would just blow over. “Everybody thought I was so awful to you, you couldn’t even stand to be in the same town with me.”
Joe decided it sounded remotely plausible and potentially highly guilt-inducing on her part.
Enough to make her come back?
He hoped so.
Joe figured once he got her back, it was up to Jax and his sisters to keep her there. They hadn’t said anything about him having to keep her there, just to get her there.
“But everyone in town loves you,” Kathie said.
“Not anymore.” He tried to look devastated by that, even if he was more mad than anything else.
Was it working?
“But it wasn’t your fault. It was my fault. All of it!”
It wasn’t. He knew it wasn’t. He’d kissed her. More than once. While he was engaged to her sister, someone she loved and he loved, too.
But if Kathie thought it was her fault, then she’d think it was up to her to fix it, and she couldn’t do that from here. She could only do that from Magnolia Falls.
Jax would kill him if he ever found out what Joe said and Joe might dislike himself a little bit more for saying it, but he was with Jax and her family on this—she needed to come home. It was where she belonged, where everyone she loved and who loved her was, and that wasn’t something to walk away from in this world. Life was hard enough without people on your side.
“Hey, don’t worry about it,” he said, still trying to look devastated. “People will get over it. I’m sure of it. And it’s not like the bank’s business is suffering or anything because of it. Not really—”
“It’s hurting the bank’s business?” she asked.
“Did I say that? No. Not really.”
“Yes, you did. It must be.”
He shrugged. “We’ll be fine. Don’t worry about it. Some new scandal will hit town, and everybody will forget about how awful I was to you and Kate.”
Kate.
That gave him another idea.
He knew she loved her sister.
“And I don’t think anyone really believes Kate’s so mad at you that she can’t forgive you,” he added on a whim. “Or that silly rumor about her ordering you to leave town and never come back!”
“They think she threw me out of town?”
“No. I don’t think anyone really believes that. They know Kate. They know she’d never do that. The idea that she had you stand up for her at the wedding, so she wouldn’t look so bad, and then turned around right afterward and ran you out of town…that’s just silly. Forget I even said it.”
Kathie looked horrified. “I never thought of them blaming you and Kate.”
“And don’t think of it now. Really. We’re fine. We’ll weather this. It’ll just take some time.”
“It’s not right,” Kathie insisted.
“It’s fine,” he said again.
“No, it’s not. And I can’t let this happen. I have to do something.”
“Well…if you really want to help—”
“What? Tell me what to do?”
“I think if you came back for the summer and saw Kate, it would show everyone that those silly things people are saying about Kate not forgiving you and running you out of town…that would be over. Everyone would know it wasn’t true.”
“Yes, they would.” Kathie squared her shoulders, looking determined and very, very sad. “And you. I can’t have them thinking you’re to blame for all of this. I’ll have to spend some time with Kate, and then I’ll have to spend some time with you.”
No, no, no, Joe thought.
Not him.
Not him and her.
No.
That was not part of the plan.
“I’m fine,” he insisted.
“No, I have to make this right. They think you…that you and I…while you were engaged to Kate?” She couldn’t even say it. “And then when she found out about us, you dumped me?”
Joe nodded, thinking this was bad. It was going to be so bad.
“No wonder they hate you,” she said, then looked dismayed. “Joe, we have to convince them that you didn’t dump me.”
“No, we don’t.”
“Yes, we do. I could just tell them I dumped you. I could just tell Melanie Mann, that girl Kate went to school with, the one who was spreading all the rumors about Kate last fall. She’d tell the whole town in no time. That’s it. I’ll tell Melanie I dumped you.”
“Okay,” Joe said, thinking it was time to say goodbye to his teeth. Jax would despise any plan that involved making Kathie look bad, and he wouldn’t take it sitting down.
How bad would it be living on little cans of Ensure, the thing old people drank, because they could suck it up through a straw, no teeth needed? He had a second cousin who broke nearly every bone in his face in a car accident and lived on Ensure for months. He’d made it. Surely Joe could, too.
“And if that doesn’t work, we’ll just have to be seen together again,” Kathie said, looking as miserable about the idea as Joe was.
Just shoot me now, Joe thought.
He’d made a fool of himself over her.
A complete fool.
Undone years of careful, respectable living, all in a few stolen moments with her.
“Yeah, that’s what we’ll do,” Kathie said. “We’ll…you know…be seen together, like we are together, just a few times, and a few weeks later, I’ll dump you. I’ll just say I’m done with you, and you can claim you’re heartbroken, and everyone will feel sorry for you and be nice to you again.”
Joe groaned.
Oh, hell.
Jax had said to get her back home.
And it sounded like Joe had convinced her to come back.
So why was he certain things were about to get worse instead of better?
Maybe he’d break his own jaw, just to save time.
Chapter Two
Kathie threw her things into two suitcases
