The Almost Wives Club: Kate (9 page)

“Depends on his equipment. Probably.”

“Good.” And then she leaned in and kissed him.

When they got back to her place, she seemed completely unconcerned that a private investigator was following her. In fact, she seemed happy about it.

“Why don’t you open a bottle of wine? I’ll throw together a pasta dish.”

“Sure, what can I do?”

“Well, after you open the wine, you could pour it.”

“Smart ass.” He nudged her as he walked behind her to get the wine.

“You’re pretty tense. Is it strange to be the one being spied on? Shoe on the other foot and all that?”

“Well, apart from being fairly certain I won’t get any more work from the Carnarvon family, I have this uncomfortable feeling that I want to protect you.” He felt strange even admitting that out loud.

“Protect me from what?” she asked softly.

He shook his head. “I don’t even know.”

“I can take care of myself.”

“Why don’t you let me take care of you?” The words slipped out so fast they were out there, echoing in the stunned silence, before he could call them back.

“Let you take care of me?” she asked, sending them swirling around the room again like a badly returned serve.

“So not what I meant to say.” He pulled the cork from the bottle and poured, watching the rich, ruby wine splash into the glasses.

“What did you mean to say?”

He passed her a glass. The smell of garlic frying in butter permeated the kitchen. She’d paused in the act of chopping mushrooms. She accepted the glass but her eyes stayed steady on his face.

“I’m crap at this, but I need to talk to you.”

“Okay.”

“I’ve been away from my business for over a week now. I wish I could stay here. Maybe forever, but I can’t. I’ve got work, people who rely on me.”

“Okay. So go. Who’s stopping you?”

Was she out of her mind? “You are. Kate, I’m falling for you.” In fact, he’d fallen. Sometime in the past few days and he’d fallen so hard he thought he had a concussion. That’s why he couldn’t say the things he wanted to say in a way she’d understand them.

“I just ended an engagement,” she said, her voice wavering a little.

“I know,” he said ruefully. “Timing sucks. But then, if you hadn’t been engaged, I wouldn’t have met you.”

“Strange logic, but okay.”

“Come to Seattle with me.”

She was so startled, she put her wine down. Then picked it up again and sucked back a huge gulp.

He stepped in and moved the skillet off the burner before the garlic burned.

“Go to Seattle with you?” she repeated.

“Yes. I want to show you my city, introduce you to my friends.” He pushed his free hand through his hair. “Spend time with you.” He gazed into her eyes and saw something that looked a lot like panic. “Be with you.”

“It rains all the time in Seattle,” she said.

“Not all the time.” He tried to lighten the atmosphere, saying, “Fifty weeks out of fifty two is not all the time.”

“And there’s no surfing.”

“There’s tons of surfing.” He sipped his own wine. “You just have to wear a wet suit all year round.”

“My friends are here. My family’s here.”

“There are as many girls in need in Seattle as there are in LA.” Probably. “You could do good there. And for the rest, it’s an hour flight. A few hours’ drive.” He was thinking rapidly, being a guy who liked to solve problems by looking at them from every angle. “Or, I could relocate. Open a branch in LA.” He grinned. “There are at least as many frauds, cheats and liars in LA as there are in Seattle.”

“You’d move? For me?”

His smile went sideways. “There isn’t much I wouldn’t do for you, Kate.”

She carried her wine into the living area and sat down. He followed her. For some reason, he didn’t sit beside her. He sat across from her so he could watch her face. A knot was forming low in his belly.

“I thought you were going to be a casual fling,” she said, slowly. “My transition person.”

“You are not the fling type.”

“I’m trying to change.” She glared at him as though he’d altered the rules in the middle of a game. “You’re the fling type. That’s what made you perfect.”

“Kate, I love you.” And as much as it felt terrifying to say those words out loud, he felt better for saying them, for getting them out there. Being honest.

“No.” she seemed panicked by the words. “NO. You don’t. You can’t.”

“I do. I can.” Why was he arguing about whether he loved her or not? “This is ridiculous.”

“Love isn’t like this. It isn’t fun, and surfing, fish tacos on the beach and sex night and day.”

“Of course it is. Love is whatever two people make it.” Which was mostly an amazing gift from his viewpoint.

“No. Love is about the future. It’s planning for a family, and being part of something bigger than yourself. It’s not something that knocks you off your feet like a huge wave you didn’t see coming.”

“If that’s what you truly believe, then maybe you should marry Ted, after all.”

“That’s not fair.”

“Isn’t it? What are you doing, Kate?”

“I’m walking the beach. I’m teaching surfing.” She paused, looked down into her wine. “I’m healing.”

