The Time in Between by Kristen Ashley
“What I’m saying is, if you want to come home, we can keep this in the family. We can make a go of it. Once we earn back the investment in a few years, it’ll even turn a profit. The kids absolutely love the place, all of them, and they haven’t even seen it yet. Maybe one day, when they’re making their own way, one of them will—”
“This is my home, Kath,” I stated firmly.
“He had no right to speak to you that way,” she stated far more firmly than me.
My back straightened and I turned toward her in my chair. “Kath, I’ve had a lot of time to think about this and it’s not a surprise he’s this angry.”
Her brows shot high. “How is that not a surprise? How, in all that happened, does he have even the ittiest bit of right to be angry, much less that angry? Still?”
“I promised him I’d stick with him,” I explained something I’d told her before. “No matter what. I didn’t stick with him, Kath.” I lifted a shoulder. “Sure, when I thought he was a drug dealer or the lackey of a drug dealer or whatever I thought he was, which by the way I never asked, I was completely okay with it and our life and how I fell into having one with him. When I found out he was an undercover cop, though . . .” I let that hang because she knew the end of that sentence too.
“He lied to you.”
“It was his job.”
“He lied to you and he slept with you and he listened to you making plans for your future together all while he was lying to you. You didn’t even know his real name.”
“It was his job, Kathy,” I repeated.
“When he knew who you were, how you were, he couldn’t tell you that?”
“Our connection came strong and fast, and it was there but it wouldn’t be very wise of him to share with some girl he didn’t really know that he was working undercover in the dangerous pursuit of bringing down drug dealers, possibly increasing that danger enormously if he did.”
“He thought it was wise enough to sleep with you in order to use you to make others think he was what he was not,” she parried.
“He slept with me for more than that,” I whispered.
“Cady,” she whispered back.
I shook that hurt off because I knew she didn’t mean to deliver it and stated, “I knew who he was. I knew how he was. It was a shock when I found out what exactly he was, but when I had time to calm down and think about it, it wasn’t a surprise and that’s what it was all about. When we began. When he practically begged me to believe in him, stick with him, not give up on us. Because I saw it in his eyes. I knew he was good down to his soul. I knew in some part of me he was not the man he was pretending to be. And when it all happened, I let it all get to me and I stopped believing when I’d promised him I would never do that.”
“And through all of that he couldn’t know who you were enough to trust you?”
This was the part I hadn’t been able to come to terms with.
However.
“I was a twenty-three-year-old girl perfectly okay with starting an emotionally and physically intense relationship with a man I suspected of being a not very good one, in those terms. And then, even if I’d promised to stick with him, weeks after my world collapsed around me, when he came back to me to put us back together, he found I was engaged to a very wealthy, sixty-five-year-old man. He didn’t know why. He jumped to conclusions. But honestly, Kath, could you blame him?”
She turned to the sea.
She couldn’t blame him. She, too, had not been my biggest fan when Patrick essentially decided to adopt me and do it the only way he could—as bizarre as it was, it made sense in a time when everything happening was bizarre—adopting me by marrying me.
“It was weird, what Patrick and I did, even you thought that,” I reminded her carefully.
“I got it in the end,” she muttered.
She did.
“Coert thought it was a betrayal,” I told her.
She turned screwed up eyes to me. “Yeah, he did, and he made sure you weren’t in any question about that, didn’t he? He didn’t even listen. And if he’d shut up and listened, maybe you would have never married Patrick. Maybe that baby of his would be a fifteen-year-old baby of both of yours and you’d have a couple others besides.”
“Then I wouldn’t have had Patrick, and Pat, and you, and you know I could go on.”
“Do you think Patrick would have given up on you? Let you out of his life?” she scoffed. “Hardly. He always wanted a daughter and you know the lengths he went to for that years before he’d even met you.”
I tried not to wince at the memory of learning that knowledge but Kath was on a tear, so she didn’t notice my struggle, she just carried on.
“He’d always wanted his sons to have a little sister. If that came with her boyfriend, he’d take it. He wanted you to have his last name because he didn’t think those two jerks deserved you carrying theirs. But if you took this sheriff guy’s name, he wouldn’t have cared. He’d have done anything to give you what you wanted, including getting back that cop for you. Why do you think he had him followed all these years?”
“I know that and that’s why this is all on me,” I returned.
And it was all on me like everything was all on me.
“You know, this is beautiful and it’s peaceful and I’m so glad this place rocks, and I’m okay leaving you here because half of me wants to drag Pat out here just to live in this studio. Not to mention this is our first night here and all. But I’m gonna shatter all of that right now by saying I’m sick of that shit.”
I blinked at her.
She kept talking.
