Читать книгу Keeping Christmas - Marisa Carroll - Страница 11

Chapter 2

Katherine’s ghost. Who was Katherine? And what did she mean to this dark, unfriendly stranger?

“I’ve been accused of being a lot of things in my life, but a ghost has never been one of them.” No one said anything.

Katie wished she didn’t feel so disoriented and confused. The lights in the foyer were bright and hurt her eyes. She closed them, hoping to alleviate the pain in her head. It didn’t work. She opened them again and found the man still standing by the settee, watching her.

“Please,” she said, unable to look away from his compelling yet shuttered gaze. “May I have a glass of water?”

“Will tea do?” a gentle childlike voice asked at her shoulder. She turned her head to find herself confronted by two smiling, identical faces. Brown eyes stared at her from beneath curly mops of gray-streaked red hair. “We thought you might want something warming. But Faye can march straight back into the kitchen and fetch you a glass of water.” The heads turned, nodded. One disappeared, presumably in the direction of the kitchen. The woman who remained offered her the cup of herb tea. “It’s our great-grandmother’s recipe,” she said, still smiling. “It’s good for whatever ails you.” Katie took the cup. She was suddenly very cold, and the warmth of the thick china mug was welcome. The tea smelled strange, but not unpleasant. It was flavored with lemon and honey and other things she couldn’t identify. She let the liquid run down her throat, soothing and warming, while the aroma drifted up into her nostrils, making it just a little easier to breathe, a little easier to think.

“Thank you,” she said, meaning it, as she handed the empty mug back to the red-haired woman. “I think you saved my life.” She wondered if she was delirious and had only imagined the woman’s double standing at her side moments before.

“Did my sister tell you it’s an old family remedy?” Once more there were two. “Here, I brought you a glass of spring water, as well.”

“Thank you,” Katie said again, holding the glass with both hands because she was trembling so hard. She took a sip and handed it back, looking from one pleasant, girlish face to the other.

“We’re twins,” the woman on her left said. “I’m Lois Owens and this is my sister, Faye.”

“You might as well introduce everyone,” Faye said with a grin that was filled with mischief. “I’m afraid there’s enough of us to confuse someone who’s purely well.”

“Faye, you speak as if you’ve just come down out of the hills,” the tall, bent woman broke in. “I’m Almeda Owens. My sister, Hazel Owens Gentry, you’ve already met,” she said with a sweeping gesture of her gnarled hand. “This, also, is my sister, Janet.”

Janet, plump, gray and inquisitive looking, gave Katie a brief nod and a long, assessing look. “The baby needs changing,” she said.

“Yes, I know.”

“And this,” Almeda went on, ignoring her sister’s comment about Kyle, “is our nephew, Dr. Jacob Owens.”

Katie said, “Oh,” because she couldn’t think of anything else. If he was a doctor, his bedside manner left a great deal to be desired. Jacob said nothing at all.

“Janet’s right about the baby needing to be changed,” Hazel said in the awkward silence. “And I believe he’s hungry, as well.” She still cuddled Kyle to her chest, but he was squirming and fussing.

“Yes,” Katie said wearily. “I was just getting ready to give him his bottle when…when the bus went off the road.” She gave Jacob a defiant look. He made no mention of her change of stories.

“Where are his diapers?” Janet asked. “I’ll get them.”

“In my tote.” Katie sat up, ignoring the pain in her neck and shoulders. She looked around. “Where is it? I…I remember it falling from my shoulder.” Suddenly she felt like crying. Everything she owned was in that bag, even her purse. And she’d lost that twice in the same evening.

“I’ll get it,” Jacob offered roughly. “Don’t start crying about it. No one steals anything from this yard with Weezer around.”

“Oh, dear, Weezer. She’s still out in the storm.”

“I’ll pen her up, Aunt H, don’t worry.”

“I’ll go with you and bring in the bag,” Janet offered.

“Come straight back, Jacob, and help us get Katie to bed. She doesn’t look stout enough to negotiate the stairs,” Hazel ordered, bouncing Kyle up and down, shushing his increasingly loud and angry squawks as she did so.

“You’re not planning to keep her overnight?” Jacob turned on his heel, his hand already on the doorknob.

“Oh, no,” Katie said at the same time. “I couldn’t impose.”

