Kathleen took all of this in. She’d known that the woman Ben had loved had died, but she hadn’t realized there had been any sort of fight.
“Why were they fighting?” she asked.
The three women exchanged a look.
“He never told you?” Destiny asked.
“Not really. I just knew that he felt horribly guilty,” she said.
“Oh, please,” Destiny said. “Of course it was tragic, but Ben has absolutely nothing to feel guilty about. Not only was she far too drunk to get behind the wheel that night, but they fought in the first place because he’d caught her cheating on him. It wasn’t the first time, either, just the first time he’d seen it with his own eyes.”
“Oh, my,” Kathleen whispered. It was even worse than she’d thought. Ben had suffered not only a loss, but a betrayal. It was little wonder he didn’t trust anyone.
They’d all fallen silent then, Beth munching thoughtfully on chips while Melanie ate the last of the chocolate fudge ice cream from the half-gallon container. Kathleen picked disconsolately at her third slice of cheesecake. She was pretty sure if she finished it, she’d throw up, but she couldn’t seem to stop eating.
“I don’t think there’s anything any of us can do,” Kathleen ventured after a while. “Ben has to figure out for himself that I would never betray him. He has to want this relationship enough to get past his fear of loss. He has to see that either way he’s going to lose and at least if we’ve tried, he’ll have had something good for a while.”
“Good?” Beth asked in a mildly scolding tone. “Extraordinary. He’ll have had something extraordinary. Don’t lose sight of that, Kathleen. This isn’t just some happy little diversion. It’s the real deal.”
It was still hard for Kathleen to see herself in that kind of glowing light. She’d felt that way in Ben’s arms. She’d had a hint of it when he’d praised her painting, when he’d gone into raptures over her cooking. But those feelings of self-worth were new and fragile. It would be far too easy to retreat into the more familiar self-doubt.
“Thank you for reminding me of that,” she told Beth. “You have no idea how hard it is for me to remember that, especially this morning, but it’s coming back to me. I owe Ben and all of you for that.”
Beth gave her a curious look. “Is there a story there?”
“Yes,” she admitted. “But it’s not worth repeating ever again. I am finally going to put it where it belongs, in the past.”
“Good for you!” Melanie cheered.
“Does Ben know?” Destiny asked, a frown knitting her brow.
“Yes.”
“And he still walked out of here and left you feeling abandoned?” she said indignantly. “What is wrong with that man? Obviously I need to have another talk with him. In fact, right now I’d like to shake my nephew till something stirs in that thick head of his.”
“Don’t,” Kathleen pleaded, but her request fell on deaf ears. She’d seen the determined glint in Destiny’s eyes and known Ben was in for a blistering lecture. She tried to work up a little sympathy for him, but in the end she’d concluded he was only getting what he deserved. She had a few choice words she’d like to say to him herself. Too bad they hadn’t come to her before he’d slunk out of the gallery.
Now, though, with the hours crawling by and no word from Destiny or Ben, she had to wonder if Destiny had failed to get through to him, if it wasn’t over, after all, simply because Ben had decreed that it was. They said you couldn’t make a person fall in love with you, but she didn’t believe that was Ben’s problem. He had fallen in love with her. He was even willing to admit it. He just wasn’t willing to act on it, not in the happily-ever-after way she’d begun to long for. And in the end what difference did the admission make, if it wasn’t going to go anywhere?
She sighed and tried to concentrate on tallying up the day’s sales, but the numbers kept blurring through her tears. She needed to get out of the gallery. She needed to walk or maybe run.
She needed a drive in the country.
She sighed again. That was the last thing she dared to do. Going to Ben’s—going anywhere near Ben’s—was beyond self-destructive. It was stupid, foolish, pitiful. The list of adjectives went on and on.
None of them seemed to prevent her from getting into her car and driving out to Middleburg, but when she reached the entrance to the farm, her pride finally kicked in. She drove on past, then turned around, muttering another litany of derogatory adjectives about herself as she drove. She hadn’t done anything this adolescent and absurd since high school.
