Her Sister's Fiancé

“We didn’t do anything,” Jax claimed. “Joe did it.”

“Yeah, Joe did it.”

“Joe, who she won’t talk to any more than she’ll talk to any of us? He got her to come back? Okay, what did Joe do?”

“He didn’t say exactly,” Jax said, looking to Ben. “Did he?”

“Not to me.”

“Right. He didn’t say.”

“Okay, now I’m really worried,” Kate said. “You two have done something, and I’m thinking it didn’t turn out the way you’d hoped and now you want me to fix it.” She looked pointedly at her brother, whom she was sure was the guilty party.

“No. You’ve got it all wrong,” he claimed. “We just wanted to tell you she was back…so you could go see her. Don’t you want to go see her?”

“Yes.”

“And you should go now. You could put the knife down and go now,” Jax said. “I mean…why not go now? You haven’t seen her in months. Why wait?”

“For one thing, I’m in the middle of cooking dinner.”

“I’ll do it,” Ben offered, taking the knife from her before she could object.

“Me, too.” Jax jumped in, picking up a container of rice and shaking it. “I can help. Really. What do you do with this?”

“I’m going to start throwing things in five seconds, if you don’t tell me what’s going on!”

“Okay, okay,” her brother said, putting the rice back down. “She might be…a little upset.”

Kate arched a brow. “Because…”

“She might be…a little mad,” Ben said.

Kate tried again. “What did you two do, kidnap her?”

“No,” they insisted.

“Because I know Joe wouldn’t kidnap her.” He would never force anyone to do anything against their will.

“No, I’m sure it wasn’t anything like that,” Ben said. “She just…well—”

“Okay, she might be leaving again,” Jax said, his expression bland as could be.

Oh, this was bad.

Bad!

“And why would she be leaving, when she just got here?” Kate asked.

“We’re not sure,” Ben said. “Maybe…because we sent Joe to get her? Was it really that bad? Sending Joe?”

“That depends,” Kate said, thinking she could imagine scenarios in which that would be very, very bad, depending on how her sister now felt about Joe. Then she thought of something else. “Exactly how did you send Joe to get her?”

“We might have…threatened him,” Ben said, stripping off his clerical collar as he said it. He always got rid of it when he’d done something decidedly unministerly. “Okay, I didn’t threaten him. I swear. You know I don’t do that stuff. I just…stood by and advised him to cooperate while your brother threatened him.”

“You threatened him?” She yelled at her brother, then turned to her husband. “And you went along with it?”

“Just trying to fit in with the family, you know?” Ben claimed. “Be a part of things? Make you happy, by getting your sister home. That kind of thing. That’s all.”

Kate wanted to scream, but managed not to, barely.

Poor Kathie.

She’d been through so much in the last fifteen months, starting with losing their beloved mother.

“Let me take a wild guess,” Kate said, turning back to her brother. “You threatened Joe that if he didn’t go get her and convince her to come back…”

“He’d break his jaw,” Ben said, eager to help her understand now.

“Who’s breaking someone’s jaw?” Shannon, Kate and Ben’s sixteen-year-old, soon-to-be-officially-adopted daughter showed up in the kitchen at just the right moment.

“No one broke anyone’s jaw,” Ben said.

“Your uncle just threatened to,” Kate said.

“Oh.” Shannon nodded as she opened the refrigerator and stuck her head inside. “And they thought I’d be trouble.”

“Yeah, who’d have thought the adults would be the ones to make trouble?” Kate said. “Another big guess here…Kathie found out you threatened to break Joe’s jaw, and because of that, Joe went to see her and convinced her to come back, right?”

“Yeah,” her brother admitted. “Why is that so bad?”

“Ahhhhhh!” Kate did scream then. “People think you know so much about women and that you’re so good with them, but it’s just crap, Jax. It’s complete and total crap!”

Kate knocked three separate times, knowing her sister had to be there, because her car was out front. Who else drove a bright yellow bug with a rainbow sticker on the back and bumper stickers that said, Visualize Whirled Peas and, What Would Jesus Bomb? Kate had missed her sister desperately.

“Kathie, please,” Kate called out through the door. “I have dinner on the stove. I’ll go home and poison them with it, if it’ll make you feel better, promise. Just let me in first.”

That did it. The door swung open.

