A Measure of Happiness (23 page)

Man next door.

The man cooking in her kitchen and sleeping on her couch. The man who didn't think she was a whore, despite evidence to the contrary. The man who didn't believe Matt, the voice in her head that told her she was shit.

When the voice of her eating disorder, Ed, popped into her brain to torment her, she was supposed to fight back. Tell Ed he was stupid and wrong, even when all evidence—her fat ass, her inability to eat like a normal person without gaining weight—pointed to the contrary.

Now that she remembered, she couldn't get Matt's voice out of her head. She might not be shit, but she was definitely a shit magnet.

The weight of the two blankets comforted her, but the heat couldn't get through the icy layers. The bone-deep Atlantic Ocean chill she'd brought on herself. A shiver wracked her body, starting at her center and branching out, the way an earthquake originated from a fault. She sat up and drank down the rest of the green tea. She wiped her mouth with her hand.

Maybe Zach was right. Maybe she was in shock, but considering her history with guys? She wasn't one bit surprised.

C
HAPTER
14

A
ccording to Celtic history, All Hallows' Eve was a time to take stock of the harvest and prepare for the coming winter. A day when the dead came back to life and demons haunted the world of the living. But what about the ghosts from the past that day-in, day-out replayed their story in Katherine's mind, like the endless loop of a black-and-white horror flick? What about the would've, could've, should've vampires that sucked her precious time and joy?

What about the demons from her childhood she couldn't exorcise?

The roast and root vegetables were cooking nicely, filling her apartment—the first floor of a Victorian painted lady—with literal and soul warmth. In the living room, she laid out hors d'oeuvres. Dishes of walnuts for cracking, a pyramid of clementines, crudités with a chilled buttermilk-and-dill dip. She filled a black plastic cauldron with assorted fun-sized chocolate bars and set it by the door. She set the dining room table with her seasonal china—a black transferware pattern with happy witches and pumpkins—atop black charger plates. In the center of the table, she arranged a pumpkin she'd carved with scrollwork, reminiscent of ornately decorated cakes. She lifted the jack-o'-lantern's cap, lit the tea light, and set the cap back in place. Took a moment to inhale the wax and flame and savor the glow.

Her black dress fell to her ankles, the top hugging her chest and torso, the skirt loose and swishing. A swatch of hair she'd secured with a single tortoiseshell barrette. The rest she let fall free, the way she'd worn it in her younger days when she'd hitchhiked from town to town, waited tables wherever by day, prowled bars by night. Despite the gravity of the dinner party—her growing concern over Celeste, her worry over her uninvited guest examining her latest employee—she felt energized and reckless.

A larger than usual glass of Merlot might've contributed to her contradictory state.

In her experience, a glass or two heightened awareness. Three or four numbed the senses, an out-of-body experience where you witnessed your life's traumas, the circumstances real yet seeming not quite so pressing. And five glasses of wine? She hadn't attempted that degree of debauchery in quite some time.

She was well aware of her father's alcoholic contribution to her family history.

The doorbell rang, and a satisfying chime played through her house. About an hour and a half too early for trick-or-treaters and half an hour too early for her three visitors. She peered through a sidelight to where the outside lamp cut through the early sundown and lit her doorstep.

Unless that visitor was the uninvited guest she'd been trying to track down for the better part of a week.

She opened the door and tried to set her face into a glare of annoyance but found her face unwilling to comply. “You're a hard man to track down,” she said, her tone coming out all wrong, way more
glad to see you
than
mad as hell.
That made her mad as hell.

Barry wore one of her favorite outfits. A light-blue, fitted button-down brought out his eyes, and herringbone slacks hugged him in all the right places.

The trouble was she couldn't find any wrong places on his body. God knows she'd tried.

Barry carried a bouquet of yellow lilies and Gerber daisies and white roses, reminiscent of her autumnal bridal bouquet. “You going to invite me in?” he said, his voice Celeste snarky and full of assumption.

They'd married on the grounds of the Stonehouse Manor overlooking Silver Lake, the place where the Kennebec River literally wed the Atlantic. A gorgeous and utterly ridiculous affair, considering their ages, but Barry had insisted.

