Love and Honor: The Coltrane Saga, Book 7

by Patricia Hagan

  “Now wait just a minute, young lady,” Jade said.

  “This is a family conference, and everyone has the right to speak his mind.”

  “You all know how I feel,” Kitty put in. “I think it’s time Kit was allowed to make her own decisions. You can’t force her to live a life she doesn’t want to live.”

  “She’s my daughter, and she’ll do as I say.” Jade walked across the porch to stand before Kitty. Her green eyes glinted with anger. “Kitty, you know I’ve always had the utmost respect for you, and I’ve loved you like the mother I can hardly remember, but quite frankly, there have been times when I’ve resented your interference with how I raise my daughter. I’m going to have to ask you to stay out of this.”

  Kitty was undaunted. “She’s my granddaughter, and my namesake, and I’m not going to stand for her being made unhappy.”

  Jade was appalled. “Do you mean to tell me that you approve of your granddaughter fighting a bull? Risking her life?”

  Kitty shrugged. “From what I hear, she did a good job. I’d say you should be very proud of her.”

  Jade threw up her hands, turning to Colt in disgust. “Oh, why do I even bother arguing with her?”

  Kitty ignored Jade’s outburst. Addressing Colt, she said, “What if Kit compromises?”

  Kit stared at her in astonishment, but Kitty went on. “Suppose…just suppose that Kit agreed to go back to New York—”

  “Wait a minute!” Jade interrupted. “I don’t have to make any bargains. She’s my daughter, and she’ll do as I say, and—”

  “Please, Jade. Hear her out.”

  Her eyes widened as she looked at her husband.

  Kitty smiled at her son, then gave Jade a patronizing nod. “Now then, you know that if Kit makes up her mind not to go to New York she’ll find a way to stay here, even if it means running away. You also know that if it came to that, I’d help her.”

  “You…you wouldn’t dare…” Jade sputtered indignantly.

  “Yes,” Kitty said quickly, “I would, and you know it, so stop pretending you’re shocked. You’d best listen to the compromise I propose.”

  Jade gripped the arms of her chair. “I’m listening,” she said tightly.

  “The compromise is that Kit will go to New York on the condition that if she is absolutely miserable, you will let her return to Spain.”

  “Never!” Jade objected loudly.

  “Return…” Kitty announced slowly, “to the ranch I’ll buy for her. And I’ll live there with her since Marilee and Travis will be away at school.”

  Jade shook her head adamantly. “That’s absurd!”

  “Is it?” Kit exploded, leaping to her feet. “I think it’s a fair compromise. I’ll agree to it. Why won’t you?”

  “Because…” Jade’s fiery green eyes met her daughter’s defiant gaze, “…because I don’t have to compromise.”

  Colt slowly got to his feet, wearing a determined expression. “Yes”—he looked at Jade—“we do, because otherwise, like it or not, Kit will do something drastic. I suggest we accept this plan and just hope that Kit comes to her senses and decides to remain in New York with us. I don’t see any other alternative.”

  Jade turned on Kitty. “If this doesn’t work out, I don’t think I’ll ever be able to forgive you.”

  “It’s settled,” Colt stated. “We’re going back to the States in time for the inauguration. Meanwhile, arrangements will be made for Kit’s debut. Now…”

  He sighed, heading for the door. “I’ll see everyone at dinner. As far as I’m concerned, this discussion is closed.” Everyone filed slowly after him, leaving Kit and Kitty alone. They threw their arms around each other and danced a little jig around the porch, laughing with joy.

  Kit cried, “I love you! You’re my best friend in the whole world.”

  “And I love you, too, my precious,” Kitty said, her lavender eyes sparkling. “Oh, how I wish I was young now, to have all the wonderful opportunities you have—”

  “The ranch! What do you think?” Kit asked excitedly. “Please, don’t say we’ve got to wait to buy it. I don’t care what we told Mother. If we wait, we’ll lose it, because there’s someone else after it.”

