Teresa Hill - Her Sister's Fiancé

And if anyone at Ben’s church heard about it, she’d never live it down.

Oh, well.

She’d tried to tell him she wouldn’t quite fit in, but he hadn’t listened.

Not that it was going badly. Her and the church ladies, as she called them. Not at all. She just kept expecting it to go badly.

Poisoning her husband would definitely make things go badly, because they all adored him. They thought he was right up there with God.

“Just don’t tell anybody, okay? I’m afraid the church ladies are watching all the time, and that they’re convinced no one will ever be good enough for Ben,” Kate said.

Kathie finally lifted her head and stepped back. She wiped at her tears with the back of her hand and smiled a bit. “So…I missed you.”

“Oh, honey, I missed you so much! I didn’t think you’d ever come back.”

There were more hugs, more tears, and when those finally subsided, Kate had a million things she wanted to say and no idea how to start. All the possibilities seemed fraught with red flags.

Kathie finally started things off. “So…you’re okay?”

“I’m great.”

“And you’re…happy?”

“Yes. Kim’s settled right in for her first year of teaching. Shannon is doing so well, and we just saw the baby she gave up for adoption. They named her Elissa, and she’s sitting up and babbling and slobbers on everything. Her parents have a two-year-old named Emily, and they invited us all to Emily’s birthday party two weeks ago. Ben is absolutely wonderful, until Jax comes along and talks him into doing something like this. Poor Ben, he wants to fit in so badly, he’ll go along with anything Jax says, any scheme he comes up with.”

“Well…good,” Kathie said like she couldn’t quite believe it. “That’s good. I’m happy for you, and I just want you to know, I’m here to fix everything.”

“Okay.” Kate wasn’t quite sure what that meant, but she was ready to agree to most anything her sister wanted.

“At least, everything I can fix. I mean, I know it was awful—”

“Kathie, no—”

“It was, and I know that, and I feel just awful about it—”

“I’m not mad, I promise,” Kate protested.

“But I’m going to fix as much of it as I can. Joe said people in town think I’ve stayed away because you can’t forgive me for what he and I did, that there’s a rumor going around that you threw me out of town.”

“Well, that’s just silly,” Kate said.

“No, it’s awful. I can’t let people think that about you.”

“Kathie, I don’t care what anybody thinks anymore. I know I used to, but I’m over it. I care about Ben and my family, and maybe the church ladies, a little bit, just because I want them to like me and think I’m right for Ben, because I know how much they all love him. But that’s it, I swear.”

“Well, I still don’t want anybody to think you kicked me out of town,” Kathie said. “So I thought if I just came back for a little while, and people saw us together and happy, they’d know that’s not true.”

“Okay.” That worked for Kate. Anything that got her sister back and had them spending time together, worked for Kate.

“And Joe didn’t want to tell me, but…I guess everybody hates him now!”

“Well, I don’t know if I’d go that far….”

“Everybody blames him for what happened. Not me. Him. He said they all think he dumped me, after…you know, making trouble between you and him, and you and me. That he dumped me when everybody found out about it, and I was so devastated, I left town.”

“I guess it’s possible. I don’t know. Honestly, I’ve heard every rumor in the world about the whole thing, and I just try not to listen anymore.” Kate would have said again it didn’t matter to her, but like her brother, she wanted her sister to come back to stay.

She wasn’t going to be as bad as her brother, was she?

No jaw breaking and no threats, but still as bad in her own way. Like being ready to let her sister believe anything to keep Kathie here?

“It wasn’t Joe’s fault,” Kathie insisted. “Honest, it wasn’t. It was me. All of it was me.”

Kate didn’t believe that for a second. After thinking about it for a long, long time, she chose to believe that two of the people she knew best in the world had, completely unexpectedly, developed real feelings for each other, which might have been a real problem for her if, in the middle of the whole thing, she hadn’t found the love of her life.

So whatever had happened between her sister and her ex-fiancé was completely okay with her now. She just couldn’t seem to convince Kathie of that, no matter how hard she tried. Mostly, Kathie wouldn’t even let her bring up the subject. She wanted her sister here, and she wanted her happy, and one thing Kate had figured out was that Kathie and Joe both seemed miserable without each other.

Which wasn’t okay with Kate at all.

So, Kathie was worried about people blaming and hating Joe for whatever had happened between the two of them?

“Well…I don’t know what you can do about that,” Kate said carefully, in case there was something and it was something that would keep her sister in town, where she belonged.

“That’s why I came back,” her sister said. “To show everybody that you’re not mad at me and that you didn’t kick me out of town.”

“Okay,” Kate said. That was fine with her. That was very good.

“And to show everybody that Joe didn’t dump me,” Kate said. “I dumped him.”

“You dumped him?” Kate asked. Why would her sister dump Joe, if Joe was the one she truly wanted?

“Okay, I didn’t really dump him. I mean, he was never mine to dump. He and I were just…” Kathie’s face turned beet red. “I don’t know what we were. Stupid, I guess. I was just stupid and selfish and confused, and once everyone found out last fall, I just couldn’t stand to be here, with everybody knowing and talking about us. So, I have a plan.”

Kate nodded very carefully. “What plan?”

“If it’s okay with you, I mean, I’m going to pretend to see Joe for a few weeks….”

Her sister waited…for Kate to object? “Okay,” Kate said.

“And then I’m going to dump him, so people won’t blame him for the whole thing anymore. So he won’t be the bad guy.”

“Joe asked you to come back to town to pretend to date him, then dump him, so that people would stop blaming him for dumping you?” Kate asked.

“No! He would never do that. I don’t think he even meant to tell me. It just slipped out, but once I knew, I had to try to fix things, because it wasn’t right for people to blame you and him when it was all my fault,” her sister explained.

Okay.

That kind of made sense, but only because Kate knew her sister so well.

Joe had been threatened within an inch of his life and forced to go see Kathie, and then, when he tried to talk her into coming back, as ordered, something had gone wrong, and he’d ended up giving her the impression that everyone in town blamed Joe and Kate for Kathie’s decision to leave, and Kathie was here to make sure everyone blamed her instead?

Not what Joe intended, Kate was sure, but it had gotten her sister to come back. Once Kathie saw a problem that she believed she’d created, she wouldn’t give up until she fixed things.

And Kathie could only fix things from here in town.

Kate weighed her options carefully. If she protested that she wasn’t mad at her sister at all, that it was fine with her if Kathie and Joe fell madly in love, and that she didn’t care what anyone in town thought of any of that, Kathie might not stay and try to fix things.

And she really wanted Kathie to stay, no matter what the reason.