“You’re not imposing.”

“We’d love to have you,” the twins said, speaking as one.

“Too cold to be taking a baby out on a night like this.”

“An Owens has never turned away a soul in need,” Almeda said, ending the argument.

Katie saw Jacob’s jaw tighten and his expression grow even bleaker than before. “I don’t think it’s a good idea. I can have the Jeep warmed up and drive her and the baby down to Fuller’s in less time than it will take to make up a bed.”

“Yes,” said Katie. “We’ll go to Fuller’s.”

“No, my dear. The matter is settled.” Almeda gestured toward her nephew. “Janet can get Kate’s bag from the yard. Carry the child upstairs. No,” she said, fixing Katie with a dark-eyed stare that was every bit as formidable as her nephew’s. “I won’t hear any more arguments. You’re not well, and not thinking clearly.”

“Stay here tonight for the baby’s sake, if not your own,” Hazel added more gently. “Fuller’s aren’t used to many visitors at this time of year. The rooms will be cold. And you need your rest.”

“What’s the baby’s name?” Faye—or was it Lois?—asked, running her fingers over Kyle’s silky hair.

“Kyle Michael.”

“Kyle. I like that name. Let me hold him, Hazel. You can’t have him all the time.” Kyle, diverted by the soft lilt of her voice, stopped squirming and allowed himself to be taken into Faye’s arms.

“I want to hold him, Faye.”

“You can change him,” her sister said with a grin.

“Okay, but I get to feed him, too.”

“His food is in the bag. I hope it hasn’t frozen out there in the snow.” Katie stood and immediately wished she hadn’t. She grabbed the arm of the settee and tried to sit back down before she fell. Jacob was at her side before her hand closed over the carved wood. His disapproval was so strong Katie could feel it like a wall between them. But with one swift movement he scooped her up in his arms, holding her high against his chest.

“Please, put me down.” She had never felt so helpless in her life. She didn’t like it, not one bit.

“If my aunt Almeda says you’re spending the night, you’re spending the night,” Jacob replied in the same cold, gruff voice he’d used before. Again, Katie felt the fine tremors in his muscles and realized this time the tension in him was not from the exertion of carrying her in his arms, but having her near at all.

Who was Katherine? she wondered again.

Katie lifted her aching head, determined to ask him, but one look at Jacob’s hard jaw and set, uncompromising features drove the question from her mind.

He carried her up the curving staircase, pausing for a moment at the half-landing to allow his aunt Hazel to precede them the rest of the way. He stopped in front of a door some distance down the long, well-lighted upper hallway and waited as Hazel switched on the overhead light and turned down the quilt-covered spindle bed in the middle of the room.

“I’ll fetch a heating pad for your feet, my dear. And what about your night things?” she asked, turning away from the humpbacked cedar chest at the foot of the bed, her arms full of blankets.

“In my bag,” Katie mumbled as Jacob let her legs slide free of his grip. He kept his arms around her as her feet found the floor, but his touch was impersonal. Katie shivered again but not entirely from her fever. His hands were warm and strong, his touch sure and confident. He would be a skilled and demanding lover, or a formidable foe.

She sat on the firm, comfortable mattress as quickly as her aching muscles and spinning head would allow. She couldn’t imagine where such wayward thoughts were coming from.

“Your nightclothes?” Hazel was asking her again.

Katie wasn’t certain how to tell her hostess she’d be sleeping in an oversize T-shirt she’d bought in Gainesville their first night out but had never worn. She’d been afraid to stop for the night anywhere along the way. She’d slept—if that’s what you could call her restless catnaps with Kyle in her arms—on the bus.

“Here’s your tote,” Janet announced, appearing in the doorway. The room was large and high ceilinged but it now seemed filled to overflowing with people.

“Thank you,” Katie said. “If you’ll show me where the bathroom is, I’ll…change.” She couldn’t help but be aware of Jacob’s presence in the room. She was suddenly very reluctant to talk about nightclothes and bedtime rituals in front of him.

“It’s right next door, my dear. That’s why I had Jacob put you in this room.”

“There are only two bathrooms in this old pile,” Janet complained. “The other one’s downstairs, where Almeda sleeps. She can’t climb the stairs anymore.”

