Ready for Marriage? (13 page)

She hesitated at the door, then garnered up all her courage and rang the bell. She barely recognized the elderly man who came to the door. His once-gray hair had turned white and his broad shoulders stooped just a little.

“Guthrie?”

“Yes, ma’am.” His faded gray eyes focused on her face, studying her intently. “Miss Kate! That is you, isn’t it? Lord have mercy, it’s good to see you.”

“Hello, Guthrie. How are you?”

“Tolerable,” he replied. “You look mighty fine, Miss Kate. Hardly a day older than when you left here.”

Kate laughed. She’d always been quite fond of Guthrie, who had worked for the Winston family since he’d been a boy. He served the household as a butler and a chauffeur and oversaw the other household staff, which when she’d lived there had consisted of a cook and a live-in maid for Mary Belle, and two daily maids who didn’t live on the premises.

“I’m much older,” Kate told him. “Ten years older.”

“Been that long, has it?” As if suddenly realizing he’d kept her standing on the porch, Guthrie snapped to attention and said, “Come on in out of the cold, Miss Kate.”

“Thank you.” She entered the massive marble-floored foyer. When she glanced around, she noted that very little had changed. A spiral staircase took center stage in the room filled with antiques that had belonged to the family for generations.

“I never thought you’d come back,” Guthrie said. “But Lord, have I prayed that you would. Mr. Trent, he’s—”

“I’ve come to see Trent. Is he here?”

“Yes, ma’am, he’s here. In his study.” Guthrie looked up the stairs. “Miss Mary Belle’s taking her Saturday afternoon nap.”

Kate grinned. “Then perhaps I’ll be fortunate enough to conduct my business with Trent and leave before she wakes.”

Guthrie chuckled. “Shall I announce you to Mr. Trent or—”

“Since I no longer answer to the Good Manners Society—” Kate rolled her eyes toward the stairs “—why don’t I just barge in on Trent without being announced?”

Guthrie chuckled again and gave Kate a wide, approving smile. “We’ve missed you, Miss Kate. We have missed you a great deal.”

“Why thank you. I don’t know what to say.” And she truly didn’t know how to respond to Guthrie’s comment. We
have missed you
, he’d said. We? Surely he didn’t mean Trent. Of course not. Trent was too busy being the man about town, wasn’t he? Too busy charming all the ladies. But what if there’s a special lady? What if he’s found someone else? For all she knew, he could have remarried. But Mr. Walding at the Magnolia House hadn’t mentioned anything about a new Mrs. Winston.

“Guthrie, Trent isn’t…that is, has he remarried?”

“No, ma’am.”

“Is he engaged?”

“No, ma’am. And you, Miss Kate?”

She shook her head. “No. Not married or engaged or anything.”

Guthrie glanced down the hall in the direction of the library. “You know the way to Mr. Trent’s study, don’t you?”

She nodded.

“I do wish you were staying, ma’am.”

He turned and walked away from her, down the hallway toward the kitchen, saving Kate from having to respond. The study, as Guthrie referred to the library at Winston Hall, was on the first floor, on the opposite side from the double parlors. When she reached the study, she found the door closed. Would the door be locked? she wondered. The only time Trent had ever locked the door was when the two of them had been alone in the study, making love. On the rug before the fireplace. On the massive Jacobean desk. On the leather sofa.

Don’t do this to yourself. Stop remembering what it
was like when you two were in love
. But the memories washed over her like a tidal wave, sweeping away a decade of loneliness. And she had been lonely. So very lonely. She had dated a little in the past five or six years, a few really nice men, but try as she might, she hadn’t come close to falling in love again. God knows she’d wanted to love someone, had prayed she’d find the courage to trust her heart to another man.

She lifted her arm, curled her right hand into a fist and knocked soundly on the closed door. Her heart fluttered maddeningly.

“Yes, come in,” Trent said.

The sound of his deep, distinctive voice sent shock waves through her body. He had a slow, lazy, south Alabama drawl that had always seemed so sexy. But then again, everything about Trent Winston had been sexy. And probably still was.

Kate opened the door and took a hesitant step over the threshold. Trent sat in one of the massive oxblood leather armchairs in front of the fireplace so she could see only his left arm. He wore a cream sweater. Despite
being modernized with central heat and air conditioning, Winston Hall kept a chill all winter. Old houses tended to be drafty.

“Hello, Trent.” Her heartbeat thundered in her ears.

He didn’t move, didn’t speak.

