“There’s no damned but,” Jock said.
She smiled. “My job, he’s a doctor there. A surgeon. He found out I applied to medical school and was so angry. I know he’s the reason I didn’t get in. I don’t know who his friends are and I’ve worked hard to get where I am, harder to be able to get where I want to go, and he’s making it so I can only do what he wants.”
“What he wants doesn’t matter,” Jock told her.
She shook her head and tapped the tabletop with the tips of her fingers. A nervous habit?
“I’m sorry, I don’t know why I’m telling you all this. I’m sure there are any number of other topics that would be better to discuss.”
“I want to know what’s wrong, what’s making you sad, and you’re telling me. There’s nothing to apologize for. If I didn’t want to know, I wouldn’t have asked.”
“You know, I haven’t even told my friends this, well, about med school. They know how difficult he can be. They think I should just move. I don’t want to have to move. I want away from him, yes, but I want to be a doctor. I want to go to medical school. I want Johns Hopkins and I thought . . .” She trailed off again and looked out over the water.
“You can do whatever you want to do,” he told her.
“I used to think that. But he’s always there. He’s where I work. I don’t know who he has watching me, but I know someone is, not my boss—who thinks I should move away as well. But someone there is telling Landon what I do, when I do it, how I do it. If I screw up at work, he gets mad at me, says it reflects badly on him. He wanted me to quit, and when I said no and that we weren’t working and I wanted him to find someone better suited to him, this is what I got.” She motioned to her face. “I’m scared. I haven’t been scared since my parents died and I’m tired of it. I can’t
live
this way. I want my life back, my dreams back, my thoughts back. I worry about what he’ll think, if I’ll get in trouble with him for the simplest of things and . . . and . . .” A tear trailed down her freckled cheek. “I just want . . . I want . . . I don’t know, it’s just all so big sometimes and I just want to go home. And I’ll apologize again for bombarding you with all my problems.”
For a minute Jock didn’t say anything, just sat silently listening to her. The waiter brought their drinks. Jock saw her quickly wipe the tear away.
Bastard. He’d make the doctor pay for that single tear alone.
When they were alone again, Jock said, “Don’t apologize for needing a friend. Any time you want to talk, vent, yell, skip rocks, you can call me. I’ll be sure to be there, Kaitie—Kaitlyn.”
She took a sip of water, her long fingers tracing patterns on the outside of the glass. The restaurant smelled like grilled meats and garlic.
Her look was one he couldn’t read. “You know what I thought the first time I met you?”
“No, what?”
“You were one of those playboy types. Got your way easily enough with the ladies and life.”
“Well, I didn’t make a very good impression.”
“I think maybe I was wrong. You were easy to be with. I’ve learned to be cautious. I was never really cautious before.”
“You never have to be cautious with me.”
She grinned. “Oh, I bet that’s not true.” She waved a hand. “I don’t want to talk about my problems anymore.”
He waited a beat, birds from outside trilling through the open windows. People chattered along the boardwalk.
“Just tell me one more thing.”
“What?”
“Are you safe right now? Does he know you’re here? Or where you are?” The thought of her over there by herself, isolated, worried him.
She shook her head. “No, I don’t think so. But then again, I keep waiting for him to walk through the door and all hell to break loose. He always finds out, always knows somehow.”
He’d make it so she didn’t have to worry. Now that she was back in his life, he wasn’t just going to sit back and let her go. If she were married that’d be one thing.
Would it?
Jock didn’t mess with married women, though plenty had offered. He believed in fidelity and loyalty, but he had a feeling even if this woman were married to the bastard doctor, Jock would still want her. Would damned well still help her, and he’d worry about the consequences later.
Their food arrived and they ate, talking about favorite places, food, colors. He learned her favorite color was green and she missed Irish folk music. Missed her grandmother.
They left the restaurant.
“Let’s walk,” he said. Then amended, “If you want to?”
He wasn’t used to asking, more often telling. With Kaitie, though, he’d ask, give her the option. He knew from what she had said she hadn’t had many choices lately.
Chapter 3
If you want to?
It had been a long time since a man had given her a choice.
Bloody hell, what did that say about her if she actually noticed when he asked her opinion, left the choice up to her?
She was
not
that woman. She was not the woman who became some man’s doormat.
He bent his knees so they were at eye level. Jock was tall, over six feet, and built like a dock worker. His shoulders were wide and she knew from dancing with him that his arms were corded steel. Landon was nothing like Jock in looks, in build, in disposition.
What had she seen in him?
“Or not. I can take you back to your cabin.” He held his hand out to her.
She placed her fingers in his palm and he linked their fingers together.
“What are you doing here?” she blurted.
“Are we walking and talking then?” he asked her, looking at her out of the corner of his eye.
“Seems like.”
He grinned. “Well, in that case, I just needed a bit of time away from it all.”
“From what all?”
“Work, business, well-meaning friends trying to set me up with some other friend of theirs, when I was really wanting this redhead I’d met months before but couldn’t find.”
