CHAPTER THREE
"It's Grant," she said after a prolonged silence no one else seemed ready to break, her soft voice going straight to his dick. "I asked for my name back from the courts as part of the divorce."
"Erasing Barston from your life?" Like she'd erased Tack so completely, though he'd no doubts the other man deserved it.
He deserved a hell of a lot more, but if Tack got to thinking on that, things could get dicey. He didn't lose his temper often, but when he did, things got ugly.
And he couldn't afford to hop a plain for California to hunt down the man Kitty had been married to give him a well-earned beat down he would never forget and might not walk away from.
"If I could cleanse him from my memories, I would." Kitty's expression defied him to judge her for that.
Like he would. Still, the bitterness lacing her tone was new. Kitty had never been bitter. Not even about her parents' untimely deaths.
Fury at the absent man bubbled under Tack's fixed expression, his temper stirring dangerously again. "He must have been a piss-poor husband for you to feel that way."
Kitty gave a barely there flinch, as if Tack's anger bothered her, but then her eyes narrowed, and for just a second he saw a reflection of the inner fire that used to fascinate him. "He was."
"He was a monster," Miss Elspeth said with conviction.
"Clearly damaged in the head to treat our Kitty the way he did," Miz Alma opined. As the eldest, she expected her opinion to be taken as gospel too.
Tack wasn't going to disagree though. He thought the sisters' assessment of Barston damn accurate.
"Oh, Kitty," Miz Moya said in a tear-filled tremble.
If he didn't do something fast, the older women were going to drown Kitty in pity and from the expression on her face, he didn't think that was going to be beneficial for anyone concerned.
"I thought dinner was at seven?" he asked with as much innocence as a twenty-eight year old man could muster.
Miz Moya's hands flew to her pink round cheeks. "Oh, my. With Kitty's arrival, I forgot the roast."
She rushed off to the kitchen, Miss Elspeth following with the words that she still needed to set the table, her hands all aflutter.
It was early May and the first cruise ship hadn't hit the harbor yet. There was only one guest room occupied, as Tack had been told that morning while he worked on the step. However, the fact they only had two guests instead of eight wouldn't diminish the sisters' mortification at serving dinner late.
The older couple might well be in the dining room, but were conspicuous in their absence from the front parlor.
Miz Alma gave both Kitty and Tack a measuring look. "I had best make sure Elspeth doesn't drop Grandmother Grant's china in her dither. I'm stunned she was able to keep your upcoming arrival a secret, Kitty."
Everyone knew Miss Elspeth was not good at keeping secrets. Tack had to wonder why she'd been so committed to keeping this one.
"She likes knowing something you don't," Kitty offered with a shrug that bothered Tack more than it should.
Back in the day, she would have said the same thing with a sly smile and a wink. The lack of animation was not acceptable, but he wasn't exactly sure what to do about it.
Do something he would though.
It wasn't in Tack's nature to leave something broken that needed fixing. Not even people.
"Yes, well...we'll have dinner on the table in about five minutes." With that Miss Alma left the room.
Tack didn't bother to hide his continued perusal of Kitty. He would never admit to anyone else how hungry he was for the sight of the one woman he was determined never to give another chance at his heart.
Color climbed her cheeks and she turned away, her hand reaching for one of the many photos on the fireplace mantle. It was of her and Tack before they left for USC, their arms around each other.
She stared at it for several long seconds. "I know I look different."
"I'm glad you grew your hair out again. " He'd always loved how it tumbled wildly around her head.
She spun back to him, like his words surprised her. "That's all you see?"
He grinned. "You've stopped wearing all that black goop around your eyes too."
She laughed. It was barely a puff of sound, but it seemed to startle her. "That's the second time today."
"What?"
"That I've laughed. I don't laugh anymore. I guess coming home is going to be good for me after all."
Stunned at her words, he stared at her. Kitty Grant not laughing? He couldn't imagine it. "You belong here."
"I didn't used to think so."
She would probably decide she didn't again, but it wasn't his place to remark on it. She'd been wrong back then and she'd be wrong when she left again, but one thing he was sure of. Kitty would leave.
Her parents had left a legacy of more than money to their only daughter. They'd left how much they despised living in the wild north to her as well.
