Excerpt of A Splendid Obsession by Cathleen Galitz

She was going to get fired.

It was the last thing Kayanne could afford at the moment. Financially or emotionally. She could think of nothing more unfair after working so hard to pull herself out of the gutter and back up on her own two feet than proving to be a failure her very first day on the job.

Unless, of course, it was endangering another person's life....

Where could that crazy old lady have wandered off to? Kayanne scoured the perimeter of the nursing-home grounds one more time and tried to calm herself.

Still no sign of Rose.

Maybe she had just gone for a little unauthorized walk. Kayanne couldn't blame anyone for wanting to escape the bland horror that was the Evening Star Retirement Manor. She just didn't want it happening on her shift. Freshly back in town after a ten-year hiatus, she'd felt compelled to return to help her mother recover from a heart attack.

And to make a fresh start for herself.

Had she not so desperately needed any job to advance that goal — even this dead-end one for which she had neither the training nor, apparently, the aptitude — Kayanne would have laughed at the thought of being terminated.

That particular word sent another wave of panic crashing over her. A minimum-wage paycheck wasn't the only thing at stake here. An eighty-year-old woman was lost and at the mercy of fate.

Kayanne's imagination kicked into overdrive. Was Rose ambling into the path of oncoming traffic this very minute? Suffering heatstroke beneath the relentless summer sun? Or hitching a ride out of town with some sicko? If Mrs. Johansson was suffering from dementia, the possibilities were endless.

Kayanne's gut twisted into a complicated knot. The stress of the runway was nothing compared to being responsible for another human being. Her first concern was, of course, for Rose. Her second was to keep her position — and her tenuous pride — intact without anyone else being the wiser. After all, she'd only managed to land this lousy job in the first place because the person who'd hired her was desperate to find any warm body to fill the late- afternoon/evening shift. And because he had no idea she was the town pariah. It didn't hurt any that J. R. Lemire usually let his hormones do his thinking for him. He'd been so preoccupied with her outward attributes during the interview that he'd scarcely taken the time to look over a résumé that would be far more impressive at a NewYork fashion house than a retirement home in Podunk, Wyoming.

Tossing a precautionary look over her shoulder, Kay-anne bolted across the street and began searching the adjoining neighborhood. Yard by yard.

Half a block later, she was on the verge of hysteria when a high-pitched giggle caught her attention. The charming scene unfolding on the veranda of some stranger's home stopped Kayanne in her tracks.

And left her trembling with relief.

Were it not for the residual adrenaline playing havoc with her nerves, she might have collapsed into a boneless pile right there on the pavement. She couldn't believe that she had worked herself into such a state over a flipping tea party!

Suddenly in no mood for exchanging social pleasant-ries, she threw open the front gate and marched up a neatly groomed sidewalk with the same determination that Sherman had advanced his army to the ocean. Stopping at the bottom of the steps, she employed a voice that had on occasion intimidated some of the best photographers in the business.

"Excuse me, but just what do you think you're doing?" Ignoring the fire flashing in her caretaker's eyes, Rose smiled sweetly and proceeded to offer up the obvious. "I'm sharing a glass of iced tea with Mr. Evans. Would you care to join us, dear?"

"No," Kayanne snapped, too frustrated to toss in so much as a perfunctory thank you for the offer.

It boggled her mind that Rose had been so close all this time. And was apparently in no mood to be rushed along. The old lady dismissed Kayanne's petulance with a wave of one hand. With the other, she held out her glass for a refill.

The look of pleasure on her weathered face touched a heart considered incorrigible by many claiming to know Kayanne. She stared into a pair of twinkling blue eyes set in a face lined by eight decades of life and caught a glimpse of a young, wild Rose. Unnerved by the image, Kayanne turned her ire on a more deserving target: her runaway's unwitting partner in crime.

The man looked to be in his early thirties. Slim but not slight, with an amiable, masculine face that stopped short of being pretty, he sat on a cushioned wicker chair, making it impossible for Kayanne to judge his height. Positioned behind a laptop computer, he gave the impression of being completely comfortable in his lightly tanned skin.

He stirred in Kayanne a sense of barely restrained fury. "Actually, I was directing the question to your boyfriend, Ernest Hemingway."

She gestured dismissively at stacks of books piled about the porch and bit her tongue to keep from asking what kind of drivel he was in the process of writing.

