Kate's Vow (Vows)

by Sherryl Woods

  “I tried to get you earlier,” Ellen said. “I wanted to ask you to dinner.”

  “Sorry,” she said, thinking of the unanswered messages she’d allowed to accumulate because she couldn’t think of what to say to Ellen these days. “I couldn’t have come anyway. I had dinner with a client.”

  “You work too hard.”

  “What else is new?” Kate stated with a shrug, kicking off her shoes and wiggling her toes in the cool plush carpet. There was something pleasantly sensuous about the act. “That’s the kind of business I’m in.”

  “Ever think about getting out?” Ellen asked. “Getting married? Settling down?”

  “No,” Kate said, though less firmly than she might have a few weeks or even a few days ago.

  “You should. Dealing with all those unhappy people all the time can’t be much fun. Anyway, how about tomorrow? Just you and me and Penny,” she suggested, referring to Kate’s precocious niece, who displayed every indication of turning into a damn fine trial lawyer herself, if her nosy interrogations into everyone else’s personal lives were any clue. Kate didn’t think she was up to that sort of teasing scrutiny.

  “I really can’t, Ellen. This week is jammed up.”

  “This weekend, then,” her sister suggested. The casual persistence was underscored by a hint of genuine dismay over Kate’s constant excuses. It was evident Ellen saw right through them.

  “I’m having a client out to the beach,” Kate said, phrasing it in the most innocuous way she could think of. “Maybe next week.” To shift her sister’s attention to something else, she asked, “What have you heard from Mother?”

  There was a hesitation, as if Ellen wanted to call her on making yet another excuse, but then she sighed. “She phoned this morning from Rome. Can you believe it? Our mother is turning into a world traveler at this stage in her life. Isn’t it great?”

  “Great,” Kate echoed, suddenly feeling even more depressed. “Look, I’ve got to run. I have a ton of paperwork to get through tonight. I’ll be up until all hours.”

  Ellen didn’t respond for a full minute. If it had been anyone else, Kate might have hung up. Instead, she waited.

  “Kate, we’re going to have to talk about it one of these days,” Ellen said finally.

  “I don’t know what you mean,” Kate said stiffly. “Good night, sis.”

  She hung up hurriedly and then faced the fact that in one way at least she and David were very much alike. Neither of them seemed able to face the painful truths in their lives.

  * * *

  At five o’clock on Thursday Kate sat at her desk, staring at her calendar and trying to work up the courage to place the call to David Winthrop that would finalize their weekend plans. Zelda found her with her hand in midair over the phone.

  “Don’t you dare get on that phone again,” her secretary ordered. “We have things to discuss, and I’ve been trying to catch up with you all day.”

  Grateful for the reprieve, Kate sat back. “What’s up?”

  “The Winthrop case. What’s happening?”

  It was the last thing Kate wanted to discuss, especially with Zelda. “Things are moving along,” she said evasively. “The father has agreed to spend more time with Davey.”

  “The father,” Zelda mimicked. “Last I heard, the man had a name.”

  “David,” Kate said dutifully.

  “Do you have another meeting scheduled with the two of them?”

  “Actually, that’s what I was calling to arrange when you came in.”

  “Don’t let me stop you, then,” Zelda said, though she didn’t budge from right where she could listen to every last word of Kate’s end of the conversation. Apparently her finely honed instincts for gossip were operating in overdrive.

  “Haven’t you ever heard of privacy?” Kate grumbled.

  “I’ve had four roommates. What do you think?”

  Kate rolled her eyes.

  Zelda observed her lack of action and quickly put her own particular spin on it. “If this call were going to, let’s say, Jennifer Barron, would you have this same problem about me being in the room?” she inquired, referring to another of Kate’s clients.

  “You’ve made your point,” Kate retorted. “Now leave.”

  “Not until you explain why you want to talk to David Winthrop in private.”

  “If I felt like explaining, then I wouldn’t need the privacy, would I?”

  Zelda grinned. “Fascinating.” She moved reluctantly toward the door. “How about if I leave this open just a crack? I probably couldn’t pick up every word.”

  “I don’t want you picking up any words,” Kate retorted.

  “It gets better and better. You know I could call and schedule the appointment for you. It would save you the trouble.”

  “Zelda, there are at least a dozen executive secretaries in this building alone who could replace you in less time than it’s taking you to leave this room,” Kate warned, fully aware that they both knew she was grossly exaggerating. No one could replace Zelda. The threat lost a little of its oomph because of it, but Zelda dutifully closed the door. All the way.

  Kate called David’s office. She immediately recognized the voice of the woman who answered. It was the same one she’d met the first night she’d charged in there.

  “Hi, it’s Kate Newton. Is Mr. Winthrop available?”

  “Why, Ms. Newton, hello,” the assistant said in a tone that rivaled Zelda’s for openly friendly curiosity. “I’m Dorothy Paul, his assistant. He’s in the back using the chain saw. He’ll never hear me buzz. I’ll have to get him. Do you mind waiting or shall I have him call you back?”