  “Of course we aren’t going to wait,” Kitty assured her. “Do you think I want to stay in New York with your mother?” She made a face, then grinned. “I’ve wanted to live on a ranch again for some time now, and this is my chance. Tomorrow morning we’ll go into town and make all the arrangements. As for your mother…” She paused to wink, lowering her voice conspiratorially. “We didn’t tell her when we’d buy the ranch.”

  Kit was trying very hard not to cry. She had never loved anyone more than she loved her grandmother at that moment.

  “Don’t you get emotional on me!” Kitty commanded. “Now that that’s all settled, I want to talk to you about something else.”

  “Anything.” Kit grinned happily.

  “That handsome devil you danced with at the embassy ball. There was just something about him that reminded me of your grandfather…”

  Kitty went on talking about what a striking couple they’d made, not noticing how Kit had stiffened. She didn’t know she’d struck a nerve…and that Kit had no intention of discussing Kurt Tanner.

  Chapter Twelve

  As they had previously agreed, Kitty remarked at breakfast that she’d love to go horseback riding. She said wistfully that the ranch was the only place where she could do real range riding. According to plan, Kit offered to go with her.

  Jade immediately voiced her objections. “We have far too much to do if we’re going to leave in just two weeks—packing, putting the ranch up for sale—”

  “Two weeks!” Kit cried, stunned.

  Colt continued to read his newspaper, Travis groaned, and Marilee watched them all with bright eyes.

  “Two weeks,” Jade repeated. “Your father and I talked it over last night. He made some inquiries, and we’ve already booked passage to sail two weeks from today. It’s going to take some doing for him to finish up his work at the embassy, but we think it’s best we leave as soon as possible. If we’re going to be able to arrange your debut to coincide with all the inauguration parties, we’ve got a lot of work ahead.”

  “If you’re going with us,” Jade said to Kitty, “you don’t have much time to get your own affairs in order.”

  “Be that as it may, I don’t see anything wrong with Kit and me riding for a few hours this morning,” Kitty said.

  Jade’s face turned stony. “She doesn’t have time. There’s something else she has to do.”

  Kit warily asked her mother what she was talking about.

  “I would like for you to visit the Estebans and apologize for whatever you did at the party that has everyone so upset.”

  Kit instantly exploded, “Apologize? Oh, you can’t ask me to do that, Mother! Anaya is the one who owes me an apology!”

  “Well, it would smooth things over…and end it. Muego will drive you over when you’ve finished eating.”

  Kit stubbornly shook her head.

  Jade sighed, exasperated. “Really, Kit, it’s just a matter of propriety. After all, you were an invited guest, and it was Anaya’s birthday, and you could have been a little more tactful.”

  “Tactful!” Kit snorted with unladylike disdain. “You weren’t there, and you didn’t hear the nasty things she said to me. Why, she’s lucky I didn’t push her into the champagne fountain.”

  Colt could not resist murmuring under his breath, “Your mother would have!”

  Jade suppressed a smile and tried to give him a furious look. He grinned, not at all contrite. Forcing a straight face, Jade said to Kit, “I really wish you would, dear. I don’t like them talking about you, and if you’ll just apologize, this whole misunderstanding will be over with.”

  “Please don’t ask me to do this, Mother.”

  They all looked then to Colt. He knew he had to take a stand whether he wanted to or not. “I have
to agree with Kit, Jade,” he said without remorse. “We weren’t there, so we don’t know what happened. I do know that the Esteban girl has a reputation for being rude and spiteful. If Kit says that she doesn’t owe her an apology, then I think we should stand by her. She’s more important to me than what the Estebans think.”

  Jade drew in her breath and let it out slowly. Finally she shrugged her acquiescence.

  Not twenty minutes later, Kit and Kitty were riding toward the Gaspencia ranch. It was a cold day, with gray skies that threatened rain, but they ignored the weather as Kit led the way, her heart beating excitedly in unison with Pegasus’s thundering hooves.

  When they reached their destination, Kit gave her grandmother a hurried tour of the house and barn and pointed out the property boundaries as best she could. Kitty remained silent until they were standing on the front porch, gazing out at the breathtaking view. “It’s for us, Kit!” she exclaimed. “I can feel it. It’s as wonderful as you said it was, and you know something else? It reminds me of my land back in North Carolina. Oh, the terrain is different—this is rolling and hilly, and my land is flat, sandy. But there’s just something about it. Maybe,” she mused, a faraway look in her eyes, “it’s the atmosphere, the peace that you can just feel in your heart.”

