Mr Destiny (20 page)

“Well, yes. Tony offered to bring me back to the city, but…”

“But you refused, of course,” Alex said. “Just like you didn't tell him you had called off the wedding. My God, Kate, can
you honestly stand there and say you don't realize how far this guy is going out on a limb for you?”

Kate didn't answer.

Alex held her hand out. “Give me your cell phone.”

Kate didn't budge.

“I mean it,” Alex vowed. “This is one time I'm not going to let you analyze the situation to death.” She took a step forward
and pried the phone out of Kate's hand. “Any guy who's willing to buy you a wedding dress just to let you know he's interested,
deserves a phone call. You're going to call Tony, and you're going to call him
now.
“

“Just get his number,” Kate said, grabbing a pen from the coffee table. “Don't do that automatic dial thing, Alex, and I mean
it. I need a few minutes to figure out what I'm going to say to him.”

“Queens,” Alex said. “Anthony Petrocelli.” She ignored the pen Kate was holding out and punched a number instead. “Here,”
she said, holding out the phone.

“Dammit, Alex, I said
don't
do that automatic dial thing!” She grabbed the phone away from Alex anyway and put it to her ear.

“This is Tony.”

The sound of his voice startled her.

“Tony?”

“I'm at my cabin on Hunter Mountain for a week,” the message said. “I'll check my messages, so leave your number, and I'll
call you back.”

Kate closed her phone and tossed it on the sofa.

Alex frowned.

Kate frowned right back.

“You had me so rattled, I was talking to his damn voice mail,” Kate said. “Tony isn't home. He's at his cabin on Hunter Mountain
for a week.”

She left out the “I'll check my messages” part.

“Tony has a cabin on Hunter Mountain?” Alex seemed impressed. “John and I go skiing there every winter. I've never been there
in the summer.”

“Well, Tony
is
there,” Kate said. “For a week. I'll call him when he gets back. Satisfied?”

Alex got a sudden gleam in her eye. “You can't pass up an opportunity like this one, Kate. A mountain cabin? The two of you
snuggled together in front of a roaring fire? What could be more perfect than that?”

Kate glanced at the window where her air conditioner was struggling to belch out a few puffs of cool air. “We already have
a roaring fire, Alex, right outside in this ninety-plus-degree weather.”

“That's here in the concrete jungle,” Alex argued. “In the Catskills it gets chilly enough for a fire at night, even in the
summer.”

“You said you'd never been there in summer,” Eve said.

Kate threw her hands up in the air. “Would someone please tell me why we're even having this conversation? If I were stupid
enough to go find Tony, which I'm
not
, a cabin in the Catskills isn't actually an address you could locate, now is it?”

Alex looked in her direction. “I'm sure Tony has a cell phone.”

“And thank God there isn't an information number to call for cell phones,” Kate said, “or you'd already have me packing my
bags while you phoned Tony for directions to the cabin.”

Alex smiled.

Kate didn't.

They both lunged for her cell phone at the same time.

Alex was quicker. “And the name of his parents' restaurant in Queens would be?”

Kate's smile was a smirk. “Sorry. I'm afraid the name of that restaurant has totally slipped my mind.”

“Wasn't it Mama Gina's?”

“Eve!”

“What?”

“Queens,” Alex said into the phone with a smirk of her own. “Mama Gina's Italian Restaurant.”

Kate drove out of the city Sunday morning, trying to decide what
wasn't
wrong with this picture. In addition to happily giving out Tony's cell phone number, Mama Gina had been more accurate than
a global positioning system—after Alex had grabbed the phone away from her and boldly asked Tony's mother for directions to
the cabin.

“Just in case,” Alex had said, “that Tony's cell phone couldn't pick up a signal in the mountains.”

Can you hear me now?

Evidently not.

She'd called his cell phone repeatedly. She'd also called his home number back and left a message to call her—regardless of
the hour. She'd even slept with her freaking cell phone right there on her pillow.

Still, no word from Tony.

She knew it was irrational, but once she'd decided for herself that she wanted to talk to Tony—and couldn't—it had become
an obsession with her. That calm, completely mature, totally rational adult she'd worked so diligently to become since her
I'm-all-grown-up-now thirtieth birthday flew right out the window.

When Tony still hadn't called by nine o'clock that morning, Kate packed a bag—just in case he
did
pick up the signal she was going to give him when she arrived at the cabin. She gave Eve strict instructions not to tell
anyone where she was. She called Alex and gave her the same lecture. Then she marched out of her apartment, out of the building,
and hailed a cab to the nearest car rental agency.

A bright red SUV was what she rented.

It seemed like the type of vehicle to rent if you were headed to the mountains.

