Damn you, Rory, Cat thought. Damn you for my greatest pleasure and my deepest hell. Damn you once more for making me remember all the moments we spent together.
Had he sent the flowers?
And if he had, for what purpose? To confuse and confound her? To let her know she was in his thoughts?
He could do that in person if he wanted.
Would she be ready?
Cat reluctantly admitted that she would never be quite ready, still maybe it would be for the best. Get it over with, quick and clean. Simple. She had survived his leaving; she would survive his coming back again. Besides, she had nothing in common with him anyway.
Except a child, came the sadly sweet thought. A beautiful little girl created out of the love they had shared.
Correction, her inner voice added, out of the love she had for him. But that love was over. In the past. The fire was dead. Ashes were all that remained. And wasn’t it better that way? Being consumed by the flames was no way to live. Charred fragments of her heart had survived once. Now it was cloaked in self-induced asbestos to keep it safe. Maybe someday she would love again. A nice, sweet, gentle love. The kind that was comfortable and secure. Nothing that heated the blood or scorched the soul.
Been there, she thought. Done that. Don’t plan on making that mistake ever again.
Her glance fell to the silver-framed photograph that rested on her desk, sharing space with piles of papers, a computer and books. It was of her and Tara, smiling broadly to the camera. Taken at her daughter’s last birthday party.
He’d missed them all. All the cakes, the presents, the laughter, and most especially the fun of seeing the wonder and excitement of a birthday through a child’s eyes.
But it couldn’t be helped. Or regretted.
The intercom on her phone buzzed, giving Cat a good excuse to put her mind on something else.
Rory sat in his leased car in the parking lot of Cat’s bookstore, remembering the first time he’d come here. Flush with success at the rave notices his initial effort had produced, he’d been excited to do his first real book signing and thrilled to finally meet the woman who’d sent such a glowing review to his publisher. He recalled the shock that first hit him as he walked through the door of The Silver Harp—he’d been expecting a much older woman to be the owner. Instead, she’d been closer to his own age, he discovered, twenty-five to his thirty.
And lovely beyond compare. A dew-dappled apricot rose with a hint of a blush. That’s the flower he associated with her. The flower he’d sent today.
She was smart. Funny. More than able to meet him halfway. A woman who stirred him on so many levels. A woman of passion, honesty and conviction.
He watched as several people walked in and out, some with small bags, a few with large.
So what was he waiting for? He wasn’t going to get a damn thing accomplished by sitting in his car and staring at the continual flow of customers.
Rory got out and locked the car with a click of his key ring. A few steps took him to the door of the stone building, where he turned the brass handle and stepped inside.
She’d made a few changes in the interim years. Soft strains of Celtic music now played in the background. A subtle fragrance hung in the air, light and spicy, making him think of golden autumn days and crisp fall nights, of colors he associated with Cat. A wooden display on a nearby bare pine table held store newsletters. Rory picked one up and perused it. Poetry readings, book signings, storytelling hour for children, an upcoming Irish step-dancing demonstration. Something for everyone.
“Hi. May I help you?”
Rory turned his head at the sound of the female voice.
“Oh my, it’s Professor Sullivan, isn’t it?” Mary Alice said, her eyes widening in surprise.
Rory smiled. “I’m flattered that you remembered me.”
“Let’s say that you made an impression that doesn’t soon fade,” Mary Alice responded wryly.
“Really?” he responded with a lift of one black eyebrow. “How very sweet of you to say that.”
“I’d only be speaking the truth.”
“Does Caitlyn Kildare still own this place?”
“She sure does.”
“Is she by any chance here today?”
“Yes.”
“Then would you tell her that I’d like to see her.”
Mary Alice nodded her head. “Just you wait right here, and I’ll go and let her know that you’ve come to say hello. There’s freshly brewed tea and coffee if you’d like something to drink.” With a wave of her hand she indicated a sturdy pine sideboard upon which sat a coffeemaker and next to it a carafe of hot water. “There’s a few things to nibble on if you’d like, too. Personally, I’d try the shortbread. One taste and you swear you’ve died and been reborn.”
“That good?”
