Nantucket Romance 3-in-1 Bundle (45 page)
“No, not girls. I got a handle on that.” His cocky smile lasted a short second. “It’s . . . school.” The word dropped like a fifty-pound bag of sand.
“Ah,” Kate said. “The switch in majors?”
“Yeah.” He shook the bangs from his eyes. “I can’t decide what I want to do. I mean, I’m three years into college and I still don’t know what I want to be when I grow up.” He tucked in the corner of his mouth at his joke.
He was still young at twenty-one, but Kate understood his frustration. “What was your major when you entered college? University of Massachusetts, right?”
“Yeah. I started as an education major. That lasted for a year and a semester.”
“What made you decide on education?”
“I thought I could come back here and teach high school. Maybe middle school. I don’t know. I did well in school and I thought it would be fun to teach.”
“What did you change to?”
“Art.” He rolled his eyes. “I know—it’s like, what am I going to do with a career in art?”
“Are you good at it?” Kate watched his face, looking for some sign of passion.
“Sure, I guess. My professors thought I was.”
Outside the front window a truck braked, the squeal piercing the wall. “What made you change?”
“Does the term ‘starving artist’ mean anything to you? After a couple semesters, I realized how hard it would be to support a family with an art degree. Megan—she was my girlfriend at the time—thought I should switch to computer science.”
“Is that what your major is now?”
“Yeah. I like computers and everything. I get good grades, and I know it would be a good career, but . . .” He punctuated the sentence with a sigh.
Kate waited. She had yet to see him talk about anything that ignited a fire in his eyes.
“So now you’re thinking of architecture?”
Brody looked out the window. “It’s kind of in the art field, but I could make a decent living.”
“Let’s talk about things you like to do. Lucas said you play baseball for UMass?”
“I’m shortstop. But I’m not pro material, if that’s what you’re thinking.”
“I’m just trying to get a feel for the things you enjoy. What else? What do you do in your spare time?”
“I spend a lot of spare time at the beach. I surf a little. I wait tables at the Even Keel in the summer to supplement the money my parents give toward college. I’ve helped Lucas with construction, but I don’t have a knack for it like he does.”
Kate’s legs ached from sitting. She stood and crossed the room. “Any other jobs you’ve held or volunteer positions you’ve enjoyed?”
“I enjoy working, so I’ve liked all my jobs. I was a lifeguard at Cisco beach for a couple summers. When school is in session, I tutor a couple local middle schoolers for extra money. That’s rewarding. One of my students is a boy with a learning disability. His parents were really frazzled about his schoolwork. I tutored him last year starting after Christmas break, and his grades went from, like, Ds and Fs to Bs and Cs.”
“You must be quite the tutor.”
“Nah, Jared just needed some encouragement and help getting organized. He’s a bright kid—he just had trouble remembering his homework and focusing.” Brody lifted a shoulder. “He’s a huge Giants fan and I found ways of relating that to his schoolwork.”
“Have you considered changing back to education?”
Brody tucked his chin, and his eyebrows hiked up. “Not really.”
“Why not?”
He looked away. “I don’t know.”
“You seem to like kids and know how to motivate them.”
“There’s not much money involved in teaching.”
“You get summers off . . .”
Lucas grinned. His even white teeth reminded her of Lucas’s. “Good point.”
The bright sunlight from the window beckoned Kate. “Well, it’s something to consider. I wouldn’t fret about changing gears with your major. This is the rest of your life you’re talking about, so it’s important to follow your passion. The main thing is finding out where your passions lie.”
“Too bad I can’t major in girls.”
Kate looked out over the street where tourists meandered down the brick sidewalks. A movement below caught her eye. Lucas stood in front of the shop with an auburn-haired woman. She wore a sleeveless ivory sweater and ivory slacks. The woman placed her hand on Lucas’s arm, letting it linger. Her head tilted toward Lucas like she would live or die by his next words.
“. . . give it some thought,” Brody was saying.
