8
I
T WASN'T UNTIL almost midnight Sunday night that Emily and Bree got fed up with Abby.
She hadn't been able to sleep. Again. In fact she hadn't been able to sleep since Cal had dropped her off Thursday morning. She knew her nocturnal wandering around the house had bothered her sisters, so tonight she was sitting quietly drinking hot milk in hopes that would eventually help her sleep and not disturb Emily or Bree.
Apparently it didn't matter because there they were, padding into the kitchen in their nightgowns, scowling at her anyway.
“I thought you guys were in bed,” she said as each of them slid into a different side of the breakfast nook's bench seat, blocking her with her back against the wall and the only possible escape to crawl under the table.
“We're sick of worrying about you and not knowing what it is that has you upset,” Bree said without preamble.
“You aren't eating. You aren't sleeping,” Emily added.
“And you aren't talking. Except to bite off our heads whenever we ask what's wrong.”
“Or tell you Cal Ketchum called or came looking for youâ
again.
”
“So bite our heads off if you want to, but we're not leaving until you fill us in.”
Abby briefly considered denying for the hundredth time that anything was wrong. But only briefly. She was miserable and maybe it would help to talk about it.
With that in mind, she told her sisters about the night she'd spent with Cal and how she'd been avoiding him so as not to have to be told it was nothing more than fun and games for him.
“But you don't know for sure that that's what he wants to talk about,” Bree said when Abby had finished.
“What else could it be? He told me himself that he's not a one-woman man. And I'm certainly not the person who's going to change that.”
“Why not?” Emily asked.
Abby rolled her eyes but before she could say anything, Bree answered the question.
“Because Bill Snot-grass trounced on her confidence so completely that she can't believe she can attractâlet alone keepâa man. Any man, but especially one who's as big a hunk as Cal Ketchum.”
“She's right, isn't she?” Emily said to Abby. “Your self-image, or self-esteem or whatever you want to call it, has just bottomed out. Even worse than we realized before.”
“Yeah, and why?” Bree continued. “Because Bill Snot-grass laid all the blame for nixing your wedding on you rather than owning up to his own character flaws and the affair he was having. You weren't at fault.
He
was. But he was so spineless he attacked you.”
“And you believed it all,” Emily went on. “Hook, line and sinker. That's the worst part of it. And now, instead of Cal's attentions boosting you back up where you belong, here you are, letting Bill's criticisms lock you in a closet rather than even chance hearing what Cal has to say.”
“Just forget all the garbage Bill unloaded on you and hear Cal out,” Bree advised. “Besides, even the worst would be better than what you've been doingâhiding from him. If all he wants to do is let you know where he stands, well, then at least you'll end up knowing where he stands.”
Apparently her sisters were satisfied that they'd solved her problems because they both slid out of the breakfast nook the way they'd slid into it.
“And if I were you,” Bree said as they headed out of the kitchen, “I'd go over to his place and see what he has to say before missing another night's sleep.”
Abby watched them go, thinking about all they'd said. She
didn't
know what Cal wanted to talk about. She'd just assumed he intended to make it clear that what they'd shared was nothing more than a good time that had reached its conclusion.
But if that was the case, why did he keep calling and coming around to say it? Why hadn't he just accepted that she was dodging him and taken it for granted that that meant she'd had her fill, too?
Her sisters were right; she'd never know unless she heard him out. She just didn't know if she could take another rejection, this one from someone who had touched her more deeply even than Bill Snodgrass had.
But what if Cal wasn't going to reject her? a little voice in the back of her mind asked.
She was afraid to even entertain that thought. Afraid to get her hopes up.
On the other hand, just the thought of getting to see him again, getting to hear his voice, was almost enough to risk being rejected....
Should she go to him, give him the chance to say whatever it was he wanted to say? she asked herself.
Maybe her sisters were right, too, that even if the worst happened, at least she could get it over with. At least once she knew what he had on his mind, she could stop jumping at every ring of the phone or doorbell or bell above the bakery door and running for cover.
So do it. Get it over and done with, she silently advised herself.
And the sooner the better.
She was still dressed in the blue jeans and plain pink polo shirt she'd had on all day, so she didn't even bother to go upstairs. She just grabbed her keys and went out to her car.
But standing with the driver's door open, she got cold feet.
What if he rejected her as harshly as Bill had?
“Go for it, Ab,” Emily called from an upstairs window, like an encouraging guardian angel.
It gave Abby enough impetus to get her into the car, to start the engine, to back out of the driveway and hit the gas.
“It'll be okay. You can do this. It'll be okay. You can do this,” she chanted the whole way out of town.
But when she pulled up the driveway to Cal's house, she almost lost her nerve.
There were lights on in nearly every window on the lower level and so many cars and trucks out front that it looked as if he was having a party.
Then she remembered that he'd said his brothers and sister were all due in to see the place, and that helped. But only a little.
Even if his company was his family, they were still strangers to her. Did she really want to do this in front of them?
She didn't.
