Chapter 31 #2
“You could have everything you want right here, Georgie. You have your mother’s house, so turn it into a bed and breakfast. Start a consulting business.
There’re hundreds of stores and shops right here in Newport that could benefit from your marketing expertise.
My sister-in-law Linda has a jewelry store on Bowen’s Wharf.
I asked her if she’d be interested, and she said she’d snap up that kind of help in a heartbeat.
She knows everyone in the business community.
Word of mouth alone would get you started.
Use the money your mother left you to build something of your own. ”
Amazed at how much thought he had put into it, she stared at him. “You’ve got it all figured out, don’t you?”
“All I’m saying is you could have a meaningful career right here. Stay, Georgie. Be with me.” He dropped soft kisses on her face. “Stay with me.”
Remembering Gus’s advice to play it out in Atlanta so there would be no regrets later, she wiggled free of Nathan’s embrace. “I have people counting on me at work.”
“They fired you! Right after your mother died! What do you owe them?”
He was wearing her down and chipping away at her defenses.
Desperate to regain her equilibrium, she said, “I’d like to take a shower, please.”
His face sagging with defeat, he took two towels from the closet, handed them to her and walked out, slamming the door behind him.
Georgie washed her hair with shampoo that smelled like him.
She heard the bathroom door open and then close again a minute later.
The steam rose around her, engulfing her in a cloud of misery and confusion.
She turned off the water before she could earn a lecture on the wastefulness of long showers.
Tugging aside the shower curtain, she bent in half to roll her hair into a towel and straightened to see that he had written, “I love you, Georgie Quinn” on the steam-covered mirror.
“Oh,” she gasped. “Oh, you cannot do this to me! That’s not fair!
” Somehow she managed to get the other towel wrapped around her before she yanked open the door to find him dressed and leaning against the wall in the hallway.
She stared at him.
He shrugged. “All’s fair . . .”
Shaking her head, she pushed past him, went into his room, and willed her trembling hands through the motions of getting dressed.
Tugging her wet hair into a tight ponytail, she pushed her feet into her flip-flops and hung the towels on the closet door to dry.
With a last glance at the bed where two of the most important nights of her life had taken place, she rushed past him down the stairs.
For a moment, she stood in the room he had transformed into scenes from Atlanta, and wished with all her heart that she could chuck her life there as easily as he thought she could.
She heard him come down the stairs and turned to him. “I need to take care of some things—things that are important to me.”
“All right.”
“That doesn’t mean I never want to see you again. Far from it.”
“Okay.”
“Will you call me?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“If you want me, Georgie, you know where to find me. I’m not going to chase you anymore. I’m all done banging my head against a hard wall. It’s starting to hurt. And it’s starting to make me mad, which worries me.”
His words resonated through her like painful arrows, knowing the battle he’d fought against anger in the past. “It’s okay for you to get mad with me. God knows I’ve given you enough reason. It doesn’t scare me when you get loud or angry. You don’t scare me, Nathan.”
She could see that he was relieved to hear that. “I prefer happy over angry any day.”
“Thank you for this,” she said, gesturing to the skyline mural. “Tell your brothers, too. It was a lovely thing to do.”
“You’re welcome.” He stood with his hands in his pockets, the way he had that night in the street when he had brought her flowers to apologize for upsetting her, the way he had in the hospital when he’d come right from court to be with her after Gus’s surgery.
But this time the stance wasn’t welcoming.
It was defensive. She had finally succeeded in pushing him away.
At the door, she let her hand rest on the doorknob.
Keeping her back to him, she said, “I enjoyed every minute I spent with you, Nathan, and despite what you think, I do care about you. More than you’ll ever know.
I’m just not ready for all the things you want from me. ”
Without giving him the chance to reply, she went out the door and down the stairs.
Cat lasted a month. Thirty long, draining days spent running from the simple fact that she was in love with Ian—desperately and completely in love.
Over and over, his parting line ran through her mind, torturing her with its exquisite truth.
Did it ever occur to you that you might have a lot in common with a little girl whose mother abandoned her?
Standing at the bathroom sink, she stared at her reflection in the mirror.
She’d gone to a lot of trouble to cultivate a reputation as a badass.
It had served her well as the manager of one of the hottest clubs in town, but as she reached up to remove the ring from her brow, she knew her badass reputation had no place in the life of a soon-to-be four-year-old girl.
Wetting her hair, she combed it out until the spikes collapsed into soft waves around her face.
In her room, she bypassed her trademark tank top for a black T-shirt that covered the mermaid tattoo.
Buttoning the only pair of jeans she owned that didn’t hug her hips, she checked herself in the full-length mirror one last time, grabbed her purse and keys, and went downstairs before she could lose her nerve.
As she parked in front of the big yellow house, it occurred to her that she had no idea what their schedule was like during the day. What if they weren’t home? Would she ever again work up the courage to do this?
