Chapter 21
A Horrible Silence
Katelyn
All it took was a few flicks of the wrist to mix up the paint she’d been dying to lay down on the dresser for the better part of a week. She’d been so busy with her clients that she hadn’t found time to work on the projects that had become her latest passion.
Ultimately refinishing furniture, which often found its way into her client’s homes, was a great source of income, but it was more than that. It was an artistic outlet and one of the best distractions she’d found to fill up her free time. If she wasn’t in the actual act of refinishing, which she did right in her tarped off living room, all her furniture pushed off to one side, she was out searching for pieces to redo. It gave her a sense of pleasure like nothing had before. Bringing something old and used, worn and hopeless back to life for people to once again treasure was a privilege.
“All pink or should we try the ombre this time?” Katelyn turned to face Missy, who was perched on the edge of the couch, watching curiously. She’d pretty much stayed away from the painted furniture after she’d rubbed up against a still wet dresser and come away six shades of green. The bathing process hadn’t been pretty, but she’d been able to get most of the paint out thanks to the fact it was water based.
Missy meowed softly in response. “Right. I think all pink too.”
Katelyn was just about to pick up her brush when her phone rang. It was a muffled sound, going off from inside her purse, which she’d dumped down on the coffee table as she’d walked in the door little more than an hour before.
She set down her bottle of paint and her brush, on top of the ancient, battle scared seventies nightstand and rushed over to her purse. It was probably one of her clients calling to ask her this question or that, or someone new wanting to set up a meeting.
When she finally located her phone, Katelyn frowned at the number on the screen. She recognized it instantly as a London number. Strange. She hit the answer button without a second thought.
“Hello?”
“Hello,” a soft voice with an accent so very much like her own, echoed back. “I’m calling for Katelyn Anderson, please.”
“This is.” Some part of her body, something deep inside of herself, jammed in the center of her chest, began to tremble. It was irrational, but she couldn’t stop the feeling of impending doom.
“My name is Lila Hartford. I’m sorry to call so late.”
“It’s only eight,” Katelyn mumbled. Her mind fumbled over itself, trying to grasp where it was that the name sounded so familiar. Right. Lila Hartford. “You’re my sister’s lawyer. We came to your office years ago, after my niece was born. Dinah wanted to make sure everything was taken care of should anything ever happen to her. She was a single mom and that scared her.”
The line went dead for a minute of dreadful silence. Katelyn’s breath trapped itself in burning lungs as she waited. Her heart began to beat harder, painfully, rapid pulses that slammed and knocked against her ribs out of time.
“I’m sorry to have to make this call, but I have to. You’re correct. I am your sister’s lawyer. As such, I have to inform you that your sister passed away twelve hours ago. I’m aware that you are no longer in London, but it is critically important that you come into my office as soon as possible, regarding the care of your niece.”
It had never happened before that Katelyn completely blacked out. It was like her mind flipped a switch, blew a breaker and that was it. Lights out. When she came to, she was staring up at the ceiling from unblinking eyes, black spots dancing at the corners of her vision. A voice, a strange, high pitched female voice with the same accent as hers, blared over her phone.
Her hand felt like it belonged to another person. Her head was stuffed with cotton, her vision swam back and forth. She slowly raised the phone to her ear. She could almost watch herself doing it, as though she was staring at herself from above, lying there on the floor in a prone position. So helpless. So very helpless.
“What?” she croaked out. “I’m sorry, what are you saying?”
“I’m the one who is sorry, Miss Anderson. Your sister passed away from a brain aneurysm very suddenly. Your niece is being kept in care right now. She’s safe. It is imperative that you come back to London though, as soon as possible. There are arrangements that have to be made. Your sister, in her will, left custody of her daughter to you.”
“I… I’m sorry,” Katelyn mumbled. Her tongue was thick and useless in a mouth that tasted like old metal, as though she’d bitten her tongue when she’d hit the floor and wasn’t even aware.
