Kat Attalla Special Edition (66 page)

"Kelly's mother decided she wanted her back. My lawyer suggested that I fight her in court since Kelly was obviously so much happier with me. I fought, but I didn't get as dirty as that court-appointed lawyer did. I had a string of character witnesses who filled out affidavits on my behalf, but they found the one person who could do the most damage to my case."

"Who?"

Resentment burned in her eyes. "My mother."

Her own mother? "Why?"

"I don't know. I never spoke to her again. She said all I needed to hear from her that day. She made false accusations about my artistic life-style. She brought up how long I spent away from home and how hanging around with musicians wouldn't be a good influence on an eight-year-old child." She sat up and stared defensively at him. "I never associated with musicians away from my work, and I never exposed Kelly to any of the kinds of things they insinuated."

"I'm sure you didn't, Kate." He tried to ease her closer, but her anger kept her rigidly in place. He could see how much it hurt Kate to remember, but stopping her would be worse. She needed to let go of the past.

"In this case, having money worked against me. That lawyer portrayed me as a spoiled rich bitch who thought I could buy myself a child at the expense of the poor natural mother down on her luck. The judge apparently agreed and awarded custody of Kelly to her mother. They didn't even let me say good-bye." A stream of tears streaked down her cheeks. "Kelly had such a look of terror in her eyes when the car drove away. ..." She broke off her words.

He pulled her into his arms and gently rocked her while she cried. "All right. It's all right, Kate."

"It's not ... all right," she stammered.

"Maybe things worked out with her mother." Even as he said the words, he knew how trite they sounded. Would Chloe be happy if the mother who had abandoned her suddenly forced her to leave the place she loved?

"They didn't work out."

"How can you be sure?"

She went completely still in his arms. Calm, more unnerving than her cries, washed over her. "She's dead, Jake. Both Kelly and her mother died two weeks later. Apparently Kelly's mother used the gas oven to heat their one-room apartment, but one night she forgot to light the pilot light first."

He felt her bitterness and anger as if they were his own. “I’m sorry."

"The social worker called me when it happened. She told me the same thing. 'I'm sorry, Kate. It's a terrible tragedy.' “Sarcasm punctuated her mimicking. "Then she asked if I wanted to pay the funeral arrangements." She pushed her hand into her hair and grabbed a large section, yanking as if the physical pain would somehow ease the inner grief.

"Stop it, Kate," he said. He covered her hand and tried to untangle the hair from her fingers. "You're hurting yourself."

"I don't feel anything," she mumbled, more to herself than to him.

"You feel too much. You're blaming yourself for something that's not your fault."

"It is. I betrayed her. I promised ... If I hadn't tried to adopt her ..." She sucked in a deep breath of air. "If she had gone to a family with two parents, she might
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"

"No," he cut her off. He wouldn't allow her to blame herself. "You don't know 'what if.' She might have gone to a family who cared nothing about her. Her last year was happy because of you. Can you guarantee that another family would have done that for her?"

She shook her head. "No, but
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"

He pressed a finger to her lips. "Stop torturing yourself. You did everything you could to keep your promise."

"I should have seen it. My mother ..." Kate fought a losing battle to control her runaway emotions. "I don't know what I did to make her hate me so much. Why would she do that to me? To Kelly?"

He cuddled her closer. "I don't know."

She trembled in his arms. Coughs mingled with choking gasps, draining all the strength she'd finally built up in the last few days. He should have waited to speak with her, but he never imagined how deep the hurt went. He remembered Kate telling him that her parents had died. The answers she needed from her mother would never be known.

He could only speculate and pray that he made sense. "Perhaps your mother felt threatened by Kelly."

"She was a child," Kate sobbed.

"A child who was taking you away from her. Some parents can't accept that."

His instincts told him he was right. In trying to make Kate understand, Jake discovered a clearer insight into his own problems with Ruth. When Ruth lost her control over Libby, she lashed out at him, but she hurt Chloe in the process. For himself, he didn't care, but hurting his child, he found unforgivable.

"I don't know if you will ever be able to forgive your mother, but it's time you forgave yourself, Kate. Kelly wouldn't want you to do this to yourself. Not if she loved you the way you loved her."

"I think ... she did."

"I'm sure she did. You're very easy to love."

Kate raised her head, and their eyes locked. She looked drained, and bewildered, too. "Jake?"

"Shh." He wiped his hand across her damp face. She had been through enough for one day. Trying to explain his confused feelings for her after his inexcusable behavior would be too much for either of them. "Try to get some rest. I can take Chloe to church on my own."

"No. I promised her and I'm going." Kate had an obsessive need to keep her promises. He sensed that their talk had a positive effect on her, but she still regretted the one promise that she felt she had broken.

"Okay, but only if you sleep for a few hours. I'll wake you at eleven."

"Ten," she corrected with a stubbornness that rivaled her exhaustion.

"Ten-thirty."

"Deal. Shake on it."

"That's so impersonal." He lowered his head and pressed a kiss against her salty lips. Her surprise lasted only a second before her reflexes brought her arching in closer. Then he got caught off guard by her passionate response.

Noting the danger in taking advantage of her emotional state, he scooped her up in his arms and carried her into the bedroom, where she could sleep alone.

He lowered her gently to the floor and took a step back. "I'll be in the living room if you need-anything."

"And if I need you?"

Jake grinned. He took the stuffed rabbit from her bed and handed it to her. "It's Easter. Make do with Peter Cottontail here."

