Kat opened the window a crack. Fresh, crisp Maine air rushed in and had her childhood memories flooding back. The walks on the rocky beach by their house with her father, lobster bakes and sitting in the yard with her grandmother. “They weren’t all bad.”
Sam glanced up from his game. “What, Mom?”
“Nothing, baby.” Love for Sam and her childhood home filled her. Kat took a deep breath and settled back into the driver’s seat. She hoped spending so much time with her mother wouldn’t spoil the good mood this place put her in. Kat pulled into her parents’ driveway.
Axel and Beverly Harper sat on the front porch swing, bundled in a down blanket. Axel brought their clasped hands to his lips and kissed Bev’s knuckles. Her parents stood and waved to Kat and Sam.
Kat stopped the rental car and Sam bolted out of the car. “Grammy!” He ran up to Bev, excited. She loved that her parents had a great relationship with her son. She took in her dad’s appearance. Concern settled in her belly. “Hi, Dad.”
He hugged her and pulled back. “Hi, honey. How are you?” The appraising look he sent her made Kat want to fidget. “You look great. Maybe a little tired.”
Memories of J.J. stormed into Kat’s brain. She felt a flush ride up from her neck.
Axel gave her an odd look. He kneeled down to give Sam a bear hug.
Bev gave Kat the once-over, which had Kat pulling on her jacket. She stiffened and unease settled on her like a wool blanket in August. “Hi, Mom.” Kat gave her mother an awkward hug.
“Have you gained weight?”
She wanted to scream. Here we go. “No, Mom, I have actually lost five pounds.”
“Well, you need to lose about thirty more.” Condemnation floated through Bev’s voice. “When you lose it, you’ll be so beautiful.”
Kat grew cold, her chest restricted and her stomach knotted and not in the good way. “God, Mom, you don’t have to keep reminding me that I’m not the daughter you think I should be.”
Bev’s chin rose and she leaned toward Kat. “I don’t know what you are talking about. Your father and I adore you.”
She laughed, she couldn’t help it. “You have half that right. I really lucked out with Dad.” She knew it was a shitty thing to say, but her mother brought the bitch out in her.
Axel and Sam walked over. He wrapped his arm around Kat’s waist and whispered in her ear. “Don’t let your mother get to you.”
He held his hand out for Bev. “Let’s all go inside.”
“God help me.” She took a cleansing breath and followed Sam inside.
Too many hours later, Kat forced an over-tired Sam to bed. All she wanted was a hot bath. Kat fished lavender-scented bath oil out of her toiletry bag and walked into the bathroom next to her childhood bedroom. She filled the old claw-foot tub and drizzled a generous amount of oil under the stream of steaming water. She grabbed a thick towel and a face cloth and undressed. Lavender enveloped the room and fog clung to the mirror. Some of the day from hell’s stress evaporated from her.
Her cell phone rang in the bedroom. She opened the connecting door. Cool air hit her skin. Kat shivered, hurried to her bed and snatched up her phone. She glanced at the screen and rushed back to the warm bathroom. “Hello.” She climbed into the tub, winced and twisted the cold water spigot on full blast.
“Hi, how was your trip?”
Her heart clenched at the sound of J.J.’s voice. Kat eased into the bath and sighed. “Fine.” She turned off the water and settled back.
“How are your parents?”
“They’re fine, I guess.”
“What’s wrong?”
The heat from the fragrant water seeped into her tired body. “I don’t want to talk about it.”
“Come on.”
He made her want to share her problems. She had always had to deal with her life stresses alone. “Where do I start?”
“How was the flight?”
It was nice to have a man to talk to. The asshole she’d married never cared about what happened in her life. “Late. The plane was over an hour late getting to the airport. “When we finally got to the house, the first words out of my mother’s mouth were how bad I looked. That’s about how my whole day went, running late and being criticized.” She took a deep breath. “What are you up to tonight?”
“Paperwork and talking to you,” he said. “What are you doing for the rest of the night?”
