Ready for Marriage?

by Beverly Barton; Ann Major Anne Marie Winston

  Sighing, Kate picked up her mug and took several swallows of the delicious tea. Ah, how soothing, how warming. Odd that although she’d never drank anything except iced tea until she married Trent, once Aunt Mary Belle had introduced her to the delicate, distinct taste of Earl Grey, she’d become a lifelong convert. Looking back, she had to admit that all her memories of her ex-husband’s overbearing aunt weren’t bad. And as much as she had resented the woman’s constant tutelage, she had learned a great deal from the old biddy.

  Why waste time thinking about that woman? Kate wouldn’t have to see her or speak to her. At least she’d been spared that much on this trip. She would leave Prospect first thing in the morning and go straight back to Memphis, where the investigation into finding the birth parents of hundreds of kidnapped children was in full swing. Trent could do as he pleased. She’d done her duty—she’d informed him about the situation.

  Just as she began to relax—the aftereffects of the hot bath she’d taken a few minutes ago, the soothing tea and the comfy clothes—someone knocked at her hotel door. Trent? Damn, why was he the first thing that popped into her mind. Wishful thinking?

  Kate stood, walked across the room and peered through the peephole. Mary Belle Winston! The last person on earth she ever wanted to see again. Damn. Double damn.

  Go away, old woman, and leave me the hell alone. I don’t want to talk to you.

  Kate hesitated. Mary Belle knocked on the door repeatedly. Good grief, why wouldn’t she go away?

  “Katherine, I know you’re in there,” Mary Belle said. “I spoke to the desk clerk and he informed me that Ms. Malone was definitely in her room.”

  Blast! She’d have to speak to Brian Walding! How dare he give out any information about her, least of all her room number. But then considering who Mary Belle was in this town, he’d probably felt he had little choice. Either kowtow to the grande dame or risk losing his job.

  After breathing in deeply and exhaling slowly, she squared her shoulders, stood straight and tall, and then said a please-God-help-me prayer before opening the door. “Hello, Miss Mary Belle.”

  “May I come in?”

  Kate looked at Trent’s aunt, really looked at her and was surprised by how much she had aged in the past eleven years. She no longer colored her hair so it was now a stunning snow-white. Delicate wrinkles lined her face, especially around her eyes and mouth. Never a beautiful woman, but always extremely well-groomed and attractive, Mary Belle still maintained that air of old south elegance few women could pull off in this day and time. Kate’s gaze traveled from the older but familiar face to the ever present pearls that had belonged to Mary Belle’s grandmother. And then Kate saw the cane.

  “All right, come on in.” Kate stepped aside to allow the woman entrance.

  When Mary Belle entered the room, Kate noticed how heavily she braced herself on the cane, her steps slow and precise. What was it that Mr. Walding had said? Something about Mary Belle still presiding over Prospect society despite the stroke she’d had this past year?

  “Not a very gracious response,” Mary Belle said as she walked over and sat down in one of the two lounge chairs. “Your reply should have been ‘yes, Miss Mary Belle, please come in.’ And then you should have said—”

  “Don’t lecture me!” Kate slammed the door.

  “I see you haven’t changed,” Mary Belle said.

  Kate faced her nemesis. “And neither have you.” Kate stomped across the room, acid churning in her stomach.

  “That’s where you’re wrong, my dear.” Mary Belle looked up, focusing her keen dark eyes on Kate. “Perhaps superficially I’m unchanged. I still do my best to rule Prospect society and I’m still an opinionated, domineering old maid who meddles in her nephew’s life. But I’m now capable of admitting when I’m wrong and—” she took a deep breath “—I was wrong about you, Kate.”

  Kate stared at Trent’s aunt, wary of her solicitous comment, suspicious of Mary Belle saying she was wrong about anything, especially Kate. “Why are you here? What do you want?”

  Mary Belle sighed. Still dramatic, too, Kate thought.

  “Those are my questions precisely,” Mary Belle said. “Why are you here in Prospect, after so many years? And what do you want with Trent?”

