My Man Pendleton (29 page)

But Holt wasn't listening to her explanation, because he was too busy being doubled over in laughter.

"What?" she said, smiling tentatively, his good humor infectious, even if she had just humiliated herself beyond words. "What's so funny?"

He reined himself in, but a huge grin split his face, and all Faith could think was that she'd never seen him looking more handsome. "It just never occurred to me that anyone would think Kit is a drunk, that's all. She's certainly a unique individual, but I've never seen her drunk in my life."

"Well, what else would cause her to act the way she was acting? Why did her companion bring her in over his shoulder, kicking and screaming that way?"

Holt shook his head and chuckled some more. "That's going to take a long time to explain, something I sincerely hope will make for an appropriate segue when I ask you out again at the end of this conversation. As for Kit's behavior, well
…
That's just the way she is. She was perfectly sober that night. So was Pendleton, for that matter."

Faith began to smile, too. "So then there's no deep dark secret in the McClellan household?" she asked. "No out-of-control, drunken family member doing something to embarrass the entire clan?"

Holt sobered at her jest. "Actually," he said, "that's not exactly true. We, uh, we do have a lush in the family, someone who has in fact embarrassed the McClellan clan on a number of occasions in the past."

Her embarrassment rose to the fore again, and she wondered how many more times she was going to say the wrong thing around this man before she finally learned her lesson. "You do?"

He nodded.

"Who?"

He hesitated for a moment, before revealing quietly, "Me."

"You?"

He nodded again, and suddenly he looked older than Faith had first thought him. "I'm a recovering alcoholic," he stated evenly, having no trouble whatever putting voice to the words. "No one knows that outside my family, except for a counselor. No one but you. And no one else ever
can
know."

A clump of something cold and unpleasant landed in the pit of Faith's stomach. "You obviously aren't struggling with it. Why keep it such a secret, especially when others could benefit from your experiences?"

He met her gaze again. "Can't you imagine what people would do with that bit of news? The second-in-command at Hensley's Distilleries nearly killed himself with his own product? The Louisville Temperance League, for example, would have a field day if they knew."

Faith blinked at him. "They do know." She wasn't sure what motivated her to say that, but once the words were uttered, she had no way to take them back.

Holt shook his head. "No, they don't know. You know. I'm trusting you not to exploit the information or make it public knowledge."

"How can you trust me to do that?"

"Because I know you."

"You know nothing of me," she countered.

"Maybe I know more than you think."

Oh, how Faith wished that were true. And how she wished that Holt hadn't revealed what he'd just revealed. Not just because of the compromising position it put her in, but because his admission of his weakness—his illness—simply hit too close to home.

"Faith?" he asked.

"Yes?"

"I can trust you, can't I?"

She swallowed hard. "I don't know. If no one outside your family is aware of this, why did you tell me?"

"Because I think it's something you should know. Because I think it will be important in our future."

She shook her head. "We don't have a future, Holt. How many times do I have to say that?"

He stared at her for a long time in silence, and all she could do was stare back. Around Faith, the world seemed to stop spinning for a few moments. Then Holt leaned back in his chair, and the enchantment was broken.

"I can trust you," he said, resolute.

"Then the problem now," she replied just as resolutely, "would be that
I
can't trust
you."

His eyebrows arrowed downward in confusion. "What do you mean? Why can't you trust me?"

"Because you're an alcoholic."

"Recovered," he hastened to correct her.

"Recovering,"
she corrected him in turn. "You guys never do fully recover, do you? There's always that chance
…
"

She didn't finish her sentence, but his entire body went rigid in response at her implication.

"My husband was an alcoholic," she said suddenly, uncertain just when she had decided to reveal that particular bit of news. "That was what killed him. He drove off the road one night on his way home from work, and hit a tree at eighty miles an hour. I can only thank God that he didn't take anyone else out with him."

Holt didn't react—didn't move, didn't speak, didn't breathe. So Faith continued.

"On his good days, Stephen was a charming liar," she said softly. "And on his bad days, he was a mean drunk."

Holt nodded, as if he understood completely. "I was never a mean drunk," he told her. "But
…
I was a charming liar. My wife divorced me because of that. I lied to her about everything." He dropped his gaze back down to the hands that lay still in his lap. "On a couple of occasions, I was unfaithful to her. And I was stupid enough to think that she wouldn't find out." He glanced back up and met Faith's gaze with steely determination. "I won't sit here and make excuses for my behavior back then. But I can tell you that, had I been sober, none of it would have happened."

"And how long now have you been sober?"

"For almost two years."

Faith nodded. "That's commendable, Holt. And I'm glad you're doing so well. But you have to understand that, having put up with that kind of behavior from one man, for a lot longer than I should have, I'm not willing to risk having it happen again."

"It won't happen again," he vowed. "Not with me."

She smiled sadly. "I wish I could believe that. But I can't. I'm sorry."

Before he had a chance to say anything more, she stood and circled her desk, amazed that her legs were actually able to carry her. As gracefully as she could, she jerked open the door, then turned to Holt again.

"Thank you, Mr. McClellan, for clearing up the matter of your sister," she said, striving for a formality she was nowhere near feeling. "I think that concludes our business together."

Clearly with much reluctance, he stood and shrugged back into his coat, then began to make his way out. He got as far as the door without speaking, but something made him halt before he passed through it. And when he did, his scent surrounded her, warm and earthy and masculine, reminding her of so many things she wished she could forget. He gazed down at her face for a long time without speaking, then, as if he couldn't resist the impulse, he lifted his hand and stroked her cheek with bent knuckles.

