With that knowledge firmly in her mind, Kendra had made the decision to just enjoy her time with the man while she could. She’d made the decision at the start that she would enjoy whatever happened between them. She’d told herself that if she fell in love, to just embrace the fact that she’d experience something new and revel in the fact that it had happened. And that was what she was doing.
She loved Nick. Loved everything about him. But she wasn’t likely to tell him, and she wasn’t stupid enough to think that anything would come of it. To be frank, she’d been lucky that she’d had so much time with him as it was. Almost every day she expected him to come into the diner with the news that he’d gotten a call from his boss with his next assignment. Every day that it didn’t come she felt lucky to have an extra amount of time to spend with him.
“I’ve been meaning to ask you something,” his voice said from above her, and Kendra abandoned her thoughts to concentrate on the here and now.
“What’s that then?”
“I was wondering how things have been with your parents,” he said hesitantly, and Kendra tensed. Obviously noticing the change in her, Nick tightened his embrace around her to ease and relax her before speaking again. “I know we’ve never really talked about our first meeting, but I care about you, Kendra, and it was a big thing at the time, big enough to send you around the country. I guess I was curious how everything had worked out in the end.”
“What end?” she asked ruefully.
“What do you mean?”
“I don’t have anything to do with them, Nick,” she explained with a heavy exhale.
“What happened?” he asked tenderly while squeezing her again.
“Nothing. Nothing happened.”
“I don’t understand.”
With another heavy sigh, Kendra turned around partially to look up at him while she spoke. “I haven’t spoken to my mom since I left, and I haven’t even really thought about my father either.”
“You haven’t spoken to her at all?” he asked with a furrowed brow. “She doesn’t know where you are?”
“She knows. She calls. She even speaks to Betsy regularly. I send her letters. When I was travelling, I sent her postcards. But I don’t talk to her.”
“Why not?”
“She lied to me for twenty years, Nick. Lied to me, and to him, I don’t think that I can trust her again. She hurt me. A lot. She had us living a life that we never needed to. She deprived me of so much that I could have had. I’m not sure that I can forgive her for that. I’m not sure that I want to let her back in. I’m not sure that I’m prepared for the possibility that she’ll hurt me again.
“Trust is a very fragile thing. So hard to elicit in somebody, so easy to break. My mom broke the trust that I had in her. I’m not sure that it’ll ever be repaired. And the thing is, I’m not sure that I want it to.”
“She’s your mom though, Kendra,” he pointed out.
“Maybe.”
“She loves you.”
“If you love somebody, you don’t lie to them the whole time you’ve known them, Nick,” she said with conviction and watched as something flashed in his eyes. She knew that she sounded intractable but she honestly didn’t know how she could trust her mom after everything that the woman had done.
As much as she and her mom had struggled growing up, the thing that her mom had deprived Kendra of most in the whole thing had been a dad. A dad that could have loved her. That she could have loved in return. That’s the thing that had her most upset by it all. She didn’t care that her father was rich.
Mostly. She’d be lying if she hadn’t thought on the fact that their life of struggling day to day had been hard, and she’d been angry at her mom for allowing that to happen when a phone call to the man would have eased their path. Of course she wished that they’d have had more when she was younger. Of course she was annoyed that they’d gone without and her mom had had to work so hard for so much of her life. But all of that didn’t really matter in the long run.
They’d struggled through, and they’d coped. And they’d come out on the other end stronger for it all. No, what Kendra resented most was the lack of a male role model in her life. She’d had nobody. Her grandparents had thrown her mom out when she’d told them that she was pregnant, and there’d been no-one else, just an image of a waste of space who’d used her mom and abandoned her afterwards. That’s the only figure that she’d had in her head when she’d been growing up.
Other kids in her classes at school had had divorced parents. Some had even had dads that had hightailed it out of there. But most had believed that their father had cared for their mom at one point. Kendra had never had that. She hadn’t had a picture, she hadn’t had a belief that there was even an ounce of decency in the man who’d helped create her. She’d had nothing.
The fact that her mom had never dated had meant that there’d never been anyone there as a substitute either. She’d had her mom. That had been it. As much as she loved her mom, and they’d had a strong relationship, she was still feeling bitter and resentful over the fact that her mom had deprived her of a very fundamental part of a young child’s life unnecessarily. She could have had a dad. She could have had a face to put to it all. She could have had the knowledge that the man would have wanted her. Instead she hadn’t, and her mom was to blame for that.
That wasn’t easy to forgive. That wasn’t easy to get over. Nick might not understand that, but he wasn’t in her position. He had two parents. Two parents who loved each other and stuck by each other and had raised two sons and a daughter in a loving family environment. So as much as Nick was staring at her with almost a look of censure in his eyes she knew it was because he’d never understand where she was coming from.
“I thought you said that she thought she was doing it for the best?” he said as his brow furrowed, obviously thinking back to their initial meeting.
“She wasn’t,” Kendra stated bluntly. “The reasoning behind it all doesn’t matter, Nick. She shouldn’t have lied.”
