Still the One (24 page)

Her skin prickled with pleasure, even though she longed to throw something at him.
Dad-blast that man
, she thought as the door swung shut behind him. Dave had a way of getting to her like no one she’d ever known.

“This book club is so much more fun than the one I used to belong to,” Lulu said, settling on the red sofa in Anne’s living
room. “We never had margaritas and nachos at the library. Our book selection is spicier now, too.”

“So are some of our members.” Anne grinned as she handed Katie an enormous, salt-rimmed glass. A kindergarten teacher, Anne
was a sparrow of a woman, tiny and trim, with a pixie haircut. “You’ve had a lot happen since our last meeting.”

That was putting it mildly. Katie’s face heated as she thought of the kiss in the closet that afternoon. She took a long sip
of her margarita.

“I saw Zack at the Chartreuse Café the other day. My heavens, but he’s gorgeous,” said Sheila, a baby-faced blonde who worked
at the post office.

“He was gorgeous as a teenager, too,” said Nicole, a slender stay-at-home mom with sleek black hair sitting on the love seat.

Katie looked at her. “You knew him back then?”

“Not really, but I sure wanted to. I had a powerful crush on him. He was staying with Bruce Langdon’s family.”

“Oh, yeah,” Lulu said. “Arnie Langdon was the mayor. He owned the marina and the boat repair shop. Apparently they didn’t
earn enough to keep up with his wife’s spending habits, though. He got caught dipping into the city till and was run out of
town a few years later.”

“His son Bruce was a total jerk, but Zack was tall and mysterious and unbelievably cool.” Nicole sighed dreamily. “I used
to go to the marina all the time, just to watch him.”

“I didn’t know that,” Katie said.

“Yeah, well, he didn’t, either.” She reached for a nacho on the pepper-themed platter and gave a wry grin. “He never paid
me the time of day.”

“Now we know why,” Sheila said. “He had his eye on Katie.”

“Oh, he wasn’t interested in me like that,” Katie said. “We were just friends.”

“With benefits, apparently,” Anne said.

The other women snickered.

“No!” Katie protested. “It was totally platonic, until the night it… wasn’t.”

The women all laughed. Anne lifted her glass. “And what a night that was!”

Katie took a sip of her margarita to hide her discomfort. They were just teasing, but it bothered her all the same. She and
Zack had shared something special, and the ribald comments demeaned it.

Sheesh, she really needed to lighten up. There was no point in getting all defensive. She couldn’t seem to help it, though.
That kiss today had stirred up a lot of old, buried emotions. Or maybe not so buried, she thought guiltily. From the way her
feelings had so quickly flared to life, maybe they’d been smoldering under the surface all this time.

Which was just unacceptable. She twisted her wedding ring. She couldn’t have been harboring feelings for Zack while she was
with Paul. She’d loved her husband with her heart and soul.

“Well, there’s nothing platonic about the way he feels about you now,” Lulu added. “I’ve seen the way he looks at you. His
eyes eat you up and lick the crumbs.”

“Oh, yeah.” Nicole fanned her face. “Just looking at the two of them gives me a hot flash.”

Katie picked up her margarita glass and took another long swig. “Nothing is going on.” Not if you discounted two kisses and
enough sexual energy to run the local power plant. But that didn’t matter; she couldn’t change the past or who she happened
to be attracted to. What mattered was what she did or didn’t do, and from this point forward, she was
not
going to get involved with Zack.

She didn’t like the way he interfered with her memories of Paul. It was bad enough that she could no longer smell Paul’s scent
on his clothes, but now she was having trouble picturing his face. When she lay in her bed at night, it was no longer Paul
she fantasized about.

Zack had played too big a role in her life already. He was going to leave, and she didn’t want him superimposing himself on
her memories of her marriage.

Her head was starting to swim from the tequila. She leaned foward and lifted a cheese-and-jalapeño-covered chip from the nacho
platter. “He’s not going to stay in town, you know. When Gracie has the baby and turns eighteen, he’ll head back to Vegas.”