  “Didn’t he tell you?” Kate flopped down in the other lounge chair and crossed her arms over her chest. She wanted to get this visit over with as quickly as possible.

  “Trent told me nothing. I wouldn’t have known you’d paid him a visit had I not been looking out my bedroom window when you left. I recognized you immediately, of course, and summoned Guthrie. He said you’d visited Trent, but stayed only a few minutes and that Trent stormed out of the house and drove off somewhere directly after you left. So, I assumed that he—”

  “Followed me?” Kate laughed sarcastically. “Were you afraid he’d come after me and I might manage to get my hooks back into him?”

  “You’re terribly bitter, aren’t you?” Mary Belle shook her head sadly. “Of course I don’t blame you. But I had hoped that after all these years your anger at us—at me in particular—might have lessened.”

  Utterly confused by Mary Belle’s comment, Kate glared at the old woman. “Look, Trent didn’t follow me. He’s not here. And I have no intention of seeing him again before I leave Prospect in the morning.”

  “That’s a pity.”

  Kate shook her head in bewilderment. “Am I supposed to know what you mean by that?”

  “No, probably not.” Mary Belle leaned forward toward Kate. “I can think of only one reason you’d ever come back to Prospect—you’ve learned something about our precious Mary Kate’s fate, haven’t you?”

  Kate swallowed the knot of emotion threatening to choke her. Despite all her faults, Trent’s aunt had, as far as Kate was concerned, possessed one redeeming quality—she had loved Mary Kate and been devoted to the child. Selflessly devoted.

  “I came here to give Trent some information about the possibility that it’s only a matter of a few days before Mary Kate’s whereabouts are known.”

  Mary Belle gasped. “Then she—she is alive?”

  “Yes, I believe she is. I’ve never thought she was dead.”

  “Please, my dear, tell me everything.”

  Kate relayed the information to Trent’s aunt, who sat there spellbound while Kate talked. Tears glistened in Mary Belle’s brown eyes. She blinked several times, then reached inside her coat pocket and retrieved a lace handkerchief. After lowering her glasses, she wiped her eyes.

  “If I know my nephew—and I do—he stubbornly refused to believe there’s a chance one of these little girls is our Mary Kate. And he probably even said that even if one of them was his child, it was too late to make her a part of his life again.”

  Kate nodded. “You do know him well, don’t you?”

  “He’ll change his mind.”

  “I doubt it. Trent never changes his mind. Once he decides on something, he—”

  “He’s still stubborn, but not quite as bullheaded as he used to be. And he’s no longer as arrogant and self-centered as he once was.” Mary Belle reached across the table and grasped Kate’s hand. “Losing Mary Kate…and losing you changed him. In some ways for the better, but in other ways, for the worse. But take my word for it, he will change his mind about wanting to find out if one of these girls is his daughter.”

  Kate snatched her hand away, then before she thought through her response, she said, “I’ll give you my cell phone number, so if Trent wants to get in touch with me, he can.” How stupid was that? her inner voice asked. You don’t want to see him again, don’t want to feel physically or emotionally drawn to a man who hates you. The last thing she needed was Trent Winston back in her life under any circumstances. She’d done what she thought was right—given him the information. If he chose to continue believing their daughter was dead…

  “I’ll go now,” Mary Belle said. “I appreciate your talking to me. I would have understood i
f you’d slammed the door in my face.”

  When Mary Belle rose to her feet, slowly and awkwardly, Kate stopped herself from offering to help the old woman. Bearing her weight on the cane, Mary Belle walked toward the door. Kate stood and followed her.

  When Mary Belle reached the door, she turned to face Kate. “Regardless of what Trent does…if it turns out that I’m wrong about him getting involved—would you…please…let me know what happens. If Mary Kate is alive, I’d very much like to know.”

  Willing herself not to cry, Kate nodded as unshed tears stung her eyes and nose. “You do understand that you have no legal right to interfere in any decisions I make about my daughter, don’t you?”

  “Kate, all I want is to know if she’s alive. Even if I never see her—” Mary Belle’s voice cracked. “Just a phone call…one phone call. That’s all I ask. You don’t have to give me any details.”

