Kat Attalla Special Edition (55 page)

She slipped on a pair of her most comfortable jeans and a baggy old sweatshirt. The outfit didn't flatter her, and she cursed herself for thinking about changing. She planned to paint the kitchen. The job didn't require designer clothing.

The sun hadn't quite burned off the morning fog when she stepped out the door to get the paint supplies from her jeep. The cold, wet ground felt like needles digging into her bare feet. She really had to remember to keep shoes on when she ventured out the door on the farm. Although a fence protected her property from the grazing herd, there was still the danger of stepping in those horrid cow pies once she got to the road.

"Kate?" Chloe called out from the kitchen door.

Reluctantly Kate left the paint cans on her porch and went to speak to the girl. She wasn't anxious to begin painting, but she knew that breakfast time in the big house meant Trevor and Jake would be inside.

She stood outside on the slate step, hopping back and forth from foot to foot. "What's up?"

"Come in," Chloe said, opening the door.

"I don't want to disturb your breakfast."

"I'm finished. Come on. You can put your feet in front of the fire. What happened to your shoes?"

Kate peered into the living room and, seeing it empty, followed Chloe. "I didn't unpack yet and my sneakers are still wet from the scrubbing I gave them yesterday." She found the spot right in front of the fireplace that gave off the most warmth, and wriggled her toes to thaw them.

"You weren't up at the barn this morning. What happened to you?" Those innocent baby blues batting at her didn't fool Kate for a second. Chloe wanted information that she apparently couldn't coax out of her father.

"I was lazy this morning. That's all."

"So you slept in?"

"Sleep? With your father and uncle yelling at each other?" The young girl frowned, and Kate laid her worries to rest with a reassuring smile. "Those two should be a comedy team. They're like Laurel and Hardy with swear words."

"That's another fine mess you've gotten us into, Trevor," Jake joked.

Kate jumped. She hadn't heard either one of the brothers enter the living room.

Trevor scratched the top of his head in a perfect takeoff of Stan Laurel. "Gee, Ollie, maybe if you didn't ask me such stupid questions at six in the morning . . ."

"If you got home before four in the morning, you wouldn't find them stupid questions," Jake countered.

"I think this is where I leave," Kate said. That same argument woke her up three hours earlier.

"No," Chloe said quickly. "I’ll get you a cup of coffee. You have to stay." Chloe pulled her by the hand to the sofa and offered her a seat by tripping her into it. "Dad, talk to her while I get the coffee."

"Hey, what about me?" Trevor said, feigning hurt to tease his interfering niece.

Chloe dragged Trevor out of the room and showed him the door. "You have to go into town and get the part for the tractor. Remember?"

Kate wished that Jake didn't look so amused by the whole charade. She also wished he didn't look so damned good. Judging by the brown corduroy pants and cable-knit sweater he wore, she would guess that Jake originally planned to go to town for the tractor part.

"It's not necessary to entertain me, Jake."

He sat in his comfortable old reclining chair and pushed it back. "You're the musician. Why don't you entertain me?"

"Have you got a piano in your back pocket?"

"Is that what you do? Play piano?"

"Sometimes," Kate answered, wanting to get off the subject of her career without appearing to avoid it. "I play guitar, too, but mostly I play the keyboards."

"Do you play any country and western?"

"Not really." From the moment she crossed the
Pennsylvania
border, country music could be found on every radio station. She’d never paid it much attention before, but since coming to
New Mexico
, she’d developed a healthy respect for the music. "I could, but I've never done it professionally."

"Do you like performing in front of people?"

She gave the question careful consideration. She didn't want to lie, but she didn't want to go into the details of her very public career either. "It doesn't bother me. Not anymore. They don't really see me." Two hours of carefully applied stage makeup could make her a stranger to her own sister.

"You're part of an orchestra?"

"Something like that." Apparently he assumed she played concert piano, so she didn't correct him. A knot formed in the pit of her stomach.  Indigestion, she thought.  Guilt her conscience mocked back. She began to fidget. "Chloe's taking an awfully long time. Maybe I should go help her."

"She went into town with Trevor. I thought you knew he couldn't drive himself."

"What?" That's what she got for not keeping on her toes around that sneaky young lady. Of course, Chloe would have to drive him.

"She abandoned me to the clutches of a scheming spy. Now's your chance to seduce those secrets out of me."

She waved an accusing finger. She wouldn't fall for that again. "I'm not buying into your fantasy this time. And I hardly look like anybody's dream girl today." She stood up. "I should go. I'll see you around."

He tipped his head. "It's unavoidable."

Kate bristled. "I'll arrange it so that you don't see me around if that's what you want."

He rose from the chair and caught her before she darted out the door. "If I wanted that, it wouldn't be unavoidable. It would be fact. Trevor was right. You're a cork looking' to pop. Just relax a little."

"How else am I supposed to take that?"

He laughed. "Are you truly naive or merely preoccupied? Has it slipped your notice that Trevor and Chloe are throwing us together with all the subtlety of the bull in mating season?"

Kate gave her undivided attention to the hardwood floor and mumbled, "Oh, that."

"Oh, that," he repeated. He pushed a strand of her hair behind her ear and traced his finger along her flushed cheek. "Let's go, City. I'll carry you home."

She jerked her head up at the same time he swept her up into his arms. "Put me down."

"No." He kicked the door opened and turned her sideways to maneuver through the opening. "Next time you'll remember to put on shoes. All I need is for you to cut your foot, and then you'll hire some fancy
New York
lawyer to sue me."