“This house is over a century old,” Hazel explained. “Bathrooms were a luxury when it was built, not a necessity.”

“I hate hiking down that damn freezing hallway in my bare feet in the middle of the night,” Janet went right on complaining.

“Wear your slippers,” Hazel threw over her shoulder. She frowned down at the sleep shirt Katie had fished out of the tote from beneath a stack of disposable diapers. “That doesn’t look very warm, my dear.”

“I’ll be fine,” Katie insisted. She was starting to shiver again.

“Perhaps I should get you one of my nightgowns. Or Almeda’s?”

“No, really.” Their kindness was limitless, and for that reason overwhelming. “All I need are a couple of aspirins and some sleep.” She glared at Dr. Jacob Owens briefly. Why hadn’t he suggested something to make her feel better?

“Here’s the little one,” Faye or Lois announced, sliding past Janet, still firmly anchored in the doorway. She was carrying a dry and sated but still-sniffling Kyle in her arms. “He’s all ready for bed,” she said, indicating the one-piece terry sleeper she’d obviously found in the tote, “but he still wants his mamma.”

Katie let the sleep shirt fall into her lap and held out her arms. “Come here, sweetheart.” She cuddled her son in her arms. He gave her the quick hard hug he’d just learned how to give and smiled brightly.

“Hi,” he said, hiccuping on a sob. “Hi,” he repeated, loudly and plainly. It was one of his favorite words.

“How old is he?” Hazel asked, closing the chest. It seemed she had decided not to press the matter of the nightgown.

“Fifteen months,” Katie said, holding her son close to her heart, absorbing his warmth and his unconditional baby love.

“What about his father?” Jacob asked.

This time Katie had no trouble meeting his hard, assessing gaze.

“He’s dead,” she said bluntly. “Kyle’s all I have left in the world.” She held the little boy out to him. “Please take a look at him. He seems fine, but considering we were involved in an accident, I think a doctor should examine him.”

Jacob’s arms remained stiffly at his sides. He made no attempt to take the baby from her. Katie’s arms began to tremble from a combination of fatigue and Kyle’s weight dragging on her shoulders. Her son was a strong, sturdy little boy. She sat him on her lap.

“What kind of a doctor are you, anyway? You won’t give me so much as an aspirin. And you won’t even touch my son?” Her indignation got the better of her tongue. “What are you, some kind of mad scientist or something?”

Jacob laughed, but the harsh grating sound only sent more shivers racing down Katie’s spine. “Closer than you think. My aunts are very fond of introducing me by my title. The ‘Doctor’ is academic, not medical. I have a Ph.D. in microbiology.”

“Jacob was an assistant professor at the University of Tennessee.”

“Now I’m the science teacher at Owenburg High. But I’m not so far beyond redemption that I’d begrudge you two aspirins. And if I was,” he said with what might have been the beginning of a very reluctant smile, “my aunts would have my hide.”

Maybe it was her fever? Maybe it was that phantom smile? Katie wasn’t sure afterward what made her say it, but she had to know. “And who was Katherine?”

The curl of a smile turned into a sneer, then disappeared completely. “She was my wife.” He turned on his heel and left the room.

“Oh, dear.” Hazel watched him go.

“I thought he was getting better,” Faye—or Lois?—said with a sigh. “It’s a good thing school’s back in session tomorrow or he’d be shut up in his cabin for days.”

“Grief is a dreadful thing when it turns inward,” Hazel said very softly. “I’ll get you aspirin and a glass of water.”

“How long has Katherine been dead?”

“Three and a half years.” Janet took three steps into the room. “We don’t talk about it.”

“I see. I’ll apologize before I leave.”

“Best not mention it again,” Janet said flatly. “We have a baby bed.” She glanced over her shoulder toward the doorway. “But it’s in the attic. The twins and I will bring it down tomorrow.”

“Please, don’t bother. We won’t be imposing on you any longer than necessary. If we push a chair or something against the edge of the bed so he doesn’t roll off, he can sleep with me,” Katie said hurriedly. She didn’t want to think about Jacob Owens or his dead wife any more that night. It would be hard enough finding the courage to face him in the morning before she left this place.

If she ever saw him again. The prospect of never laying eyes on Jacob Owens again in her life was not quite as appealing as it should have been but she felt too miserable to analyze her feelings.

