The response Kate received was enthusiastic and welcoming:
You must stay with me until you find a place of your own. There is a self-contained apartment on the side of my house and it’s yours for as long as you want it.
It had all been easy, actually. She had a job and a place to live. The only thing left was to deal with her mother. Ava Medlar’s nerves and fears, not to mention her odious older brothers, had been a big part of Kate’s twenty-three years of life.
She gathered up her courage and told her mother what she was going to do.
Ava hadnotreacted as Kate thought she would. To Kate’s surprise, she’d said, “That’s a good idea. You can help her. The poor thing had to give up writing because her mind couldn’t do it anymore. Not that her books ever had any literary merit, but she does need some brainpower to pump them out. And it’s good that you’ll be living with her. She has a mansion and lots of servants. You need to make sure that none of them are stealing her blind.”
Kate was shocked that her mother knew so much about the sister-in-law she’d never once mentioned. How? When? Why?Allher questions were answered with variations of the fact that Sara Medlar had cut them out of her life when her brother died. It wasn’t Ava’s doing, but the aunt’s. And Ava had thought it was better to never tell her daughter about a woman who wanted nothing to do with them. “To save you more heartache,” she said.
Ava’s story was so dire that Kate began to doubt her plan to stay with her famous aunt and move to Lachlan. But by then she and Tayla were exchanging daily emails and sharing photos and telling about their daily activities. Cyber friends.
Kate told Tayla of her hesitation. Maybe it would be better if she rented an apartment and just visited her old aunt.
Tayla wrote back that she had a listing for a second-floor apartment that would be perfect for her. Coincidently, it was vacant because the young man who used to live there had just moved in with her aunt Sara. “‘She must be lonely living in that big house and Jack has always had a way with women,’” Kate said, reading the email aloud to her mother. “‘Such a personable young man! And rumor has it that Sara has started financing his business. It looks like it’s working out well for both of them.’”
When she’d finished reading, Ava had given her the “I told you so” look. Kate began to think her aunt needed her protection. Who knew all the ways this Jack character might be planning to take advantage of Sara? She would stay with her aunt.
The next day Ava helped Kate clean out her room.
Three days later, Kate was on her way. The goodbye to her mother had been tearful. It had always been just the two of them and Kate was the strong one. By necessity she’d had to cope with her mother’s bouts of depression over the loss of her husband. Kate had had to learn how to take care of herself.
“You’ll be all right?” she asked her mother as she got into her car. “You won’t let the uncles bully you?”
“I’ll be fine. You’ll email me?”
“Every day. Just look at the green message app on your phone. Check for texts from me.”
Ava, biting her lip to stave off the tears, said, “Don’t let her be nasty to you. Stand up to her. She has a horrible temper. She used to scare me half to death.”
This was the first Kate had heard of a temper. “She—?”
“And put her on a diet.” Ava shut the car door. “Two hundred pounds is too much for her. She’s not even five feet tall. If she lost weight, she might not be so bad-tempered all the time.” Ava stepped back and blew a kiss. “I love you. Have a good time.” She hurried back into the house as Kate drove away.
For the first day of the drive, Kate kept muttering, “What the hell have I done?”
Now she was almost there, and her bravado was draining. New town, new job, new home with a new relative.
What was that list of the ten most stressful events in a person’s life? She was facing at least four of them.
She paid and left the diner.
At her car, she halted. “I can do this,” she told herself. “I have a job. I even have a friend in Tayla. And I’m...” She swallowed. “I’m staying with, uh...” She took a breath. “With a senile old aunt who has a fierce temper and is living with some guy who’s conned her into buying him a business. Icando this.” She got in her car. “And if I can’t, I can run home to mommy. As a failure.”
She got back on the highway, and when the exit for Lachlan came up, she went down the ramp. But her heart was pounding so hard that she had to pull to the side of the road, lean back and try to calm herself.
It would be courteous to first go to her aunt’s house. Or rather, her mansion, as her mother called it. But when Kate put the street address into the GPS system, it said there was no such place. She had a map but it didn’t show Stewart Lane, either.
That’s bad, she thought, but felt relieved. She’d have to go to Tayla’s office first, meet her friend in person and ask directions.
The GPS said that the office was only a mile and a half away. An omen, she thought, and pulled back onto the road.
Her first sight of Lachlan made her draw in her breath. She’d seen photos but they didn’t do the pretty town justice.
To her right was a fire station, redbrick with two open garage doors. Some muscular men were washing a big red fire engine, a dalmatian nearby. “Like something out of Disney.” She saw the blond fireman, the youngest one, pause, rag in hand, and look at her. His wet T-shirt clung to him.
The man next to him hit him with his elbow, but the fireman didn’t stop staring. When he smiled at Kate, she smiled back.