Kate grabbed onto the door handle, but his sheer strength kept them moving, and her fingers slipped off. "You'll throw your back out, and then you'll sue me:'

"You can afford it. I can't. Just stop your wriggling and you'll be on your doorstep in a second." She seethed the entire way, sparked by his droll grin. He climbed the front stairs and lowered her gently onto the porch. "Safe and sound. What are you doing today?"

She smoothed her sweatshirt into place. "First I'm unpacking my shoes. Then I'm going to have a serious talk with your brother and your daughter."

"After that, would you like to go for a ride?"

"With you?" she squeaked out.

"Forget it. It was just an idea." His expression didn't give away a thing, but she caught the tiniest flash of hurt in his eyes. He wasn't as cocky as he pretended.

"I'd like to go, Jake. I'm just a little surprised that you asked me."

"Why?"

"I don't know. Something to do with geography and economics."

He lifted his shoulders casually, refusing to be hung by his own words. "That was before I took the chemistry into consideration."

* * * *

Kate had a better sense of humor than Jake credited her with. She didn't raise an eyebrow when he loaded a heifer into the back of the truck. She sat cross-legged on the top of the cab and cheered the ornery animal that frustrated him and Trevor.

Kate's bubbly laughter danced on the breeze. Her infectious giggles brightened the cloudy day. Any other time, Jake would be thanking the Lord for the overcast skies. Rain had become a commodity as precious as the livestock to any farmer. However, he couldn't help but wonder if the gods were trying to tell him something.

In the past ten years he hadn't gone out of his way to initiate any friendships. Since his divorce, he had seen other women occasionally, but he never brought one home to meet his daughter. Kate's relationship with Chloe was already firmly established, and now he wanted to get a foot in the door. If he didn't get rained out.

After dropping off the heifer at a nearby farm, he drove down old Route 60 towards
Oasis
State
Forest
. They passed through a few light showers, but by the time they arrived the sky had cleared. No other visitors had braved the unpredictable weather, so they had the parking lot to themselves. His personal choice would have been to remain in the truck and pick up where he left off the night before.

Kate appeared to give the idea ten seconds of semiserious thought before deciding against it. "I'm sure your ego is big enough to survive it. I really want to explore a little."

So did he, but she wouldn't cooperate. Since leaving her house the night before, he’d thought of nothing but getting her alone again. He had no desire to share her with the forest animals. They might interest a city girl, but the little creatures she hoped to find were nothing more than pests to a farmer, and a frustrating waste of time to a man.

"Get the lead out, Callahan," she called from halfway down the path.

"You aren't ever gonna be a country girl if you keep running everywhere.

First thing you have to do is slow down. The park isn't going anywhere."

She folded her arms across her chest and let out an audible puff of air. "You're lazy."

"Maybe," he said, strolling down the path at a leisurely pace. "But I'm not the one who's stressed out at twenty-six."

"You're right." She waited for him to catch up and made a half-hearted attempt to slow down that lasted less than two minutes. She dashed in and out, and even up the trees, like a child turned loose in a candy shop. No flower went unnoticed, no rock unturned.

She studied everything, including him.

"What are you looking' at?" he asked.

"You. Is that a crime?" She scrunched her nose at him and ducked behind a tree when he reached for her. "Don't let it go to your fat head, Jake. I was just thinking that you don't look old enough to have a fifteen-year-old daughter. All that PR about milk being good for you must be true."

"Maybe I wasn't old enough or my marriage might have lasted longer."

Surprised by the regret in his voice, she came back around and rested against the tree next to him. "You didn't walk out."

"No. But I didn't see it coming, either. The only thing Libby ever talked about was getting money together and moving east. I figured it was something you talk about when you're eighteen and restless. We all did. But I grew out of it when I got married."

"Why did you get married?"

"I wanted what everyone else seemed to have. A normal family life. I thought Libby wanted the same. After the first year of marriage, I realized that she just wanted to get out of her house while causing as much embarrassment as she could for her parents. Back then, being seen with me or Trevor was guaranteed to shock any respectable adult."

"The Terrible Two?" she said, remembering Chloe's slip of the tongue.

"That's when they were being kind. Some things are impossible to live down."

Tell me about it, she thought. If those music critics who labeled her the Queen of Flash could see her now, without a stitch of makeup, darting around mud puddles, they would laugh their fool heads off. But they no more knew her than she knew herself.

"It's in the past, Jake."

"I'd like to leave it there. But every few years Libby's parents try to get the child welfare board to remand Chloe to their custody. And you couldn't believe some of the things they've come up with to accuse me of! They blame me because Libby left. What I've spent in lawyers' fees fighting to keep my own kid could have sent her to college."

"That's horrible."

"The worst part is they're destroying their relationship with Chloe. I never stopped them from visiting her, but they force her to choose sides, and every time they do, she becomes more withdrawn. I don't know what to do."

She covered his hand and squeezed it gently. "You're doing fine, Jake. She adores you."

He grinned. "At least one lady finds me irresistible."

"At least one," Kate agreed, leaving him to take it however he wished. As they continued walking along the path, Kate lapsed into a thoughtful silence that Jake respected.

His problems hit too close to home. She knew the hell of justifying her life against a pack of lies. Accusations and insinuations, not from strangers, but from the people she trusted to have the child's best interest at heart.

Jake had been very lucky to win. Most people believe the accusation, long after it's proven false. Particularly in her case, where sex, drugs, and rock and roll had always been viewed as going hand in hand. She wondered if Jake might not feel the same if he really knew what she did for a living.