Whisper In The Dark (The McKinnon Legends-- The American Men Book One) (26 page)

That pissed him off.

Kate would never be an embarrassment to him. She might and probably would stumble, but it would never be purposefully done. He understood it, knew it, and accepted it. Candi, on the other hand, would have an easier time doing something
anti- McKinnon
which he would find shameful, and she would do it on purpose never feeling she ever had any reason to think of anyone except herself. Her entitlement, in her mind, was a birthright.

“I would caution you to keep your comments about my wife to yourself.”

She laughed coldly.

Damn, he thought. How could he have ever thought he was in love with this icicle? There was not a warm bone in her body. Having time to step back and away from her, he was seeing Candice Reslinger with fresh eyes. He watched as she helped herself to a glass of sherry realizing he did not much care for what he was feeling, and he did not care for her at all.

“Well, tell me truthfully, Robbie. Are you just dashing into the fray to rescue that poor, pathetic, bankrupt creature? Or were you just lonely and passing the time after you left my bed in Mexico?”

He grabbed her forcefully by her arm dragging her toward the door. “Now, you’re just being a mean, spiteful bitch. You are going back tonight whether you like it or not. I may have a contractual obligation to provide a secure environment for you, however, that secure environment does not include my home. You are not welcome here, Candice, not with that attitude toward Kate. I did not invite you, and I can damn well send you packing.”

“Is that any way to speak to the mother of your unborn child?” she purred in triumph smiling at the look of total surprise and momentary joy crossing his face.

“You’re pregnant?” Robert asked disbelieving her claims.

She nodded her head.

He had been ultra-careful, never once having unprotected sex. The chances were astronomical. Then reality set.

Kate’s words echoed through his mind reminding him of the kind of woman Candice really was beneath the polished surface. Could she have gotten pregnant to try and keep him or was this a ploy? If she were carrying a child, it could be months after the baby’s birth before he would know anything. Paternity test results were not as quickly returned as one might hope.

“I see you are not displeased by our good fortune. A baby, Robert, just think about it. I’m carrying your child, your progeny.” She smiled sweetly. “The next McKinnon.”

“I must insist you begin your prenatal treatment immediately. It is never too soon to insure a healthy baby,” he found himself saying. Unhappy or not he was going to be a father.

“I have already seen a doctor. Here is the sonogram.” She pulled the photo out of her handbag and held it out to him.

Seeing it did not necessarily make it real, he warned himself. He did not hear anything else in the room after being distracted by the grainy black and white image of a tiny baby boy.

“Oh, my God,” he whispered softly as reality sunk in. It was a child, his son. “It’s a boy. How far along are you?” he asked never once taking his eyes off the picture.

She evaded the question sliding closer to him. Taking his hand she placed it against her flat, taunt abdomen.

“Are you happy, Robert?”

“I’m not really sure,” he answered honestly.

“Congratulations to both of you,” Kate offered before softly closing the door behind her.

Robert felt his heart sink.

Six days passed as Robert continued to debate about what to do. He could not have Candice here permanently, yet obviously someone knew of his connection to her and had sent her the invitation to his home. They were using her to distract him, splitting his attention in two different directions, and it was working like a charm. Candi’s relationship to him made her a target, and he could not have the life of an unborn child on his conscious.

If she were pregnant, she needed added security whether it was his child or not. The baby was innocent, and he was sworn to protect the innocent at all costs. He hoped the cost was not his relationship with Kate.

Kate was another issue entirely. It was becoming painfully obvious to him she was quickly becoming important to him. Yet, she was drifting away, becoming more distant by the day. She had not come out of her rooms for a full day after hearing Candi’s news, taking her meals in solitude. His attempts to speak with her were painful to say the least. The first couple of days she refused to speak to him telling him he needed to give her space. The past three days she was cordial and cooperative, but very reserved. Her emotions were closed off, and often he found himself seeking her out just so he knew she was still under his roof.

He kept her apprised of the progress of the plans, and she gave her input only where necessary. The conversations he did manage to have with her were always stilted, formal, and to the point. Efforts to draw her out were proving fruitless and painful for them both, usually resulting in her turning around and walking away without her usual smart-mouthed comments which he would have, at that point, actually welcomed. However, that would require emotions. Their conversations were never heated. Oh no, they were quite the opposite. She seemed to be completely devoid of deep feeling lately, which was a one-hundred-eighty degree turn, and he felt she looked at him as if he were a stranger. Keeping him totally at arms-length, it was such a reversal from the norm, making him long for the times they butted heads in an emotionally charged contest of wills. It was preferable to this feeling of rejection by evasion.

She was claiming she was
Switzerland
in this triangle, refusing to take sides for or against him where Candice and the baby were concerned. He did not want her neutral. He wanted her to feel as deeply as he was beginning to feel. He wanted her to love his child and he wanted her to love him.

In desperation, the evening before he offered to saddle Ginger Snap and personally take Kate for a ride to get her out of the house. She politely declined as if they were merely social acquaintances and not husband and wife.

After four days he was fed up and tired of walking on eggshells around her. He had done nothing wrong, at least not since making her his bride. Whether she realized it or not and he really did not feel Kate was doing it on purpose, she was punishing him in the worst way possible by denying him the two things he desperately needed: her time and her company.

He was not adjusting well to having Candice in his home and certainly not with her parading around, gloating at every turn. Twice he had awakened to find her naked in his bed. The second time Kate was the one to awaken them. When he closed his eyes he still could see the hurt she was not quick enough to hide on her face. Even that had not solicited any reaction from her beyond a momentary lapse of her stone mask. He tried to deny he invited Candi, but Kate told him she did not care if he slept alone or not.

“It is your prerogative,” she had said flatly before leaving his suite of rooms.