  “I’ll wait,” she said, unable to hide a grin at the image the woman had raised by mentioning the chain saw. It was fortunate Kate knew what David did for a living. The reference might be very disconcerting for anyone who didn’t.

  She heard an intake of breath and realized that David’s assistant was still on the line.

  “Before I get David, I hope you won’t mind me butting in, but I wanted you to know that I think you’re good for him.” She laughed. “He’ll kill me for telling you that.”

  Kate chuckled despite herself. “Actually, I think you couldn’t be more wrong. He thinks I’m a nuisance.”

  “Exactly,” Dorothy said. “No one else has braved that don’t-bother-me front he puts on.”

  “Except you,” Kate guessed.

  “I am fifty years old, fifteen pounds overweight and happily married. He has never looked at me the way he looks at you.”

  “With disdain,” Kate retorted. “I should hope not.”

  “No. With fascination,” she insisted. “Don’t give up on him.”

  Kate felt it important that she clear up Dorothy Paul’s misconception about her relationship with David. “I don’t think you understand. Our dealings are strictly professional.”

  The woman chuckled. “Yes. That’s what he says, too,” she said, her skepticism evident. “I’ll get him now.”

  While she waited, Kate told herself that she had successfully squelched any personal fascination with David Winthrop. There was no reason at all to view the coming weekend as anything more than three acquaintances relaxing and getting to know each other better. It was not the first time she had invited clients or colleagues to visit the beach house. That was one of the reasons she’d bought it in the first place, in fact.

  David’s grumbled hello sent goose bumps scurrying over her flesh. The effect immediately put an end to any illusions she might have been manufacturing about him being any other business associate.

  “I promised to call about the weekend,” she said, sounding as if she were the one who’d had to dash for the phone.

  “Right,” he said matter-of-factly. “This really isn’t necessary, you know.”

  “I think it is.”

  “Okay, then. What works for you?”

  “Can you get out there about seven or seven-thirty tomorrow night? I’ll pick up some
steaks and we can barbecue on the deck.”

  “We’ll be there. Don’t worry about wine or beer. I’ll bring that. Anything else you’d like me to bring?”

  “No. I keep it pretty well stocked. There are plenty of games and things for Davey, too. There’s even a basketball hoop over the garage, if you want to play.”

  “You entertain a lot of kids?”

  “My sister’s girls.”

  “They play basketball?”

  “No,” she retorted. “I do.”

  He chuckled. “Now there’s a challenge if ever I’ve heard one.”

  “Take me on, if you dare,” she shot back, then hung up while their shared laughter was still ringing in her ears. Suddenly, despite the loud clang of warning bells, she could hardly wait for the weekend to arrive.

  She called Zelda back into her office. “Can you clear my calendar for tomorrow?”

  “Any particular time?”

  “All day.”

  Zelda’s mouth dropped open in astonishment. “The whole day? Are you sick?”

  “No. I just have some things I need to do. I thought I’d take a long weekend at the beach to catch up.”

  As if she’d already linked Kate’s request with that call to David Winthrop and sniffed romance as a result, Zelda immediately grabbed the appointment book and scanned the entries. “You don’t have anything in court. No depositions. It looks to me as if I can reschedule your appointments.”

  “Do it,” Kate said, ignoring the speculative gleam in her secretary’s eyes. Going to Malibu first thing in the morning would give her a chance to make sure the house was in order.

  It would also give her time for a long run on the beach, maybe a swim. Hopefully a little exercise would put an end to all these ridiculous fantasies before the object of those fantasies turned up.

  Chapter Six

  Running didn’t help. Neither did swimming. By seven o’clock on Friday night, Kate was as jittery as a teenager on her first date. Why, she wondered, had an intelligent, cynical woman become attracted for the first time in years to the one man least likely to offer himself heart and soul to a relationship? A man whose behavior toward his son represented the epitome of irresponsibility, if not outright neglect?

  She tried telling herself it wasn’t attraction so much as determination to help Davey in any way she could. If that meant she had to insinuate herself into his father’s life to assure that David and his son forged a new bond, then that’s what she would do. She almost believed the explanation. It sounded noble, professional, compassionate. And, in fact, that much really was true. However, despite all the claims she’d made to Dorothy Paul, it wasn’t the whole truth by any means.

  It was the lost, faraway look in his eyes, she decided after careful analysis. That sorrow hinted at a depth of emotion that some part of her desperately wanted to experience, at the very least wanted to comprehend. And maybe, in some small measure, it was his unavailability. Perhaps she was merely responding to the challenge of conquering that had appealed to men and women from the beginning of time.

  The sun was sinking in a rare clear sky when she heard a car pull into the space next to hers along the narrow beachfront road that forked off Pacific Coast Highway. Barefoot and wearing loose white pants and an oversize rose-colored sweater, she walked along the side of the house to the back and opened the gate. She was just in time to see Davey bound around the trendy four-wheel-drive wagon parked next to her expensive low-slung sports car. The ultimate Hollywood, two-car family, she thought wryly, one practical vehicle, the other fast and sexy.

  “This place is the best,” Davey announced, his eyes sparkling as he bounced up and down on his sneakers as if he couldn’t quite wait for the starting gun in a race.