Thoroughly irritated with her cowardice and immaturity, she made herself turn in the gate and drive up to the house, determined to see Ben and clear the air. But when she got there, the studio and house were both dark as pitch, and Ben’s car was nowhere in sight.
Obviously, he wasn’t sitting around alone, moping about their relationship. Why should she? She should go back to town, open the gallery and take advantage of the last-minute Christmas shoppers roaming the streets.
In the end, though, she simply went home, too emotionally exhausted to cope with anything more than a hot bath and warm milk and her own lonely bed. With any luck Ben, who’d managed to torment her all day long, would stay the hell out of her dreams.
After forcing himself to go into Middleburg to grab a beer and some dinner after Destiny’s visit, Ben spent another tortured night dreaming of Kathleen and an endless stream of paintings that began as landscapes and turned into portraits, always of the same woman. By morning he was irritable and in no mood for the 7:00 a.m. phone call from his brother.
“You’d better read the paper,” Mack announced without preamble.
“Why?”
“Destiny and Pete Forsythe have struck again.”
“What the hell are you talking about?” he mumbled, still half-asleep, but coming awake fast.
“Get your paper, then call me back if you need to rant for a while. I’ve been through this, so you’ll get plenty of sympathy from me. Richard, too. This is vintage Destiny. It’s our aunt at her sneakiest.”
Ben dragged on a pair of faded jeans and raced downstairs, cursing a blue streak the whole way. He had a pretty good idea what to expect when he turned to Forsythe’s column. After all, the gossip columnist was Destiny’s messenger of choice when all her other tactics had failed. Letting the entire Metropolitan Washington region in on whichever Carlton romance wasn’t moving along to suit her was supposed to motivate all the parties. It was the kind of convoluted logic he’d never understood, but he couldn’t deny it had probably pushed things along for Richard and Mack, despite the havoc the column had wreaked at the time.
He opened the paper with some trepidation. There it was, summed up right in the headline: Art Dealer Courts Reclusive Carlton Heir.
“But is Alexandria art expert Kathleen Dugan, known for finding undiscovered talent, looking for something other than paintings to hang on the walls of her prestigious gallery?” Forsythe asked. “Word has it that she’s after something bigger this time. Marriage, perhaps?”
Ben groaned.
“That’s what insiders are telling us,” Forsythe continued, “but artist Ben Carlton, who rarely leaves his Middleburg farm, may be a reluctant participant in any wedding plans. Then, again, when it comes to the wealthy Carlton men, love does have a way of sneaking up on them when they least expect it. Stay tuned here for the latest word on when this last remaining Carlton bachelor bites the marital dust.”
Ben uttered a curse and threw the paper aside. “It’s not going to work, Destiny. Not this time. You’ve overplayed your hand.”
He picked up the phone, not to call Mack, but Destiny, then slowly hung up again before the call could go through. What was the point? This was what she did. She meddled. She did it because she loved them. Misguided as she might be, he could hardly rip her to shreds for acting on her convictions.
Unfortunately, he was at a loss when it came to figuring out a way to counterac
t that piece of trash that Forsythe had written based on his latest hot tip from Destiny. Truthfully, it didn’t matter to him all that much. He didn’t see enough people on a daily basis to worry about embarrassment or awkward explanations.
Kathleen, however, was right smack in the public eye all the time. He could just imagine the curiosity seekers this would send flooding into her gallery. Maybe she’d be grateful for the influx of business, but he doubted it.
He should call her, apologize for his aunt dragging her into the middle of this public spectacle, but he couldn’t see the point to that, either. The one thing Kathleen really wanted to hear from him he couldn’t say.
Of course, there was one thing he could do that would at least give people pause, if not make that article seem like a total lie. But did he have the courage to do it?