Her poor sister stood there with big red eyes and a thoroughly defeated expression on her face.

“Oh, baby,” Kate said, taking her sister in her arms.

“They told you what they did?” Kathie asked.

“It wasn’t easy, but I got it out of them.”

“And you’re willing to hurt them for me?”

“Sure, I will. They’ve gotten to be buddies, but they’re dangerous together. I think Jax has been waiting for years to have another man in the family, you know, so it won’t be three against one anymore. And he’s going a little nuts waiting for Gwen’s mother to get better, so they can have their wedding with her here. Ever since she broke her hip, and Jax and Gwen postponed the wedding, he’s been a little…intense.”

Kathie nodded, her head still on Kate’s shoulder.

Kate gave her a big squeeze. “How about I make them both throw up their dinner? I think I can do that with no problem. I mean…I did it by accident once, trying to impress Ben’s mother. Surely I can do it on purpose.”

And if anyone at Ben’s church heard about it, she’d never live it down.

Oh, well.

She’d tried to tell him she wouldn’t quite fit in, but he hadn’t listened.

Not that it was going badly. Her and the church ladies, as she called them. Not at all. She just kept expecting it to go badly.

Poisoning her husband would definitely make things go badly, because they all adored him. They thought he was right up there with God.

“Just don’t tell anybody, okay? I’m afraid the church ladies are watching all the time, and that they’re convinced no one will ever be good enough for Ben,” Kate said.

Kathie finally lifted her head and stepped back. She wiped at her tears with the back of her hand and smiled a bit. “So…I missed you.”

“Oh, honey, I missed you so much! I didn’t think you’d ever come back.”

There were more hugs, more tears, and when those finally subsided, Kate had a million things she wanted to say and no idea how to start. All the possibilities seemed fraught with red flags.

Kathie finally started things off. “So…you’re okay?”

“I’m great.”

“And you’re…happy?”

“Yes. Kim’s settled right in for her first year of teaching. Shannon is doing so well, and we just saw the baby she gave up for adoption. They named her Elissa, and she’s sitting up and babbling and slobbers on everything. Her parents have a two-year-old named Emily, and they invited us all to Emily’s birthday party two weeks ago. Ben is absolutely wonderful, until Jax comes along and talks him into doing something like this. Poor Ben, he wants to fit in so badly, he’ll go along with anything Jax says, any scheme he comes up with.”

“Well…good,” Kathie said like she couldn’t quite believe it. “That’s good. I’m happy for you, and I just want you to know, I’m here to fix everything.”

“Okay.” Kate wasn’t quite sure what that meant, but she was ready to agree to most anything her sister wanted.

“At least, everything I can fix. I mean, I know it was awful—”

“Kathie, no—”

“It was, and I know that, and I feel just awful about it—”

“I’m not mad, I promise,” Kate protested.

“But I’m going to fix as much of it as I can. Joe said people in town think I’ve stayed away because you can’t forgive me for what he and I did, that there’s a rumor going around that you threw me out of town.”

“Well, that’s just silly,” Kate said.

“No, it’s awful. I can’t let people think that about you.”

“Kathie, I don’t care what anybody thinks anymore. I know I used to, but I’m over it. I care about Ben and my family, and maybe the church ladies, a little bit, just because I want them to like me and think I’m right for Ben, because I know how much they all love him. But that’s it, I swear.”

“Well, I still don’t want anybody to think you kicked me out of town,” Kathie said. “So I thought if I just came back for a little while, and people saw us together and happy, they’d know that’s not true.”

“Okay.” That worked for Kate. Anything that got her sister back and had them spending time together, worked for Kate.

“And Joe didn’t want to tell me, but…I guess everybody hates him now!”

“Well, I don’t know if I’d go that far….”

“Everybody blames him for what happened. Not me. Him. He said they all think he dumped me, after…you know, making trouble between you and him, and you and me. That he dumped me when everybody found out about it, and I was so devastated, I left town.”

“I guess it’s possible. I don’t know. Honestly, I’ve heard every rumor in the world about the whole thing, and I just try not to listen anymore.” Kate would have said again it didn’t matter to her, but like her brother, she wanted her sister to come back to stay.

She wasn’t going to be as bad as her brother, was she?