  Kit was trembling with happiness. “I knew you’d love it. There’s lots of work to do—the house isn’t much, and the barn needs repairing and painting—but fixing it up will be fun. We won’t have to buy much furniture, and we can make curtains to give it a homey look. It’s not fancy, certainly not what you’re used to, and—”

  “What I’m used to?” Kitty echoed with an indignant laugh. “Why, I thought you knew I grew up in a cabin a lot shabbier than this one. That’s where your grandfather and I began our married life together, after the war.

  “Frankly,” she went on, her voice soft and warm with nostalgia, “I don’t think we were ever happier than we were back then, when we didn’t have anything but each other. I think you’re going to find as you grow older, Kit, that memories of a simpler life are somehow always the nicest.”

  Kit was curious. “You’ve never told me about your land. Why haven’t you sold it by now?”

  Kitty looked aghast that she could even suggest such a thing. “That land has been in the Wright family for three generations now, Kit. When I die, it’ll go to your father, then to you and your brother. I promised my daddy I’d never sell it. ‘Don’t ever sell this land, Kitty girl,’ were his very words. ‘I’d rather see you starve to death than sell the Wright land.’

  “He said,” Kitty continued, the memories carrying her away so that it seemed she was talking more to herself than to Kit, “that he’d rather have his land than all the gold on Earth, because the land will be here forever. With money, you can’t be sure.”

  Kit said, “I’d never sell it, Kitty, and neither would Travis. You don’t have to worry about that, but what are you doing with it now? What’s happened to it?”

  “I rent it to the Duke family,” Kitty explained. “They, in turn, let tenants grow tobacco on the land. Daddy always said the future of North Carolina lay in tobacco, and as usual, he was right.”

  She proceeded to explain how the Duke family had built a multimillion-dollar tobacco industry near Durham. “Cigarettes are big business in America now. And don’t you ever tell a soul,” Kitty confided with wicked delight, “but I smoke now and then.”

  How like her, Kit thought, impressed and amused.

  Kit told her that Señor Gaspencia had harbored dreams of growing grapes in the sandy soil near the river. Kitty thought it was a wonderful idea. “When we get to New York, I’ll have some scuppernong vines sent up from my farm, and we’ll bring them back here with us. Wouldn’t that be wonderful? To plant North Carolina scuppernong grapes in Spain and make our own rosé? Oh, Kit, we’re going to be so happy here, I know it!” She hugged her granddaughter tightly.

  Kit shared her joy, but wished she could renege on her promise. “I don’t want to go to New York. Not even for a little while.”

  “It won’t be so bad. And remember,” Kitty gently chided her, “your parents are only doing what they think is best for you. Give them a chance, you owe them that much. We’ll stay long enough to be fair, and then there won’t be any hard feelings when we leave. All right?” She pushed a strand of golden hair back from Kit’s forehead, thinking that looking at her was like gazing into a mirror of the past.

  Kit sighed, capitulating. She then said, “When I get my trust fund, I’ll pay you back. I promise.”

  “We’ll worry about that later; right now I think we’d better get into town and take care of the legalities. You say that someone else wants to buy it?”

  Kit nodded. She did not want to explain that!

  Kitty persisted. “I hope there won’t be any resentment, but I suppose it can’t be helped. We’re buying fair and square. They had their chance.”

  Kit quickly changed the subject. She did not want to think about how she’d hidden the sign. Nor did she want to think about how angry Kurt Tanner was going to be when he discovered she’d tricked him—again. Maybe, she decided, leaving Spain for a while wasn’t such a bad thing.

  By midafternoon the papers were signed, and they went to a respectable cantina to celebrate. The conversation went from the ranch, to the life Kit dreaded in New York, to her mother’s plans for her to marry soon, someone respectable.

  “I don’t know about that respectable business,” Kitty remarked, to her granddaughter’s surprise. “You’re too much like me, dear—wild, rebellious, free-spirited. You need a man like your grandfather.”

