Page 4 of Be My Temptation (Temptation 2)
“No, we won that bid.”
“Did you argue with Kate?”
“I don’t want to talk about it.”
Linda sat down in her brother’s chair. “Okay, so you had your first blowout with Kate. Big deal. Couples fight. Especially when they spend as much time together as the two of you do.”
“We didn’t have a fight. And I’m not talking to you about this. Did you contact the tile place I asked you to?”
“Yes.”
“Are they able to deliver on the timetable we need?”
“I convinced them it’s possible.”
“Good.” Brock walked over to the trailer’s window. “The crew will have to work overtime if we’re going to get this project completed before the end of the month, in time to start the next one. We should still come in close to budget. And the profit we’ll make from the next job will more than make up for anything we lose by paying overtime.”
“We’ll pull it off, Brock. We always do. We’re getting a lot of press right now, and that’s moving the units, even the ones that aren’t completed yet. The bank is happy. Our investors are happy. You’re the only one who looks miserable today. Are you sure you don’t want to tell me what’s going on?”
“I fucked up.”
Linda swiveled in Brock’s chair, one hand on top of his desk. “What happened?”
Brock shook his head. He and his twin sister were close. But they weren’t so close that she knew how he and Kate had actually gotten together. There are some secrets a man shouldn’t tell anyone. The game Brock had played with Kate after he found her letter to Santa Claus was one. A smart man takes that shit to the grave.
“Earth to Brock. Are you still with me?” his sister asked.
“Sorry, I didn’t sleep well last night.”
“Brock, do you remember when you were twelve and you wet the bed? You were mortified and didn’t want Mom and Dad to know. So you came to me, and I helped you clean it up. I never told anybody.”
“First of all, I was six. And I think I threatened your life if you ever said a word about it.”
“Are you sure? I thought you were older.”
Brock glared at his sister.
She waved her hand and continued, “It doesn’t matter how old you were. What matters is that I have never told anyone. You can trust me. If something is bothering you, tell me. It’s not good to keep things all bottled up.”
“It’s Kate.”
“What did you do?”
“Nothing.” Brock continued to frown. “I just said something I shouldn’t have.”
Linda’s eyes widened. “Did you tell her you want to see other people? If so, you’re an idiot. We all like her.”
“No, it was nothing like that.” Brock rubbed one of his temples, hating that his sister knew him so well. “I told her I love her.”
“And?”
“And she told me she wasn’t ready to hear that.”
“Ouch.”
“Tell me about it. She was gone when I woke up this morning. She left me a note saying she had errands to run. I tried to call her, but she didn’t answer.”
“That’s not good. What are you going to do?”
Brock rocked back on his heels. “What can I do? Hallmark doesn’t make cards that say, ‘Sorry I said I love you.’ ”
His sister came around the desk and hugged him. “It’s kind of cute seeing you like this. I’m so used to lecturing you on how not to break someone else’s heart. She’ll come around, Brock. Just give her time.”
He hugged his sister back, then shooed her out of his office so he could return some business calls he’d been putting off. He felt slightly better after talking to his sister. Nothing had changed; Kate simply needed more time.
He had waited his whole life for her.
He could wait a while longer.
Chapter Four
Kate was back at her mother’s house, sorting through boxes of papers her mother had stored in the attic. It was difficult to decide what to keep and what to throw away. Her mother had saved some of Kate’s schoolwork from as far back as kindergarten. Before finding the stashes, Kate would’ve said her mother had not been a particularly sentimental woman. Yet she had kept every card Kate had ever given her, even the ones from when her signature had been nothing more than a scribble.
Do I just throw all of this away?
Do I keep it all to show to my children someday, and leave it here so they can to take one look at them and then dispose of them? I may never have children. I may not be living here six months from now. And then what will I do with all of this crap?
In the corner of the attic, tucked beneath several dusty boxes, Kate found a plastic bin of photos. She and her mother had moved to Rhode Island when Kate was young, but not so young that she couldn’t remember many of the people in the pictures.
