once we all settled down,” Nate said.
Once again Kinley felt the white-hot needle of guilt pierce through her. “When is that going to happen?”
“Not any time soon, as far as I’m concerned. Hunter is the only one who seems interested in getting serious. But after ten years of hell, I think it’s about time he had a break.”
“That stuff about him... It was really hard to watch when I was in California. I mean, there was the Hunter I grew up with and then this other guy I was seeing stories about on TV. I’m glad they finally caught the man responsible.”
“We all are. Mom spent a lot of time at St. Thomas Aquinas Church praying,” Nate said.
When he spoke about Hunter, Kinley heard the love and concern in his voice. She’d been in high school when Hunter had first been accused of murder, but all that was in the past now. And Hunter had Ferrin.
“He’s got the happy ending he deserved,” Kinley said. It gave her hope that once she came clean with Nate she’d be able to move on. Maybe keeping Penny’s paternity a secret was one of the barriers that had kept her from dating over the last few years.
But she knew it wasn’t. She knew it was her own fear of trusting a man again. Or, to be more honest, trusting her heart. She’d thought what she felt for Nate had been the beginning of something more solid, but in the end it had only been lust.
Which was raising its hotter-than-hell head once again.
“He has. How many weddings have you planned?” Nate asked. “How did you get started doing that?”
She sipped her sparkling water and took the reprieve he’d unintentionally given her. “I’ve planned close to twenty weddings. All of them high-end, destination-type affairs. I got started when I answered an ad for a personal assistant and starting working for Jacs. She had one of her planners flake out and gave me a trial run. I guess she saw something in me and decided to promote me to planner.”
“I’m not surprised she saw something in you. I’ve never known you to be a woman to back down,” Nate said. “No matter how much the outer packaging has changed over the years, that solid core of steel still remains.”
It was one of the nicest things that anyone had ever said to her. That Nate Caruthers was the one saying it made her heart heavy. “Thank you.”
“It’s okay. I should have remembered that when you called me. Instead I felt trapped, and I wasn’t ready for that. Despite the fact that we spent a weekend together, you’re not the kind of woman a man should ever be casual about.”
She didn’t know what to say to that. The fact that he hadn’t been ready to settle down gave her pause in her determination to tell him about Penny. Was he ready now? How would she know for sure?
She wanted to make things right. For Nate. For Ma Caruthers. For herself. But her duty was to Penny. And Kinley had to determine if it would be better for her daughter to never know who her father was or to know and have him disappoint her.
It was a tough call.
One that was going to take more than a sparkling water and a single conversation to figure out. She wasn’t sure if it was cowardice or not, but she decided she needed to get to know the man that Nate was today before she let him know he had a daughter.
It was the only fair thing to do for herself and Penny. And for Nate, who was still running wild, if word around town could be believed.
“I’m not sure that I was ready for anything more during that weekend in Vegas,” she admitted. “But I am definitely not as casual now.”
“Can I talk you into dinner?” he asked.
She hesitated, but she’d already said good night to Penny, so she knew her daughter wasn’t expecting her home until after bedtime. Kinley had promised to call at seven thirty and could still do so.
If she was going to figure out how and if to tell Nate, they were going to have spend more time together, and dinner seemed like a safe enough way to start.
Nate normally would have gone to the country club for a midweek dinner and then played a few games of pool with Derek before hitting the Bull Pit for more drinking and carousing before heading home. Instead he was seated across from Kinley eating a steak and listening to her talk about the latest book she’d read.
He didn’t want to dwell on the fact that this was shaping up to be one of his best weeknights in a long time. She was animated when she talked, and now that he’d put the brakes on anything too sexy, she’d relaxed. Her hands moved as she explained a part of the book she really liked, and then she laughed and his gut clenched and his blood seemed to flow a little heavier in his veins.
“It’s just the funniest thing I’ve read in a long time and I thought while I was reading it, this girl could be me. Have you ever felt that way?” she asked.
He hadn’t. “Not really, but then, I’ve always had Dad to show me the kind of man I wanted to be.”
“Your dad is the best,” she said.
There was a note in her voice that made him wonder if Marcus hadn’t been the same kind of dad as his was. His father lived for his sons and made sure they knew it. They’d all been very certain that he had a strong moral code for them to live up to and he expected a lot from them. But he’d always treated them with love.
“Was your dad?” Nate asked.
“He wasn’t horrible or anything like that. But he did tend to work a lot on the weekend when I was out there. Mostly I think I saw your dad more than I saw my own.”
Nate hadn’t realized that and now wondered if he was keeping any of his employees from seeing their kids as often as they liked. He never really thought about the ranch children. His life was very different from his employees’, since his days of working the ranch were long gone. He spent most of his time in his high-rise office building here in Cole’s Hill doing deals and managing the business that the Rockin’ C had blossomed into.
“I didn’t know that,” he said, at last understanding that there was a lot to Kinley that he didn’t know.
In his mind he always imagined that she’d had the same sort of upbringing he had. He remembered Kinley being on the ranch on the weekends. He’d thought of her as a sort of girl version of himself.
“Why would you?” she asked. “It would be weird if you had. Besides, my dad and I have a pretty good relationship now. It’s just different than yours is with your parents.”
Nate shook his head. “I was very glad to move them into their own home, not that I forced them out. But as much as I like having my town house in the Five Families area, I do prefer to be out on the ranch.”
“Couldn’t you have lived there with your parents?” she asked.
“Of course, but if I did, then Mom wanted to meet any of the women I brought home, and sometimes that could get awkward.”
“I bet,” she said. “Are you still mostly keeping it casual?”
“Mostly. But I am here with you tonight.”
“Tonight? Should I just be thinking of this as temporary... What am I talking about? We’re having dinner to clear the air and give us a friendly base so that we don’t make Hunter and your family aware of what happened between us.”
He should have been very happy that she understood the kind of man he was.
But...
He didn’t want her to dismiss him so easily. Yeah, he was a temporary cowboy, the kind of man who knew how to show a woman a good time for a short stretch, but he might change for the right woman.
That was