Forever My Love (2 page)

Brent had always been there for Shanna, Kathy thought. No matter what he had been doing, he had never failed his daughter. She would have to say that for him.

There was much more to be said for Brent, she knew. She also knew she was still in love with him, that she always would be.

But life went on. She had learned that the hard way.

“Honest, I'm not worried,” Kathy reassured Shanna. She walked with her daughter to the doorway where David—six foot two, blond, all-American with a wide grin—was waiting.

“Hi, Mrs. McQueen.” David never had comprehended why she chose to use her maiden name. “Please don't worry—”

“I'm not worried,” Kathy vowed again.

Shanna laughed, stood on tiptoe and gave David a kiss on the cheek. “She's already been through it, Dave. I'll just get my things.”

“You're going out from Key Largo, right?” Kathy asked as Shanna ran to her room.

“Right. We can be reached by radio, you know,” David assured her. “And you are still invited.”

Kathy shook her head. “Thanks, David. I'm having dinner with Axel Fisher.”

Shanna had appeared with a duffel bag. “Of Axel Fisher Skin Care Products,” she said sweetly. Shanna didn't like Axel. He was tall, urbane and attractive, but he knew very little about dealing with young people. He was attractive in a very studied way, like the male models who showed off his products. He was tanned, his hair was styled, not just cut, and he carefully allotted so many hours of the week to his health club.

He was nice, though. Attentive and caring. Kathy wondered if she would find fault with any man, and if Shanna would do the same. Shanna had found fault with Marla Harrington on her mother's behalf, and she found fault with Axel on her father's behalf.

“You could have brought along Mr. Fisher—” David began.

“No, she could not!” Shanna said emphatically. Then she flushed and apologized. “Sorry, Mom, it's just—”

“That's okay!” Kathy laughed. “Go out with your father and the twit, but draw the line on me.”

“Oh, Mom.”

“I'm teasing, I swear it. Now go on, and have a great time. And David, give your parents my regards, and my thanks for the invitation. See you Monday sometime.”

“Bye, Mom, bye, Patty.” Shanna gave Patty a quick kiss on the cheek, then hugged her mother fiercely. David solemnly shook her hand then told Patty goodbye. Patty and Kathy stood together waving as the two went down the walk and out the high gate that surrounded the property.

“You should turn on the security system now,” Patty told her.

Kathy shrugged. She didn't worry much about security. There was a gatehouse at the front of the exclusive housing estate, and the entire area was off the beaten track. They were old houses for Miami, built in the early twenties, and most of the houses were still owned by members of the original families. Besides that, Sam, her fiercely loyal Doberman, guarded her house, and only friends could walk by Sam. He knew who belonged at the house and who didn't.

“I'll set the alarm once you head for your sister's, Patty,” Kathy told her. “I'm going to have a bath, but I'll be out in time to say goodbye.”

“Make sure you set that thing!” Patty warned her, hurrying to her room behind the kitchen. “Alarm can't be any good if you don't bother to set the darn thing. And a high-crime district like this one—”

“The area has a high crime ratio,” Kathy said, smiling. “Not our little neighborhood.”

Patty sniffed and disappeared. Kathy walked to her bathroom, determined on a long soak in a bubble bath. Then she realized that the scented salts she had just bought were still in the kitchen cabinet where she had stuck the department store bag to get it out of the way.

She went into the kitchen, found the bath salts and took the glass of wine that Patty insisted she bring with her. When she was ensconced in the big oval tub, she took a long swallow of the wine. It was therapeutic. It warmed her to her toes. It warmed away some of the tension deep within her.

She leaned her head back and closed her eyes. Her heart was thundering. Close your eyes, she told herself. Relax. She had to relax.

But trying to relax made her think more. About the tub, about the house, about Brent.

She'd always loved the tub. She loved the bathroom—it was huge and had been redone before they bought the house from her mother's cousin. There were his and her toilet stalls, a giant marble island with a skylight above and double sinks, a shower stall and the tub. It, too, had a skylight, plus a glass wall beside it. Outside the glass wall were shrubs and flowers and a high redwood privacy fence. The back of the property faced the bay, so a breeze was always touching the shrubs and flowers, moving them gently.