He spent the entire morning waging war with himself, but by noon he’d made a decision. He began crating up all the pictures in his studio. It took until midnight to get them boxed to his satisfaction. He’d gone about the task blindly, refusing to pause and look at his work for fear he’d change his mind. He owed this to Kathleen, this and more. Maybe if he gave her the showing she’d been working so hard to get, it would prove to the world that whatever was between them was all about his art.
Besides, with Christmas only two days away, it was the only gift he could come up with that he knew she truly wanted…and that he was capable of giving.
Christmas Eve day dawned bright and clear, but Kathleen thought she smelled a hint of snow in the air. The prospect of a white Christmas normally would have made her heart sing, but today all she could think about was what a nuisance it would be when it came time to drive to Providence, where her mother and grandparents were expecting her in time for midnight services at the church that the Dugans had attended for generations.
There still hadn’t been another peep from Ben. She’d thought for sure he would call when that ridiculous item had appeared in the morning paper the day before. He had to be as outraged as she was to see their private relationship played out for the entire world to speculate about over their morning coffee. Maybe he’d been too humiliated or, given the way he hid out at that farm of his and kept the world at arm’s distance, perhaps he hadn’t even seen it.
Despite her indignation when she’d first seen Pete Forsythe’s column, Kathleen had clipped it from the paper. Maybe it would serve as a reminder that she was still capable of misreading people. She took it out of her desk drawer now and read it yet again, shaking her head anew at the idea that anyone might actually care what was going on in her love life.
For all of its juicy, speculative tone, the column had gotten one thing right. She had started out wanting to represent Ben’s art and now she simply wanted him. Fortunately, neither Pete Forsythe nor his inside source—Destiny, she imagined—had any idea just how badly she wanted Ben. No, she corrected, Destiny did know, which made what she’d done unforgivable.
The truth was that Kathleen craved Ben’s touch, yearned for the times when he studied her with his penetrating, artist’s eye as if he were imagining her naked, in his studio…in his bed.
Despite their superficial differences—his privileged background, her childhood struggles and disastrous marriage, his need for privacy, hers for a constant, if somewhat impersonal, social whirl—Kathleen had the feeling that at their core they were very much alike. They were both searching for something that had been missing from their lives. She recognized that about herself, recognized that she’d found it in Ben. He hadn’t yet had that epiphany. It was possible, she was forced to admit, that he never would.
She’d discovered in that one glorious night they’d shared that he was a generous, attentive lover, a kind and gentle man, but he withheld a part of himself. She knew why that was. It couldn’t be any more plain, in fact. The strong, self-assured man she knew was, at heart, a kid terrified of losing someone important again, a kid who’d grown into a man who’d lost the woman he loved, as well. Three devastating, impossible-to-forget losses. Add in Graciela’s betrayal and it is was plain why he found it easier to keep her at a distance than to risk being shattered if she left or tragedy struck.
To a degree he even kept the family he adored at arm’s length, always preparing himself to cope in case something terrible happened and they disappeared from his life.
Unfortunately, Kathleen had absolutely no idea how to prove that she was in his life to stay, that her initial desire to represent his art had evolved into a passion for him, a passion that wasn’t going to die. It would take time and persistence to make him believe that. She had persistence to spare, but time was the one thing he obviously didn’t intend to give her, to give them. And how much good would it really do, anyway? His family had had a lifetime to convince him and it hadn’t been enough. Not to heal the pain caused by those who had gone.
Fortunately, on this last shopping day before Christmas, there wasn’t a single moment to dwell on any of this. From the moment she opened the shop’s door, she was deluged with customers, many of them no doubt drawn in by curiosity because of that stupid gossip column. Still, she was grateful, because it kept her busy, kept her from having to think.
By midafternoon she’d written up dozens of very nice sales and cleaned out a wealth of inventory. She was about to eat the chicken salad sandwich she’d brought from home when a delivery truck pulled up in front of the gallery, double parking on the busy street.
