He held her gaze and answered slowly, setting every syllable between them like an offering on an altar. “I could never confuse the two of you. Ever. You are so much more than the color of your hair and eyes, the shape of your face. Kat, think back to that day.
I
was the one who called out to you, across the parking lot. I knew who you were, even when you pretended not to recognize me.”
She had done that, hadn’t she? She had played a child’s game, because she was afraid of getting caught in a woman’s world. And here she was, more tangled than she’d ever thought she could be.
She thought back to the day she had arrived in town, on that unseasonably warm afternoon, with the heat shimmering off the asphalt parking lot. Then, she had thought she would melt. Now, she feared she would never be warm again. She rubbed at her arms and said, “But after that. When you started seeing me with Niffer. There must have been some part of you that knew. You must have wanted me to be Rachel, to be the woman you’d already slept with. You must have wanted us to be the family that the three of you never were.”
The words ate through to the core of her heart. In all her life, she had never been jealous of Rachel. Frustrated, yes. Angry with her poor choices. Disappointed by all the times she had made promises, all the times she had lied.
But this was the first time that Kat had ever truly envied her sister. The first time she had ever wanted to change places, to
be
Rachel. Then she would have known what it was like to be the Morehouse sister Rye first made love to. To be the twin he had first chosen. To be the woman he had been drawn to from the start. If Kat had been Rachel, she never would have let Rye out of her sight.
“No,” he said, and it seemed like he was damning every one of her dreams. “Kat, I never wanted you to be anyone but who you are. Don’t you understand? I never loved Rachel. I’m ashamed to admit this, but I barely
knew
her. She came to me when I had just graduated from college. She’d been dating one of my fraternity brothers. She wanted to make him jealous. I was flattered and stupid and a little naive. I only knew her for a few weeks, but I think I believed that I could…save her. That I could…I don’t know…make her be happy and healthy and whole.”
Kat
did
know. She knew how many times she had hoped that she could reach out to her twin. How many times Rachel had manipulated Kat’s own emotions, making her believe that
this
time things were different, that
this
time Rachel had changed, that
this
time she would be able to hold it all together.
Still, there was more to Rye’s story than that.
“Even if I accept that,” she said. “Even if I believe every word you’ve said about what happened six years ago, that doesn’t explain now. It doesn’t justify your keeping things secret for the past week. You could have called me, any night. You could have told me everything.”
Rye heard the sob that cut short her anguish. And yet, that anguish gave him another faint glimmer of hope. If Kat truly hated him, if she were willing to walk away forever, she’d be speaking with more rage. With less conflict. With more of her famed commitment, holding true to the single path she had chosen.
But even as he told himself that all was not absolutely, irrevocably lost, he heard another sound—one that made his pulse quicken with fear. The train whistle keened as the Clipper neared the station. He was almost out of time.
“Kat,” he said, certain she heard it, too. “You have to believe me. I never thought of Rachel when I was with you. I kissed your lips, not hers. I touched your body, not hers. In my mind, you are completely separate people. Two women so different that I can only wonder at the coincidence that you’re sisters.”
She shook her head, using the motion to pull her around, to face the windows, the train tracks. The door that would carry her out of his life forever.
He knew that he could not touch her, that he could not rely on the incredible physical spark that had joined them, ever since she first returned to Eden Falls. But he could not let her walk away, either, not without making his last argument. Not without saying the words that had pounded through his head as he completed his breakneck drive from the park.
“Kat, I love you. Please. Don’t get on that train.”
Kat felt the change in air pressure as the locomotive blew past the station door. The train was braking; metal wheels squealed against the track as it came to a stop.
But those sounds meant nothing to her. Instead, she was trapped by the words Rye had spoken. “What did you say?” she asked, her own question almost lost in the station’s dead air.
He took a step closer to her. “Kat, I love you.” He glanced at the door, at the train that was almost completely stopped. “I love you, and I don’t want you to go. I can’t get enough of you. I want you to stay here. I
need
you to stay here. But if you can’t, if you won’t, then I’ll get on that train with you. I’ll travel to New York, or to anywhere else you go, until I know that you heard me, that you understand me, that you believe me. I love you, Kat Morehouse, and I don’t want to live another day without you.”
The train was ticking, temporarily settling its weight on the tracks. A conductor walked by on the short platform outside the station, calling out his bored afternoon chant: “Yankee Clipper, all aboard!”
“Kat,” Rye whispered, and now he took a step closer. He held out his hand to her, as if she were a forest animal, some shy creature that he had to charm to safety.
He had hurt her. He had kept a terrible secret for days, long past the time when he should speak.
But hadn’t she done the very same thing? Hadn’t she kept a secret from her mother, hiding the bad news about the studio’s bank account because she could not find the right words? Because it was never the right time to tell the truth?
Susan had forgiven her. Susan had told her that she understood—good motives sometimes led to bad actions. All unwitting, Susan had shown Kat the path to understanding. The way to move forward from a bad situation to one that was so much better.
The train seemed to sigh, grumbling as its engine shifted forward. The cars dragged on the track as if they were reluctant to leave Eden Falls. Kat could still run for the Clipper. With her dancer’s grace, she could grab hold of the steel grip beside the stairs. She could pull herself into the vestibule, make her way down the swaying, accelerating car to an overpadded seat that would carry her all the way to New York.
But Rye’s eyes were pleading with her. Those ebony eyes, darker than any she had ever seen before. No, that was a lie. Niffer’s eyes were just as dark.
The train picked up speed. Its whistle blew as the engine rounded the long curve that would bring it north, to Richmond, to Washington, to New York.