He never could get her to say why she had even come to his room to begin with, but he would have been even more upset had he known. She was having trouble sleeping alone and was coming to ask if she could move in with him.

After that encounter he started sleeping in his office without much success, not only because there was not a comfortable place to sleep, but more so because he needed Kate beside him which was becoming painfully obvious. Even the fact Lyles had delivered the annulment papers earlier in the day did not keep him from wanting to see her. He had not taken it personally; the papers were just legality. What he needed was to hold her to recharge his internal batteries.

Already, Candice was making arrangements for a decorator to come and redo one of the guest rooms as a nursery. In reality he really could not blame Kate for locking herself away whenever possible. He just wished she would let him join her.

It was worth another try.

Bounding up the stairs, he stopped in front of the door to her suite of rooms. He had been there several times already after he opened the package containing the legal documents. However, each time he ended up just walking away before knocking. He was not sure what he wanted to say. Well, actually he was sure, but afraid to ask. If she ever said no to his invitation to stay he felt sure she would not renege on the decision.

Leaning his forearm against the door jam of the closed door, he knocked lightly.

“Who is it?” her voice filtered through the door.

“It’s me. May I come in?” he asked hoping at least this time she would open the door. Earlier that morning she had not even acknowledged his knock. He gave her the benefit of the doubt on his earlier visit. She could have still been asleep or in the shower. It had been before seven the first time he came by to see her.

She had not ignored him in his earlier attempts to talk. She did not even know he came. She had been sitting out on the balcony drinking coffee and thinking about her life and how she really felt about it all.

Hearing from the insurance company and fire marshal who had ruled the fire accidental, she had decided to take the insurance money, leaving Robert and the Golden Circle behind along with the whole sorted mess. She planned on speaking to him about her decision, so now was as good a time as any, she supposed. She felt more relaxed and at peace than she had for days having come to a final decision and being ready to move forward.

He waited impatiently for her to open the door.

“For god’s sake, Kate, throw something at me. Tell me I’m the biggest jackass to ever walk the earth, but don’t shut me out, please.”

Slowly the door opened to reveal a breath of fresh air for him.

She looked beautiful forcing Robert’s heart to race. She had on a pale lavender halter dress, and since this was the first time he had seen her in makeup, he was pleasantly surprised at how it made her eyes pop and sparkle. Her hair was freshly combed and gleamed chestnut and fire in the afternoon sunlight that streamed through the balcony doors. He paid handsomely for a stylist to make the house call, and he had cut her hair into a fashionable bob framing her face. It was worth every penny. She looked rested and refreshed.

He, on the other hand, looked like hell not having slept worth a damn in days.

She resisted the urge to comfort him. He looked weary and worn. However, much of this mess was of his own making. It was his bed and he could lie in it with whom ever he chose. It just would not be her.

“I’m not shutting you out, Robert, and you are not a jackass. In fact, you are one of the kindest and most caring men I know.” She opened the door wider and stepped to the side in a mute invitation for him to enter.

Robert quickly stepped into the room before she changed her mind, breathing out a sigh of relief and closing the door before locking it behind him. It was like a sanctuary for his frayed nerves as he leaned back against the door in an unconscious effort to close off the world from them. It smelled wonderfully fresh with candles and flowers and soft music playing in the background. He saw she must have been reading when he knocked, her book resting on the side table and her sandals were still lying haphazardly beside one of the two comfortable overstuffed chairs in the corner.

Gesturing for him to take a seat, she pulled out two sodas from the mini fridge.

“It was an accident,” he said referring to the baby as he accepted the drink she offered.

She paused before answering him.

“I understand these things happen, cowboy. Couples get pregnant. This time it just happened to be you and Candice.” She paused before going on. “Look, Robert, I wish I could be happy for you, but I won’t lie to you, I cannot. I am, however, so very sorry you will have to share an innocent child with her. You are right to call her a mean, nasty bitch,” she said shrugging her shoulder sympathetically.

He grimaced.“You heard?”

Thinking back on the conversation he had with Candice in his study he wondered just how much she actually had heard. Apparently she had heard it all.

“Yes, I heard.” She let it drop.

“I just don’t know how it happened, Kate,” he said sitting down hard into the mate of the chair she had been sitting in when he arrived. Flinging his arm across his forehead, he leaned back against the chair’s soft neck support. “I just don’t,” he repeated.

She laughed softly. “You don’t, do you?” she asked trying to keep the smile off her face. This was a grave conversation and humor just did not figure into it. “You are a big boy, Robert, you’ll figure it out. Either way, you deserve better. And I just cannot sit by and watch her devastate your life. She will use that baby against you at every turn.”

She watched as the man she called husband laid his head back against the headrest of the padded chair and he closed his eyes. It did not take a great observer to see he was exhausted. She sat quietly, letting him rest for a few moments until he opened his eyes again.

“Why have you been avoiding me?” he asked.

She shook her head, smiling sadly.

Men, she thought, they would never understand a woman like her. Couldn’t he see she was just too wise to be drawn into the personal drama, having plenty of her own to deal with?

“I’m not avoiding you, Robert. I just do not want to have to deal with Miss Prissy, and since obviously you aren’t going to send her packing back to L.A., I’m staying out of the way. It’s your house. Not mine. And if she wants to paint the whole damn place baby blue and border it with rainbows and unicorns, I don’t give a rat’s behind. I have other more important things on my mind.”

“Such as,” he asked glancing over at the suitcase by the closet door.

“I’ve come to some decisions about my future.”

Robert really did not want to hear them and interrupted her before she could go further.

“I know, Kate. I got the papers. If it is all the same to you, I need some time before I sign them.”

“No rush,” she shrugged. “We need to continue to safeguard the ranch a while longer anyway. Still, there are some decisions we need to solidify. Especially in light of the fact you are going to be a father.”