Four Seasons of Romance by Rachel Remington

Author:Rachel Remington
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
ISBN: 9781619493902
Publisher: ProseWorks Entertainment
Published: 2012-06-08T21:00:00+00:00

*

The following day, Catherine met Walter for brunch. A true gentleman, he stood as she approached the table.

“Hello, dear,” he said, pulling her chair back.

“Hello, Walter.” Catherine knew what she had to do and already felt sick to her stomach, strangely unresponsive when the waiter took their order, so Walter ordered for her. A glass of orange juice and French toast. In other words—what he was having.

“You’re quiet this morning,” Walter said, carefully cutting his toast into squares, the method he used with all foods that required cutting and some that didn’t.

The sight of this strange idiosyncrasy and Walter’s diligence about it nearly broke Catherine’s heart. “We can’t marry,” she blurted. “I’m sorry.”

Calm, Walter laid his fork and knife down on opposing sides of the plate. “And why is that?”

Catherine’s eyes flooded with tears. “I don’t ever want to hurt you, Walter. Please understand that. But I just... can’t.”

“Are you seeing someone else?”

His words surprised her; she was used to assuming Walter didn’t have the faintest suspicion of her affair with Leo. But maybe he was more observant than she thought. And honestly, much like she’d felt with her father when she was a teenager, Catherine was just plain sick of lying. “Yes,” she said, “I am.”

She glanced at Walter; he didn’t look happy, but he didn’t look outraged, either.

“He’s an old boyfriend,” she told him. “I thought it was done and over, but then, he was passing through town a few weeks ago.” The lie sounded off-pitch to her ears, but she decided it best not to mention that Leo had “passed through” town a whole year before... and stayed.

“Someone you knew in high school?”

“That’s right.” She swallowed. “My first love.”

Calm as ever, Walter took a sip of orange juice. He was, after all, a practical man. “Wasn’t that Leo? The one who died in the war?”

Catherine was surprised that he’d remembered this detail about her high school sweetheart. “I thought he was dead. I really did. But it was all an elaborate lie my father concocted.”

“Well, then, why don’t you tell me about him?”

She paused. “You really want to know?”

“Yes,” Walter replied. “I really do.”

With this admission came a sense of exhilaration that washed over Catherine like a wave. Finally, she would be honest with him.

For the next hour, she told him everything, recounting the story of her relationship with Leo—their young love, the nefarious way her father stymied it, and the second chance they’d been given. “I loved him,” she said. “When he died... I mean, when I thought he died... I had to bury that love with him and never in a million years thought it would find me again.”

Walter nodded, his lips pursed but eyes clear, managing to remain collected, as was his way. He heard the story of her love less like an outraged fiancé and more like a focused accountant, gathering data and facts.

When she had finished, he leaned back in his chair. “Catherine, I want you to do something for me.”

“Of course,” she said, flush with the giddy sense of liberation she felt from talking about Leo.

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