The Clipper was gone.
“Thank you,” Rye breathed. He was frozen, though, terrified of upsetting the balance he had somehow found, the miracle that had kept Kat in Eden Falls. His hand remained outstretched, his fingers crooked, as if they could remember the cashmere touch of her hair.
“Oh, Rye,” she sighed. “I love you, too.”
And then, impossibly, she was placing her hand in his. She was letting him pull her close, letting him fold his arms around her. She turned up her face, and he found the perfect offering of her lips.
He wanted to drink all that she had to give him, wanted to sweep her up in his arms and carry her over the threshold of the station, out to Noah’s car, and away, far away, into a perfect sunset. He wanted to stay absolutely still, to turn to stone with this incredible woman in his arms, to spin out this moment forever. He wanted to drag her to the hard wooden bench in the center of the waiting room, to pull her down on top of him, to rip open the buttons on her spring-green blouse and lave her perfect breasts with his ever-worshipful tongue.
He wanted to lead Kat, to follow her, to be with her forever.
“Rye.” She said his name again, when he finally pulled back from his chaste kiss of promise. There was so much she needed to say to him. So much she needed to hear him say. She twined her fingers in his and led him out of the waiting room, to the glinting form of his silver truck. He barely left her for long enough to walk around the cab to the driver’s seat.
As he closed the door behind himself, she felt an eagerness shoot through his body, the need to confirm that she was still beside him, that she had not left him, that she never would. His fingers splayed wide across the back of her head as he pulled her close; urgency sparked from his palm like an actual electric fire. Now his lips were harsh on hers, demanding, and she might have thought that he was angry, if not for the sob that she heard at the back of his throat.
She answered his desperation with need of her own. Her hands needed to feel the hard muscle of his back. Her arms needed to arch around his chest, to pull him close, closer than she had ever been in any pas de deux.
His clever lips found the fire banked at the base of her throat; his tongue flicked against that delicate hollow until she moaned. By then, his fingers had made their way beneath her blouse; he was doing devastating things to the single clasp of her bra.
Her own hands weren’t to be outdone. She flashed through the simple mechanics of releasing his belt, loosening the leather to reach the line of worn buttons beneath. She slid the fingers of her left hand inside the waistband of his jeans as she worked, and she laughed at the feel of his flesh leaping beneath her touch.
But then, three buttons away from freedom, she paused. She flattened her palm against the taut muscles of his belly, pushing away enough that she could see his eyes.
His heartbeat pounded beneath her touch like a wild animal’s, and she felt the whisper of his breath, panting as he restrained himself, as he held back for her. “What are we doing, Rye?”
“If you don’t know, then I haven’t been doing it right,” he growled.
She smiled, but she pulled even farther away. She took advantage of his frustrated whimper to tug her blouse back into place. She ran a hand through her hair, forcing it out of her eyes. “I’m serious,” she said, and she was pleased to see his hunger take a backseat to concern. “You’re living in Richmond now. You’ve started your own business and you don’t have time to do anything new. You don’t need the stress of a new relationship, just as you’re finally achieving all your dreams.”
He caught her hand and planted a kiss in her palm before lacing his fingers between hers. “You
are
all my dreams.”
She laughed softly, but she shook her head. “You can say that now, and you probably even believe it. But what are you going to say next week? Next month? Next year? What are you going to say when I keep you from landing the biggest contract you’ve ever tried for?”
“That’s not going to happen,” he vowed.
“It will. Rye, I can see a life for myself in Eden Falls. I think a part of me has seen it from the moment I walked into my parents’ home. That’s why I delayed getting back to New York, why I delayed signing up for the
Coppelia
audition. My body was telling me something when I broke my foot. It knew the truth before my mind did. Before my heart did. Here in Eden Falls, I can help Daddy with his physical therapy, his rehab. I can help Mama at the studio, take over more of the business side of things, teach a few of the classes. I can keep Niffer with me, help her through the pain when she realizes that Rachel is heading out again. We both know my sister will never stick around.”
Rye started to tense when Kat said her sister’s name. There was no rancor, though, when she spoke of her twin. Only a matter-of-fact acceptance, with just a twinge of sadness for the woman that Rachel might have been.
He used his free hand to brush back Kat’s midnight hair. He wanted to make sure she could read his expression when he spoke to her. He wanted to be certain she knew he spoke the truth. “I don’t need Richmond.”
“But you—”
He cut her off by shaking his head. “Richmond is just a place. It’s not the magical answer to my problems. It’s not the secret to the life I wanted to lead.”
“Wanted? I don’t understand. What was that life?”
“I wanted to be free. I wanted to be independent. I was tired of being everyone’s brother, everyone’s cousin, everyone’s son. I wanted to make my own decisions, to grow my own business, without constantly turning aside to meet someone else’s expectation.”
“A-and now?” He heard the hesitation in her voice, the tendril of fear behind her question.
“And now, I
want
to be tied to someone else. To
one
someone else. To you. I want to go to work every morning, knowing I’m the best damned contractor I can be. And I want to come home every night, knowing I’m the best husband I can be.” He saw her register his words, saw her amazing silver eyes widen in disbelief. “Marry me, Kat. Make me the happiest man in Eden Falls.”
Marry him? Marry Rye Harmon?
Kat started to laugh, a shaky sound that mixed suspiciously with a sob in the back of her throat. “I—” she started to say, but then she gave up on that answer. “You—” She trailed off, as if she could not remember how to shape any words.
He chuckled. “I take it that means yes?”