She seemed so vulnerable and he hated to push at her when she was struggling, but he couldn’t seem to stop pushing. He felt that not only was his future at stake, but hers.

“I understand that. I do. But then what? What is your life going to be?”

“I don’t know.”

“I have one more question for you. What are you going to do when you stop running away?”

Her head jerked up at that. But she didn’t argue. It was as though at that moment she accepted that she was running away.

“I’ll tell you when I figure it out,” she said evenly.

And suddenly, out of nowhere, he got angry. He pulled out his phone and pulled up the photo the vacationing couple had snapped of him and Kate on the beach. He pushed the phone at her. “Look. See your face? Do you look like you did when you were standing with Ted at one of those godawful events he dragged you to? Or do you look like the real Kate, the woman who sparkles with life?” In truth, he didn’t think she looked like either of the women in his file. He might be an arrogant ass, but to his eye, when he looked at the woman smiling at him from his smart phone, he saw a woman in love. And beside her was a poor fool who was crazy for her. “I love you. Doesn’t that mean anything to you?”

“Yes, of course.” She pushed the phone back at him as though she didn’t want to look at the pair of them laughing together on the beach. “I’m honored. And grateful. But I don’t know what to say. I just got out of an engagement. I’m not ready for anything serious.”

He didn’t get angry very often. Most of the time, he didn’t see the point. Being angry meant losing control, saying and doing things you might later regret. But now he couldn’t seem to find the control he always counted on. He’d never, ever said those words to a woman. And when he finally felt the magic, finally found the woman who made him believe in love, she threw it back at him.

“Are you sure you’re out of your engagement?” he snapped.

“Haven’t you been here the last week?”

“Yeah. You’re sleeping with me. So what. You wouldn’t be the first woman who ever had a last fling before tying the knot.”

Her face went red and then white. “That is not fair.”

No, it wasn’t, and he felt like a dick. But she hadn’t been fair either. “Show me one thing you’ve done to cancel this wedding.”

She stood up. He thought she might toss her wine in his face, but she wasn’t given to the dramatic gesture. “I threw his ring back at him. I told him the wedding’s off. And I left town.”

“How many people have you told?”

“I’m not—”

“Bridesmaids? I bet they’d like to know they’ve got an unexpected Saturday free. Have you told them?”

She hung her head. “No. But I’m not ready to face—”

“Your social media pages. Have you updated them?”

“No.”

“The church, caterer, florist, photographer, name one thing you’ve cancelled.”

She threw up her hands. “It’s not up to me, I never hired any of those people.”

“What about your friends then, the people who are at this moment trolling websites, trying to find something on the registered gift list that is both still available and affordable. Trying to decide between the sterling pickle forks and the gold plated nutcracker, because God knows everything a normal person might want has already been taken! Have you told your friends to stop wasting their time and money?”

“No,” she cried. “All right! I haven’t told anyone.”

He grabbed his shoes and put them on. “Then let me know when you do.”

“Nick, please. It’s not that simple.”

“Oh, I think it is. I think it’s very simple. You either marry someone or you don’t. And if you don’t, it’s common courtesy to let the guests and the caterers and all the people involved know that there isn’t going to be a wedding.” His voice was rising which pissed him off.

“Are you leaving?” Her eyes were big and blue and confused, which he understood but couldn’t fix. He’d been irked for days that she’d done not one single concrete thing to confirm that she wasn’t marrying Ted. All she was doing was hiding, and he was beginning to wonder who she was really hiding from.

“Yeah.” He didn’t know what to say, or do. He loved her and wanted more than anything to take back his words and return to the easy intimacy. But he couldn’t do it anymore. He’d declared his love, not very well, but he’d done it and she obviously didn’t feel the same. Not her fault, but he was hurting bad. “I have to get back to Seattle. I’ve got cases and a staff who need direction. It’s been great. Sorry to end on a bad note.”

“What about dinner?”

“I lost my appetite.”

“When are you leaving?” her voice rose, and he thought he heard a note of panic.

“Tomorrow. I’ll return the rental car and get a flight back to Seattle.”

When he got to the door, she said, “Nick.”

He turned. “Yeah?”

Her eyes glistened with unshed tears. “I’m sorry.”

How could he stay angry? He’d known she was a loyal woman. She’d been engaged. How stupid was he to have believed that she was falling in love with him simply because he was falling in love with her?

Life didn’t work that way. Life was a big joker who no sooner offered you paradise than it yanked the rug out from under you.

He walked over to her and pulled her to him. He gentled his tone. “It’s not your fault.” He kissed her one last time. He tasted her sweetness, and felt the moment she clung to him, and then he pulled slowly away and left.

