Read Online You Knew Me When by Emily Liebert - Free Book Online

buildings to the glitzy shops and the street vendors. Katherine liked Hazel well enough. She was pleasant-looking, with cropped ashy blond hair and egg-shaped brown eyes. All of her features were soft and simple, like her personality. Hazel had met her father outside the Vermont Country Store the same year Katherine had gone off to college, a fortunate coincidence. Hazel had been selling raffle tickets for an American Heart Association auction, her husband having died from a heart attack two years earlier. Katherine’s dad had bought a ticket, they’d gotten to talking, and she’d moved in two months later. Was their relationship erupting with passion? Unlikely. But they filled a very important void in each other’s lives: companionship. And, if Katherine was being honest, Hazel had made it that much easier for her to stay away for so long. She acted as a buffer of sorts, even if unintentionally.
    Hazel and her dad had invited her to stay with them, but Katherine had politely declined. She didn’t like being anyone’s houseguest, even if it was, in theory, her house. Or at least it had been at one time. Still, she couldn’t very well stay in her old bedroom. She was a grown-up now, for God’s sake.
    â€¢Â Â Â â€¢Â Â Â â€¢
    Katherine arrived at the Equinox, a historic boutique resort just outside Manchester central, with two Louis Vuitton bags and one speeding ticket. It wasn’t so much the expense of the ticket that agitated her; it was the fact that she’d been unable to negotiate her way out of it. Cops could be so gallingly unreasonable.
    The rooms at the Equinox were nice enough—country charm married to modern elegance, with two fireplaces, one in the living area and one in the bedroom. Katherine surveyed the contents of her luggage and laughed. What had she been thinking? Actually, she hadn’t been. She’d been so preoccupied with the circumstances surrounding the visit home that packing Gucci slacks and Manolo Blahnik four-inch heels had somehow seemed the rational course of action. Her father and Hazel were expecting her sooner rather than later, but there were priorities. Katherine sat down on the sofa and dialed her own number.
    â€œKatherine Hill’s office; please hold.” The phone clicked before she could say anything. Brooke was probably frantic in her absence. Who could blame her? No doubt she was being harassed by everyone and anyone who’d been unable to reach Katherine for the better part of the day. “Hello. This is Brooke,” she came back on the line, panting.
    â€œHi. It’s me.” Katherine put her feet up on the coffee table, fleetingly relieved not to be in the office.
    â€œOh, Katherine, hi,” she puffed.
    â€œEverything okay?”
    â€œUm, well, not exactly.” Katherine could hear the crackle of rustling papers. “Alan’s assistant, Regina, quit this morning, so he’s been giving me all his stuff and . . . Wait. Where is that . . .” she trailed off.
    â€œBrooke?”
    â€œYup, I’m here. Sorry, there’s just a lot . . . it’s really amazing how . . .”
    â€œBreathe. It’s okay.” Katherine bit into a crisp red apple she’d lifted from the lobby. It was the first thing she’d eaten all day.
    â€œRight, absolutely. Don’t worry. I’m on top of it all. If I could just . . .”
    â€œListen, Brooke, I’ve got to run, but here’s what I want you to do. Send me one e-mail with any issues I can deal with when I get back to my hotel this evening. And call my cell with anything that needs my immediate attention in the meantime. Okay? Remember, I’m on
location
, not
vacation
.” It was Jane’s line, but Katherine had used it more than once over the years.
    â€œOkay, will do,” Brooke stammered, while three other lines chimed in the background.
    â€œAnd