“You were twenty-three years old, barely more than a girl, and hurting. Your family had totally turned their backs on you. Your best friend hated your guts, and I say that part since I don’t wanna get into all the other insanity she perpetrated. It turned out the man you were desperately in love with lied to you from the second you met and used you to hurt people who were, let’s face it, not that great but they were yours. Your friends. People you cared about. So your head was screwed up and some old guy with a kind heart and a gentle way with words offers you love and support and an end to all that garbage, and you took him up on it. So what? You know, if all that happened to me and I met Patrick knowing how he can be and he said, ‘Let me help you leave this all behind.’ I’d say yes too. In a second. So give yourself a break with all that for once, would you?”
“I don’t even—”
She shook her hand at me. “No. And no again with you cutting this sheriff some slack when you won’t cut yourself some. You’ve forgiven him for using you and lying to you and putting you in danger too but you can’t forgive yourself for trusting the right man who pulled out all the stops to take care of you. And furthermore, you have no problems with that sheriff holding a grudge after all these years when he never gave you the opportunity to explain where you were with all that.”
It was then she shook her head and turned back to the sea.
“No,” she continued. “He doesn’t get my forgiveness that easily. You can do that, okay. But he doesn’t get that from me.”
I didn’t share with her Coert wouldn’t care because he didn’t know her, and furthermore, he wasn’t like that. I knew Tony, not Coert, but I figured both were one and the same (at least the Tony he gave to me, mostly) and he never cared what anyone thought.
Which meant Coert didn’t even care how I felt about these things.
However, the bottom line was it was a long time ago. So he was still beautiful. So he was still single. So he had the most adorable little girl I’d ever seen (outside of Verity, Ellie, Melanie and Bea).
It was a long time ago.
So it was time to move on.
I’d come out here not even knowing what I’d wanted to come of it (exactly).
But what I got was my lighthouse. A place of peace that wasn’t full of memories of Patrick but was still another something beautiful he gave me.
And that was a good place
“It was almost two decades ago, Kathy,” I reminded her. “It’s time everyone moved on.”
She turned again to me. “And you tense and looking over your shoulder at the gol’darned market? Is that moving on?”
“That will stop too. We just got here today. I’ll settle in. I promise.”
“He should have told you he was a cop,” she spat.
“He didn’t.”
“He should have listened to you when he came back to you.”
“He didn’t.”
She glared at me for a long time before she puffed out air, turned to the sea and mumbled, “I need more cake.”
“I’ll go get them,” I replied and got out of my seat.
I was nearly to the door when I heard her trembling voice come at me.
“It breaks me.”
I turned back to her and it took a great deal, too much, to stare into her beautiful brown eyes shining with tears and not allow my own to come.
“What you could have had,” she finished. “What you two could have built together. When I think about it, it breaks me.”
It broke me too.
A long time ago.
Now I needed to fix me.
“You didn’t date,” she said.
“I did, Kath, honey,” I replied gently.
“On the sly because you refused to divorce Patrick,” she shot back. “He didn’t care, he wanted you to, but those society bitches would have torn you to shreds.”
This was all too true.
“If I divorced him, the times he got sick, I wouldn’t have been able to be at the hospital with him the way I needed to be, make decisions he wanted made,” I reminded her.
“Pat had those papers drawn up.”
“They weren’t what a wife is offered . . .” my voice dropped low, “or a daughter.”
She looked to the table where our wine bottle was sweating.
Pat could have had a million papers drawn up, but when you hit the hospital, none of that mattered.
“Are you his daughter?” they asked because at my age, that was what was assumed. I had his last name. So I said yes. I looked nothing like him. Like any of his sons. But that was all that mattered.
If they’d pushed it, they’d have found I was legally tied to him.
That would have been all that mattered.
And I needed that. I needed it to be in the position to take care of the first man on this earth who loved me unreservedly just for me being me.
He’d had cancer when I’d met him. He had not shared that. His boys didn’t even know that at the time. It had taken a while for all of us to learn that.
And when I learned it, the deal we’d made changed.
He took care of me.
And then after we found out, for twelve years, as it came and went, ravaging him then giving him time to recover only to ravage him again, I took care of him.
“I don’t regret it,” I declared.
Her eyes lifted to me.
“Not a minute,” I whispered.
“You need to find a man,” she whispered back.
“I know Pat is awesome and you love him more than anything, but a man isn’t everything, Kathy,” I told her.
“You’ve got time. You need to make babies and a man is kinda essential to that.”
I gave her a soft smile. “I had seven babies I could help look after, honey. I’m good.”
Her lips trembled before she said, “I want you to be happy.”
“I’ll be happy,” I assured her.
“You came here because you’re still in love with him.”
It was my turn to look away because I didn’t want to admit that out loud.
But she was right.
“I want you to be happy, Cady.”
I looked back to her. “I’ll be happy, Kath.” I swallowed and finished, “Eventually.”
“I’m sorry I was a bitch to you when we first met.”
And there we were.
All of this was bringing up feelings of guilt she had no reason to feel.
“It was understandable and it led to this, so do you think I care?”
“I love you, Cady. I only have brothers so Patrick gave me a sister too, and I cannot tell you how many times I thanked God that He led Patrick to doing that.”
