by Law, Kim
“Why didn’t the lady come back today?”
Because he’d been an idiot when she’d suggested sex in his car?
He loosened his tense jaw and smiled at the child. “It’s not her class, honey. That was just a special day.”
“I like special days,” she told him with great sincerity.
He did too. He hadn’t had one since Friday.
Though he and Cat had agreed that nothing would change between them, he’d barely seen her since dropping her back at the theater Friday night. She’d wanted to go ahead and get her car, so he’d followed her home. First, though, he’d tried to apologize. Again.
She’d brushed him off. No big deal. But really, how could it not be a big deal? She’d offered and he’d balked.
Because of a car!
He wanted to bang his head against the wall, to erase the memory of her face when he’d realized what she’d been suggesting. Could he get any more geeky? He would have thought he’d long outgrown that by now.
Apparently not when it came to Cat.
At least she had gone ahead and tried out for the play the next morning. And she’d made it. She had amazing talent.
The director had asked him to sit in on the readings since they had to make a decision on the spot. Only two other actresses, ones who were already in the play, had shown up, but after they’d watched Cat’s audition—along with the fact that they’d been awed by Cat herself . . . and everyone was excited about the thought of a Davenport being lead in the play—both actresses had declared they were more than content with the parts they had.
One of them had been chosen as an understudy, though. Just in case. No need to risk going through that again.
The whole situation could have gotten dicey given that Cat was a newbie. Brody and Clyde had worried the other two women might feel a bit of seniority, having been there for all the rehearsals. But thankfully, it hadn’t gone down that way. And Cat was simply brilliant on stage.
After the auditions, he’d been ushered out of the theater. The director had no time for distractions, he’d said. So Brody had neither seen nor spoken to Cat since.
He had watched for her during his jogs, though.
But nothing.
No Cat. No chance to apologize again. No way to fix things.
What else could he have said, anyway?
And now she was probably mired with learning her lines and stage marks with the rest of the cast. Who knew when she’d have time to resurface?
He glanced at the doorway, certain someone was watching him, and found Louisa standing there. She gave him a closed-mouth curve of her lips before disappearing on her merry way.
“Mr. Hollister?” This time it was Dylan.
A sigh escaped before he could stop it. It simply was not a good morning. “What is it?” he asked.
“Can we go? I saw my grandparents pull up outside.”
Brody looked at the young boy and then at his watch. Two minutes were all they had left.
“Yes.” He nodded. Please, go.
Fifteen miniature people disappeared in an instant, and Brody was left standing alone, staring out the floor-to-ceiling window of the historic building, wondering what he was going to do about Cat. That kiss had knocked his socks off, and now they were just going to forget about it?
He didn’t think he could.
He wanted more kisses. He wanted Cat.
Louisa popped back by the room with a doughnut in hand. “Class was kind of disorganized today, huh?”
He made a face at her. “It was an off day for me.”
“Maybe you were thinking about something else.” She paused and took a bite of the deep-fried goodness before speaking around the food. “Or someone else.”
Brody shoved his monument pictures into his briefcase and looked at her. He had no clue what she was talking about. “Explanation?”
He liked Louisa. She’d been around since well before he’d first volunteered at the museum. But sometimes she drove him crazy with her cryptic sentences.
She held out the doughnut. What was left of it. “Want one?”
“No.” He wanted to get out of there and come up with a reason to knock on Cat’s door.
“Cat brought them.”
His shoulders went tight. “Cat was here?” he asked. “I didn’t see her.”
Louisa laughed loud enough to be heard out on the street. “Guess she didn’t come to see you, Doctor.” She held the last bite of the doughnut up in the air. “She came to bring doughnuts.”
He must have made a face because she only laughed some more.
“Said she was just being nice.”
“She didn’t stick around, then?” He asked the question casually, trying not to show that he hoped she was still somewhere in the building. But he knew he wasn’t fooling Louisa. His tail was practically wagging.
Louisa winked. “She intended to come back and say hi, but then she saw the newspaper and left.”
The Dyersport Gazette was a daily paper, one that he read religiously. After his morning jog, he typically started the day by reading it with his breakfast. Delivery had been late that morning, so he had yet to see it.
“What would be in the paper to make her run off?”
Of course, with her family, he supposed it could be any number of things.
His cell rang before Louisa could answer, and he pulled it from his pocket. He stared at it as if not understanding the number on the screen. Louisa waggled her fingers in the air in a “good-bye” move and was gone before he could decide whether to answer the phone or not.
The number continued staring at him. It was his brother. Thomas never called.
Brody phoned him a couple of times a year. He had some masochistic idea that they were bound by blood, thus should have a “relationship,” even if their true connection remained hidden from the public. But never in the eighteen years that he’d known Thomas had Brody gotten the same overture pointed in his direction. It made him wonder if something had happened to Arthur.