“I’m taking a bath, and after that, I’m crawling into bed because someone had me up late last night.”
“I think it was the other way around.”
Kat closed her eyes and let the sound of him fill her. “Well, since I’m in the tub, I should let you go.”
“Oh no, I want to talk to you while you’re naked and wet.”
“Stop that.” She sat up and adjusted the phone. “When you talk to me like that, I feel like a naughty schoolgirl.”
“That’s a thought,” he teased.
Water licked at her breasts. “Very funny. I’m too old to be a schoolgirl.” She sighed and asked, “What are you and your mom doing for Thanksgiving?”
Air reverberated through the phone. “The same thing we do every year. I’ll go to my mom’s house after work on Wednesday and help her get ready for the big turkey day.”
“Is it just the two of you?”
“Fuck no. We have about fifteen people coming for dinner.”
She lathered soap on a face cloth. “Really?”
“Yeah, my Aunt Alisa comes with her whole family from Miami.”
Kat ran the cloth over her stomach to her apex. She wished the terry cloth was J.J.’s mouth. “Your aunt’s name is Alisa and your mother’s name is Alice. What were your grandparents thinking?”
“I know, right? When I have kids, I’ll make sure that they have very different names.”
Her hand stilled. She knew J.J. didn’t know what he’d just said, but her fears had just been confirmed. “Well, um, I need to get going.”
“Are you all right?”
Tears burned behind her eyes. “Sam’s calling me,” she lied. “I have to go.” She pressed the end button and slid deeper into the tub.
* * * * *
Kat woke early from a fitful night’s sleep. She tugged on her old L.L. Bean jacket and strolled outside. On her walk through the backyard, she saw her father sitting in an old Adirondack chair. She sat in the chair next to him. “Hi, Daddy.”
Axel didn’t take his eyes off the tremulous water. “Hi, sweetheart, how are you?”
She reached over and gripped his hand. Dread overwhelmed her. “Dad, it’s cold out here. Are you all right?”
A weak smile tipped his lips. “Work is getting to be too much for me and I’m thinking of retiring sooner than we discussed.” He squeezed her hand.
Surprise ricocheted through her. “You are?”
“I think you are going to have to move up here. I don’t think you can manage the mill from Florida. I don’t want you to take it over now. I know you’re going to need time to organize your life down south.”
Air caught in Kat’s chest and froze. The freedom she felt a few days ago evaporated. “I’ll do what’s best for the mill, Dad.” She pushed the words out. A gust of wind blew off the bluff. Multicolored leaves swirled around Kat’s feet. “Dad, you need to rest more.” She stood. “Take some time off and spend it with Mom.”
He nodded. “You’re right.”
She stared out over the bluff. The pink sky and rocky ocean seemed to crash together. “What time do you want to go to the mill?”
“About an hour.”
“I’d best get in the shower.”
An hour later, Axel led Kat to his office. He powered up his computer. “Get ready for a long day.”
Challenge ran through her veins. “Bring it on.” She cracked her knuckles and started to go over spreadsheets.
By midday, she had a handle on what needed to happen to turn the mill around. “Hey, Dad.”
He glanced over a
t her. “Hmm.”
“I have good news and bad news.”
Axel removed his glasses from his nose. “Give me some good news first.”
Kat scanned the spreadsheet one last time before she spoke. “I think by this time next year we’ll be in the black.”
“Really?”
She handed him the printout. “I think with a few adjustments we can turn a profit.”
“How?’
“Well, that’s the bad news.” She sat back in her chair. “You’ll have to stop taking a paycheck and the trust will have to stop receiving dividends.”
“What?” He stood and walked over to her.
She turned her monitor toward him. “Dad, how can we take money from a business that has cut employee benefits in half? It’s either we take a cut or we lay off fifty people.” Kat stroked some keys. “The town depends on the mill. If we lay off all those people, it will really affect the town in a negative way.”
“How am I supposed to pay my bills?”
