“I know,” Emily said quietly.
“You don’t think we’ve had enough of this type of thing from your brother?”
Emily turned to face her mother, saw the flash of anger in her eyes, but rather than make her feel ashamed, it only served to stoke Emily’s own anger. “It’s hardly the same thing. I didn’t sexually harass Catherine, you know.”
“Well, you certainly did something.” Cheryl huffed out a breath and sat in the chair next to Emily.
Yes, I did, Emily thought. I fell in love.
She should have been surprised. It was the first time she’d admitted it to herself. It had been in the back of her brain since the winter carnival, but she’d refused to acknowledge it, knowing it would make everything that much more complicated. But now, lying in her hospital bed, head pounding like a freight train was rushing through it, she couldn’t get Catherine’s face out of her head.
“That girl,” Cheryl muttered again, and Emily held up her good hand.
“Mom. Stop.”
Her tone must have caught Cheryl’s attention because she looked at her daughter, her expression a mix of surprise and confusion, and she waited.
“It wasn’t all Catherine, you know. Clark was the instigator here. You should be at least as angry at him, if not more so.”
That seemed to take some of the wind out of her mother’s sails. She took a deep breath and fingered the hem of the thin sheet that covered Emily. “I will deal with your brother. I’ve had enough of his antics.”
Silence blanketed the room for several long moments.
“Mom, I need…” Emily swallowed, took a moment to collect her thoughts, find the right words. “I need to talk to you about something. And I need you to listen.”
Cheryl opened her mouth to speak, but something on Emily’s face must have made her think twice. The shadow of dread in her eyes told Emily she probably had an inkling, but it didn’t matter. Emily needed to talk this out.
Ready to spill her guts, she stopped, gave her mother a small, sad smile, and said simply, “I love you.”
Cheryl’s entire demeanor visibly softened. “I love you, too.” She took a deep breath and settled into her chair. “Now, talk to me.”
And Emily did.
***
Catherine was not a crier. Oh, sure, she’d shed a tear here and there. A sad movie or something touching might mist her up, but she rarely openly cried. It was interesting to her then that, since she’d met Emily only a couple months ago, she’d teared up on a somewhat regular basis. And after today, she’d sobbed like a baby during her entire drive home. At one point, the man in the car next to her at a red light had rolled down his window and handed her a tissue, asking if she was all right.
By the time she opened her front door and got inside, her head was pounding like she’d been severely over-served the night before and Geronimo’s happy barks over seeing her felt like stabs from an icepick hacking into her brain. She let him out the back door and went off to see if she had anything stronger than Motrin. Back in the kitchen, she poured herself a glass of water, downed three Excedrin Migraine tablets and wondered how the hell she was supposed to get through the rest of her day.
When she heard the car horn and the screech of tires outside, it didn’t really register immediately. She stood with her elbows on the counter, her head cradled in her hands for several beats before something—like some awareness knocking on her aching skull—made her snap her head up and look toward the back door.
“Oh, no,” she whispered. “No, no, no, no…” She ran to the front door and yanked it open just as Scott Turner was sprinting up her walk. The look on his face confirmed her worst fears and she blew past him in her slippers, fell to her knees in the road where she slid to a stop next to Geronimo’s little white body lying on his side in the street. He whimpered and his breathing was labored, but didn’t move, the one eye Catherine could see wide with fear.
“Okay, buddy,” she whispered. “It’s okay.” She very gently pet him as a woman came up behind her, clearly distraught.
“I’m so sorry,” she said, wringing her hands. “I didn’t see him. He just darted out in front of me and I didn’t have time to stop.”
Catherine shook her head, the tears back again. “It’s not your fault, she said. It’s mine. It’s my fault. It’s all my fault. Everything is my fault.”
Scott knelt next to her. “What can I do?” he asked.
Catherine turned anguished eyes to him. “Can you drive us to Junebug? There’s a volunteer vet there today.”
“You got it.” He was up and off running to his truck.