“Better than almost anything,” she insisted.
Rory almost laughed at that declaration. He’d tasted a few things in his time that would have put the shortbread treat to shame, he was sure. One of them had been Cat’s skin. Smooth as cream. And her mouth, sweet as honey.
His body stirred achingly with the sensory pictures his mind painted. Images grown sharper. Clearer. Especially now that he allowed himself to see them freely. Artists had a term for that which resurfaced after being buried under layers of paint—pentimento. The discovery of the treasure beneath the surface, beneath the obvious.
As for coffee or tea, he didn’t need further stimulation. Thinking about Cat was stimulating enough. Much more than enough.
Mary Alice slipped into the back room and closed the door behind her.
Cat glanced up from her computer screen when her assistant entered.
“You’ve got a visitor,” the older woman announced in a soft voice.
A sudden chill ran along Cat’s spine. She asked the question to which she had already guessed the answer. “Who?”
“Rory Sullivan.”
Cat momentarily shifted her eyes to the picture of her daughter, then forced them away as she saved the document that she was working on and closed down the machine.
“Do you want me to show him in here?”
“No,” Cat replied quickly. “Would you mind telling him that I’ll be out in a few minutes?”
“Sure.”
As Mary Alice turned to go, Cat spoke again. “Has he…” She was going to say “changed,” but opted against finishing the question. She would know soon enough herself. “Never mind.”
Mary Alice left and Cat stood up, walked a few feet to the bathroom, flicked on the light and checked her face in the mirror. She filled a small paper cup with cold water from the tap and swallowed it. Most of her lipstick was gone so she reached into the pocket of her skirt and ran the tube of plain lip gloss across her mouth.
All ready.
Who was she kidding? she thought. Certainly not herself. She was far from ready. Miles away from okay. Light-years from calm. But she had to do this, now. Bite the bullet. Face the music. And all the other clichés she could think of.
All the intervening years melted away, and the past rose up from behind the shuttered wall of her memory, released and living, standing before her when she walked onto the sales floor.
Across the width of the room, as if he could feel her presence, Rory turned and their eyes met.
If Cat thought he was handsome before, she marveled at how much the years had improved his features. Mature, polished, elegant, he was all that, but harder, Cat noted. There was a toughness, a steely strength underlying the facile good looks, obviously dormant when she knew him. Now there was no denying the beautiful arrogance of his face or his eyes. Those enticing Kerry-blue eyes. Just like the old song. Smiling Irish eyes that could, and did, steal your heart away. But in the stealing he had managed to break hers into a thousand pieces, smashing it as ruthlessly as he could, the fragments resembling the remnants of a piece of expensive crystal. Glued back together, it was serviceable but never completely the same.
It only took him seconds to reach her, seconds to throw her world off kilter. “Hello, Cat.”
Chapter Three
Alainn.
The word filtered through Rory’s brain the instant he saw her. It was the Gaelic word for beautiful. Cat was all that and more. The beauty she had possessed seven years ago had been youthful, emerging. Now it was fully realized, shaped and refined by nature into stunning maturity.
Her body, too, had altered. Her curves were fuller, rounder, accentuated by the clinging moss-green sweater set she wore, along with the winter-white, wool trousers. Her hair was longer, flowing past her shoulders and ending midway down her back. If anything, the color was richer, a radiant auburn. A soft fringe of bangs feathered across her forehead, framing her face. When he left, that lovely face had been rounder. It too had subtly modified in the time past. Cheekbones sharper, mouth a fraction softer.
But her eyes, he thought, were still the same. Unchanged in color. Green. The forever green of legend and memories.
It didn’t pass Rory’s notice that she hadn’t said hello in return.
When she finally found her voice, Cat asked, “What brings you here?”
Rory wanted to say “You.” But the word remained unspoken, trapped in his throat. Instead, he said, “I was in the neighborhood and thought that it might be interesting to indulge myself in a few minutes of nostalgia. To see if anything’s changed here.”
“Really?” Cat wished that she could believe that’s all it was. A simple trip down memory lane; but nothing had ever been simple between them. Not in the long run.
