To her amazement, he shook his head and sighed. "You were always so damned hard on yourself. That hasn't changed."
"Hard on myself?" Katherine repeated with a choked laugh. "You must be joking, or else you've had two child brides! In case you're confused, I'm the one who nearly poisoned you on the rare occasions I bothered to cook. I'm the one who scorched an imprint of an iron into three of your uniform shirts the first week we were married. I'm the one who ironed creases in all the side seams of your pants, instead of the fronts, so the legs all stuck out at the sides."
"You did not nearly poison me."
"Ted, don't patronize me! All the guys in the sheriff's office used to tease you about being the Rolaid King after we got married. I heard them."
"Damn it, I was swallowing antacids like candy because I was married to someone who I couldn't make happy, and it was tearing me up inside."
Katherine had waited all this time to confess her failures and ask his forgiveness and she refused to be held off by some misplaced notion of gallantry on Ted's part. "That's not true, and you know it! My God, your mother even gave me her recipe for your favorite meal, and you could barely eat the goulash when I cooked it! Don't deny it," she said fiercely when he started to shake his head. "I saw you throw that goulash down the disposal when I left the kitchen. You must have been getting rid of everything else I cooked the same way, and I don't blame you."
"Damn it, I ate everything you ever cooked for me," he insisted angrily. "Except for the goulash. I'm sorry you saw me get rid of it, but I can't stomach that stuff."
Katherine's expression turned ominous at his continued prevarication. "Ted, your mother specifically told me it was your favorite."
"No, it was Carl's favorite. She always got that mixed up."
The absurdity of the heated debate hit them both at the same time; it made Katherine giggle and slump back against the door. "Why didn't you tell me that then?"
"You wouldn't have believed me," Ted said with a harsh sigh as he braced his hand beside her shoulder and tried to explain to her one more time what he hadn't been able to make her understand when she was a twenty-year-old. "Sometime in your young life as Dillon Cahill's beautiful, intelligent daughter, you got the crazy idea that you had to do everything exactly by the book and do it better than anyone else. When you couldn't excel at something, you got so angry and ashamed there was no reasoning with you. To you, life was like one of those paint-by-number canvases, where everything had to be done in exactly the right order and right between the lines or else it was no good. Kathy," he said quietly, and the sound of the nickname that he alone had ever dared to use was almost as devastating to her as the way he absently brushed her hair off her shoulder with his wrist, "you wanted to go to college right after we got married, not because you were shallow or spoiled, but because you had some crazy notion that you'd screwed up the rightful order of things by marrying me first instead of after you got your education at that fancy eastern school. And when you wanted that damned mansion your father built for us, it wasn't because you wanted to lord it over everyone in town, it was because in some part of you, you truly believed we'd be happy there because … because it fell into your notion of the natural order of things for Katherine Cahill."
Closing her eyes, Katherine leaned her head against the door and sighed with a mixture of frustration and amusement. "When I went back to college, after our divorce, I spent an entire year seeing a therapist once a week, trying to understand why I was such a mess."
"What did you find out?"
"Not nearly as much as what you just told me in two minutes. And then do you know what I did next?"
A smile tugged at his lips and he shook his head. "I couldn't begin to imagine. What did you do next?"
"I went to Paris and took a Cordon Bleu cooking course!"
"How did you do?"
"Not well, actually," she told him with a rueful smile. "It's the only time in my life I didn't shine in a course I wanted to take." He lifted his brows to emphasize the importance of her revealing remark, and she accepted his silent comment with a nod of understanding.
"Did you pass the course?"
"I passed beef," she teased, and his chuckle made her heart sing, "but I failed veal."
For a long moment they smiled at each other, in accord for the first time in years, and then Katherine said softly, "Will you please kiss me?"
He straightened abruptly, shoving away from the door. "Not a chance."
"Are you afraid?"
"Knock it off, damn it! You already ran this seduction number on me years ago, and it's old stuff now. It won't work."
Ignoring the blow to her pride, she crossed her arms over her chest and smiled at him. "For a minister's son, you swear an awful lot."
"So you told me years ago. And as I told you, I'm no minister, my father is. Furthermore," he added with a deliberate attempt to alienate her, "while you were undeniably appealing to me when I was younger, I prefer to do my own seducing these days."
Katherine's wounded pride came out in a soft, ominous whisper as she shoved away from the door and reached for the coat she tossed over a chair. "Do you now?"
"You're damned right I do. And now, if you'll take some good advice, you'll go running back to Dallas to Hayward Spencer or Spencer Hayward or whatever his name is and let him soothe your wounded sensibilities with a fifty-carat diamond necklace to match that incredibly vulgar ring you're wearing."
Instead of tearing into him as she would have years ago, she gave him an indecipherable look and said, "I don't need your advice any more. It may surprise you to hear this, but people, including Spencer, actually ask me for advice these days."
"On what?" he jeered. "Making a fashion statement in the society pages?"
"That does it!" Katherine exploded, throwing her coat back on the chair. "I'll let you hurt me when I deserve it, but I'll be damned if I'll let you hide your sexual uncertainties behind an attack on me."
"My WHAT?" he exploded.
"You were perfectly nice, perfectly at ease, until I asked you to kiss me and then you started this absurd personal attack. Now, either apologize or kiss me or admit you're afraid."
"I apologize," he snapped, so quickly and so completely unrepentantly that Katherine started to laugh.
