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“Well—” Mary Alice paused, giving Cat a knowing glance “—I’m not so sure about that.”
“I am,” Cat insisted.
Mary Alice wisely let the subject drop. “But it still doesn’t answer who sent you the flowers.”
“Maybe a customer.”
“Extravagant gesture for a customer.”
“Remember Mrs. O’Malley who brought me back that lovely Aran Isle sweater when she went to Ireland last year?”
“That’s different, Cat. You paid her for it.”
Cat ignored her friend’s comment. “Or it could have been Mr. Boyle. You know he doesn’t get out anymore since his accident, and I send him his favorite magazines and a new book each month.”
Mary Alice shook her head and lowered her voice as a customer walked into the shop. “It’s not from a grateful customer, I’ll wager. More like a lover, or a man who hopes to be, I’m thinking.”
“Well, being as I don’t have one right now or plans in the immediate future, that’s not likely,” Cat responded, greeting the new arrival with a friendly smile.
“And whose fault is that?”
Cat shot her assistant a dark look, then relaxed as she saw the grin on Mary Alice’s face. She rolled her eyes and then turned back to her customer. “May I help you find something, ma’am?” she asked.
“Yes,” the woman replied. “I’m looking for that new biography on Lady Gregory. There was a review in this past Sunday’s Inquirer.”
Cat glanced up from her desk where she was working on sorting out several special orders for customers as a cold finger of apprehension touched her spine. She couldn’t identify the source, yet it was there, like a blast of cool air.
Couldn’t or wouldn’t identify? she wondered.
Rory.
Rory, her brain echoed in a remembered litany of passion and pain. Why is it that every time I think I’m almost over you there is always something there to remind me?
Because, she answered herself, as long as she had Tara there would always be a reminder. Daily. Constant. In a look, or in the way Tara tilted her head. Then there was that smile. Her father’s smile.
Damn you, Rory, Cat thought. Damn you for my greatest pleasure and my deepest hell. Damn you once more for making me remember all the moments we spent together.
Had he sent the flowers?
And if he had, for what purpose? To confuse and confound her? To let her know she was in his thoughts?
He could do that in person if he wanted.
Would she be ready?
Cat reluctantly admitted that she would never be quite ready, still maybe it would be for the best. Get it over with, quick and clean. Simple. She had survived his leaving; she would survive his coming back again. Besides, she had nothing in common with him anyway.
Except a child, came the sadly sweet thought. A beautiful little girl created out of the love they had shared.
Correction, her inner voice added, out of the love she had for him. But that love was over. In the past. The fire was dead. Ashes were all that remained. And wasn’t it better that way? Being consumed by the flames was no way to live. Charred fragments of her heart had survived once. Now it was cloaked in self-induced asbestos to keep it safe. Maybe someday she would love again. A nice, sweet, gentle love. The kind that was comfortable and secure. Nothing that heated the blood or scorched the soul.
Been there, she thought. Done that. Don’t plan on making that mistake ever again.
Her glance fell to the silver-framed photograph that rested on her desk, sharing space with piles of papers, a computer and books. It was of her and Tara, smiling broadly to the camera. Taken at her daughter’s last birthday party.
He’d missed them all. All the cakes, the presents, the laughter, and most especially the fun of seeing the wonder and excitement of a birthday through a child’s eyes.
But it couldn’t be helped. Or regretted.
The intercom on her phone buzzed, giving Cat a good excuse to put her mind on something else.
Rory sat in his leased car in the parking lot of Cat’s bookstore, remembering the first time he’d come here. Flush with success at the rave notices his initial effort had produced, he’d been excited to do his first real book signing and thrilled to finally meet the woman who’d sent such a glowing review to his publisher. He recalled the shock that first hit him as he walked through the door of The Silver Harp—he’d been expecting a much older woman to be the owner. Instead, she’d been closer to his own age, he discovered, twenty-five to his thirty.
And lovely beyond compare. A dew-dappled apricot rose with a hint of a blush. That’s the flower he associated with her. The flower he’d sent today.
She was smart. Funny. More than able to meet him halfway. A woman who stirred him on so many levels. A woman of passion, honesty and conviction.
