Page 17 of Courting Catherine
Chapter Four
When you couldn’t sleep, the best thing to do was get up. That’s what C.C. told herself as she sat at the kitchen table, watching the sunrise and drinking her second cup of coffee.
She had a lot on her mind, that was all. Bills, the dyspeptic Oldsmobile that was first on her schedule that morning, bills, an upcoming dentist appointment. More bills. Trenton St. James was far down on her list of concerns. Somewhere below a potential cavity and just ahead of a faulty exhaust system.
She certainly wasn’t losing any sleep over him. And a kiss, that ridiculous—accidentwas the best term she could use to describe it—wasn’t even worth a moment’s thought.
Yet she had thought of little else throughout the long, sleepless night.
She was acting as though she’d never been kissed before, C.C. berated herself. And, of course, she had, starting with Denny Dinsmore, who had planted the first sloppy mouth-to-mouth on her after their eighth-grade Valentine’s dance.
Naturally there had been no comparison between Denny’s fumbling yet sincere attempt and the stunning expertise of Trent’s. Which only proved, C.C. decided as she scowled into her coffee, that Trent had spent a large part of his life with his lips slapped up against some woman’s. Lots of women’s.
It had been a rotten thing to do, she thought now. Particularly in the middle of what had been becoming a very satisfactory argument. Men like Trent didn’t know how to fight fair, with wit and words and good honest fury. They were taught how to dominate, by whatever manner worked.
Well, it had worked, she thought, running a fingertip over her lips. Damn him and the horse he rode in on. It had worked like a charm, because for one moment, one brief, trembling moment she had felt something fine and lovely—something more than the exciting press of his mouth on hers, more than the possessive grip of his hands.
It had been inside her, beneath the panic and the pleasure, beyond the whirl of sensation—a glow, warm and golden, like a lamp in the window on a stormy night.
Then he had turned off that lamp, with one quick, careless flick, leaving her in the dark again.
She could have hated him for that alone, C.C. thought miserably, if she hadn’t already had enough to hate him for.
“Hey, kid.” Lilah breezed through the doorway, tidy in her park service khakis. Her mass of hair was in a neat braid down her back. Swinging at each ear was a trio of amber crystal balls. “You’re up early.”
“Me?” C.C. forgot her own mood long enough to stare. “Are you my sister or some clever imposter?”
“You be the judge.”
“Must be an imposter. Lilah Maeve Calhoun’s never up before eight o’clock, which is exactly twenty minutes before she has to rush out of the house to be five minutes late for work.”
“God, I hate to be so predictable. My horoscope,” Lilah told her as she rooted through the refrigerator. “It said that I should rise early today and contemplate the sunrise.”
“So how was it?” C.C. asked as her sister brought a cold can of soda and a wicked slice of the Black Forest cake to the table.
“Pretty spectacular as sunrises go.” Lilah shoveled cake into her mouth. “What’s your excuse?”
“Couldn’t sleep.”
“Anything to do with the stranger at the end of the hall?”
C.C. wrinkled her nose and filched a cherry from Lilah’s plate. “Guys like that don’t bother me.”
“Guys like that were created to bother women, and thank God for it. So...” Lilah stretched her legs out to rest her feet on an empty chair. The kitchen faucet was leaking again, but she liked the sound of it. “What’s the story?”
“I didn’t say there was a story.”
“You don’t have to say, it’s all over your face.”
“I just don’t like him being here, that’s all.” Evading, C.C. rose to take her cup to the sink. “It’s like we’re already being pushed out of our own home. I know we’ve discussed selling, but it was all so vague and down some long, dark road.” She turned back to her sister. “Lilah, what are we going to do?”
“I don’t know.” Lilah’s eyes clouded. It was one of the few things she couldn’t prevent herself from worrying about. Home and family, they were her weaknesses. “I guess we could sell some more of the crystal, and there’s the silver.”
“It would break Aunt Coco’s heart to sell the silver.”
“I know. But we may have to go piece by piece—or make the big move.” She scooped up some more cake. “As much as I hate to say it, we’re going to have to think hard, and practically, and seriously.”
“But, Lilah, a hotel?”