“Hang in there, Mo. Mommy’s here. Okay?” She stroked his fur and felt him calming a bit, his breathing—alarmingly ragged a moment ago—evening out some. There was no visible blood, but she wondered about the possibility of broken bones. She was hesitant to move him, but he tried more than once to get up, so her concern about any kind of spinal injury was lessened.
Scott’s truck skidded to a halt and he got out and helped Catherine lift the dog, who whimpered slightly. Catherine kept up a steady stream of words, reassuring him, telling him he was loved.
The ride was a blur, though it seemed to take forever to get to the shelter. She did her best to act as a human shock absorber, trying to protect Mo from any excess bumps that might cause him more pain. Once they finally arrived at Junebug, she directed Scott to drive around back; she didn’t want to parade an injured animal through the main lobby.
Around the back of the building, Ashley was walking a Lab mix back toward the door. Her eyes widened when she saw Catherine get out of the truck, cradling her dog.
“Oh, my God, what happened?”
“He got hit,” Catherine said, and her voice cracked and she started to wonder how the hell she was going to make it through this day without simply crumbling to the ground in a pile of emotion. “I can’t take anymore,” she whispered to herself. She was pretty sure Ashley heard her, as the woman sprang into action.
“Okay, come on,” she said. “And watch your step. It’s slippery.” Her eyes indicated Catherine’s feet and only then did she realize she was still wearing her slippers.
Catherine held Mo gently, high against her body, close to her chest so he could hear her. “It’s okay, baby. It’s okay. I’ve got you. We’re gonna get you all fixed up.”
Ashley held the door open for them, handed the lead to a bewildered Scott, and ran down the hall. In minutes, she was back with Jessica in tow, as well as the on-call vet for the day, a thirty-something plump woman named Dr. Stein that Catherine liked very much. One of the vet techs came up behind them as well.
“What happened?” Jessica asked.
“He was hit by a car in front of Catherine’s house,” Scott informed them, as Catherine’s voice seemed to have left her.
One look at Catherine’s face must have told Jessica all she needed to know. She said gently, “Okay. Let’s let Dr. Stein have him, okay, Cat?” She wrapped her arm around Catherine’s shoulders as the vet took Mo from Catherine’s arms.
“I’ve got him,” Dr. Stein said with a soft smile. “Don’t worry. We’ll take good care of him.”
She and the vet tech hurried away with Mo, even as Catherine was saying quietly, “I’m right here, buddy. I’m right here. Oh, God, this is my fault. It’s all my fault. All of it.”
***
Jessica’s office was much larger than anybody else’s and had its own private bathroom. As the story went, when her grandmother had first opened the shelter, she didn’t have enough volunteers to run everything and she often ended up falling asleep at her desk or on the couch in her office, spending the night there. After this happened several times, Jessica’s grandfather decided that, if he couldn’t get his wife to leave the animals overnight, he at least wanted her to be as comfortable as she could while she was here. So he built her a bathroom, complete with a large vanity and a big tub with a shower. Each board member had a key and was welcome to use it
any time.
Catherine never had.
“Sit.” Jessica led Catherine to the sofa, helped her take a seat. She’d sent Scott home, promising to deliver Catherine there when she was ready. Moving around her desk to one of the cabinets in the credenza, she pulled out a bottle and a glass. Pouring two fingers of whatever amber liquid it was—Catherine couldn’t see the label—into the glass, she handed it to Catherine. “Drink.”
Catherine did as she was told, felt the alcohol burn as it coursed down her throat, made a face. Jessica refilled the glass and Catherine downed another shot with the same effect.
Setting the bottle and glass on her desk, Jessica pulled a chair up so she sat facing Catherine, their knees touching. “Talk.”
Catherine finally looked at her. “You are very wordy today.” She was going for light, for joking, but her eyes filled with tears, which upset her. Again. She shook her head and let them fall.
Jessica closed warm hands over Catherine’s. “Cat. Honey. Talk to me. Tell me what’s going on?”
“My dog got hit by a car.”
