Read Rumor Has It for Free Online

argued. “Michael is safe. There's no danger of him becoming anything more than a friend, and he and I both know it.”
    “No fireworks.”
    “I don't want fireworks.”
    Maggie shook her head, her redheaded temper heating her cheeks. “You think you can't have fireworks. That's a lot of hogwash, Katie. You go out with Nick Leone and have a nice time with him and stop worrying about things that might never matter.”
    … Things that might never matter. Katie stood in front of the cheval glass in her bedroom and wondered bleakly how it could
not
matter. She was attracted to Nick. He was attracted to her. How could it not matter that the lower half of her body resembled a railroad map? Scars crisscrossed her abdomen in ugly silvery- pink lines—a thick, jagged one angled across her right thigh. Her knee wore a scalpel's crescent on each side. Her lower back bore similar marks.
    No man had ever seen those scars. She was certain no man would ever want to. If she allowed her attraction to Nick to grow, and things took their natural course, what was she supposed to say to him when he first stared at this macabreartwork? By the way, Nick, I'm missing a few parts?
    As she had lain in a hospital bed recovering, Katie had methodically replanned her life. There would be no career in show jumping because, after seventeen years of training, she could never ride again. There would be no husband because no man was going to find her desirable. There would be no children of her own. She would rebuild her life around her friends and her career as a decorator.
    So far her plan had unfolded rather well. Oh, she knew there were men in town who called her an ice princess because she didn't let them get too close. And she knew she sometimes appeared aloof because she didn't cuddle and coo over other people's children. But she was dealing with her limitations as best she could, playing the hand she'd been dealt, as her brother Ry was fond of saying. She was respected in her field, proud of the business she and Maggie had built. She loved her work, had a busy life and a circle of good, close friends.
    That had been enough—until she'd met Nick Leone.
    She forced herself to concentrate on getting dressed. The camisole and tap pants she slid on were a silky rose pink. Her mauve linen skirt was gathered delicately at the waist. The spring-weight cotton sweater she pulled over her head repeated the shades of pink and mauve. Like everything that surrounded her Katie's clothing was feminine.
    As she eased a comb through her waist- length dark hair, she studied the reflection of her surroundings in the mirror. Her house was a four-room cottage. Shades of peach ran throughout, accented with cream and touches of green. Every thing in her home had been very carefully chosen, from the dainty white wicker headboard of her bed to her collection of heart- shaped porcelain boxes. Katie surrounded herself with feminine things to try to fill the hole her hysterectomy had torn in her own sense of femininity. Most of the time, it helped.
    A thundering bark sent her to her front door. Nick stood at the gate of her small yard, wearing stylishly pleated khaki trousers and a white shirt with a band collar. He cradled a long loaf of breadin one arm and with wary brown eyes regarded Katie's Irish wolfhound.
    “What's wrong, Nick?” she asked, coming forward to take hold of the enormous dog's collar. “Don't they have dogs in New Jersey?”
    “Dog? That's a dog?” he questioned. “I swear I lost a bundle at Aqueduct on a horse that looked just like that.”
    Katie laughed, scratching the dog's head. “He's just an overgrown puppy.”
    “He's bigger than you are,” Nick pointed out, coming through the gate of the picket fence. The happily panting wolfhound slurped his tongue along Nick's arm as he fondled the animal's ears. The dog's shoulder was at Katie's waist, and he looked as though he weighed a hundred and twenty pounds. Nick was certain Katie didn't weigh