Prayer (5 page)

“But you don’t.”

Another shrug. “Theo’s invested, though. He sees the problem, but he thinks it’s the success getting to his head. He thinks he can mentor the guy out of being a shithead. I think the shithead was probably always in there. Trust me—he’s even worse with a smaller audience. Like Atticus concentrate.” She made a short, harsh bark of a laugh. “His name used to be Arthur, by the way. Anyway, he’s not here long. I can pretend.”

“Can you?” Carmen wasn’t good at fakery, even for the sake of politeness.

She smirked at him. “Well enough to stay out of trouble, yeah.”

They both glanced back at Calhoun, who had his arm around their sister-in-law, Sabina. Their brother Carlo, Sabina’s husband, looked less than pleased. Maybe Luca was right, and there would be a brawl. Carlo was almost as quick to throw a punch as Luca was. If Calhoun’s hand dangled much closer to Sabina’s chest, John was sure there would be violence.

Then Theo drew Calhoun’s attention to some new arrivals, and Sabina was freed.

Carmen sighed. “You know what? When you get yourself that refill, hook me up with a glass of red. A big one.”

John finished the last of his drink. “You got it.” He kissed his big sister’s cheek and crossed the room to the bar near the dining table.

Carmen had a caterer for the night, but they were making some kind of specialty drink, martinis or something, and the real booze was self-serve. There were several wine bottles arrayed across one half of the bar, but they were empty. John set his empty glass on the bar and headed toward the kitchen, where he was sure to find more wine.

Theo was a recovering alcoholic and didn’t drink, but Carmen did. Theo hated wine, so Carmen kept her own imbibing to that, and they didn’t keep real booze in the house, as a rule.

Between the dining room and the kitchen was a short hallway with a serving station on one side and a big walk-in pantry on the other that was the size of a small room. The door to the pantry was ajar, and John pulled it open and stepped quickly in, dodging one of the catering staff, who’d come into the little hallway with a tray laden with hors d’oeuvres.

It was where he’d wanted to be anyway; part of the pantry was a wine rack.

But he wasn’t alone. Katrynn stood against the back shelves, a jar of Castelvetrano olives in her hand. Her brown eyes were wide with shock, and John realized he’d trapped her, albeit unintentionally.

She really was pretty. Her long, honey-blonde hair, usually caught back in a ponytail, was loose and softly curled, and she wore a snug black dress with long sleeves and a turtleneck. Tall, low-heeled black boots hid her legs, but John knew they were fantastic, with slim ankles and sleek calves.

He’d never seen her in high heels. She was tall for a woman, about Carmen’s height of five-ten. Carmen didn’t really wear heels, either. In her case, she wasn’t much of a girlie-girl, period, but Katrynn sort of was. Not frilly, but put together. He wondered if she was self-conscious about her height. If so, she was misguided. Tall was hot.

That little book pendant lay on her chest. Condemning him.

“Hey,” he said, when his mind would form no word more substantive.

“Hey.”

Fate had dropped this moment on John’s head, and he wasn’t such a pussy he’d run from it. He took a step in her direction. “Can we talk?”

She backed up, bumping the shelves behind her. “I don’t know why.”

“I was an asshole.”

“Were you?” Her eyes darted over his shoulder, like she was trying to gauge her chances of ducking around him and escaping. She had the olives clutched in her fist like they might have had special defensive properties.

“I was, and I want to apologize for it.”

He wasn’t sure why, but that had been the wrong thing to say. Katrynn went still, and her eyes returned to his, hardened into stone. “So go ahead.”

Feeling like he walked through a minefield, he took another step toward her. “I really am sorry about—”

“—Okay. Feel better? Good for you.” She cut him off, then deked with the skill of a pro hockey player and got around him.

John had expected an awkward encounter, but he had not expected this. There was more he wanted to say—a fuller apology, at least. He turned and went after her, reaching for her arm. “Katrynn, hold up.”

He caught her just as she cleared the doorway, and at the touch of his hand, she yanked her arm back with such violence that she lost her grip on the jar of olives, and they crashed to the floor.

“Get your fucking hands off me!” she shouted.
Shouted
. If the explosion of glass and olives hadn’t drawn the attention of the party, that shout surely had. Sound left the whole first floor like somebody had opened a vent into space, and then Bev was standing on the kitchen side of the passageway, and Atticus Calhoun himself, man of the hour, was standing on the dining room side, with others, strangers and family alike, stacking up behind them both.

