The Way They Were (3 page)

“Oh for heaven’s sake, it’s me you’re talking to here, the one who sat up with you for three nights straight after that jerk left.” Angie swore under her breath and muttered, “He didn’t even have the decency to say good-bye.”

“It was a long time ago.” Fourteen years in July.

“Sure.”

Angie Sorrento was a pint-size dynamo with a giant-sized temper who swore in Italian and English and could carry a grudge longer than anyone Kate had ever known. The only grudge larger than the one Angie had for Rourke Flannigan was the one relegated to the ex-fiancé who skipped out on her three days before the wedding.

“Really, Angie. Fourteen years is ancient history.”

Angie’s dark eyes narrowed. “That’s what I’m worried about, Kate. Your
history
with Mr. Jerk.”

“There’s no need to worry.” Kate dipped her brush in red and filled in the trim along the roof. This house was a four bedroom cape cod, designed for Rachel and Jared Hennessy and their seven year old twins, Jeffrey and Jason. The family had relocated from Richmond, Virginia last year so Jared could teach sophomore English and coach basketball in Montpelier. Great family—devoted couple, beautiful kids, even a golden retriever named Jed.

Angie started up again. “Even if it weren’t ‘Mr. Holier than Thou, let me grace you with my presence in this Podunk town’ and even if said man-boy weren’t someone you’d been intimately involved with, I’d still be worried.”

“Unnecessarily.” Kate ignored the way her pulse skittered when Angie talked about
him
.

“You watch too many
Lifetime
movies.” Had he heard about Clay? That was ridiculous, how could he have heard? She had no idea where he lived and now, suddenly, he was
here.
Why?

“Katie? Are you all right?”

No, she wasn’t. She hadn’t been all right since—Kate pushed the unwelcome truth away and glanced at her friend. “I’m fine.”

“Fine is code word for no. Look, I know you don’t want to talk about him, but there are some things you’ve got to know before this guy comes waltzing back into your life.”

“He’s hardly waltzing back into my life.”

“Steamrolling then. You just wait and see.”

“We haven’t seen each other since we were eighteen.”
A marriage and child ago
. “We’re strangers.”

“You were planning to marry the guy.”

Kate set down her brush and plastered the same expression she’d worn when well-wishers patted her hand and offered prayers for strength to endure her newly-widowed state. She’d never told Clay how much he meant to her, not really and now one freakish accident had stolen her chances of ever telling him.

“They say he kicks people out of their homes to get a deal.”

“That’s crazy. He would never—” She stopped. How did she know what he would never do? He was a man now, not a teenager.

“They say he buys the buildings dirt cheap, after he kicks the tenants out, and then renovates the places into posh apartments for his rich friends.” Angie crossed her arms over her small chest and tilted her head to one side so several black springs of hair bounced off her shoulders. “While you were watching
Barney
with Julia, I was watching
him
on
E
and seeing his face plastered in
People
.”

Rourke had always hated media in any form, said they made it hard to find a nugget of truth in anything. Kate started to shake her head in denial and ended in a shrug. What did she really know about him anymore? The truth slipped out again. Nothing.

Rourke hesitated at the door of the little shop with scalloped pink and blue trim.
Dream Houses by Kate
. She was in there, the woman who had ripped his heart into tiny shreds, invisible to the human eye.

That was history. He was here to offer condolences, nothing more. But when he opened the door he realized two fatal errors; never engage on foreign ground and never underestimate the past.

She was more beautiful than the photo he obtained two weeks ago. A photograph couldn’t capture the aura of femininity, vulnerability, and raw strength that emanated from her. If he weren’t so good at masking his emotions, he’d be on the floor, sucking for air.

Not Kate. Other than a trimmed wariness flashing in the brilliance of her blue eyes and a slight flair of her delicate nostrils, she appeared unmoved. Where was the girl who had cried on his shoulder during
Love Story?

She spoke first. “Hello, Rourke.”

Her voice swirled around him and threatened to pull him under. “Kate.” He hadn’t spoken her name since he was eighteen and the raw unfamiliarity of it burned his lips.

She opened her mouth to speak and Rourke zeroed in on her lips. Full, kissable.

“Well, if it isn’t Rourke Flannigan.”

He snapped his head up and glanced at Kate’s best friend. He hadn’t missed the censure or the distaste in her voice. Some things never changed. “Hello, Angie.”

She dismissed him with a flounce of wild curls and turned to Kate. “I’ll be in the back room if you need me.”

“Thanks.”

He waited until the she-witch disappeared and picked up a strip of miniature lattice, feigning great interest in the delicate wood, anything to keep from staring at Kate. “She never did like me.”

“She’s very protective.”

“Of course.”
She always said I’d hurt you
. He met Kate’s gaze and the years chipped away.
Did I hurt you? Did I rip your insides apart? Did you think of me when you were lying in your husband’s arms?

