Tangled Vines (42 page)

“Is that true, Katherine?” His look was narrow and sharp.

“Yes.” Her voice was barely above a whisper. She was pate, her eyes were a watery blue, bright with pain. Somehow she managed to keep her head erect, but she looked old, very old. “How -” Her voice broke.

“How did I find out?” Kelly completed the question. “I talked to your son this morning. I know about the so-called accident, too.”

“It was an accident.” A veined hand came up, slender fingers clenched to form a fist. “You must believe that. Evan's death was a horrible, tragic accident.”

Evan. Her grandfather. Kelly looked down at her own hands. “Maybe you should tell me your version of what happened?”

“It was so long ago. So very long ago.” Katherine shook her head faintly. “I never knew our wine was being illegally sold...not until that night.”

Her voice grew flat and brittle, the way she looked. “Evan Dougherty was the estate manager. He was in charge of everything – the accounts, the hiring, the purchases, the sales, everything. When Clayton was alive, Evan reported to him. Later, to me.” She lowered her hand to her lap. “Was a photograph ever taken of him?”

“I never saw one.”

“Evan was a handsome man, in an arrogant, almost brutish way, all muscle and cocky charm, and intelligence. Evan was a very clever man. When Prohibition came, it must have been quite easy for him to take wine from the estate and sell it on the black market, then cover his tracks with false entries, false records. Even now, I have no idea if he began his illicit operations before Clayton and I went to France, or during the more than two years we were there. When I returned, with Girard Broussard and his grandson, Claude, I cared only about the new vineyards. I took little interest in the arguments between Evan and Monsieur Broussard. It was easier to tell Claude's grandfather that he must let Evan handle things as he always had. I thought it was best. Claude's grandfather spoke almost no English. How could he deal with the inspectors, the forms? Why should he when Evan could?”

A sigh broke from her, full of regret. “I never questioned what he did at the winery. Perhaps I wondered at a few things, the amount of grapes we bought from other growers, but I preferred to avoid his company. He had made suggestive remarks in the past, and what his remarks didn't suggest, his eyes did. Evan Dougherty was that type of man. When my sons' nanny became pregnant and I learned he was the father, I was outraged and insisted that he marry her. He did, but it hardly changed his philandering ways. I think he saw every woman as a conquest to be made.” Her voice trailed off into nothing, her gaze fixed on some distant point in the past.

Sam set the wine bottle on the table. “What happened that night, Katherine?” In that moment a subtle shift occurred. The confrontation was no longer between Kelly and Katherine. It was between Sam and Katherine.

“That night?” She swung a blank look in his direction, then stared at him for several seconds, recognizing that Sam would settle for nothing less than the whole truth. “It was late. I went for a walk. I felt lost, lonely that night, and worried. There had always been money. I never had to watch what I spent before. But after the crash, I had so very little left. The first year, it was difficult. I resented it, you see. I tried to deny it, but that night, I think I finally realized I would be dependent on the small income the estate made.”

A cloud passed in front of the sun, throwing its shadow over the terrace. The breeze picked up and tugged at the scarf loosely wound around Kelly's neck.

“When I saw Claude hurrying home through the darkness, I knew I wanted company, even that of a young boy. I called to him, asked him why he was out so late. He told me he had been walking, but he seemed troubled, unusually quiet. I thought perhaps something had happened at school and I asked him what was wrong. He was reluctant to tell me at first, then he admitted he had seen Evan loading wine from the cellars into his truck. He was very confused by that. I remember he said, ‘Should Monsieur Dougherty be doing that?' I tried to think of a reason Evan might load wine at night when there were no workers about to help. But none made sense. I told Claude to go home to his grandfather and not to worry, that I would go and talk to Evan. I finally found him in the cellars. I heard him whistling before I actually saw him. He was carrying wine jugs....”

“Where are you going with those?” Katherine halted squarely in the center of the aisle, flanked by racked kegs.