“I know this is very shocking. I’ll leave my name and number and you can call me back one you’d had time to process everything.”
“What about my- my mom,” she stammered.
“She’s been notified. Your sister was implicit in her will that your mother not be allowed contact with your niece. She left everything to you.”
Everything. As though a lifetime of twenty-nine short years allotted to something to be left behind. Isabella. My god, that poor little girl.
“I’ll catch a flight as soon as I can,” Katelyn said thickly. It was a marvel she was even able to form words and push them out to make a coherent sentence. Of all the things that should be happening at the moment, she didn’t expect to find herself this rational. There were no tears. No breakdown. Other than finding herself on the floor through a moment she couldn’t recall, there was nothing. Her heart still went right on beating as if she hadn’t just found out that her sister was no longer alive.
Shock. I’m in shock.
“Thank you. Let me extend my condolences once again. This isn’t the type of phone call I normally make. Considering you’re overseas though, the hospital contact your mother first. It was then left to me… well. I can explain everything when you get here. I’ll leave my name and number and the address of our office.”
“I remember it.” If anything her voice was growing clearer, more stable with every passing second. Where are the tears? Where are the fucking tears? Why don’t I feel anything but coldness inside? “I’ll try and catch a flight tomorrow. Expect to hear from me soon. Please, in the meantime, can you help me with whatever arrangements have to be made to take Isabella back to America with me? I live here now. I want to stay here.”
“Of course. We will do everything we can for you, Miss Anderson.”
Katelyn screwed her eyes shut. She wished that the lawyer wouldn’t say her name like that. It’s Katelyn. I just want to be Katelyn. She mumbled a thanks anyway and hung up the phone. It fell from her fingers a minute later. Her hand tingled as the warm metal left. It thumped to the floor, a dull thud as the plastic case broke its fall.
None of this is real. It can’t be real. My sister can’t be gone. She was all I truly had left. And Isabella… what could I of all people possibly do for her?
Behind closed eyes, the first face she saw wasn’t her sister’s. It wasn’t her mother’s or John’s or anyone else from her past. It was Kian’s.
She hadn’t seen him in over a month. Since that morning she’d woken in his bed and found that other woman in his house, sitting on his couch, a possessive gleam in her eyes. She’d let him go, after the fight they’d had in her entrance way. She’d let him go. Avoided him. They came from different worlds. He’d warned her. He’d tried to push her away to keep her safe. She didn’t listen and she’d been burned. In the days following that fight, she’d rationalized with herself. She’d decided that even if he was telling the truth, it didn’t matter. They weren’t meant to be together. She wasn’t ready. She’d tried so hard to break free from John. She didn’t need another man in her life, especially one she couldn’t trust.
Yet it was his face, his bronzed skin, dark eyes, black hair and beard, his tattooed neck and his black t-shirts and leather jacket, even his bike, that swam before her eyes.
I need him. It was irrational. Hopeless, even. It didn’t make any sense, but neither did the fact that her twenty-nine year old sister had been taken from her.
She barely registered her movement as she picked herself off the floor. The silence in her house was oppressive. She didn’t know what she was doing. She walked as though in a trance, in a nightmare or a dream. Some other life force, something that was not her own, animated her, drew her on, pushed her forward. She flew out the front door, not stopping to put on shoes even. She dimly registered the fact that Kian’s bike was parked in front of his condo. She managed to drag her heavy, wooden body up the steps to the front door. She raised a numb first and knocked quietly.
Something inside of her snapped at the contact. All of a sudden she was beating the door with her fist, her open palm, smashing her hand into it over and over again in a series of desperate pleas.
She didn’t stop. Not even when it was pulled open and the solid wood changed to very real, living flesh. She didn’t stop until a set of rough, large hands blocked the blows, until a set of steel arms wrapped around her shoulders and she was smothered, trapped against a wall of hard, muscle covered by thin, warm cotton.
And then the tears came. Like a flood. She didn’t even bother to try and stop them.