“Why are you here?”

Was that a tremble in her voice? “Business. And my niece.” He hadn’t meant to mention Abbie, but two seconds with Kate and already his guard started slipping.

“Niece?”

There
was
a distinct tremble in her voice. Did he make her nervous?

“Rourke? What about your niece?”

“Gwendolyn was killed in a plane crash three months ago. I’m Abbie’s guardian. She’s having some adjustment issues and I thought Montpelier might be a nice break.”

She looked away. “I see.”

“I don’t know anything about being a father.” He slid into the chair opposite her workstation. “It’s damned harder than when we were kids. I think. Hell, I don’t know.”

She was pulling him in, one whispered word, one doe-eyed glance at a time. He was not a testosterone-crazed teenager anymore. He had been surrounded by far more beautiful, more sophisticated women than the one sitting across from him with red paint smeared on her fingers and a smudge of red on her chin. But none of them were Kate. That was the problem. That had always been the problem.

“I heard about Clay.” He fidgeted with his keys, but couldn’t quite look at her when he said, “I’m sorry.”

“Thank you.”

She bowed her head and for one absolutely insane second, he wanted to pull her against him and inhale the scent of her chestnut hair. Would it still smell like coconut? What the hell was he doing here? This wasn’t the Kate he remembered. This one was untouchable. What had he expected? That she’d gaze upon him with something akin to hero worship, like most other women did? He needed to get out. Now. He calculated his exit and just as he’d worked a strategy, he noticed his name in neat print on the tab of the folder lying in front of Kate.

“What’s this?” He slid the folder forward.

“Nothing!” She made a quick lunge for it, but Rourke snatched it away.

“Nothing?” He eased the folder open. “Hmmm.” He stared back at magazine and newspaper clippings of himself in various locations, with various women, all beautiful, all supposedly in love with him. Rourke scanned the printed dates and captions, then closed the folder and slid it back to her.

“Angie—”

“Would never make it as a private eye. That wasn’t just a Swedish beauty queen, that was the Queen’s niece.” He smiled and shrugged at her distress. “And the Alps,” he leaned forward to whisper, “heir to a makeup dynasty.”

“I see.”

But none of them touched my heart the way you did.
“Kate.”

Rourke cleared his throat and fiddled with a piece of lattice. How much could a person make painting dollhouses? Enough to support two people? “Have the investigators finished their reports yet?” When she shook her head he said, “You should start receiving money once the investigations are complete.”

She coughed as though embarrassed to be discussing such an indelicate subject as money with him when she so obviously had little and he so obviously had plenty. He thought of the night they planned their future together, the Victorian house they’d build, the lake, the workshop for her artwork, the four children they’d have . . .

“I’ve been talking to a few people. They say I have options.”

That brought him around—fast. People meant lawyers, preyers of the weak and grief-stricken. Wasn’t it his humanitarian duty to inquire before she got herself mixed up in a scam? “What kind of people?”

She shrugged. “What kind of people surface at a tragedy? Lawyers, of course.”

“The cream of the crop, I’m sure.”
Who? Give me their names.

“They’re not all bad.” She looked down at her hands and picked at the red paint on her finger.

“You need to be careful. There are too many ambulance chasers out there trying to make a case where there is none.” He laid a hand on the table, inches from hers. “If you want me to speak with them, I will.”

Her head shot up. “Why would you do that?”

“To help you.” It was such a smooth delivery, Miles would be proud. Was it true? The next words spilled out before he could yank them back. “I’m going to be here a few weeks, maybe several.”
At least until I shut down these damn lawyers.
He flashed a smile which warped into a straight line when she merely continued to stare.

“Why are you really here, Rourke?”

He remembered the way she’d cried out his name the first and only night they made love. Another truth snuck past the subterfuge in his soul and aimed a steady path straight at her. “Who are we kidding, Kate? We’ve got fourteen years of questions between us and I’m not leaving until every one of them is answered.”

Chapter 4

“
Somebody said he has a daughter or a niece or something.”—Julia Maden

“So tell me about this new guy everybody’s talking about. Rourke something or other.”

Kate ignored her daughter and concentrated on slicing the red onion in front of her, glad she had an excuse if her eyes started tearing. Rourke Flannigan could do that to a woman. When she knew her voice wouldn’t wobble, she said, “Flannigan. Rourke Flannigan.”

Kate threw the onion in the salad bowl. Clay said a salad wasn’t a salad without red onion and he was right. He’d been right about a lot of things. “Yes, we all knew him.”

Everything.
Kate shrugged. “People talk, Julia. Don’t listen to them.” She flattened her hands on the countertop to keep them from shaking. How long would it take for someone to slip and string Kate’s name with Rourke’s? The nightmare they’d all tried to forget would resurface and leak into the present like poison. People would get hurt, lives would be ruined, and Kate would be right in the middle of it.