Jessica cocked her head and made a face that told Catherine she knew there was more. “And what else?” When Catherine said nothing, Jessica reached out her hand, wiped away a tear with her thumb. “You kept saying everything is your fault. What does that mean?”
Catherine rubbed at her eye, looked over Jessica’s shoulder, swallowed hard, but couldn’t stop the tears, which just kept coming as if on a faucet of some kind in her head.
“Catherine,” Jessica said softly. “Talk to me. Is it Emily?”
The faucet turned on higher as Catherine nodded, but couldn’t push any words past the lump that now nearly closed up her throat.
“Tell me what happened.” Jessica’s voice was soft and gentle, the tender sound of somebody who cared about Catherine, and that almost made it worse. She’d gone against Jessica’s wishes, had completely disregarded them, and now Jessica wanted to help her feel better. A small cry of anguish escaped her chest as a sob broke through. Jessica laid a hand against her cheek. “Tell me.”
It all came spilling out then. Every last detail. The cabin. The hike. The word searches. The expensive boots. The sex. (The sex! God!). Clark and the bet. The hospital. Cheryl Breckenridge. Geronimo. Catherine told her every single thing that had happened to lead her to where she sat now. “I was such a coward,” she whispered. “She’s right. I just ran. She deserved better than that, but…I panicked.”
“Why?” Jessica asked her. “What made you panic?”
“I’m not exactly sure,” Catherine said. “I’ve been trying to figure it out since my visit to the hospital. There was so much working against us anyway. We knew it was a bad idea. You told us. Her mother told us. Our friends told us. God, I’m such an idiot. Plus…” She let her voice trail off, but Jessica simply waited her out. “I thought she was too good to be true.”
Jessica furrowed her brow. “How so?”
Catherine shook her head as she looked off into the middle distance. “She’s beautiful and smart and really nice. And also incredibly wealthy.”
“And?”
“And I’m out of her league. So the bet…didn’t seem too far-fetched to me. In that moment, with Clark being…Clark, showing up at the right moment, in the right place, after everything that had happened the night before, it just didn’t seem too far-fetched either.”
Jessica sighed. “Oh, Cat.” She shook her head. “You’re such an idiot.”
“I know. I just said that.”
“To make matters worse, you have trouble seeing past her money.”
“God, that makes me sound like such an asshole,” Catherine said, knowing Jessica was right.
“Well, you come by it honestly, so there’s that. You grew up fairly poor. You’ve worked two, sometimes three, jobs your entire life. It makes sense that you’d be leery of somebody who never had to deal with that.”
“Right?”
“However,” Jessica said, holding up a finger. “Let me ask you this: what has Emily done to make you think her money defines her?”
Catherine swallowed. She didn’t like this question.
“Here, let me help.” Jessica sat back in her chair and ticked off her fingers as she went. “Let’s see. She not only donates a lot of money to homeless animals, but she also volunteers her time. So there’s that.”
Catherine nodded.
“She likes to send flowers.”
Catherine scoffed. “She loves to send flowers.”
“Horrible woman,” Jessica said, shaking her head. “Horrible.” Catherine glared at her, but Jessica had known her for too long for it to have any effect. She simply continued with her list. “She whisks you away to her cabin in the woods for what I think sounds like a lovely weekend. And also hot and steamy.”
Catherine made no comment, but felt her cheeks flush.
“She not only buys you Christmas gifts, but one of them—the word search books—is proof that she listens to you when you talk. That’s huge in my world.”
“It is.” Catherine had to agree.
“And don’t get me started on the other gift.” Jessica shook her head. “Boots? Really? The woman knows you, Cat. She pays attention.”
“She does.”
“And finally, when you run away in a huff without allowing her to explain, what does she do? Does she let you go? Does she shrug and think what a jerk you are?” Jessica made a face. “Well, she might have, but she didn’t sit by, did she?”
“No,” Catherine said quietly.
“No. She smashed up her brother’s fancy car trying to catch you so she could explain. It was obviously important to her that you hear her side.”
They sat in silence for a long moment, Jessica evidently letting her words sink into Catherine’s brain while Catherine chewed on her bottom lip.
