Roz Fox - Welcome To My Family

Kat pulled her knees to her chest and hunched her shoulders, massaging her upper arms. “Go. I’m waiting out the rain.”

He couldn’t just leave her like this. Sighing, Slater leaned toward her and extended a hand. “Come on,” he said, “it’s over.”

Again the music ended. Nat King Cole’s “Black Magic” this time. In the lull, Buzz Moran’s voice rose above the others. “I swear, Louie, you win every pot. With your luck, we should ship you off to Atlantic City with all our remaining cash.”

Slater’s dad laughed. “Good idea. But why don’t we all go? I’m free anytime. It’s you guys who need permission.” Much male posturing followed his statement, with all the others also claiming freedom.

“I can go anytime,” bragged Tim O’Halloran. “I’ll tell Maureen I’m working on the church carnival. In fact, there it is, if anyone needs an excuse.”

“When shall we go?” Louie badgered.

Several dates were bandied about before the music blared again, blocking whatever date they’d selected from the two listening upstairs.

Kat uncoiled from her position near the door. She tendered Slater an I-told-you-so look.

He avoided her eyes. Damn, why hadn’t he left sooner? Before L.J. made a fool of himself. Slater would rather not have known about those wins, to say nothing of the proposed gambling trip. Because it meant he had to find time to deal with that issue now. Time better spent solving the car’s fuel-injection problems. He crossed to stand beneath the peaked roof and tucked both hands in his back pockets. Well, now they were even. But so help him, if she rubbed it in, if she smirked or laughed he’d—

Far from rubbing salt in his wounds, Kat’s gaze suddenly became understanding.

It wasn’t pity. That would have allowed Slater to simply walk away. Damn. He felt again as he had when he was a teenager and his boat had been cut adrift in a storm-tossed river. Hurriedly burying that particular bad memory, he extended his hand to Kat again. “Come on, tiger, I’ll buy you a drink. I think we both need one.”

She shut the trapdoor fully, forgetting it was their only source of light. Kat gasped as the attic was plunged into darkness.

Slater materialized out of nowhere to grip her arm. He intended to lead the way to the window. It wasn’t his fault he picked the arm lacerated by the thorn.

Cringing, Kat cried out involuntarily.

“What’s wrong?” he hissed. But by then Slater’s probing fingers had found the rent in her sleeve. Skimming lightly, he explored the torn flesh beneath.

“Stop it,” Kat breathed, fighting a stab of need that sprang from his touch. “I got in a fight with the tree, okay? Score is hawthorn two, O’Halloran zero.”

Slater chuckled.

“Go ahead, laugh.” She backed away. “And then let’s go before we’re caught.”

Not normally prone to wild mood swings, he took pride in keeping a cool head. Therefore, he couldn’t imagine what craziness provoked him to fracture his own rule about never romantically involving himself with an employee. Shocking them both, he slid his hands through Kathleen’s short curls, tipped her head back and kissed her.

Kat could almost feel the steam rising from her still-damp clothes. A kiss from Kowalski was the last thing she’d expected. Furthermore, she never would have imagined he’d be so good at it.

Out of nowhere, it seemed, flashes of light filled the interior of the room. Thunder boomed and shook the rafters. Kat’s heart leaped and pounded in tempo. It was as if her knees refused to support her, and several seconds went by before she realized Slater had pulled away and said something fairly benign about the ferocity of the storm.

Kat heard him open the window. A sudden gust of wind cooled her hot face. It was precisely what she needed to plunge her back into reality. The return of sanity enabled her to shake off his mind-numbing kiss. Climbing out on the window ledge unaided, she leaped onto a rain-slicked branch.

Kat told herself that she’d known all along it was the storm and not his kiss setting off all those fireworks in the room. But when her knees gave way and she slipped and would have fallen had he not been there, she revised her thinking and gave credit where credit was due. Kowalski kissed like he did everything else—with complete control, but with purpose.

What that purpose might be in this instance evaded her. She just knew he’d better not try anything like that after she got her feet safely on the ground, or Mr. CEO of Flintridge would be picking himself up in the next county.

Slater felt the change in her. He knew it was because of that unexpected kiss. Yet if she’d asked point-blank why he’d done it, he couldn’t have explained to save his life. He hated the fact that he’d broken his own rule. But he’d be damned if he’d apologize.

On the ground, Slater found he didn’t trust himself to talk or to touch her until they were both well away from the Mallorys’ property. Once they’d walked some distance he exhaled and placed his hand in what he thought was an impersonal gesture beneath Kathleen’s elbow. He didn’t see her Isuzu, and his car was down the block.

She slapped his hand away. “Hands off, Kowalski, or…”

His grip tightened. “I thought we were going for a drink. You may enjoy hiking in the rain, O’Halloran. I prefer to drive and stay dry.”

Kat hadn’t realized she’d steeled herself for his apology until it didn’t come. And she was at a loss to explain why she felt furious with him for acting so blasé about what had gone on between them upstairs.

“I don’t drink, but if I did, you’d be the last person I’d drink with. I’m going home. To map out a plan to save my pop from sure disaster. I suggest you do the same. Kowalskis may be able to afford an attempt to break the bank in Atlantic City. O’Hallorans can’t.” Leaving him standing in the rain, Kat crossed the street and started jogging in the opposite direction, in spite of the fact that her cold muscles objected.

