by Mindy Klasky
Rye wanted to kick himself for making Kat pull away like that, for bringing out that guarded look in her eyes. Over the past few days, he’d relived that kitchen kiss so many times. He’d remembered the swift surge of passion that had boiled his blood as Kat settled her body against him, as her lips parted beneath his. Back in Richmond, he’d picked up the phone a half-dozen times, just wanting to hear her voice. Hell, he’d even grabbed his keys once, thinking about making the drive south in record time.
And he had to admit that he’d wondered—more than once—if she would bring that same sudden passion to his bed. He’d imagined her shifting above him, concentrating on their bodies joined together, fulfilling at last the promise that he’d made with a blushing kiss ten years before.
He was being an idiot, of course. He wasn’t going to see Kat in his bed. He was going to honor her clearly stated desire, keep his distance, and finish up his work at the studio. Get the hell out of Eden Falls, and back to Richmond, where he belonged. That was the professional thing to do. The gentlemanly thing to do.
Damn. Sometimes, he hated being the good guy.
Still, his family had dragged him down here for the weekend, and he’d be an idiot not to take advantage of the fact that Kat was sitting right beside him. He just had to reassure her. “It was nothing serious, Kat. Rachel and me.”
“With Rachel, it never is.”
“She was really interested in another guy, a fraternity brother of mine. After about a month, we both realized the truth, and that was it.”
“Of course.”
Kat heard the stiffness in her tone. She knew that she had pulled away from Rye as soon as he mentioned Rachel. She was holding her back straight, as if she were about to spin away in a flawless pirouette.
She hated talking about her sister. She hated going over the poor choices Rachel had made, the easy ways out that she’d taken, over and over and over again. Just thinking about the old battles made Kat freeze up, clutching at her old formula—goals, strategies, rules. That’s what she needed, here in Eden Falls. That’s what she needed throughout her life.
But what had Susan told her, just that morning? Go stomping in mud puddles for a change. Somersault down a hill.
Impossible. Mud and hills were both in short supply, here in the public park. But Kat could let herself go. Just a bit.
“I’m sorry,” she said, forcing herself to relax. “I really do appreciate your telling me about Rachel.”
He continued to look grave, though. Her natural reaction had driven a wedge between them. But she could change that—even with stomping and somersaults off the menu for the day. Consciously setting aside her anger with Rachel, Kat dug her elbow into Rye’s side. “Come on! I’d race you to the far end of the park, but I’m pretty sure you’d win.”
He looked at her walking boot. “Yeah. I wouldn’t want to take unfair advantage. What do you think, though? Could you manage the swings?”
“That’s about my top speed, these days.”
She took the hand that he offered, letting him pull her to her feet. They fell into step easily as they crossed to the swing set. She actually laughed as he gestured toward the center leather strap, waving his hand as if he were presenting her with a royal gift. “Mademoiselle,” he said, holding the iron chains steady so that she could sit.
She settled herself gracefully, pretending that the playground equipment was some elegant carriage. Her fingers curled around the chains, and he sat next to her. Neither of them pushed off the scraped dirt, though. Instead, they braced their feet against the ground and continued talking.
“I feel terrible,” she said, throwing her head back to look up at the clear blue sky. “Keeping you working in the studio when you should be up in Richmond.”
“You shouldn’t. A job’s a job.”
“But this job is taking so much of your time. What do you need, up in Richmond? What am I keeping you from doing?”
Sleeping, he wanted to say. Concentrating on my work. Focusing on running a business instead of imagining what would have happened if I hadn’t let you chicken out the other night.
“I need to build a website,” he said, somehow keeping his voice absolutely even. “Order business cards. Envelopes. Stationery for bids. I’m lousy at that sort of stuff.”
She nodded, as if she were writing down every word. “What else?”
“I’ve joined the Chamber of Commerce, but I haven’t made it to a meeting yet. I’ve got to get the ball rolling with a little in-person networking. Start building that all-valuable word of mouth.”
“That all sounds manageable.”