“It appears that you’ve done quite well for yourself, Cat,” Rory murmured, his tone polite. His gaze roamed the expanded shelves, noted the changes and improvements that she’d made to the premises, before returning to her.
“Yes, I have,” she responded in the same blandly mild voice, inwardly fighting to maintain her composure. It was a tough battle, what with his whole demeanor screaming hot and sexy from the well-remembered black leather jacket he wore open over an expensive-looking oatmeal sweater, dark blue jeans and black boots. From the corner of her eye, Cat caught a twenty-something customer in a Cedar Hill University sweatshirt as she walked nearby give Rory a quick once-over, smiling to herself in silent appreciation.
Suddenly the store seemed smaller, as if it were closing in on Cat. She felt cornered. Trapped by and between the past and the present. And it was all Rory Sullivan’s fault. What right did he have to be here as if they’d parted friends? As if their last words had been kind and cordial.
Go away! she screamed silently. Please, go away. Release me.
“I’m happy for you, Cat. I know just how much this place meant to you.”
She heard the underlying irony in his voice and replied in kind. “It still does.”
“That’s good. If you put your heart and soul into something it should be worth whatever sacrifice, or effort, you deem necessary to maintain it.”
“It is.”
Cat sounded so cool and matter-of-fact to him. Almost hard to believe she was the same woman he’d shared numerous hot, sensual hours with, their bodies so close and in tune that it was impossible to tell where one began and the other left off. Her voice had been warm back then, husky with passion; her skin dewed with moisture; her hands as eager to explore as his; her mouth pure excitement and promise.
Clearly that was then, this is now. The woman who stood before him was self-contained, with a “do not disturb” attitude.
Well, what had he expected?
The back-door buzzer rang.
“I’ll…” Mary Alice started to say before she was cut off by Cat.
“No,” she said, “I’ll go.” She reached out her hand in a formal manner, praying that it remained steady. “Good to see you again—” she hesitated for the briefest instant, as if forming a little-used foreign phrase “—Rory.”
Had she imagined it or had his eyes quickly turned darker, sharper, hotter?
“Likewise, Cat.”
With a quicksilver movement, she was gone, and he was left standing alone, Mary Alice off to answer the loudly ringing phone.
Their hands had barely touched before she withdrew hers, as if contact with his skin was abhorrent. Or, could it be, he wondered, that she had felt the same jolt of electricity that he had? Had she been shocked that it still existed? Frightened by the implications? Or appalled?
Rory glanced at the door that led to the back room, a smile tilting the corners of his mouth.
Cat imagined that she could still feel the tingling in her skin upon the contact with his. Handshakes. An everyday occurrence that she never even gave a second thought to.
Until today.
Until now.
Until him.
The brush of flesh against flesh had instantly summoned memories of other times, other caresses: his palms skimming lazily along her breast or thigh, a drift of his lean fingers along her neck or over her arm.
But she’d held on to her jolted emotions. Kept her cool.
Pleased with herself, Cat counted and signed for the shipment, happy that she had maintained her poise in dealing with Rory. Cat could never show him that he still had any influence on her emotions.
“Anything going out?” the UPS man asked, breaking into Cat’s thoughts.
“Yes,” she answered, retrieving the package that was being sent to a customer. Her back was to the stockroom door, so she didn’t see the man who entered behind her.
Rory quietly stepped into the room. While he understood that he had been dismissed by his former lover, he wasn’t ready to go. Not yet. Not until he had a chance to talk to Cat some more. He hadn’t come all this way to walk away now, not without a fight. Not without trying to get through to her. He still felt the pull, the burning, fire-in-the-gut attraction. If anything, it was stronger than ever. Hotter than before.
His glance fell on her desk, as cluttered as his own, littered with papers, books, various odds and ends. He stepped closer, picking up an item of stationery, one finger tracing the design of an embossed silver harp nestled in a bed of shamrocks on a notecard. Rory smiled. The artist had taken time, producing a fine product. Like Cat’s store, it was special, one of a kind, much like the lady herself.