No jaw breaking and no threats, but still as bad in her own way. Like being ready to let her sister believe anything to keep Kathie here?

“It wasn’t Joe’s fault,” Kathie insisted. “Honest, it wasn’t. It was me. All of it was me.”

Kate didn’t believe that for a second. After thinking about it for a long, long time, she chose to believe that two of the people she knew best in the world had, completely unexpectedly, developed real feelings for each other, which might have been a real problem for her if, in the middle of the whole thing, she hadn’t found the love of her life.

So whatever had happened between her sister and her ex-fiancé was completely okay with her now. She just couldn’t seem to convince Kathie of that, no matter how hard she tried. Mostly, Kathie wouldn’t even let her bring up the subject. She wanted her sister here, and she wanted her happy, and one thing Kate had figured out was that Kathie and Joe both seemed miserable without each other.

Which wasn’t okay with Kate at all.

So, Kathie was worried about people blaming and hating Joe for whatever had happened between the two of them?

“Well…I don’t know what you can do about that,” Kate said carefully, in case there was something and it was something that would keep her sister in town, where she belonged.

“That’s why I came back,” her sister said. “To show everybody that you’re not mad at me and that you didn’t kick me out of town.”

“Okay,” Kate said. That was fine with her. That was very good.

“And to show everybody that Joe didn’t dump me,” Kate said. “I dumped him.”

“You dumped him?” Kate asked. Why would her sister dump Joe, if Joe was the one she truly wanted?

“Okay, I didn’t really dump him. I mean, he was never mine to dump. He and I were just…” Kathie’s face turned beet red. “I don’t know what we were. Stupid, I guess. I was just stupid and selfish and confused, and once everyone found out last fall, I just couldn’t stand to be here, with everybody knowing and talking about us. So, I have a plan.”

Kate nodded very carefully. “What plan?”

“If it’s okay with you, I mean, I’m going to pretend to see Joe for a few weeks….”

Her sister waited…for Kate to object? “Okay,” Kate said.

“And then I’m going to dump him, so people won’t blame him for the whole thing anymore. So he won’t be the bad guy.”

“Joe asked you to come back to town to pretend to date him, then dump him, so that people would stop blaming him for dumping you?” Kate asked.

“No! He would never do that. I don’t think he even meant to tell me. It just slipped out, but once I knew, I had to try to fix things, because it wasn’t right for people to blame you and him when it was all my fault,” her sister explained.

Okay.

That kind of made sense, but only because Kate knew her sister so well.

Joe had been threatened within an inch of his life and forced to go see Kathie, and then, when he tried to talk her into coming back, as ordered, something had gone wrong, and he’d ended up giving her the impression that everyone in town blamed Joe and Kate for Kathie’s decision to leave, and Kathie was here to make sure everyone blamed her instead?

Not what Joe intended, Kate was sure, but it had gotten her sister to come back. Once Kathie saw a problem that she believed she’d created, she wouldn’t give up until she fixed things.

And Kathie could only fix things from here in town.

Kate weighed her options carefully. If she protested that she wasn’t mad at her sister at all, that it was fine with her if Kathie and Joe fell madly in love, and that she didn’t care what anyone in town thought of any of that, Kathie might not stay and try to fix things.

And she really wanted Kathie to stay, no matter what the reason.

Maybe Kate was as bad as her brother.

“Well…that sounds like a good plan,” Kate said, feeling guilty about it but happy. It sounded like a plan that would keep her sister in town for weeks at least, forever if Kate had anything to say about it.

“Still mad?” Ben asked, coming up behind Kate in the kitchen and putting his arms around her.

“Maybe.”

He kissed her cheek, then nuzzled her neck. “Come on. It wasn’t so bad, was it?”

“Only if she’s in love with him,” Kate said.

“In love with him?” Ben turned her around in his arms.

“Yes,” Kate said, letting him draw her against him, her head tucked against his chest. “Think about it. She’s in love with him, and he just let her leave after our wedding. Probably because his head was still spinning from everything that had happened and because he was still trying to make sense of it and failing miserably. Joe doesn’t change his mind easily. He doesn’t change his plans, either. It would take him some time to figure everything out, and she left so fast, thinking he didn’t care about her at all, that it was some crazy fluke.”