No way John was coming off as anything but the villain of this scene. He didn’t know what to do.

“There a problem here?” Calhoun asked. “Kitty, you okay?”

Kitty?
Kitty
? Calhoun called her
Kitty
? Since when? How? Why? Katrynn had told John once that she hated nicknames. She liked her name and wanted people to use it. Why was she letting this asshole call her Kitty?

John surprised himself with the power of his reaction to that. His right arm went stiff, and his fist clenched. He was about a breath away from punching the asshole writer right in his spray-tanned face.

Luca was the one who fought first, asked later. Carlo, too. John didn’t normally get this stirred up unless his family was being threatened in some way. He saw Bev and Katrynn both notice his posture, and he made himself relax.

Katrynn nodded in response to Calhoun’s overly possessive question. “I’m fine. Just a misunderstanding. I’ll just get this cleaned up.”

She turned toward the kitchen, but Bev stopped her. “Don’t worry about it. Carmen’s got one of the caterers already on it. You sure you’re okay?” Bev asked Katrynn the question, then sent John a probing, curious look.

“I’m sorry,” he said again, knowing that it made him appear even more guilty than he actually was, but not knowing anything else to do.

Calhoun held out his hand. “Come on, Kitty.” When Katrynn took his hand and let him lead her out of the hallway, he glared at John, and John’s fist clenched again. That look had been smug as fuck.

How had
he
managed to be the biggest asshole when Atticus Calhoun was in the building?

With the hallway clear of everything but the mess of olives, John left the pantry doorway and stepped into the kitchen. Where he came face to face with Nick, his cousin, and the don of the Pagano Brothers.

Nick did not look pleased. He and Bev were close with Katrynn. “You want to tell me what that was about?”

No, he really did not. “Like Katrynn said—a misunderstanding.”

Nick’s eyes went icy and sharp. Carmen stood with Bev, at a short distance away, but the women were content to let Nick handle whatever they thought needed handling. Great. Sure, let the mafia boss handle the problem.

John knew he was digging a bigger hole than he deserved to be buried in. He’d been an asshole, yes. But this scene tonight was playing like he’d attacked her in the pantry, and Katrynn didn’t seem inclined to disabuse anyone of that notion—and he wasn’t doing himself any favors, either.

But fuck! He’d wanted to
make amends
. He’d been trying to repair the damage he’d done. He resented the hell out of being in this position now, trying to explain away something he hadn’t even done.

When he didn’t say more, Nick’s hand dropped onto his shoulder. “Tell me.”

John sighed. “It’s complicated.” But it wasn’t. Not really. Shitty, but simple.

“Then you better get started. Now.”

~ 2 ~

The cats stood up against the cabinets, one on either side of her, reaching up toward the counter and yowling as if she hadn’t fed them in days.

“Hush, you two. You’ll wake our guest,” Katrynn scolded, chuckling, and set the empty can of food aside. When she put their bowls on the floor, she grabbed George so that Lennie could start first. If she didn’t give him a head start, then George would hog both bowls and Lennie would sit there and let him, crying pitiably while his brother gorged on Seafarer’s Delight.

While the boys ate, Katrynn tidied up her kitchen. It didn’t need it—once she’d rinsed out the cat food tin and dropped it in the recycling, stuck the fork in the dishwasher, and washed her hands, the room was clean—but she needed to keep herself busy and her mind engaged on something. So she washed the countertops and refolded the dish towel, then got some coffee started and decided that she would throw some breakfast together.

She wasn’t much of a cook. She didn’t enjoy it, and she mainly prepared meals for one, so there wasn’t really a point to getting better. But she could make eggs several different ways, and for toast, she had some good, fresh sourdough bread from Corti’s Market.

Focus on breakfast and not on how she had to stop fucking up her personal life.

Nope, nope, nope. Not thinking about that. Not while the latest fuckup was sleeping in her bed. Nope. Nope. Nope.

Of course, she hadn’t realized that she was fucking up her personal life yet again last night, when she’d let him take her home, and then let him come in, and then let him stay. She hadn’t figured that out until it was too late.

Or maybe it hadn’t been too late, and she should have done something to stop it.

Or maybe it wasn’t fucked up, and she was thinking about it wrong.

