Cara O'Shea's Return

Cara O’Shea’s Return

by

Mackenzie Crowne

For Leeta.
Because girlfriends are a gift from God.

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-One

Chapter Twenty-Two

Chapter Twenty-Three

Chapter Twenty-Four

A word about the author...

“The caterers will be here in twenty minutes, Charles. Stop twitching.”

Five-foot-six with thick black hair, sparkling hazel eyes, and a slim frame, Cara’s assistant would have been called petite, and pretty, if not for the well-developed musculature he worked on seven days a week.

“Easy for you to say.” He matched her long stride across the expanse of gleaming parquet flooring. “You’re out of here tomorrow. I, on the other hand, am left to deal with the wrath of Evan Malone. He’s not happy with you leaving.”

“He understands why I am.”

“Well, I wish someone would explain it to me. Podunk, Massachusetts.” His shoulders quivered in a dainty shudder.

“Palmerton.”

“Same thing.”

“You’re a frigging riot,
Chuck
. Didn’t Evan tell you not to harass the talent?”

“Talent?” He followed her across the gallery’s main room, a dubious frown on his face. He nodded his head in the direction of one of her oils, a bold splash of color and shape in the modern style. “A monkey could have painted that.”

Cara laughed as she always did when he made the comment. “Yeah, I know, it’s crap. Who knew I could splash a little paint on a canvas and get rich?”

His snicker was arrogant, but he sobered quickly. “What are you going to do in Palmerton? Palmerton, for heaven’s sake, not even Boston!”

“I’m going home.” A city creature down to his manicured nails, he’d never understand her desire to return to the small town where she grew up. “And to answer your question, I’m going to paint, of course, without the chaos of the city to distract me.”

“You’ll be stir crazy in a week.” He shook his head.

“Aw, are you going to miss me, Charles?” She stopped and turned, wrapping her arms around him and hugging him close. “I always knew you had a little bit of a crush on me.”

He pushed out of her embrace after returning it for several heartbeats. “A crush?” He glanced down his nose at her, which made her laugh considering he was half a foot shorter than she and had to look up to do it. “On a no-talent Amazon with a bad temper?” His snort was quick and concise. “You aren’t my type, honey.”

She grinned as they walked down the center of the atrium. To tell the truth, she supposed she’d miss New York, or more precisely, the gallery and the friends she had made here, but her self-imposed exile had gone on far too long. Her recent success allowed her to work anywhere, and she wanted to go home.

“The second bar goes here.” She waved a narrow hand at the space outside the door to one of the lounges.

He nodded, making a notation on his list. “So, have you told your family you’re moving back yet?”

She stiffened, then immediately rolled her shoulders in an effort to relax. Seeing her father again would be difficult, but she had no illusions she would be able to avoid him for long. In a town the size of Palmerton, they were bound to run into one another. Erin’s wedding next week made the possibility of a meeting, sooner rather than later, inevitable.

“I told my sisters last week. Erin was thrilled I’ll be back in time to be fitted for my bridesmaid dress and Shan promised to contact a Realtor friend to line up a few possible locations for my new studio.”

“Now that you’re a famous artist, Podunk will probably throw a parade to welcome back their most famous citizen.”

She headed back toward her office, and he scurried to keep up with her long strides. “Actually, they’ve already done that.”

“What?” He halted just inside her office door, wearing an affronted scowl at not having been informed of an event he would have crowed over. “They threw you a parade and you didn’t tell us?”

“They threw a parade to welcome home the town’s most famous citizen a couple of years ago. I missed it, so I can’t give you any of the juicy details.”

She slipped into the chair behind her desk, trying not to laugh at the disappointed frown on her assistant’s face. She was going to miss Charles. The man gossiped like a fishwife, and hated when she didn’t cooperate.

He propped a hip on the corner of her desk, swinging one leg casually. “You’ve been the talk of the art world since your first exhibit six months ago. Who from Podunk could be more famous than you?”

Finn the Fine
.

The name she and her friend Meggy had given Palmerton’s famous football hero when they were girls echoed in her head. She mentally shook the memory clear.

“Michael Finnegan.”

