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She whirled to face him. “The news was too new. I couldn’t. Not until you broke off our relationship. Then I realized that no matter how deeply into denial I was—no matter how frightened I was that saying the word ‘terminal’ would make it true—I had to tell you the truth before I lost you, too. And when I finally found the courage to say that word, where were you? Lying in the weeds with Gretchen. Four hours, Zach! Four lousy hours away from me, and you were making love to someone else!”
Nearby streetlights threw his face into bold relief, anger still burning in his eyes. “I didn’t make love to her, I had sex with her. They’re two different things.”
“Oh, yes, let’s split hairs.”
“I told you how sorry I was. It meant nothing!”
“It meant everything! It meant I had no one to hold me and help me through her illness! It meant I could never trust you again.”
Kristin brought her lips together, suddenly aware that their shouts were echoing in the courtyard. They had to stop before they had an audience, if people weren’t already peeping through the cracks in their drapes. She lowered her voice, and it trembled as she struggled for control. “Never mind, it doesn’t matter anymore.”
“It does matter, or you wouldn’t have brought it up.” Zach lowered his voice, too. “You knew how insecure I was about you. You knew about my life and my past, and you knew that a long string of excuses not to marry me would make me doubt your feelings.”
“What string of excuses?”
“First, you were afraid I’d always be on the road and you’d be alone in unfamiliar surroundings. When I told you I’d be working with the permanent crew in Durham, it barely made a difference. Then it was the scholarship that stood in the way, even though I told you we’d find a way to pay for your out-of-state schooling. By the time you told me that you were refusing the scholarship to stay with your mom, why wouldn’t I have had doubts? Especially when you let me think she was going to get better. When you couldn’t even look at me that day, I thought I had my answer, and it was no. No marriage, no me and you.” He expelled an impatient breath. “That’s why Gretchen happened.”
Kristin’s voice shook. “Don’t you dare try to justify what you did. Gretchen ‘happened’ because you let it happen. I’m sorry you had a lousy life. But I didn’t have time to wonder that day if what I said was what you heard.” Her voice broke. “My mother was dying, and there was nothing I could do to stop it.”
The night stilled around them, every molecule frozen in time and space as her words hung heavy in the air. For several very long seconds, neither of them moved, the hum of tires on the highway punctuating the long silence.
“If I’d known that,” he said finally, “things would’ve been different.”
Instead of making her feel better, his reply hurt her all over again. If he’d really loved her and thought their relationship was over, he would have been too devastated to want anyone else. That’s how she’d felt. Instead, he’d made love to his free-spirited, easy neighbor while Kristin was reeling from their breakup and trying to come to grips with her mother’s cancer. She’d had to handle it all without him. And she’d needed him more desperately then than she’d ever needed anyone or anything since.
Turning away, she headed toward the neon sign near the office where her van was parked.
Zach didn’t try to stop her, and she didn’t look back.
He did get in the last cold words. “I told you how sorry I was the night it happened and again at your mother’s funeral. I phoned you and wrote letters that came back unopened. I’m through groveling, Kris.”
Kristin managed to cling to her anger and keep her tears at bay until she pulled into the concrete drive beside her town house and entered her apartment. Then there was no holding back.
Dammit, she thought as the tears fell. She wasn’t responsible for their breakup! He was. His immaturity—not his insecurity—was to blame. And after thirteen years, why did she still care what he thought or didn’t think?
But minutes later as she stood in the kitchen holding more ice to her cheek, the scene outside Zach’s motel room came back to her.
Was there a kernel of truth in what he’d said? Had she, unknowingly, been looking for excuses to put off their wedding?
She’d been completely devoted to him—no one could tell her that she hadn’t been. But at eighteen, had she been ready to leave her home and family to start a new life in a new state? Could she have been making excuses that she wasn’t even aware of?
Kristin threw the ice into the sink and heated water for tea. The hold he still had on her was incomprehensible. Tonight, she’d been shoved down half a flight of steps, locked in an attic stairwell and frightened to the soles of her feet.
