Testing Kate (29 page)

The silence was awkward and heavy with expectation.

“Is that why you stopped by? To say congratulations?” Nick asked. He was still smiling, but his face was guarded.

“Do you feel like taking a break? Maybe we could go for a walk,” I suggested.

“Sure. Let me just tell Josie that I’m taking off,” Nick said.

Josie. The brunette, I presumed, with a sinking dread. I waited by the door while Nick disappeared into one of the offices. When he came back out, he had his messenger bag slung over his shoulder.

“All set,” he said.

“Hey, Kate,” a voice called out.

I looked over Nick’s shoulder and saw Scott grinning and waving at me. A few of my other former classmates were also watching me curiously. I waved at Scott but hung back, feeling suddenly shy. I was an outsider here now.

“Everyone’s been asking about you,” Nick said as we walked out of the office together.

“Have they? I honestly didn’t think anyone would notice I’d left.”

“Are you kidding? The One-L who took on Hoffman? You’re a legend.”

We took the stairs down a flight and then went out the back door. As usual, a few smokers were out there, hunched over on the uncomfortable benches. The entire courtyard smelled of smoke, and cigarette butts littered the ground.

“Where are we going?” Nick asked.

My heart started to skitter around. I hadn’t planned this out—what I would say, how I would say it. I’d thought—mistakenly, I now realized—that it would be better to just wing it. But I had no idea how to begin. And I had no idea what Nick was thinking. His expression was mildly curious but at the same time shuttered.

“I don’t know,” I admitted.

“Well. There’s always P.J.’s. Or we could take a long walk over to Audubon Park. Or, if you’re feeling really wild, we could mosey over to the Boot and grab a beer.”

“The Quarter. Let’s go down to the Quarter,” I said impulsively.

A half hour later we were sitting on a bench in the center of Jackson Square in the French Quarter, next to the statue of Andrew Jackson.

“This is where you wanted to have a personal conversation?” Nick asked. He gestured around. Unsurprisingly, considering the glorious weather, the Quarter was teeming with tourists. They passed by in loud clusters, wearing New Orleans T-shirts and fanny packs and, of course, the ever-present Mardi Gras beads. Zydeco music blared from the souvenir shops that sold alligator heads and overpriced sunscreen.

“I know this doesn’t seem like the most obvious place,” I admitted. “But bear with me.”

Nick nodded.

“So, um, who was that woman you were talking to back at the Law Review office?” I asked, trying to sound casual. I had to know what I was up against.

“Who? Josie? She’s the editor-in-chief of the Law Review,” Nick said. “My boss, basically.”

“Are the two of you dating?” I asked, not looking at him. Instead, I stared at a couple strolling by, their fingers entwined. She had big, blonde, feathered Farrah Fawcett hair, and she was wearing a midriff tank top and the shortest denim cutoffs I’d ever seen. The man leaned over and kissed the woman’s bare shoulder, and she tilted her head toward him, smiling happily.

“Dating Josie? God, no,” Nick said, and he laughed, as though it were a ridiculous idea.

Relief flooded through me. Maybe I still had a chance.

“Oh, hey—guess what?” I said.

“I give up. What?”

“I found out why New Orleans smells like burned toast,” I said. “Armstrong told me. It’s the Mississippi River. On humid days especially, it wafts up and carries over the whole city.”

“Mystery solved,” Nick said. “Excellent. Now why are we here again?”

“This is where we were the first time we kissed,” I explained.

“I remember. I kissed you, you blew me off, and I ended up getting drunk and singing Captain and Tennille songs at a karaoke bar on Bourbon Street.”

“‘Love Will Keep Us Together’?”

“No. Even more embarrassing: ‘Muskrat Love.’”

“Oh. Well. That’s why I wanted to come back here. I…I made a mistake that night,” I said.

Nick went very still next to me. Goose bumps rose up on my skin from where his shirt brushed against me. Somewhere off in the distance, a jazz band started playing “When the Saints Go Marching In.” The more-drunken tourists whooped and began to dance.

“What are you saying, Kate?” Nick’s voice was so soft that at first I wasn’t even sure he’d spoken.

“I’m sorry. For everything,” I said, studying his face in profile. His nose slanted down a little just at the end, and there was a faint white line on his forehead, probably a scar left over from a childhood accident.

“You’re sorry,” Nick repeated. He still didn’t look at me. “You brought me here to tell me that you’re sorry.”

My heart felt like it was stalling in my chest. What was he thinking? Was he happy? Annoyed? Embarrassed?

“And that I’d like a second chance,” I said. The words wanted to stick in my throat, but I forced them out.

“Excuse me, would you mind taking our picture?”

I looked up. A chunky blonde woman in a cherry-red cardigan sweater was standing there waving a disposable camera at us. Behind her was a man with an impressive beer gut, wearing a Steelers baseball cap. Off to the side, trying hard to look like they weren’t really vacationing with their parents, were two sullen teenagers.

“Sure,” Nick said.

He stood up, and the family grouped together in front of the Andrew Jackson statue.

“Say cheese,” Nick said.

“Cheese!” they called out.

Nick snapped a few photos. The teenagers even smiled for one of the pictures, baring mouths full of metal braces. The mom thanked him effusively when he handed the camera back.

And then Nick turned toward me.

I looked at him, and he gazed back at me with those vivid blue eyes. And in that moment, just as Armstrong had predicted, I knew. I stood up, and we moved toward each other. I wrapped my arms around his waist. His hands caught in my hair, and then he bent down to kiss me.

