Hallie walked over to Liv. “Where did you get that brush?”
“I found it.”
“Where, Liv?”
“In the kitchen. It was wedged behind the dry sink.”
“Did you ask Maddie about it?”
“Yes. She said it wasn’t hers and I could have it if it didn’t belong to you or Duggie.”
Hallie eyed the brush. “It’s not mine.”
“I know.”
“How do you know?”
“I looked in your room.”
“How many times do I have to tell you to stay out of my things.”
“I wasn’t in your things.”
“You just said you looked in my room.”
“I did.” Liv drew the brush along the cat’s furry back, and the animal melted her girth farther into the feather bed cover. “But I wasn’t in your things. Your brush was sitting on the night table, in plain sight. So...” Liv looked up, the word “there” half formed on her sassy lips.
Hallie waited, but Liv wasn’t stupid. She clamped her lips shut and turned back to brush her cat. Hallie started to leave, but remembered Dagny. “I need to feed Duggie.”
“I’ve got her supper right here.” Maddie shouldered the bedroom door open, her hands filled with a tray of steamy food.
“Here, I’ll get the door.” Hallie grabbed the doorknob.
“Thanks. How is she?” Maddie asked, with a nod in Dagny’s direction.
“The same.”
“Give her time, Hallie,” Maddie advised, carrying the tray to the table and sat down. She glanced at Liv. “Well, Livvy, I see you’ve made good use of that brush.”
“Yup.” Liv kept brushing the cat, but she looked at Hallie long enough to give her an “I told you so” look.
“When you finish up there, Livvy, you can go wash your hands and set the table for me, please.”
Hallie paused, awaiting Liv’s usual argument. She wanted to see how Maddie would handle another one of Liv’s inventive excuses.
“Sure,” Liv agreed.
Hallie shook her head as she left the room. Liv never obeyed her without an argument. Belligerent little Liv was obviously different with Maddie. Apparently, for the younger Fredriksens, moving here was best. But Hallie was miserable. She hid it well enough, but at night, she would lay crying on the bed—the same bed where she’d made the biggest mistake of her life. She’d fought so hard, thinking in her silly mind that she could make Kit love her, never knowing that was impossible. His heart was locked in an old grave, cold and dead.
On her wedding day, when she had listened to him through the door, her hopes had died. His words cut deeply. So she’d hid in the kitchen while her pain swelled into such anger that she couldn’t cover it, even for the sake of salvaging her own wedding.
Oh God, that wedding—it was just awful. Hallie grabbed the newel post at the base of the stairs. She needed something to hang onto when she thought of the ceremony—and what transpired afterward. She sat down on the bottom step, her knees suddenly as weak as her will had been that evening. She had always thought she was a strong, willful person, but she had no strength when Kit held her or kissed her. Even her anger, hot and true as it had been, drowned in the sea of his arms.
With her wedding a mockery, and all her youthful dreams of love destroyed, still she had dissolved into him like sugar into hot coffee—all because her body craved the sweetness of his touch.
It had been easy at first to shun him. Since she felt nothing, her icy role had come naturally. But as each day went by, she found it harder and harder to ignore him, and this morning it had been nigh on impossible. The memories triggered by the sight of his bare chest were downright consuming. They ate right through her will and her common sense. Suddenly her skin was tingly and her body had started to rule her thoughts. If Kit had touched her then, she’d have been lost.
“You’re supposed to be helping Maddie,” Liv accused, standing right above Hallie with her hands on her hips and her bossy mouth puckered.