“I apologize for not calling first, but I—I—”

Trent jumped to his feet abruptly and turned to face her. “Kate? Good God, it is you.”

“Yes, it’s me.”

She stared at him. Blatantly. He had changed. Matured. His shoulders appeared broader. And there were lines around his eyes and mouth. A touch of gray mingled with the dark brown strands of his thick hair, mostly in his sideburns. He was still as handsome as ever, maybe even more so. Maturity certainly agreed with him. But then she’d always known he’d be a good-looking man in his forties and fifties, probably even in his eighties.

“What—when…it’s been a long time,” he finally managed to say.

“It’s been ten years since our divorce became final.”

“What brings you back to Prospect?” He hadn’t moved an inch from where he stood by the leather chair.

“Personal business.”

“I didn’t realize you had any family still living here.”

“I don’t.”

He studied her curiously, his dark, pensive brown eyes surveying her from head to toe. “You look—” He cleared his throat. “You look well. The years have been good to you.”

“To you, too.”

He took a tentative step toward her, then paused. “Please, come in. Would you care for a drink?” He indicated the bar set up on a serving cart stationed beneath
one of the two massive floor-to-ceiling windows on the side wall.

“No, thanks.” She ordered her feet into action and managed to walk toward him.

With their gazes locked, they met in the middle of the room, each stopping when less than three feet separated them. She could barely suppress the urge to reach out and touch him. They stood there for an endless moment, neither moving nor speaking.

“You said you’re in Prospect on personal business. Since you’ve come to Winston Hall, am I to assume that business concerns me in some way?”

“Yes, it concerns you.”
Don’t drag this out. Dammit,
just tell him
. “I work for the Dundee Agency. It’s a private security and investigation firm based in Atlanta.”

“You’re a private investigator?”

Trent grinned and her stomach did a crazy flip-flop.

“Yes. And before I worked at Dundee’s, I was an Atlanta police officer.”

Trent shook his head. “You must have changed a great deal. I can’t imagine my sweet Kate as either a policewoman or a P.I.”

His sweet Kate?
Dammit, Trent, I haven’t been your
sweet Kate in a long, long time
.

“Recently, a colleague and I were sent to Maysville, Mississippi, a town about an hour’s drive from Memphis,” she told him. “A two-month-old baby boy had been kidnapped and my colleague was the child’s father.”

Trent’s face paled. “You work on child abduction cases?”

“On this one, yes. I went to Maysville with the kidnapped baby’s father and helped him and the child’s mother through some difficult days.”

“What happened to the baby?” Trent’s jaw tightened.

“He was rescued,” Kate said. “And returned to his parents.”

“That’s good.” Trent turned away from her. “I’m happy for them.”

“The FBI agent working on the case was the head of a sting operation that the bureau had in the works for several years,” Kate explained. “You see, there was an infant abduction ring working in the southeast and these people had been stealing babies for the past twelve years.”

Trent whirled around and glared at her. “Damn, Kate, don’t tell me you’ve somehow convinced yourself that Mary Kate was taken by the same abduction ring.” He came toward her, fury in his eyes. He grabbed her by the shoulders and shook her gently. “I had hoped that after all this time you would have accepted the fact that our little girl is lost to us forever.”

Kate gritted her teeth in an effort to stem the tide of tears gathering in her eyes. “Dante Moran was the FBI agent in charge of the operation. He’s an objective professional, someone without any connection to Mary Kate. He—he believes that there’s a very good possibility that our daughter could be one of three baby girls stolen from southeast Alabama the same month and year that Mary Kate was taken.”

After loosening his tenacious hold on her shoulders, Trent narrowed his gaze and glowered at Kate.

“There are hundreds of children who were sold to desperate adoptive parents during the past twelve years,” Kate said. “These people, the ones in charge of the abduction ring, kept a file on each infant. The state and sometimes even the city where the child was ab
ducted was noted on records, as was the month the child was supposedly given up for adoption. The FBI is in the process of notifying the adoptive parents of every stolen child, and they’re searching for all possible birth parents, too.”

“And this FBI agent, this Mr. Moran, believes Mary Kate is one of these children?” Trent gripped Kate’s shoulders with gentle force.

She nodded. “There are three eleven-year-old girls who were taken by this abduction ring as infants from this area of Alabama, and given to adoptive parents within a month after Mary Kate was taken. The FBI has already pulled a copy of Mary Kate’s birth certificate and the next step is to give the FBI lab a DNA sample. Then they’ll compare it to a sample they will take from each of these girls.”