"Thank you," she said sweetly, reaching for her coat. "I accept your apology."
"Hard on myself?" Katherine repeated with a choked laugh. "You must be joking, or else you've had two child brides! In case you're confused, I'm the one who nearly poisoned you on the rare occasions I bothered to cook. I'm the one who scorched an imprint of an iron into three of your uniform shirts the first week we were married. I'm the one who ironed creases in all the side seams of your pants, instead of the fronts, so the legs all stuck out at the sides."
"You did not nearly poison me."
"Ted, don't patronize me! All the guys in the sheriff's office used to tease you about being the Rolaid King after we got married. I heard them."
"Damn it, I was swallowing antacids like candy because I was married to someone who I couldn't make happy, and it was tearing me up inside."
Katherine had waited all this time to confess her failures and ask his forgiveness and she refused to be held off by some misplaced notion of gallantry on Ted's part. "That's not true, and you know it! My God, your mother even gave me her recipe for your favorite meal, and you could barely eat the goulash when I cooked it! Don't deny it," she said fiercely when he started to shake his head. "I saw you throw that goulash down the disposal when I left the kitchen. You must have been getting rid of everything else I cooked the same way, and I don't blame you."
"Damn it, I ate everything you ever cooked for me," he insisted angrily. "Except for the goulash. I'm sorry you saw me get rid of it, but I can't stomach that stuff."
Katherine's expression turned ominous at his continued prevarication. "Ted, your mother specifically told me it was your favorite."
"No, it was Carl's favorite. She always got that mixed up."
The absurdity of the heated debate hit them both at the same time; it made Katherine giggle and slump back against the door. "Why didn't you tell me that then?"
"You wouldn't have believed me," Ted said with a harsh sigh as he braced his hand beside her shoulder and tried to explain to her one more time what he hadn't been able to make her understand when she was a twenty-year-old. "Sometime in your young life as Dillon Cahill's beautiful, intelligent daughter, you got the crazy idea that you had to do everything exactly by the book and do it better than anyone else. When you couldn't excel at something, you got so angry and ashamed there was no reasoning with you. To you, life was like one of those paint-by-number canvases, where everything had to be done in exactly the right order and right between the lines or else it was no good. Kathy," he said quietly, and the sound of the nickname that he alone had ever dared to use was almost as devastating to her as the way he absently brushed her hair off her shoulder with his wrist, "you wanted to go to college right after we got married, not because you were shallow or spoiled, but because you had some crazy notion that you'd screwed up the rightful order of things by marrying me first instead of after you got your education at that fancy eastern school. And when you wanted that damned mansion your father built for us, it wasn't because you wanted to lord it over everyone in town, it was because in some part of you, you truly believed we'd be happy there because … because it fell into your notion of the natural order of things for Katherine Cahill."
Closing her eyes, Katherine leaned her head against the door and sighed with a mixture of frustration and amusement. "When I went back to college, after our divorce, I spent an entire year seeing a therapist once a week, trying to understand why I was such a mess."
"What did you find out?"
"Not nearly as much as what you just told me in two minutes. And then do you know what I did next?"
A smile tugged at his lips and he shook his head. "I couldn't begin to imagine. What did you do next?"
"I went to Paris and took a Cordon Bleu cooking course!"
"How did you do?"
"Not well, actually," she told him with a rueful smile. "It's the only time in my life I didn't shine in a course I wanted to take." He lifted his brows to emphasize the importance of her revealing remark, and she accepted his silent comment with a nod of understanding.
"Did you pass the course?"
"I passed beef," she teased, and his chuckle made her heart sing, "but I failed veal."
For a long moment they smiled at each other, in accord for the first time in years, and then Katherine said softly, "Will you please kiss me?"
He straightened abruptly, shoving away from the door. "Not a chance."
"Are you afraid?"
"Knock it off, damn it! You already ran this seduction number on me years ago, and it's old stuff now. It won't work."
Ignoring the blow to her pride, she crossed her arms over her chest and smiled at him. "For a minister's son, you swear an awful lot."
"So you told me years ago. And as I told you, I'm no minister, my father is. Furthermore," he added with a deliberate attempt to alienate her, "while you were undeniably appealing to me when I was younger, I prefer to do my own seducing these days."
Katherine's wounded pride came out in a soft, ominous whisper as she shoved away from the door and reached for the coat she tossed over a chair. "Do you now?"
"You're damned right I do. And now, if you'll take some good advice, you'll go running back to Dallas to Hayward Spencer or Spencer Hayward or whatever his name is and let him soothe your wounded sensibilities with a fifty-carat diamond necklace to match that incredibly vulgar ring you're wearing."
Instead of tearing into him as she would have years ago, she gave him an indecipherable look and said, "I don't need your advice any more. It may surprise you to hear this, but people, including Spencer, actually ask me for advice these days."
"On what?" he jeered. "Making a fashion statement in the society pages?"
"That does it!" Katherine exploded, throwing her coat back on the chair. "I'll let you hurt me when I deserve it, but I'll be damned if I'll let you hide your sexual uncertainties behind an attack on me."
"My WHAT?" he exploded.
"You were perfectly nice, perfectly at ease, until I asked you to kiss me and then you started this absurd personal attack. Now, either apologize or kiss me or admit you're afraid."
"I apologize," he snapped, so quickly and so completely unrepentantly that Katherine started to laugh.
"Thank you," she said sweetly, reaching for her coat. "I accept your apology."