The day had been perfect. Something else she could use to fuel her ire.

“Versus Celeste inviting you without asking me first? Sure, why not?” Katherine's head felt light and swimmy, not from the wine but from the thought of letting him into her post-Barry home. Against the backdrop of her pale-yellow walls, his aura swirled around him. To her, the color looked gray. But she strongly suspected his aura was pink, loving and loyal.

The only other time she'd seen an aura? Thirty years ago, her father's aura had been dark brown with deception and black, to her, with righteous anger.

“I called every hotel in New England looking for you to let you know this wasn't a good idea,” she said.

Barry gave her a look, a hyperbole of shock and hurt. “Really, Katherine?”

“You
know
this isn't a good idea.” The heaviness of the admission hit her in the stomach, like a twenty-pound bag of flour. “There were no shrink conferences.”

Barry tweaked her nose and handed her the bouquet. “Applied Psychology holds their conference same week every year, at the Marriott Marquis in Times Square. I can't—” He shook his head. “I don't believe you forgot.”

Could she have accidentally forgotten but on purpose?

“Let me put these in some water.” Katherine meant for Barry to stay in the living room, so she could take a moment to compose herself. Put the flowers in water. Stick her head under the faucet. Scream.

Instead, Barry followed her into the kitchen, gazing around and craning his neck as though he were touring a museum.

She'd taken only those things she'd gone into the marriage with. Flea market and antique store prints and paintings, hand-knit curtains she'd traded for months' worth of pastries. She'd found the navy velvet sofa at an estate sale. That had inspired the purchase of the French-blue wing chair and the navy and light-blue handblown glass beads that took the place of a kitchen door. One acquisition led to another, the way one relationship invariably led to others, beads along a connected strand.

When beads loosened and fell, the rules of connection applied in reverse.

Katherine parted the beads and stepped inside. “Watch yourself.”

“I'd rather watch you.” Barry held her gaze until her throat ached and her sinuses filled.

“This house,” he said. “It fits you.”

“A slightly worn old girl in need of a paint job?”

“A beautiful woman with substance and flare,” Barry said without an ounce of irony.

“You've always known how to flatter me.”

“Just because it's flattery doesn't mean it's not true.”

“There you go again.” Katherine set the flowers beside the sink and stretched to reach the fat glass vase on the overhead shelf. Behind her, Barry made a sound, a cross between a sigh and a growl. Without turning back around, she ran the water and held her wrists beneath the cold.

Barry-shaped warmth came up behind her. “How was your date this weekend?”

“What date?” she asked, giving herself away and missing her opportunity. Why was her first inclination to tell the truth? Why couldn't she tell a straight-faced, well-meaning lie?

She wanted to ask Barry to leave. She wanted to rip off his clothes and beg him to stay. She wanted him to touch her.

She wanted him to touch her.

“Daniel,” Barry said. “The short construction worker with the Greek last name you didn't know. The man who was asking you out Monday morning.”

Instead of scaring Barry off, the ask-out had motivated Barry to make a move.

Katherine should've known better.

Thirteen years ago, she'd met Barry at a bar, an unlikely place for him, a likely place for her. She'd stopped in for a beer before bed, an early evening nightcap, and her low vibe had drawn the wrong element. Two guys had invaded her table for one and her personal space. She'd managed to hold them off, nursing her beer for an hour so she wouldn't have to walk back to her apartment, before Barry had walked through the door and noticed her angst. “Ready to come back home? The kids are waiting for you to tuck them in,” he'd said with such certainty that the guys had fallen back. Then he'd walked her to her door and taken down her phone number. They'd been together ever since.

They weren't together.

“I turned him down.”

Behind her, Barry took a breath. “Tell me why,” he said, his voice husky and confident, as though he already knew her answer. As if he only awaited her confirmation. As if he could read her mind and body.

Katherine shut off the water and tried to focus on Barry's question. Her chest tingled, straining at the cotton of her bra. She remembered an ages-ago dinner party, their kitchen with a locked door. She'd gone into the kitchen to get the tiramisu, set the teakettle on the burner, turned toward the sink. Barry had followed and locked the door behind him. He'd come up behind her. He'd lifted her skirt.

