Nantucket Romance 3-in-1 Bundle (48 page)

“Perfect.” She gave him her address and phone number, then hitched her tiny purse on her shoulder. “I can’t wait to see what you come up with.”

He walked her to the door, but she stopped on the threshold.

“Oh, I hate to be a bother, but I’m looking for a fudge shop I’ve heard about. Aunt something . . . I have a terrible sweet tooth.” Her smile flirted.

“Aunt Leah’s Fudge—down on Straight Wharf.” He followed her out the door and pointed east. “If you follow Main Street, you’ll find yourself on the wharf. It’s on the left. You can’t miss it.”

His brother entered his line of vision, walking up Main Street, his stride slow and loose.

“Hey, Lucas.”

Lucas was about to introduce Sydney, but Brody stepped around him and opened the door. “Is Kate upstairs?”

The question caught Lucas off guard. “Sure.” He wondered what Brody wanted with Kate.

Lucas watched his brother until Sydney placed a hand on his arm.

The sound of feet thudding up the wood steps of her office pulled Kate’s attention from the letter. A glance at her watch told her it was too early for Lucas. They’d begun eating lunch together on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays. Strictly for appearances’ sake.

Sun-blond curls appeared first, followed by the lean frame of her new brother-in-law. He wore a pair of bright orange and blue Hawaiian-print trunks and a white T-shirt.

“Brody.” Kate folded the “Dear Dr. Kate” letter and set it on the desk next to the other letters she’d waded through. “This is a pleasant surprise.”

He stopped at the top of the stairs and stuffed his hands in his pockets, a move that reminded her of Lucas. “I should’ve called.”

“No, come in. Have a seat. I’m just reading through some letters.”

Brody surveyed her desk. “That’s a lot of letters.” He glanced around the room—what used to be the lobby of her practice. She’d moved her desk to the front so she could take advantage of the natural daylight that streamed though the windows.

“I haven’t been up here since Lucas renovated,” Brody said.

Kate appraised the room with fresh eyes. The shiny wood floor, the soothing green walls that set off the maple color of the wood trim. She’d found an area rug in shades of green, navy, and beige that tied the colors of the room together.

“He did a nice job,” she said. “He’s quite the carpenter, your brother.” Never mind that it had taken forever to get it done.

Brody sank into the waiting-room chair with a sigh. “I know.”

Kate wondered what had brought him here. She set her elbows on the swivel chair’s wooden arms and leaned back against the plush leather. Brody crossed his legs, propping his right ankle on his hairy knee. Gravity pulled at the heel of his worn flip-flop.

“So, to what do I owe the pleasure of your visit?” Kate teased.

“I was wondering if you’d help me with something.” His eyes darted around the room, settling nowhere.

“I’d be happy to help in any way I can.” Kate felt sorry for him in his awkwardness. “Is it a girl problem?” That she was accustomed to. People often sought her advice—not just in letters, but on the street sometimes.

“No, not girls. I got a handle on that.” His cocky smile lasted a short second. “It’s . . . school.” The word dropped like a fifty-pound bag of sand.

“Ah,” Kate said. “The switch in majors?”

“Yeah.” He shook the bangs from his eyes. “I can’t decide what I want to do. I mean, I’m three years into college and I still don’t know what I want to be when I grow up.” He tucked in the corner of his mouth at his joke.

He was still young at twenty-one, but Kate understood his frustration. “What was your major when you entered college? University of Massachusetts, right?”

“Yeah. I started as an education major. That lasted for a year and a semester.”

“What made you decide on education?”

“I thought I could come back here and teach high school. Maybe middle school. I don’t know. I did well in school and I thought
it would be fun to teach.”

“What did you change to?”

“Art.” He rolled his eyes. “I know—it’s like, what am I going to do with a career in art?”

“Are you good at it?” Kate watched his face, looking for some sign of passion.

“Sure, I guess. My professors thought I was.”

Outside the front window a truck braked, the squeal piercing the wall. “What made you change?”

“Does the term ‘starving artist’ mean anything to you? After a couple semesters, I realized how hard it would be to support a family with an art degree. Megan—she was my girlfriend at the time—thought I should switch to computer science.”

“Is that what your major is now?”

“Yeah. I like computers and everything. I get good grades, and I know it would be a good career, but . . .” He punctuated the sentence with a sigh.

Kate waited. She had yet to see him talk about anything that ignited a fire in his eyes.

“So now you’re thinking of architecture?”

Brody looked out the window. “It’s kind of in the art field, but I could make a decent living.”

“Let’s talk about things you like to do. Lucas said you play baseball for UMass?”

“I’m shortstop. But I’m not pro material, if that’s what you’re thinking.”

“I’m just trying to get a feel for the things you enjoy. What else? What do you do in your spare time?”

“I spend a lot of spare time at the beach. I surf a little. I wait tables at the Even Keel in the summer to supplement the money my parents give toward college. I’ve helped Lucas with construction, but I don’t have a knack for it like he does.”

Kate’s legs ached from sitting. She stood and crossed the room. “Any other jobs you’ve held or volunteer positions you’ve enjoyed?”

“I enjoy working, so I’ve liked all my jobs. I was a lifeguard at Cisco beach for a couple summers. When school is in session, I tutor a couple local middle schoolers for extra money. That’s rewarding. One of my students is a boy with a learning disability. His parents were really frazzled about his schoolwork. I tutored him last year starting after Christmas break, and his grades went from, like, Ds and Fs to Bs and Cs.”

