Blogger Bundle Volume VI: SB Sarah Selects Books That Rock Her Socks

by Kathleen O'Reilly

  “No body,” said Gabe. “I checked.”

  Syd took a look, dark eyes checking out the inscription. “If it was stolen, they should have fenced it. Gotta say that criminals are getting stupider every day.” He handed the ring to Daniel. “Can you read that?”

  Daniel looked carefully at the dainty ring and the engraving on the inside. Fine print was his specialty. “Forever. B.T.K. S.C.H.”

  “How sad,” murmured Tessa. “Can you imagine having your engagement ring stolen? I hope he bought her a new one.”

  “If he loved her, he would,” said Daniel, holding the ring up to the light. “It’s a nice ring. You should find the owner.”

  “You should keep it,” Syd said. “Technically, we don’t know if it’s stolen property. Legally, it belongs to the owner of the property it’s found on. That’s Gabe.”

  Gabe reached for it, but Daniel held on to the ring. “What if someone’s still looking for this?”

  “After sixty years?” Gabe asked.

  “We don’t know that for certain.” Daniel was ready to put his brother back in his place. “What if it’s only been six months or even six years? That’s not long enough for people to quit looking. If it was me, I’d look forever. A ring can’t be replaced. A man agonizes over finding the exact ring that’s worthy of the only woman that he’ll ever love. It’s a symbol to the world that this one woman belongs to him and she’ll be first in everything that he does. It’s a lot more than just a ring.”

  Gabe looked over at Tessa, eyes considering.

  “Don’t look at me like that,” she warned.

  However, Daniel knew what his baby brother was like. Tessa was sunk. Daniel smiled.

  “I think Daniel’s right,” Gabe said stubbornly.

  “Daniel’s being a schmuck,” said Syd. “Keep the damn thing. Nobody will turn up.”

  Gabe was now fully engaged, and he laid the ring on the counter, all eyes staring at it. “What if there’re two lovers out there somewhere, and she’s thinking that he doesn’t love her enough to give her a ring, or he’s thinking that she threw the ring in the garbage, and they’re never going to be together because of that ring?”

  “You should find the owners. It’s the right thing to do.” Daniel didn’t like the idea of someone out there lost without their ring. To remind himself of exactly how lucky he’d been, he tapped his own band.

  Gabe handed him the ring. “Okay. We’ll do it. But since I have a bar that’s currently fronting as an open-air café, it’s your job.”

  Daniel frowned, pocketing the ring. No one understood that true love wasn’t replaceable or forgotten. True love was forever. But Daniel understood.

  He’d loved Michelle, and it was forever.

  He felt more settled inside, easing some of the guilt from this weekend. He’d had a fling, a chance to burn off some tension, but that was done.

  “So, let’s show this kid how to bartend,” he said, taking a deep breath.

  CATHERINE KNEW the tense situation at Montefiore Auction House was serious when her mother flew in from the London office. Andrea Montefiore had never missed the run-up to the fall British auction season, not once in the past seven years. She was the world’s premier expert on English furniture, and no surprise, the best pieces came out of Montefiore’s London branch, where she was in charge.

  In mid-August, auctions were being scheduled, deliveries and contracts were being signed, catalogs were being photographed and, in general, it was no time for Andrea Montefiore to leave her post.

  The situations was dire at Montefiore’s.

  People talked in whispers, and even Sybil had nothing to share.

  Over dinner some nights, Catherine would try to get her mother to tell her what she knew, but Andrea Montefiore was as clueless as everyone else.

  The only upside to the Montefiore crisis was that Catherine had nearly put that one infamous weekend out of her mind.

  Almost.

  Sometimes she thought about him. She nearly used Google to find him twice. Even her normally tidy studio apartment was littered with sketches. Catherine would sketch a picture, gaze in awe, and then, mad at herself for obsessing over him, would scribble darkly until the whole image was unsalvageable. Sadly, artistic exorcism wasn’t working.

  The autumn showers started, rain hammering late in the afternoon, and it was on one such foul day when the hammer came down.