“No reason you couldn’t go with him,” Nicole said.

“Yes, there is. Nothing is going on!” Katie’s tone was more strident than she intended.

Bev came to her rescue by changing the topic. “Who wants to open the discussion about the book?”

“Oh, let me make another pitcher of margaritas before we begin.” Anne scurried to the kitchen.

“Is Gracie looking forward to school?” Lulu asked.

“It’s hard to tell,” Katie said. “I think she’s nervous. It would be rough enough starting at a new school in your senior
year, but when you’re pregnant, too…”

The women all nodded. “Why doesn’t she just earn a GED?” Nicole asked.

“She wants to take biology and chemistry, and those classes have labs.”

“It takes a lot of nerve to go to high school pregnant,” Sheila said.

Bev grinned. “Fortunately, that’s one thing the girl is loaded with.”

“Chip off the old block,” Sheila teased her.

Not really
, Katie thought. She’d left town when she’d discovered she was pregnant. “Gracie puts on a brave front, but at heart, she’s
just a scared kid—a kid who had her world shattered when the only parents she’d ever known were killed.”

“The poor thing,” Nicole said. The other women murmured sympathetically.

“Will she and the baby live with you after she gives birth?” Sheila asked.

Katie nodded. “For a while, anyway. Until she turns eighteen in February, at least.”

“And then what?” Nicole asked through a mouthful of chips.

“I don’t know.” Katie shifted uneasily in the armchair. “I hope she decides to stay and finish school and maybe go to college
nearby.” Bringing up the future seemed to set Gracie on edge and set back the tenuous relationship they were beginning to
develop. “I saw a therapist and she advised me not to push Gracie. She said I need to let her take things at her own pace.”

“A baby and school—that’s a lot to handle,” Nicole said.

“A baby and anything is a lot to handle,” Lulu added.

Katie’s heart pressed against her ribs. She wished she’d had the chance to find out.

Anne returned with a fresh pitcher of margaritas. “What did I miss?”

“Nothing, Katie didn’t tell us any more about the hunk,” Sheila said.

“That’s because there’s nothing to tell,” Katie retorted.

“Just wait,” Lulu predicted. “There will be.”

And that, Katie thought as she reached for her margarita, was exactly what she would not allow to happen.

“I’m not going to be able to make the meeting next week,” Zack said into his cell as he paced outside the bookstore a week
later under a gray and threatening sky. Through the window, he could see Gracie angrily stride toward the back of the store.

They’d had an argument as he’d driven her from her job to town to pick up a copy of
Fahrenheit 451
, which was the senior summer reading assignment. She’d badgered him about applying for her driver’s license tomorrow. She
still had a week to go before the agreed-upon month was up, and he’d told her she had to wait. She’d gotten angry and called
him some names that by rights should move the whole process back another month.

Forming a relationship with Gracie was like climbing a mountain of ice. If things stopped moving forward, they started backsliding.
He’d been out of town again last week, and it had caused a setback. Which was why he was canceling his plans to be gone for
most of next week.

Overhead, lightning crackled in the sky. “I don’t like the idea that you’re putting other clients ahead of me,” said the man
on the other end of the phone, who happened to be the president of Waterkey International Electronics in Seattle.

“I’m not postponing because of another client. I have a family situation.” Family. The word felt weird in his mouth.

“I didn’t know you had any family.”

That makes two of us.
“Look, I’ll e-mail you the whole proposal, and my team will teleconference with you if you have any questions. I’ll be at
your board meeting a week from Tuesday.”

He and his client discussed a few specifics, then ended their conversation. Zack sighed as he closed his phone and gazed up
at the ominous-looking sky.

He could run the nuts and bolts of his consulting business from anywhere, but there were certain things that required his
presence—things like proposal presentations, site inspections, board of director meetings, and zoning commission hearings.
He could make Chartreuse his home base, but he still had to travel. He was going to have to leave Gracie and Katie more than
he wanted to.