  “All right. If one of these girls is Mary Kate, I’ll let you know.”

  “Thank you, my dear.”

  Kate opened the door. Mary Belle walked out and into the corridor and kept going, not once looking back. Her steps were very slow. Just as the old woman neared the end of the short hallway, Kate caught a glimpse of Guthrie taking her arm and leading her away. With a heavy sigh, Kate went back into her room and closed the door.

  What the hell had just happened?

  Had Mary Belle actually mellowed with age? Had she changed so much that Kate thought she might actually like Trent’s aunt? Or had she been putting on an act, playing nice-nice in order to get what she wanted? What difference did it make? Mary Belle had no control over her. Kate didn’t have to jump through hoops to please her, not ever again.

  Kate turned off all the lights in the room, except the one on the nightstand, then she slipped out of her robe, tossed it into one of the lounge chairs and spread out sideways across the bed. She rested there, out from under the covers, her gaze riveted to the ten-foot ceiling. With her eyes wide open memories flashed through her mind. Memories she wanted to forget.

  The first time Trent and she made love. Her expensive, elaborate wedding, coordinated by Aunt Mary Belle. Her pleas with Trent to move out of Winston Hall and into a home of their own. The day Mary Kate was born. Love. Happiness. Frustration. So many emotions swirled about inside her. The day her daughter was kidnapped. Fear. Anger. Anguish.

  She lay there, mired in self-pity, her mind filled with memories, her heart breaking as if only today her world had fallen apart and she had lost her child and the only man she’d ever loved. She seldom allowed herself to have a case of poor-old-Kate, but just this once, she thought she was due—maybe overdue.

  Trent drove his old Jaguar at demonic speed along the back roads of Bayard County. He seldom got behind the wheel of this classic car because it brought back too many memories of his life with Kate. Damn her for returning to Prospect. He’d spent over ten years trying to wipe her memory from his mind and had halfway convinced himself that he’d done just that. It had taken him a long time to forgive her and even longer to forget her and move on with his life. Only recently had he even considered the possibility of remarrying. He had avoided serious relationships as if they were a plague. But after dating Molly Stoddard for the past year, he’d convinced himself that she was the type of woman he needed. A woman from a well-to-do old Eufala family, a lawyer who had relocated to Prospect with her two children after her husband’s untimely death three years ago and who now worked in Trent’s family’s firm. They had a great deal in common, knew all the same people, enjoyed many of the same things. And he liked her children, eight-year-old Seth and ten-year-old Lindy.

  But you aren’t in love with Molly, he reminded himself tonight, as he’d done repeatedly during the past few weeks, every time he thought about proposing to her. As far as he was concerned it was better for Molly and him that they weren’t in love. They cared for each other, respected each other and shared a true friendship. He’d been so crazy in love with Kate that she had consumed him completely. He’d never felt about another woman the way he’d felt about her. And look how badly that had ended. They had hurt each other unbearably. He had disappointed her, had let her down and she’d ripped the heart right out of him when she left.

  God help him, it still hurt. Hurt like hell. He wanted to think he was indifferent to Kate, that she meant nothing to him now. But the memories wouldn’t hurt so damn bad unless he still felt something for her. So what did he feel for Kate? Anger. Distrust. Most definitely. But the sexual attraction that had once been so powerful between them was still there, at least on his part. He’d like to deny it, but he couldn’t. Okay, so part of what he was feeling was just good old-fashioned lust. He could deal with that, couldn’t he? Yeah, sure. All he had to do was avoid Kate.

  But what about your daughter? What about Mary Kate? a tormenting inner voice asked. She’s dead, he told himself. He shouldn’t let Kate’s enthusiasm affect him. Just because she believed a little girl who’d been kidnapped by some child abduction ring as an infant was Mary Kate, didn’t make it so. Let Kate believe in miracles, let her cling to the dream that their child was still alive and they’d someday be reunited with her. He couldn’t share that dream. For him that dream was a nightmare. He’d realized a few months after Mary Kate was stolen from them that the only way he could function, the only way he could survive and not fall apart completely was to let go of his daughter. Everyone involved in Mary Kate’s kidnapping case—from local and state law enforcement to the FBI—had told them the odds were that they’d never see their child again, that if she hadn’t been found within a month or less, they had to stop hoping, consider her lost to them forever and move on. He’d done that. Kate hadn’t. In a way, his ex-wife had been far stronger than he, even if she had suffered an emotional breakdown. Even now, after all this time, she clung to the hope that she would find their daughter.