Kate peered though the old, wavy pane. “Who’s the woman outside? The one talking to Lucas?”
She heard Brody stand. “The leggy redhead? I don’t know her. They were talking when I got here.”
Kate felt a twinge of something unpleasant. It struck her as odd at first. She tried to rationalize it as common sense. After all, Lucas was wearing a wedding band, and the way Red was hanging on his arm was hardly appropriate. She glared down at the woman.
Boundaries, lady. Have you heard of them?
Before she could help herself, Kate took a step toward the stairs with the thought of putting the woman in her place. Then she stopped. She imagined Lucas’s amused brow, quirking upward, his crooked smile as Kate staked her claim. She wouldn’t give him the pleasure. Besides, what did it matter if Red flirted with Lucas? It wasn’t as if Kate had feelings for him.
She was
not
jealous, and there was no way on earth she was going to let Lucas think she was.
Be careful about making rash
judgments. Sometimes first impressions
are wrong.
—Excerpt from
Finding Mr. Right-for-You
by Dr. Kate
Kate slipped from the bed shortly after four o’clock and felt her way across the floor. From the floor on Lucas’s side of the bed, Bo shifted. As she pulled her thin robe from the hook and tiptoed from the room, she heard his toenails clicking across the wood floor. Kate saw no way of making him return without disturbing Lucas.
The house was dark and quiet, except for the living room clock ticking off time. In the darkness she made her way to the back door and opened it quietly, keeping Bo inside. A warm breeze tugged at her cotton robe, and she gathered the belt, tightening it around her waist before sitting.
The dream that had awakened her surrounded her like a thick wet fog. In it, Bryan had come to her office, climbing the stairs with purposeful steps like Brody had. But Bryan wasn’t there for advice. He took her in his arms and proposed to her. When they left the building, they weren’t on Main Street, but at Jetties Beach for their wedding. As Kate approached the altar, he turned. But it wasn’t Bryan. It was Lucas.
Now, Kate watched the moonlight flickering on the surface of the shadowed water. She closed her eyes and leaned against the wooden back. The oscillating sound of the waves washing the shore-line didn’t soothe her. Inside she felt as jolted as she had in the dream when she realized Lucas had replaced Bryan.
It happened for real too.
Kate sighed. She wished she could fast-forward through the year and get her life back on track. How had she gotten so far off course? What was she doing in this house with a man she barely knew and hardly liked?
That’s not true,
her conscience corrected.
He might grate on the nerves sometimes, but Lucas has his good qualities.
And the last few weeks had been better than she expected in terms of getting along with him. It was just that her life was careening out of control like it hadn’t since she was a child. She felt shaken and vulnerable.
A vision of her mom surfaced from the dusty corridors of her mind. Kate had been eleven and had just returned from her best friend’s house. She often went to Mackenzie’s house just to escape her own. But Mackenzie was mad because Kate never invited her over, and Kate had run out of excuses.
Kate closed and locked the front door before removing her snow boots and wiggling her numb toes. “Mom?” she called, not knowing whether or not to expect an answer. Sometimes she found her mom doing laundry and humming game-show tunes, and other times Kate wished she hadn’t returned at all. It was the uncertainty she hated most. Even at eleven she knew it was true.
There was no answer on this night, so Kate set her heavy book bag on the rocking chair, flipped off the lights, and climbed the creaky stairs. Maybe her mom was asleep. She crossed her fingers on the banister as she ascended.
The bathroom light glowed in the darkness. She opened the door and found her mom on the green shag carpet next to a mystery stain they’d inherited with the house. One of her mom’s sweater-clad arms draped over the tub ledge, and the other hugged a clear bottle of alcohol. The room smelled sour, and Kate turned on the fan.
“Mom,” Kate whispered. She shoved aside the fuzzy pink slippers her dad had sent for her birthday and knelt on the carpet. “Mom.”
