“We should get going,” Trent said. “We need to drive back today, and it’s getting late.”
“Yeah,” Kate said as they started to walk away. She glanced back at the space where Trent had almost—almost—kissed her, and told herself she was glad, not heartbroken. “Totally.”
Twelve
The two-hour drive back to Seattle was nearly silent, except for the clacking of keys and the occasional question. As soon as Kate and Trent got back to the nursery to get in the car, she’d pulled out her laptop and gone to work on the book, telling him she wanted to work on it while everything was fresh in her memory.
Which gave Trent altogether too much time to think.
He’d almost kissed her on the mountain, a moment when he’d stopped thinking about what was smart. His brain had ignored the complications of getting involved with someone who was technically working for him. She was his biographer, essentially, and mixing a relationship with the book could only spell disaster.
At least that’s what he’d told himself when they’d hiked back down the mountain. It was easier to believe that than deal with the attraction he still felt for her. Even now, looking over at her and watching her type away, working hard on the story of his life, he realized how amazing she was.
“I had a question about college,” Kate said, oblivious to his meandering, sentimental thoughts. “I know you struggled in high school and the first two years of college—”
“Because all I wanted to do was be outdoors, not stuck in a room with thirty other people studying Great Expectations.”
“Well, I hated that book too. I think everyone does. But I love the rest of Dickens’ works, and I’m sure there’s at least one other one you would have liked.” She grinned. “But when you graduated from college, you graduated with honors. What made the difference that last year or so?”
He rested his wrist on the top of the steering wheel. The Corvette glided along the highway, hugging the curves like a close friend. “You want the truth?”
“Well, the book is called Be True to Your Nature, so…yeah.”
They passed the diner where they’d stopped for lunch. It was closed now, clearly just a breakfast and lunch place, the parking lot empty, and a single light burning over the door. The thought made him sad, because he would have liked to stop there again with Kate, if only to have that memory a second time. “It was you, Kate.”
“Me? What did I do?”
“You worked so hard, and you were so dedicated to studying. It rubbed off on me.” He shrugged as if it hadn’t been a big deal. In reality, her work habits had encouraged him to do the same. Once he’d applied himself, Trent had realized how hard work paid off, which had translated into better grades and, eventually, better work habits.
Her eyes were wide with surprise. “I…I had no idea I was an influence on you.”
He chuckled. “You were more than that. You were that little dose of honesty I clearly needed. Do you remember that test we had on To Kill a Mockingbird?”
“I remember it was an excuse for a date.” The shock yielded to laughter and teasing, the side of Kate he liked best. “I think you asked me out to dinner because you wanted my notes.”
“I wanted much more than that.” He’d wanted to know the girl who had loved that book, who had argued with the professor with a confident vehemence he’d never heard in anyone before. “You were so smart in that class, Kate. In all your classes.”
She dipped her head. Her cheeks flushed. “Thanks.”
“We were studying, and you could tell I hadn’t really read the book.” That fact had been obvious in the first few minutes, when she’d mentioned a passage. He’d stared at her with a blank look and realized skimming the summary of the book wasn’t going to be enough to pass.
“I said reading the CliffsNotes doesn’t actually count.”
He laughed. “And you were right. I wasn’t much of a reader in school—too much fun to be had outside to be stuck indoors reading a book—but you refused to help me study until I read the book. ‘It will change your mind about novels,’ you said.”
“I did say that. But I’m biased. It’s one of my favorite books ever.”
“So I went home and read it that weekend, cover to cover.” He’d stayed up late into the night to finish, as hooked on the story as he’d been on Kate in those days. He’d skipped a canoeing trip just to get through the last few chapters. “I didn’t do it because you told me to. I did it to impress you.”
She closed the lid of the laptop and rested her arms on top. “Why did you want to impress me?”
“Because you were—and still are—beautiful and smart and way out of my league.”
“Says the man whose multimillion-dollar company is going public in a couple of months.” Kate shook her head. “And whose book is going to be published worldwide. I’m just a ghostwriter who lives in a tiny apartment with a cat.”
“Money doesn’t make anyone impressive,” Trent said. “It just seems like it does.”
“Well, I’m pretty sure the electric company would argue with that theory. They kinda like me to pay them on time.”
Why didn’t Kate see herself the way he saw her? She was incredibly smart and devastatingly beautiful. She’d done something he couldn’t do—write a book—many times over. In the pages he had read so far, she’d managed to create something that both sounded like Trent and made Trent seem human, real. “When we were studying for the test, you asked me to pick my favorite part of the book. I told you it was when Atticus Finch says, ‘I wanted you to see what real courage was’ to Scout. I said I loved it because it was such a great life lesson about taking risks and getting out of your comfort zone. Do you remember what you said to me?”
She shook her head. Her green eyes watched him, fascinated, as if he were a movie with a cliffhanger. He’d never known anyone else who gave someone such complete attention.
“You said to me that real courage is about not avoiding what you are truly capable of, what you have been gifted with. You said I was smart, too smart to be goofing off in school and wasting my education, and then basically I should man up and start paying attention in school. You pushed me, Kate, to try harder, to be better, though inside I sometimes resisted—”
“And took off on a bike ride or paddle instead of going to class—”
“Leaving you behind.”
“Yeah.” The single word was soft and sad. “But that’s all in the past.”