“You must be quite the tutor.”

“Nah, Jared just needed some encouragement and help getting organized. He’s a bright kid—he just had trouble remembering his homework and focusing.” Brody lifted a shoulder. “He’s a huge Giants fan and I found ways of relating that to his schoolwork.”

“Have you considered changing back to education?”

Brody tucked his chin, and his eyebrows hiked up. “Not really.”

“Why not?”

He looked away. “I don’t know.”

“You seem to like kids and know how to motivate them.”

“There’s not much money involved in teaching.”

“You get summers off . . .”

Lucas grinned. His even white teeth reminded her of Lucas’s. “Good point.”

The bright sunlight from the window beckoned Kate. “Well, it’s something to consider. I wouldn’t fret about changing gears with your major. This is the rest of your life you’re talking about, so it’s important to follow your passion. The main thing is finding out where your passions lie.”

“Too bad I can’t major in girls.”

Kate looked out over the street where tourists meandered down the brick sidewalks. A movement below caught her eye. Lucas stood in front of the shop with an auburn-haired woman. She wore a sleeveless ivory sweater and ivory slacks. The woman placed her hand on Lucas’s arm, letting it linger. Her head tilted toward Lucas like she would live or die by his next words.

“. . . give it some thought,” Brody was saying.

Kate peered though the old, wavy pane. “Who’s the woman outside? The one talking to Lucas?”

She heard Brody stand. “The leggy redhead? I don’t know her. They were talking when I got here.”

Kate felt a twinge of something unpleasant. It struck her as odd at first. She tried to rationalize it as common sense. After all, Lucas was wearing a wedding band, and the way Red was hanging on his arm was hardly appropriate. She glared down at the woman.
Boundaries,
lady. Have you heard of them?

Before she could help herself, Kate took a step toward the stairs with the thought of putting the woman in her place. Then she stopped. She imagined Lucas’s amused brow, quirking upward, his crooked smile as Kate staked her claim. She wouldn’t give him the pleasure. Besides, what did it matter if Red flirted with Lucas? It wasn’t as if Kate had feelings for him.

She was
not
jealous, and there was no way on earth she was going to let Lucas think she was.

Be careful about making rash
judgments. Sometimes first impressions
are wrong.

—Excerpt from
Finding Mr. Right-for-You
by Dr. Kate

Chapter Twelve

Kate slipped from the bed shortly after four o’clock and felt her way across the floor. From the floor on Lucas’s side of the bed, Bo shifted. As she pulled her thin robe from the hook and tiptoed from the room, she heard his toenails clicking across the wood floor. Kate saw no way of making him return without disturbing Lucas.

The house was dark and quiet, except for the living room clock ticking off time. In the darkness she made her way to the back door and opened it quietly, keeping Bo inside. A warm breeze tugged at her cotton robe, and she gathered the belt, tightening it around her waist before sitting.

The dream that had awakened her surrounded her like a thick wet fog. In it, Bryan had come to her office, climbing the stairs with purposeful steps like Brody had. But Bryan wasn’t there for advice. He took her in his arms and proposed to her. When they left the building, they weren’t on Main Street, but at Jetties Beach for their wedding. As Kate approached the altar, he turned. But it wasn’t Bryan. It was Lucas.

Now, Kate watched the moonlight flickering on the surface of the shadowed water. She closed her eyes and leaned against the wooden back. The oscillating sound of the waves washing the shore-line didn’t soothe her. Inside she felt as jolted as she had in the dream when she realized Lucas had replaced Bryan.

It happened for real too.
Kate sighed. She wished she could fast-forward through the year and get her life back on track. How had she gotten so far off course? What was she doing in this house with a man she barely knew and hardly liked?

That’s not true,
her conscience corrected.
He might grate on the
nerves sometimes, but Lucas has his good qualities.
And the last few weeks had been better than she expected in terms of getting along with him. It was just that her life was careening out of control like it hadn’t since she was a child. She felt shaken and vulnerable.

A vision of her mom surfaced from the dusty corridors of her mind. Kate had been eleven and had just returned from her best friend’s house. She often went to Mackenzie’s house just to escape her own. But Mackenzie was mad because Kate never invited her over, and Kate had run out of excuses.

Kate closed and locked the front door before removing her snow boots and wiggling her numb toes. “Mom?” she called, not knowing whether or not to expect an answer. Sometimes she found her mom doing laundry and humming game-show tunes, and other times Kate wished she hadn’t returned at all. It was the uncertainty she hated most. Even at
eleven she knew it was true.

There
was no answer on this night, so Kate set her heavy book bag on the rocking chair, flipped off the lights, and climbed the creaky stairs. Maybe her mom was asleep. She crossed her fingers on the banister as she ascended.

The bathroom light glowed in the darkness. She opened the door and found her mom on the green shag carpet next to a mystery stain they’d inherited with the house. One of her mom’s sweater-clad arms draped over the tub ledge, and the other hugged a clear bottle of alcohol. The room smelled sour, and Kate turned on the fan.

“Mom,” Kate whispered. She shoved aside the fuzzy pink slippers her dad had sent for her birthday and knelt on the carpet. “Mom.”

Her mother stirred as Kate slipped the empty bottle, still warm from her mother’s hand, out of her grasp. “Katie, baby.” She licked cracked lips and opened her eyes to glassy slits, reaching toward Kate with her delicate white hand. It didn’t quite make it and instead thumped on the carpet beside her leg.