Probably not.
Tucking her purse under the seat, she took only her keys with her when she got out of the Jeep and started down the long driveway.
Behind Kevin’s house, Ian pushed Rosie on the swing.
Relief coursed through Cat at the sight of them, making her want to laugh and cry at the same time.
When he saw her watching them, shock and surprise registered on his face.
Rosie’s lips curled with distaste. “What does she want?”
“Actually,” Cat said, crossing the yard to them, “I came to see you.”
“Why? You don’t like me.”
“That’s not true. I don’t know you well enough not to like you. So I was thinking, maybe we could take a walk to the park and get to know each other. After that, maybe I won’t like you, but at least I’ll have given you a chance. What do you say?”
Rosie glanced up at her father and then back at Cat. “You’re teasing me, aren’t you?”
Smiling, Cat said, “Why don’t you come with me and find out?”
“Can I, Daddy?”
“Only if you want to.”
Rosie studied her for a long, long moment, during which Cat tried to decide what she would do if the child said no. In planning for this mission, she hadn’t considered that possibility.
“Okay.” Rosie jumped off the swing and took Cat’s outstretched hand. “We’ll be back in a little while, Dad.”
“Take your time,” he said softly.
Cat didn’t dare look at him as she led his daughter to the driveway. One thing at a time.
They walked to Morton Park in silence until Rosie looked up at her. “Why is your name Cat? That’s kind of a weird name.”
Cat laughed at her bluntness—a woman after her own heart. “It’s short for Catherine.”
“That’s an old lady name.”
“Why do you think I go by Cat?”
“My real name is Roseanne, which was my daddy’s grandmother’s name, so I guess that’s an old lady name, too.”
“It’s a beautiful name.”
“Do you love my daddy?”
Resisting the urge to suck in a sharp deep breath of surprise, Cat glanced down to find Rosie’s cherubic face turned up, watching her intently. “I do. I love him a lot.”
“That’s good, because he’s been really sad since you broke up with him.”
“Has he?” Cat’s heart thumped with excitement and hope. For the first time in a month, she had reason to hope.
“Uh-huh. Really sad.”
Cat cleared the emotion from her throat. “What’s your favorite thing to do at the park?”
“Swing.”
“Then swing it is.” Facing the child, Cat lifted her onto the swing, but before she gave her a push, she clutched the chain with both hands. “I love your dad very much, and I want to be with him more than anything, but I’m afraid I’d make a lousy mom to you, Rosie. How do you feel about that?”
“My real mom was kinda lousy. She didn’t want me.”
Cat gasped. “That’s not true! Of course she did.”
“No, she didn’t. My daddy made her have me.”
“Rosie . . .”
“It’s okay. I don’t care. Why would I want a mom who doesn’t want me?”
Cat wondered how she ever could have thought this child wasn’t worth her time.
“Could we maybe make a deal? If I’m lousy, will you tell me? Will you come right out and say, ‘That was lousy, Cat’? Whatever I did, I’ll never do it again.”
“Okay.”
“You promise?”
“I promise,” Rosie said solemnly.
“Do you know what I could really use right now?”
“Nope.”
“A hug. Would it be okay, if, you know . . .”
Rosie held out her arms.
Cat scooped her up and clung to her. “I’m so sorry you thought I didn’t like you.” The sweet smell of baby shampoo and little girl filled her senses and her heart. “You deserve so much better than that.”
Pulling back, Rosie placed her pudgy hands on Cat’s face. “My very favoritest thing to do at the park is play cloud art, but Daddy hates it because he never sees anything.”
“Oh, I love that game! I used to play with my brother and sister all the time.”
Rosie looked up at the puffy clouds. “Want to play?”
“I’d love to.” Cat carried Rosie to the grassy field where they stretched out next to each other and gazed up at the sky. They studied the clouds for several quiet minutes before Cat pointed to one.
“Elephant!” Rosie cried.
They exchanged a high five.
“Daddy would say—”
“There’s no elephant up there.” Ian’s shadow covered them both. “I don’t care what you guys say.”
Rosie rolled her eyes at Cat. “See what I mean?”
“We’ll have to work on him.”
Ian lowered himself to the ground next to Rosie.
“Cat loves you, Daddy. She told me.”
“Is that so?”
“Yep. You should tell her you love her, too, so you can stop being sad all the time.”
With amusement and love and relief and joy dancing around inside of her, Cat watched him struggle to decide how he felt about his daughter managing his love life.
“Not until she tells me herself,” Ian said, his fierce blue eyes issuing a dare.
Cat met his steady gaze. “I love you, Ian.”
“I love you, too, Catherine.”
“That’s an old lady name,” Rosie informed him. “You can’t call her that.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Can we go back to our game now?”
Ian reached over Rosie for Cat’s hand. “Absolutely.”