Slater shivered as rain seeped through his shirt. Where the hell was she going? Hadn’t that father of hers warned her how dangerous it was for a woman to be walking the streets at night? Even in a company town like Flintridge? She’d turned the corner before he realized she meant business. Swearing, he dashed to his car and promptly made a U-turn to go find her.

Pulling alongside Kat midway down the block, Slater rolled down his window. “Enough, O’Halloran. I propose a truce. I don’t want it on my conscience if you get pneumonia, or worse, if you get murdered.”

“Murdered? By whom? I know almost everyone who lives on the Hill.” Kat forced a laugh. Laughing proved to be a mistake. It broke her stride, and the muscles in her right calf seized. She fell instantly to her knees.

Slater was out of his car in a flash. “What happened? Did you trip? I swear, you are the most accident-prone female I’ve ever met.”

That did it! Kat struggled to stand. Only, her leg refused to cooperate. All she could do was fight back angry tears when he picked her up and carried her to his car. She found her voice after he’d stripped off her sneaker and started massaging her foot. “Don’t. It…it’s a charley horse in my calf. Give me a minute. It’ll ease on its own.”

“Where’s your house? I’ll drive you there.”

“My Trooper’s at the grocery store.” Then as pain shot up her leg, she grudgingly relented. “I suppose you could give me a lift there.”

Slater had a sarcastic retort on the tip of his tongue, but curbed it as they passed beneath a street lamp and he saw she was still hurting. Not only that, the welt on her cheek looked red and angry. “I’ll follow you home. You can invite me in for coffee,” he ordered. Then his voice grew gentle, “I’ll tend the scrapes left by that tree.”

Kat caught sight of the clock in his dashboard. “No, you can’t come in,” she said, urgently shaking her head. “It’s nearly ten.”

He smiled. “Do you turn into a pumpkin at ten?”

That brought the first break in tension since their kiss. Kat’s lips curved upward. “My mother’s due home at ten. She hasn’t the foggiest idea I’m out playing Sherlock Holmes. Give me a rain check on the coffee, please?”

Before Slater could say it always rained when she was around, she directed him into the parking lot at the grocery store.

His heart shot into high gear for no reason at all that he could ascertain as she climbed from his car and limped swiftly to her own. Dynamite came in small packages. Damn, but the woman intrigued him.

Slater drifted in behind her vehicle. He followed at a discreet distance as she zigzagged through the dark residential area that made up the Hill’s territory. It was just as well things had worked out the way they had, he thought, nervously rubbing his neck. She was nothing like the women he normally found attractive. For crying out loud! Didn’t he have enough problems in his life without deliberately soliciting more?

So why did he hold his breath until he saw her safely inside a sprawling, well-kept house? And why, all the way home, did he plot strategies that involved joining forces with her to save their two fathers from calamity?

What most haunted Slater after he got home and climbed into bed was that damned kiss. He’d certainly kissed less difficult women. Women who’d grown up in the bosom of his community. The only thing his mother had asked of him, before she slipped into a coma from which she’d never emerged, was that her only son marry a nice woman who’d embrace Polish traditions.

Unable to sleep, Slater rose. He poured himself a stiff shot of brandy, and by the time his father sneaked in through the front door at one-fifteen, Slater sat quietly in one corner of the library, reading a book on Ireland’s customs.

ACROSS TOWN, Kat O’Halloran feigned sleep when her mother peeked in at eleven. Yet she was still awake watching shadows dance on her ceiling when Pop strolled in at one. At 3:00 a.m., for about the hundredth time, Kat plumped her pillow and covered her head. She resented Poseidon’s snoozing so easily at her feet.

“Monday,” she groused, “I’m going to march straight into Slater Kowalski’s office and resign.”

At four o’clock, Kat got up and rubbed more salve on her cuts. “Yes. Resign is the smart thing to do. We’re worlds apart,” she told her ravaged reflection in the mirror. “We have nothing in common.” Kat imagined the furor among her brothers and their wives if she were to date someone from the Ridge. Under the circumstance, resigning was the only choice. No kiss had ever interrupted her sleep before. Nor had any kiss ever left her longing like this. Longing for more of the same…

BY SATURDAY MORNING, Kat thought the scratches on her face and arms had faded. She didn’t expect anyone to notice them and was alarmed when both parents expressed concern. She mumbled something innocuous about how it had happened when she had sorted old sporting equipment stored in the attic. They accepted her story. Too quickly, Kat decided.

Her parents seemed vaguely preoccupied—a fact that concerned Kat more than the injuries resulting from her encounter with Spud’s tree.

The most emotion she’d seen either parent exhibit throughout the day occurred after Kat had wheedled her mother into modeling the dress she’d bought. Pop happened to pass the bedroom, and Kat couldn’t fault his response. His eyes lit up, and the kiss he laid on his wife was enough to make a grown daughter blush.

It reminded Kat of Slater’s kiss. A memory so real, she left her parents in their clinch and dashed upstairs to revise the resignation letter she had drafted around midnight.