  The board suspected not just any employee—oh, no—but Charles Montefiore himself, of collusion with Chadwick’s.

  Andrea Montefiore delivered the news in person. She seemed calm, poised, elegant and completely in control. Except for the unlit cigarette dangling from her mother’s fingers, Catherine would have assumed everything was fine. Andrea had quit smoking twelve years ago.

  Catherine’s relationship with her mother was more complicated than most, although to be fair, she wasn’t sure if there was such a thing as an uncomplicated mother-daughter relationship. She and her mother shared a passion for good art, good knockoff purses and, when her mother had smoked and could afford the extra calories, a passion for buttercream cupcakes, as well.

  However, the two areas in which Catherine surpassed her mother—knockoff purses and buttercream cupcakes—weren’t the two she would have chosen for herself if she’d been dipping in to the talent pool.

  So, while Catherine had a closetful of faux designer bags and size-six jeans that her mother had given to her and Catherine couldn’t wear, but wouldn’t admit to, her mother had a closetful of Armani and size-four jeans and a secret carton of Virginia Slims that Catherine knew she kept in case of emergency.

  No matter her minor transgressions, Catherine loved her mother, and it pained her to see the tight lines around her mother’s mouth.

  “The board ordered an independent audit. They’re coming in today and will report to the board in two weeks’ time. We’re to cooperate fully,” her mother explained, speaking in the cultured tones that came from an Oxford education.

  “Grandpa didn’t do anything.”

  “Of course not, but it’s best to let this run its course, and then we’ll simply laugh over the silly matter when it’s done.”

  The unlit cigarette flipped awkwardly between her mother’s lips.

  Catherine leaned forward, kissed her on the cheek and removed the cigarette from her mother’s mouth.

  “I wasn’t going to light it,” Andrea said defensively.

  Catherine smiled at her soothingly. “I know,” she answered, but she broke it in half and threw it in the trash anyway. “Have you talked to Grandfather? Should I talk to him?”

  Andrea patted her hand. “No, dear. There are four crates coming in from Cairo, and I’d feel better if you’d make sure the transit documents are complete. You’ll do it, won’t you?”

  And so Catherine was sent to the docks to help inventory the shipment. She took an assistant and a driver, and they made it there without incident, but coming back, the rain began to fall in great sheets. At Montefiore’s, Catherine stepped from the vehicle onto the sidewalk and hit a tidal wave of swirling water. Her dress was soaked, her hair was soaked, her whole body was a sticky, soggy mess. Shaking out her umbrella, she walked into the grand lobby of the building as the clock struck six.

  The elevator dinged, and she tapped the umbrella impatiently on the marble floor, anxious to get into something dry. The doors opened, and just as the huddle of men moved to exit, she saw him. There in the back.

  Daniel O’Sullivan.

  In the flesh.

  7

  CATHERINE STOOD ASIDE, letting the group pass, Charles Montefiore in the lead. Foster Sykes, head of accounting, was at his elbow. And behind them—

  The bastard.

  She was going to ignore him, she was going to let him walk right past her, and pretend that he’d never occupied even one second of her life, and it worked well. Until she got into the elevator, turned around and met his eyes.

  Oh, no.

  His eyes flar
ed with something more than recognition and he practically jumped away from the group. “I think I left my phone upstairs. Excuse me,” he said, neatly sliding into the elevator beside her.

  He was dressed in a dark suit. Conservative blue tie, crisp white shirt and an American flag tie-tack.

  Catherine looked away, acting as if he wasn’t there, but she could smell the sandalwood cologne and knew.

  Was she ever going to forget that smell? Would her body ever stop arching toward it?

  She tried to call up all the anger, shame and regret that she had buried inside her. Everything she had to keep from falling for the exquisite sadness in his face.

  “Catherine.”

  “Don’t talk to me,” she snapped, her eyes focused on the tight weave of the Savonnerie rug that covered the elevator floor. It had been designed for Louis XIV, circa 1712, and had a value of over fifty thousand dollars. Her dress and coat were dripping all over it.

