Assuming, of course, that he was interested in her as more than a fling. That was probably a wild assumption, even if he had given her a nickname.
God, why was she so hopeless about this stuff? Why couldn’t she learn? She was smart and savvy about everything else. She had a good education, and she had a good job that she was good at. She had a good life. Moreover, she had no trouble getting into relationships. Men were interested in her. She was interested in them. Until the sex.
If she could just assert herself, just a little—say, ‘you know what, that’s not my thing,’ or, ‘hey, I like this, can we try it?’ It wasn’t like she wanted anything weird. But she couldn’t make herself say it.
While she stomped out the fire of self-loathing that those thoughts had sparked, Atticus kept up his sensual attention on her sore skin. Finally, he bit down on the bruise, and Katrynn hissed in discomfort.
He chuckled.
“There a decent place to eat around here? I’ll take you to dinner before the signing tonight.”
“Dominic’s. It’s expensive, though.”
“Not a problem. You’re the manager of the bookstore I’m signing at, so it’s a business expense. I’ll be back around seven. Do yourself up nice for me.” He brushed his fingers over the bruise again. “But don’t cover that up too much.”
“The signing’s at eight.” An hour wasn’t much time for dinner at Dominic’s. “And it’s Saturday. Even in the winter, they might be booked up.”
“I’ll work it out. And the signing starts when I get there.” He nipped at her shoulder again, and then, with another smack on her ass, he stepped back. “See ya later, Kitty.”
After he’d left, Katrynn leaned back against the counter and chewed on her thumbnail. Lennie and George, finished with their breakfast, sat at her feet and stared up at her.
They were probably judging her. If anybody knew how dumb she was about sex, and just men in general, it was them.
~oOo~
“I don’t mean to push, but can I ask what happened between you and John?”
Katrynn paused with her hands in a box of copies of Atticus’s new book, The Deadened Woods. She and Bev were setting up the shop for the release party. They’d closed for the day so that the setup wouldn’t be too stressful, and Jamie and Greg, their part-timers, were only working the actual party. Bev and Katrynn liked doing the setup for these things on their own.
They had book signings fairly often, especially during the peak summer months, and but this was only the second time, at least since Bev had owned the shop and Katrynn had managed it, that they’d hosted an author’s book release party. In the first case, a local writer had published a history of Quiet Cove with a New England-based small press, so the only bookshop in town had been the ideal and logical place to hold the release.
Atticus’s book was being published by one of the Big Five, and he’d gotten blurbs from some literary luminaries, so Cover to Cover wasn’t the most ideal or logical place to hold its release. But the connection to Theo, and the small-town vibe of the book itself, had Atticus’s ‘people’ excited about, as he put it, ‘going downhome’ and doing the release here.
It was a lot of work, getting this little shop in a centuries-old building ready for a party of such magnitude. But they were keeping things low-key. As Bev said, if they’d wanted a lot of glitz, they should have stayed in New York.
Katrynn was doing most of the work; Bev looked pale and tired, and she’d done a lot of sitting this afternoon.
She’d lost weight recently, which should have been a good thing—she’d been fretting about the stubborn baby weight from her third daughter, Carina, who’d been born the summer before—but it looked like she was losing it from illness rather than effort.
“Don’t you know? I figured the Paganos would have been chewing up that juicy morsel for a bedtime snack and for breakfast and lunch, too.” That family was all about the gossip.
Sitting on a stool behind the counter, Bev dropped a handful of Sharpies into a small silver vase and smiled. “No. John didn’t want to tell anybody at all. Nick was worried about you, so he made him talk, but you know Nick. He shares no secrets. Not even with me. Which is fine—I’d rather hear it from you, the way you want it told, than secondhand, anyway.”
Bev got to her feet, and then she did something Katrynn recognized: she brushed her hand over her belly in a certain, lingering way. Bev and Nick had had three little girls in the six years that Katrynn had been managing Cover to Cover, and she knew the signs well. “Bev—are you pregnant?”
Her smile changed to something more wry. “Yes. Don’t change the subject.”
“But Carina’s only a few months old!”
“Seven months next week. I’m aware. And before you ask, I’m about three months along. Back to the more pressing matter at hand, and now I am going to push: what is up with you and John? Did he hurt you?”
Bev was Katrynn’s boss, and older than she, but she was also probably her best friend. Over these past years, they’d spent a lot of time together, and they were well attuned to each other. But Bev was John’s family—his cousin-in-law, if that was a thing—and that family was crazy close. Katrynn knew, because she’d kind of been adopted into it.
Unsure whether she was talking to Bev, her friend, or Bev, John’s family, she didn’t know quite what to say, but the words that came out were, “Not last night, no.”
Not the best possible choice. That sentence was as pregnant as Bev was, and Katrynn knew it right away—but too late to do anything about it.
“Okay, you have to clarify that statement.” Bev came around the desk and stood before her. “What did he do?”
