Her Sister's Fiancé. Teresa Hill
Kathie said, watching her sister’s face fall into disbelief.
She hadn’t thought about this—about how hard it would be on Kim to have her back and think everything would go back to normal, when all Kathie was doing was trying to fix the mess she’d made as best she could and then disappear again.
“What do you mean, you don’t know? This town is your home. This is where you belong!”
“I know. I just…I’ve never really lived anywhere else, except when I was at college,” Kathie tried. She’d never been the adventurous sort. She was the quiet one. Jax was the charmer. Kate, the smart one, and Kim the beauty. Kathie was the mouse. All she’d ever wanted was to feel safe, right here in Magnolia Falls, in the midst of her loving family, but she had to say something to try to explain herself. “I mean, there’s a whole world out there. You know that. You love to travel. There might be all sorts of places I’d love to live.”
Kim looked unconvinced. She looked hurt, and maybe even mad. Kim who was never mad at her.
“I have to try, you know?”
“No. I don’t know,” Kim complained. “Don’t you love us anymore? Don’t you miss us?”
“Of course, I do.”
“You’re supposed to be getting over everything,” Kim argued. “So that everything can get back to normal.”
“I want that,” Kathie insisted.
Oh, God, she wanted it.
She just didn’t think it was possible.
“It was awful when you left,” her sister said, sitting down on the sofa. “Terrible. It was the worst thing. Mom was gone, and then you were gone, and I just kept thinking, who’s going to disappear next? For months, everybody else kept saying you were bound to come home soon, that you wouldn’t be able to stay away. Not me. I kept thinking, who’s going to leave next?”
“Oh, Kimmie. I’m so sorry!”
One more thing to add to her list of sins against her family.
She took her sister into her arms and held on tight.
Kimmie had been a baby when their father died. She had no memories of him at all, just pictures and the stories they all told her about him. And she’d still been in college when their mother died. Because she was so young, Kathie and her brother and sister had tried harder for Kim than anyone else to make sure she felt safe and secure, a part of a strong, loving family.
But Kathie had just left, not even thinking of how her younger sister would feel about it. Kathie had thought she was trying to save the rest of them by leaving. But Kim just saw it as losing one more person in an ever-dwindling family circle.
Kathie had done even more damage than she thought.
Kim hardly spoke to her the rest of the night. She went to bed early, got up early and left. The school year still wasn’t over in Magnolia Falls, and Kim taught art at the elementary school.
Kathie hid in their apartment for three solid hours, then had to call herself all forms of the word coward just to get herself to go outside and risk seeing anyone she knew.
It was spring in Magnolia Falls, warm and sunny, very, very green, everything smelling fresh and new.
If only Kathie could have started all over again, just wound back the clock, what would she do?
Never fall for Joe. Never have some silly, schoolgirl crush in the first place or have it and get over it, completely, ages ago, like other girls did, so that no one would ever be hurt or ever have to know.
But she couldn’t do that.
Which meant she had to do the next best thing.
She had to fix this as best she could. Make people see that it wasn’t his fault, and it wasn’t her sister’s. Move on with the plan, and then get away from here again, even if it killed her this time.
She’d taken the time to fix her hair, put on a bit of makeup and dress in her favorite jeans and a bright yellow top, trying to look as good as she could and not have anyone guess how terrible she felt, how scared, how ashamed, how sad.
She was going to march into the center of town, into the bank where Joe worked and go to lunch with him, in full sight of everyone there, on the street and in the Corner Café, a hotbed of gossip dead-center in town.
Time to get moving with the Joe-didn’t-dump-Kathie-and-Joe-isn’t-the-bad-guy plan.
Which meant she had to look happy to see him, and he had to look happy to see her. Kathie was afraid that might be a problem, so she pulled out her cell phone and called the bank, asking for him.
“May I say who’s calling?” the receptionist asked politely.
Kathie was pretty sure it was Stacy Morganstern, who used to be on the same peewee football cheerleading squad as Kim.
“Stacy? It’s Kathie.”
Stacy gasped. “Kathie Cassidy?”
“Yes.”
“You’re back in town? I hadn’t heard!”
“Just got in last night,” Kathie said. “How are you?”
“Well…fine. Just fine. How are you?”
“Great.”
“Where have you been? Everyone was so worried, and then no one knew, and—”
“Teaching. I was teaching. A temporary position in North Carolina, but it’s over now. Joe brought me home yesterday.”
“Joe?” Stacy gasped once more.
“Yes. He drove up and helped me move.” Not entirely untrue. He’d carried her suitcases to her car, after all.
“You’ve been seeing Joe? All this time?”
No way to answer that without lying, which Kathie really didn’t like to do.
“Stacy, I’m sorry. I’m kind of in a rush. I want to catch Joe before he makes lunch plans. Could you put me through?”
“Oh. Okay. Sure. I’ll get him for you.”
Kathie breathed a bit easier after escaping from the you’ve-been-seeing-Joe question. Relief was still rushing through her when Joe came on the phone.
“Kathie?” He sounded like a man approaching a rabid dog.
God, help me, please. I won’t ever go after my sister’s fiancé again. I swear. I won’t fall for any man I’m not allowed to have.
“We need to have lunch together,” she said in a rush, not giving herself time to think about it.
Just do it.
Follow the plan.
The Joe-is-not-the-bad-guy plan.
“Okay,” he said, still sounding like she might bite his head off or something.
“I mean, if we’re going to do this, we just have to do it. Which means, people have to see us together.”
“Okay,” Joe said. “I’ll pick you up in a half hour?”
“No, I’ll meet you at the bank. It’s always crowded at noon. Might as well start there, letting people see us, and then we’ll go to the Corner Café.”
Joe groaned. “You mean the diner?”
“Yes.”
“Darlene remodeled and changed the name. It’s actually called the Corner Diner now and it’s bigger.”
His chance meeting with Kate at the Corner Diner last fall was still probably the talk of the town, the best gossip to come out of the place in years. They’d run