  She grinned at his exuberance. “You haven’t even seen it yet.”

  “But I can tell already. Dad says you have a basketball hoop. Can I play? You and me against him, okay? He said you had games, too. What kind? Maybe we could play Monopoly after dinner.”

  Kate grinned at his nonstop plans. “If you think I’m playing Monopoly with you again, you’re crazy, kiddo. You’re obviously destined to be some sort of real estate tycoon. My ego can’t take that kind of bashing.”

  Just then David emerged from the car. He was wearing the same style of snug jeans he always wore, topped by a polo shirt in a soft jade green. Somehow, though, he already looked more relaxed, as if he had caught some small measure of his son’s excitement.

  He surveyed her from head to toe, a surprisingly approving glint in his eyes. That glint told Kate she’d made a mistake when she’d dressed, after all. She’d thought the loose-fitting clothes would be less provocative.

  “I suspect your ego could withstand all sorts of assaults,” he taunted.

  The surprisingly lighthearted comment seemed to set the tone for the day. Kate’s mood shifted from anxious to something closer to anticipation.

  “Surely losing a game to a mere boy wouldn’t be enough to shatter your self-confidence,” he added.

  “Has your son ever bankrupted you twenty minutes into a game of Monopoly?” she inquired dryly.

  “Afraid not. I taught him everything he knows.”

  Kate scowled as both males grinned unrepentantly. “How about cards? I’m very good at rummy.”

  “We have a whole long weekend to discover all the things at which you excel,” David retorted, his speculative gaze leveled on her.

  Whatever distance he’d managed to put between them the other night went up in flames. The innuendo sent a shiver straight down her spine. Kate wasn’t sure which startled her more, the fact that he’d said it or her own immediate and unmistakably sensual response.

  He glanced at her car, and his eyes lit up with an excitement that almost matched Davey’s for the house. “Obviously one thing at which you excel is your taste in cars. This is a beauty.”

  He touched the finish with a certain reverence. Kate found herself envying the sleek metal bumper. He leaned down and peered inside.

  “What’s it do?”

  Kate assumed he was referring to speed. “On our freeways?” she said dryly.

  “Yeah. You have a point.” With obvious reluctance he turned away from the car. “Davey, have you got all your things?” he asked.

  For the next few minutes, they were busy unloading the car and settling the two guests into their rooms.

  “If you’re hungry, I have dinner set to go,” Kate said as the long, empty evening stretched ahead of them. She wanted to cram those hours with activity so that lingering glances could be kept to a minimum, so that these little thrills of pleasure that shot through her at having the two of them there wouldn’t escalate into something more. There had to be some way to keep the weekend from ending with her yearning for things that could never be.

  “Can we wait?” Davey begged. “I want to see the ocean. Please.”

  David shook his head. “You’d think you’d never seen the Pacific before.”

  “It’s been a long time, Dad. A really long time. It was before…” His voice trailed off and his father’s face went still.

  Kate leapt into the sudden silence. “I think a walk on the beach would be the perfect way to work up an appetite. Let’s go before it gets too dark.”

  With Davey running on ahead of them, Kate fell into step beside David. He’d shoved his hands into the pockets of his jeans. The sea gulls circled lazily overhead and a fine mist blew into their faces as they strolled by outrageously expensive homes crammed on the edge of a cliff. Most clung to just enough land to qualify as a homesite, with massive pilings shoring up the bulk of the house. Kate shivered as she considered what was bound to happen one of these days when a violent storm struck.

  “Cold?” he asked, misjudging the cause of her trembling.

  “No. I was just thinking of what a bad storm would do to this property. Actually, I like chilly nights like this,” she confessed. “It’s so miserably hot in the city this time of year that I find thi
s thoroughly refreshing. Some nights there’s enough briskness in the air to justify a fire. That’s always seemed really decadent to me somehow.”

  He studied her intently. “You love it out here, don’t you?”

  She nodded. “You sound as if that surprises you.”

  He shrugged. “I would have thought the rhythm of the city suited you more.”

  She laughed. “I love that, too. I guess I’m just greedy. I want it all. I want days that are so crowded with work I can’t even find time to breathe, and then I want leisurely, do-nothing days that require nothing more than plunking into a chaise longue with a good book and a view of the ocean.”

  “Be honest,” he said. “When was the last time you really had a relaxing, do-nothing day?”

  Kate searched her memory. She couldn’t think of one, at least not recently.

  “Stumped you, didn’t I?” David said.

  His laughter caught on the wind. He seemed delighted by the discovery that she apparently never followed the exact advice she was giving him.

  “I don’t have a son around who needs my attention,” Kate reminded him.

  “Is that the only reason for time off? What about just restoring your own energy, pampering yourself?”

  “No time,” she admitted.

  “Then perhaps this weekend will turn out to be a lesson for both of us,” he said, his expression softening. “Now tell me what else you would do, if you really took a vacation. Mountain climbing? That seems like the sort of challenge that would appeal to you.”

  “Afraid not. I prefer my dangers to come in the form of unexpected evidence. What about you? Mountains? Seaside?”