Whereas her sister wouldn’t meet her gaze, Rick did. Those gorgeous eyes stared into hers. From a quick glance, he looked as if he hadn’t slept well. Razor stubble covered his face and dark circles swept beneath his eyes. He looked as awful as she felt and she hated being the cause.
“Hi.” She forced a smile.
He didn’t return the gesture. “Hi, yourself.”
Kendall didn’t know what to say to him and apparently the feeling was mutual because silence descended, making her stomach cramp and her nerve endings tingle. Without warning, Hannah rose from her seat, pushing her chair back with a screech, making a huge amount of noise, and breaking the charged, silent connection between Kendall and Rick.
Without a word, Hannah started to walk away from the table.
“Where are you going?” Kendall asked.
“Bathroom. You two make me gag.” Then she glanced at Rick. And winked.
Kendall sighed. The little traitor was leaving on purpose, to give Kendall and Rick time alone. Before she could stop her, Hannah stalked toward the back hall.
“I didn’t put her up to that.” Rick leaned back in his seat.
“I didn’t think you had.” Since Kendall knew she’d shut him out of her life last night, he wouldn’t orchestrate time alone with her now.
Rick’s eyes had twinkled with laughter at her sister’s antics but when he focused on Kendall, his expression turned blank. He’d drawn a shutter over his emotions and closed her out. Though she deserved the reciprocal wall he’d erected, she hated the strain between them, hated more that she’d forced him to put distance between them. She simply didn’t know how to handle things now.
He stretched an arm over the back of his seat in a casual, masculine gesture that flexed the muscles in his forearms and pulled his T-shirt tight across his broad chest. “Hannah tells me you’re selling the house and leaving town.” His voice held not a hint of emotion or caring.
After the intimacy they’d shared, a virtual stranger sat across from her. She hated that too and a huge lump formed in her throat and remained. This is what you
wanted, Kendall, she reminded herself. No ties, no strings, no attachments. Just the freedom to pack up and move at will. No one close enough to leave you behind or push you away. No one who held the power to hurt her at all.
Exactly the life she’d always chosen and the one she’d opted for again since last night. But if she’d gone back to a lifestyle she preferred, then why did she feel so god-awful now? Kendall had a hunch and the answer scared her so much that she refused to deal with the strangling emotions hovering just out of reach.
Focus on the mundane, she told herself. “I haven’t listed it yet but Tina Roberts called and she thinks she can get a nice amount of money for the house and property. Less because of the stipulation I insisted on but a good enough amount for Hannah and me to start over. Somewhere.” Her own thoughts and words threatened to choke her and she had to forcibly swallow over the lump in her throat before continuing. “Arizona’s probably where we’ll head next.”
He nodded and clenched his jaw tight, obviously unwilling to give her the satisfaction of letting her see an emotional reaction to her words. “What stipulation?” he asked instead.
“Pearl and Eldin get to move to the guest house and live there rent-free. As long as they maintain the place, I’m hoping someone will agree. I can’t displace them.” She couldn’t imagine the elderly couple who lived in sin residing anywhere but Aunt Crystal’s house.
“Did you tell them yet?”
She shook her head. Another thing she couldn’t bring herself to face. But no matter her own feelings, she owed Rick an explanation for her sudden remote behavior. He’d been so good to her and her sister, and he’d suffered much in the past. She didn’t want him to think he’d done anything or was the cause of her inability to stay around. “Rick, listen. I just want you to know—”
“Don’t.” His eyes flashed angry sparks, hurt and betrayal evident in his stare and his taut expression. “Don’t apologize or tell me how much you care.”
“Even if I do?” She rubbed her hands against her jeans. He shrugged. “What good does it do me? Or you for that matter? Besides, you told me up front you wouldn’t stay. I just thought this town and its people would grow on you. That I would grow on you.”
She blinked back tears. “You did.”