This time, she didn’t stop him.

Kate watched out of the front window as Nick strode down her front stairs and headed down the sidewalk in the opposite direction of his temporary home. She watched his long-legged stride and with every extra step she felt more and more bereft and confused.

She wasn’t the only one watching his progress. In the recent emotional drama she’d forgotten the PI, but there he was, across the street, sitting in a parked car. A beige, non-descript sedan.

She watched Nick until he turned the corner. She hesitated, thinking about everything he’d said. Nick loved her?

How could he have fallen in love so fast? People didn’t fall in love in a matter of days. That was crazy. Love built slowly, over time, as you learned to appreciate a person’s good qualities and to become part of their life and interests and shared your own life and interests with them.

She stood at the window, looking out at the endless ocean, the moonlight shivering on its surface. She’d known Ted for three years. And yet, if Nick was correct, he’d been seeing another woman the entire time. Ted had let her into his interests and definitely into his family, which she’d taken as a sign of intimacy, now she realized she’d basically been his beard. He was seeking their approval of his wife while probably hiding another woman.

How much interest had Ted really taken in her life, her thoughts, her dreams? Their focus had always been on him, his career, his family and future. What was wrong with her? She’d let herself fall into the pleasing trap.

And then Nick had come along.

She didn’t try to please Nick. Probably because he’d insisted she be authentic at their first meeting, and she’d felt that he was the first man who’d ever really seen her for who she was rather than the version of herself she’d become adept at presenting to the world.

After she’d realized that he was paid to try to seduce her, she’d felt only hostility when he’d arrived in Carlsbad. And, again, she hadn’t bothered being anyone but her real self.

He’d seen her at her worst. Broken hearted, angry, wearing no make-up and with her hair spiky with salt water. He hadn’t cared. He said he’d fallen in love with her.

And what about her?

This feeling she’d experienced in the past few days of complete freedom had been intoxicating. She’d assumed she felt that way because she was taking a break from her real life. Nick was a player. A completely fun-loving, exciting, sexy man who had given her more pleasure in a week than she’d known in her lifetime. But that wasn’t love.

Was it?

Nick had turned the corner, he’d disappeared from view.

His final questions still echoed in her head. What were her plans?

What was she going to do?

In all the playing and surfing and celebrating her freedom the one thing she hadn’t done yet was to actively cancel her wedding. She hadn’t put a message on Facebook, she hadn’t called her friends. Apart from Lissa, no one knew. She’d left it to Ted’s family and her mother to take care of informing their guests that the wedding wouldn’t be going ahead but, as far as she knew, no one had cancelled anything.

Now there was a private investigator sitting outside her apartment, a PI who was going to report back to the Carnarvons, which pretty much guaranteed she wouldn’t be enjoying freedom in this corner of paradise for much longer.

What was she going to do?

Pack up and run again? Sneak out the back way and hit the road?

No. Nick was right. She had already run away.

Now she was hiding like a coward.

Maybe it was time to stop doing both.

The PI was still sitting out there, no doubt waiting for Nick to return. “You’ll have a long wait, buddy,” she said, as though he could hear her.

Then, she grabbed her beach shoes and pushed her feet into them. She left her apartment and walked down the stairs. The guy in the car grabbed his cell phone as though he were pulled over making a call or checking directions or something.

Pathetic.

Nick should really give the guy some pointers.

She walked across the street. He cut his gaze to her and she watched his eyes widen slightly as she walked right up to his car and knocked on the window.

There was a tiny pause before he tried to roll down the window. But they were electric windows and nothing happened. He looked foolish for a second, then turned the key so the electronic system came on. This time when he pushed the button the driver’s window rolled down.

He looked at her as though he wasn’t sure if she was friend, foe or crazy person. “Help you?”

“I think I can help you,” she said.

A beat passed. “How?”

“This gig is about to wrap up. You’ve found me, reported back to the Carnarvons. By the way, you can tell them not to bother coming down here. I’m heading back in the morning.”

He didn’t say anything, simply stared at her. There were a couple of empty takeout coffee cups on the seat beside him, binoculars and a camera.

“But the good news is I want to hire you.”

He blinked at her. “You want to hire me to do what?”

“Follow Ted Carnarvon. I want to know everything you can find out about a woman he’s seeing named Marlene.”

“
If
I work for the Carnarvons, and I’m not saying I do, then I couldn’t take your case. It would be a conflict of interest.”