“I can’t tell you how many times I’ve wanted to come find you. But I didn’t think you’d want to see me,” Nick murmured, his lips so close to mine, I could feel his breath against my skin.

“I just had to know that I could be alone. That I really don’t need to have a boyfriend to feel safe.”

“And?”

“I don’t need a boyfriend. I just want to be with you,” I said simply.

I kissed him again, pressing my hands against his back, breathing in the scent of his sun-warmed skin, feeling the slow rise and fall of his chest. Nick held me right back, his arms encircled around me like a promise. I had a feeling my bad-luck streak had finally come to an end.

Don’t miss

Whitney Gaskell’s
other novels

SHE, MYSELF & I
TRUE LOVE
(AND OTHER LIES)

and

PUSHING 30

Available from
Delta Trade Paperbacks

SHE, MYSELF & I

“A warm, funny, charming, and engrossing story that will hook anyone who has a sister—and any lover of quality fiction who doesn’t.”

—Valerie Frankel, author of
The Girlfriend Curse

The Cassel sisters have little in common besides a pair of wacky parents and a maddening knack for eluding happily-ever-after endings. But when their lives require damage control, only a dose of sisterhood will do.

Paige, the oldest, is a go-getter divorce attorney who’s reeling from her own disastrously failed marriage. Middle sister Sophie is having trouble adjusting to life as a wife and expectant mom. With her doubts on the rise along with her weight, she’s ogling every available baked good—and every available man—that crosses her path. And up-and-coming medical student Mickey has a racy new plan for her future that’s sure to shock her entire family. It includes a dangerously handsome, decidedly married chef…private cooking lessons…and spicy lingerie.

To top it all off, the parents who dragged them through the Divorce from Hell years ago are acting like teenagers in love…with each other! One by one, Paige, Sophie, and Mickey are about to learn just how good it is to have a sisterly shoulder—or two—to lean on.

“A fresh, clever story about cold feet, morning sickness, and the one who got away.”

—Beth Kendrick, author of
My Favorite Mistake

“I’ve learned enough about the world to have developed a well-established personal rule:
The whole concept of a one true love who completes your soul is total bullshit.”

Travel writer Claire Spencer doesn’t believe in fate, much less any part of that fairy-tale Prince Charming love-at-first-sight crap. Between the boyfriend who first dumped her, then fled the country to get away from her, and her parents’ vicious divorce, Claire doesn’t exactly have any successful relationship role models.

So when she ends up sitting next to a sexy American expatriate on a flight from New York to London and he asks her out, she figures there has to be a catch. After all, full-figured Claire hardly falls into the current stick-thin beauty deal, and men haven’t exactly been beating down her door.

But after years of disappointing dates, nightmare setups, and a bastard of an ex-boyfriend, Claire may have finally met the man of her dreams. It’s almost enough to make a girl start believing in destiny. The only catch? Someone else got to him first, and Claire can’t believe who it is.

“Funny, romantic…an entertaining read with all the right stuff.”
—
RomanticReviewsToday.com

Meet Ellie Winters. She’s under a little pressure…

“The one thing you should know about me is this: I’m the consummate Good Girl.”

Ellie Winters is dependable and loyal and has a near-phobic aversion to conflict. But as her thirtieth birthday looms ever closer, she starts to feel like she’s lost the instruction manual to her life. She has just broken up with her boring boyfriend, despises her job, and is the last of her high school friends to remain single. Worse, her dysfunctional family is driving her nuts, and she’s somehow become enslaved to her demanding pet pug Sally, who she suspects is the reincarnation of Pol Pot.

One night, after a botched attempt to color her hair at home, Ellie rushes to the drugstore for emergency bleach, Sally in tow. Sally is accosted by a smitten canine admirer…but it’s the dog’s owner who captures Ellie’s attention. Television news anchor Ted Langston is witty, intriguing, and sexy. The only catch? He’s twice her age—and the only man on the planet who isn’t interested in dating a younger woman. And no one, from Ellie’s best friends to Ted’s ex-wife, wants to see them get together.

This novel asks the question whether a Good Girl can find her happily-ever-after with the one man who’s so wrong for her, he’s perfect.

“Feisty, poignant, sexy, and packed with delicious comedy.”—Sue Margolis, author of
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About the Author

Whitney Gaskell grew up in Syracuse, New York. A graduate of Tulane Law School, she worked for several years as a reluctant lawyer before writing her first novel,
Pushing 30,
followed by
True Love (And Other Lies)
and
She, Myself & I.
She lives in Stuart, Florida, with her husband and son, and is at work on her fifth novel. You can visit her website and read her blog at
www.whitneygaskell.com.

Also by Whitney Gaskell

Pushing 30

True Love (And Other Lies)

She, Myself & I

TESTING KATE

A Bantam Book / November 2006

Published by Bantam Dell

A Division of Random House, Inc.

New York, New York

All rights reserved

Copyright © 2006 by Whitney Gaskell

Title page art by Karin Batten

Bantam Books and the rooster colophon are registered trademarks of Random House, Inc.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Gaskell, Whitney.

Testing kate / Whitney Gaskell.

p. cm.

1. Young women—Louisiana—New Orleans—Fiction. 2. Self-actualization (Psychology)—Fiction. 3. New Orleans (La.)—Fiction. I. Title.

PS3607.A7854 T47 2006

813.'6 22                                                                                                                                       2006042996

www.bantamdell.com

eISBN: 978-0-553-90309-6

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