“How in-tel-lect-u-al.“ Adora teasingly drew out each syllable, then tipped her head and wondered out loud, “Don’t you ever miss all of us together, the way it used to be?”
Cat thought of the house where she’d grown up. It hadn’t been a very big house in which to raise four daughters. There had only been one bathroom, which had always been occupied with one female or another putting on makeup or fixing her hair.
“Well, do you miss it?” Adora prompted when Cat didn’t answer right away.
“Not as much as I like my privacy.” Cat poured water from the kettle over the tea bags.
“I miss it.” Adora’s eyes were as melancholy as her tone. “I’m a family sort of person.”
“I know.” Cat smiled in understanding. It had been hard on Adora when their mother remarried. Charlotte Beaudine Shanahan had always been a man’s woman. And from the day she’d met her second husband, her grown daughters had faded to the background of her life. That was just fine with Cat. And Phoebe and Deirdre both had families of their own now. But Adora felt deserted.
“Come on,” Cat said gently. “Take off your coat.” She indicated the table. “Sit down. Drink your tea.”
Adora sat, then slipped out of her coat and draped it behind her on the back of her chair. That accomplished, she grinned at Cat, who’d taken the seat at the end of the table. “Okay. Tell me all about it.” She actually rubbed her hands together in delighted anticipation. “You saw him, didn’t you?”
Cat restrained a sigh. She didn’t even want to think about her unsettling encounter with Dillon McKenna. And she certainly didn’t want to talk about it.
“Cat. Did you see him?”
Cat wrapped her tea bag around her spoon and squeezed the last few drops from it.
“Oh, come on.” Adora let out a little puff of air in disgust. “What is the matter with you? Are you trying to torture me?”
“No, I’m not trying to torture you.” Cat set the tea bag on the edge of her saucer and lifted the cup to her lips. “And yes, I saw him.” She took a careful sip.
“Oh, I knew it.” Adora actually bounced in her chair. “I was right, wasn’t I? He needs some time to...reexamine his life. To decide where to go from here.”
“He didn’t say that in so many words.” Cat set the cup back on the saucer. “But I think you’re probably right.”
Adora preened a little, dipping her tea bag in and out of her cup. “Do I know him or what?”
“Adora...” Cat began, and didn’t know how to go on.
“What?”
Cat thought of the reckless, troubled Dillon McKenna who had left town sixteen years ago. And of the self-possessed, disturbingly compelling man she’d met that afternoon.
“What?” Adora demanded. “Talk to me. What?”
Cat spoke carefully. “Well, people change, that’s all. You were kids when he left here, both of you, barely eighteen. You’ve each...done a lot of living since then.”
Adora’s soft chin was set. “I know him. He was my first love. A woman knows. What else did you talk about? What happened? Tell me every bit of it.”
Cat looked at her sister and wondered if there was any way to terminate this uncomfortable conversation.
“Talk,” Adora prompted.
“There really isn’t that much to tell,” Cat answered, feeling guilty, though there was no reason to. Nothing had happened. Dillon McKenna had offered her a beer. She’d accepted. They’d talked of mundane things.
Adora was blissfully ignorant of Cat’s uneasiness. She bounced in her chair some more. “Tell me anyway. Every little dinky word he said.”
Seeing no way around it, Cat quickly described her encounter with Dillon, leaving out only those stunning few moments when he’d held on to her arm. When Cat was finished, Adora sat back in her chair and took a sip of her tea. “Well. That sounds good. Very good.”
“Adora, it was an exchange of information, nothing more.”
“To you, maybe.”
“Adora...”
“It was the part where he asked if I was doing well, that was the key, see?”
“No, I don’t.”
“You told him how I was, and then he asked again. He’s anticipating. Just like I am. Wondering what it will be like when at last we meet once more.” Adora’s chair scraped the old linoleum floor as she stood. “I’m going to go to his house and welcome him home. Right now.”
“Adora, maybe you ought to just—”
“I’m going.” Adora’s chin was set in that way it used to get when she was little and their mother told her she couldn’t do something she wanted to do.
Cat reminded herself that Adora was a grown woman. If she wanted to go and pay a visit to an old boyfriend, that was Adora’s business and nobody else’s.
Cat forced a smile. “Suit yourself.”
“I will. I most definitely will.” Adora scooped up her coat from the back of the chair and shoved her arms into it. Cheeks flushed and eyes aglow, she headed for the door.
* * *
The next day was Saturday. Cat’s phone rang at nine. Positive it would be Adora with all the details of her re- union with Dillon, Cat let it ring three times before giving in and picking it up.
“Hello, Cat.” The deep, warm voice didn’t belong to her sister.
An exasperating shiver traveled up the backs of Cat’s legs, and then spread out to take over her whole body. She waited for it to fade a little before she spoke.
“Hello, Dillon.”
“Listen.” He sounded very offhand. “Since yesterday, I’ve had a little time to go over my situation here.”
His situation? What did that mean?
“And it looks as if I’m going to need someone to take care of a few things for me.”
“What things?” The two words were suspicion personified.
Cat thought she heard a chuckle, but perhaps it was only static on the line. “I need more firewood split, for starters. And I’ve bought a decent sound system, VCR and big-screen television. I understand you’re good with electronic equipment, so I was hoping you would set them up for me. I also ordered a satellite dish that will need to be hooked up. And there’s the exercise equipment for the gym downstairs. I was told the delivery crew would assemble it, but you never know. And I have a lot of books—I’d like some bookcases made. I’ve heard you do carpentry work.”
Cat didn’t answer. She was thinking that he’d certainly learned a lot about her abilities in the past twenty-four hours.
She was also thinking that he was offering her paying work. And Cat always needed paying work, especially in the winter months, when all the construction jobs were shut down. She was buying her small house and the five acres it sat on. It was a big investment for someone of her limited means.
But Dillon McKenna represented danger—to her peace of mind, if nothing else. Yesterday, he’d grabbed her arm for no reason and not let go until she’d ordered him to. She wanted to believe that was all that had happened.
But somehow, she didn’t believe it.
And then there was Adora, floating out the door yesterday with stars in her eyes....
“Cat?” Dillon prompted,