comment pulled her up short. Why did she suddenly feel as if her conscience were the target and Tanisha’s accusation a straight flying arrow?
Bull’s-eye.
“What makes you say that?”
“Why else would you want to hook up with Richard ‘The Dick’ Hancock? He’s sooo not your type.” Tanisha hopped off Katie’s desk and plopped down in front of her drafting board.
“What do you mean? Richard is a very handsome guy.”
“I’m not talking about his looks.”
“What’s wrong with Richard?”
“Nothing is wrong with Richard. What’s wrong is that you’re plotting to seduce him at the Ladies League ball.” Tanisha clicked her tongue.
“What’s so bad about that?”
“Face it, Katie. You’ve got a knack for causing a stir.”
“I don’t.”
“You do.”
“How so?”
“Who got caught kissing the CEO’s son under the mistletoe at the office Christmas party, hmm?”
“Hey,” Katie said defensively. “How was I supposed to know he’d just gotten engaged?”
“That’smy point, K. You don’t always take the time to ask the right questions and it often lands you in hot water. Subconsciously, I think you enjoy causing a scandal.”
“I do not.” Did she?
“Either that or you’re into self-sabotage. Which is it?”
“Neither.”
“If you say so.” Tanisha sounded skeptical.
“I say so.”
“And the Nile is just a river in Egypt.” Tanisha snorted.
Was she sabotaging herself? As the youngest of three sisters growing up in a household run by their loving mother and strict naval-officer father, Katie had done a little acting out for attention, but so what?
She’d played hooky a few times in high school. Once or twice, she’d gotten caught sneaking out her bedroom window to meet a boyfriend. She enjoyed making Great-Aunt Josephine’s upper-crust nose wrinkle in disapproval by listening to hip-hop, using street slang and wearing jeans to family gatherings. Honestly, she’d never done anything too radical. Katie just liked having fun. Her motives were no more complicated than a Cyndi Lauper song.
Well, okay, maybe sometimes it got stifling with her two older, oh-so-perfect sisters. Brooke was the beautiful caregiver, Joey the smart go-getter and they were both as good as gold. By default, that left Katie with the title of wild child. But everyone had a family label, right? And she chose to wear hers proudly.
To be honest, even after their father had passed away five years ago, she and her sisters had still lived a fairy-tale life. They’d been lucky, blessed, until this past year when their world had totally collapsed.
Katie didn’t want to think about it, but the rush of memories overwhelmed her and she felt herself caught in a tornado of emotion that squeezed the breath from her lungs. She forced a smile, determined not to let Tanisha know about the sorrow knotting up inside her.
But a smile couldn’t stop the sad feelings.
In January, Katie and her sisters had received the horrible news that their beloved mother, Daisy, had been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. Katie denied it for as long as she could. She’d pretended it was all a big mistake, that their mother was fine. But each day Daisy Winfield grew weaker and sicker until Katie could deny it no longer.
After that, she’d gotten angry. When Brooke had told her that she was stuck in the second stage of grief, the comment had pissed her off. Sainted Brooke, who never did anything wrong apparently leapfrogged right over the five stages of grief. She’d quickly skimmed from denial to anger to depression and bargaining straight on through to acceptance.
Katie, according to Brooke, had never gotten past anger.
Maybe she hadn’t. But how was she supposed to get past it? Her mother had only been fifty-three when she passed away in July, only four months after she’d been diagnosed. There hadn’t been nearly enough time to say goodbye.
It wasn’t fair.
Katie closed her eyes and inhaled sharply at the pain of remembering that awful night when their mother had died.
She’d been restless, feverish and babbling about a lost baby. Daisy had clutched her daughters’ hands and begged them to find the baby girl. They had no idea what baby she was talking about. The hospice nurse had assured them it was just the effects of the heavy pain medication she was on, but it had been upsetting to see her mother so distressed during her last minutes on Earth.
Involuntarily, Katie laid a hand across her heart and felt a solid ache for the loss of her mother.
“Katie?” Tanisha’s voice snapped her out of the past and back into the present.
She opened her eyes.
Tanisha had an odd expression on her face. She canted her head and a dark braid fell against her chiseled cheekbone. “Are you all right?”
“Uh-huh.”
“You don’t look all right.”
“I am.”
Tanisha nodded at the shopping bags crammed underneath Katie’s desk. “Does this shopping spree and Ladies League seduction, and other crazy behavior have anything to do with losing your mother?”
Her coworker was more perceptive than she imagined. Tanisha’s party-girl personality gave the impression that she wasn’t the type to pry into people’s deep, dark secrets, which was probably one of the reasons Katie had been drawn to her. Katie herself was not a fan of digging into her own psyche.
“Why would you think that?” Katie forced a laugh, but it came out sounding strangled and strange.
“I was thinking that maybe you’re looking to seduce Richard as a way of drowning your sorrow. You know, choking out the pain with pleasure.”
“No, no. Of course not. That’s ludicrous. I can’t believe you thought that.”
“This coming weekend is the two-month anniversary of your mother’s death.”
“So?”
“So maybe instead of facing what’s upsetting you, you’re seducing Richard Hancock.”
“Well, I’m not,” Katie snapped.
Tanisha held up her palms. “Oookay, I was merely checking. No need to get testy.”
“I don’t understand. What do you have against me hooking up with Richard?”
“He’s just not what you need right now.”
“Why not?” she asked. “He’s fun and flirts and likes to have a good time.”
“Exactly.”
“Meaning?”
“You’re two of a kind.”
“Again, why is that a problem?”
“Come on, be straight with me, do you even like Richard?”
Katie shrugged. “Sure.”
“What do you like about him?” Tanisha lifted a finger. “And you can’t say anything physical.”
“He’s…he’s…”
Why couldn’t she think of what she liked about Richard beside his thick blond hair and his radiant white-toothed smile and his big, broad tanned hands? He wasn’t terribly bright,