Charles’ face morphed from curiosity to incredulity.

“
The
Michael Finnegan?”

She grimaced.

“Fabulous Finn is from Podunk?”

“Palmerton.”

“Whatever.” He waved his hand dismissively. “Do you actually know him?” His eyes gleamed with interest and she saw a lengthy inquisition coming on.

“The caterers will be here in…” She checked her watch. “Ten minutes.”

“Oh, please. You know I’ll just keep at you until you tell me all there is to know about that delicious man.”

“That’s all there is to know.” She slipped a stack of papers into the top drawer of her desk. “I don’t know him. Not really. We just grew up in the same town.”

“He’s gorgeous.” His smile grew wistful. He leaned toward her. “What’s he like?”

She laughed. “He’s not your type, Charles.”

His wistful smile turned snide. “If you don’t know him, how do you know he’s not my type?”

An image of Finn, his laser blue eyes full of dark male awareness flashed through her mind, followed by the memory of his smiling face as he sat having dinner with a stunning blonde, who wasn’t his wife.

Cara hadn’t been the least bit surprised to read in the paper a month after that chance encounter, that Mrs. Finnegan had filed for divorce. And following that article had come others, hundreds of others. A week didn’t pass without a picture or an article detailing Finn’s latest romantic conquest. The well-watched portico of his Beacon Hill penthouse had become famous through the photographs of the parade of young lovelies swinging through the revolving door of his exclusive address. Since his retirement from pro ball four years ago, his status as a stud had been splashed across the covers of both sports and entertainment publications on a regular basis.

When it came to women, Finn was as fickle as a kid in a candy store.

“Have you picked up a magazine lately?”

“You can’t trust what’s on those rags. They project an image, but rarely the truth.”

Plucking a rose from the arrangement on the corner of her desk, she brushed its soft petals against the curve of her cheek.

“Take my word for it, Charles. I’ve seen your type and…” He raised his perfect eyebrows and waited. She did her best to shove the conversation in a different direction. “Come to think of it, yours looks a lot like mine.”

The gambit worked.

“Honey, my type wouldn’t give you a second look. And how would you even know what yours is when you never actually associate with men?”

The rose stilled against her cheek. “I associate with men all the time.”

“That’s business. Brushing off the hunks that are always hitting on you isn’t the same as socializing.”

An unladylike snort was her only response.

“When was the last time you had a date?”

“What are you, my mother?” It was an old argument. He’d been worrying about her love life, or lack thereof, since the day Evan hired him. “Maybe I just don’t like men.”

“Oh, you like men, honey. They just scare the crap out of you, and so far none of them have been brave enough to get close enough to change that. But mark my words.” His wagging finger accompanied his prediction. “One of these days, some big, strong brute is going to ignore that no trespassing sign you wear on your sleeve and grab hold of that luscious body, and then you’ll realize...”

“Showtime.” Spotting Evan Malone walking through the front doors, she rose to her feet. Charles narrowed his eyes, but jumped from her desk to go meet the gallery owner.

She sighed, relieved she had managed to steer the conversation away from Michael Finnegan, and that Charles still hadn’t picked up a single vibe from the one and only time she
had
put away that no trespassing sign.

She smiled across the studio’s large foyer at the man who had become a friend as well as one time lover. Evan had been there to help her sort through the pieces of her shattered life. She knew he was disappointed in her decision to leave New York, but while his friendship meant the world to her, it was time to go home.

Not much changed in Palmerton, Massachusetts. After eight years, the tiny suburb, north of Boston, maintained its small town feel. The town hall bustled with activity, the Blue Bell Diner continued as headquarters for the local gossip mill, and standing in front of Maive Cataldo’s house still made Cara want to run like hell.

And yet, the cozy, craftsman style home didn’t have the sinister aura she remembered from childhood. Brightly colored geraniums lined the brick walkway and a wooden swing hung from the branch of the scraggly old apple tree Cara once climbed on a dare.

She double checked the stenciled numbers beside the front door. One-fifty-one. She was at the right address, but couldn’t picture the cantankerous Mrs. Cataldo whiling away a summer afternoon on a wood and rope swing.