White-Hot Hack (Kate and Ian #2)(45)

Kate removed the groping hands from her boobs. “No touching,” she said with a smile.

“They really turned out great.”

“Well, like I said, I was born with them, so I guess I got lucky.” She finished getting dressed, closed her locker, and followed the others out the door. The coffee shop was a few doors down from the Pilates studio, and since her Tahoe was parked at one of the meters in front of the building, she paused to throw her bag in the backseat. One of the women glanced at her car with something that looked an awful lot like disdain.

“You’re Diane, right?” one of them asked after they received their drink orders and carried them to a nearby table.

“Yes.”

There were five of them, and a woman named Wendy went around the table making introductions as Kate did her best to commit their names to memory. “We attend the Monday, Wednesday, and Friday class.”

“Me too,” Kate said. “Unless I have to work.”

The conversation screeched to a halt. All of them looked at Kate like she had horns growing out of her head.

“You work?”

“I work for my husband. He owns his own company.”

“Like, doing the books?” a woman named Nina asked. The center stone on her wedding ring had to be at least five carats. Wasn’t she worried about being mugged?

“Something like that,” Kate said.

“Does he make you?”

“Oh, no. I want to work. I told him there was only so much time I could fill cooking and exercising.”

“You cook?” Wendy asked.

Blank looks, all around.

“Only when we feel like eating,” Kate said lightly.

“You don’t have a staff? Someone to cook for you?” Kate was almost certain the woman’s name was Kaitlin.

“I have a housekeeper but not a cook.”

“Do you ride?” In Middleburg, that only meant one thing.

“No.”

“You must be from out of town,” Kaitlin said.

“We moved here in September. I’m originally from Indiana, but my husband and I were living in Minnesota.”

“Is that in the Midwest?”

“Yes, it’s north of Iowa.”

“Is Iowa where they grow the potatoes?”

“No, that’s Idaho. They grow corn in Iowa.”

“What do they grow in Indiana?”

Kate smiled. “Smart women.”

“Do you have kids?”

“Not yet.”

“Are you trying?”

“Not at the moment.”

“How old are you?”

“Thirty.”

Suddenly none of them would look her in the eye.

“What?”

“It’s just that you’re starting pretty late.”

Kate took a drink of her coffee. “You think so?”

“The clock started ticking at twenty-seven.”

“Women are having babies much later now. I’m not worried. Hardly any of my friends have kids yet.”

“Maybe you’ll get pregnant right away. Then you won’t have to work anymore.”

“I like working. Do any of you work?”

“We stay at home with our kids. I have four,” Wendy said.

“Oh,” Kate said. “Where are they now?”

“They’re with their nanny.”

For the next five minutes, they passed Kate their phones so she could thumb through the pictures of their adorable and well-dressed offspring, whom they clearly doted on.

“Well, I should probably be on my way,” Kate said when she’d finished her coffee. “It’s getting close to lunchtime and I have some work to finish up this afternoon. Thank you so much for inviting me.”

They gave her a warm send-off and told her they must do it again. Now that they’d welcomed her into their fold, they were quite friendly and it probably wouldn’t be long before their lifestyles didn’t seem so foreign. But she couldn’t help but feel she’d failed their initiation in some way and that she’d always be the outsider for reasons that had nothing to do with how long she’d lived there.



When she got home, she walked into Ian’s office, kissed him, and plopped down on the couch.

He pushed his chair back from the desk and smiled. “What’s the scene, jelly bean?”

“Paninis. Your favorite. Are you hungry?”

“Yes. Thank God you returned to feed me. I could feel myself wasting away.”

He followed her into the kitchen, and she began rummaging in the refrigerator for meat and cheese. “The women from Pilates finally asked me to go out for coffee with them.”

“That’s great. How did it go?”

She shook her head. “I don’t fit in with them.”

“I’m sure you do.”

“They were very nice, but I have a job, I cook, I’m not a mom, and I don’t ride horses. And you should see the diamonds. One of those girls is going to get rolled and stuffed in a trunk, and then she’ll be sorry.”

“Maybe you need to get to know them a little better.”

Kate got out the panini maker and the cutting board. “Well, one of them already knows me intimately. She reached out and honked my boobs. Can you believe it? She put both hands on them and squeezed.”