“I’ve got some paperwork that I have to file with the state. Copies of my license, that sort of thing.”
“I’ve got to say, Mr. Harmon. It sounds like you’ve got everything pretty much under control. Even if I keep dragging you back to Eden Falls.”
“I’m glad one of us thinks so.” He smiled, to make sure that she didn’t take offense. It was his own damn fault that he couldn’t stay away from here. His own damn fault that he put thousands of miles on the truck, wearing the tires thin on constant trips up and down the interstate. Old habits died hard.
Time to change the topic of conversation. Time to get away from the way he had screwed up his business plans, over and over and over again, ever since he’d graduated from college.
“So,” he said, purposely tilting his voice into a lighthearted challenge. “What do you think? Who can pump higher, here on the swings?”
For answer, Kat laughed and pushed off, bending her knees and throwing back her head. Before he could match her, though, the bells on the courthouse started to toll, counting out five o’clock.
“Wait!” Kat said, stopping short. “Niffer and I have to get home. Mama will start to worry.”
He bit his tongue to keep from cursing the bells.
Kat looked around the park, surprised to see that nearly everyone else had left. Of course, it was a Saturday in Eden Falls. Everyone had an early-bird dinner waiting at home. She glanced toward the castle jungle gym, ready to call Niffer and leave.
Except Niffer was nowhere to be seen.
Kat shook her head, forcing herself to swallow the immediate bile of panic. Of course her niece was on the playground equipment. She’d headed over there just a few minutes before.
Kat scrambled to her feet, taking off at a lopsided jog toward the castle. “Niffer!” she called. And then, “Jenny! Jenny!” The bright pink climbing bars mocked her as she reached the base of the toy. Up close, it looked impossibly tall, far too dangerous to be sitting in a public park. “Jenny!”
She looked around wildly. This couldn’t be happening. She couldn’t have lost her niece. She couldn’t have let anything happen to Niffer, to Jenny, to Rachel’s daughter.
“Kat! What’s wrong?”
Rye skidded to a stop beside her, his ebony eyes flashing. She tried to pull up words past the horror that closed her throat, over the massive wave of guilt. He put a hand on her back, spread his fingers wide, as if to give her a web of support. She started to pull away—she didn’t deserve to be touched. She was too irresponsible for anyone to stand near her. She had been given one single goal—watch Jenny—and she had broken all the rules by letting the child wander off unsupervised. Broken all the rules, just so that she could sit on the swings and flirt with Rye Harmon.
Broken all the rules, like Rachel.
“I can’t find her,” she sobbed. “I told her that she could go to the castle, and I only looked away for a couple of minutes, but she’s gone!”
Without thinking, Rye moved his hand from Kat’s back, twining his fingers around hers. He felt her trembling beside him, understood that she was terrified as she darted her gaze around the park. She wasn’t seeing anything, though. She was
too frightened. No, beyond frightened. Panicked. Not thinking clearly.
He narrowed his eyes, staring into the deep shadows by the oak trees on the edge of the park. There! In the piles of leaves, left over from last autumn. Niffer was plowing through the dusty debris, obviously pretending that she was a tractor, or a dinosaur, or some imaginary creature.
“Look,” he said to Kat, turning her so that she could see the child. “She’s fine.”
Kat stiffened the instant that she saw her niece. Instinctively, Rye tightened his grip on her hand, letting himself be dragged along as Kat stumbled across the uneven grass to the oak tree border.
“Jennifer Allison Morehouse, just what do you think you’re doing?”
The little girl froze in midswoop, guilt painting her face. Instead of answering her aunt, though, she turned to Rye. “See? I told you that Jennifer is a bad name.”
Incredibly, Kat felt Rye start to laugh beside her. He managed to wipe his face clear after only a moment, but he was standing close enough that she could feel his scarcely bridled amusement. For some reason, his good humor only stoked her anger. “I asked what you are doing over here, young lady! Didn’t I give you permission to play on the castle? Not under the trees?”