He watched as several people walked in and out, some with small bags, a few with large.
So what was he waiting for? He wasn’t going to get a damn thing accomplished by sitting in his car and staring at the continual flow of customers.
Rory got out and locked the car with a click of his key ring. A few steps took him to the door of the stone building, where he turned the brass handle and stepped inside.
She’d made a few changes in the interim years. Soft strains of Celtic music now played in the background. A subtle fragrance hung in the air, light and spicy, making him think of golden autumn days and crisp fall nights, of colors he associated with Cat. A wooden display on a nearby bare pine table held store newsletters. Rory picked one up and perused it. Poetry readings, book signings, storytelling hour for children, an upcoming Irish step-dancing demonstration. Something for everyone.
“Hi. May I help you?”
Rory turned his head at the sound of the female voice.
“Oh my, it’s Professor Sullivan, isn’t it?” Mary Alice said, her eyes widening in surprise.
Rory smiled. “I’m flattered that you remembered me.”
“Let’s say that you made an impression that doesn’t soon fade,” Mary Alice responded wryly.
“Really?” he responded with a lift of one black eyebrow. “How very sweet of you to say that.”
“I’d only be speaking the truth.”
“Does Caitlyn Kildare still own this place?”
“She sure does.”
“Is she by any chance here today?”
“Yes.”
“Then would you tell her that I’d like to see her.”
Mary Alice nodded her head. “Just you wait right here, and I’ll go and let her know that you’ve come to say hello. There’s freshly brewed tea and coffee if you’d like something to drink.” With a wave of her hand she indicated a sturdy pine sideboard upon which sat a coffeemaker and next to it a carafe of hot water. “There’s a few things to nibble on if you’d like, too. Personally, I’d try the shortbread. One taste and you swear you’ve died and been reborn.”
“That good?”
“Better than almost anything,” she insisted.
Rory almost laughed at that declaration. He’d tasted a few things in his time that would have put the shortbread treat to shame, he was sure. One of them had been Cat’s skin. Smooth as cream. And her mouth, sweet as honey.
His body stirred achingly with the sensory pictures his mind painted. Images grown sharper. Clearer. Especially now that he allowed himself to see them freely. Artists had a term for that which resurfaced after being buried under layers of paint—pentimento. The discovery of the treasure beneath the surface, beneath the obvious.
As for coffee or tea, he didn’t need further stimulation. Thinking about Cat was stimulating enough. Much more than enough.
Mary Alice slipped into the back room and closed the door behind her.
Cat glanced up from her computer screen when her assistant entered.
“You’ve got a visitor,” the older woman announced in a soft voice.
A sudden chill ran along Cat’s spine. She asked the question to which she had already guessed the answer. “Who?”
“Rory Sullivan.”
Cat momentarily shifted her eyes to the picture of her daughter, then forced them away as she saved the document that she was working on and closed down the machine.
“Do you want me to show him in here?”
“No,” Cat replied quickly. “Would you mind telling him that I’ll be out in a few minutes?”
“Sure.”
As Mary Alice turned to go, Cat spoke again. “Has he…” She was going to say “changed,” but opted against finishing the question. She would know soon enough herself. “Never mind.”
Mary Alice left and Cat stood up, walked a few feet to the bathroom, flicked on the light and checked her face in the mirror. She filled a small paper cup with cold water from the tap and swallowed it. Most of her lipstick was gone so she reached into the pocket of her skirt and ran the tube of plain lip gloss across her mouth.
All ready.
Who was she kidding? she thought. Certainly not herself. She was far from ready. Miles away from okay. Light-years from calm. But she had to do this, now. Bite the bullet. Face the music. And all the other clichés she could think of.
All the intervening years melted away, and the past rose up from behind the shuttered wall of her memory, released and living, standing before her when she walked onto the sales floor.
Across the width of the room, as if he could feel her presence, Rory turned and their eyes met.
