Free The Burning Point by Mary Jo Putney Page B

coincidence?
    Later. She'd think about all this later .
    When she took off her jacket, crinkling paper reminded her of the letter from her father she'd stuffed into the pocket. She pulled out the envelope, wincing at the sight of her name scrawled in Sam's impatient handwriting. She was too tired to face a message from him tonight.
    But curiosity won over fatigue. She ripped open the PDI envelope, then perched nervously on the edge of the bed and scanned the lines of the last message she would ever receive from her father.
    My darling Kate, it began. I don't know when you'll read this, but it's a safe bet that you'll be mad as hell at me. Just as well that I'm dead.
    Take it as given that I'm a meddling old fool, but I swear on Nonna Corsi's grave that I want only the best for you. I've always believed I was at least partly responsible for you and Donovan getting divorced. I knew how much you wanted to work for PDI, but he was the one I hired. I've never been sorry about that--a man couldn't ask for a finer employee, or friend, or son-in-law. Still, I should have brought you both into the firm, despite my reservations, because hiring him and not you had to have caused problems.
    Well, I can't keep you out of PDI now. Nick's job is open, and you and Donovan would make a hell of a team--just like when you were married.
    But I'm hoping for more than an office partnership, which is why I said you had to share the house with him. Living together, seeing each other over breakfast, is different from working together. Whenever your mom and I visited Donovan at Brandy Lane, I'd think how happy you two were when you refinished furniture together, or shared the kitchen to put on a terrific dinner, or just sat on the sofa holding hands when you had company. Maybe you can be that way again.
    It probably looks like I'm trying to run your life from the grave, and with some justice, but even I have to admit that I can't force either of you into a relationship you don't want. What I can try to do is give you both a second chance. I know what it's like to be young and hotheaded and talk myself into a corner I couldn't get out of. You and Donovan probably said and did things that seemed unforgivable, but it was a lot of years ago. Maybe it's time to look at what you had, and decide whether it's worth getting back.
    So when you get over being furious with me, carissima, maybe you'll forgive my heavy-handedness. After all, I'm Italian, I can't help it.
    And I hope you'll remember how much I love you.
    Always,
    Dad
     
    By the end, her eyes were so full of tears that she could barely read his signature. She wrapped her arms around a pillow and began to weep. If he hadn't died in that accident, she probably never would have seen the letter. Obviously he'd written it just after her cousin Nick's departure, when he was feeling abandoned and wanted more family around him. Eventually the will would have been changed, when she or Donovan remarried, but because of the terrible coincidence of her father's death so soon after he'd written that impulsive letter, there was a poignant immediacy to his words. She could hear the echo of his gruff voice in her head as she read.
    Damn the man, why did he have to remind her how close she and Donovan had been? If he was here, she'd wring his neck.
    Oh, God, if only Sam were here.
    Clutching the damp pillow, she finally drifted into the sleep of utter exhaustion.

 
    Chapter 8

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    Kate cuddled the dog on her lap as Donovan turned his vehicle onto Bellona Avenue. She'd been insane to agree to visit the house they'd shared. The best and worse times of their marriage had taken place there, and the closer she got, the tenser she felt.
    She gazed out the window at the wooded hills of Ruxton. Though the neighborhood lay within the Baltimore Beltway, the narrow winding roads and towering trees made it feel like deep country. This morning every tree and dormant shrub sparkled with brittle, crystalline snow. A