name. Who I am. That’s the issue, right? The reason you didn’t call.”
She felt his level stare as he carefully answered. “Kate, finding out your name, learning you were a member of the infamous Tremaine family, had absolutely nothing to do with me staying away from you.” He sighed, shaking his head. “You want the truth? Here it is. I couldn’t handle the guilt. I really thought my father had used and abused your mother, and I wasn’t about to follow in his footsteps. In case you didn’t know it, I don’t have a great reputation as a stick-around kind of guy.”
There was no question of doubting him, the sincerity in his voice was matched by the look in his eyes.
“So, when you asked me to live with you…”
He cocked his head. “You were upset about that?”
She glanced at her fingers. “I just figured it was history repeating itself. Tremaines are good enough to live with…”
She almost expected him to react in anger, but instead he laughed, long and loud. “God, have we ever been at cross purposes.” Turning in his seat, he grabbed her around the waist and lifted her over the armrest, pulling her onto his lap. “I’m crazy about you, Kate. I want the whole nine yards. Marriage, kids, P.T.A. meetings.”
Marriage? Kids? She choked on a mouthful of air and had to hack into her fist. When she could breathe again, she said, “P.T.A. meetings?”
“We’ll go together, unless, of course, you’re busy peddling sex toys at your store.”
She couldn’t even laugh, still too amazed to see what she wanted was truly within her grasp. “You’re serious? You want all that?”
He brought her hands to his lips, kissing her palm. “I absolutely want all that.” He pulled her closer, until her head rested on his shoulder. “I figured you’d laugh in my face if I started talking about that kind of stuff, though. You, Miss Lusty Vibrating Fingertip, seemed to not only enjoy doing things backward, but you seem to want to make them as outrageous as possible. I kinda figured love and marriage stuff would turn you off…make you think I thought you were sweet or something.”
She sat up and punched his shoulder. “I am sweet, damn it.”
He gave her a hopeful smile. “Hopefully not too sweet for those slut-puppy boots.”
She lowered her lashes, giving him a coy look. “If you’re good. But in the meantime, get back to the L word you mentioned.”
“Lusty?”
Their laughter faded as Kate stared intently into his fine green eyes. “Love. Did you mean to use that particular word?”
He reached up and slipped his hand into her hair, caressing her gently as he tugged her mouth toward his. “Yeah. I meant to use that particular word. I love you like crazy, Kate.”
Just before her lips touched his, she whispered, “I love you, too, Jack.”