And still, all she could think of was Zach.
Zach jerked open his briefcase on the bed, shuffled through the copies of the strip mall estimates he’d brought along with him, then dropped to the bedspread and picked up the phone again. He cradled the receiver on his shoulder while he located the specs for the space they were converting to a popular toy franchise.
“Okay, Dan, I’m looking at the floor plan now,” he said to his foreman. “And yeah, that half wall has to come down. You know the drill. All the stores in the franchise have to look alike for easy shopping.”
“Can’t get even a little creative?”
“We save our creativity for the beach houses.”
“Fine by me, just thought I’d ask before we ripped it down.” He paused, his Carolina drawl growing slightly curious. “Things goin’ okay there? You don’t sound happy.”
“I’m so happy, I’m damn-near delirious,” he growled sarcastically. “It shouldn’t take me more than two weeks to finish here, then I’ll be home. In the meantime, call if you run into any problems, and I’ll continue to phone you daily for updates. Is the other crew ready to start the Hart’s beach house?”
“Day after tomorrow.”
“Good. Tell them to take special care with this one. Mrs. Hart has a lot of rich, influential friends. We want her endorsement.”
“They take special care on all the jobs,” Dan returned, chuckling. “They don’t want to end up in the unemployment line. Talk to you tomorrow.”
Zach hung up the phone, his nerves still thrumming. He’d told Kristin he wouldn’t grovel and he meant it. So why couldn’t he just put her out of his mind and go to sleep?
Grabbing some change from the top of the dresser, he went outside, then crossed the courtyard to the vending machines and bought another Pepsi. Angry voices came from a nearby unit, but he didn’t give a damn about their problems. He had enough of his own. He took a long drink and started back to his room.
He’d been acting like an idiot since he hit town, and it was all because of her. First he’d let Chad needle him into some kind of pseudo-high school rivalry, then he’d lost his focus and kissed Kris. He took another long swallow.
She was wrong, blaming him for all of it. If what she’d felt for him was love, she couldn’t have kept quiet about her mother’s illness. Not even for a minute. She would’ve needed to tell him—needed for him to hold her and tell her things would be all right. Instead…
Instead, Gretchen found him behind Etta’s barn that night, working on his second six-pack and wondering why his father thought booze could ease a man’s pain. And that time when she offered a different kind of remedy, he didn’t say no.
Crumpling the empty can, Zach went inside where the air conditioner was finally clearing away the shower mist, and tossed it into the wastebasket beside the bureau. It clattered against hard plastic.
All right, he thought, going to the bed and repacking his briefcase. He’d been a bastard. That was old news. But Kris wasn’t completely faultless. She’d known how insecure he was about her feelings, especially with Hollister champing at the bit to take her away. She should’ve told him the whole truth.
Stripping to his briefs, he flopped down on the bed, then grabbed the remote control from the nightstand and hit the on button. In a burst of color and canned laughter, the set sprang to life.
Tender kisses in motel rooms were for him and some other woman now—some other temporary woman. He didn’t have time to worry about old relationships or start new ones. He had a company to run, an empire to build. At thirty-three, he was finally earning respect and position, things that had been denied him from birth, and nothing was going to get in the way of that. His business was his chief priority. He didn’t need Kristin Chase in his life anymore.
Two days later, Zach grabbed a towel, swiped the sawdust and sweat from his arms and chest, then sank to the top step of Etta’s front porch and snatched up his cell phone. He frowned as indecision gripped him again. Then he swore and dialed Kristin’s number from memory. Overhead, the Monday afternoon sun beat down through the tall maples, relentless in its effort to burn every square inch of his exposed skin.
“Hi,” he said soberly when she picked up the phone at her shop.
The long pause on her end had Zach wondering if she was trying to place his voice.
“This is a surprise,” she said coolly.