His stern expression didn’t falter. “So what? Your words don’t change a damn thing. You’re unable to commit, unwilling to face your fears.” Without warning he rose from his seat, towering over her, a giant in both stature and strength of emotion. “And you know what?”
“What?” she whispered.
“I’m disappointed in you.”
The dim light in his eyes backed up his harsh words and she flinched. Kendall had expected many emotions from Rick, anger being the primary one. She hadn’t anticipated his intense disappointment nor could she believe how small and defeated she felt, having let him down.
Every experience she’d had since coming to this small town had been foreign and new. Frightening for someone who’d never known stability or family. How dare Rick condemn her for it? “Well, I’m so sorry I’m a disappointment, Officer Chandler. But like you said, it’s not like I wasn’t up front with you from day one.”
“And you backed up your words with actions. Congratulations.” He clapped his hands in a slow round of applause. “You came here running from a situation in New York, and you’ll leave here the same way. Running from me.” His palm came to rest on the tabletop as he leaned in closer. “But remember something, Kendall. You can’t run from yourself or your own feelings. Someday they’re bound to catch up with you. Excuse me if I don’t wait around for that time to come.”
He straightened his shoulders and met her gaze with a lingering look. “Sorry to sound like a cliché but we could have had it all.” He shook his head, turned, and walked away.
Not once during his exit from the restaurant did he look back. But his words remained long after he was gone, reverberating inside her head until it pounded.
“Oh, God.” She lay her forehead against her hands. “You blew it, didn’t you?” Hannah’s verbal condemnation came on the heels of Rick’s abrupt departure.
Kendall lifted her bleary gaze and glanced around before dealing with her sister. Every surrounding table was filled with eavesdroppers eager to catch the gist of Kendall’s next confrontation. Heck, she wondered if they weren’t taking notes.
Since this day just seemed to get better and better, she might as well face Hannah now, she thought, meeting her sister’s expectant gaze.
“Well? Did you blow it with Rick or not?”
“I suppose it depends on your definition of blowing it.”
Hannah had obviously reapplied shocking pink lipstick while in the ladies’ room and her full, colored lips turned downward in a frown. “I left you alone with him. All you had to do was say you’d stay. Say you loved him. Say anything but you didn’t, did you? And now he’s gone,” she said, her voice rising along with her hysteria.
“Hannah, please.” Kendall clenched her fists and fought down the rising tide of embarrassment. Kendall had come to care what these good people thought. “Can you lower your voice?”
“Why?” Hannah practically shouted. “Everyone’s already watching you. Which reminds me. I heard someone in the bathroom say something about you and that picture last night. What picture?” She barely paused for breath. “What’d I miss? And how bad did you screw things up with Rick?”
Kendall groaned and rested her head in her hands, massaging her aching temples. She was dizzy and nausea rose quickly.
“Kendall?” Hannah asked, more quietly this time. “Hmm?” She barely raised her gaze as she answered. Her head hurt, she was emotionally spent yet Hannah had an agenda that wouldn’t be deterred.
“Did I mention I stuffed Norman’s toilet and it’s overflowing?”
“Oh, God.” That got Kendall’s adrenaline
flowing again and she jumped up and flagged Izzy down.
“Just a second,” the older woman called.
“But . . .” Kendall tried to catch her but Izzy disappeared into the kitchen before returning with food on her tray and heading in the opposite direction.
“It wasn’t my fault. I mean it was an accident, I swear,” Hannah continued at full speed.
“An accident? This from the girl who stuffed the toilet in the teachers’ lounge at Vermont Acres?”
Her sister had the good grace to blush before going on with her rambling explanation. “The garbage was full and the paper towels from washing my hands kept falling onto the floor.” She gestured wildly with her hands. “And I wouldn’t normally care, ya know? But you’re always saying to be polite and clean up after myself, so I tried to flush them down the toilet instead. See? An accident.” She shrugged too innocently in Kendall’s opinion.
“Isabelle!” Norman’s voice bellowed from the back hall. “Damn toilet’s overflowing,” the owner of the restaurant yelled in an extremely pissed-off tone.
