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Chapter 11
KAT REMEMBERED THE chipped pink paint on the walls of the room she’d shared with Missy Jackson for 457 days, even though she couldn’t recall the woman with the pixie cut. But the way Delilah placed her hand on Brody didn’t exactly inspire warm, friendly feelings. And Delilah’s oh-so-eloquent words about Kat’s “interesting childhood” and her time at Harvard didn’t help either.
Was it so hard to accept that she had a sense of agency in her life? Kat wondered. Harvard had opened up doors and given her opportunities. But her hard work and determination delivered success. No one ever offered her top marks simply because she’d grown up alone, passed from house to house. In fact most of the time they’d expected less of her.
She felt Brody’s hand on her elbow. A warning that she shouldn’t attack a woman for touching him? For dredging up feelings she’d rather keep buried?
“You know, this place is packed,” Brody said. “I’m thinking we should cancel our order and go somewhere else.”
He offered a cursory smile to the woman with the pixie cut. “See you around, Delilah.”
“Say hi to your brothers for me,” Delilah said with a wink. “We miss seeing them out.”
Kat allowed Brody to blaze a path to the counter, watching as he smiled at the frazzled woman distributing orders. “Trish, can we cancel our sausage pie?”
The waitress spared Brody a smile. “I’ll see if they’ve made it yet. If they have—”
“I’ll take it.” a young mom with one toddler balanced on her hip and the other clinging to her legs said, her eyes wide with relief. “If it is ready, I want it. Doesn’t matter what they ordered.”
“Done.” Brody turned to the mother. “Casey, this one is on me. You can thank your husband for picking up an extra shift last week when we were short a driver.”
“Will do, Brody.” The child in her arms screamed, diverting Casey’s attention.
“You know everyone, don’t you?” Kat said as they headed for the exit.
Brody shrugged. “Small town.”
She followed him out of the restaurant and into the packed parking lot. “You know, we didn’t have to rush out of there.”
“I didn’t want to run the risk you’d hurt Delilah.”
She shook her head. “I shouldn’t have let her get to me. But going to Harvard wasn’t a joyride.”
“No, I don’t imagine it was,” Brody murmured.
“Especially not the way I did it,” she continued, the words spilling out. “Alone, with no one to call when I aced a test, or passed the boards, or . . .”
Kat closed her lips, biting them shut, knowing she’d already revealed too much. Sob stories about medical school weren’t exactly a one-way ticket to whip-cream sex.
But Delilah’s words had brought that time in her life back into focus. And when Kat thought about school, the loneliness surfaced. The other students had a place to go when they closed the dorms for the holidays. She’d managed by making arrangements to stay with friends. But she never forgot the fact that she was on her own. This town, the people here, Missy Jackson’s family—one of the many who’d handed her back to the social worker as quickly as they could—everything about Independence Falls had set her up to navigate the world alone.
“Where are we going?” she said, mentally pushing the depressing thoughts away. She wasn’t the orphaned student anymore. She had a life. Back in New York she had a career, colleagues, and friends waiting for her.
And tonight she had Brody Summers. She focused on his broad shoulders as he led the way through the maze of parked cars. She let her gaze linger on the way his jeans outlined the shape of his perfect butt.
“I’m still taking you to dinner,” he said as they reached his pickup.
“I wouldn’t object to eating closer to home and the whip cream.” She didn’t need the getting-to-know-you dinner-date routine. This man had already unearthed more of her, from the memories she kept under lock and key, to the way she bowed to his control when the clothes hit the floor, than anyone in her life, past or present. Right now she wanted to lose herself in fantasy and sex.
“You haven’t forgotten about dessert, have you?” she asked.
Brody opened the passenger side door and turned to face her, his brown eyes roaming over her. “Kat, every time I look at you I think about new ways to try dessert. I want you. I can’t stop picturing you in my bed. But—”
“Tell me what you see,” she demanded. “I don’t need promises. We don’t need to talk about tomorrow. Not now. Tonight, I’d like a chance to build new memories of this town.”
As she said the words, the truth unraveled. She’d taken Josh’s case and returned to Independence Falls to show this town how far she’d risen, to prove that she no longer needed them to want her. But after walking into the hotel lobby, and then bumping into Missy Jackson’s former best friend, maybe she also needed to prove to herself that her recollections of this town wouldn’t cripple her. And the best way she could think of doing that was to retrain her brain and build new memories.
“Please, Brody,” she added. “Describe the picture in your mind and let’s see if it lines up with mine.”