Brody hadn’t seen the man in years. He had no intention of ever seeing him again, dead or alive.
But why else would Thomas be calling?
A tiny hope flared to life that Thomas finally wanted to put out an effort at being brothers, but Brody squashed it with the increasing lump growing in his throat. Thomas couldn’t put out that effort. The media might then discover he had an illegitimate brother he’d known about for years. And that could be damning to his political career.
Curious, Brody put his cell to his ear.
“Is everything okay?” he greeted his brother curtly.
Hearty laughter came through the earpiece. “Sure, sure. Why wouldn’t it be? I just wanted to talk to my older brother. It’s been too long.”
Brody closed his eyes. His brother sounded just like their father. Including the forced joviality.
“It has been a while,” Brody agreed. He grabbed his case and left the room. “How are things?”
“Things are good. Never better. Looking great for the election this year.”
Rarely was a conversation held between the two without politics being involved. Therefore, rarely was a conversation held. It bothered Brody more than it should. Just once he’d like his brother to ask about his life. To wish him well in his endeavors. Normal family conversation topics.
But Brody lived in the real world. Most of the time. Thomas was only about himself.
Yet, stupidly, Brody kept hoping for something different.
He passed the break room and glanced in to see the box of doughnuts sitting on the table. He grabbed one.
“Glad things are going well,” Brody replied noncommittally. “I’m happy for you.” Honestly, he couldn’t care less. He shoved a bite of a cream-filled chocolate glazed in his mouth.
“Speaking of
which . . .” Thomas started.
Here it came. Whatever Thomas had called for, Brody was about to find out.
“Saw you in the paper today.”
Brody stopped in the middle of the hallway, the bite of doughnut suddenly refusing to go down. It was as if his heart shoved hard against his chest wall, desperate to get out. There was only one reason Thomas would have called at this moment in time because he’d seen Brody in a newspaper.
“What paper?” Brody asked calmly.
Irritation colored his view. Who had taken a picture of him and Cat? And when?
“Today’s Dyersport Gazette. You’re looking quite chummy with one Catherine Davenport.”
“It’s Carlton, actually,” he muttered. Thank goodness it was just the local paper. No one would think twice about the two of them being photographed together in Dyersport. This was simply a situation of Thomas seeing something he thought he could use.
“Since when do you get the Gazette?” Brody asked. And how had he gotten it so soon?
Brody wanted to see that paper. He backtracked to the break room, saw no sign of it, then peeked into every doorway he passed on his way to the front, checking horizontal surfaces as he went. No paper anywhere.
Several patrons of the museum glanced at him, though, as if they thought he were slightly insane. No doubt he had an alarmed look on his face. He needed to know what Thomas was talking about.
Another chuckle came through the phone. Fake. “I subscribed online when I realized your lady friend was in town trying to build up support for her mother.”
“She’s not my lady friend.” Brody stepped into the lobby of the building, and the minute his gaze landed on Louisa smiling serenely behind the reception desk, she innocently batted her eyelashes at him. “And what support do you mean?” he asked Thomas.
He could play pretend as well as his brother.
“Well,” Thomas drew the word out. “There was that mighty large donation she and her brother made to the Dyersport museum last week. That hit all the big papers, as I’m sure they intended. Right after word got out that Emma Davenport had slept her way into office.”
A muscle twitched in Brody’s left eye.
“Then there was the park donation. Two big moves in one week. This one right after Cat’s daddy’s extracurriculars were exposed. Seems suspicious, wouldn’t you say?”
“I wouldn’t know.”
After checking every seat and table in the lobby, he shot Louisa a glare as if it were all her fault. Her smile intensified. Then she lifted an arm and passed the newspaper over her desk.
He gave her a frown.
“So what’s the deal between you two?” Thomas asked. “You talk her into being in your play? Or was that her idea?”
Brody’s pulse almost returned to normal. This was about the play? He’d been afraid someone had been out at the lighthouse.
And then his heart rate kicked up again when he looked at the paper. On the front page was a color picture of him holding Cat high in his arms, her grinning wildly up at him, as he was about to deposit her into his car.
What had incited him to pick her up in a parking lot full of people, he had no idea. Other than she was tiny and cute and every single time he looked at her he wanted to touch her.
He eyed the caption under the picture, then did a quick scan over the details of the story. Nothing other than a mention that they’d been spotted sitting together and looked chummy. And of course, the article was about her being the new lead in his play. That was big news here. Most likely big enough it would get picked up by larger publications as well. He wondered if Cat had thought of that when she’d made the decision to do it.
The bite of doughnut he’d swallowed earlier now seemed intent on coming back up as his next thought hit.
Had she done it intentionally?
It would be the good kind of publicity to draw more attention away from her mother.
The sour feeling inside him intensified. He didn’t want to believe she was that way, but he saw it every time she stepped outside the house. She was a Davenport through and through. And she always represented her family well.
