Every Breath You Take (Second Opportunities 4)

Mitchell was dumbfounded to think she’d actually thrown a drink at him in a fit of childish, uncontrolled pique. He didn’t want to believe he was wrong about her, and he didn’t want to consider why it was becoming important to him that this one woman be all the things she seemed. With deceptive nonchalance, he said, you really do it on purpose?”

you promise not to be angry?”

He smiled good-naturedly. .”

A startled giggle nearly escaped Kate at the vast contrast between his agreeable expression and his negative reply. , will you promise never to bring the subject up again if I tell you the truth?”

Another lazy smile accompanied his answer. .”

Kate bit her lip to keep from laughing. least you’re honest and direct—in a misleading sort of way.” Needing to avert her gaze from his, she picked up a basket of crusty rolls from the center of the table and offered it to him.

you being honest and direct?” he inquired with amusement, taking a roll from the basket. Despite his affable attitude, Kate had a sudden, inexplicable sensation of an undercurrent. He was playing cat and mouse with her, she knew, and he was obviously a world champion ,” but she sensed he wasn’t actually enjoying the game. Since her goal was to repay his wonderful kindnesses by making the rest of the evening as pleasant for him as she could, she put an end to the whole charade.

Meeting his gaze, she said with quiet sincerity, didn’t do it on purpose. I was only pretending I did in order to get even with you for teasing me twice about the Bloody Mary.”

Mitchell heard her words, but the softness in her eyes and the expression on her lovely face were interfering with the pathways to his brain, and he decided it didn’t matter if she’d done it on purpose. Then he realized she hadn’t, and that mattered much more than he thought it should. What sort of family, he wondered, in what city, on whatplanet, had yielded up this jaunty, prim, unpredictable woman with a wayward sense of humor, a heart-stopping smile, and a fierce passion for wounded mongrel dogs.

Mitchell reached for his butter knife. in the hell are you from?”

,” she said with a startled smile at his tone.

He looked up so sharply and with such narrowed disbelief that Kate felt compelled to reaffirm and amplify her answer. ,” she repeated. was born and raised there. What about you?”

Chicago.Mitchell managed to smooth his distaste for her answer from his expression, but his guard was up. ’ve never lived anywhere long enough to be ‘from’ there,” he replied, giving her the same vague answer that had always satisfied anyone who asked. The question was perfunctory anyway, he knew. People asked because it was a convenient conversational item among strangers. People never really cared what the answer was. Unfortunately, Kate Donovan was not one of those people.

places did you live in when you were growing up—” she persevered, and teasingly added, not long enough to actually be ‘from’ any of them?”

places in Europe,” Mitchell replied, intending to immediately change the subject.

do you live now?” she asked, before he could.

my work takes me. I have apartments in several cities in Europe and New York.” His work occasionally took him to Chicago too, but he didn’t want to mention that to Kate, because he wanted to avoid the inevitable discussion about whom they might know in common. There was little chance she actually knew anyone within the Wyatts’ lofty social circle, but the Wyatt name was known to any Chicagoan who read a newspaper. Since Mitchell’s last name was also Wyatt, there was a chance Kate would ask him if he was related to those Wyatts, and the last thing he wanted to do was admit to that relationship, let alone discuss what it actually was.

Kate waited for him to offer a clue as to what cities those apartments were in, or what his ” was. When he didn’t, she assumed he wanted to skip those specific topics. That struck her as odd. In her experience, men loved to talk about their work and achievements. She didn’t want to pry into information Mitchell didn’t want to offer, but she couldn’t gracefully switch immediately to another topic, so she said instead, roots?”

at all.” When she looked at him strangely, Mitchell said, the expression on your face, I gather you find that a little odd?”

odd, just difficult to imagine.” On the assumption that if she offered personal information freely, he might be inclined to follow suit, Kate said. “I grew up in the same Irish neighborhood I was born in. My father owned a little restaurant there, and for many years we lived in an apartment above it. At night, people in the neighborhood gathered there to eat and socialize. During the day, I went to St. Michael’s grade school with kids from the same neighborhood. Later on, I went to Loyola University in the city. After I graduated, I went to work near the old neighborhood, although it had changed a lot by then.”

With a feeling approaching amused disbelief, Mitchell realized that he was wildly attracted to a nice, redheaded, Irish Catholic girl from a solid, middle-class, American family. How totally atypical for him, and no wonder she seemed like such an enigma to him. sort of work did you go into after college?”

went to work for the Department of Children and Family Services as a social worker.”

Mitchell bit back a bark of laughter. Actually, he was wildly attracted to a redheaded, middle-class, Irish Catholic girl witha strong social conscience.

did you decide on social work instead of the restaurant business? I suppose you probably had enough of that business when you were growing up,” he added, answering his own question.

wasn’t exactly a restaurant. It was more of a cozy Irish pub that served a limited menu of tasty Irish dishes and sandwiches, and I loved everything about that place—especially the nights when someone played the piano and people sang Irish songs. Karaoke,” she added with a smile, been a time-honored form of entertainment in Irish pubs for hundreds of years, only we never called it that.”

Mitchell was familiar with the termkaraoke, and intimately familiar with several pubs in Ireland, so he knew exactly what she meant. on,” he urged as he reached for his wineglass. “You loved the music . . . ?”

He was an attentive listener, Kate realized. Still harboring the belief that he might become a little more forthcoming about his own life if she chatted freely about hers, she did exactly that. loved the music, but I couldn’t hear the music very well from my bedroom, and I wasn’t allowed downstairs after fivePM , so I used to sneak into the living room after my babysitter fell asleep, and listen to the music from there. By the time I was seven years old, I knew all the songs by heart—sad songs, revolutionary songs, bawdy songs. I didn’t understand all the words, but I could pronounce them with the Irish brogue of a native. The truth is,” she confided after taking a bite of her salad, ’d watched a lot of old musicals on television, and I wanted to become a nightclub singer and wear beautiful gowns like the women in those movies. I used to pretend our kitchen table was a grand piano, and I practiced draping myself across it while I sang into a pretend microphone—usually a broom handle.”