She opened her eyes. The hot steam of the bath rose around her, and she felt her tension begin to ease. She took a long sip of her wine, then closed her eyes and leaned her head against the rim of the tub.

If Brent were still her husband, she could have opened one eye and found him standing there. He seemed to sense when she was going to settle in for a long bath. And he would appear in a terry robe, its V-neck displaying his chest, with the mat of sandy and gold hair and taut muscles and the pulse at the base of his throat. He'd show up with a lazy, wicked gleam in his eyes and say her name so softly that it would seem to come off the breeze. She'd smile, and before she'd know it he was stepping in with her, heedless of his robe, which would be soaked and floating around them. He'd hand her a glass of wine and pull her into his arms. Then he would ask her huskily, “Isn't it fun to have a little money at last? It can't buy happiness, but hey, it did buy one hell of a bathtub, huh?”

She would laugh, and he would kiss her, and their legs would tangle together. She always thought it had to be hard for him to get comfortable. She was a mere five foot three, whereas Brent was six foot two or more, but he would tell her it was impossible to be uncomfortable with her in his arms.

They would laugh and remember what their first place had been like. She had been eighteen and he had been twenty-two and they were trying to live off his club-date fees while she went to school and worked part-time at the Burger Barn. She had been desperately in love with him right from the very first time she had seen him playing his guitar at a friend's wedding. He had been so tall, lean, fascinating with his deep, penetrating eyes that seemed to gaze upon her with ancient wisdom, to sparkle with laughter, to deepen with something more intense. He had appeared older than his years, or maybe it was just that he had already been through so much—a wretched childhood as an orphan, three years in the service, a third of that time in the volatile Middle East, then attendance at a college and survival with his music at the same time.

Kathy had been a senior in high school, and from the first time his eyes had met hers across the room, she had been in love. Later, when the band had stopped playing and pre-recorded music filled the break time, he had walked straight to her, and he had danced with her. She had stared into his eyes and slowly smiled. When he had gone to play again, he sang a song he had written, a soft, romantic ballad he called “Forever My Love.” She had felt his voice touch her. It was husky, sure, a tenor with just the slightest hint of a masculine rasp. His eyes had been on her, and she knew that the song had been sung just for her. He admitted later that he'd never sung it in public before, that it had never come together before, but when he had met her, the words, the music, everything had just fallen in place.

Forever, my love…

Well, they had tried it, they had vowed it, and maybe a certain amount of the love would always be there. But on that night so long ago when they had first danced they hadn't known all that was to come between them, the good times and the bad, the heaven and the hell. Nor had they had any way to see the pain that was to befall them.

Kathy sighed softly, opening her eyes. Darkness was falling rapidly. She looked up and saw a murky sky with the stars just beginning to dot the gray.

She started suddenly, thinking that something had tapped against the redwood privacy screen. Sam, she decided. It had to have been Sam. Still, she straightened and stared out. All she saw was the darkness. She rose out of the tub, passing the gilt-edged Victorian mirror by the closet. She paused and smoothed a stray strand of hair. She was still staring at herself seconds later, she realized. Looking for age lines? she taunted silently. Standing away from the mirror, she saw that she did resemble her daughter a great deal. They had the same huge blue eyes and the same soft blond hair, which they wore layered just past their shoulders. And they were both lean and petite with moderate but ample curves, as she liked to call them.

It was when she stepped closer to the mirror that the. differences became obvious. Shanna lacked the tiny lines and grooves around the eyes that defined Kathy's age. Maybe it was more than the lines. Maybe it was something in her eyes that betrayed her so quickly. Maybe she needed something to clear them away.…

“No,” she told the mirror. “Those are character lines, and I earned every single one of them.” Managing a rueful smile, she told herself she was not going to wax nostalgic any longer.