Kendall lowered herself back into her seat. She tried unsuccessfully to blink back tears and when that didn’t work, she lay her head back in her hands so she could alternately cry and laugh hysterically.
Her life had become a complete and utter mess. And based on Hannah’s acting out, her inquisitive questions, and push for Kendall’s reconciliation with Rick, things weren’t about to get easier anytime soon.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Kendall dragged herself home after the episode at Norman’s. She’d let Hannah leave with Jeannie and her parents while Kendall had stayed until the plumber arrived and she’d been successful on insisting he send her the bill. She walked up the front stoop, pausing when the obvious aroma of chocolate assaulted her senses, giving her a needed boost of energy.
She knelt down in front of the foil-covered plate on the stoop and lifted the white note taped to the top, reading aloud. “Kendall Dear. Your favorite comfort food at a time you need comfort badly. It’s the least family can do. Ignore the gossips and they’ll get bored quickly. Hugs and kisses, Pearl and Eldin.”
It’s the least family can do. “Family.”
The word seemed to come up again and again, mocking her. Until her move here, Kendall had considered herself more a loner than someone with connections, especially family connections. She had kept everyone on the periphery of her life, even Hannah. And they’d both paid for that lapse, Kendall thought sadly.
Yet here were Pearl and Eldin, whom she’d just met, worried about her feelings and taking her into their life because they cared. Just like Raina Chandler, like Charlotte and Roman, Beth . . . the list of people who cared for Kendall seemed to go on and on. Yet wasn’t she equally concerned about them?
She wiped a tear from her cheek, one she hadn’t realized she’d shed. And what about Pearl and Eldin, she thought, taking in the brownies. How could she tell them they needed to move out of the large house into the smaller one just so she could sell the home out from under them?
The same way she’d told her sister she was taking her away from Yorkshire Falls, that’s how. And the same way she’d ignored Rick’s words. I love you, he’d said. And she’d walked away anyway. She shivered despite the heat, realizing she still stood on the porch.
With a sigh, she picked up the plate of brownies and let herself inside. Happy made a beeline across the house to greet her at the front door. Tail wagging, he jumped on her, his front paws nearly hitting her plate.
“Happy, down.”
Her stern voice worked. The dog settled at her feet in a sitting position, but his tail still wagged with glee. “At least someone’s happy to see me today.” After putting her things down in the kitchen, she gave the dog the attention he craved, and he reciprocated, the laps of his tongue and his furry acceptance almost more than she could handle.
He loved her unconditionally and all he asked in return was that she love him back. Despite the fact that she’d been a perfect stranger until last night, he trusted her to provide him with that safe haven and love he sought.
And she would. So why couldn’t she trust the same way? When had her life become so complicated, Kendall wondered. She walked to the window, Happy at her side, and looked out at the backyard, at the stretch of green grass and trees she remembered from childhood. The sight brought her back to the tea parties with Aunt Crystal where the stuffed animals were the guests. Kendall realized now that her aunt had used the animals as weights to prevent the towel they sat on from blowing away in the wind. But she didn’t care. The animals had consumed her tea and they hadn’t answered back or interrupted her stories.
Neither, she remembered, had Aunt Crystal. A smile tipped her lips at the wonderful memory. One that didn’t bring her pain, only comfort, and she hugged the dog close. With the memory came the answer to her earlier question. Kendall couldn’t give blind trust the way Happy did because she was human. She had memories, both good and bad, which shaped the person she’d become. An empty, distrustful person, she thought sadly.
Even Rick, who’d been burned badly once before, had opened his heart. And she’d destroyed any love and respect he’d once had.
You’re unable to commit, unwilling to face your fears, he’d said. And I’m disappointed in you.
His words had been like a punch in the stomach, then and now. They’d had the same emotional impact Aunt Crystal’s words had when she’d told Kendall she couldn’t stay in Yorkshire Falls. The same impact her parents’ second departure had had, the day they’d packed Hannah off for boarding school and left again for parts unknown. Kendall wrapped her arms around her waist, trying to get past the remembered pain.