“Does that sound like a woman who would use you to win a bet?”
Catherine shook her head and they sat quietly again.
Finally, Jessica broke the silence. “This is a mess.”
“I know. I’m sorry.”
“You should be.” Anger flashed in Jessica’s eyes. “Why are you so stubborn?” Her tone broadcast her frustration. “Damn it, Cat.”
“I’m sorry,” she said again, for lack of anything else to say.
They sat quietly for long moments. Catherine’s tears finally dried. She took a tissue from the box on Jessica’s desk, wiped her nose, did her best to clean up her smeared eye makeup.
Finally, Jessica cleared her throat. She pushed the fingers of both hands through her hair and spoke. “Well, I can see two things very clearly. One: Emily cares about you. That would be obvious to a blind person. And two: you care about her. That one’s a little harder to see, but it’s there. You can fight it all you want, deny it all you want, but you and I have been friends for a long time and I know you.”
Catherine nodded. That was something she couldn’t deny.
“And I am so mad at you right now because you are so obviously in love with this woman and that makes it a big fucking mess for me.” Her voice got louder as she spoke. Conversely, Catherine’s got quieter.
“I know. I’m sorry.” Catherine sniffled, but held herself together. “For what it’s worth, I’m pretty sure it’s over. I did a good job of killing anything we might have had by not believing in her, by not trusting her, so there’s that. You’re welcome.” And then the tears were back. “Damn it,” she muttered, grabbing another tissue.
Jessica dropped her head back and stared at the ceiling. Catherine looked down at her feet.
They sat.
CHAPTER TWENTY
BY WEDNESDAY MORNING, EMILY was feeling a little stir-crazy. They’d kept her in the hospital overnight on Sunday, just to make sure she didn’t have a concussion or anything more serious than a broken wrist, but sent her home the next day. Speaking of her wrist, it was aching and a glance at the clock told her it was time for another pain pill if she wanted it. She
scooped up the bottle, held it in her hand for a moment, then put it back down. While they certainly alleviated the pain, the pills also made her feel a bit loopy—not a feeling she enjoyed.
“I’ll tough it out. Right, Dave?”
The dog was right at her feet, where he’d been for the past forty-eight hours. It was as if he knew something bad had happened to her and wanted to protect her from this point on. She loved him for that.
“I should probably eat something,” she said to him, wandering into the kitchen. “What do you think? Grilled cheese and tomato?” When Dave sat down and blinked at her, she nodded. “You got it.”
She had sliced a tomato and was buttering the bread—more difficult than she’d expected with a cast on her wrist—when there was a knock on her door. Odd, as visitors had to be buzzed in the downstairs lobby doors before they could make their way to the individual apartments. Must be a neighbor.
Dave close on her heels, she pulled the door open without checking the peephole and then stood still in surprise.
“Hi.” Catherine stood in the doorway, Geronimo in her arms. His back leg was covered in a green cast and he wore a soft fabric cone around his neck.
“Oh, my God, what happened?” Emily let any other feelings go for the moment and reached out for Geronimo, whose entire body vibrated with excitement to see her. Catherine smiled and let go of him, let him shift into Emily’s hands so he could bathe her face in kisses like he hadn’t seen her in years. She kept her hands out, ready to catch the extra weight if Emily’s bad hand couldn’t handle it. Dave put his paws up on Emily’s hip, wanting very much to sniff this new creature in his house. Emily squatted.
“Dave, this is Mo. Mo, meet Dave.” They sniffed gently but exuberantly. Emily glanced up. “All right if I set him down?”
Catherine nodded and they watched as the dogs—one twice the size of the other—got to know one another.
“Be gentle, Dave,” Emily said quietly. “Gentle.” Dave seemed to listen and watched carefully as Mo maneuvered himself in a three-legged hop around the living room, sniffing furniture and the occasional dog toy he came across. Dave followed him as if acting as guardian angel.
Run To You (Puppy Love Romance Book 2) Page 26