  Trent hadn’t been able to tell Kate eleven years ago that the reason he chose not to hope, chose to relinquish the dream of being reunited with Mary Kate, was because he didn’t have the courage to face each new day with the agonizing questions of where their child was, what was happening to her, if she was being taken care of or being abused. He’d chosen the easiest route to recovery by convincing himself that their baby girl was dead.

  What if Kate’s right? What if the FBI locates Mary Kate? Didn’t he want to see his daughter? Didn’t he want to know firsthand that she was well and happy and loved?

  Trent’s cell phone rang. He slowed the Jag, removed the phone from its holder and punched the On button. “Trenton Winston.”

  “She’s at the Magnolia House,” his aunt Mary Belle said. “I made some inquiries to find out if she was still in town. She is. But I suggest you go see her tonight. My guess is she’ll be gone by morning.”

  Before he could reply, his aunt hung up on him. Damn infuriating woman! How did she even know Kate was in Prospect? Had Guthrie told her that Kate had come to Winston Hall? Or had she seen Kate when she arrived or when she left? Aunt Mary Belle knows, he told himself, she knows Mary Kate may be alive. If she knew, that meant she’d talked to Kate. God help us all. What had it been like when those two had met again face-to-face?

  Trent realized what he wanted to do, what he had to do. Deny it all he liked, the bottom line was that if his daughter was still alive, he had to know. He was older now, maybe a little wiser and a heck of a lot tougher than he’d been eleven years ago. Whatever happened, he could handle it and maybe this time he could actually help his wife—make that his ex-wife—through whatever lay ahead for them. He owed her that much, didn’t he? He’d failed her miserably in the past.

  Twenty minutes later, Trent parked his Jag in the rear parking area, got out, locked his car and headed for the Magnolia House’s back entrance. When the cold night wind chilled his face, he flipped up the collar on his suede jacket. He swung open the hotel’s back door, then walked down the hall and into the lobby area. He didn’t know the clerk by name, although
his face looked familiar.

  “Good evening,” Trent said.

  “Good evening, Judge Winston,” the man replied.

  “I believe you have a Ms. Kate Malone staying here.”

  “Yes, we do. She’s in room one-oh-four.”

  Trent eyed the man whose name tag read B. Walding. “I thought y’all weren’t allowed to give out guests’ room numbers.”

  “Ordinarily we’re not,” Mr. Walding said. “But since Ms. Malone is your ex-wife and you’re who you are and all…well, it’s like Miss Mary Belle said—”

  “So my aunt has been here to see Kate…to see Ms. Malone?”

  “Yes, sir. She left about thirty minutes ago and she did mention on her way out that you’d probably be stopping by to see your wife…your ex-wife.”’

  Trent nodded, offered Mr. Walding a weak smile and glanced around trying to decide which corridor led to one-oh-four.

  “To your right,” the clerk told him.

  “Thanks.”

  Nervous and unsure of how Kate would react to him just showing up, Trent marched down the hall. When he stood outside the door to one-oh-four, he hesitated. Once he knocked on the door, there would be no turning back.

  He knocked several times. No response. He knocked again, harder this time.

  He heard the sound of movement from inside the room, then footsteps. The door flew open and Kate stood there in a pair of baggy, bright pink pajamas, her long blond hair disheveled and her face void of makeup. And heaven help him, she was the sexiest thing he’d ever seen.

  She stared up at him with those big, sky blue eyes of hers and his stomach knotted painfully. He remembered only too well how he’d felt the first time she’d zeroed those baby blues in on him. He’d gotten an instant hardon. If he’d been honest with himself at that moment, he’d have known he was a goner. He’d never wanted anything as much as he’d wanted Kate Malone.