"It's good to see you," Kitty said when the silence had stretched a little.
"Is it?"
"Yes. I missed you." Deeper emotion than he would ever allow himself to trust from her seemed to infuse those four little words.
"There was no place for me in your life."
"No. Not when I was with Nevin."
Because back then there'd been no room for someone who happened to be both her best friend and a man who loved her. He'd become an awkward problem she didn't want to deal with anymore.
He didn't love her now, that was for damn sure, but desire was making itself known in the swollen flesh pressing against the button fly on his jeans.
"No place for the little people when you were married to LA elite." The words might be bitter, but his tone wasn't.
He'd been hurt back then at her rejection, but he wasn't naïve to the ways of the world. Even if he was from a small Alaskan town.
He hadn't fit in with the Los Angeles glitterati, even when he'd been a student at USC.
Her perfect bow shaped lips twisted in a grimace. "You won't understand, but Nevin handpicked the people in my life, from my Yoga instructor to the woman who called herself my best friend. He saw you as a threat, though I didn't realize it until much later, so..."
"I got kicked to the curb."
Her head dipped, as if that shamed her. "Yes."
She was partially right about him understanding. He couldn't imagine allowing anyone to have that kind of power in his life now, but there had been a time he'd left the life he loved behind because that was what this woman wanted.
"You must have loved him very much."
"I don't know." Kitty's blue eyes clouded with inner confusion and pain he didn't want to see. "Maybe I loved him once."
She'd given up her education, her family...she'd given up Tack for Nevin Barston's sake. Of course, she'd loved him. And Tack didn't like dwelling on that truth anymore today than he had eight years ago.
She shrugged, a move he was quick learning to dislike. It was way too noncommittal for the Kitty Grant he'd known. No way he could be sure when Kitty had started changing, but change she had. When they'd been friends, she would have argued her point of view, even in the face of irrefutable evidence.
The woman standing in front of him wasn't about to do that.
The truth of the difference between Kitty then and Kitty now hit him hard and right between the eyes though. Shit. Piss. Damn.
That urge to take a little trip south and beat the ever-loving shit out Nevin Barston washed over Tack again.
"It’s complicated, Tack." Kitty made an aborted move with her hand. "And I’ve had a really long day."
Tack didn't believe it. Oh, he believed it was complicated alright. . However, Tack knew the flames of her nature might be doused, but he refused to accept that an ember didn't still burn somewhere deep inside her.
"Kitty, I know you’ve been through hell--"
Kitty interrupted before he could go any further. "I go by Caitlin now."
"Well, maybe you need to find Kitty again."
"And you think I'm going to just because you use that name?" She might not realize it, but there was a tinge of the old Kitty snark in that tone.
He grinned. "I don't know, but I'm not calling you Caitlin."
"You haven't changed."
"You're wrong about that too."
"Too? What else am I wrong about?"
"You're stronger than you think."
"Because I finally divorced the monster who claimed to love me?" She laughed, the sound hollow, no amusement in it at all. "That was an act of desperation, not some grand stand."
"You still did it."
"He was out of the country. If he hadn't been, I would never have had the courage to take the first step and walk out."
At first Tack didn't know how to respond to that. Kitty so afraid of her husband she wouldn't have left him while he was near enough to do something about it? The idea boggled Tack's mind, but it pissed him off even more. Tack's hands curled into tight fists, but he did his best to keep his anger from his face after Kitty's earlier reaction.
Nevin Barston was one lucky son-of-a-bitch that he was in LA right now.
"Why didn't you call?" She'd needed help; she had to know Tack would have been there.
"Would you have answered?" she asked, with an apparently genuine desire to know the answer.
Because she didn't already.
Had she forgotten everything they were to each other?
"How could you doubt it? Even if you hadn't been my best friend for most of my life, you were from Cailkirn. Anyone in this townwould have helped you." But him most of all.
"You were the last real friend I had and I treated you like crap." Remorse infused her words with sincerity and her self-disgust was clear.
He couldn't argue with her though, even if he felt like he should. She was just so damn fragile right now.
Thankfully Miz Alma called them to the table, her tone impatient, before Tack found himself saying things he shouldn’t.
~ End Excerpt ~
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