I smiled at her. “And I love you back, Kathy. Totally more than you love me.”
She straightened her shoulders. “No way, I love you totally more than you love me.”
“Who’s up getting cakes?” I teased. “That’s love when I have to leave that view.”
“I carried a whole, single box into your house earlier before the boys showed up, now that’s love.”
“Shut up.”
“You shut up.”
“Do you want cake or do you want me to stand here bickering with you?”
She pretended to think about it and then answered, “Cake.”
I grinned at her and saw her mouth twitch before I felt my grin die.
“This, right here,” I stated. “Seriously, my beautiful Kathy, I don’t regret a thing.”
I didn’t let her reply.
She knew I’d made my point and done it grandly.
I just walked in and got the cakes.
The World Would Stop Spinning
Present day . . .
“I KNEW. I HEARD THE stories. But oh my God. You are so totally a dick.”
“Kathy,” I snapped under my breath.
She lifted a hand and jerked a thumb at my brother Caylen. “He’s totally a dick.”
“I see you haven’t changed the company you keep,” Caylen drawled.
We were standing at his door. He hadn’t invited us in.
This was not a surprise.
He looked fit and spry and perhaps ten years younger than he was.
This was also not a surprise. If every minute of your life you lived precisely as you wanted to, I would imagine anyone would look fabulous.
He also had not been kind.
Or even polite.
Also not a surprise.
A disappointment, but not a surprise.
In his (limited) defense, we had not shared we were going to surprise him by showing on his doorstep. This was a tactical maneuver on my part considering, if I’d given him advanced notice, he would probably have booked a vacation in Siberia or rented a pair of Rottweilers to chase us off his property.
Even so, his reaction to our unexpected visit was not only not kind, or polite, or even unwelcoming . . .
It had been scathing.
“You’re not helping, Kath,” I told her.
“Why do I need to help? You came. You saw. He acted like a dick. Let’s go. I want to hit those shops in that town we drove through on the way back.”
“Enjoy your shopping,” Caylen murmured, and I caught his movement so I turned swiftly, lifting a hand to the door he was closing.
I also lifted my eyes to his.
“Please, you’re my brother, our parents are gone. We’re all we’ve got left of that family.”
“I’m good the way things stand,” he replied.
“Caylen, do you honestly think Mom and Dad would want us to leave it like this?” I asked.
“What I think is Dad had a soft spot for you I never got because you were a waste of space from the beginning. Mom always thought you’d turn yourself around but the minute that girlfriend of yours murdered her boyfriend and then got sent to prison for doing it, and the icing on the cake of that monstrousness was that she was also sentenced for dealing drugs, she knew you were a lost cause. You only proved it to her by gold digging that poor old guy who put up with it to have a trophy wife.”
“Now wait a fucking—” Kath started growling.
I whirled to her. “Kath! Stop. You are not helping.”
“He has no idea what he’s talking about!” Kath retorted hotly.
“Nice mouth on that one,” Caylen put in. “Is she a drug dealer or a drug dealer’s whor
I turned to Caylen. “She’s—”
“Forget I asked. I don’t care,” he cut me off to proclaim. “I see the company you keep hasn’t changed nor your manners. Usually you phone before you come calling. But just to say, Cady, don’t phone because, please, I beg you, I don’t want you ever again to come calling.”
He started to put pressure on the door to close it but I settled my weight in my arm to stop him.
“I made some poor decisions . . .” I began.
Kath swore under her breath.
Caylen narrowed eyes at her then at my hand then they came back to me as I kept talking.
“ . . . and I understand that. But that was a long time ago and there’s a lot that’s happened since, including us losing both our parents. I know you don’t believe me now but the truth is that I grew up. And I’d like to introduce you to the woman I’ve become, and I’d like to have the chance to get to know my brother. To meet your children. To start fresh and get what’s left of our family back together.”
“Do you honestly think I want my children to meet you?” he asked scornfully.
“My children know her and they love her, and they call her Auntie Cady and they’re old enough to call her Cady. Cady’s told them to call her Cady, but they refuse to call her anything but Auntie Cady because it shows her the respect she deserves.”
“Well, bravo for your children,” Caylen sneered.
Kath opened her mouth but I stopped her from speaking when I asked, “Do you need to go sit in the car?”
“Do you think I’m leaving you alone with this fool?” she asked back.
“All right, I’ve had enough. I don’t need to stand in my own front door and be insulted,” Caylen declared.
I turned back to him. “Caylen, seriously, please just give me ten minutes. Kath will sit in the car.”
“Cady, seriously, no, not ten minutes, not ten more seconds. I don’t know why you’re here out of the blue but I don’t want to spend ten minutes listening to you talk circles, when in the end you’re going to ask for money or tell me you and your friend need a place to stay or whatever it is you think you can get out of me,” Caylen retorted then ordered, “Take your hand from my door.”
“Uh, dude, do you not see her bodacious Jag?” Kath asked under her breath.