“Well, well, well.” His mouth curved in that lazy, insinuating smile of his while his bold, bottle green eyes made their sweep of her. She felt her skin heat despite the cool of the underground cave. “If it isn't the widow herself, and all alone, too. You finally got lonely and came looking for company, did you?”

“I asked you a question.”

“The cellars are pretty chilly. You should be wearing something warmer than that thin blouse.” He set the jugs on the floor. “You'd better put on my jacket before you catch your death.”

He shrugged out of it, the action stretching the plaid material of his shirt until Katherine could make out the definition of his smooth muscles. She hadn't meant to notice that.

“I have no need for your jacket.” Katherine deliberately put a frost in her voice and her eyes.

But it had no effect on him as Evan advanced toward her. “Of course you do.” Katherine stood her ground, trapped by the feeling that if she backed up, she would be relinquishing her authority over him. “Come on, now. We'll just slip it around your shoulders and warm you up.”

When he reached out to draw the jacket around her, the urge was strong to retreat out of his reach. She controlled it and remained impassive while he draped it around her and drew the collar together at her throat. The jacket held the heat from his body and the musky male scent of him. She felt smothered by it.

“There. Isn't that better?” Holding the jacket closed, he tapped the point of her chin with his thumb, then stroked it lightly.

Katherine kept her expression icy cold. “I want to know what you were planning to do with those jugs and the wine in your truck.” She refused to be distracted by him, or unnerved.

“Sell it, of course.” His slow smile was cocky as his gaze moved lazily over her face.

“To whom?”

“A man I know in San Francisco.” Letting go of the jacket, he trailed a finger along her cheek. “I always knew your skin would be smooth to the touch. All over, I'll bet.”

This time she slapped his hand away. “What man in San Francisco?”

He pulled a smile. “You know, I can't remember his name.”

“You are selling it illegally. You are taking my wine and selling it on the black market. I should have realized that.” She was furious.

“Now, now, it's nothing for you to be getting yourself upset about,” he chided in a crooning voice. “You take too much on yourself. You work too hard. It's a way to get through the loneliness, I know. The nights must be worse with no man to hold you in his arms. You must be aching.”

His hands moved to her shoulders. “Stop it.” Katherine angrily twisted sideways away from them. “You have involved me in a bootlegging operation. Do you realize what will happen if you are caught?”

“Don't you be worrying your pretty head about that. It isn't going to happen. Not after all this time.” He shifted around to keep facing her head-on.

“All this time?” The anger came first, then the fear of the consequences his activities could bring down on her. Katherine backed up, not from him, but from the thought of what could happen. “Do you realize that if they catch you, my permit to make wine will be revoked, they will confiscate the winery, I will lose everything.”

“I'm careful.” He moved toward her, his voice as smooth as honey. “I promise you I am very careful. You can count on Evan to handle things just like you always have. Don't you know that? How do you think this place has been showing a profit these last few years? Not from the sale of that church wine, that's for sure. No, I've been making sure you received your share of the profits.”

“You have to stop this. The risk is too great.” She started to take another step back and came up against the solidness of the wine kegs.

“You're worried about me. I like that.” He braced his hands against the oak barrel, trapping her inside his spread arms. “I like a lot of things about you.”

Katherine flattened her hands against his chest to keep him at a distance. “I'm not worried about you,” she said, angry again. “I'm worried about me!”

“Your eyes, they look like hot blue flames. I always knew there was a fire under all that ice.” He cupped a hand to the side of her face.

She tried to turn her head away from it, without success. “Stop it. Leave me alone.” She tried to push him back, out of her way, and get distance between them again. But he simply slid his other arm behind her back.

“You don't really want me to leave you alone, do you?” he murmured confidently.

“Yes!” She threw her head back to glare at him, and realized her mistake instantly as his hand imprisoned her head and his mouth came down.

She struggled, closing her lips tightly, but he ate away at them, nibbling in little bites and taking them whole, all the while ignoring the push of her hands and the strain of her body to arch free. When she started hitting at him, he just laughed in his throat.