Bringing her into the play may have been his idea, but she didn’t do a single thing without thinking about the consequences.
Except maybe try to have sex with him in the backseat of his car.
“I hear the paper rattling,” Thomas said into his ear, reminding him that his brother was still on the phone. “I take it you hadn’t seen it yet?”
“It didn’t get delivered on time this morning,” Brody muttered as he finished the article. A reporter had been at the theater over the weekend, and Cat had impressed.
Brody had a momentary thought, wondering if he could use this notoriety himself. Maybe knowing a Davenport was in his play would get a producer up there to take a look. He still had the play out with a top-name agent. He should probably shoot the man an e-mail, pointing out the new lead of the show. That had to say something about the quality.
It felt dirty, but then, that seemed to be the game everyone else was playing.
“I understand she’s your neighbor,” Thomas informed him. “That’s convenient.”
“How do you mean?” And how did he know that? Brody handed the paper back to Louisa and stepped from the building. He was ready to end the conversation. It was going nowhere.
“Neighbor with a Davenport? Come on, man, surely you can help me out here.”
Brody paused on the front porch. “In what way?” Had his brother just asked him to use Cat on his behalf?
“Looks like you’re already friendly with her. Do some digging, is all I’m saying.”
“Don’t even—”
“This election is important, Brody. I’m not asking for anything illegal.”
“But unethical doesn’t bother you?”
“I never suggested lying.” Thomas went into his politician’s voice.
“You’re not asking me not to, either.” It hadn’t been said, but Brody knew his brother would love a fat, juicy story, even if it was made up.
“Does she know who you are?” Thomas suddenly asked.
“She knows my name.”
“Your real one?”
“My real one is Hollister. It’s on my birth certificate.”
“So she doesn’t know?” The interest in Thomas’s voice sickened Brody.
It surprised Brody to find that the reason for the call hurt. It shouldn’t. After all this time, Thomas remained the same. No big surprises there. But Brody had wanted them to mean something to each other. He’d wanted to have a brother.
Hell, he’d even taken the teaching job at Georgetown hoping for the chance to form a relationship—while still not exposing to the world that they were related, of course.
Nothing about Georgetown had worked out as Brody had planned.
Nothing about brotherhood had either.
“Listen,” he began. It had been almost two decades that he’d been trying to grow a relationship with Thomas. Maybe it was time to give up childish notions and accept that the two of them would never be close. Sadly, the idea bothered him as much as knowing why Thomas had called. “I’ve got to run. It’s been good talking to you.”
There was a pause, then Thomas followed with, “It’s been good talking to you, too.” The sincerity in his voice actually sounded real. “Think about it, will you?” Thomas tacked on, ruining any remaining positive thoughts Brody had about his sibling. Thomas was a politician to the core. He always would be.
“Sorry, man. Can’t do it. And you know that.” They’d had enough conversations over the years about Brody’s thoughts on the secrets and backstabbing that so often showed up in politics. He was not on board with that kind of duplicity, and never would be.
They hung up and Brody stared at his phone. He wanted to call Cat.
>
Only, if he called her, what was he supposed to say?
Hey, nice article in the paper? Are you in the play only for the publicity?
Oh, and by the way, my brother—Thomas Harrison—wants me to find some dirt on you. Got any?
And one last thing . . . about Friday night . . . can I have a do-over?
He shook his head and shoved the phone back into his pocket. She would be at the playhouse later that evening, ready to make her debut. He would see her then.
The hum of the crowd built up a slow energy inside Cat. It was scary, but also exciting. It was downright thrilling, actually.
She paced backstage, crossing from side to side before taking a quick peek out at the crowd. There were so many people in attendance tonight. That newspaper article had apparently brought them out. It looked like all of Dyersport was trying to pack themselves into the small theater.
All but Brody Hollister, apparently.
She hadn’t seen him all day. Or all weekend, for that matter. Other than a brief conversation Saturday morning when she’d shown up to try out for the part. But that’s as it should have been. She’d had lines to learn, rehearsals to attend. Then countless more hours of practice in the privacy of her own cottage.
Her nerves were strung tight at the thought of stepping onstage.
Good thing she hadn’t had time to think about Brody.
She snorted at the very idea. Somehow, Brody had still managed to creep into her mind. So much so that she’d gone by the museum that morning to see him.
She dropped off doughnuts for Louisa, planning to pop into Brody’s class. Keep it casual. Show that all was cool between them—even though he hadn’t jumped at the chance to sleep with her the other night.
But then she’d caught sight of the paper, and she’d been mortified. Being on the front page in the arms of a man was not what she would call flying under the radar.
Of course, trying out for lead in a play wasn’t exactly flying quietly, either. She hadn’t really thought that one through very well. She also hadn’t taken into account the effort required to prepare for a three-act play in the span of one short weekend. She’d be lucky to get through tonight without looking like an utter fool.
