My Man Pendleton (31 page)

"I understand why you're doing what you're doing," he conceded. "I know that what Dad did to you the night before your wedding was unforgivable, and I know that Mick and Dirk and Bart and I had no right to be so overprotective. For my part, at least, I apologize. But I think you've made your point. And I think it's about time you did something to rectify the situation."

"Rectify the situation," she echoed. "And by that you would mean
…
"

"Get married," he stated bluntly. "Even if it's only some phony arrangement that lasts a few months, just do it. Save the family fortune. Return our lives to all of us, so that we can get on with our lives."

She nibbled her lower lip thoughtfully for a full minute before responding, and for a moment, Holt honestly thought she was going to agree to his suggestion. But when she replied, all she said was, "I'll think about it."

And that, he supposed, was as good as he was going to get.

"You know, it was snowing pretty hard when I
came in," he
said,
recalling
the fat, furious flakes
that had pelted him as he'd crossed the backyard. "And it's probably full dark by now. You're going to have trouble getting home tonight."

She sighed as she gazed wistfully toward the library entrance. "Yeah, I guess I should just spend the night here. It'll give Pendleton a break. He can have the bed for a change."

Holt tipped his head toward the telephone that sat on the end table within her reach. "You going to give him a call? Let him know you won't be home tonight?"

She started to reach for the receiver, stroked her fingers over it lightly a few times, then finally shook her head. "No, I don't think it's necessary. It's not like he's going to worry about me. He probably won't even notice I'm gone."

Chapter 14

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Where the hell was she?

Pendleton paced the length of his living room, then hastened to the front windows
again,
shoved aside the lace—God, lace—curtains
again,
and stared out into the white eddies of snow dancing in the darkness beyond
again.
He could barely distinguish the anemic glow of the lamp at the end of his front walk, and he certainly saw no sign of a Mercedes S-class, double-parked or not. It was past
midnight
, and he was worried about Kit.

Worried about Kit,
he marveled again. How could this be happening? He was honestly concerned about the safety and well-being of a woman who had turned his life inside-out and his house into a Speigel catalog. Worried in the truest, most clichéd sense of the word, that she was out there lying dead in a ditch somewhere. Hell, he ought to be celebrating the fact that his house—his
life
—was finally his own again.

As he had done ever since that ill-fated, albeit unbelievably enjoyable, embrace in front of the fireplace less than a week ago, he forced himself to stop thinking about it. He was no closer now to understanding what that particular incident had been about than he had been the night it happened. Surely there was some psychologically sound, socially acceptable explanation for what had occurred that night. He'd been all warm and rosy and missing his family, and Kit had been handy. Likewise, she'd probably only responded to him out of some intense physical needs that had been too long neglected.

Simple stuff. Basic chemistry. They'd both been feeling lonely, and they'd both turned to each other in a fit of handiness. Period. Fortunately, Kit had come to her senses before anything very important had happened.

Well, nothing more important than a soul-shattering, reality-bending, mind-scrambling explosion of libido, anyway. Oh, but, hey, other than that
…
Still, no reason to dwell on it, right? He should simply continue to pretend it hadn't happened, just as the two of them had been pretending—however lamely—all week long.

So Pendleton only gazed out at the white-on-black night, as if in doing so, he might somehow conjure Kit up from the darkness, safe and sound. Behind him, from a cowering position on the rug before the fireplace, Maury whined his distress, as if he, too, were worried. Pendleton turned and offered the dog a halfhearted smile.

"It's okay, boy," he said. "She's fine. She'll be home any minute now."

But he knew Maury didn't believe him any more than he believed himself. So he shoved a restive hand through his hair, bit back the panic that threatened to overtake him, and wondered if he should call the police. Hell, there must be almost a foot of snow on the ground by now.

The storm had come out of nowhere, had caught everyone by surprise. The weather guy on channel three had said not to worry, though, that these spring blizzards were notorious for appearing quickly, only to be followed by balmy, springlike conditions that erased the results just as rapidly. By dark tomorrow night, the meteorologist had promised, the temperatures would be pushing seventy, and the snow would be melting faster than the Wicked Witch of the West.

But right now, the temperatures were hovering around thirty, and right now, the snow wasn't going anywhere except higher. Normally, Pendleton liked snow. But not when it was wet and heavy like this. Not when it trapped people in their houses so they couldn't get out and find people they were worried about. Not when it could be potentially lethal to people who happened to get caught out in it in their Mercedes S-class.

Dammit, where was she?

He released the curtain, somehow not minding anymore that it was lace. Kit was fine, he told himself adamantly. More than likely, she had ventured out to do something that would wreak more havoc in his life, only to realize, too late, that she wouldn't make it home. For all he knew, she was snuggled safe in her bed at Cherrywood, blissfully asleep, dreaming about the kinds of things that only the incredibly rich dreamed about.

Still, it would have been nice if she had phoned to let him know she wouldn't make it back tonight. To tell him that she was safe and sound, and not lying dead in a ditch somewhere. To reassure him that she would be home soon.

Home. Oh, now that was a good one. He really was worried beyond sense if he were thinking that his house was her home. Obviously, he needed some rest.