He imagined it was, since they hadn’t parted on the best of terms Saturday night. “I had some time, so I thought I’d call and see if your cheek was okay.”
“It’s fine.”
“Your shoulder?”
“That’s fine, too.”
Zach reined in his impatience. All of her responses were tolerant and polite, but obviously, she was still angry. He damned the illogical compulsion that made him keep trying with her. “Any news on the intruder?” he asked, committed to make the best of it.
“Not yet, but I’m hoping Chad will have some information when he comes over later.”
Considering his aversion to Hollister, the jealous pinch he experienced was hardly unexpected. “Going out for dinner?”
“No, before the Arnetts went home yesterday, I bought a few of Anna Mae’s pieces and the contents of her attic. Half of it’s being delivered this afternoon. Chad’s helping me find room for it in my shop.”
“Nice of him,” Zach drawled.
“He is nice,” she replied. “And if you were a little more flexible in your thinking, you’d be able to see that.” She paused, and her tone softened. “I know he gave you a hard time in school. But he’s not the same person he was then.”
“Leopards don’t change their spots.”
“This one did.”
Right. The kid who’d never shown a shred of compassion to anyone below him in the social pecking order, had turned over a new leaf. Zach wouldn’t put money on it.
He’d been the son of the boozed-up school janitor—a job his dad was given only because Etta was on the school board and did some serious begging. Of course, her intervention hadn’t worked. Though she’d hoped her nephew would straighten out and support his teenage son when they returned to Wisdom, Hap Davis was out of a job in four months, and dead of cirrhosis a year later.
“Zach?”
Zach yanked himself out of the past, annoyed that he’d made the trip. He hadn’t allowed those thoughts into his mind for years. “I’m here,” he said into the receiver. “Just hoping there’s an arrest soon. You don’t have to go back to that house, do you?”
“No. I’ll have nearly everything I need by six o’clock tonight, and the rest will be here on Wednesday.”
Everything she needed. He resisted the urge to ask if Hollister was part of that package. “Well, I’d better get back to work on Etta’s porch.” Pushing to his feet, he crossed to the fringe of grass near the driveway where his table saw was set up. “I’m glad you’re okay,” he finished gruffly.
“Thank you. I am, too. Goodbye, Zach.”
“Bye.”
Frowning, Zach set the phone aside, turned the saw back on, and went back to work cutting floorboards for Etta’s porch. He was still keyed up and didn’t know why. The feeling was really beginning to aggravate him.
Kristin hung up the phone and pressed a hand to her stomach, trying to quiet her butterflies.
All right…this is good, she decided, willing her heartbeat to slow, willing herself to breathe normally. They were speaking civilly. That would be helpful if they bumped into each other again before he went back home. And in a town the size of Wisdom, it was a near certainty.
Tamping down the rush of nerves that thought evoked, she returned to her sales floor to ready it for her new acquisitions.
Kristin shoved a table full of lace doilies and votive cups closer to the wall, then carried a spinning wheel to the front and set it near a wooden barrel topped with potpourri. Standing back, she visually measured the space she’d cleared near the door to her stockroom. It wasn’t big enough.
Anna Mae’s attic had been pack-rat heaven, she thought, determined to concentrate on the job at hand—not the gray eyes that kept filling her mind. There’d never be enough room to store everything here in the shop. She needed to look into self-storage places.
Three hours later, Kristin stood near the side door and directed Chad and a deliveryman named Wayne where to stack the merchandise from Anna Mae’s home. In the dim light, it had been difficult to assess the worth of some of those attic pieces. Now she could see that she’d bargained well with the Arnetts. Some of the items were absolutely lovely—a fact that was totally lost on the heavy, middle-aged deliveryman with the ponytail, tattoos and multistudded earlobes.
He’d already dropped a carton of books and it had split open in the paved alley between her shop and Harlan’s tax office. She stepped back from the door as Chad carried an antique chair inside from the wide alley.
“Where do you want this?” His tone turned dry. “Is there room behind the cash register where Wayne put the books he dropped?”