The thought of Katie made his pulse skip. There was something about the woman that just grabbed his heart and messed with
his head. Not to mention the way she made him end up doing things he’d determined he wouldn’t do again—namely, kissing her.

He couldn’t even explain how it had happened. One minute they were talking about their daughter, and the next they were kissing
like teenagers.

They’d both kept their distance since the last encounter at the retirement home, but the tension between them was almost palpable.
His thoughts were taking a disturbing new twist. He’d always sworn he’d never settle down, but now the possibility was tugging
at the corners of his mind.

He’d never thought people could change at such a fundamental level. Whatever you were, you were. Circumstances changed, but
not human nature.

Or could it? Now he wasn’t sure. One thing was for certain: He needed to stay the hell away from Katie until he figured it
out. It wouldn’t be fair to make any moves on her unless he was one hundred percent, absolutely sure he could give her what
she needed, wanted, and deserved.

Fortunately, keeping his distance hadn’t been hard, because she’d been avoiding him as if he had swine flu. They’d talked
on the phone about arrangements for Gracie, but Katie had been emitting touch-me-not vibes since that close encounter.

Lightning zigzagged across the sky again. Zack pulled open the door to the bookstore, jangling the cowbell on the door. The
air-conditioning was a welcome relief from the muggy August heat.

Dave sat on a stool behind the counter. He smiled and held out his hand as Zack walked in. “Good afternoon.”

Zack shook it. “Afternoon. Looks like we’re in for some weather.”

Dave nodded. “We’re supposed to get a heck of a storm.”

Gracie ambled up with a paperback copy of the Ray Bradbury book and a handful of manga magazines. “Can I borrow these?”

“Sure,” Dave said.

“I’ll buy them for you,” Zack said.

Gracie looked at him dismissively. “Dave said I could borrow anything I wanted.”

“That’s very nice of him, but you don’t want to take advantage of his kindness. This is a bookstore, not a library, Gracie.”

“It’s okay. I want her to have them. My treat,” Dave said.

Zack blew out an exasperated breath. Gracie plunked down the twenty Zack had given her for the book. Dave made change, and
she tucked the book and magazines into that enormous ratty purse on her shoulder. “Thanks.”

She pushed the door open, rattling the cowbells, without a glance at him.

“Hey—where are you going?” Zack called.

“To Katie’s. I’m not going to stay with you.”

“Don’t you want a ride?”

“No. I’ll walk.”

“It’s getting ready to storm.”

“So? I like walking in the rain.”

She’d told him during those first few days in Vegas that walking calmed her down. Given her current frame of mind, a walk
would probably do her good. “Want me to take your books?”

Ignoring Zack, she turned toward Dave. “Have you got a plastic bag?”

Before he could answer, she reached over the counter and helped herself. She stuck the books in the bag and, without a backward
glance, stalked out the door.

Zack shook his head as the door closed behind her. “Jeez. You’d think I was her sworn enemy.”

Dave gave a sympathetic smile. “It’s the age. My boy went through the stage, too. She’ll outgrow it.”

“I hope so. How long does it last?”

“ ’Til they’re twenty-one or so.” Sadness filled his eyes. “But then, my son and I went through it again after he was grown.”

Zack looked at him, curious about the remark, but not wanting to pry.

Dave stuck his hands in his pockets. “I guess Katie told you about me, huh?”

Zack shook his head. “She hasn’t told me anything.”

“Ah. Well, you’re bound to hear it somewhere or another, so it might as well be from me. One of the traits of a small town
is that everyone knows everyone else’s story.”

Zack waited as Dave rubbed his jaw. “I wasn’t much of a dad, and even less of a husband. Only thing I was really good at was
drinking. One night I had too much to drink—that is, even more than usual—and I blacked out. I came to in my secretary’s bed.
That was the beginning of a full-blown affair. Annette caught me in the act and she divorced me.” He looked down. “My son
wouldn’t have anything to do with me after that.”