AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Her mother had said it easily, almost casually. She remembered the chill that had filled her, and enabled her to ask coldly, “Why didn’t you just get an abortion?”
For the first time her mother had looked uncomfortable. “Your father and I reached…an agreement. I didn’t abort, and he would take care of us both, no questions asked.”
That was the first time she’d realized the full extent of her mother’s mercenary instinct.
“Why are you being so honest about it?” she’d asked, surprised at the candid answer.
She had flicked a hand in that careless way she had. “Part of the agreement was to never tell you about it. But that doesn’t apply anymore, since he broke his end and died, leaving me to deal with you.”
That had been as close as she’d ever come in her life to assault. “He didn’t just die, you murdered him!” She’d shouted it with all the rage she’d carried into her teenage years. “You’re a drunken waste, and I hate you!”
“And you ruined my life! I’ll be glad when I’m legally done with you.”
The too vivid memory hit hard. Kaitlyn erupted out of the bed, back to a pacing of the floor that was beyond restless and halfway to frenzied. She knew how worked up she was when that hideous scene came back to her in all its painful clarity. Most of the time she was able to keep it buried. Deep.
She turned on her heel when she ran out of floor space near the door. In the spinning process she brushed the table and something slipped to the floor.
The jacket. She bent and picked it up, meaning to put it back on the chair where he’d left it, accidentally she was sure. Because he’d been so angry with her. Rightfully so, after the way she’d insulted him when all he’d done was take the thing off because it was so warm in here.
But suddenly she was clutching it in both hands, lifting the shearling to her face, breathing in the clean, sage-like scent she associated with him. Something fell, hitting the small table beside the chair. It sounded like a book, papery, but with an edge. When she looked she saw it was the small spiral-bound sketchpad she’d seen him with before. Before she thought, driven by a need she couldn’t even name, she was reaching for it, flipping back the bright orange cover.
Her breath caught when she saw the image on the first page. A pencil drawing, done in the same sure way his other work was done, a minimum of lines portraying a maximum of detail. But that she would have expected. What she hadn’t expected was that the drawing wasn’t of some symbol or natural element for one of his projects. It was of people. Two people.
Nick. And her.
It was a moment when, as she sat beside his bed, she’d reached out to touch Nick’s hand in the same instant he’d done the same, and they’d ended up clasped together. They had both smiled, pleased that they had shared the need for contact. It wasn’t the warm, engulfing hug Nick usually gave her, but it was the best they could do until he was up and around again.
She stared, her breathing shallow as she saw what Ry had captured. Two people who treasured each other. Nick was her father in all but blood, the closest thing she had to one now, anyway. And she knew he looked upon her as the daughter he’d never had. Which was sad, because he would have made a wonderful parent to a big, sprawling brood. The kind of parent Maggie Rafferty was, producing amazing adults the world needed more of. And somehow, in a small pencil sketch, Ry had captured all that and more.
I’m no artist.
His insistence seemed foolish in the face of this obvious, concrete proof to the contrary. So why did he insist, why did he cling so hard to that “craftsman” title and reject this amazing talent?
She thought she knew. Because there was only one reason that made sense to her. She wondered if he even realized it himself.
She stared down at the sketch, wondering if he would give it to her if she asked. She would love to have it and would treasure it like few other possessions she had. At the very least Nick had to see it. She knew he would see what she saw in it, and it would mean as much to him.
But then she remembered how furious Ry was with her. He wouldn’t give her the free bar of soap from the hotel bathroom. But maybe he would give it to Nick, and she could get a copy of it. That would do.
She toyed with the page. She could just tear it out of the sketchbook right now, without asking. He was already so mad at her, what was one more offense? But she knew she wouldn’t. This was something personal for him, and as angry as he was, she didn’t want to make it worse.
You’ve still got a job to finish.
Her effort at cool calculation failed completely. Which told her she’d made yet another in her long string of mistakes; she’d gone and fallen for not only the subject of a job, but an utterly unattainable man.
She started to pull her hand back, to let go of the page with the drawing. But she saw another penciled line on the page beneath it, and she couldn’t stop herself from looking.
She gasped aloud. Because this drawing was her. And yet it was not her. The woman in the image had her features, was recognizable as her and yet…not. Because this woman was lovely. Something about the angle of her head, the smile curving her lips, the big, luminous eyes, resulted in something far more attractive than she would ever be in reality.
She didn’t know what to think. He couldn’t really see her this way. He probably was just using her as a basis, to draw what a genuinely beautiful woman would look like.
That slowed her racing heartbeat a little. It had been an…exercise, that’s all. Take a basic, ordinary person and make them look wonderful. The same kind of thing she sometimes did with angles and lighting. That’s all it was.
And now that she had that figured out, she could breathe normally again. Because the idea that Rylan Rafferty actually saw her this way was probably the most harebrained thought she’d ever had.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Ry stopped whenshe put a hand on his arm just as they reached the hospital elevators. She hadn’t said more than ten words this morning, and that was fine with him. Until they were alone together on the way back to Last Stand. Then that discussion was going to happen, when both of them were trapped in the cab of his truck.