She lowered her voice as she followed him inside. “Yes, just set it there. And thanks for helping. Especially since he’s not the most cautious person on the planet.”
“That’s an understatement. If there’d been breakables in that box you would have lost them all.”
Kristin put a fingertip to her lips as the deliveryman came back inside with another load. Only his boots and faded jeans were visible beneath a tall stack of boxes.
“I’ll tell him again to watch what he’s doing,” Chad muttered.
“No, don’t make waves. Nothing’s been damaged. There can’t be that much more to— Oh, no,” she groaned looking at one of the marked cartons. “He has glass this time.” And the boxes were piled so high, he could barely see around them.
Kristin hurried forward to take the top box from him, but Chad beat her to it.
“Buddy,” he said coldly as he snatched it away. “This lady’s going to give you the tongue lashing of your life if you drop one more thi—” Chad went stone still.
Because it was Zach’s face, not the deliveryman’s, behind the box.
A whisper of a smile touched Zach’s lips as he settled his gaze on Kristin. “In that case, maybe I should drop something on purpose.”
Fighting an embarrassed flush, she found her voice before Chad could start an argument. “I—I thought you were working on Etta’s porch.”
“I was, but I wanted to get to the mall before it closed. Now that the power is back on and I’m staying at the house, I decided to buy one of those cheap spongy futons. Etta’s hardwood floors aren’t the most comfortable.”
“No, I suppose they aren’t,” Kristin returned. Above those boots and faded jeans, he wore a navy blue T-shirt that hugged his shoulders and chest. And though it wasn’t fair to compare the two men, next to Chad’s fair skin and clean-shaven blondness, Zach was darkly intriguing.
He spoke again. “I saw the truck and remembered you said you were expecting a delivery today. Thought I’d give you a hand.”
Chad sent him a chilling look. “I’ve already given her both of mine. If you have work to do, feel free to get back to it.”
“Nah, I’ve been at it most of the day. I’ll just grab a few more boxes. The guy in the truck was shuffling them from the back to the tailgate so they’d be easier to unload. He’s probably finished by now.”
Zach smiled. “Want to bring both of your hands outside, Hollister? We can probably finish unloading the rest in just a few minutes.”
Chad’s face turned a deeper shade of crimson. He didn’t like being mocked, and it showed. “I intended to,” he said coldly, obviously trying to snatch back a little power. “Just watch your step carrying those boxes in here.”
Ten minutes later, the tension increased markedly when the deliveryman drove off, leaving the three of them alone. Between her taut nerves, Zach’s presence and Chad’s brooding silence, Kristin was so wired, it was difficult to keep her mind on arranging the new merchandise in the best possible order.
Zach’s deep voice carried to her from the front of the store where he was inventorying cartons and scrawling a list of contents on the sides of the boxes. “Your shop looks good, Kris.”
“Oh, it’s lovely,” she joked nervously, hoisting the broken box of books from the floor to the counter. “You must be a big fan of clutter.”
“I wasn’t talking about the clutter. I was talking about the changes you’ve made. It used to be a major tourist trap.”
Yes, it had been. Amish buggy key-chains, tiny cedar outhouses and cheap cardboard hex signs had abounded. But when Marian Grant put it up for sale seven years ago, it was exactly what Kristin had been looking for. She’d loved the prime location where faux Victorian gaslights lit the street and spills of petunias hung from double holders on the parking meters—where the bakery across the street filled the air with mouthwatering smells and Eli Elliott’s coffee bar and country bookstore drew patrons from all over. The street was so quaint, so warm and charming, that she knew it was the ideal place for the shop she wanted to open.
“You have good taste,” Zach finished.
“Thank you. I try.”
Chad sidled up to her as she delved into the small carton of first editions. Their hands tangled and their bodies brushed as he reached inside to help. Kristin inched away, feeling even more awkward.
“Actually, I think her taste has improved a lot over the years,” Chad remarked.