Katrynn sighed. “The short version is that I saw him at Quinn’s on New Year’s Eve. We got drunk, he came home with me, and when I woke up the next morning, he was gone.”
“Jesus. John did that?”
“Yep. Last night was the first time I’ve seen him since. He wanted to talk. I didn’t. Hence the misunderstanding and broken jar of olives.”
“Is the long version worse?”
The long version was that she’d liked him. He was hot—with soulful hazel eyes, and a scruffy black beard and messy, longish hair to match—and he was sweet, with a quick, gentle smile. He was tall, too, taller than she by several inches, which was rare. Atticus was about her height. At the most. As a tall woman, she didn’t have many opportunities to feel fully enveloped in an embrace. It was nice to be with a taller man.
He wasn’t her favorite Pagano—she’d nursed a pretty intense crush on the very-married Luca for her first year or so in the Cove—but she’d liked John a lot. She’d thought he was a good guy, but she should have remembered how much her judgment sucked.
Reeling from that sucky judgment, dumped on New Year’s Eve by a guy who’d decided that he wanted to ‘go a different direction’ in the new year, Katrynn had stomped into Quinn’s determined not to spend New Year’s Fucking Eve sitting in her living room, wrapped in her fluffy purple throw, eating Chunky Monkey and watching the ball drop on television with no company but Lennie and George.
At Quinn’s, she’d found John, sitting at the bar with a whole bottle of some kind of booze, drowning disappointments of his own. He’d been dumped recently, too—just before Thanksgiving. They’d commiserated, and then they’d just talked, and laughed, drinking all the while.
The bar had gotten loud and crowded, but Katrynn had barely noticed. When it got too loud to hear each other, they’d leaned in close.
Then it had been midnight, and he’d kissed her. He hadn’t asked, and he hadn’t demanded. He’d just come in, and she’d met him.
And holy shit, could the guy kiss. It had been perfect.
They’d both been drunk, sure, and they’d both been rebounding. But it had still been perfect. The whole night had been perfect, from the time he’d seen her standing at the bar and called her over.
Quinn had had a cab on retainer for the night, and he’d sent t
hem off together, giving the driver both of their addresses. They’d made out on the way, and John had gotten comfortable at second base, when the driver stopped at her place. She hadn’t been ready to give the perfect up. So she’d asked him up. If she hadn’t been drunk, she’d never have had the guts to do it.
That had been perfect, too. Exactly what she wanted. She had come harder than she ever had before, not counting when she was alone with her toys—a real, true, uninhibited orgasm. Complete satisfaction. Even bliss.
Yes, he’d passed out while they were in the afterglow, while he was still inside her, but that hardly mattered. She’d worked her way out from under him and settled at his side, and she’d fallen into her own boozy sleep thinking that maybe something real could happen. Hot guy, good guy, great sex. She’d felt like karma was finally giving to her instead of taking. At any rate, they were so completely in sync that it was worth a try.
And then she’d woken up alone, and, when he wasn’t in her apartment, she’d looked out the window and seen him standing in the lot, on his phone, with his shoes in his hand, like he’d been in such a big hurry to escape that he hadn’t taken the time to put them on. In January in Rhode Island.
Not such a good guy, then. A fucking asshole, in fact.
The worst part of it was that they’d been friends. Not close, but comfortable talking together. She was in his circle—his family circle, even—and they saw each other often. Maybe that made hooking up at all a bad idea; she could understand if he’d regretted the night. Sober, she probably wouldn’t have entertained the idea, either.
But he’d just bailed on her, knowing full well that they wouldn’t be able to avoid each other, that she’d have to face him again and again, and that she’d always know that he didn’t even think her worth the effort to leave gracefully.
Yes, the long version was worse.
“The long version is more detailed. Leave it at that.”
Bev studied her, her blue eyes narrowing shrewdly. Then she huffed. “Okay. I’ll call and tell him not to come tonight. We don’t need musical accompaniment.”
“No!” Katrynn had no wish to see him again—ever—but worse than that would be for their ‘misunderstanding’ to make things weird in the Paganos. If Nick had already been at him, that was bad enough—though she liked the thought that a mafia don was in her corner. “Let’s just leave the plans the way they are. I don’t want this to be bigger than it is. He was an asshole. I was probably a moron. You know me. Shitty luck with men. And anyway, Atticus is taking me out to dinner tonight, so I’ve moved on.”
“I won’t point out that you mention that immediately after saying you have shitty luck with men.”
Katrynn smirked. “You just did point it out.”
Bev smirked back. “As someone who survived a long history of shitty luck with men, I gotta watch out for my sister in the struggle.” She reached out and moved the scarf away from Katrynn’s neck. Katrynn hadn’t been expecting that, so she hadn’t moved quickly enough to avoid the next question. “Is this a gift from Atticus? And I don’t mean the scarf.”
Katrynn pulled the scarf from Bev’s hand and resettled it, hoping she’d covered all the deep reddish-purple. Her makeup had not been adequate to the task. “It’s not what it looks like.”