“Okay, but—”

“I don’t think it was a fluke to Kathie. I think she’s in love with him, and now look what’s happened. Her brother and her new brother-in-law went to the man she loves, who she thinks doesn’t love her, and threatened to break his jaw if he didn’t go see her and get her to come back to town.”

“But…if she’s in love with him, doesn’t she want to see him again?”

“Not if she thinks it’s hopeless and the only reason he came to get her is because he didn’t want his jaw broken into sixteen pieces. Then, it’s just humiliating to have to be here with him, thinking he couldn’t care less about her.”

“Oh. Okay. I get it now.”

Yes, now, he got it.

Poor Kathie.

Chapter Three

Kathie’s younger sister, Kim, threw open the door and squealed when she got home from a late day at school and saw Kathie standing there. The next thing Kathie knew, they were in each other’s arms. Kim was practically bouncing with joy and squeezing her so tight.

Kathie was so relieved she nearly cried right then and there.

“I can’t believe it!” Kim said over and over again. “I didn’t think you’d ever come back.”

Then Kim was almost crying, too.

“Really. Not ever. The longer you stayed away, the more worried I got. I didn’t think we’d all ever be together again, and I couldn’t stand that idea. I just couldn’t stand it!”

“I know,” Kathie said, her bottom lip trembling.

It had been the worst thing. The absolute worst, right after thinking they all must hate her for what she’d done to her beloved older sister. Thinking that they’d never be a family again, the way they always had been. That she’d be completely cut off from them, and that it was something she deserved…it had been horrible.

She feared she still deserved it, but couldn’t help but think it was so incredibly wonderful to be home, no matter what the circumstances.

“So, it’s all over, right?” Kim asked, nearly begging. “You’re back. To stay. Right?”

“I don’t know,” Kathie said, watching her sister’s face fall into disbelief.

She hadn’t thought about this—about how hard it would be on Kim to have her back and think everything would go back to normal, when all Kathie was doing was trying to fix the mess she’d made as best she could and then disappear again.

“What do you mean, you don’t know? This town is your home. This is where you belong!”

“I know. I just…I’ve never really lived anywhere else, except when I was at college,” Kathie tried. She’d never been the adventurous sort. She was the quiet one. Jax was the charmer. Kate, the smart one, and Kim the beauty. Kathie was the mouse. All she’d ever wanted was to feel safe, right here in Magnolia Falls, in the midst of her loving family, but she had to say something to try to explain herself. “I mean, there’s a whole world out there. You know that. You love to travel. There might be all sorts of places I’d love to live.”

Kim looked unconvinced. She looked hurt, and maybe even mad. Kim who was never mad at her.

“I have to try, you know?”

“No. I don’t know,” Kim complained. “Don’t you love us anymore? Don’t you miss us?”

“Of course, I do.”

“You’re supposed to be getting over everything,” Kim argued. “So that everything can get back to normal.”

“I want that,” Kathie insisted.

Oh, God, she wanted it.

She just didn’t think it was possible.

“It was awful when you left,” her sister said, sitting down on the sofa. “Terrible. It was the worst thing. Mom was gone, and then you were gone, and I just kept thinking, who’s going to disappear next? For months, everybody else kept saying you were bound to come home soon, that you wouldn’t be able to stay away. Not me. I kept thinking, who’s going to leave next?”

“Oh, Kimmie. I’m so sorry!”

One more thing to add to her list of sins against her family.

She took her sister into her arms and held on tight.

Kimmie had been a baby when their father died. She had no memories of him at all, just pictures and the stories they all told her about him. And she’d still been in college when their mother died. Because she was so young, Kathie and her brother and sister had tried harder for Kim than anyone else to make sure she felt safe and secure, a part of a strong, loving family.

But Kathie had just left, not even thinking of how her younger sister would feel about it. Kathie had thought she was trying to save the rest of them by leaving. But Kim just saw it as losing one more person in an ever-dwindling family circle.

Kathie had done even more damage than she thought.

Kim hardly spoke to her the rest of the night. She went to bed early, got up early and left. The school year still wasn’t over in Magnolia Falls, and Kim taught art at the elementary school.

Kathie hid in their apartment for three solid hours, then had to call herself all forms of the word coward just to get herself to go outside and risk seeing anyone she knew.

It was spring in Magnolia Falls, warm and sunny, very, very green, everything smelling fresh and new.

