Welcome Home, Katie Gallagher

He moved to the steps of the station house, extending his arm to us. “After you.” As Chaucer and I passed, he gave a low grumble. “Not exactly a criminal mastermind, are you?”

I paused, eyebrows raised in question.

He smirked. “Your plan was ‘run.’ Really?”

I gave him my most dismissive hair flip and walked through the door. I had Chaucer on a leash, but he would have stayed with me, anyway. And honestly, as the dog outweighed me by at least thirty pounds, if he ever wanted to get away, there’s not much I could do. Luckily he was devoted to me, almost as much as he was devoted to never exerting himself.

Inside, a soft, middle-aged woman wearing a headset looked up from her cluttered desk. Her eyes comically rounded at seeing Chaucer walk in.

“Heather, this is Katie Gallagher. We’ll be using the conference room.”

I started at hearing the name Katie Gallagher. The name on my license was Katherine Cady. No one had called me Katie in a long time. Justin called me Katherine, and I insisted that my friends call me Katherine or Kate. I’d refused to be known as Katie Cady. That was too ridiculous, not to mention redundant.

As I walked through the police station, I knew I should be feeling fear, concern, abject terror, something. But I wasn’t. It was like a dream. Weird, bad things kept happening, but they didn’t touch me. I floated through. Maybe I was in shock, or that grape soda was laced with quaaludes. One or the other.

“It looks different,” I observed.

“Make a habit of studying the insides of police stations?” He led me past desks toward a rear hall. A few cops watched my perp walk, or maybe it was the Newfoundland trying to sniff out forgotten food that caught their attention.

“Not a habit so much as a hobby,” I said, studiously regarding the tips of my shoes. My eyes were definitely not drifting up to watch the world-class butt directly in front of me. Nope. “My Gran brought me here when I was thirteen as part of her scared-straight campaign. A couple of kids were busted for pot, and she was certain I was a member of their drug-guzzling gang. Never mind that I had never met any of them, nor had I ever been high.”

“Nor did you realize that drugs weren’t guzzled.” He opened the door to the interview room, which, I must say, was far less frightening than I had been trained to expect watching cop shows on TV. It was a very cozy, pleasant room with an unusually large number of cardboard ghosts and pumpkins strewn across the far end of the table.

“Yeah, yeah. Anyway, Gran decided it was better to punish me before I did anything, in case she missed it afterward. I spent a Saturday afternoon locked up in a cell back there while Gran sent in random folks she’d found in the shops to come scare me straight with their stories of prison.” Chaucer flopped down on the floor, rested his head on my foot and fell asleep. It had been a big day for him.

“You’re making this up,” the cop said as he sat down.

“No, not at all. It was kind of fun for me. As they told me their stories of depraved incarceration, I tried to identify which shows they were stealing from.” I smiled, remembering. “Mr. Wilson told me he had tunneled out of Shawshank Prison with nothing but a rock hammer. Oh, wait, do I get the same number or a new one?”

His brow furrowed. “Number?”

“For my mug shot. The bottom of the picture. Will I have the same number I did when I was thirteen? Is it like a Social Security number that follows you around, or is it the case number or something?” This was knowledge I hadn’t realized I’d ever need to possess.

“It follows you, but according to your record, you’ve never actually been booked. Unless you have an alias.”

“Oh.” Bummer. I kind of liked the idea of being a hardened criminal, a total badass with a record. I needed a leather jacket and maybe a tattoo—not one of those prissy deals. No dragonflies or mermaids for me. I wanted a skull or tribal pattern around my biceps. I also needed a biceps, preferably two. I was going to go all Sarah Connor, build up my guns and wear tank tops to show ’em off...

“Katie?”

Hmm? “Sorry, what?”

He sighed and tapped the screen on his phone right before a flash blinded me.

“Seriously, with your phone? Is this some kind of pity mug shot?” He was making fun of me. Man, he was going to be sorry when I became a badass. We didn’t forget shit like that.

He smirked and returned the phone to his pocket.

“I wasn’t ready!” Damn, I didn’t scowl or sneer or anything. “Do over!”