She was headed north on the New York State Thruway— Mama Gina's handy-dandy instructions within close reach—on a two-hour
trip that Kate hoped had the potential to turn into a journey that would last the rest of her life.

Be beautiful.

How could any woman resist a guy like that?

Better yet, why would any woman want to?

Kate flipped her cell phone open and used her thumb to punch in the number she didn't have to scroll down her phone list to
find—this number was already permanently stored in her memory. Unfortunately, the computerized voice told her the same thing
it had been telling her for the last eighteen hours—the customer she was trying to reach was not available at that time.

She tossed the phone on the passenger's seat and picked up speed.

She'd been boldly going nowhere her entire life.

But not today.

Today, Kate had a date with destiny.

She intended to keep that date and see what destiny had to offer her.

If society only realized how therapeutic pounding the hell out of a board with a hammer could be—not to mention how cheap—there
would be a lot of wealthy psychologists out of a job. Tony thought this as he hammered another nail—bam, bam, bam—deep into
the wooden plank on the dock.

Man, but he did feel good this morning.

The second he'd chucked the phone into oblivion, it was as if the weight of the world had been lifted off his shoulders. His
mind cleared. His stomach stopped churning. He immediately started feeling like his old self again.

He'd gone to work then and managed to strip every bit of the bad lumber off the dock by nightfall. After he finished stripping
the dock, he'd tossed a mammoth steak on the grill, downed a few cold beers, and worked the Kate-induced knots of tension
out of his shoulders with a long hot soak in the Jacuzzi on the deck.

When he finally hit the sack, he'd slept like a baby.

Something he hadn't been doing lately.

Truthfully, he hadn't been sleeping well since the day he came riding up the path in Central Park and saw…

Hell, no!

Jumping back on the train to Dumbassville wasn't even an option.

Been there.

Done that.

Learned a very valuable lesson.

What he was going to do was finish up the dock. He was going to take a nice dip in the lake to cool off. Then he was going
to spend the rest of the day sitting on the deck with his feet propped up, the way every man
should
do when he was away on vacation.

Later, maybe he would clean up and run into town. Maybe call the restaurant and check on the family now that they had no way
to contact him. Turning his cell phone into fish food wasn't the smartest thing he'd ever done, but it sure had been therapeutic.

No, skip going into town.

When he thought about it, going into town was not a great idea. Not if he wanted to go back home to Queens with his head on
straight. The best thing he could do was isolate himself in blonde-detox for the rest of his vacation. Contact with a telephone
might weaken his resolve and land him right back in the sad shape he'd been in when he first arrived at the cabin.

Besides, his family knew where he was.

If they really needed to get in touch with him badly enough, all it would take was a quick call to the local police. His good
buddy Joe down at the station would run up and give him the message. His loving mother, bless her overprotective heart, knew
that from experience.

That's how he'd gotten to be such good friends with Joe.

Tony picked up another plank, took a nail out of his mouth, and reached for his hammer.

Bam. Bam. Bam.

Bam. Bam. Bam.

Man, it was amazing how much better he felt since he'd finally accepted the fact that a certain green-eyed blonde was
not
going to be his destiny.

E
ven though Kate made regular weekend trips out of the city with Harold, she had never really relaxed in Bridge-hampton. She
realized that as she took the exit for Hunter Mountain.

Weekends in the Hamptons really weren't any different from life in the city. Busy people. Busy lives. Always the pressure
to be seen at the most popular places, with all the most popular people. Everyone making sure those important connections
that could be made only outside the office were being made. Everyone making sure no golden opportunities were ever missed
over something as silly as spending quality time with their spouses or their families.

The only time she'd truly enjoyed herself was when Harold was off doing whatever Harold was doing, and she and Margaret were
left alone. Then she'd find herself relaxing a little, and enjoying the company of one fine lady—even if Margaret did have
a son who'd turned out to be a first-class ass.

She'd always felt as if she and Margaret were kindred spirits of sorts—smiling graciously on the outside yet struggling on
the inside with exactly where they fit into a crazy mixed-up world. Margaret had even told her once that as much as she loved
her son, she wanted Kate to be happy.

“My son is a lot like his father was,” she'd said. “Harold has his own definition of what makes people happy, Kate. Make sure
his vision is one you can live with.”

Poor Margaret.

She should have asked Margaret point-blank what she really meant when she'd made that remark. She should have been a true
friend to her. She should have given Margaret the opportunity to open up and say whatever she was trying to say—maybe even
what she
needed
to say to someone she thought might understand.

But she hadn't done any of those things.

They'd both let the opportunity pass, both of them too cautious to step outside the boundaries of polite conversation.

Polite conversation.