mess and she’d been determined to deal with it on her own. She’d hidden her secret well, too. No one had ever even suspected that the quiet, church-going Thatcher girl had gotten pregnant.
She sighed and shook her head. Why had all these memories started to torment her again?
Maybe she was clinically depressed. The question was why?
She was a successful, well-respected physician. She had friends. She had things. She had money. Why did life feel like one big disappointment?
Holding a single geranium upright in a small pot, she dug the fingers of one hand into the cool, moist potting soil. Susan insisted that flowers around the cabin would add character to the place.
If she knew her sister, planting flowers was intended as therapy for her as well.
The rental was smaller and older than her A-frame but neatly furnished with all the necessities. The property also boasted an old fishing dock right on the lake, though Kat didn’t feel too confident about the dock’s stability.
At some recent time Susan had added her touch to the bedroom, dappling on wall paint to create the look of faux leather. The pale tan was more suitable to a weekend fisherman, but the decor would do until Seth moved into the ranger’s house. Whenever that happened.
The best thing about finding a new place to live was that the activity took her mind off her real problems. She’d finally turned her cell phone on this morning and discovered twenty-three messages from the medical director. He wasn’t the least bit worried, or so he said, about the frivolous lawsuit, and he’d cover her shifts for a few weeks until she was ready to come back. The leave of absence was just that, he insisted, a leave. He refused to believe she’d even consider resigning. He was wrong.
“Take a break. Get some rest,” Dr. Beckham said when she had dialed him up. “Then get your tail back to work. We need you.”
They’d haggled for twenty minutes, but he’d been adamant, and in the end she’d agreed. In all honesty, she didn’t want to consider going back, though she hadn’t told the director as much. She shuddered in dread at the thought of facing another ambulance filled with broken bodies while some ambulance-chasing lawyer stood in the waiting area ready to file suit because she wasn’t God.
Whether here or there, life stunk.
“You look serious.”
At the sound of that familiar gravelly voice, Kat jerked around and nearly lost her balance. At the sight of Seth Washington, she nearly lost her breath.
Lean and fit in his blue-gray ranger’s uniform, dark hair glistening in the sunlight, Seth sauntered across the lush green grass. Susan was right. He looked good in that uniform.
Kathryn patted dirt around the droopy little flower before rising to her feet. “You have a habit of sneaking up on people.”
“Haven’t you heard? Good cops walk softly and carry big guns.” Seth propped an elbow on the wobbly wooden porch railing, his eyes hidden behind dark sunglasses, his grin doing funny things to her concentration. Not that she was concentrating on anything too earth shattering.
“Still mad?” he asked.
For effect and to stop the crazy thoughts running through her head, she glared at him. “Yes.”
After a beat of silence she laughed. “Not really. I just wanted to see your reaction. In fact, I want to apologize.”
He arched a very dark eyebrow. “For?”
“Breaking and entering. Conduct unbecoming. Rude behavior.”
“You were surprised. No big deal.”
“You were surprised, too, but you didn’t get angry.”
“No, but I pointed a loaded gun at you. That would make me a bit testy.”
“Stop being easy on me. I was a brat and I’m sorry.”
“You’ve always been a brat, but I like you, anyway.”
He’d said like as in the present tense. Could he really not hate her?
“I came to apologize to you,” he said. “I was rude.”
He made himself at home on her steps, crossing his ankles and leaning an elbow on the rough planks. A cell phone dangled at his hip instead of a weapon and a shiny badge glinted over his shirt pocket. He looked relaxed and comfy, a lot like the teenage boy she’d once known.
“Does that mean you’re willing to give me back my cabin?”
He made a noise, half chuckle, half scoff. “Nope. ’Fraid not.”
“That’s what I figured. Go away.” But she smiled when she said it.
“Can’t do that, either.” He removed the dark glasses and hung them on the edge of his shirt pocket while he studied her with a thoughtful gaze. “I really do want to apologize. I had no right to be rude to an old friend.”
“Apology accepted.”
“So does that mean we can be friends again?”
Friends? Could she be friends with a man whose presence brought back the most agonizing time in her life?
The memory rose between them, hovering like a red wasp waiting to sting. Did he feel it, too? Or was she the only one who still battled the guilt?
Maybe men weren’t affected in the same way a woman was. Maybe he’d moved on and forgotten. Maybe he’d never been filled with the same sense of guilt and shame.
And just maybe the time had come for her to stop thinking this way.
An expert at compartmentalizing, Kat pushed the thoughts down deep. She would always care about the boy she’d known in high school, but she wouldn’t open the painful Pandora’s box that had been their relationship.
Still she wanted to know how he’d been, if he’d been happy, if all his other dreams had come true.
“I heard you were divorced.” The thought, half-formed, had become words before she could think better of saying them.
He blanched, and some of his ease disappeared. He stared out at the serene lake, his face in profile, serious and rugged and maybe even a bit tragic.
Kat wished she’d kept her mouth shut. No one walked away from a divorce unscathed.
After a painful beat of silence in which Kat tried to think of a way to take back her unfortunate words, Seth released a gusty breath. “Two years later I’m still in shock.”
“Unfortunately, divorce happens.” All the time, from what she’d seen, but she felt bad that a broken home had happened to Seth. He’d suffered enough of that as a teenager.
“Not to me. I don’t believe in divorce. I hate it, hate even saying the words.”
So Susan had been right. “So I guess that means the split wasn’t your idea.”
“No.”
