one in this dried-up, windblown West Texas town had realized Katy and Nate were kindred spirits, even if they had been raised on opposite sides of the tracks. But Katy knew, remembered with vivid clarity, the kind of connection she’d felt to Nate. While he struggled to overcome his bad reputation and bad breeding, Katy had struggled for her independence. Nate fought back the way she’d wanted to when her father handed down his unreasonable dictates.
The night Nate was hauled off in the sheriff’s squad car, ridiculed and scorned by the citizens of this rural town, Katy had stopped believing that standing up for herself and battling her father’s high-handed decrees were worth the effort and frustration.
When Nate Channing left town he took the sunshine from Katy’s life, and she plunged into endless nightmares. Those nightmares still ruled and dictated her life.
Willfully, Katy battled for composure as she polished off her coffee, then left a tip for her lunch. She felt the desperate need to scurry from the café and take refuge in her private sanctuary before Nate Channing showed up. She couldn’t bear to have him see what had become of her after all these years. She was a shriveled mass of emotional and physical scars. Discovering what her father had done to Nate had been her unending torment. The life the dictatorial, judgmental Judge Dave Bates had imposed on Katy was nearly unbearable, but what he did to Nate was unforgivable!
Although Katy wanted to bolt to her feet and counter each one of Lester’s snide insults, to defend Nate’s honor, she had been taught the importance of not calling attention to herself, not arguing or debating, for fear of the painful consequences. A riptide of emotion bombarded Katy as she came to her feet.
With head downcast, Katy skulked toward the exit, trying to ignore the hidebound old fools who were verbally crucifying Nate Channing. She just wanted to scurry back to her office at the library and shut herself off from the world the way she usually did….
“Katy…? Kat?”
Oh, God, no! Kate froze in her tracks when his voice, like rich velvet, rolled over her. Katy reflexively shrank deeper into herself, feeling the spotlight of attention beam down on her. All conversation in the café died a quick death. Heads turned in synchronized rhythm to gape at the tall, darkly handsome man who blocked Katy’s escape route.
“Katy Bates?” he murmured. “It is you, isn’t it?”
Katy Bates was dead. Katy Bates-Butler merely existed, a fuzzy shadow of herself, one so thoroughly crushed by her nightmarish past that she had become an unperson. Lord, she would have given anything for Nate not to see her like this. Ah, if only he could have remembered her as she had once been, not as she was now!
“Remember me, Katy?”
As if she could ever forget!
It was only that gentle, caressing tone of voice that whispered from the distant past that gave her the will to look up, meet those cocoa-brown eyes and drink in the sight of olive skin and high cheekbones that denoted a mixture of Native American, Spanish and white heritage.
Mercy, he was breathtakingly attractive. He had matured magnificently, and he looked better than any man had the right to look. The tall, thin boy she remembered from the past now possessed a well-defined, athletic build. There was a dynamic aura of power and strength radiating around him. He had traded his hand-me-down clothes for an expensive three-piece suit, Italian loafers and gold Rolex watch. His lustrous black hair boasted a stylish cut that accentuated his rugged features. Everything about Nate Channing shouted wealth, prestige and success.
Wow! Could he possibly look any better?
Damn, could she possibly look any worse?
Katy stood there like a tongue-tied doofus, wearing her drab green feed-sack dress that drooped past her knees and effectively downplayed her femininity. Her mousy blond hair was shoved back in a severe knot at the nape of her neck, and several flyaway strands fell around her face. She only wore enough makeup to conceal the half-moon scar under her chin. In comparison, she resembled a lowly peasant eclipsed by a magnificent Roman god.
With all her heart—or rather what was left of it—Katy wished a hole would open beneath her feet so she could drop out of sight.
“Katy…”
She died a thousand times when his gaze flooded over her, taking in her flagpole figure and unflattering clothes. She knew what he was thinking, could almost hear him thinking it. He was thinking the same thing her deceased husband had voiced a trillion times, right to her face.
You’re an unperson with no brains and no body. You’re just a scrawny, homely nothing who takes up breathing space.
The hateful words tumbled over her, and Katy’s shoulders slumped another notch as her gaze plunged to the floor. Her husband and father had humiliated her countless times, and she had endured, but having Nate see her like this cut all the way to her shattered soul.
Nate stood in the doorway, stunned clean to the bone, watching in astonishment as Katy zipped around him and limped away. Seeing her had been no small shock, because she was a startling contrast to the mental picture he had carried around with him for years.
My God, what in the hell had happened to Katy? He remembered her as the essence of spirit and beauty. He had lived for her dimpled smiles and ringing laughter. Now she refused to meet his gaze for more than five seconds before scuttling out the door, as if the hounds of hell were nipping at her heels. He had expected a rude reception from everyone else in Coyote Flats.
But not from Katy Bates.
“Well, well,” Lester Brown mocked sarcastically. “Who are you supposed to be? The new drug lord in town, what with all your fancy duds and expensive car? You think that will impress us? Think again, No-Account Nate.”
Very slowly, very deliberately, Nate pivoted on well-shod heels to confront the unsympathetic jury of citizens who had condemned him years earlier—and still condemned him now. A dozen disparaging glares horned in on him like laser beams, not the least insulting of which was Lester Brown’s.
Nate made quick note of Lester’s rotund physique, doughy face, full jowls and that protruding lower lip that gave the man the appearance that he was perpetually pouting. Lester looked just as Nate remembered him, though age and additional weight had not been particularly kind to him.
Nate could understand why Lester held a grudge. His son had been one of Nate’s running buddies in the old days. When Nate had been arrested, Sonny Brown had been in the car with him. Lester had no intention whatsoever of forgiving Nate for soiling his son’s reputation, refused to believe that it wasn’t Nate’s influence that had been Sonny’s downfall.
Sonny hadn’t needed an ounce of help to stray from the straight and narrow. All by himself, he had dreamed up the trouble that Nate hadn’t even contemplated when he was a teenager. The kid had been every bit as worthless as his old man, as Nate recalled. And a weasely coward to boot.
Although Lester wouldn’t admit it, not in a million years, he was responsible for the way his son had turned out. But that admission would force Lester to accept blame for all his shortcomings as a man, as a father. It was never going to happen because Lester couldn’t see over, around or through his inflated ego.
Squelching his bitterness and resentment, Nate nodded at the burly farmer who was sprawled carelessly in the front booth. “Hello, Lester, nice to see you again.” Head held high, Nate ambled toward the counter to order a Coke.