There were aunts and uncles, cousins Kate had almost forgotten she had. She found one picture of her mother and father posing with Kate when she was still in diapers. There were no pictures of her father after that. Kate’s own memories of him were few and consisted mostly of him arguing with her mother. She couldn’t remember a time when her parents had lived together.
Since her mother had been unwilling to speak freely of her father, and Kate had never pushed the issue, Kate knew little more about him than that he had signed his name on her birth certificate. Her mother rarely spoke of him or his family, except as a cautionary tale of what she didn’t want for Kate.
Kate sat back on her heels beside the bin. She thought about Brock and his family. She couldn’t imagine them owning a box of photos of people they never spoke to. Brock’s mother was openly affectionate with her children and very close with her siblings. Brock’s father had a large extended family he also kept in touch with. Watching Brock with his family, Kate envied their intimacy.
Brushing her hair out of her eyes, Kate corrected herself. Envy had negative connotations that didn’t apply to her feelings toward Brock’s family. She wanted what they had. She craved their closeness and the loyal way in which they treated one another.
Could she have all that with Brock? Could life be that good?
She remembered a college friend once handing her a crystal ball. She had asked Kate to look into it. The possibility that she might actually see her future had frozen Kate. She’d looked down at the ball helplessly, afraid she wasn’t special enough to be able to see anything, and afraid she’d feel crazy if she actually did see something. So instead of actually opening herself up to the experiment, she’d given herself a headache. Her friend had spouted some mumbo jumbo about fear blocking her psychic potential. Kate had laughed it off at the time. But she’d always had trouble trusting—even herself. A working crystal ball would come in handy now.
As Kate looked through the bin she found a scrapbook she’d made with her mother when they had first moved to Misty Falls and into the large Victorian home in which she lived now. There were pictures of a young Kate unpacking her luggage in a very pink bedroom, sitting on the front steps of the house in a beautiful lavender dress and matching shoes, and practicing piano in the living room dressed in a similar outfit. Kate’s heart went out to the girl who had tried to be brave for her mother, but whose eyes looked sad and scared even in photos where she was smiling. She had forgotten how difficult that first year had been.
A few pages later, there were photos of Kate and Brock watching his father construct a playhouse in Kate’s backyard. Kate was still dressed like she’d just come from a tea party, and Brock looked like he hadn’t bathed in a week. Although Brock’s father had been hired to make some renovations on the main home, he had offered to build the playhouse for them as his way of saying welcome to the town. What Kate remembered most about Brock’s father was how he had designed the miniature home exactly to Kate’s specifications. In a life that had felt out of Kate’s control, the playhouse in her backyard had been Kate’s haven—something designed by her and built just for her.
; Brock’s father may have built it, but he had left the job of painting and decorating it to the kids. Kate wished she had photos of that. She remembered her babysitter being furious with her when she and Brock had engaged in a paint-flinging war. The babysitter knew Kate’s mother wouldn’t have approved, so she scrubbed Kate clean before her mother returned from work.
There were also no photos of Kate in jeans, or running wild with Brock as she had most of that summer. Her mother had filled the album with images of Kate visiting museums, playing violin at a recital, and receiving an award at school.
Anyone looking at the scrapbook would have thought Kate had had a perfect childhood. But she remembered being lonely—especially after that summer. When Brock’s father had finished his work on their home, Brock moved on to work with him on other projects, leaving Kate behind.
She had often hoped that Brock would sneak over to be with her, but he never did. Kate had attended private schools, and her afternoons had been filled with lessons. She hadn’t had many friends at her school or in Misty Falls. By the time they had reached high school, Brock had been a football player never seen in public without some adoring girlfriend at his side. And me? I was Untouchable Kate. Such a joke to the local kids that I pretended they didn’t exist.
I stopped seeing them.
Even Brock.