Her mother stirred as Kate slipped the empty bottle, still warm from her mother’s hand, out of her grasp. “Katie, baby.” She licked cracked lips and opened her eyes to glassy slits, reaching toward Kate with her delicate white hand. It didn’t quite make it and instead thumped on the carpet beside her leg.
“Come on, Mom. Let’s get you to bed.” Kate helped her mom stand, wrapped an arm around her gaunt waist. Propping her mom’s arm around her own shoulders, Kate led her next door to the bedroom. Her mom wobbled and staggered, bumping her bony hip into Kate’s and stepping on her cold toes.
When they reached the bed, Kate helped her mom out of her sweater and black slacks. She tugged a nightgown over her head, turned back the covers, and guided her mom into the bed, then pulled the woolly blanket over her. Her breath reeked of vodka.
“Katie . . .” If her mom wanted to say more, it was swallowed by oblivion.
“’Night, Momma,” Kate whispered before extinguishing the bedside lamp and leaving the room.
It hadn’t been the first time Kate put her mom to bed and it wasn’t the last. If her dad had known how bad things had gotten for her mother, he would’ve gotten custody of Kate. But Kate couldn’t stand the thought of leaving her mother all alone, so she kept their secret and spent her childhood feeling anxious and ashamed.
Now, as Kate curled her leg under her, she realized life felt as out of control as it had during those days. And just like then, there was nothing she could do but wait and hope things improved.
Only they never had. Her mother had died an alcoholic.
She tried a pep talk.
You made a better life for yourself. Look how far you’ve come from that cold house on Stinton Street. You have a successful career, a promising book, and you get to help people for a living. Help people that otherwise might be swallowed whole by their problems, like your mom.
But regardless of all my planning, I lost Bryan to another woman, and I’m married to a man I don’t love.
Only for a year, Kate. Bryan will come to his senses when he realizes his mistake. This other woman is just an outlet for his fear of commitment. Once he realizes that, he’ll be back.
What am I saying? I can’t believe I still want him back after what he did.
Beside her, the door clicked open, and Bo barreled through, with Lucas following. In the dark, his silhouette revealed tousled hair and a shirt that hung open at the front. Kate looked away.
“You okay?” Lucas whispered.
Bo licked the back of her hand, leaving a warm, wet film on her skin. Kate wiped her hand on her robe and crossed her arms.
“I’m fine. I didn’t mean to wake you.”
Lucas sank into the chair next to hers and silence settled around them. His presence changed the atmosphere. The masculine scent, the warmth of his large frame only inches away, the sound of his quiet breaths. Before it had felt empty. Now it felt . . . alive.
Kate shifted in her chair. Why had he come out here? He was an early riser, but not this early. Even the birds still slept and there was no light yet on the horizon.
“My family treating you all right? My mom didn’t say something to hurt your feelings?”
“Your family’s fine.” Strange but fine. She hadn’t gotten far with Susan, but it was early. First Susan had to like and trust Kate. Then maybe she would open up. And given the history between Susan and Kate’s mom, that was going to take time.
“Mom can be tactless sometimes.”
Tactless she could handle. It was the crazy that unnerved her. Lucas was probably wondering when Kate was going to keep her end of the bargain. Maybe he didn’t understand that subtlety took time. “We’re getting to know each other. I’m hoping in the next month or so I can introduce the subject of marriage. I’ll let you know how it goes and keep you up-to-date on any progress.”
The chair creaked as Lucas shifted. A cricket chirped from someplace under the deck. “Not worried about that.”
Kate wondered why he brought it up. Oh, well. She was too tired to figure Lucas out.
She wondered if Bryan was still in bed. She wondered if he was alone. There were things she missed about him—mannerisms. Did Bryan set his hand in the small of the woman’s back when he escorted her to the car? Did he hold her pinky on the console as he drove?
A yawn started, and she stifled it. The dream that had chased her from bed kept her from returning for fear that it would resume. Her only hope of escaping it was to stay awake. And even that wasn’t working.