If Cat thought he was handsome before, she marveled at how much the years had improved his features. Mature, polished, elegant, he was all that, but harder, Cat noted. There was a toughness, a steely strength underlying the facile good looks, obviously dormant when she knew him. Now there was no denying the beautiful arrogance of his face or his eyes. Those enticing Kerry-blue eyes. Just like the old song. Smiling Irish eyes that could, and did, steal your heart away. But in the stealing he had managed to break hers into a thousand pieces, smashing it as ruthlessly as he could, the fragments resembling the remnants of a piece of expensive crystal. Glued back together, it was serviceable but never completely the same.
It only took him seconds to reach her, seconds to throw her world off kilter. “Hello, Cat.”
Chapter Three
Alainn.
The word filtered through Rory’s brain the instant he saw her. It was the Gaelic word for beautiful. Cat was all that and more. The beauty she had possessed seven years ago had been youthful, emerging. Now it was fully realized, shaped and refined by nature into stunning maturity.
Her body, too, had altered. Her curves were fuller, rounder, accentuated by the clinging moss-green sweater set she wore, along with the winter-white, wool trousers. Her hair was longer, flowing past her shoulders and ending midway down her back. If anything, the color was richer, a radiant auburn. A soft fringe of bangs feathered across her forehead, framing her face. When he left, that lovely face had been rounder. It too had subtly modified in the time past. Cheekbones sharper, mouth a fraction softer.
But her eyes, he thought, were still the same. Unchanged in color. Green. The forever green of legend and memories.
It didn’t pass Rory’s notice that she hadn’t said hello in return.
When she finally found her voice, Cat asked, “What brings you here?”
Rory wanted to say “You.” But the word remained unspoken, trapped in his throat. Instead, he said, “I was in the neighborhood and thought that it might be interesting to indulge myself in a few minutes of nostalgia. To see if anything’s changed here.”
“Really?” Cat wished that she could believe that’s all it was. A simple trip down memory lane; but nothing had ever been simple between them. Not in the long run.
“It appears that you’ve done quite well for yourself, Cat,” Rory murmured, his tone polite. His gaze roamed the expanded shelves, noted the changes and improvements that she’d made to the premises, before returning to her.
“Yes, I have,” she responded in the same blandly mild voice, inwardly fighting to maintain her composure. It was a tough battle, what with his whole demeanor screaming hot and sexy from the well-remembered black leather jacket he wore open over an expensive-looking oatmeal sweater, dark blue jeans and black boots. From the corner of her eye, Cat caught a twenty-something customer in a Cedar Hill University sweatshirt as she walked nearby give Rory a quick once-over, smiling to herself in silent appreciation.
Suddenly the store seemed smaller, as if it were closing in on Cat. She felt cornered. Trapped by and between the past and the present. And it was all Rory Sullivan’s fault. What right did he have to be here as if they’d parted friends? As if their last words had been kind and cordial.
Go away! she screamed silently. Please, go away. Release me.
“I’m happy for you, Cat. I know just how much this place meant to you.”
She heard the underlying irony in his voice and replied in kind. “It still does.”
“That’s good. If you put your heart and soul into something it should be worth whatever sacrifice, or effort, you deem necessary to maintain it.”
“It is.”
Cat sounded so cool and matter-of-fact to him. Almost hard to believe she was the same woman he’d shared numerous hot, sensual hours with, their bodies so close and in tune that it was impossible to tell where one began and the other left off. Her voice had been warm back then, husky with passion; her skin dewed with moisture; her hands as eager to explore as his; her mouth pure excitement and promise.
Clearly that was then, this is now. The woman who stood before him was self-contained, with a “do not disturb” attitude.
Well, what had he expected?
The back-door buzzer rang.
“I’ll…” Mary Alice started to say before she was cut off by Cat.
“No,” she said, “I’ll go.” She reached out her hand in a formal manner, praying that it remained steady. “Good to see you again—” she hesitated for the briefest instant, as if forming a little-used foreign phrase “—Rory.”
Had she imagined it or had his eyes quickly turned darker, sharper, hotter?
“Likewise, Cat.”
With a quicksilver movement, she was gone, and he was left standing alone, Mary Alice off to answer the loudly ringing phone.
Their hands had barely touched before she withdrew hers, as if contact with his skin was abhorrent. Or, could it be, he wondered, that she had felt the same jolt of electricity that he had? Had she been shocked that it still existed? Frightened by the implications? Or appalled?