Trent caressed Kate’s shoulders. “And if none of these little girls turn out to be Mary Kate, what will you do then? Will you finally give up and let her go?”

“Please, Trent, try to believe in the possibility that Mary Kate is alive and we could find her and—”

“And what? Even if by some miracle one of these girls is Mary Kate, what would we do? Rip her away from two loving parents, perhaps from brothers and sisters? And if we did, what do we have to give her—divorced parents fighting over custody?” Trent released Kate and stomped across the room. “No. I don’t want to hear this. My daughter is dead. She’s been dead for eleven years.”

“Don’t say that. Mary Kate is alive. And I’m going to find her. I came here hoping you’d want to go with me to find our little girl. But I see now what a terrible mistake I made. I’m sorry I bothered you.”

Kate ran from the study and down the hall, not stop
ping when Trent called her name. Tears blurred her vision as she rushed outside and hurried to her rental car. She got in, started the engine and headed down the driveway. When she reached the street, she glanced in her rearview mirror and saw Trent standing on the porch, his arms crossed over his chest.

K
ate prepared herself a cup of hot tea. She always carried a box of Earl Grey with her whenever she traveled, which in her line of business was most of the time. Wearing her raspberry-pink cotton flannel robe over matching pajamas, she walked out of the bathroom and over to one of two lounge chairs flanking the small table near the windows. After placing the white mug with the Magnolia House emblem—appropriately a magnolia blossom—on the table, she picked up the TV remote control and flipped on the one local station. She hit the Mute button to silence the commercial’s chatter, then eased down into the chair and propped her feet on the edge of the nearby bed. Her stomach growled, reminding her that she hadn’t eaten any supper. But she’d been so upset, so damn angry when she left Winston Hall, that she wouldn’t have been able to keep a bite of food down if she had eaten.

My daughter is dead. She’s been dead for eleven
years
. Trent’s words echoed inside her head…inside her heart.

His firm conviction that Mary Kate was dead and her equally resolute certainty that their child was still alive had been the single major issue that finally ended their marriage. Of course it hadn’t helped that they’d both blamed themselves for their child’s abduction or that she’d suffered a nervous breakdown at the time. And Mary Belle Winston’s constant interference had only added fuel to the fire that destroyed any hope of them being able to salvage their relationship.

Why had she bothered coming back to Prospect?
What had she been thinking?
She should have known that even bringing Trent news of what she considered a miracle wouldn’t sway him from his stubborn stand.
How could he not want to find Mary Kate?
She didn’t understand his reasoning. But then, she never had.

Dante Moran had given her the basic facts which led her to believe that Mary Kate was one of the girls who’d been adopted over eleven years ago. Even Moran thought it was highly likely. And his was an objective opinion.
So why couldn’t Trent believe? Why couldn’t
he open up his heart to the possibility?

A fierce ache gripped Kate’s chest, emotion so deep and powerful that it took her breath away. Mary Kate was alive. She’d always know in her heart of hearts that her baby girl wasn’t dead. Now, within a few weeks, she might see Mary Kate, touch her, hold her, tell her that she loved her.

Once again Trent’s words tormented Kate.
Even if by
some miracle one of these girls is Mary Kate, what
would we do? Rip her away from two loving parents,
perhaps from brothers and sisters? And if we did, what
do we have to give her—divorced parents fighting over
custody?

Needing to comfort herself, Kate lifted her feet off the bed and drew her knees up toward her chest, then hugged her arms around her legs in a fetal gesture. Since the moment Dante Moran had shared the FBI’s information with her about the abduction ring’s confidential files, she’d dreamed of the moment she would hold her child in her arms again. And she had pushed every negative thought to the back of her mind. But Trent had reminded her of the reality of the situation. Mary Kate wouldn’t know her, wouldn’t think of Kate as her mother. Her daughter would have been raised by other people. She might already have a mother and father she loved. Where would Kate fit into Mary Kate’s life?

Kate keened mournfully, the sound little more than a whimper. Oh, God, her little Mary Kate wouldn’t be Mary Kate. Her adoptive parents would have given her another name.

What do we have to give her—divorced parents fighting
over custody?

Get out of my mind, damn you, Trent
, she screamed silently.

Wouldn’t it be enough to know that her daughter
was alive? Wouldn’t it be enough to see her?
she asked herself.
It should be enough. But would it be?

Special Agent Moran had pointed out that this case would turn into a legal nightmare once all the adoptive parents were informed their children had been stolen from their biological parents and not given up freely. Both sets of parents would have rights. Lawyers would be hired. Court battles would be fought, won and lost.