Faith squeezed her eyes shut tight to keep in the tears she felt welling. Her already jumpy heart leaped at the soft caress, but she neither spoke nor moved in response.

When she opened her eyes, Holt threw her a half-smile. "I'll be seeing you," he murmured. Then he left, crossing the tiny outer office to exit through the other door. He didn't look back once.

"Mrs. Ivory?"

Only then did Faith realize that her secretary had witnessed the entire scene. "It's okay," she told the other woman. "He didn't mean it."

Then she stepped back into her office and closed the door, leaning back against it, as if doing so might keep her demons on the other side. And she saw that outside her office window, in a swirl of white that hid the rest of the world from her view, the snow began to fall in earnest.

* * *

Holt guided his big, black BMW back to Cherrywood with little incident before the storm reached full capacity. All the way home, he thought about Faith Ivory. And all the way home, he cursed his life, his family, and his circumstances. But mostly, he cursed himself. Not just because of the things he'd done in the past to mess up his present, but because he simply could not surrender his hope of a future with Faith Ivory.

Why couldn't he stop thinking about her? he wondered. She'd made it clear that she had no desire to pursue whatever attraction had blossomed between them. She'd made it clear that she couldn't trust him. So why couldn't he just let it—let her—go?

As he exited the four-car garage behind Cherrywood, his gaze fell on the battered basketball hoop fastened to the side. He hesitated, oblivious to the fat flakes of wet snow that clung to his hair and snuck down his collar, trying to remember the last time anyone had used it. Years. Maybe more than a decade. He couldn't recall the last time the hollow
thump
…
thump
…
thump
of seemingly careless dribbling had pounded the walkway from the back door to the garage.

There had been seasons when that hoop was never idle, though, when he and his brothers—and frequently Kit—had spent the entire weekend battling it out on the concrete court below. Their mother would lounge with a book by the pool, watching, egging on whoever happened to be her favorite that day, until suppertime rolled around. Then she'd go in the house and fry a couple of chickens, and they'd all have supper at the umbrella tables outside.

For all their wealth and prominence, Lena Hensley McClellan had made sure her children led normal, wonderful lives when they were little. She'd loved to cook, and she'd made sure they were all home for supper every night. And once a week, she'd dressed them all in nondescript jeans and T-shirts, piled them into their grandfather's pickup truck, as if they were any middle-class family in the world, and scuttled them off to all the best places in town.

To the Louisville Zoo, where she'd let them ride the train as many times as they wanted through the green hills pungent with animal smells. Or to Huber Farms in Starlight, Indiana, right when they started pressing the apples for cider, when the air was cold and brisk and redolent of autumn. Or to the Frito-Lay factory for one of those kiddie tours, where they sent everyone home with a free bag of Fritos, and you felt as if you'd been given the most wonderful gift in the world. Or to Showcase Cinemas, back before they'd chopped it to pieces, when the screens were vast and enormous and the picture virtually surrounded you, and from the fabulous fourth row, you felt like you were a part of the film.

Holt closed his eyes and inhaled deeply of the snowy evening, the scent of the cold air assaulting him with too many memories for his brain to process, too many emotions for his heart to hold. God, he missed being a kid. Almost as much as he missed his mother. And he wished he could rewind the years and relive them all in slow motion. Not just to experience the joy all over again, but to make amends for some of the things he'd said and done.

As always, when such feelings came over him, his first impulse was to pour himself a drink. And, as always, when such impulses came over him, he immediately shoved them aside. Instead, he turned his back on the basketball hoop and trudged through the back door, then made his way immediately to the library, where his father kept the best stocked bar. He opened the liquor cabinet, reached past the bottles of Hensley's and found a club soda at the very back.

A soft sound from behind had him spinning around, and he was surprised to see Kit standing at the library entrance. Immediately, he held the bottle in his hand aloft for her inspection. "Club soda," he said. "Really."

She smiled. "You don't have to prove it to me, Holt. I have faith in you."

He smiled back at her choice of words. "Yeah, well, that makes one of us." He twisted the cap off the bottle as he turned to fill a glass with ice. "What are you doing home? Did you and Pendleton have a lovers' spat?"

A chuckle erupted from behind him. "Not hardly," she said. "We'd have to be lovers for us to have a lovers' spat, wouldn't we?"

Holt turned to face her, drink in hand, and feigned surprise. "What? You mean all that stuff you told Dad about the two of you sleeping together isn't true? Why, Kit. I'm shocked, simply shocked, that you would lie to our father that way."

She strode easily into the room and dropped down onto the loveseat. But she said nothing in response to his assertion.

He sipped his soda, then set it on the side table as he shrugged out of his coat and tossed it into a chair. "So what brings you home?" he asked again as he joined her on the loveseat.

She tipped her head back and stared at the ceiling. "I needed a little break. And, just for the record, I didn't lie to Daddy. Pendleton and I really did sleep together that first night. He just didn't find out about it until he woke up the next morning."

"So it really was sleeping, and nothing else?"

She nodded.

"And the status quo has remained unchanged?"

"Oh, no, it's certainly changed," she said. "Pendleton has been sleeping on the couch since then."

Holt chuckled. "I knew Dad had underestimated him. I can't see Pendleton buckling under to either one of you, in fact, even if he did let you move in with him."

Kit turned her head to gaze at him, her expression inscrutable. "Are you suggesting that
I
underestimated him? How do you know I don't have him right where I want him?"