“We can arrange that.” Janet went off in search of furniture to act as a guardrail for Kyle. Hazel went to get the aspirin and a glass of water. Faye—or was it Lois?—smiled a good-night and left the room, as well. Katie and Kyle were alone.

“I feel a little like Alice down the rabbit hole,” Katie confessed to her son as she nuzzled the soft, warm skin at the nape of his neck. “Except I don’t think there’s a tall, dark, very handsome ogre in Alice in Wonderland.”

She considered what she’d just said. “Handsome?” The word came out more of a snort than a question. “The man is not handsome. He’s a monster. A son of a…gun,” she finished hastily, remembering how quickly Kyle picked up new words these days. “But,” she said thoughtfully, sitting her son in the middle of the bed as she started to undress. “I think he’s an ogre with a broken heart.”

“Is she asleep?” Jacob asked his aunt Hazel as she came through the swinging door that separated the dining room from the kitchen.

“Yes. She’s exhausted, poor thing, but I don’t think she’s seriously ill.”

“Great-grandmother’s cherry bark tea will fix her right up,” Almeda said from her customary place at the head of the oblong hickory table that had stood in the window alcove since his father’s father was a boy.

Janet followed her sister into the kitchen. She was trailed closely by the twins. “Jacob. We thought you’d gone back to your cabin.” The younger Owens sisters exchanged speaking looks.

“I wanted to check on the furnace before I turn in for the night,” he said, not quite truthfully. He didn’t want his aunts alone in the house with that woman, although he didn’t want to say so and bring their combined wrath down on his head. He didn’t trust Kate Smith’s story, or her intentions, even though she did look sick and tired and terrified beneath her know-it-all facade. He wondered, briefly, what she was really running away from.

Kyle’s father? He wasn’t altogether certain he believed her statement that he was dead. The information had come too easily to her lips. After three and a half years he could barely speak the words aloud.

Was she fleeing a lover? That was more likely.

Or the law? Possible, but for some reason he didn’t think so.

“Jacob, I’m speaking to you.” Almeda’s voice cut into his thoughts. “Seeing you’re so worried about us having a stranger under our roof, do you wish to spend the night in the house?”

“Maybe I will,” he said too quickly.

Almeda narrowed shrewd dark eyes beneath white eyebrows. “The invitation is withdrawn if you plan to haunt the upper hall and spy on our guest all night long.”

“The thought never crossed my mind,” he lied.

“Yes, it did.” Almeda wrapped her gnarled hands around her mug of tea. “You think she’s going to murder us in our beds.”

Jacob laughed; it was rusty and almost devoid of humor, but it was a laugh, nevertheless.

Faye kicked Lois under the table but Jacob didn’t notice.

“No, but she might run off with all the money and silver in the house.”

“In her condition?”

“She’d never get out of the yard with Weezer on the porch,” Janet pointed out.

“Good point,” Jacob conceded.

“She’s nothing but a poor, frightened young woman who’s running away from someone or something that has her scared half to death,” Hazel said, echoing his own reluctant conclusions. “I’m certain of it.”

“Well, I’m not.” Jacob leaned his hips against the tiled countertop. He folded his arms across his chest. “But I promise not to harm a hair on her head.”

Almeda refused to be drawn into an argument. “Good. That’s settled. Remember, she’s our guest and she stays as long as she needs our hospitality.”

“It’s the Christian thing to do.”

“It is the season, after all,” Lois said quietly.

“It’s still November.”

“Close enough,” said Faye. “Christmas is my favorite time of year.”

Jacob set his coffee mug on the counter. “I give up. She stays as long as she wants. I’m going back up to my place to put some more wood in the stove. I’ll check on Weezer once more, then I’ll come back here and spend the night in my old room.”

“That sounds like an excellent idea.” Almeda seconded the suggestion. “We should all be in our beds.”

“Not me,” Janet said. “I’m going to watch Tales from the Crypt. Anyone care to join me?”

“No.” Hazel shuddered. “I hate that show. It gives me nightmares.”

“We’re going to bed,” the twins said, taking turns. “We’ve got a million things to do tomorrow.”

“I meant what I said about the lights on the roof,” Jacob reminded them. “Not till it thaws.”