Kate took the rabbit in her arms and cradled it for a moment. She stared as if she saw something in the worn velvet fabric, and then shook her head to clear away the memory. "It was Kelly's," she explained sadly, and pushed the toy in the top drawer of the bedside table. "I have to let go of it sometime."

Nice going, he chided himself. "I . . ."

"It's all right, Jake. You didn't know."

He should have. Why else would she have saved the tattered old thing? "I can't seem to do anything right."

"You did more than you think." She removed her dress and draped it over the bedpost. Her satin slip offered no protection against the cool air, and she shivered.

Jake held back the quilt as she quickly jumped into the bed for warmth. He tucked the edges around her and brushed a quick kiss across her cheek. "I'll be back later."

"Ten o'clock," she called after him.

He paused in the doorframe. "Ten-thirty. And not a minute sooner."

* * * *

After forty-five minutes of trying to fall asleep, Kate gave up. She heard Jake moving around in the outer rooms and even tried counting his heavy footsteps to bore herself into dreamland. He paced the hardwood floors like an expectant father. It warmed her to know that he worried about her, but it didn't help her escape into the sleep she so desperately wanted.

Maybe she had to let go of Kelly to get on with her life. She realized now that she’d never said goodbye. Not in her heart. Letting go meant forgiving herself, and she never felt she deserved that release. In telling Jake, she had taken her first step. A part of her would always regret the past, but the time had come to stop torturing herself over it.

She could no longer hide in her music either. Jake and Chloe broke through the wall of sound she had built around her emotions and taught her how to use her other senses to enjoy life. She couldn't return to the long road trips that kept her from home for months at a time. She loved her work, but it couldn't be the center of her world. Now that she'd found her grounding force, she intended to hold on to it.

Telling Jake might prove to be difficult. She never lied to him, but would he see it that way? Would he make her choose, or worse, want nothing to do with her, when he discovered her alter ego? For a woman who made her living with poetic words, Kate had the damnedest time finding the right ones to explain her motives. Everything sounded cliché. She had time, but would she ever find a way to make him understand?

She rolled out of bed and slipped into her robe. Using the light of the full moon, she made her way across the room to the door. She was about to reach for the handle when the door opened wide.

"What are you doing out of bed?" Jake asked. "You should be asleep."

"I've been sleeping for three days. I'm tired of sleeping."

He let out an exasperated sigh. "What am I going to do with you, Kate?"

She lifted her eyebrow suggestively. "Do you need help with that one?"

Jake acted shocked. "I do believe you're making a pass at me."

"Me?" She wrapped her arms around his waist and rested her hands on his back pockets.

"Illegal use of the hands," he muttered. "Go back five yards."

"Closer to the bed?" she said hopefully. She brushed her hips against him, and he let out a low groan. "What's the penalty for that?"

"Five minutes alone in the penalty box."

She giggled. "You're mixing up the games."

"So are you. I'm supposed to make the pass, and you're supposed to play hard to get."

"Well, excuse me while I go for a ride on my dinosaur. You live in the Stone Age."

* * * *

Jake didn't know where this playful side of her came from. After what he put her through, she should be telling him where to get off. Less than one hour ago, she’d been a bundle of raw nerves. She had made a remarkable recovery. Still, he felt he would be taking advantage if he accepted the very tempting offer she put before him. He had to call on his favorite excuse to delicately turn her down.

"Chloe wants to show you her new clothes. She's so excited."

He didn't fool Kate for a minute.  "You louse. You know that's the only excuse I'll let you get away with." She hooked her arms through his and led him in the direction of the door. "I have to change into my dress. I'll be there in a few minutes."

Jake's short stop sent Kate stumbling into him. He caught her at the waist and steadied her. "I'll wait. Chloe would never forgive me if I left you to walk alone after dark."

She shook her head and laughed again. "You won't always be able to use Chloe to get your way with me."

Jake thought of the irony, and smiled. "Most times it's because of Chloe that I don't get my way with you."

* * * *

Jake flipped through the newspaper, looking for something to capture his interest. As he expected, Kate had disappeared into Chloe's room, and he hadn't seen either for the last hour. His mind wandered and he tossed the paper on the floor.

He didn't doubt Kate's affection for Chloe, but he wondered if she was trying to fill the void left after Kelly's death. Would he hold any interest for her if he didn't have his daughter? He had steered away from emotional entanglements because few women wanted to compete with a child for a man's affections. So now that he found someone who didn't feel threatened by his daughter, why did he question her motives?

He slumped forward and massaged the tight muscles at the back of his neck. A stinging slap landed on his back, and he jolted upright, coming face-to-face with Trevor's ever-present smirk.

"So. She's talkin' to you again. You get all the Irish luck in this family."

Jake pushed his brother's hand away. "I thought you left already."

"My ride didn't show. I guess you're stuck with me for company tonight." Trevor's snicker mocked him. "We can talk."

"You're stuck with your own company. I'm going out."

Trevor's laughter came to a stunned halt. "You're going' to church? You?"

Jake could hardly believe it himself. "Yeah. Why not?"

"You better be careful, Jake, or the people around here might actually start to think you're normal. Next thing you know, you'll be going' to the Saturday night socials and Sunday barbecues."

Jake found himself smiling at Trevor's taunts. Once, that was exactly what he wanted out of life. He still did, after all. "So what? If my daughter can do it, so can I."

"It's about time you figured that out. Or maybe you had a little help?"