What would she do if she found that Mary Kate was
a happy child, living with loving parents and perhaps even had siblings?
Stop it! Don’t keep torturing yourself
this way
. She could make those kinds of decisions later, after she knew for sure that one of the little girls actually was her daughter. First things first..

Sighing, Kate picked up her mug and took several swallows of the delicious tea. Ah, how soothing, how warming. Odd that although she’d never drank anything except iced tea until she married Trent, once Aunt Mary Belle had introduced her to the delicate, distinct taste of Earl Grey, she’d become a lifelong convert. Looking back, she had to admit that all her memories of her ex-husband’s overbearing aunt weren’t bad. And as much as she had resented the woman’s constant tutelage, she had learned a great deal from the old biddy.

Why waste time thinking about that woman? Kate wouldn’t have to see her or speak to her. At least she’d been spared that much on this trip. She would leave Prospect first thing in the morning and go straight back to Memphis, where the investigation into finding the birth parents of hundreds of kidnapped children was in full swing. Trent could do as he pleased. She’d done her duty—she’d informed him about the situation.

Just as she began to relax—the aftereffects of the hot bath she’d taken a few minutes ago, the soothing tea and the comfy clothes—someone knocked at her hotel door. Trent? Damn, why was he the first thing that popped into her mind. Wishful thinking?

Kate stood, walked across the room and peered through the peephole. Mary Belle Winston! The last person on earth she ever wanted to see again. Damn. Double damn.

Go away, old woman, and leave me the hell alone. I
don’t want to talk to you
.

Kate hesitated. Mary Belle knocked on the door repeatedly. Good grief, why wouldn’t she go away?

“Katherine, I know you’re in there,” Mary Belle said. “I spoke to the desk clerk and he informed me that Ms. Malone was definitely in her room.”

Blast! She’d have to speak to Brian Walding! How dare he give out any information about her, least of all her room number. But then considering who Mary Belle was in this town, he’d probably felt he had little choice. Either kowtow to the grande dame or risk losing his job.

After breathing in deeply and exhaling slowly, she squared her shoulders, stood straight and tall, and then said a please-God-help-me prayer before opening the door. “Hello, Miss Mary Belle.”

“May I come in?”

Kate looked at Trent’s aunt, really looked at her and was surprised by how much she had aged in the past eleven years. She no longer colored her hair so it was now a stunning snow-white. Delicate wrinkles lined her face, especially around her eyes and mouth. Never a beautiful woman, but always extremely well-groomed and attractive, Mary Belle still maintained that air of old south elegance few women could pull off in this day and time. Kate’s gaze traveled from the older but familiar face to the ever present pearls that had belonged to Mary Belle’s grandmother. And then Kate saw the cane.

“All right, come on in.” Kate stepped aside to allow the woman entrance.

When Mary Belle entered the room, Kate noticed how heavily she braced herself on the cane, her steps slow and precise. What was it that Mr. Walding had said? Something about Mary Belle still presiding over Prospect society despite the stroke she’d had this past year?

“Not a very gracious response,” Mary Belle said as she walked over and sat down in one of the two lounge chairs. “Your reply should have been ‘yes, Miss Mary Belle, please come in.’ And then you should have said—”

“Don’t lecture me!” Kate slammed the door.

“I see you haven’t changed,” Mary Belle said.

Kate faced her nemesis. “And neither have you.” Kate stomped across the room, acid churning in her stomach.

“That’s where you’re wrong, my dear.” Mary Belle looked up, focusing her keen dark eyes on Kate. “Perhaps superficially I’m unchanged. I still do my best to rule Prospect society and I’m still an opinionated, domineering old maid who meddles in her nephew’s life. But I’m now capable of admitting when I’m wrong and—” she took a deep breath “—I was wrong about you, Kate.”

Kate stared at Trent’s aunt, wary of her solicitous comment, suspicious of Mary Belle saying she was wrong about anything, especially Kate. “Why are you here? What do you want?”

Mary Belle sighed.
Still dramatic, too
, Kate thought.

“Those are my questions precisely,” Mary Belle said. “Why are you here in Prospect, after so many years? And what do you want with Trent?”

“Didn’t he tell you?” Kate flopped down in the other lounge chair and crossed her arms over her chest. She wanted to get this visit over with as quickly as possible.