The taunt only evoked a grin from him. That he appeared pleased by the comparison drawn to the hard-drinking author made Kayanne frown. That quick smile of his might well disarm someone less cynical, but she had always been more inclined to humor a bad boy sporting tattoos and an attitude than a scholar who might take the time to indulge a confused elderly woman who meandered into his yard.

"All apologies to Hemingway aside, I was just in the middle of writing the great American novel when Mrs. Johansson's unexpected visit distracted me," their impromptu host volunteered in a voice that needed no liquor to make it sound throaty and deep. It wrapped around Kayanne's nerves like a designer silk scarf.

A self-effacing smile indicated that Rose's Mr. Evans didn't take himself nearly as seriously as his words might imply. Blushing to the roots of her silver-blue hair, Rose lived up to her colorful name as she gurgled with pleasure.

"It's been a long time since any man found me a distraction."

Kayanne rolled her eyes. This guy's antiquated charm might work magic on the geriatric set, but it grated on her already frayed nerves.

"Are you sure you wouldn't like a drink?" he asked her. "I'd be happy to fix you something stronger than iced tea if that makes any difference."

Kayanne bristled. "Why should it?" She wanted to know.

Was it possible that her reputation preceded her to such an unlikely spot? Or did she have a scarlet A pinned to her chest labeling her an alcoholic? One visible to everyone but her.

"Maybe because you seem so frazzled that steam's coming out of your ears," he explained.

An open smile remained affixed to his face in spite of Kayanne's loud harrumph.

"You really are welcome to sit down and relax," he added, rising and offering her his chair.

Kayanne was sorely tempted. Rose was safe and disinclined to leave, the sun was sweltering, and Kayanne felt as rung out as a rag doll. There were certainly worse things than to unwind in the presence of someone so gracious. And good- looking.

Spying an unopened bottle of whiskey perched on the porch railing a respectable distance away from a pitcher of iced tea beading in the afternoon sun, Kay-anne reminded herself that she wasn't the best judge of character when it came to men. Reigning in her edginess, she did her best to don a more professional manner. It wasn't easy considering how the receding surge of adrenaline left her feeling as contentious as a boxer.

"I'm working," she said tersely. As if that had ever stopped her from having a drink before.

"Me, too," their host said, flashing her a wicked grin before picking up his own glass and taking a long, satisfying swig.

Kayanne caught the faintest whiff of alcohol. She swallowed hard. When, if ever, would temptation loosen its stranglehold on her? She stuck a hand deep into the pocket of her standard-issue smock to connect with the touchstone that kept her grounded day by day.

And moment by moment.

Her six-month sobriety token was more precious to her than diamonds. It was a physical reminder of how far she had come. And how far she had left to go.

Humbled by her ignominious descent and working on her recovery, she cautioned herself to be on the alert for the kind of behaviors that had caused her to stumble in the first place. She had no business entertaining any thoughts whatsoever about the opposite sex when her sobriety, not to mention her job, was on such shaky ground. Certain that she simply needed to apply the same focus and drive that had launched her career as a successful model to the task at hand, Kayanne set about thwarting any troublemaker who dared to interfere with her attempt to act responsibly.

"I guess unannounced visitors saunter into your front yard wearing their pajamas every day, Mr. Evans," she said, trying not to sound shrill. "Did it ever occur to you that it might be a good idea to call the nursing home next door and report a missing person to the staff there?"

"Call me Dave," he suggested, offering her his hand by way of a belated introduction. "And, no, actually it didn't. Since I just recently moved in, I don't know one neighbor from another, which I assumed Mrs. Johansson to be."

Rose pursed her lips. "I am your neighbor, and I'm not missing. I'm exactly where I want to be."

Duly chastised, Kayanne succumbed to courtesy by accepting the man's outstretched hand. Just under six feet tall, she seldom had the pleasure of looking people in the eyes, let alone of having to look up to meet such a rough and hungry gaze. Or of feeling such an alarming jolt of sexual energy from the exchange of a simple handshake. Telling herself that the absolute last thing she needed to screw up her progress was a sexual interest, she withdrew her hand and anchored it firmly to one hip.

"You can call me Kayanne."

"Like hot pepper?" he asked without any apparent malice.

"Pronounced the same as the spice but spelled with a K."