Page 49 of Keep On Loving You
And that was perfect because even though the cast had been replaced by a brace, Kat had decided to lighten her client load for the next few months so she could focus on getting through everything on her list.
A flash of movement out in the plaza caught her eye. Before she even looked, Kat knew it would be a member of her family. She shook her head, put a smile on her face, andlooked up to see her niece Meri doing a particularly bad job of hiding behind a tree.
Kat used her good hand to put her thumb to her nose, stick out her tongue, and wiggle her fingers. Meri burst out laughing.
“Alison,” she called to the woman who was at the sink, rinsing color off a client. “I’m heading out for today but I updated my availability in the schedule in case anyone calls in.”
“No problem, Kat. Have a great day.”
Kat grabbed her phone and belt bag and headed out into the warm sunshine, where she immediately spotted her niece crouched next to a bench.
“I see you over there, kiddo.”
Meri popped up and threw her arms up in the air.
Kat laughed and greeted her niece with a hug. “We’re going to have to work on your hiding skills. When I was your age, I was epic at hide-and-seek.”
“I wasn’t really trying to hide.” Meri rolled her eyes. “I wanted to show you the ribbons I got at sports day, but Dad and Lucy told me not to bother you.”
“They did?” Guilt squeezed at her heart. It was one thing to be avoiding her siblings, but she never wanted her niece to think she couldn’t come to her for anything.
Meri nodded. “They said you were stressed.”
“Do you even know what stressed means?” Kat looked at her sideways and tried not to laugh.
“It means you want to be alone to think about things,” Meri answered seriously.
“Well, you’re not entirely wrong. But I’m not stressed. And even if I was, that would never mean that you have to leave me alone, okay?”
Meri nodded.
“Now, show me these ribbons. Did you kick some butt?”
Meri giggled at her use of the word butt and proudly thrust her ribbons toward her auntie.
“You got second in the skip rope contest?”
Meri scowled. “I would have gotten first, but Harrison stuck his tongue out at me, and I shouldn’t have looked, but I did and then I tripped over the rope so Brittany got first, and she never should have won because I’m better at skipping and everyone knows that and if it wasn’t for Harrison, I would have won.”
She stuck her hands on her hips and looked so put out that it was absolutely adorable and Kat had to work hard not to laugh.
“That doesn’t sound fair at all,” she said instead. “What do you say we get some ice cream? Because you’ll always be the best skipper I know.”
Meri grabbed Kat’s good hand and pulled her toward the Sugar Shack.
She blew out a breath and braced herself. She couldn’t avoid her brothers and sister forever. She might as well get it over with.
Besides, there was no reason for any of them to suspect that anything else was going on. And there really wasn’t any reason why they should think that her avoidance had anything to do with Andy.
Her lips curved into a natural smile the moment he popped into her head. The last week with him staying with her had been…well, to say it had been fun would be a massive understatement. But there was no other word for it, because that’s exactly what ithadbeen.
They both knew that what they were doing together was wrong and Craig would lose his mind if he ever found out. But he wouldn’t find out. Because they’d agreed that it was only some temporary fun.
Thefunthey’d gotten up to that morning flashed through her memory, sending all kinds of good feelings through her. But the moment she stepped through the door, the good feelings evaporated when she saw who was sitting at a table in the corner, heads together, deep in an intimate conversation.
“There’s got to be at least one in here that catches your eye.”
Andy shuffled the papers around the table in front of him. Jess had really come through with a variety of different types of properties for him to look at.