“No.” He pulled out a portfolio and opened it. “You haven’t changed,” he said as he stood, removing his jacket before resuming his seat.

“You know me?” I wondered over the planes of his face again. Had I met him when I’d visited Gran all those years ago? I considered the dark hair that curled near his collar, the Paul Newman blue eyes, the tall, muscular body, the cleft in his chin... Wait. The eyes, the cleft...those were familiar.

He tapped his pen rapidly, ignoring my question. “Now, could you tell me why you tortured that poor car?”

I wilted. Why was I the one in the police station? All I did was take Justin’s expertly fitted and weighted golf clubs to his beloved car. I didn’t lie to him day in and day out. I didn’t betray him. Nope. I broke a thing, not a person. Why the hell wasn’t he the one staring down a cop and answering questions?

“I’d really prefer not to, and I don’t understand why I should have to. Taking a golf club to your own property is not against the law. It’s not like I went on a spree and destroyed all the cars in the country club parking lot. It was a surgical strike. I was a Tomahawk missile of tactical fury. And anyway, shouldn’t you have to identify yourself before you start asking me questions?” I clenched my trembling hands in my lap, trying to maintain my new, hard-ass persona.

“Chief Cavanaugh of the Bar Harbor Police Department, ma’am.” He looked down at his portfolio and then back up at me, eyes cold. “You trashed your husband’s car and then fled, is that right?”

I thought it would be different if I left, if I came to the place where I was the happiest. Even without Gran, I’d imagined being here would comfort me and help me figure out what the hell to do with myself now that I understood, what was apparent to everyone else, that my life was a pathetic sham. I leaned forward, dropping my head to the table. Repeatedly. My brain needed a reboot.

A large, warm hand settled on my shoulder, the heat seeping into my bones. A shiver ran through me. I looked up through wet lashes, and I saw it. I knew who he was.

“Aiden?” I sat up straight to better study him. “Aiden Cavanaugh?”

His hand fell away, and I missed its weight and warmth at once. Unbelievable. How the hell did sweet, oddly geeky Aiden Cavanaugh morph into tall, dark and forbidding?

“Wow,” I said. “Look at you with your big-boy muscles and your lumberjack build. You must have had one hell of a growth spurt. I knew there was something familiar about you. It was the eyes. You were always cute but holy shnikies. I’m feeling kind of dirty now for some of the things I was thinking about you up on the cliff.”

CHAPTER FOUR (#ua0119f64-7923-58ff-b597-fc99d06549e9)

Aiden

DISTURBING SISTERLY ATTITUDE ASIDE, it was nice to know that the girl I’d obsessed over as a kid appreciated what she saw enough now to mentally grope me.

I gave myself a mental slap. Women, for more than a couple of hours, were off the table. They couldn’t be trusted, and trust was vital. “Thanks. If we can get back to the destruction of property issue...” I said, and her smile dropped.

She sighed. “He cheated on me. A lot. I moved out, met with a lawyer, but then...” She looked up at me. “Do I have to tell you all this? Can he really have me arrested for beating up his car?” Her bottom lip quivered before she stiffened it.

“If you’re in the process of a divorce and you took a golf club to his things? Yes.”

She looked down into her lap.

“Would he willingly air the dirty laundry to punish you?”

She sat up straight, her head cocked, considering. “No. Image is everything to him. The Asshat used to go shopping with me to make sure I dressed like a successful man’s wife.” She paused, her fingers tapping on the tabletop. “I doubt he’d want his clients to know why I did what I did.” She nodded slowly. “I hadn’t thought of that.”

My hand twitched, wanting to touch her once more. Damn it. I wasn’t going down that road again. Not after Alice. “Are you visiting or planning to stay awhile?”

“I want to stay. I don’t have anywhere else to go. I know Gran’s gone, but I was hoping—I don’t know. I was happy here once.”

I laughed. “You were a menace here once, Katie.”

Outraged, she said, “Menace? I was a sweet and charming addition to this community for two months every summer!”

Choking, I stood. “Sweet and charming? How many Fourth of July parades did you ruin?”