Seth Washington, had caused two women to lose trust in God.
Wasn’t he special?
Susan thrust a strip of pale browns beneath his nose. “Which of these do you like best?”
What did he know? Brown was brown.
“That one,” he said, putting his finger on a medium shade in the center of the card.
“Terrific. I like chamois, too.”
Chamois was a color? He’d thought it was a cloth for polishing his truck.
While he pondered that bit of information, Susan switched gears on him. “We need to help her.”
“Who?”
She looked at him as though he’d been struck with a sudden onset of attention deficit. “Kat, of course.”
His belly did that sinking thing again.
He was all for helping people. To serve and protect, that was his motto, but he wasn’t sure Kat would appreciate the interference. “How?”
“She’s depressed. Didn’t you notice? I guess I shouldn’t be telling you this, but I thought…” Her voice trailed off, though Seth figured he knew where she was heading. And he didn’t much like the direction.
“I noticed she seemed down.” Kat had lost her sparkle, her confidence.
“She is. She’s being sued for some stupid thing and thinks she wants to leave medicine for good.”
Seth held back a disparaging sound. “She won’t do that.”
He knew better. Kat wouldn’t give up the career she loved. She wouldn’t stay in Wilson’s Cove. She might be tired and need a vacation among hometown folks, but that’s all it was—a vacation.
“I don’t think so, either, but I’m worried about her.” Susan raised a yellow color sample up to the light. “Why don’t you come for supper tonight and we’ll talk?”
Talk? About Kat? No, he didn’t think so.
The hardware clerk, sweat on his upper lip, traipsed down an aisle toward them. “Got your stuff together, Seth. Pull around in back when you’re ready.”
“Will do. Add these to the tab, will you?” He handed off the armload of supplies and waited for Jim to start back to the register before saying to Susan, “I’m not sure Kat would be happy to be the topic of this conversation.”
“Kat’s not happy about anything, anyway.”
But she was a private person who wouldn’t appreciate her sister’s interference. “Why are you telling me this?”
Susan lifted one shoulder. “Because she won’t listen to me. She gets her back up whenever I mention God or church.”
“That’s too bad, Susan. Seriously, but I don’t understand where I come into the picture. Kat and I don’t even know each other.”
“But you were once close.”
Yes, too close. Close enough to break each other’s hearts and change the course of their lives. He refused to let his mind go in that direction.
“I’m sure she has close friends today, probably even a boyfriend. Why not talk to them about this?”
“Number one,” Susan tapped a paint card against her fingers as she ticked off the reasons. “Kat isn’t currently seeing anyone. Number two, I don’t know any of her friends. And number three, you just expressed concern about Kat’s lost faith. I thought you’d be interested.”
Right. He had asked. And he was interested. He just wasn’t sure getting personally involved was a good idea.
“It’s only supper, Seth. You haven’t been over in weeks. And if you don’t want to discuss Kat, that’s fine. We can have supper and a good visit. We’d love to have you.”
“All right, then. Supper sounds good. I need to talk to Danny about a couple of old dilapidated cabins east of the marina, anyway. What time?”
“Shelby has piano after school. Let’s make dinner around six, okay?”
“I’ll be there.”
A man had to eat, and Susan Renfro was the best cook in the county. Kat didn’t have to be part of the equation. In fact, he’d make sure Kat was not part of the equation. There were some mistakes a man did not want to repeat.
He’d been set up.
Anyway, the casual evening at Susan’s felt like a setup to Seth.
He’d been sitting in Danny Renfro’s living room, enjoying a friendly argument about baseball. He liked Danny. Everyone did. Tall and so blond the guys in school had called him “surfer boy,” Susan’s husband had enough personality to sell raincoats in the dessert. His real estate success surprised no one, though he’d gotten a good start by marrying a girl whose family had once owned the lake and all the land around it.
Susan had been in the kitchen, creating something that smelled so delicious Seth’s bachelor stomach whimpered in anticipation.
Thirty minutes into a relaxing evening, the front door opened and Kat walked in.
For a few seconds Seth was transported back to a time when he’d eagerly waited here in this very room for Kat to come bounding down the stairs, ready for a Saturday-night date.
More interested in books than being popular, Kat had never been a fashion diva, but she always looked good to him. Tonight she was dressed in capris—or whatever women called those short pants—and a pink shirt. She looked as she had in high school, fresh and pretty.
Her long brown hair was pulled back in a ponytail. Simple. Clean. Neat. Very like the girl he remembered. She was curvier now, a change he appreciated, though he probably shouldn’t be noticing.
Back in high school, Susan had been Miss Popularity, the outgoing cheerleader type while Kat had stayed in the background, quietly plotting her future.
At the time, he’d expected that future to include him. Of course, it hadn’t.
Young and cocky and in love, his heart had always accelerated the moment he locked eyes on her.
His heart accelerated tonight, but for different reasons. He wasn’t quite sure, however, what those reasons were.
Kat, too, must have been taken unawares because as soon as she saw him, she paused. Only a beat, but he noticed.
The trip down memory lane was broken by that infinitesimal beat of time. This was not the Kat he’d known. And he was no longer that love-struck boy.
“Seth,” she said. “I didn’t know you were coming.”
“Same here.”
Kat looked from him to
