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.On the one hand, it was as if they’d been together for years.And, on the other hand, there was that red-hot undercurrent of still-unmet desire—and they’d only just touched the surface.Late or not, the sisters insisted on staying for supper.All three of them.He didn’t mind.They weren’t any worse than any number of platoon sergeants he’d had.Kate ran the sisters out of the kitchen, and he did most of the food prep, parked on a bar stool.“I hate cooking,” Kate said, handing him another onion to chop.“Why?”“Because I had to do it all the time when I was at home.Grace had too much seniority to get stuck with it.Arley was too little.And Gwen would have burned the house down.”He didn’t doubt it for an instant.“You’re not sorry, are you?”“What? That I didn’t let Gwen burn the house down?”“No.That they’re all in an uproar—because of you and me.”She leaned against him for a moment, in spite of the fact that all three of the sisters could see her if they happened to look up from the intense, low-voiced conversation they were having in the den.“I’m not sorry.”He believed her…then and all through the meal that could have been more strained than it was if he’d taken the collective disapproval seriously.Kate’s sisters were entitled to their opinions—but that was as far as he was willing to go.He talked to all three of them, asked polite questions, pulled the answers out of them when he had to.He thought he liked Gwen the best.Gwen told him all about Kate when she was a little girl, the kind of things that would have embarrassed a lesser woman, the kind of things a sister might tell the man who mattered.He also thought he understood the other two.Grace was worried about the big“What will people say?” And Arley…Arley was like a jealous little kid.He was taking up Kate’s time and attention—cutting into the many hours she wanted devoted to her problems, and she did not appreciate it.She wanted Kate at the ready so she could pick up the pieces of her and Scottie’s life as needed.The meal was great—some kind of skillet beef, potato and onion thing.For someone who hated to cook, Kate did just fine, in his opinion.He couldn’t keep his eyes off her, and he didn’t care what the sisters thought about that.He was just barely able to keep his hands off her.After the meal, he intended to help get the kitchen squared away, but he didn’t have to have a house fall on him.The sisters were getting restless.“Where’s that awful cat?” he heard Grace ask.“Kate said it moved in with Cal,” Arley said.“Figures,” Grace said.Kate looked up sharply at the remark.“Go or stay?” he asked as she stacked another dirty plate and carried them to the kitchen counter.She looked at him gratefully.“Go,” she said.He smiled.“Want me to loan you my whip and chair?”“I’ve got my own,” she said.“And I think I need to use them.”“Thanks for the meal,” he said.“You did most of the work.”He stood looking into her eyes.“Could you hobble a little closer?” she asked.“I don’t want you to think I’m easy.”He grinned…and hobbled.She wanted the kiss to be as restrained and chaste as possible, because of the potential onlookers.He wanted the kiss to be deep and hard.Hewon.“See you later,” he said, letting her go and hobbling again, this time in the direction of the back door.“Tell the sisters ’bye for me.”She followed him to the door, and he thought that if he’d turned around at any point as he made his way across the yard, she would still be watching.Life is good, he thought.And it stayed good.He hadn’t realized how alone he’d been or how much he would welcome another person in his life.No.Not just another person.Kate Meehan.Initially he had been determined not to crowd her, but she didn’t seem to need the space he was willing to give her.He spent the time she was at work at his own place.The rest of the time—the nights—he spent with her.After the initial struggle she’d had, he marveled at the ease with which she now seemed to accept whatever was happening between them.If it still mattered to her what her family or anyone else thought about it, he couldn’t tell.He loved being with her, and that was the bottom line.It wasn’t just the sexual satisfaction she gave him.It was everything else as well.He liked looking at her.He liked talking to her.Naturally, he felt no hesitation about bringing up whatever topic he wanted to know about.“Tell me about this,” he said one night in bed, gently touching the surgical scar.She looked into his eyes before she answered—for what he didn’t know.Reassurance that it wasn’t just morbid curiosity on his part, he supposed.“They found something when I had a routine mammogram,” she said.“It was in the early stage.I had a lumpectomy and radiation.It was the first time I’ve ever really been sick.”“And you’re still mad about it,” he suggested, because he thought he knew her well enough to guess that.“Yes,” she said, giving him a surprised look.“I’m the strong one in the family.I fix everybody else’s problems—I didn’t know how to have one of my own.Not that kind, anyway.”“So how did you get that job—fixing everybody else’s problems?”“I’m not sure.I think I must like it on some level or I wouldn’t do it.”“Did you get along with your mom and dad?”“Mom, yes.Dad, no,” she said, moving so that she could rest her head on his shoulder.“Whynot?”“I don’t know why not.Do you know why you didn’t get along with yours?”“Sure.He wasn’t around after I was six months old.”“Your mother was around
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