He should just go to bed, he told himself. Even if there was no way he'd be going in to work in the morning, it wasn't going to help matters to stay up worrying about Kit. Surely she was all right. Yeah, he ought to just use this opportunity to sleep in his own bed for a change, instead of on the couch.

But as Pendleton turned toward the stairs, a section of loose, crumbling plaster on the wall near the stairwell caught his attention. Really, it wouldn't take long at all to patch that, he thought. He had the materials in the basement. It would be a snap.

And he could take care of that one by the fire-place, too, he thought further, turning back toward the exposed area by the chimney. And while he was at it, he might as well patch those places on the dining room wall and ceiling. And the ones in the kitchen.

Hey, it wasn't like he was going anywhere anytime soon.

* * *

He'd finished patching up all the places on the first floor and was taking care of the ones on the second when Kit finally came home. And her arrival made Pendleton feel very, very good inside.

For about three seconds.

Then that very, very good feeling was immediately eclipsed by one that was decidedly much less good, because all of the worry, concern, anxiety and yes, dammit, fear, that he had managed to keep at bay for too many hours than he cared to think about suddenly roared up inside him in one huge, angry rush of emotion.

At the sound of the front door closing downstairs, he leaped down from the ladder in his bedroom, nearly toppling it and the tub of wet plaster beneath it. Then he stomped with great gusto out the door, down the hallway, to the top of the stairs. Kit gazed back up at him from her position just inside the door, appearing to be only mildly surprised to see him.

Dammit, she was standing there looking at him as if nothing in the world were wrong. As if she hadn't been missing from his life for almost thirty-six hours without explanation. As if he hadn't been terrified of losing her.

As if she didn't care for him nearly as much as he had begun to care for her.

And that, he decided, was the scariest thing of all. That he had actually started to care for Kit McClellan. When that had happened exactly, or how, he had no idea. But there it was just the same, submitted for his approval, as Rod Sterling used to say on
The Twilight Zone.
The comparison was way too appropriate. Because as bizarre as those feelings of affection were, Pendleton did approve of them. Still, there was no reason Kit had to find out about them, was there? God only knew what she would do with the knowledge that he actually liked her.

He expelled a ragged breath of air and knifed his fingers through his hair, discovering, too late, that his hands were still covered with plaster. He glanced down at his clothes to see that they, too, were decorated with clumps of white, dusted with bits of ceiling and wall. In spite of the inclement weather outside, his labor had made him overly warm during the night, and he'd shed his sweatshirt some time ago. Now his overalls were buckled on one side—the other had broken some time ago—over his naked, and likewise plaster-spattered, chest.

When he glanced at Kit again, he realized that her gaze, too, seemed to be lingering on his upper regions, and a thrill of something hot and urgent ripped through him at the speed of light.

"Where the hell have you been?"
he bellowed at the top of his lungs before he could stop himself.

Her eyes widened at the vehemence of his delivery, but she offered no other sign that she found his behavior at all out of the ordinary. "I
…
I
…
I spent the night a-at
…
at Cherrywood."

Okay, so maybe there was that little stammer that he might take as a sign that she found his behavior to be a bit peculiar.

"I
…
I went over for a visit," she continued, "and I
…
I got caught by the storm." She scrunched up her shoulders and let them drop. "Once it cleared up, I came home," she pointed out, her tone of voice indicating that even she found the explanation to be tad lame. "It's like sixty degrees out there now. The roads are pretty much clear."

He nodded, clenching his jaw tight. "What, and you couldn't pick up the phone and call me last night?" he demanded further. "Just to let me know you were okay?"

Her lips—those lips that had cost him hours of sleep over the last few weeks, so profound was his preoccupation with thoughts of them—parted fractionally. "Frankly, Pendleton, I
…
I didn't think you'd notice I was gone."

She was serious, he realized, amazed. She honestly hadn't thought he would notice she was gone, he echoed to himself, shaking his head in disbelief. Now what on earth would have given her a
stupid
idea like that?

Slowly, very slowly, he made his way down the stairs, hoping that his leisurely pace might somehow disguise the turmoil that was tearing him up inside. And little by little, as he moved nearer to Kit, he found that instead of calming down, his feelings only grew more turbulent. She was dressed in another one of those soft, clingy, velvety outfits she seemed to favor, this one leggings and an oversized shirt in a soft lavender that made her eyes appear even bluer than usual. When he finally cleared the last step and stood before her, face to face, he was helpless not to reach out and touch her.

Lifting a hand carefully, so as not to dirty her with the remnants of the decay he'd spent the night repairing, he brushed a finger softly over her cheek. "Oh, I noticed," he said, his voice gentling. "I definitely noticed."

Her lips parted a more, as if she had intended to say something, but she suddenly snapped them shut and jerked her head away. Pendleton was left touching nothing but air, so he quickly dropped his hand down to his side.

"I'm sorry," she said. "I should have called you. I just didn't think…"

"What?"

"I didn't think you'd be worried about me, that's all." And before he had a chance to comment on that, she took a hurried step away from him. "What on earth have you been up to?" she asked as she went, her voice sounding more than a little shaky.