“If you can’t live off the trust, then something is wrong.”
He studied the computer. “It will be tight.”
Kat rolled her eyes. “Tell Mom to stop ordering all the designer brands she has shipped from all over.” Annoyance threatened to spill out of her. “Maybe if you two shopped at a discount store every once in a while,” Kat drummed her fingers on the desk, “you wouldn’t need money from the mill.”
He slumped and shoved his hands in his pockets. “I’ll talk to your mother about it.”
“Whatever. The family trust shouldn’t take any more dividends.”
“All right,” he said. “I’ll call the lawyer about the trust.” Axel sat back at his desk and dialed the phone.
She tuned out her father, continued to map out a business plan and hours later closed out her program. Kat gazed around the room and saw Axel was nowhere in sight.
Kat stood, every muscle in her body protesting. She staggered to the door and grabbed the office manager walking by. “Have you seen my dad?”
“I just saw him in the lobby.”
“Thanks.” Kat willed her stiff legs to move and searched for her father.
“Hi, honey. I got us dinner.”
She glanced at her watch. “I can’t believe it’s so late. I need to call Sam.”
“I called your mother. She and Sam are going to dinner and a movie.” He shook the brown bag he held. “I got your favorite from The Shack.”
The scent of fried clams wafted to her nose. Happy memories played in her mind. “Thanks, Dad.”
“Just the look on your face is thanks enough.” He guided her back to the office.
“It’s been a long time since I’ve had The Shack.” She ripped opened the grease-stained bag.
“How long has it been?”
Unexpected sadness swamped her. “Too many years to count. I took Gary there when we were dating. He made a comment about my weight.” She sighed and bit into a French fry. “I never went back.”
Axel popped a shrimp into his mouth. “Can I tell you something?”
“Sure.”
“I always hated Gary.”
Disbelief overtook her. “Why didn’t you tell me? One of the reasons I married him was because I thought you and Mom approved.”
“It was none of my business and your mother told me I was just being overprotective of you.”
She tossed down a fried clam. “Oh Dad, I wish I’d known.”
“Don’t get me wrong, Gary helped make Sam.” He smiled. “That boy is the highlight of my life.”
Kat reached over and placed her hand over his. “I know.”
Axel’s expression hardened. “Did you love Gary?”
Surprised at the abrupt question, Kat pulled back her palm. “I thought I did at first, but about a year after we were married, I found out he was cheating on me, and after he raped…” Kat stopped and hung her head.
“What?”
She slumped. You opened a door you can’t close now. Kat straightened her spine and forced herself to tell her father the truth. “I lost a baby before I had Sam, and Gary made me get pregnant immediately after the miscarriage.”
“What do you mean made you?”
Kat forced herself to stare into her father’s steely blue eyes. “He pinned me down in our bed and forced me. When I didn’t get pregnant and I locked him out of the bedroom, he hit me. He counted the days until the time was right and raped me in the kitchen.” She picked up a warm open can of diet soda and attempted to wet her dry throat. “When I got pregnant, he told me that was all I was good for.”
“Why didn’t you divorce him?” he asked.
“When we got married, I made him a part of the family trust. I didn’t want him to bankrupt it.”
“He couldn’t have.”
“I was stupid,” she said. “I let him talk me into letting him rework the trust.”
Her father shoved aside his meal. “Katherine, I never knew. Why didn’t you come to me?”
“I was ashamed. After Sam and the hysterectomy, Gary never touched me again.” She played with her food. “We were just business partners, I guess.”
“But when your mother and I would visit, you slept in the same bedroom and acted married.”
“Gary wouldn’t let me move into the guest suite,” she said, ashamed. “When I tried, he took twenty thousand dollars out of the trust and bought his mistress a necklace.”
He stood and paced the office. “I wish I knew. I would have reined in your mother.”
“Dad, you can’t control her.”
He grinned and sat back in his chair. “You’re right.” Axel picked up a fry and waved it at Kat. “Sam says you’re seeing someone.” He bit into the fry. “Something about a man named J.J. coming to his play and staying after to help you and coming over late at night.”