“First, that sentence is a gigantic red flag. Again, I know personally. And second, what it looks like is a hickey that belongs in the Guinness book.”
“Okay, then it is what it looks like—and see? Not to worry. We just had fun last night.”
Again, those blue eyes probed at her. She and Bev had never discussed specifics about what they liked and didn’t like in bed, but Katrynn got the strong sense that Bev didn’t believe that she’d had fun last night. And she hadn’t. She’d felt abused.
But maybe that was just her being prudish and putting too much emphasis on the way she wanted things to be.
Time to change the subject. “Enough about all that. Tell me how you got pregnant again so fast. Is this good?”
Bev blinked, and with that, her eyes softened and returned to the weary state that had become normal of late. “It happened the usual way, obviously. On our weekend in New York, almost definitely.”
“Ooh. Romantic.” Mafia don or not, Nick was basically the perfect husband, as far as Katrynn could tell—and Bev thought so, too. It was beyond romantic to see a man who had as much power as Nick had be so besotted with his wife and children. Katrynn wanted that in her life, too.
“It was.” That brought a happier light into Bev’s eyes. “Very. As for is it good? Yes. It has to be.” Her expression clouded over again. “I’m not sure how yet, but it has to be. In about six months, when Carina is just about a year old, and before Elisa starts kindergarten, I’m going to have baby number four. So it has to be good. It has to be. I have to figure it out.”
Katrynn’s little misunderstanding suddenly seemed petty and stupid. Bev had been off her game for months. She had three little girls at home already, and she owned this shop. Katrynn managed it, and they had a small sales staff, too, but Bev worked about half-time, on top of everything she did with the girls. She was exhausted and stressed all the time.
She gave her friend a hug. When Bev hung on, Katrynn said, “It is good. You and Nick make the most perfect babies. And I’ll help. I’ll do whatever you need here, you know that. You’re surrounded by people who love you and your family and will help with anything you need. And you know Nick will move heaven and earth to get you whatever you need. I think I mean that literally.”
Bev laughed and leaned back from the hug. She sniffed and wiped her eyes. “You’re right. I know. I’m scared, but I know it’ll be okay. I just need to get out of my head.”
“Then I’ll help with that, too. I will regale you with all my romantic misadventures, and you can be glad you’re you and not me.”
“I was you. I know it sucks. You can always talk to me, you know that. For advice or just an ear to listen or a shoulder to lean on.”
Katrynn smiled. She was glad Bev hadn’t spouted the platitude that there was somebody out there who was perfect for her, who was meant for her. Bev had found her perfect somebody, but Katrynn knew that that had been pure luck. They hadn’t been fated to be together. They had stumbled into each other.
She’d let herself slip, for a mere few hours, and think that maybe there was a perfect somebody for her, too, that maybe fate was in play after all, but that had been bullshit.
You were lucky, or you were lonely, or you settled. Period.
Katrynn clearly wasn’t lucky, and she didn’t want to be lonely. So she’d settle.
She reached up and retied her ponytail, then fussed with her scarf until she felt fairly sure it covered the bruise.
~ 3 ~
John answered the door. “Hey, Theo.”
“Hey. You ready?”
“Yep.” He locked up and stuck the key in its hidey-hole under the porch. “Let’s hit it.”
A couple of years ago, not long after Carmen and Theo had moved back to the Cove and Carmen had sold John this little beach house he’d been renting from her, John and Theo had started running together several times a week.
They’d both been runners for years; John had gone to the cross country state championships three years in a row in high school. They’d met each other on the high school track one morning and then started a regular thing. Theo would run the couple of miles from his place to John’s, they’d run together to the high school and do laps on the track, then work out at the stations on the sidelines. Then they’d run back to Theo’s, and John would run home. Depending on their schedules, the weather, and their mutual dedication, they’d do anywhere from five to eight miles, altogether, about four days a week. Theo was in his late fifties, but he was every bit as fit as John, who was no slouch.
John tried to get a couple of days a week in at the gym, too. He wasn’t worried about those few Italian vacation pounds.
He’d been a little surprised
that morning, when Theo had called to check if they were still on for their run. His night at Carmen and Theo’s party hadn’t ended on the best note. With Nick leaning on him, and everybody else looking at him like he was some kind of rapist or something—or at least a really bad party guest—and with fucking Atticus (make that Arthur) Calhoun all over Katrynn and smirking at him every chance he’d had, John had said his goodbyes to the people who mattered and then bailed. Nobody had been sorry to see him go.
It seemed like feeling guilty about bailing on Katrynn had gotten her wedged into his head, now that he was back in town. Before, he’d liked her and been interested in her, but it hadn’t been anything more than vaguely, and occasionally, disappointing not to have a chance to ask her out. Since seeing her last night, though, he’d been, well, obsessing over her a little. He really didn’t like that she was apparently with Calhoun.
Prayer (The Pagano Family Book 5) Page 5