He was just about to announce his presence, ask her if she’d consider coming out with him for a drink, anything to prolong the moment, when his eyes fell on a framed photograph on Cat’s desk. Reaching out his hand, he picked it up.
Cat turned around, having locked the back delivery door. She was startled to see Rory standing nearby; then it quickly occurred to her where he was and what he had in his hand. She saw the ready smile fade from his lips, replaced by a dawning comprehension at what he held.
Her feet were rooted to the spot, unable to carry her the few steps across the floor so that she could remove the object from his hand. Cat could only stare at him as he examined the photo. Damn, why hadn’t she thought to hide the picture in her desk drawer? Put it away until he was gone.
Because she thought she was safe. It never crossed her mind that he would follow her in here. Obviously he hadn’t taken her goodbye as final.
Rory raised his eyes from the photograph, meeting Cat’s across the room. “Who is she?” he asked rhetorically as his heart already knew the answer.
“My daughter,” she replied.
His response was immediate, cutting her to the quick. “And mine.”
“Yes.” Cat couldn’t deny the fact, especially since the truth was there to see.
That one word hung suspended in the air between them. It cut through years and memories like the snap of a whip.
Rory’s glance fell back to the photo. His daughter. His child. His fingers glided over the glass that protected the photo inside, as if he could somehow feel the warmth of the little girl underneath. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I had my reasons.” She couldn’t get into this with him here and now.
“Oh, did you?” he asked, his tone cool, shock at this turn of events suddenly invading him like the sharp pricks of a hot needle.
“Yes.” Again that single word crackled in the space that separated them.
Moments passed slowly with no words spoken, like thick syrup poured from a cold bottle, the silence broken only by the measured breathing of two people worlds apart.
Finally, the intrusive brrring of the phone snapped Cat back to reality. While she answered the call, Rory slipped the small framed photograph into his jacket pocket. He waited until Cat put the caller on hold and then said, “We’ll talk later.”
There was no mistaking the surety of his words, nor the determined look in his eyes before he left. Moving on autopilot, Cat went about her task, locating the book her customer wanted from a pile of special orders waiting to be called, and then setting it aside, all the while remembering the look in Rory’s eyes, the set of his face as he discovered the existence of his child.
Her child.
Their child.
“What’s wrong?” Mary Alice asked as soon as she was finished with her customer, following Cat into the back room. “Professor Sullivan walked out of here as if in a trance.” Her eyes shifted to the empty space on the desk. “He knows, doesn’t he?”
“Knows?”
“That he’s Tara’s father.”
Cat lifted her downcast eyes. “How—”
“Did I guess?” Mary Alice interjected, a knowing smile on her face. “It wasn’t all that hard, Cat. Your daughter resembles her father way too much. When you first told me that you were pregnant, I suspected the identity of your baby’s father, and when Tara was born, it was there on her face, the feminine version that decorates the dust jackets of his books.”
“Can’t deny the obvious then, can I?” Cat sank into her comfortable desk chair, idly running one hand through her hair.
“Certainly not the fact that he’s one handsome devil.” Mary Alice’s smile compressed as she asked her next question. “Tara doesn’t know, does she?”
“No. And why didn’t you ever say anything?”
“Wasn’t my place to.”
Cat acknowledged her friend’s discretion. “Thanks.”
“So what are you going to do?”
Cat shrugged her shoulders. “I wish I knew.”
“If I can be of any help, you’ve only got to ask,” Mary Alice offered. “I imagine it can’t be easy what with him just showing up again after all these years.”
“Thanks, but I got myself into this quagmire, so it’s my responsibility to get myself out.” Cat stood up, taking a few steps before stopping and perching on the stack of boxes the UPS man had brought. “I’ve been afraid that someday I might have to face this, even though I really didn’t think I’d ever see him again. When Rory left, I figured that that was it. I was safe with my secret as long as he remained in Ireland. It never occurred to me that he would ever come back here.” She stood up again. “But that was just a dream. An illusion that I chose to believe in.”
Cat gave a short snort of laughter. “Well, dreams don’t last, and illusions can sometimes become all too real.”
“Why didn’t you ever tell him about the baby, if you don’t mind my asking?”