Heat ran up Kat’s spine. “I’m kind of seeing someone, but it can’t go anywhere.”
“Why not?”
“He’s much younger.”
“So?” Axel cleared his throat. “You’re a lovely woman.”
“After Gary, I can’t put myself out there like that.”
“Out there like what?”
She wasn’t going to explain to her father all the reasons she and J.J. couldn’t be together. “I can’t give a twenty-five-year-old a life.”
“Did he ask you for a life?”
“No.”
“Why can’t you just date the boy and have fun?”
Embarrassment hit Kat in the solar plexus. “Dad.”
“Katherine Elizabeth, I might be an old man, but I know the ways of kids today. Go and have fun.”
It felt good to laugh with her father. “That’s sounds like something Grandma would say.”
“It is.” He took her hand. “You remind me so much of her.” Axel brushed a curl off Kat’s face.
The fatherly gesture warmed Kat’s heart. “How?”
The chair creaked when he rested back. “Well, you look just like her. You think of others as she did. The one big difference between you two is you never put yourself first.” Axel crumpled up his food containers. “Put yourself first for once.”
“I think I will.” She crumpled up her food bags. “Let’s get this done, shall we?”
* * * * *
J.J. walked into the Shady Horse. He had spent the afternoon helping his mother re-arrange her dining room, which kept him from thinking of Kat all damn day. J.J. needed a stiff drink and some greasy food. He spotted Ron and Patricia. He lumbered up to them. “What are you two doing out?”
“We do this every year. How are you doing?”
“Fine.”
Patricia and Ron laughed. “You look like shit,” she said.
Ron motioned for him to sit. J.J. flopped into the seat opposite them. “God, I miss her.”
“Kat will be home in a couple of days,” Patricia said.
“How is she, really?” J.J. asked.
Patricia’s eyes widened. “H
aven’t you talked?”
“Yes, every day. She tells me everything is fine, but I can hear it in her voice that something’s wrong.”
Empathy swelled in Patricia eyes. “Let’s get you a beer and I’ll tell you another story about our Kat.”
Anger and hurt flashed hot in his heart. “I don’t understand why Kat doesn’t tell me herself.”
“Kat’s too proud,” Ron said. “She doesn’t want you to have to deal with her issues.”
He would have to work on making Kat trust him. “Tell me what’s been going on with Kat this week.”
“Her father wants Kat to take over the mill sooner than she expected.”
“Is she going to do it?” An unpleasant sense of doom washed over J.J.
“She will eventually,” Patricia said. “But I think Kat can run the business from here. She can’t live in Maine. Kat and her mother would kill each other.”
Ron ordered another round of drinks. J.J. watched Ron and Patricia. They have what it takes to make it forever, he thought and wondered if he and Kat could make it work.
* * * * *
J.J.’s phone rang at one thirty in the morning. He fumbled for his cell in the dark. “Hello.”
“Hi!” Kat’s sexy voice caressed his ear.
He cleared the sleep out of his brain and sat up in bed. “How are you?”
“Better now.”
“What happened?” His dick twitched to full staff.
“Mill stuff.” Her words slurred with fatigue. “How was your day?”
“Busy. I saw Patricia and Ron at the Shady Horse tonight.”
“I thought you were going to help your mother get ready for Thanksgiving.”
J.J. arranged his pillows. “I did. Then I went to the Shady Horse for a beer. Ron and Patricia were there, so we had drinks.” His dick pulsed and jutted up to his navel. “Where are you?”
“I’m in my room, sitting on the bed, why?”
“What are you wearing?” He took his stiff cock in his hand.
Her sexy chuckle caressed his ear. “Jeans and a T-shirt?”
He stroked his dick in a slow rhythm. “Take them off.”
“You are so bad!”
The sound of her taking off her clothes sent waves of pleasure down his spine. “Did you bring your vibrator with you?”
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