This was always her problem. She couldn’t figure out whether he was wrong, or she was wrong, or they were wrong. She only knew she didn’t like it. But she thought she might like him.

Katrynn was bent over, digging in a low cupboard for her seldom-used bigger skillet, when she felt Atticus Calhoun come up behind her and grab her hips. She jumped at his touch and looked over her shoulder. He was fully dressed and smiling smugly at her.

“Morning, Kitty.” He smacked her ass, and she jumped again.

He’d taken to calling her ‘Kitty’ right away, as soon as he’d started moving in on her. She wasn’t sure how she felt about it. Not true—she was sure, more or less. As a rule, nicknames bothered her. She liked her name, and ‘Kitty’ seemed immature and overly cute. But if it meant real affection for her, then she was trying to get used to it.

It was Atticus she wasn’t sure about, not the name he called her.

Before last night, she’d felt pretty sure. On the road to sureness, anyway. She’d enjoyed his attention. She’d been deeply grateful for the way he’d gotten her out of that awful scene with John.

Then she’d let him stay the night, and now she wasn’t sure.

She put the skillet on the range. “Morning. I thought I’d make some eggs. Interested?”

He pulled the strap of her camisole off her shoulder and pressed a kiss to her skin. “Sorry, no. I have a meeting this morning. I gotta get.” He brushed her hair clear and skimmed his fingers over the side of her neck and along her shoulder. “Look how beautiful. It’s like a flower I left for you to remember me by.”

Katrynn felt him tracing the edges of the huge bruise he’d marked her with. She’d checked the mirror—it ran from just under her ear to under her chin, to her collarbone and over the top of her shoulder. The result of countless bites and some choking fingers. Not the only bruise he’d left, either.

Last night, she’d learned that Atticus liked pain—giving, at least. She wasn’t sure how he felt about receiving.

Katrynn didn’t like it in either case. Losing control during passionate sex was one thing. That, she liked. But it had felt like Atticus had been trying to make pain. His reaction now made it clear that he had been. He was proud that he’d hurt her enough to leave bruises.

So here was the thing: He was nice to her. He was handsome. He was creative. He was successful. He looked at her when she talked. He was pompous and affected, yes, but nobody was perfect, and he wasn’t so full of himself that she couldn’t deal with it—and he had cause to be pompous. He was a beautiful writer.

What was more, she hadn’t stopped him last night. She’d done her dumb thing, the thing she always did when sex didn’t go in a way she liked, whether it upset her or just bored her—the thing where she turned off her feelings and faked it. So, as far as Atticus knew, she’d enjoyed what he’d done to her.

Dumb. She was so dumb about that, but it was like she didn’t have a choice. Short of actual rape or a real beating, neither of which she’d ever been through, she didn’t know what in the world would cause her to get over her weird phobia of making sex awkward and just speak up and say what she liked or didn’t like. So that sex wouldn’t be awkward.

This meant that she had always, always found herself caught in a debilitating cycle of boring or unpleasant sex. Always.

Except once.

She had had sex exactly one time in her whole life, more than a decade of fucking, where it had been exactly right, exactly what she’d wanted.

And she’d woken up alone the next morning. Not the most auspicious beginning to the new year.

Frontrunner for Century’s Worst Judge of Men award, right here.

So, okay. Did she learn to deal with being recreationally bitten and smacked and choked, or did she send the handsome and highly talented novelist back to New York City with a bruised ego?

Assuming, of course, that he was interested in her as more than a fling. That was probably a wild assumption, even if he had given her a nickname.

God, why was she so hopeless about this stuff? Why couldn’t she learn? She was smart and savvy about everything else. She had a good education, and she had a good job that she was good at. She had a good life. Moreover, she had no trouble getting into relationships. Men were interested in her. She was interested in them. Until the sex.

If she could just assert herself, just a little—say, ‘you know what, that’s not my thing,’ or, ‘hey, I like this, can we try it?’ It wasn’t like she wanted anything weird. But she couldn’t make herself say it.

While she stomped out the fire of self-loathing that those thoughts had sparked, Atticus kept up his sensual attention on her sore skin. Finally, he bit down on the bruise, and Katrynn hissed in discomfort.

He chuckled.

“There a decent place to eat around here? I’ll take you to dinner before the signing tonight.”

“Dominic’s. It’s expensive, though.”