“First, they don’t have you on retainer and I can guarantee they are never going to give you any more work. They employ a big firm for that. You were strictly off the books. Trust me, I know these things. I almost married into that family. I’m offering you a couple of days’ work with a bonus if you get me the report in forty-eight hours.”

“Forty-eight hours?”

“Yep. You’d better get going.”

“I don’t—”

She understood his dilemma. For all he knew, she was playing him.

“Call them. Call them right now. Tell them you overheard me saying I’m heading back to LA tomorrow and what do they want you to do?”

He contemplated her words as though there might be an angle, then, obviously realizing his current job had been compromised the minute she knocked on his window, he agreed.

However, he shut the window first. Like it was a big secret whom he was calling.

The conversation wasn’t a long one.

He ended the call and still didn’t open the window right away. She gave him time. She didn’t particularly care if he turned her down. She could always find another investigator

She knew that the first part of the plan for the rest of her life had to be seeing Ted again. She’d ended her engagement with all the class of a toddler throwing a temper tantrum. Not that she hadn’t been justified in her rage, but still, she wanted to end her engagement once and for all with some kind of dignity.

And she wanted closure.

Within a minute the window rolled back down. “Here are my rates,” he said. “Half up front, half when I finish the job.”

“You’re hired.”

He still seemed leery. “You really leaving tomorrow?”

“I really am. Why don’t you follow me back to LA so you don’t get lost?”

 ***

Lissa’s beater hadn’t suddenly turned into a sleek, fast, racing car in the few days it had spent parked in the apartment’s lot. If anything, it had developed a bad attitude. The car was more temperamental than she remembered.

Not much more than a week had passed since she’d left, sneaking out of her apartment before dawn and hitting the highway. Mile after mile the shock had settled to anger and then, finally, to grief.

There was still a big chunk of anger lodged in her throat, but the shock had passed and, since Nick had arrived, she’d forgotten all about grief.

She accepted there was sadness. Her life had been laid out in a clear path where she could look ahead and see milestones. They’d get married, buy the Carnarvons’ idea of a starter home. Ted’s career would flourish. She’d continue to raise funds for causes she cared about. They’d have children.

Maybe they’d move to a larger home, they’d send their children to the same schools Ted’s family’s children had attended since they stepped off the Mayflower. They would entertain clients. She’d even promised to take up golf.

Golf!

Now she felt as though a huge tree had fallen across her path. Or maybe a meteor had crashed in front of her, obliterating that clear path. She realized that she needed to climb over the obstacle and find a new path. She suspected she’d be bushwhacking, hacking her own way through the future. And she experienced a thrill as she realized she was more excited about this new life she could glimpse ahead than her previous one.

As she pulled into the outskirts of LA, slowed by the inevitable traffic volume, she felt like a different woman. Even though she’d worn sunscreen all week, her time at the beach had left her a little tanned. The sun had bleached her short hair to a much brighter blond and her muscles felt limber and strong from all the surfing.

As she told her students, you needed a lot of core strength for surfing. She felt as though she was a lot stronger at her core than she had been a week ago.

She called Lissa. Naturally, the dud-mobile was not equipped with Bluetooth so she pulled over for a stretch break and made the call.

“I’m back.”

“’Bout time. I missed you.”

“I missed you, too.” And she had. “Let’s get out for a girls’ night soon. But can I keep your car for another day or two?”

A husky chuckle met her words. “You’ll have to break my fingers off your steering wheel to get your car back.”

“So we’re good then.”

It was mid-afternoon when she pulled into her parking garage. Parking Lissa’s heap among the BMWs and Lincolns amused her no end. She hefted her bag up to her apartment, showered and then dressed in her best jeans and a peasant blouse. She applied her makeup with care and, as she gave herself a final, critical once over in the mirror, she realized that she liked her new look. She’d put on a little weight. She appeared more relaxed, more fun, and certainly healthier.

Everything was going to be fine, she promised herself.

Nick had been so right. She’d told Ted, his parents and her mother that she wasn’t marrying him, and the only other people she’d told were Lissa and Nick. It was time for her to step up and start cancelling things. She needed to let her friends know she wasn’t getting married. And, she needed to start looking for a new job. Also, probably a cheaper apartment.

She started by making lists. Lists gave her focus, and things to check off so she could see she was making progress.

Much less than forty-eight hours after she’d called him, her PI got back to her with the information she wanted. “I’ve got an address,” he said. “And pictures.”

She shook her head even though he couldn’t see her. “All I want is the address.”

When she went to bed alone she felt bereft. But it wasn’t Ted she missed, it was Nick. In the short time they’d been together he’d become more important to her happiness than Ted had ever been.

But she couldn’t tell him. Not yet. She had some things to do first.