  Probably ruining it.

  “You need to listen.”

  She could hear the dings as the floors ticked past, and the old elevator lumbered up interminably slow.

  Two.

  Three.

  “Please,” he said.

  “No, I don’t think there’s anything to say.”

  “I should have told you.”

  “Yes. You should. I never would have…would have…if you had.”

  “That’s not what I’m trying to say.”

  Four.

  Her hand clenched around the carved wooden handle of her umbrella, tighter, squeezing it as if it were alive. “I don’t want to listen. I’ve never done anything like that in my life, and now I’m going to have to live with it.”

  Five.

  The elevator dinged, and his hand reached out, grabbed her. His left hand. The one with the ring.

  She pulled away as the doors opened.

  “Catherine. I’m widowed.”

  AS SOON AS HE said the words, Daniel felt something burst inside him. He didn’t say them often. He didn’t like the way they sounded, or the way people looked at him after they knew.

  The way Catherine was looking at him now. She stuck her umbrella into the elevator, stepped back inside and watched him with wide brown eyes that were wary—but not angry, not anymore. Thank God.

  “You’re telling me the truth?” she asked.

  Automatically the elevator doors shut and the car descended. Daniel desperately wanted to talk to her, he needed to talk to her, but he wouldn’t talk here. There were too many people buzzing around, her coworkers, the people that he’d been working with, as well. It was important for him to appear distant and unbiased with everyone at the auction house. In his profession, appearances were key. “Please, let me explain. Not here.”

  She was wearing a shell-shocked look; her hair, darkened with the rain, was matted to her head. And she clutched her umbrella like a lifeline. “There’s a park next door,” she managed finally.

  “It’s raining.”

  “There’s a gazebo. In the center.”

  He nodded, and took her umbrella as they headed to the lobby.

  The clients from the auction house were gone. Daniel guessed they would be waiting for him at the restaurant. They would survive. He needed to make things right with Catherine.

  “You work at Montefiore?”

  “My grandfather is Charles Montefiore.”

  And wouldn’t that be awkward? Daniel investigating her own blood relation for a potentially criminal offense.

  Once outside, the rain was still pelting down, and her opened her umbrella. It wasn’t much protection, but he didn’t really think it mattered. Holding her arm in his free hand, they crossed Amsterdam Avenue to the park. He spotted the old-fashioned gazebo a few yards ahead. Catherine was still soaked to the skin, but he didn’t think she realized it anymore.

  She hadn’t said another word, and he could feel her shivering. His first instinct was to draw her closer, but that wouldn’t be right, and Daniel didn’t want to screw things up even more than they already were.

  As soon as they were under the gazebo, he leaned the dripping umbrella against the railing, stepping a good distance away. He had no excuse to touch her anymore, so he released her arm. “I’m sorry. I should have said something.”

  She pushed back the hair from her eyes, her mouth twisted in an awkward imitation of a smile. “Please don’t. I’ve been thinking some very awful things, and—yes, you should have said something.”

  Daniel stuffed his hands in his pockets, and began to pace around the small space. “Catherine,” he stated, and she sat down on the bench, looking up at him nervously.

  And now what was he supposed to say? Everything running through his mind sounded wrong, or crude or trite. “I don’t know what to say.”

  Her awkward smile disappeared, leaving no smile, awkward or otherwise, in its place. “I wondered why you were so lonely.”

  “I wanted to be left alone.”

  Her head jerked back. “I didn’t know. I’m sorry,” she said, and he could see the hurt in her face. Way to go, Daniel. Go ahead, shoot Bambi. Kill the puppy. Trample all over the feelings of the first woman you’ve wanted to be with since…well, since a very long time.

  He took an impulsive step toward her, then took a wiser step back. “Not you. You were nice.”

  “Nice,” she repeated to herself, although it sounded more like a curse.

  They would both be better off if he just left, disappeared back into the empty hole that he’d crawled out of, but Daniel couldn’t. He’d tasted the air above the surface again and it felt too good. “I don’t do that. Ever.”