“A little wildcat, aren't you? They always purr the loudest. Let me hear you.” Effortlessly, he pinned her hands between them and nuzzled at her neck, licking at the pulse he found pounding there.

Moaning at her own helplessness, Katherine closed her eyes, hating him, despising him, loathing him – for reminding her of all the times she and Clayton had made love, all the times Clayton's mouth had roamed her face and neck, exciting her, arousing her, all the times his hands had molded her to him, showing her the perfect way a man and woman could fit together. She longed to know it all again, the fever and the greed, the pain that could become unreasonable pleasure.

Lost in the memory, she wasn't aware of her fingers digging into his shirt to cling tightly. She wasn't aware of her body straining to seek a greater closeness. She was aware of nothing until she felt the cold rush of air against her breast an instant before his rough hand closed over it.

“No!” She struck out, hitting and kicking, trying to claw free. “Let me go. Do you hear? Let me go!”

“You heard Madam.” It was the voice of a boy trying to sound like a man.

“Claude.” Katherine almost cried with relief when she saw him standing there, a tall, strapping boy, big for his age and wearing his sternest expression.

Evan looked over his shoulder. “Your puppy dog followed you again, I see. Better send him home, don't you think?” Turning back, he grinned at her. “He's too young to understand how it is.” He pushed his hips against her, making sure she felt the hard ridge in his pants. “Go on, boy,” he said, keeping his eyes on her. “The lady doesn't want your help.”

Katherine frowned in stunned surprise at his total indifference to Claude. Recovering, she shot back, “Nor do I want you.” Again she tried to wrench free of his hold, only to hear him laugh at her attempts.

Suddenly Claude was there, launching himself between them and trying to tear Evan from her. Evan turned and, with one shove, pushed him backward, sending him sprawling to the cellar's hard floor. Then he caught Katherine's wrist before she could escape.

“Get out of here,” he told Claude. “Before I send you home with your tail between your legs.” He laughed as Claude scrambled to his feet, his face dark and angry. “Now we've got some privacy.” He yanked Katherine back against him, smiling. “A little panic is natural. It's been a long time for you. I'll take it slow.”

“No.” It was more a sound than a word as she tried to use her arms as a wedge.

There was a dull, cracking noise, and he went still, a look of shock on his face. Katherine stared as his eyes rolled back in his head and he sagged to the floor. Claude looked at her, panic in his young eyes.

“Claude had struck him,” Katherine explained. “In defense of me, and Evan was dead. Claude had never meant to kill him. It was a horrible accident and I knew I had to make it look like one.”

“Why?” Sam leaned forward, trying to understand. “Why couldn't you have called the police?”

“And endure the scandal of an investigation?” Katherine shook her head. “How could I explain why I had gone to the cellars so late? How could I say I had gone to speak with Evan Dougherty at that hour of the night? We both knew what people would think. It is that way yet today, and it was worse then. And how could I risk the police discovering he was bootlegging? It would have meant losing everything. And Claude...Claude was only sixteen years old. It would have ruined his life.”

“So you rolled a barrel off the rack to make it look like an accident,” Kelly guessed and thought of her father, wondering if Katherine had given any thought to other lives that had been forever changed by her actions. Evan Dougherty's death meant he had been raised without a father, and she had been deprived of a grandfather.

“Yes, I did that. I had to make his death appear accidental,” Katherine said, giving a slow nod, appearing somehow shrunken by exhaustion. “Afterward, I turned and saw Gil, staring at me with such cold, accusing eyes.” She rubbed her arms as if chilled by the memory. “I never learned how he got there. He had liked to stalk people, sneak up on them. Perhaps it was a game he played that night. He would never talk of it.” She looked across the table at Kelly, her expression humble and her eyes begging for understanding. “Evan's death was an accident.”

“Yes,” Kelly agreed softly, regretting that she had ever wanted to know the truth about the legend of Katherine Rutledge.