The child’s lower lip began to tremble. “I was playing on the castle. I was a princess. But the unicorn mermaids told me that I had to find their diamond ring over here.”
Unicorn mermaids. Like Kat was going to buy that. She filled her lungs, ready to let her niece know exactly what she thought of unicorns and mermaids and diamond rings.
Before she could let loose, though, Rye squeezed her hand. Just a little. Barely enough that she was certain she felt it. Certainly not enough that Niffer could see.
Kat remembered her mother, sitting in the drab kitchen, sipping her cooling tea and saying that Kat should be more playful. She remembered Rye coaching the children, encouraging each of them in whatever they did best. She remembered the relaxed camaraderie of the T-ball parents, picking up their kids.
She took a deep breath and held it for a count of five. She exhaled slowly, just as she had when Rye taught her how to drive. No. Not like that. That had ended in disaster.
This was a new venture. A new effort to achieve a different goal. “You’ll have to teach me about the unicorn mermaids,” she said. “But that will be another day. Right now, we have to get home to Gram and Pop-pop.”
Niffer looked as if she thought a magician might have somehow enchanted her Aunt Kat, turned her into a newt, or something worse—a bewitched, unreliable adult. “Okay,” she said uncertainly.
“Come on, then,” Kat said. “Let’s go.”
As Niffer started scuffling through the leaves, Kat caught a harsh reprimand at the back of her throat. Instead, she whispered to Rye under the cover of the rustling, “She scared me.”
“I know,” he whispered back, and he squeezed her hand again.
“She really, really scared me.”
“But she’s fine,” he said. “And you will be, too.”
Kat had to remind herself to breathe as they walked out of the park and down the block to her parents’ house. Somehow, she forgot to reclaim her hand from Rye’s.
Chapter Five
Kat raised her voice over the band, practically shouting so that Amanda could hear her. The crowd was raucous at Andy’s Bar and Grill that night, and the musicians were making the most of having a full house. “Okay,” she shouted. “You win! You said the music was great and I didn’t believe you!”
Amanda laughed and clinked her mug of beer against Kat’s. “Drink up!”
Kat obliged. After all, a bet was a bet. This mug tasted even better than the first had.
Kat couldn’t remember the last time she’d had so much fun on a Friday night. Amanda had called her around noon, reporting that she’d already arranged for Susan and Mike to keep an eye on Niffer for the evening. Her cousin had picked her up at Rachel’s house, only to frown when Kat answered the door in her skinny black jeans and a silk T-shirt. They’d made an emergency stop back at Amanda’s house—Kat still wore black, but Amanda had rounded out the outfit with a flame-red scarf, lashed around Kat’s hips like a belt. That, and a ruby-drop necklace that had belonged to their grandmother made Kat feel like she was someone new. Someone daring. Someone who wasn’t afraid of being a little bit sexy, on a Friday night out on the town.
In fact, when Kat was hanging out with Amanda at the crowded bar, listening to her cousin’s running commentary about the cute blond bartender, she felt like she was discovering a whole new world of fun. What had Susan said, the week before? That Kat had been cheated out of going to prom? Maybe Kat had lost out on a thing or two in New York, if this was what it felt like to hang out with her cousin, to cut loose, without a care in the world.
Kat certainly couldn’t remember the last time she had indulged in drinking alcohol, anything more than a sip or two of champagne at an opening-night gala. Her entire body thrummed in time to the crashing music, and the roof of her mouth had started to tingle. Amanda, on the other hand, seemed entirely unaffected by the single glass of beer that she had sipped.
Before Kat could challenge Amanda to keep pace properly, a man shuffled over to the table. “Hey, Amanda,” he said, mumbling a little and looking down at his boots.
“Hey,” came Amanda’s cool reply. “Brandon Harmon, don’t be rude. You remember my cousin Kat, don’t you?”
“Hey, Kat,” the man said, still intent on studying the floor.