She started down the hallway and across the living room. It was only when she was halfway to the kitchen that she realized the television was on and that Patty was standing stock-still in the middle of the room, staring at the screen.

“—and it is believed at this time that Brent McQueen was also aboard the yacht
Theodosia
when it exploded. McQueen and Johnny Blondell were reportedly having serious problems, and McQueen was expected to lay his grievances before Blondell. The body of Johnny Blondell has been found, but not McQueen's. The search team will have to wait for the fire on board to die down before they can look for the remains of any further victims. No one knows the cause of the explosion at this time, but arson is expected.”

Kathy inhaled sharply, unable to comprehend what she was hearing. She walked closer to the television. The anchorman was still talking. A picture of Brent was flashed across the screen, a picture almost twenty years old, one with her in it. His arm was protectively around her, there were conspiratorial smiles on both of their faces, and they were both very beautiful in the simple happiness that radiated from their faces. The picture had been taken at the airport, right after their marriage.

Her hands clenched into fists at her side and she fell to her knees, a ragged, anguished cry wrenched from her lips. Patty walked to her and patted her shoulders. “Kathy, they don't know anything yet. He probably wasn't aboard the yacht. You can't jump to conclusions like those stupid newsmen.”

Kathy looked from the screen to Patty, dazed.

“He was having problems with Johnny and he might have died because of them. That little rat! Johnny Blondell was a junky, a womanizer, a slime and an abuser—”

“Kathy, the man is dead.”

“And he might have taken Brent with him! Oh, my God!” Kathy breathed. “Shanna! Thank God she can't have heard anything yet!” She hopped to her feet, raced to the phone and tried to call the television station to find out more information. When she finally got through, they were vague, saying that the police didn't know any more yet. “Watch at eleven, and we'll bring you up-to-date information,” a deep male voice told her.

“Wait a minute! You're reporting very irresponsibly!” Kathy swore. “You're saying a man might be dead—”

“Honey, wait till eleven. What does all this matter anyway?”

“It's going to matter tremendously to his daughter, in whose name I intend to sue you!” Kathy said, and slammed down the receiver.

“Kathy—” Patty began sympathetically.

“I'm all right!”

She wasn't all right. She was ready to burst into tears. She was torn apart for Shanna. And she was bleeding herself.

A bell clanged, warning them that someone was at the gate. Kathy frowned and hurried to the door, looking through the peephole that showed whoever was on the porch and also magnified the scene at the gate.

A man was standing there.

“My God!” she whispered. “It's about Brent, I know it!”

“Kathy,” Patty began again. “Wait—”

Kathy threw open the door and hurried down the porch steps and along the flower-bordered tile path. The dog barked, and Kathy told him to get back. She swung open the gate and cried out when she saw that it wasn't just a man, but Robert McGregor, a plain-clothes cop who had gone to school with her and been a friend to both her and Brent.

Fear rushed through her. He had come to tell her that Brent was dead. The world spun, and she thought she was going to crash to the ground.

“Kathy! It's all right. Listen to me, please. I haven't got much time, I've got to get back to the marina. Listen, he's not dead, I'm sure he's not. I talked to Brent tonight.”

“What?” she gasped and sagged against him. He caught her.

“Let me get you back to the house.”

“No, no. Tell me now. Talk to me, Robert, please.”

“Brent called me. He wanted to talk with me about something. He said he wanted to see me before he saw Johnny. So I know he's all right.”

“But you haven't…you haven't seen him?” she whispered.

He shook his head. “But I saw the newscast, and I knew you must be going insane. Now listen to me. I'll find Brent.”

She nodded stiffly. “I'll go with you.”

“No. You'll go into the house and you'll calm down and relax.
I'll
find Brent.”

“But—”

“Please, Kathy. Come on now, I'll take you in.”

She straightened and offered him a tight smile. “No, I'm fine, I promise. Go on. And thank you! Bless you!” she added in a whisper as she watched him go down the walk. Then she hurried into the kitchen. “It was Robert McGregor,” she told Patty. “He says that Brent wasn't on the yacht. He talked to Brent.”