“Because she was my responsibility. I wanted her.”
Mary Alice pointed out, “You didn’t create her yourself.”
“No, but it was my decision to have her.”
“That really doesn’t answer my question.”
Cat paused a moment before speaking. “It’s not an especially original story.”
“What is?”
That remark brought a smile to Cat’s lips. “Rory didn’t want kids.”
“He told you that?”
Cat nodded her head. “In no uncertain terms. A few weeks after we started seeing one another, I ran into a college friend with her new baby. We stopped to chat for a few minutes and when she left, I mentioned to Rory that Nancy got what she’d always wanted, a child. I saw that chance meeting as an opening, to see what he thought about having kids. You know how important family is to me.
“Well, that was when he informed me they had no place in his future, in how he saw his life. They demanded too much time, too much energy, energy he could put to better use, he said, getting ahead in the academic world. So you see, a child would have been the last thing Rory would have wanted to know about.”
“He might have changed his mind if you had told him.”
Cat shook her head. “I doubt it. He wanted no ties, no commitments. Nothing to hold him back from where he was going and what he wanted to do.”
“But that was then.”
“And this is now,” Cat replied. “I know.”
“So what’ll you do?”
“Go home and think how I can best to tell my daughter that I have a surprise for her.”
Rory doffed his black leather jacket upon entering his town house, removing the photo from it beforehand. Walking to the butler’s table, he poured himself a stiff whiskey, took a seat and set the photo down where he could see it.
Sipping the potent liquid, Rory contemplated the truth that the picture contained.
A daughter. Flesh of his flesh. Blood of his blood. A part of him that he hadn’t known about until now. No clue. No inkling. No warning.
Children had never played an important part in his life, nor had he thought they ever might. He had other priorities, other interests in life.
Nice in theory.
But theory had been shot to hell less than an hour ago. Now he was faced with reality in the shape of a dimpled, black-haired little girl who smiled with his face.
And he didn’t even know her name.
“Rory knows.”
The man Cat addressed her words to hadn’t even joined her in the booth of the popular restaurant that catered to the legal crowd in Cedar Hill before she spoke. Bulging briefcases, three-piece suits, beepers and cell phones were de rigueur for all the attorneys present. The man who slid his tall, lean frame into the seat opposite her was no exception.
“And what’s he going to do about it?”
“How should I know, Brendan?”
“He gave you no hint of what he intends?” His tone was direct and to the point, the same way that he conducted himself in the courtroom.
Cat let out an exasperated sigh. Sometimes her big brother could be so infuriating with his cool, precise legal mind. “I wasn’t speaking to you as a client.”
“Sorry,” he said, extending his hand across the width of the table that separated them, giving hers a squeeze. “Force of habit.”
Cat suspected that it was just that, and maybe the influence of that overly cool woman that Brendan lived with. She often wondered how her brother, the warm and open man she knew and loved, managed sharing his life with someone who derived her greatest pleasure from her work, first and foremost. People came a distant second.
“I forgive you, but you know that already, don’t you,” she said.
Brendan gave her one of his lazy, winning smiles and held up his left hand toward her, fingers folded, thumb extended.
Cat smiled at the familiar gesture and held up hers, pressing it against her brother’s in an automatic response. Both carried a small scar from their childhood upon their respective thumbs when they decided to become what they called “double blood” brothers. To the five-and nine-year-old, that was a stronger bond than merely being brother and sister. This sharing and mixing was a sacred trust. It was a promise made and forever kept.
Their moment was interrupted by the arrival of the waitress, who served a mug of hot tea to Cat and a large glass of dark, imported beer to Brendan.
“I warned you that this might happen when he came back.”
“I know. It’s just that…”
“What?” Brendan probed, his handsome face reflecting his concern for his sister’s welfare.
“Rory’s changed.”
“How?”
“In subtle ways,” she explained. “I saw it in his eyes. Heard it in his voice.”
Brendan put his half-empty glass back on the table. “Maybe you were seeing what you wanted to see, sis. Underneath,” he said with a sharp, revealing tone, “he’s probably still the same selfish bastard that took advantage of your trust and your love.”