“What on earth?” she murmured when she recognized the same driver who’d brought her the art supplies. Could this possibly be another gift from Ben? Maybe a peace offering? How typical that he was having someone else deliver it, someone else face her.
She opened the door as the driver loaded his cart with what looked to be packing crates, the kind used for paintings. As the stack grew, her heart began to pound with an unmistakable mix of anticipation and dread.
“Merry Christmas, ma’am,” the driver said cheerfully as he guided the precariously balanced stack into the gallery’s warmth. “It’s a cold one out there. I’m thinking we’ll have snow on the ground by morning.”
“Seems that way to me, too,” Kathleen said, eyeing the bounty warily. “Is this from Mr. Carlton?”
“Yes, ma’am. Picked it up from him first thing this morning. He was real anxious for you to get it, but traffic’s a bear out there, so it took me a while to get over here.” He eyed the stack with a frown. “You need me to help you open these?”
“No, thanks. I’m used to opening crates like this,” she said, offering him a large tip. “Merry Christmas.”
Once he had gone, she stood and stared at the overwhelming number of paintings Ben had sent. The temptation to rip into them and get her first glimpse of the art he’d been denying her was overwhelming, but she resisted.
So, she thought, running her fingers over one of the crates, this was it. He’d thrown down the gauntlet. She was filled with a sudden, gut-deep fear that this was either a test or, far worse, a farewell gift. Whichever he’d meant it to be, she knew she couldn’t accept. If she did, it would destroy all hope. It would be the end of the most important thing that had ever happened to her, perhaps to either of them.
She looked at her copy of the receipt the driver had given her and immediately called the delivery service. “Do you have the ability to get in touch with one of your drivers?” she asked.
“Yes, ma’am, but most of them are coming in for the day. It’s Christmas Eve and they’re getting off early.”
She explained who she was. “Your driver just left here not five minutes ago. I need him to come back. I know it’s an inconvenience, but please tell him I’ll make it worth his while. It’s very important.”
Apparently the dispatcher caught the urgency in her voice, because he said, “Sit tight, ma’am. I’ll do what I can.”
Ten minutes later the truck pulled up outside and the driver came in.
“Is there something wrong, Ms. Dugan? Was there a problem with the ship
ment?”
“Yes, you could say that,” she said. “I need you to take all of this back to Mr. Carlton, please.”
“Now?” he asked incredulously, then took a good, long look at her face and nodded slowly. “No problem. I’ll be happy to do it.”
She dragged out her checkbook. “Name your price.”
He shook his head. “It’s on me, ma’am. Headquarters is out that way, anyway.” He grinned at her. “Besides, I read that stuff that was in the paper about the two of you. I figured this might have something to do with that. I want to see the look on Mr. Carlton’s face when all of this lands right back on his doorstep.”
Filled with a sudden burst of expectancy, Kathleen found herself returning his smile. “Yes. I’m rather anxious to see that myself. In fact, I’ll be right behind you.”
Ben Carlton was not going to toss potentially thousands of dollars in paintings at her and convince her she’d won. Until they were together—truly, happily-ever-after together—neither one of them would have won a blasted thing.
Chapter Fifteen
Mack and Richard converged on the farm twenty minutes after Ben had sent the shipment of paintings off to Kathleen.
“Why didn’t you ever call me back yesterday?” Mack demanded.
“We’d have been here sooner, but I didn’t want to leave Melanie alone at the house,” Richard said. “Beth’s there now, watching her like a hawk, I hope. Melanie keeps trying to slip out to finish her Christmas shopping. I swear that baby is going to be born in an aisle at some boutique.”
Ben chuckled. “Bro, I think you’re fighting a losing battle. If Melanie wants to shop, you should know by now that you’re not going to stop her.”
Richard raked a hand through his hair, then stopped himself. “Yeah, I’m beginning to get that,” he admitted with evident frustration. “I swear to God, though, I’m going to be bald by the time this kid gets here.”
Millionaires' Destinies Page 55