“Because . . . he . . . Daniel,” she said, but she couldn't quite capture an image of the scene. In the silver faucet, her face elongated, distorted. In that ages-ago kitchen, Barry had kissed the back of her neck. He'd bent her over the sink. He'd parted her legs.

“What was that?” Barry asked now.

Katherine swallowed. “He's, um, separated but may still be in love with his wife.”

“You got that out of him from a single conversation?” Barry asked. Then, without waiting for a reply, he settled behind her, his breath behind her ear. “I believe, dear heart, you might've been mistaken. Mistaken and projecting.”

“Separated isn't the same thing as divorced. Divorced means the relationship is over.” Katherine meant the word as a warning, a reminder of all they'd endured to get to this point of... what? Friendship? They'd never been only friends. Over a decade ago, he strode into that bar with a purpose, as if their relationship had been a foregone conclusion.

Of course he never would've admitted to such an ideation. No, he would've hidden his woo-woo behind logic and simple biological attraction. Or he would've told her she'd imagined their meant-to-be connection. Barry would've projected.

“Does this feel over to you?” Barry asked.

Katherine's eyes watered. “Don't.” She sucked her bottom lip into her mouth, raked the flesh between her teeth. Between her legs, she softened.

All she had to do was reach for him, a quick fix to get the temptation out of their systems.

Who was she kidding? They'd never had casual sex. From the first, they'd been committed, each touch a promise, every kiss an investment in their future.

They didn't have a future.

“It's time for us to stop playing games,” Barry said.

What did he mean by that? Their daily flirting without calling it flirting? Her battle to let him go? Her equally strong and opposing desire to keep him coming back for more? Or did he know more than he was letting on? Did he know about Zach? She turned from the sink.

Barry's eyes undid her, a kick to her solar plexus and then a solid, resolute tug. “It's time for you to come home,” he said, as if he too was remembering how they'd begun.

The day she moved to this apartment, she'd intended to set up each room so it looked nothing like the house she'd shared with Barry. But she'd bowed to the rules of feng shui and set her double bed diagonally across from her bedroom door. The new sofa fit perfectly beneath the living room window, the sun streaming in to fade the navy to grayish blue and soften the bright, threadbare yard sale Oriental rug till it resembled the tea-stained antique she'd left behind. Each object seemed to have volition, not unlike muscle memory, reminding her of all she'd lost.

Katherine closed her eyes, so she wouldn't see the hurt in his. “I don't have a home.”

The menthol from Barry's shaving cream filled her nose, cooled her tongue. His body wasn't pressed up against hers, but she could've sworn his heart beat in her ears. In her mind's eye, she held a map of his body, detailed and topographical. His muscled thighs, his strong chest, his arms, defined. “We create our own realities,” Barry said. “Whatever you believe becomes true.”

She opened her eyes to Barry, a good four feet away and no part of him touching her. Not even close. She could've sworn . . . “Something one of your shrink buddies likes to say?”

“Something Katherine Lamontagne once swore by,” Barry said, and he filled her vase with water, as if their conversation had never happened.

Barry reached in the drawer to the right of the sink, found her pruning shears in the spot where they'd resided at the house he and Katherine had shared, and cut the stems of the bouquet under running water. He set the bouquet in the vase and gave her a Grinch smile, his lips curled at the edges, his eyes lit with mischief. “So, what were we just talking about? Who's joining us tonight?” he asked, as if he didn't know the way he affected her.

“Celeste,” Katherine said, giving Barry her own version of the Grinch grin. “And Zach,” she added, his name sending an alarm through her center. “A welcome to and back to Hidden Harbor celebration.”

“The two,” Barry said. “They're a couple?”

Katherine's heart gave a thud that reverberated through her body. “What makes you say that?”

“The way they stand closer than they need to,” Barry said. “The way they stare at each other, memorizing the details. The way everything they say has a double meaning.”

What?
As far as Katherine knew, Barry had never overheard one of Celeste and Zach's conversations.

Barry took a step closer and ran his gaze down her body.

Oh, Barry wasn't talking about Celeste and Zach.

Katherine opened the oven and fiddled with the meat thermometer that didn't require fiddling.

“Are you wearing the black boots?” Barry asked.