Free Her Knight in Black Leather by J. M. Stewart Page B

keep it as a souvenir.” She narrowed her eyes and jokingly clutched the lapels closed.
    “I don’t think so.” He let out a soft laugh and shook his head.
    He stepped back to give her room. She lowered her gaze and fingered the lapels before bringing them to her nose and inhaling. As she finally let the soft leather slide from her shoulders, a pang of remorse twisted through her stomach. She didn’t want to let it go.
    “It smells like you.” Like leather, soap, and fresh air.
    “I’d imagine so.”
    As she handed him his jacket, their fingers brushed, stilled, connected for the span of a heartbeat, before she finally pulled them back.
    “Good-bye, Michael.” Simple and effective, yet the words didn’t seem nearly enough.
    His expression sober again, he cupped her chin in his palm and idly stroked his thumb over her skin. “Good-bye, Cat.”
    He dropped his hand and slung his jacket over his shoulder, then turned and walked away, his gait slow and casual.
    She leaned back against her apartment door and watched until he disappeared from sight at the bottom of the stairwell. When his engine roared to life, her chest constricted at the finality and irony of his exit from her life. He was gone the same way he’d entered — quiet and unassuming yet powerful all the same.
    With a sigh, she turned and pushed her apartment door open. She only needed to change into fresh clothing, then she was headed to her father’s shop. Her father had opened a small bookstore some twenty years ago. After their marriage ten years ago, he and her stepmother, Judy, ran the place together. It was a small, eclectic place, selling new and used books, and had become a landmark on Main Street.
    Two years ago, tragedy struck their small family when her stepmother died of an aggressive form of cervical cancer. Since then, Cat had taken to helping her father in the shop on the weekends. Now that she’d quit working for Nick, she’d help her father full-time until she found another job.
    “Oh, I’m so glad you’re home early.”
    Two steps inside her apartment, Cat halted, turning toward the sound of the voice. Lisa sat at the kitchen table ten feet in front of her, her eyes searching Cat’s like a worried mother who waited all night for her errant daughter to come home.
    “Didn’t you get my message?” Cat moved into the apartment toward the coffeemaker. Despite having already had breakfast, the smell of the fresh brew still lured her. “I called your phone last night. I tried to find you, but you disappeared.”
    “I did, but I figured, given your message, you probably haven’t seen the paper yet.” Lisa surged to her feet and crossed the kitchen, shoving the newspaper at her. “You and Michael made it onto the front page.”
    A hard knot of dread formed in her stomach. Cat set her coffee aside and reached out to take the paper. The
Weekly Tribune
called itself a newspaper but could more accurately be described as a gossip rag. It tended to showcase the local rumors, the who’s who and who’s doing what of their small town rather than actual world news. The woman who ran it was sweet and simply loved the town and the people in it, but she was a little too nosy for her own good. By the look on Lisa’s face, Cat had a feeling she didn’t want to know what she was about to read.
    One glance at the front page and Cat clamped a hand over her mouth. “Oh my God.”
    The headline read, “The Prodigal Son Returns,” but the picture beneath had acid rising up the back of her throat. It was a sidelong view of her and Michael as they stood at the beach, just after he’d dunked her in the water. Their arms were wrapped around each other. The picture had been taken with a close-up lens, so the faces were clear, despite the darkness, and they were very obviously kissing. An intimate moment captured on film.
    Cat growled low in her throat, unable to stop the emotions that rose over her. “You know, this really pisses me off. They’re