If only Kathie could have started all over again, just wound back the clock, what would she do?

Never fall for Joe. Never have some silly, schoolgirl crush in the first place or have it and get over it, completely, ages ago, like other girls did, so that no one would ever be hurt or ever have to know.

But she couldn’t do that.

Which meant she had to do the next best thing.

She had to fix this as best she could. Make people see that it wasn’t his fault, and it wasn’t her sister’s. Move on with the plan, and then get away from here again, even if it killed her this time.

She’d taken the time to fix her hair, put on a bit of makeup and dress in her favorite jeans and a bright yellow top, trying to look as good as she could and not have anyone guess how terrible she felt, how scared, how ashamed, how sad.

She was going to march into the center of town, into the bank where Joe worked and go to lunch with him, in full sight of everyone there, on the street and in the Corner Café, a hotbed of gossip dead-center in town.

Time to get moving with the Joe-didn’t-dump-Kathie-and-Joe-isn’t-the-bad-guy plan.

Which meant she had to look happy to see him, and he had to look happy to see her. Kathie was afraid that might be a problem, so she pulled out her cell phone and called the bank, asking for him.

“May I say who’s calling?” the receptionist asked politely.

Kathie was pretty sure it was Stacy Morganstern, who used to be on the same peewee football cheerleading squad as Kim.

“Stacy? It’s Kathie.”

Stacy gasped. “Kathie Cassidy?”

“Yes.”

“You’re back in town? I hadn’t heard!”

“Just got in last night,” Kathie said. “How are you?”

“Well…fine. Just fine. How are you?”

“Great.”

“Where have you been? Everyone was so worried, and then no one knew, and—”

“Teaching. I was teaching. A temporary position in North Carolina, but it’s over now. Joe brought me home yesterday.”

“Joe?” Stacy gasped once more.

“Yes. He drove up and helped me move.” Not entirely untrue. He’d carried her suitcases to her car, after all.

“You’ve been seeing Joe? All this time?”

No way to answer that without lying, which Kathie really didn’t like to do.

“Stacy, I’m sorry. I’m kind of in a rush. I want to catch Joe before he makes lunch plans. Could you put me through?”

“Oh. Okay. Sure. I’ll get him for you.”

Kathie breathed a bit easier after escaping from the you’ve-been-seeing-Joe question. Relief was still rushing through her when Joe came on the phone.

“Kathie?” He sounded like a man approaching a rabid dog.

God, help me, please. I won’t ever go after my sister’s fiancé again. I swear. I won’t fall for any man I’m not allowed to have.

“We need to have lunch together,” she said in a rush, not giving herself time to think about it.

Just do it.

Follow the plan.

The Joe-is-not-the-bad-guy plan.

“Okay,” he said, still sounding like she might bite his head off or something.

“I mean, if we’re going to do this, we just have to do it. Which means, people have to see us together.”

“Okay,” Joe said. “I’ll pick you up in a half hour?”

“No, I’ll meet you at the bank. It’s always crowded at noon. Might as well start there, letting people see us, and then we’ll go to the Corner Café.”

Joe groaned. “You mean the diner?”

“Yes.”

“Darlene remodeled and changed the name. It’s actually called the Corner Diner now and it’s bigger.”

His chance meeting with Kate at the Corner Diner last fall was still probably the talk of the town, the best gossip to come out of the place in years. They’d run into each other in the midst of breaking up, and Kate had informed Joe very loudly that no, despite gossip to the contrary, she was not pregnant with his child or anyone else’s. She’d been spotted at the local OB/GYN’s office, taking a then-pregnant Shannon for a checkup. Everyone in town had assumed it was Kate who was pregnant, not Shannon, a girl Kate had met while volunteering with the Big Brothers Big Sisters organization.

So Kathie could understand why Joe was reluctant to be seen in the place, especially in another meeting destined to make the gossip rounds.

“We have to,” Kathie said. “And try to look happy when you see me. You’re supposed to be crazy about me, remember? Otherwise, you can’t be devastated when I break your heart in a month or so.”

Joe fought the urge to drum his fingers on his desk, a habit he’d given up two years ago as a New Year’s Eve resolution, because it wasn’t good for a man to show any outward sign of weakness. Or stress.