  She watched him, her eyes judging, assessing, and he wondered what she saw, what she thought, what she felt. But the brown eyes weren’t warm and welcoming; the Closed sign was firmly in place.

  “When did your wife die?”

  He winced, then sat on the bench beside her. “September eleventh.”

  CATHERINE WITHERED inside. This wasn’t cancer. This wasn’t a brain tumor. Not even a car accident. What was she supposed to say? The rain pounded down even harder, nearly drowning out the noise inside her head.

  Thankfully, he started talking again. His voice was low, even, and she had to lean forward to hear him. “We worked together on the hundred and fourth floor of the North Tower. She had an early meeting to get ready for, so I went to get the coffee. She insisted on this one Starbucks up north on Hudson. Michelle was like that, finding her favorite spot, and not settling for anything less, and I didn’t mind. But that morning, the shop was crowded, and there was a kid behind the counter. His name was Marco and I was telling him about the Yankees’ chances against the Red Sox, but he was a Mets fan and he wanted to argue, so we sat there shooting the shit, and that’s when I heard the boom. I was fourteen blocks away.”

  Full stop. End of story, and her mind drifted back in time. She had been safe, sitting in a classroom uptown at Columbia. She didn’t know anyone who worked in the towers. That wasn’t her world. Within the restricted confines and the idealism of the university, she might as well have been in Kansas, except for the black cloud that hung in the sky, and the awful smells that drifted on the air when the wind shifted from the south.

  Catherine wanted to look away from him, anywhere, but here she was, helplessly trapped in a nightmare that had started seven years ago. She didn’t handle nightmares well; she wasn’t one of those women who ran into burning buildings or walked down into dark basements. There were people who were brave and fearless in the face of pain and sufffering and then there were people who withdrew even further into their shell—like Catherine.

  “I’m sorry.” Possibly the two most pathetic words in the world.

  “I am, too,” he told her, and the distance between them yawned infinitely. Ten feet at most, but a thousand lifetimes away. He rubbed his hands on his pants, and she could see his gaze tracking the path of his ring. And it would be a foolish woman to misunderstand his words.


  She wanted to ask about his wife. She would bet that she was pretty and vivacious, the kind of woman that a man didn’t forget. Ever. But those sorts of questions would seem petty and impertinent.

  He nodded once, a dismissive gesture. “I should go now. I’m supposed to meet your grandfather and Sykes for dinner.”

  “I won’t hold you up,” she told him.

  Daniel looked at her for a long moment. She knew he was going to say something but she didn’t want him to say anything. She wanted to leave that one weekend alone. Buried in a place where they wouldn’t have to touch it anymore. So she interrupted him before he could start. “We can forget this. Forget anything happened. It was a while ago.”

  “Fifteen days,” he answered.

  She lifted her head and met his eyes with intent. “I’ve already forgotten.”

  “I haven’t.”

  Wasn’t he supposed to be making this easier on her? She was doing her damnedest to ease him out of this, because she knew, absolutely knew that she’d end up falling in love with this man, and his wife, his beautiful dead wife was going to be forever remembered in monuments and buildings and memorials and scholarships. Maybe Daniel wanted to start over, maybe Daniel didn’t, but the city of New York would never let him move past Michelle O’Sullivan.

  “Was she pretty?” Catherine asked, a subtle reminder to him of what he lost, a subtle reminder to her of what she couldn’t have.

  At that, the urgency in his eyes dimmed. “Yeah.”

  “I’ll go now,” she said, retrieving the umbrella. It was past time to run.

  “Catherine…” he started, and she interrupted because she didn’t want to hear this. He was going to say something to make her feel better, because he was that sort of man. He would promise her the world if it would help her, and he’d try really, really hard to keep those promises, but he wouldn’t be able to, and Catherine would hurt even worse.

  “Please don’t.”

  He nodded. “There’s something you should know though. The audit. I’ll be working here for the next few weeks.”

  Catherine had known that. She had realized the implications the minute she saw him in the elevator. But the idea of seeing him every day, nine to five…