her tea bag in and out of her cup. “Do I know him or what?”
“Adora...” Cat began, and didn’t know how to go on.
“What?”
Cat thought of the reckless, troubled Dillon McKenna who had left town sixteen years ago. And of the self-possessed, disturbingly compelling man she’d met that afternoon.
“What?” Adora demanded. “Talk to me. What?”
Cat spoke carefully. “Well, people change, that’s all. You were kids when he left here, both of you, barely eighteen. You’ve each...done a lot of living since then.”
Adora’s soft chin was set. “I know him. He was my first love. A woman knows. What else did you talk about? What happened? Tell me every bit of it.”
Cat looked at her sister and wondered if there was any way to terminate this uncomfortable conversation.
“Talk,” Adora prompted.
“There really isn’t that much to tell,” Cat answered, feeling guilty, though there was no reason to. Nothing had happened. Dillon McKenna had offered her a beer. She’d accepted. They’d talked of mundane things.
Adora was blissfully ignorant of Cat’s uneasiness. She bounced in her chair some more. “Tell me anyway. Every little dinky word he said.”
Seeing no way around it, Cat quickly described her encounter with Dillon, leaving out only those stunning few moments when he’d held on to her arm. When Cat was finished, Adora sat back in her chair and took a sip of her tea. “Well. That sounds good. Very good.”
“Adora, it was an exchange of information, nothing more.”
“To you, maybe.”
“Adora...”
“It was the part where he asked if I was doing well, that was the key, see?”
“No, I don’t.”
“You told him how I was, and then he asked again. He’s anticipating. Just like I am. Wondering what it will be like when at last we meet once more.” Adora’s chair scraped the old linoleum floor as she stood. “I’m going to go to his house and welcome him home. Right now.”
“Adora, maybe you ought to just—”
“I’m going.” Adora’s chin was set in that way it used to get when she was little and their mother told her she couldn’t do something she wanted to do.
Cat reminded herself that Adora was a grown woman. If she wanted to go and pay a visit to an old boyfriend, that was Adora’s business and nobody else’s.
Cat forced a smile. “Suit yourself.”
“I will. I most definitely will.” Adora scooped up her coat from the back of the chair and shoved her arms into it. Cheeks flushed and eyes aglow, she headed for the door.
* * *
The next day was Saturday. Cat’s phone rang at nine. Positive it would be Adora with all the details of her re- union with Dillon, Cat let it ring three times before giving in and picking it up.
“Hello, Cat.” The deep, warm voice didn’t belong to her sister.
An exasperating shiver traveled up the backs of Cat’s legs, and then spread out to take over her whole body. She waited for it to fade a little before she spoke.
“Hello, Dillon.”
“Listen.” He sounded very offhand. “Since yesterday, I’ve had a little time to go over my situation here.”
His situation? What did that mean?
“And it looks as if I’m going to need someone to take care of a few things for me.”
“What things?” The two words were suspicion personified.
Cat thought she heard a chuckle, but perhaps it was only static on the line. “I need more firewood split, for starters. And I’ve bought a decent sound system, VCR and big-screen television. I understand you’re good with electronic equipment, so I was hoping you would set them up for me. I also ordered a satellite dish that will need to be hooked up. And there’s the exercise equipment for the gym downstairs. I was told the delivery crew would assemble it, but you never know. And I have a lot of books—I’d like some bookcases made. I’ve heard you do carpentry work.”
Cat didn’t answer. She was thinking that he’d certainly learned a lot about her abilities in the past twenty-four hours.
She was also thinking that he was offering her paying work. And Cat always needed paying work, especially in the winter months, when all the construction jobs were shut down. She was buying her small house and the five acres it sat on. It was a big investment for someone of her limited means.
But Dillon McKenna represented danger—to her peace of mind, if nothing else. Yesterday, he’d grabbed her arm for no reason and not let go until she’d ordered him to. She wanted to believe that was all that had happened.
But somehow, she didn’t believe it.
And then there was Adora, floating out the door yesterday with stars in her eyes....
“Cat?” Dillon prompted, cutting through her thoughts.
“Yes, yes, I’m thinking.” Cat cast about for some way to put him off. “Listen, I appreciate the offer, but I’m afraid you’ll have to speak with the real estate agency. I can’t just—”
“I’ve already taken care of that.”
“Excuse me?”
“I called the agency. They said it was fine with them if you and I wanted to work out our own personal relationship, now that I’ll be living here full-time.”
Our own personal relationship. Cat didn’t think she liked the sound of that at all.
“I’ll pay well.” He named an hourly figure. It was twice what she would have asked for most of the work he’d described.
Cat thought of her mortgage. She thought of the improvements she wanted to make to her house next summer: new insulation and double-paned windows that would significantly reduce her firewood consumption. Cat’s house wasn’t like Dillon’s. For her, there was no central propane heat to keep the place toasty. She counted on firewood to provide basic heating.
“Do you want to think about it for a day or two, and give me a call back?” He sounded completely relaxed about the whole thing.
And Cat decided she was being ridiculous. Nothing had happened between herself and Dillon McKenna. And nothing would happen. He was still recovering from major injuries and needed someone to help him get settled in. And she needed the money.
“No, there’s no need for me to think about it,” she said. “It sounds fine to me. When do I start?”
There was a millisecond of a pause.