“Of course.” They grinned. “If the sun comes out you can do it as soon as you get home from school.”

Jacob shook his head. He was defeated, and he knew it. “Good night.” He shrugged into his coat and headed out into the snow.

“He smiled,” Faye said in a stage whisper after he’d gone.

“And he laughed. Almost,” her twin sister added. “I can’t remember the last time I saw him laugh.”

It was many hours later when Jacob returned to the house. He’d forgotten the term papers that needed to be graded. But the back door was unlocked for him, as he knew it would be. His aunts were the most trusting souls on earth. And thank God, beyond ordinary common sense precautions, in Owenburg they still could be. He shook the snow off his coat and hung it on a hook by the door. He did the same with his hat, then took off his shoes. He walked through the house in his stocking feet, climbed the stairs and stopped before his father’s and his grandfather’s room.

He hadn’t slept here in months—he usually stayed only if the weather was very bad or his aunts were having problems with their temperamental old furnace—but he knew it would be ready for him. Probably with the bed already turned down and the radiator steaming.

He hesitated for a long minute, then walked silently down the hall to the room where Kate Smith and her son slept. He watched her from the open doorway. The soft glow of the wall lamps in the hall cast dim fingers of light all the way to the bed.

Kate Smith. He caught himself smiling again. If he had to pick a moment when he’d truly decided she wasn’t dangerous, it was then. She wasn’t much of a criminal if she couldn’t even pick an alias that didn’t make people think twice. But she’d told him to call her Katie. Katie. The name suited her much better than Kate.

She lay on her back, one arm outstretched toward her child, one lying across her chest, just beneath the gentle swell of her breasts. She had very nice breasts. He remembered the feel of them beneath her sweater as he’d carried her upstairs. Jacob looked quickly away. The baby slept beside her, on his stomach, his bottom high in the air.

Just the way his son used to sleep. His heart ached as he stood there staring at them.

And Katherine. How often had he teased her about putting the baby in bed with them. “We can’t make love,” he’d complain, “with a baby between us. It cramps my style and it will warp the boy for life.” Katherine would laugh. He would lean over, kiss the baby and she would put him in his own bed so that they could make love; long, slow, sweet love.

Jacob clenched his fists at his sides. He wouldn’t remember the soft, powdery baby smells, the giggles, the kisses exchanged with the woman he loved as she nursed his son, played pat-a-cake with him. The pain as they lowered them into the cold hard ground together. He closed his eyes, then opened them again. He would not give in to the pain.

Kate Smith bore a physical resemblance to Katherine, that was all. He could handle that. He didn’t have to exchange another half-dozen words with her. Tomorrow, or the day after that, she would be gone. Out of his life forever and he could go on, getting from one day to the next, making it through one more night, one more week, one more Christmas.

He gave the sleeping woman and her child a last look. Her short, dull gold hair gleamed faintly in the diffuse light. The little boy slept soundly, his thumb in his mouth. He looked like his mother, but his build was square and sturdy. Like his father? Kate, although tall, was slender as a child, skinny, really. Too skinny. Jacob liked his women with a little more meat on their bones.

The errant thought and his physical response to it surprised him, amazed him and scared him to death. Thinking about what Kate Smith would look like with an additional ten or twelve well-distributed pounds on her frame was too close to thinking about what it might be like to hold her, or kiss her, or make love to her. Doing that meant he would have to start feeling things again, letting his emotions stir to life, including the agony of remembering what he had lost. He wasn’t about to do that again for anyone. Not now. Not ever.

“Damn,” Greg Moran growled as he slammed down the receiver. “She won’t answer the phone.”

“Give her time to cool down,” his father counseled from his chair by the fire. He didn’t turn around. Neither did Greg. He remained by the inlaid wood desk that sat squarely in the middle of Andrew’s mahogany-paneled study. His hands balled into fists as he rested his elbows on either side of the phone. “She’ll come around. Patrice is a smart girl.”

“Maybe she’s already left town. Checked out of the hotel and went home to her family,” Greg said, following his own train of thought. He loved his wife. He hadn’t thought it was possible to miss her this much. He wanted her back, no matter what it took.

“We’d know. Someone follows her whenever she leaves the hotel,” his father reminded him.