“Trent told me nothing. I wouldn’t have known you’d paid him a visit had I not been looking out my bedroom window when you left. I recognized you immediately, of course, and summoned Guthrie. He said
you’d visited Trent, but stayed only a few minutes and that Trent stormed out of the house and drove off somewhere directly after you left. So, I assumed that he—”

“Followed me?” Kate laughed sarcastically. “Were you afraid he’d come after me and I might manage to get my hooks back into him?”

“You’re terribly bitter, aren’t you?” Mary Belle shook her head sadly. “Of course I don’t blame you. But I had hoped that after all these years your anger at us—at me in particular—might have lessened.”

Utterly confused by Mary Belle’s comment, Kate glared at the old woman. “Look, Trent didn’t follow me. He’s not here. And I have no intention of seeing him again before I leave Prospect in the morning.”

“That’s a pity.”

Kate shook her head in bewilderment. “Am I supposed to know what you mean by that?”

“No, probably not.” Mary Belle leaned forward toward Kate. “I can think of only one reason you’d ever come back to Prospect—you’ve learned something about our precious Mary Kate’s fate, haven’t you?”

Kate swallowed the knot of emotion threatening to choke her. Despite all her faults, Trent’s aunt had, as far as Kate was concerned, possessed one redeeming quality—she had loved Mary Kate and been devoted to the child. Selflessly devoted.

“I came here to give Trent some information about the possibility that it’s only a matter of a few days before Mary Kate’s whereabouts are known.”

Mary Belle gasped. “Then she—she is alive?”

“Yes, I believe she is. I’ve never thought she was dead.”

“Please, my dear, tell me everything.”

Kate relayed the information to Trent’s aunt, who sat there spellbound while Kate talked. Tears glistened in
Mary Belle’s brown eyes. She blinked several times, then reached inside her coat pocket and retrieved a lace handkerchief. After lowering her glasses, she wiped her eyes.

“If I know my nephew—and I do—he stubbornly refused to believe there’s a chance one of these little girls is our Mary Kate. And he probably even said that even if one of them was his child, it was too late to make her a part of his life again.”

Kate nodded. “You do know him well, don’t you?”

“He’ll change his mind.”

“I doubt it. Trent never changes his mind. Once he decides on something, he—”

“He’s still stubborn, but not quite as bullheaded as he used to be. And he’s no longer as arrogant and self-centered as he once was.” Mary Belle reached across the table and grasped Kate’s hand. “Losing Mary Kate…and losing you changed him. In some ways for the better, but in other ways, for the worse. But take my word for it, he will change his mind about wanting to find out if one of these girls is his daughter.”

Kate snatched her hand away, then before she thought through her response, she said, “I’ll give you my cell phone number, so if Trent wants to get in touch with me, he can.”
How stupid was that?
her inner voice asked.
You don’t want to see him again, don’t want to
feel physically or emotionally drawn to a man who
hates you
. The last thing she needed was Trent Winston back in her life under any circumstances. She’d done what she thought was right—given him the information. If he chose to continue believing their daughter was dead…

“I’ll go now,” Mary Belle said. “I appreciate your talking to me. I would have understood if you’d slammed the door in my face.”

When Mary Belle rose to her feet, slowly and awkwardly, Kate stopped herself from offering to help the old woman. Bearing her weight on the cane, Mary Belle walked toward the door. Kate stood and followed her.

When Mary Belle reached the door, she turned to face Kate. “Regardless of what Trent does…if it turns out that I’m wrong about him getting involved—would you…please…let me know what happens. If Mary Kate is alive, I’d very much like to know.”

Willing herself not to cry, Kate nodded as unshed tears stung her eyes and nose. “You do understand that you have no legal right to interfere in any decisions I make about my daughter, don’t you?”

“Kate, all I want is to know if she’s alive. Even if I never see her—” Mary Belle’s voice cracked. “Just a phone call…one phone call. That’s all I ask. You don’t have to give me any details.”

“All right. If one of these girls is Mary Kate, I’ll let you know.”

“Thank you, my dear.”

Kate opened the door. Mary Belle walked out and into the corridor and kept going, not once looking back. Her steps were very slow. Just as the old woman neared the end of the short hallway, Kate caught a glimpse of Guthrie taking her arm and leading her away. With a heavy sigh, Kate went back into her room and closed the door.

What the hell had just happened?

Had Mary Belle actually mellowed with age? Had she changed so much that Kate thought she might actually like Trent’s aunt? Or had she been putting on an act, playing nice-nice in order to get what she wanted? What difference did it make? Mary Belle had no control over her. Kate didn’t have to jump through hoops to please her, not ever again.