  “Aha!” Kit couldn’t help teasing, “Then you’re saying I’m as wild as you were…and I need a man to tame me!”

  “No,” Kitty replied, her voice serious. “Travis wasn’t like that at all. He let me be myself. I think that’s why I loved him so. He let me glory in being a woman, without feeling that it made him less of a man.”

  To Kit’s dismay, the image of Kurt Tanner suddenly appeared in her mind.

  Why had he invaded her thoughts at that moment?

  She despised him!

  Did she?

  Didn’t she?

  Lately, he was constantly stealing into her thoughts. She vividly remembered his warm kisses and soft caresses. Whenever she heard music, she thought of dancing in his arms, the way their bodies had molded together so naturally.

  What would it be like, she wondered, to surrender, to let him lead her to those mysterious pleasures she knew only in her passionate dreams? His touch drove her wild. She could still feel the shivers of delight that had rippled over her when he’d touched her where no man had before. He was irresistible, and he was also dangerous.

  ‘‘Kit!’’

  The sharpness in Kitty’s voice roused Kit from her reverie.

  “Darling, what…who were you thinking about just now? Your cheeks are flushed.” Kitty’s eyes narrowed suspiciously. “You know you can tell me anything. Who is he?”

  “Nobody…nothing,” Kit stammered. “I was thinking of the ranch…Pegasus, a million things. Not a man, though.”

  Kitty continued to look at her thoughtfully. Quietly she confided, “I’ve seen myself look like that in the mirror, when I was thinking about your grandfather.”

  “Well, I wasn’t thinking about a man,” Kit repeated.

  Kitty pushed back her chair. “I’ll be leaving early tomorrow morning. It’s a long trip, and I dread to think of all I’ve got to do if we’re to be ready in two weeks.”

  Stepping out into the late-afternoon sun, Kit shut her eyes against the sudden assault of light. “I didn’t realize we were in there so long,” she said, adding with a giggle, “and I’m afraid I had one sangria too many because I’m almost tipsy. Mother is going to want to know what we were celebrating, and—”

  Suddenly Kit collided with someone and stumbled slightly. Her heart turned over as she looked up into the warm, mocking eyes of Kurt Tanner.<
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  “Well, princesa, it seems fate decrees we meet again.”

  Kitty looked from Kurt to her granddaughter. In that instant, she knew that this was the man who was preoccupying Kit, and she instinctively approved of him.

  “Señor Kurt Tanner,” she said pleasantly, when Kit merely glared at him in icy silence. “I believe we met at the embassy ball in Madrid last November.”

  He took her hand. “Madame Coltrane, isn’t it? It’s very nice to see you again.” He then asked Kit if she was all right.

  “I’m just fine, thank you!” she responded curtly. She began to walk past him, but he moved to block her.

  “How’s my horse?”

  “He’s not your horse!” she fired back indignantly. “You signed him over to me. I won the wager, remember?”

  “It depends,” he drawled, “on whether you consider treachery an honest victory.”

  Kit was aware that her grandmother was listening to every word. She would no doubt have some explaining to do later, but at that moment, she was too angry to care. “I didn’t trick you. You never asked me if I had any experience. You were too busy behaving like the pompous egotist you are. Now, good day!”

  Again Kit tried to pass him, but he stepped in front of her. “You did trick me, Kit.”

  “If you don’t get out of my way—”

  “Kit, really!” Kitty admonished. She then said to Kurt, “It’s obvious you two have a difference of opinion over something, but this certainly isn’t the time to discuss it. Maybe you can call on Kit before she leaves for New York and straighten things out.”

  “New York?” Kurt raised an eyebrow. “You’re going to New York?”

  “Yes, my family is moving there,” she replied airily. “Now, since you and I have nothing further to discuss, perhaps you’ll stand aside, and let my grandmother and me continue on our way.” She cursed herself for looking at his lips, remembering how wonderful they felt pressed against her own. She hoped he could not hear the excited pounding of her heart.

  “What about the horse?”

  “What about him?” she snapped.