She ignored the redhead bit, but could see the rest. “I know how that is. One of my friends, well, it’s their cabin I’m staying at, they wanted me to get away for the weekend. Get my head on straight, she told me. My boss agreed, they promised not to say anything.”
He grunted. What did that mean?
“I guess I never saw a man like you needing to get away from anything.”
He shook his head. “Everyone needs to get away from time to time.”
“You have the cabin here?”
“No, I’m renting the cabin here, though maybe one day I’ll get one. Depends.” He turned them down a side street lined with shops.
“On what?”
“On if there are reasons to return.”
Leaves crunched under their feet.
They talked of important things, of life, of her dreams to go to med school.
He stopped them on the gravel path along the side of the lake that lined the town. “You realize you get this shocked look on your face when I say how you should go for medical school?” he asked her.
She frowned. “I do not.”
He nodded. “Yes, you do. Why is that?”
She shrugged. Did she really? “I don’t know. I guess because I’m used to being ridiculed for it, for the simple idea of it,” she admitted. She closed her eyes and took a deep breath, the water of the lake, the damp ground, the crisp scent of autumn filling her senses, and through it all the spicy scent of the man beside her.
“You should go for what you want, for your dreams. What kind of doctor do you want to be?” he asked her.
“Pediatrician. Maybe a surgeon who only works on kids. Or maybe a pediatric heart specialist. The fields are opening up. We’re learning more and more every day about the human body, what it can do, what it can endure, what we can do to help fix and negate problems. And . . .” She broke off.
“And?”
Kaitlyn looked up at him. “You really want to hear this?”
His cobalt eyes narrowed. “I’ve already told you, I wouldn’t ask if I didn’t want to know.” He squeezed her hand. “You don’t have to weigh what you tell me, or what you think you can tell me. I’ll listen.” He squeezed her hand again. “Always.”
“You can’t say that.”
He hopped over a log and helped her over, picking her up at the waist and holding her so they were at eye level again. He pulled her forward, leaning in. Just a breath away, he said, “Yes, I can.” Then he kissed the tip of her nose. “Come on.”
They hiked a bit more. He told her of his family. Of how a brother died over in Nam, how his other brother was in law school at Columbia. How he’d graduated from Harvard, how their parents and little siblings had died all too early.
He seemed so . . . confident, so balanced, but she sensed something else.
Loneliness.
Then again, what did she know? She’d thought she’d met the man of her dreams, only to find out he was more her personal nightmare she couldn’t wake up from. Though at this moment, beside the lake, on an outcropping of cliff, she was happy.
“You’re thinking about him,” Jock said as he turned toward her.
They were sitting again, tossing rocks down into the water, but Jock was leaning on one arm, turned toward her.
“What?”
He reached out and rubbed a finger between her brows. “You get this crease just here when you speak about him and your eyes change.”
“My eyes change?”
“The spark fades,” he muttered, his finger moving from her forehead to trace her cheekbone. His thumb rubbed gently just under her bottom lip.
“Spark?” She couldn’t think when he did that, when he touched her. “I wasn’t really thinking of him. Rather, I was thinking one thing about him, about finding out that was a lie, and it has made me question if I can read people as well as I thought.”
His eyes, so very blue, rose from watching his fingers to look at her. “Me. You mean read me?” He shook his head. “Kaitie lass, you don’t need to read me. What you see is what you get.”
“I don’t believe that,” she said softly.
He leaned closer. “You will.” His fingers slid from her cheek to the edge of her hair.
He was going to kiss her. What did she do? Where did she put her hands? She was leaning back on them and . . .
His lips met hers, softly at first, not demanding, but there was a spark. He might see it in her eyes, whatever that meant, but there was definitely a spark there between them. She felt it when he touched her, so lightly, so carefully. She felt it when he took her hand, when their fingers laced. Like when there was a storm coming and everything she touched shocked her. Like there was an energy dancing over her skin.
His lips on hers moved and she realized he was speaking.
“What?” she whispered against his mouth, not opening her eyes.
“I should have asked if I could kiss you,” he muttered, pulling back slightly.
“Maybe, maybe not. I don’t know.”
“I would never hurt you,” he told her, looking into her eyes. “And he’s damned well going to pay for putting those marks on you.”
It was her turn to reach up and trace the corner of his eye. “When you think about him, you don’t get a crease, but your eyes change.”
“Really?”
She nodded. “They get cold, or hot, I don’t know, I can’t tell.”
His cheek was warm beneath her hand, the stubble rough.
“Look at me,” he said.
“I am.”
“He will
never
hurt you again.” His voice didn’t have the light, carefree tone it normally had. There was no joke in it, not anything other than a hard promise.
“It’s my battle.”
He shook his head. “You can think that, Kaitie lass, but it’s a battle I’m not going to sit back and let you fight alone.”
Kaitie lass. It was the second time he’d called her that.