But she also didn't want to turn back now. She wanted the air cleared. To get the burden of wondering, of worrying, off her back.
And she also wanted to see him just one more time, even if it was to hear that their night together hadn't meant the same thing to him that it had to her. Maybe then she could put it behind her once and for all....
That was when it occurred to her that if the light was on in Cal's room, he might be up there. And if she could get to the window the way he'd gotten to hers before dawn Tuesday morning, then maybe she could see him without having to go through the house or his family to do it.
Or even if he wasn't in his room now, maybe she could wait for him there....
She parked her car behind the others, got out and tiptoed around the side of the houseâalthough she didn't know why she was tiptoeing because no one was likely to hear her footsteps anyway.
Still, she felt inclined to furtiveness and kept to her toes, all the while training her eyes on the house.
And it was a full house. She counted four big, burly, good-looking men in three different windowsâone of them shirtless and apparently headed for bed if the yawn he stretched through was any indication. Two of them were playing cards, and another was talking to a woman who hit him playfully with a magazine, apparently over something he'd said.
The Ketchums.
Even if she hadn't known in advance that that's who they were, she would have guessed because they all shared some feature or another. And each one was as terrific looking as the next. Four gorgeous men and their sister, who would make male jaws dropâwouldn't the singles of Clangton be glad if Cal could get them all to stay?
But even the sight of four masculine, virile, head-turningly handsome men didn't have an effect on Abby. There was only one Ketchum she was interested in. And she hadn't spotted him through any of the downstairs windows she passed by.
The back of the house was darker than the front, and there were no lights coming from Cal's room at all.
But whether or not he was up there, Abby decided to go through with her plan.
There weren't any overhangs or a cover to the flag-stoned patio to aid in her ascent. But there was a trellis that rested between two of the second-floor windowsâone of them Cal's, the screen already torn to allow her entry if she could just get up there.
The trellis didn't look very stable. Some of the slats were already broken. But it was Abby's sole option for reaching the upper level, and at that point she was willing to risk that it might not hold her rather than leave or sift through all those Ketchums to get to Cal.
So without another glance around, she grabbed on to the outer edge of the latticework, put her foot inside a diamond-shaped opening and began to climb.
The trellis creaked its complaint, but it held her. The trouble was, she'd assumed the thing was attached to the house and about halfway up she discovered it wasn't. And she discovered it when the trellis started to pull away from the bricks, swaying backward.
The gasp that escaped her throat wasn't silent, but she didn't expect it to draw a response. She thought she was alone.
Until she heard, “Well, look at this. I think we have ourselves a little lady cat burglar.”
The voice was deep and unquestionably male.
But it wasn't Cal's.
Wavering back and forth like a flag in the wind, Abby tried to press herself forward to keep the trellis from falling and all she could manage to say was a weak “Help.”
The man stepped up just below and put his weight into pushing the trellis against the wall once more.
Breathing a sigh of relief, Abby could finally look down.
Standing there with his chambray shirt unbuttoned and left untucked to flap around jean-clad hips was a man who looked very much like Cal. The fifth of Cal's brothers, Abby thought, realizing just then that one had been missing from the house.
“Hi,” she said feebly, feeling like the biggest idiot in the world.
“Nothin' inside to steal,” he informed casually.
“I didn't come to steal. I came to see Cal.”
“Was there a problem with the front door?”
“I didn't want to see anybody else,” she confessed.
“Want me to leave?” he asked amiably, taking his hands from the trellis long enough for it to sway slightly away from the brick wall again before he pushed it back once more.
“Uh...no. Could you just hold this thing until I can get down?”
“Sure,” he agreed. Then he raised his voice to a loud boom and shouted, “Cal! Got somethin' for you. Come on out back.”
Abby could hear the message being relayed through the house, one voice after another. Moments later the sound of someone descending the stairs echoed through the place, followed by the noises of more movement than just one man could make. The whole clan was coming for a look.
Abby wished she could dry up and blow away.
Barring that, she had no choice but to climb down.
But as if he thought she might make a run for it, the man waiting on the ground didn't let her get all the way there before scooping her off the latticework to hold her like a baby in his arms. At about the same time Cal led a contingent of other people out the French doors from the kitchen.
“Abby?” he said, sounding confused.
“She was sneakin' up the trellis to see you. Know her?”
“I know her,” Cal said, his tone giving no clue as to whether or not he was glad to see her.
“Guess you can have 'er, then.” The man who was holding Abby handed her across to Cal as if she were a light sack of grain. And just that quick she was in Cal's arms instead.
“Hi,” she repeated, even more feebly to Cal.
“Did you just come window peekin' or did you finally want to talk?” he asked.
“I wanted to talk.”
Cal glanced at their very interested audience, then said, “Upstairs,” and turned to carry her past them all.
“You can put me down and let me walk,” she suggested between clenched teeth and through a forced smile at the onlookers.
But he pretended not to hear her and simply carted her through them into the house and up the steps, not stopping until they were in his dark bedroom and he'd kicked the door shut behind them.
Only then did he set her on her feet, in the center of the room.