“What about your father? You haven’t contacted him,” he stated more than asked.
“No,” she said with a shake of her head and a sigh. “I have no idea what to say to him. I have no idea what I even want from him.”
“Want? What would you want from him?” he asked, and Kendra shrugged.
“I honestly don’t know,” she said with a sigh. It seemed kind of late in the day to ask for a ‘daddy’. So what would be left? What would she have in common with a billionaire? What would even be the point in contacting him? Would he even want her to?
Her mom had mentioned that he’d found out, and she hadn’t received any contact from him, so Kendra had to figure that the man didn’t want any contact from her either. He was probably glad that she’d turned her back on the whole thing. He had a public image, after all, and she couldn’t imagine that an illegitimate daughter turning up would be any good for that.
If the man wanted her as a part of his life, he had the ability to find her and welcome her into it. The fact that he hadn’t was an indication that he was happy with the way things were.
“You haven’t even considered contacting him?” he asked.
“Sure,” she said with a shrug. “Once or twice, but what would I say? What would happen next? Once I opened that can of worms there’d be no turning back, and I’m not sure that I want to open it. Right now I’m happy with my life as it is. Right now I have everything I need.”
“What’s your mom’s opinion on it all?” he asked in interest, and Kendra shrugged.
“No idea. Like I said, I haven’t spoken to her since she told me. To be frank it’s not exactly her call to make, now is it?”
“But she does know him. She was with him at one point. Surely she would know –”
“It was almost twenty-three years ago, Nick, people can change a bloody lot in that amount of time. I suspect that she hasn’t got a clue what he’s really like nowadays.”
“And yo
u really have no interest in talking to either of them?” he asked as he stared at her intently.
“Not right now. No,” she affirmed.
“Seems to me –,” he started but Kendra cut him off, not wanting to talk about this anymore.
“Seems to me that you’re wasting a lot of time talking about this,” she said as she moved closer to him and wrapped her arms around his neck. “Especially when there’s a lot of other things we could be doing instead,” she whispered against his lips and smiled when she felt his hands flex on her waist.
“Is there?” he asked with a smile, and she nodded at him.
“Oh yeah. There bloody well is,” she said and smiled more widely when he chuckled at her phrasing before she surged forward and wiped the smile off his face. Yes, there was most definitely a heck of a lot of better things to be doing than talking about her screwed up family dynamics. Especially when she had no idea how much more time she and Nick would get together.
Time to make the most of that.
Chapter Ten
“Where exactly are we going?” Kendra asked as Nick pulled her along beside him. It was cold out, being November now, and the threat of snow was hanging in the air.
As much as Nick seemed to have embraced the outdoors, tonight was not a night to be sitting out together with nothing but a fire, some blankets, and each other to keep them warm. Tonight was a night to be snuggled up together inside, with a couch, a couple of hot chocolates, and maybe even some chocolate pie.
Kendra smiled when she thought of that. Nick still hadn’t realized that she was the one baking his favorite pies. She’d tell him at some point, but right now she just enjoyed watching him argue with her over Betsy’s culinary abilities.
She’d thought he’d have figured it out when she disappeared into the kitchen every now and again. But he seemed to have decided that she was doing so to give Betsy a break instead.
A frown tugged at her face when she thought of that. Kendra had caught Betsy looking pale and unsteady a few times since she’d returned home. The woman denied there being a problem, however, and Kendra had had to accept her word on the matter. But she wasn’t blind, and she was worried.
“Somewhere warm,” Nick said with a smile as he broke into her thoughts, and she focused on the fact that she still had no idea what the man had planned for the night.
Looking around herself, she found her brow furrowing. Somewhere warm? Around here? There was nowhere in this part of town to go to at night. Nowhere that Nick was likely to take her to, that was. Or so she thought.
Suddenly Kendra froze and her steps became wooden. There was only one place at this end of town that he could possibly be going to and it was somewhere that she’d avoided since her arrival. She’d never considered it as a destination for them to go to. After all, Nick didn’t drink either, but she had met the man in a bar that first time, clearly he had no qualms about being in one.
And that was precisely where he was striving to take her now. To the local watering hole. To Lucky’s. No. She couldn’t do this. It would be like dangling a bit of bait in front of her. She didn’t want to go there. She didn’t want to have to resist the pull and the lure of it all.
Digging in her heels, Kendra pulled against Nick’s grip and refused to move any closer. The move took him by surprise and he stumbled to a stop before turning to look at her.
“What’s wrong?” he asked in concern.
“Where are we going, Nick?” she asked more seriously as she stared straight at him.
“I thought I’d surprise –”
“Where are we going, Nick?” she interrupted.
“Lucky’s has got a band playing tonight. I thought we could –,” he started to explain but Kendra turned on her heel and walked back the other way before he’d finished. She didn’t want to get into this with the man, she wasn’t going to explain her biggest weakness and flaw to a man that she loved but who was moving on any day now. And she wasn’t going to go into that bar.