Brandon Harmon. Kat blinked hard and looked at him as closely as she dared. Nope. She didn’t remember him. This being Eden Falls, though, they had probably sat next to each other in fourth-grade social studies. From his name, he had to be one of Rye’s countless siblings. Or cousins. Or whatever. It seemed like they comprised half the town.
As if he could read Kat’s mind, Brandon looked over his shoulder. There was a cluster of men standing at the bar, their broad shoulders, chestnut curls and midnight eyes all proclaiming them part of the same clan.
Rye stood in the center of the bunch. He lifted his mug toward Kat in a wry salute. She was surprised by the sudden rush of warmth she felt at his attention. Unconsciously, she flexed her fingers, thinking about how strong his hand had felt in hers the Saturday before, after she had panicked about losing Niffer in the park. She’d spent the better part of the past week thinking about Rye’s touch. His touch, and the patient humor in his voice… And that truly spectacular kiss that they had shared in Rachel’s kitchen…
Kat’s belly swooped in a way that had absolutely nothing to do with the beer that she had drunk. She’d felt the same sensation a hundred times in the past week. The past week, while Rye had been working up in Richmond. In between taking care of Niffer and running some errands for Susan, Kat had put in a lot of hours at the studio, but Rye had been nowhere in sight. The hardwood for the new floor had been delivered, though. It needed to spend a week acclimating to the temperature and humidity in the studio. A week when Rye had tended to other business. A week that Kat had been left alone with her memories, with her dreams.
But she was being ridiculous, mooning around, missing Rye. She knew perfectly well that he lived in Richmond now, that he was never moving back to Eden Falls.
And what did it matter? She had already spent two weeks in Eden Falls—seven days longer than she’d planned. It was time to turn her attention back to New York. Back to her career. She couldn’t daydream about the way Rye’s lips quirked just so when he smiled….
In front of her, Brandon shifted his weight from one foot to the other. “Amanda,” he said, apparently summoning the nerve to bellow over the music. “Do you want to dance?”
Amanda laughed. “I’m sorry, Brandon. I can’t leave my cousin here alone.”
The poor man looked
so crushed that Kat immediately took pity on him. She feared that he might never screw up his courage to ask out another woman again if she didn’t free Amanda now. “Go ahead,” she shouted to her cousin. “I’ll be fine.”
“Really?”
“Go! It’s not like I can join you!” Kat gestured at her walking boot.
Amanda laughed and cast a quick glance toward Kat’s mug, as if questioning her cousin’s judgment. Kat shook her head. She wasn’t drunk—not exactly. But she was definitely feeling…relaxed. Loose. Free, in a way that she hadn’t felt since coming to Eden Falls. That she hadn’t felt in years.
As Amanda mouthed a quick “Thank you” from the dance floor, Kat realized just how much her cousin had hoped Kat would let her go. Curious, Kat studied the cowboy, surprised to see how quickly he gained the confidence to place his hands on Amanda’s trim waist, to guide her into a smooth Texas Two-Step.
There was something about those Harmon men…. Something about a Southern gentleman with the determination to go after something that he wanted… She swallowed hard, thinking once again of a very different Harmon. She wished that she and Amanda had been drinking soda, or sweet tea, or anything that came in a tall glass with ice, so that she could cool the pulse points in her wrists.
“You’re a kind woman,” Kat heard, close to her ear. She whirled to find herself face-to-face with Rye.
“What do you mean?” He was close enough that she barely needed to raise her voice. Thank heavens the band was playing, though. Otherwise, he would have heard her heart leap into high gear.
“It took Brandon two whiskey shots to get up the courage to ask Amanda to dance. If you hadn’t let her go, all that booze would have gone to waste.”
Kat laughed and said, “False courage for a silver-tongued devil like that?” As if to emphasize her words, she set the flat of her palm against Rye’s broad chest. The action seemed to surprise him almost as much as it did her—he stiffened at the touch for just a moment. She tossed her hair, though, and thought, What have I got to lose? She continued in her best imitation of a carefree flirt. “Why, I bet that Brandon could have any woman in this place.”