Rick was right. She couldn’t trust because she hadn’t faced her fears. She hadn’t dealt with her past, but she was dealing now. Because she’d already lost Rick, was on the verge of losing Hannah, and she realized, probably too late, that she no longer wanted to be alone.
The irony was clear. The very life she’d always run from was the life she’d secretly craved. The startling thought ricocheted through her brain. The little girl who’d loved tea parties had subconsciously dreamed of having a family of her own. People who loved her. People she trusted to be there in good times and bad.
But since her parents hadn’t been those people in her formative years and Aunt Crystal couldn’t be, Kendall had closed herself off to any more hurt, disappointment, or pain. Her first step had been to convince herself that by the time she was eighteen and her parents left again, she was already so estranged that she didn’t care where they went or what they did. But she’d lied to herself, she realized now.
Losing parents in any way, at any age, hurt badly. She’d lost hers twice, both times because they’d rather travel than be with her, and the effect on her psyche had been devastating. She’d withdrawn so far from her emotions it was amazing Rick had been able to break through at all.
But he had. And she loved him too. She swallowed hard, the pain in her chest and the knot in her throat hard to bear. She loved him yet she’d pushed him away. In falling back on old habits and patterns, she’d hurt a man who’d taken the greatest risk of all and reached out to her despite his past hurt.
There was no possible way Rick could ever forgive her nor could he begin to understand what drove her need to remain in a self-contained cocoon of safety. Unfortunately she no longer felt as safe or protected as she once had. Instead she felt ripped raw, exposed, and she hurt badly. But if she hurt, she was feeling. For the first time.
Which meant just maybe she had a future.
Raina sat in the living room of Eric’s house while he made himself busy doing heaven knew what. She didn’t mind, rather she enjoyed the solitary time she spent in his home. It had been too long since she’d enjoyed the sounds of a man puttering around her and she savored the feeling. Soon she’d have even more family around her when Eric’s daughters and their children arrived.
Raina couldn’t wait to
spend the time with them and her heart swelled at being included and accepted. Eric planned a quiet afternoon at home and dinner at Norman’s in deference to her charade. He didn’t approve of her faking a heart condition but he accepted, his only stipulation that if ever directly questioned by Raina’s sons, he refused to lie.
Which was why his associate, Dr. Leslie Gaines, was now her doctor of record. Personal and professional lives should be kept separate anyway though at this point, it didn’t much matter. Roman knew, Rick had just found out, and no doubt they’d fill Chase in next.
“I’m sorry to have kept you waiting,” Eric said as he joined her in the living room and sat by her side on the white sofa.
In his striped polo shirt and khaki pants, he looked handsome. Her heart fluttered each time he walked into a room, a sensation she still hadn’t gotten used to after being a widow for twenty years, but a feeling she definitely enjoyed. Eric’s attention made her feel years younger and she thanked God every day for a second chance at happiness— the same happiness she wanted for all three of her sons.
“I had some paperwork I had to finish up. But now I’m yours for the day,” he said, a pleased smile on his face.
“That’s wonderful.”
“Then why do you sound so miserable?” He turned toward her, taking her hand in his.
She shook her head. “Not miserable. Just a bit worried about Rick and Kendall.”
He let out a sigh. “I understand. That display the other night was completely inappropriate. Is Rick any closer to finding out who switched pictures?”
Out of respect for her middle son and his hurt over her actions, Raina had tried hard not to meddle more or ask him too many questions. But this one she did know the answer to. “He has a hunch it was Lisa Burton but he can’t prove anything.”
“Lisa?” Eric’s eyes opened wide. “Now that’s a shock. I’ll assume jealousy was the motive but I can’t believe she’d go to such extremes to find information on Kendall’s past. She had to have dug deep or how else would she have found something to embarrass poor Kendall with?”
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