“Kendra!” he said as he moved to catch up to her before standing in front of her and grabbing her shoulders. “What’s the matter?” he asked with a confused expression on his face.
“I’m not going to Lucky’s,” she stated before moving out of his grasp and stepping around him.
“Why not?” he asked from beside her, obviously realizing that she wasn’t going to stop. “Kendra, why not?” he asked again as he grabbed her arm to stop her, but Kendra didn’t want to be around him at the moment. Her emotions were too close to the surface right now. She didn’t need him to see them. She didn’t want to deal with this right now.
“I don’t go to Lucky’s,” she said simply. “I don’t drink.” Anymore, she silently added.
“Neither do I,” he said. “I wasn’t suggesting that’s what we’d do. I thought you’d appreciate listening to some music. Maybe do some dancing,” he said, and Kendra continued on her steadfast march towards home. As vulnerable as Nick usually made her feel, this felt like something different. This was raw, and unwelcome. Very, very unwelcome.
“I don’t go to Lucky’s,” she gritted out at him. She knew that he was confused, knew that he couldn’t possibly understand her staunch stance and complete and utter reticence to go near the establishment, but all she wanted right now was just to get back home to somewhere safe. Somewhere where she could hide from the thoughts that were entering her head, the temptations that were making her fingers itch.
“It’s just some music and dancing,” he said, and she could hear the frustration in his tone.
“You’re more than welcome to go experience it, Nick. But I won’t be,” she stated firmly.
“Kendra? What the heck is going on?” he asked more demandingly as he grabbed her arm more firmly and spun her towards him. She found herself plastered against his body and stared up into his sparkling blue eyes that were looking at her in suspicion, and she tried to think of what to say to appease him.
“I don’t go to Lucky’s,” was all she managed.
“Yeah, I get that,” he drawled. “Any chance that you’re going to tell me why?”
No, she thought. No, there wasn’t any chance that that would happen. Maybe this was a sign, a sign that their time had run out, because she wasn’t going to open up to him about this. She wasn’t going to expose herself and the shame that she felt. She didn’t want to rehash her past. What she wanted was to get away. What she wanted was to go and hide and ignore the want and need that was raging through her body.
No, she wasn’t going to open up to the man. What she was going to do was walk away. While she could.
Mitchell stared after Kendra in total confusion. Something was going on. Something he didn’t understand, but something that he suspected was of significance and import. There was a reason that she wasn’t going to go to that bar, and he had no idea what it was.
The first time he’d met Kendra she’d been in a bar. She obviously had no aversion to the places in general, which made him think that it was something specific about Lucky’s. Had something happened there? Something in her past? Something that had scared her? Something that had her marching off into the night with determined steps?
He hadn’t missed the fear in her eyes when she’d realized where they were headed and Mitchell was starting to feel a rage build inside of him. Why would a woman be scared of somewhere unless something had made her so? There was a reason that she was all but running back home, to the comfort of her small apartment. And the likely explanation would be that she was running from her past, from something that had occurred that he’d inadvertently dredged up.
Why wouldn’t she tell him? He thought that she trusted him, but she was shutting him out. At the precise time that he needed her to be even more open to him. He’d managed to broach the subject of her parents the other night. Managed to get her to talk to him about it. He’d been making progress, but she’d shut down before he could get to the point that he needed to with her.
He’d been left
utterly unsure of what her feelings were and what she wanted out of it all. He’d been left feeling frustrated by the lack of progress. He had two days left. That was all. He didn’t have the time to break down her walls again. He couldn’t afford for her to walk away and shut him out now.
Well, he wouldn’t let her. She might try to push him aside and walk away, but Mitchell wasn’t going to let that happen. He wasn’t going to stand back and let her cut him out of her life.
Refusing to analyze the real reason why he felt such a strong need to get her to turn to him, Mitchell just concentrated on the job at hand and marched off after her. If she thought she could push him away so easily, the woman was in for one heck of a surprise.
Mitchell Astley didn’t give up that readily. Two years of waiting for this woman wasn’t about to be tossed by the wayside because she had something in her past that she didn’t want him knowing. She was going to open up, and they’d grow closer because of it.
* * *
Shutting the door firmly behind her, Kendra breathed a sigh of relief. She was back home. Safe and sound. All she had left to do was get herself undressed and into her bed, and she would have made it through another night, through another day.
Kendra suddenly realized that since being with Nick this was the first time that she’d had that feeling and found herself surprised at that fact. Every other day she’d always breathed a sigh of relief once she’d closed her front door, proud of herself for resisting for one more day. Since Nick had been on the scene, however, that hadn’t happened. The struggle hadn’t been so fierce.
She hadn’t noticed that aspect of their relationship. Something about it all had been strengthening her, something had been keeping her free from the stress and constant war she’d always had raging inside of her. What did that mean? Did that mean that once he’d left she’d go back to that same draining day to day grind that she’d been dealing with before he’d arrived?
Masks and Lies Page 9