“Not a problem. You’re the manager of the bookstore I’m signing at, so it’s a business expense. I’ll be back around seven. Do yourself up nice for me.” He brushed his fingers over the bruise again. “But don’t cover that up too much.”

“The signing’s at eight.” An hour wasn’t much time for dinner at Dominic’s. “And it’s Saturday. Even in the winter, they might be booked up.”

“I’ll work it out. And the signing starts when I get there.” He nipped at her shoulder again, and then, with another smack on her ass, he stepped back. “See ya later, Kitty.”

After he’d left, Katrynn leaned back against the counter and chewed on her thumbnail. Lennie and George, finished with their breakfast, sat at her feet and stared up at her.

They were probably judging her. If anybody knew how dumb she was about sex, and just men in general, it was them.

~oOo~

“I don’t mean to push, but can I ask what happened between you and John?”

Katrynn paused with her hands in a box of copies of Atticus’s new book,
The Deadened Woods
. She and Bev were setting up the shop for the release party. They’d closed for the day so that the setup wouldn’t be too stressful, and Jamie and Greg, their part-timers, were only working the actual party. Bev and Katrynn liked doing the setup for these things on their own.

They had book signings fairly often, especially during the peak summer months, and but this was only the second time, at least since Bev had owned the shop and Katrynn had managed it, that they’d hosted an author’s book release party. In the first case, a local writer had published a history of Quiet Cove with a New England-based small press, so the only bookshop in town had been the ideal and logical place to hold the release.

Atticus’s book was being published by one of the Big Five, and he’d gotten blurbs from some literary luminaries, so Cover to Cover wasn’t the most ideal or logical place to hold its release. But the connection to Theo, and the small-town vibe of the book itself, had Atticus’s ‘people’ excited about, as he put it, ‘going downhome’ and doing the release here.

It was a lot of work, getting this little shop in a centuries-old building ready for a party of such magnitude. But they were keeping things low-key. As Bev said, if they’d wanted a lot of glitz, they should have stayed in New York.

Katrynn was doing most of the work; Bev looked pale and tired, and she’d done a lot of sitting this afternoon.

She’d lost weight recently, which should have been a good thing—she’d been fretting about the stubborn baby weight from her third daughter, Carina, who’d been born the summer before—but it looked like she was losing it from illness rather than effort.

“Don’t you know? I figured the Paganos would have been chewing up that juicy morsel for a bedtime snack and for breakfast and lunch, too.” That family was all about the gossip.

Sitting on a stool behind the counter, Bev dropped a handful of Sharpies into a small silver vase and smiled. “No. John didn’t want to tell anybody at all. Nick was worried about you, so he made him talk, but you know Nick. He shares no secrets. Not even with me. Which is fine—I’d rather hear it from you, the way you want it told, than secondhand, anyway.”

Bev got to her feet, and then she did something Katrynn recognized: she brushed her hand over her belly in a certain, lingering way. Bev and Nick had had three little girls in the six years that Katrynn had been managing Cover to Cover, and she knew the signs well. “Bev—are you pregnant?”

Her smile changed to something more wry. “Yes. Don’t change the subject.”

“But Carina’s only a few months old!”

“Seven months next week. I’m aware. And before you ask, I’m about three months along. Back to the more pressing matter at hand, and now I
am
going to push: what is up with you and John? Did he hurt you?”

Bev was Katrynn’s boss, and older than she, but she was also probably her best friend. Over these past years, they’d spent a lot of time together, and they were well attuned to each other. But Bev was John’s family—his cousin-in-law, if that was a thing—and that family was crazy close. Katrynn knew, because she’d kind of been adopted into it.

Unsure whether she was talking to Bev, her friend, or Bev, John’s family, she didn’t know quite what to say, but the words that came out were, “Not last night, no.”

Not the best possible choice. That sentence was as pregnant as Bev was, and Katrynn knew it right away—but too late to do anything about it.

“Okay, you
have
to clarify that statement.” Bev came around the desk and stood before her. “What did he do?”

Katrynn sighed. “The short version is that I saw him at Quinn’s on New Year’s Eve. We got drunk, he came home with me, and when I woke up the next morning, he was gone.”

“Jesus.
John
did that?”

“Yep. Last night was the first time I’ve seen him since. He wanted to talk. I didn’t. Hence the misunderstanding and broken jar of olives.”

“Is the long version worse?”