My Man Pendleton (38 page)

"Oh, Dad. No. Please. Tell me you didn't do that."

For a moment, Kit thought she had said those words aloud, too. Then she realized that it had been Holt who had echoed the plea that had erupted in her own head.

"Of course I did that," her father said, his voice colored with impatience. "I told Pendleton that I'd paid that little prick Michael Derringer a quarter-million to abandon Kit before, then I assured him that I could be even
more
generous to any man who would marry her now."

The dinner she had consumed less than an hour ago rolled over in Kit's belly like a dead, bloated fish, threatening to replay itself on the foyer carpet in glorious Technicolor and SurroundSound. It was with no small effort that she kept herself from spilling her guts all over her mother's favorite Aubusson. And it was with an even greater effort that she kept herself from sobbing out loud.

Well, what had she expected? she asked herself. She should have known her father would do something like this. She should have realized that the only reason Pendleton had been tolerating her presence in his life was that he'd been promised a substantial reward for his trouble. She should be in no way surprised to find out that his motivation all along had been financial, not emotional.

But Kit
was
surprised. And that frankly surprised her. Because if she was surprised to find out that Pendleton had only been wooing her for her monetary value, then that meant that somewhere deep inside herself, she had started to believe—to really, truly, honestly
believe—
that
he liked her. Perhaps even loved her. Loved
her.
Katherine Atherton McClellan. And
not
the Hensley millions.

She should have known better. Any logical human being would have realized what was going on from the beginning. Any logical human being would have been able to see exactly what was what. Unfortunately, it was kind of hard to be logical when your heart was calling all the shots. And then, when your heart starting breaking into a million pieces
…
Well, forget about it.

Although her father and brother continued to talk, Holt's voice, she noted vaguely, becoming remarkably angry about something, Kit knew she'd heard enough. No longer caring where her purse was—no longer caring about much of anything, in fact—she made her way silently back through the house. When she got to the kitchen, she only stood for a
moment, gazing out the window at the sleek little sports car idling in the darkness, its parking lights glowing in anticipation of her return.

Pendleton had made it clear that he wanted to make love the minute they arrived home. Until a few moments ago, that was what she had wanted, too. But now, that was going to be something of a problem. Because Kit suddenly realized that what she'd told him the night before had been absolutely true. Although, at the time, she'd only made it up in an effort to put him off, she realized now that she really didn't intend ever to make love with a man again unless she loved him and he loved her.

Last night, subconsciously anyway, she had thought Pendleton loved her. Tonight, however, she knew the truth. And knowing what she did, there was no way she could tumble into bed with him when they got home. Or ever again, for that matter.

This one-sided stuff, she thought as she made her way slowly and without enthusiasm toward the back door, was really for the birds. Not only that, but it sure could make a person powerful sick to her stomach.

Chapter 17

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"
A
re you sure you're feeling okay?"

Pendleton cupped one hand over Kit's forehead, the other behind her nape, but she barely acknowledged either gesture. Instead, she only lay in bed looking pale and fragile, little changed from how she had appeared before he'd prepared for work, which had in turn been little changed from her condition of the night before.

She didn't feel feverish, he noted, taking some heart in that, but man…
Did she look like ten miles of bad road. The Jersey Turnpike, as a matter of fact. Right around Exit 7, if he wasn't mistaken.
Trenton
.

She'd become ill just as they were leaving her father's house the night before, and the closer they'd gotten to home, the sicker she had felt. By the time they'd walked in the back door, she'd barely had the strength to walk across the kitchen. He'd ended up scooping her into his arms to carry her up to bed, and then being caught completely off-guard when she suddenly—and with surprising strength for one so sick—fought hard enough to make him put her right back down again. He'd only watched in utter mystification as she feebly made her way up the stairs and into the bathroom, unaided in spite of her obvious need for someone.

She hadn't come out again until he'd turned in himself. Certainly, he'd had no intention of trying to make love with her, but when he'd scooted his body next to hers, just to be close to her, draping an arm carefully over her waist, she'd asked him to move away. She'd told him the feel of his skin against hers was painful. And although he'd heard that high fevers could do that—make a person's skin hurt—Kit hadn't felt feverish then, either. Still, she'd clearly been sick with something.

"I'm not going in to work today," he said, removing his hands from her face.

"Of course you're going to work," she said, her voice lacking all the sparkle it normally held.

"Not with you sick like this, I'm not."

"I'll be fine," she said softly. "It's nothing I haven't had before. I'll get over it."

"You look terrible."

She closed her eyes, then folded her forearm across them. "Oooh, Pendleton, you sweet-talker, you. You sure know all the right things to say to a woman when she's feeling down."

"You know what I mean."

"I'll be fine," she assured him again. "Go to work. I need some rest, and you'll just be in the way if you stay home. I'll feel obligated to spend time with you."

He smiled. "Now who's sweet-talking?"

She inhaled feebly, but kept her arm over her eyes. "Go," she said. "I'll be fine."

Although he didn't believe that for a moment, he figured he probably ought to do as she said. She did need to rest, and he probably would just be a hindrance if he stayed with her.

"I'll come home on my lunch hour to check on you," he said.

She nodded. "Oh, I don't doubt that for a moment. Got to keep an eye on those investments, after all."