“That’s another thing. I don’t want her finding out she’s being followed. I don’t want her hounded out of town.”

“Don’t worry,” Andrew said. “I’ve got my best guys on it. She’ll get tired of this game in a few days.”

“Sure, Dad.” But in his heart Greg wasn’t so certain. Maybe Patrice was right. Maybe they should let Katie go her own way.

“Patrice will come around,” Andrew repeated smugly. “In a few days you’ll have found my grandson and brought him home. Patrice won’t be able to stay away when she knows Kyle needs a woman to take care of him. She loves that boy like he was her own.”

“What if Katie won’t let us bring Kyle back here?” Greg asked.

“She won’t have any choice. Leave that all up to me. You just find her.” Andrew’s tone was hard as steel.

“She won’t give him up without a fight.” Greg hid a smile. Katie was a scrapper; even his father had to admit that.

“Remember. She’s got nothing to give the boy. We have everything, including the law, on our side.” Andrew chuckled. “Why do you think I make all those… campaign contributions…every election year?”

“Moran Enterprises makes campaign contributions for the same reasons every other company in this state does. To help elect the best man or woman for the job. Right, Dad,” Greg said, warningly.

“Sure, sure.” Andrew chuckled once more, then his voice hardened again. “Don’t try to con me. Are you trying to tell me you can’t find her?” He turned in his chair, his bald head shining softly in the mellow, recessed lighting. His stare was anything but mellow.

“I have a couple of leads,” Greg answered noncommittally. “It takes time to check them out. She’s only been gone three days. Right now I’m more interested in getting my wife to come home.”

“Three days is three damn days too long. You get the boy back here and your wife will come racing back so fast it’ll make your head spin.” Andrew brought his fist down on the arm of the chair. “The boy should be here with us. He’s our blood.”

For his father that was enough. For years it had been enough for Greg, too. Since the day he’d graduated from college he’d concentrated on turning Andrew’s ill-gotten gains into a legitimate business empire. For the most part he’d succeeded, although he wondered, sometimes, if his father didn’t stay in too close touch with his old pals from the syndicate. Were Katie’s glimpses of Andrew’s shady past one of the reasons she’d run away? He didn’t know. He couldn’t be sure.

But one thing he could be sure about. He’d spent all his life, forty-two years, trying his damnedest to please his old man, to make a success of Moran Enterprises and to rehabilitate the old sinner’s name. But it wasn’t enough. It would never be enough again. Not since Patrice had walked out on him and left an aching, empty chasm in the middle of his soul.

Outside the rain poured down from a leaden sky onto the lavishly landscaped grounds of the Key Biscayne hotel. Patrice smiled ruefully. If it wasn’t raining so hard, she could probably see Andrew’s mansion from here. She hadn’t run very far, but at least she had gone from her father-in-law’s house. The house she’d lived in with Gregory for twelve years, yet never thought of as her own, as theirs. Leaving Greg, taking a stand, that was the gesture she had to make. For Katie’s sake, and for her own.

She didn’t have her sister-in-law’s strength of purpose. Or her imagination. She’d never considered Andrew an evil person until the night Katie disappeared. Then she’d seen him for what he was: a ruthless, domineering man, skating the thin line between respectability and lawlessness. She didn’t care what Andrew had done in the past; that was all long ago and far away. Gregory said his father’s business dealings—his own business dealings—were legitimate now, and that’s all that mattered to her.

She missed Gregory. She wanted to be with her husband, to tell him about their child—the baby they’d wanted so desperately for so long. She was over four months pregnant. Her monthly cycles were so irregular she hadn’t realized, herself, she was pregnant until a few weeks ago. Now she was unable to share her joy with her husband until the situation between Katie and Andrew was resolved. That’s why she’d ignored the phone ringing behind her, was still ignoring its insistent summons. Because it was Gregory on the other end of the line, she knew in her heart, and because if he asked her, she would tell him what little she knew about where Katie had gone.

She couldn’t lie to Greg, even for Katie’s sake, but she couldn’t be a party to the scheme to take Kyle from his mother. That’s why she was here, in a hotel room, not two miles from her home, torn in mind and spirit, crying herself to sleep each night, instead of starting to plan for Christmas, her favorite time of the year. And this Christmas was to have been the most special of all, because her gift to Greg was their child.