Part of her hated that another man thought he knew what was best when it came to her. But another part was . . . relieved. Relieved she had someone on her side.
She shrugged. “He’ll get the picture eventually. Maybe I will just move.”
Jock rubbed between her brows again. “I don’t want to talk about him anymore. Sorry I brought him back up.” Then he smiled, though his eyes were still bright, like sapphires. “So, Kaitie, can I kiss you?”
She smiled at him. “You’re asking now?”
“I should have asked before.” He was so serious, so sincere, she fell in love with him just a little bit then, or more than she already had. Stupid of her, she knew, but she understood now what her mother had meant when she’d said when you meet the one, you’d know.
She’d thought it had been Landon, but that had been gradual, slow, sneaking up on her, a habit of acquaintances seen often.
Jock Kinncaid was anything but gradual, or sneaking, or a habit. He was just . . . just . . . there. Like the bright first rays of sunshine after a long dark night. There was no getting around him.
Though she could create a habit out of him.
“I don’t know, should I ask if I can kiss you? Seems only right we’re both agreeing and—”
He grinned even as his hand slid to the nape of her neck, his thumb rubbing along her jaw.
His lips on hers promised things she didn’t understand, promised a haven, promised things she wanted.
Kaitlyn wrapped her arm around his shoulder and pulled him closer to her, getting lost in Jock’s kiss.
Lips met, glided, opened and gave. When his tongue slid along the seam of her mouth, Kaitlyn opened. She knew how to kiss a man, though that was about all she’d done with them.
Their tongues met, twirled, tasted, vowed. What, she wasn’t sure, but she wanted to find out.
Their hands roamed, caressed. He made her feel . . . safe, and cherished.
A twig snapped and Kaitlyn jerked in his hold.
Jock looked over her shoulder. Another couple topped the rise and the man, carrying a picnic basket over one arm, said, “Oh, sorry.”
Jock shook his head. He looked back at her, wiped her bottom lip again with his thumb and said, “We’ll see where this goes.” Then he stood and held his hand out to her, helping her up. To the man and woman he said, “No problem. We were just leaving.”
“We can find—”
“No, I’ve had her outside most of the day. Time to head in and warm up,” Jock said.
Kaitlyn was in a daze as they made their way back down the hiking trail.
Was she a bad person? She had a fiancé—ex. She had an ex-fiancé who she knew still considered her his. Though that was hardly her fault.
Now she was here and kissing another man. A really sexy, very handsome man.
Jock never let go of her hand as he helped her down the incline, always making sure she was okay.
She didn’t know what to do with that.
She’d been on her own for so long and then there had been Landon.
“I wonder if I want to know what you’re thinking,” Jock said, pulling her attention back to him.
“I don’t even know what I’m thinking.”
He grinned. “Good, sometimes we think too much when we should just go where fate takes us.”
“Fate?”
“Fate, God, whatever, whoever.”
She smiled. Grammy would like him. Her other grandmother, probably not, but then Grandmother didn’t want her to move here, didn’t want her to be working, only wanted her to get married and be someone’s wife. Preferably someone important. Grandmother would love it if Kaitlyn married Landon Goldburg III and then produced at least three children, all of whom would attend a private Catholic school. Grammy would kiss her forehead and tell her to follow her heart.
There was a reason Kaitlyn had always preferred Grammy.
Kaitlyn shook off the thoughts.
“There’s the smile I’m starting to love,” he said.
They walked back through the town until one store caught her eye. Kaitlyn stopped and stared in the window.
Art supplies.
“Want to go in? Do you draw? Paint?”
She still stood on the sidewalk, her hand in his, looking at the easel in the window, the paints, the brushes, the canvass, the paper.
“I used to. My mother loved art.”
He tugged on her hand, pulling her inside.
“What do you want to get?”
She smiled and shook her head. “I should have gone back to the cabin and grabbed my purse. I’ll just look today.”
He grunted or something. She had no idea what it meant.
“Do you draw? Sketch? Paint? What?”
She walked to an aisle and picked up a sketch pad, flipping through it, feeling the urge to pick up a pencil, charcoal, or even a crayon and just . . . draw.
“Once upon a time, I did them all. Tried sculpting. My father was a doctor, but he liked music and art. My mother taught art at Columbia.” She put the pad back and picked up a set of drawing pencils. “I really wish I’d brought my purse.” Then she shrugged. “Oh, well, tomorrow’s another day. I can ride the bike down in the morning—”
“Or you could just get what you need now,” he told her, twirling a long-handled brush.
She jerked it out of his hand, replacing it in the bin. “Stealing is a sin.”
“As are many other things, but I wasn’t talking about stealing,” he said, picking up a set of brushes and watercolors. He wiggled them at her. “You like watercolors?”
“Why?”
“Yes or no, Kaitie.”
“Why, Jock?”
“Yes or no?” He grabbed another pad and the set of drawing pencils.
“Yes.”
“Good.” He walked to the counter and put the supplies on it. “You have any totes or bags or whatever to put all this in?”