Great. Now she was becoming delirious. What next? Hallucinations? "What investments?" he asked mildly.

But she only shook her head slowly in response and repeated, "Go."

He bent forward to press a kiss to her forehead, and was surprised when she turned away before he had the chance to complete it. He reminded himself that she was sick, that he shouldn't take her withdrawal personally. But it stung him that she wouldn't even allow him that small gesture of affection. He lifted a hand to stroke it over her hair, thought better of the action, and dropped it back down to his lap.

"Call me if you need anything, okay?"

She nodded.

"And I'll be home in a few hours for lunch."

Another nod, then she rolled over to her side, effectively turning her back on him.

Hoo-kay, he thought. Message received loud and clear. He pushed himself up off the bed, strode across the room, and closed the door behind himself as quietly as he could. But somehow, he had a very bad feeling that whatever was ailing Kit went way beyond the physical. And he wished for the life of him that he knew what to do.

Lunch, he reminded himself. They could talk more about it then. By then, she'd have gotten a few hours more rest, and maybe she'd be up for a little conversation. Making a mental note to stop by Heitzman's for one of those butter kuchens she liked so much, Pendleton headed off for work.

* * *

Unfortunately, he never made it home for lunch. In fact, he didn't make it home for dinner, either. An accident at the distillery in Bardstown had the entire executive staff on the road by ten A.M., and they didn't make it back to
Louisville
until nearly eight that night. By then, Pendleton was exhausted, overwrought, and dispirited. Not because anything had gone wrong at the distillery that couldn't be fixed with minimal expense and trouble, but because he had called home on a half-dozen occasions that day, only to have the answering machine kick on every time. And although he'd left a brief message each one of those times, asking Kit to call his cell number, she never had.

Worse, now as he passed through the back door, stepping aside to let a
very
anxious Maury out for his evening uproar, he saw the little light on the answering machine flashing six times in quick succession, an indication that Kit had never even replayed any of his messages.

"Kit?" he called out as he headed for the dining room.

Funny, how quiet the house was, he thought as he strode through the dining room and into the living room. There was no eardrum-crushing singing of rural
Kentucky
folk songs, no equally abrasive a-pickin' and a-grinnin' banjo music shaking the stereo speakers. Nor was there an indistinguishable, alleged foodstuff on the stove spitting and crackling in its deep fat pit. The house was utterly, unhappily, deadly silent.

Actually
funny
wasn't the right word at all to describe the complete lack of life in the house, Pendleton thought as he topped the last stair.
Scary
was more like it. Real scary.

"Kit?" he tried again.

But again, all he received in reply was a stone-cold silence that made his flesh crawl.

The bedroom door was ajar, he noted, a faint light spilling from within. Carefully, he pushed it open and peeked inside, and saw much to his relief that the bedclothes were rumpled and piled in the middle of the mattress, and
not
covering the lifeless body of a late, lamented, madcap heiress. But as soon as that relief shot through him, it was replaced once again by fear. Because if Kit's
lifeless
body wasn't lying on the bed, then it must be
living
somewhere else.

Don't panic,
he told himself. A quick survey of the room told him she wasn't completely gone. Her discarded clothes of the night before were still slung across a chair, and her underwear and stockings were still on the floor, where she had an annoying habit of leaving them. For some reason now, though, Pendleton wasn't annoyed at all, and he found himself wishing she'd hurry home so she could toss as much underwear on the floor as she wanted.

Too, the nightstand on her side of the bed was still accessorized by a crossword book and a romance novel she'd just finished reading, and the photograph of herself and her brothers that had been taken at her high school graduation still sat on the dresser. Nevertheless, a sick sensation settled in Pendleton's gut as he crossed to the closet. Immediately after opening the door, he realized something was missing. Most of Kit's clothes, to be exact, along with two of the suitcases she'd brought with her the day she'd invaded his house.

Yeah, she'd been sick that morning when he left for work, all right. But evidently not sick enough to keep her from bailing out on him.

"Dammit," he hissed under his breath.

What the hell had gone wrong? he wondered. What could he have possibly done or said that would make her take a powder this way? Okay, granted, men tended to be a trifle more clueless than women did when it came to the whole relationship thing—and, hey, throw a woman like Kit into the mix, and that cluelessness was magnified a good five-, six-hundred percent—but still…

"Dammit," he muttered again, a bit louder this time.

Where could she have gone? He tried to tell himself that she'd simply packed up a few things and returned to her father's house. That she would be coming back to his place to gather the rest of her stuff—like every stick of furniture and every pot and pan—later, when she had more time, not to mention a moving van at her disposal. Maybe, he thought, her recent visits to Cherrywood had stirred up her need for luxurious surroundings and finer things, and now his fixer-upper in Old Louisville—even if it was coming along nicely, thanks, if he did say so himself—just wasn't good enough for her anymore.

Somehow, though, he couldn't quite bring himself to believe that Cherrywood was where she would hole up. She'd seemed far happier in Pendleton's house than she ever had in her father's. Something—namely a cold, dark feeling in the pit of his stomach—told him that Kit had gone a whole lot farther than
Glenview
. Somehow he was certain that she'd taken off for parts unknown, more than likely some destination south. Way south. Somewhere amid thousands of miles of ocean, and thousands of acres of islands.