Winter Dreams

by Robyn Neeley

  Kalin, who had ordered cheesecake, watched her. “Well? Do you think you can make one like it?”

  “I can make a better one. They haven’t done anything unusual here.” She nibbled a bite and indicated his desert. “What would really drive people crazy is a dark chocolate cheesecake. I’ll bet it would absolutely send you into orbit.”

  Kalin ate his cheesecake with enthusiasm. “I can’t wait. Call me when it’s ready.”

  “You’re a terrible judge of food. If it’s fried or full of butter and sour cream, you automatically think it’s great.”

  Kalin grinned at her. “I can’t believe I’ve missed hearing you tell me I’m a lousy judge of food.”

  “I’ll bet.” Casey forked apart the pecans that had been clustered on top of her cake slice.

  “I have. Really. Did your grandmother warn you that I was likely to treat you as your father had treated your mother?”

  Casey was so involved with tearing apart her cake that she answered automatically. “All the time.” She examined the holes in the cake minutely. “She was absolutely certain you were out to get me pregnant. When she found out your dad was Walter McBryde, she hit the ceiling. If you hadn’t come over that afternoon and questioned her about her Civil War silver, she’d have forbidden me to see you again.”

  “My manly charm,” Kalin said.

  “Anyone who showed the proper interest in her silver couldn’t be a wicked seducer. After you left, she said that it was obvious Jack Johnson had done a good job in raising you.”

  Kalin laughed. “Too bad I had to ruin her good opinion of me by studying up on that silver.”

  “Actually, she was impressed.” Casey looked up from the mound of chocolate crumbs she had created. “She praised your research abilities and said you were going to go far.”

  “Provided no one killed me first.”

  Alice Gray’s old silverware hailed from before the Civil War, according to family legend, and survived the war buried beside the back steps of her ancestors’ home in Alabama. Kalin, interested in mentioning the silver pattern in one of his novels, had discovered it wasn’t manufactured until 1870.

  Casey joined him in laughter. “I’ll admit I was surprised at your lack of foresight.”

  “I thought she’d be interested to know the truth.”

  “Not Granny. Give her a romantic lie any day.”

  “Eat that cake. Those pecans are innocent.”

  Casey made a face at him. She knew enough about Kalin to know he’d return to the subject of her parents as soon as the waiter removed their plates and set cups of steaming coffee before them.

  “Your mother’s name was Cynthia, wasn’t it?” Kalin leaned back in his chair.

  “You probably know more than I do. You’re a much better researcher.”

  Kalin smiled, and his relentless gaze never left her face. “I don’t have the advantage of being in your shoes. I can only tell you how I felt when I first learned of some of the things my father had done. I wished I could change my name for a while, there. One day I came down on poor Merrick like an avalanche — she’d been doing her usual number about her cousin, son of the great Walter McBryde. Lord, I nearly hit the ceiling.” He shook his head, grinning. “Merrick thought I’d lost my mind.”

  She prayed he would forget the question. “She seems to have recovered. She mentioned your dad at least once last night.”

  “Well?” He sipped coffee and ignored that. “What did your mother do that was so bad?”

  “Other than get pregnant out of wedlock and try to force the man to marry her?”

  “Don’t you think she might have loved Derrick Davenport? He was a very handsome fellow with a lot of presence and charm. He must have been, to get Megan Murphy to marry him.”

  Casey’s face quivered. “Granny said my mother died because she lost the will to live, so I suppose she must have loved him.”

  “Is it so wrong to love someone enough to want to sleep with him?” Kalin leaned forward, holding her gaze. “If it hadn’t been for your grandfather’s vigilance and Uncle Jack’s constant lectures about sexual responsibility, I’d have made love to you while you were underage. You’d have encouraged me, and you might have gotten pregnant. I’m sure that would have been worse than anything your mother did.”

  Casey pleated her napkin, remembering how she’d felt as though she needed his warmth more than anything in her life. But she hadn’t turned eighteen until the week after Kalin broke off their relationship, and so long as she was underage, he had been careful not to go too far.

  “What would you have done about it?” she asked.

  Kalin chuckled. “I’d have married you in about two seconds,” he said. “Your grandfather would have seen to that. He watched me like a hawk watches a chicken yard.”

  “You’d have married me anyway, wouldn’t you? That’s the difference between you and my father.”

  “There’s another difference,” Kalin noted. “I loved you. Derrick Davenport, by all accounts, loved his own image better than he ever loved anyone else. But don’t give me credit for virtue,” he added. “I’m a lot more like my own father than I care to think. The first time I got mad at you, I’d have probably accused you of trapping me into marriage. Then I might have used that to win any fights we had. If you thought I was tough with words, my father was a world-class expert.” He rubbed his forehead with one hand and sighed. “It’s a sobering thought.”

  Casey went still, understanding what he was trying to tell her. It was a new thought to her — that Kalin shared certain characteristics with his father that he felt ashamed of. She smoothed out the creases she’d made in her napkin and remembered how his words had overridden hers, until she’d resorted to begging.

  “In a way, it’s a pity we never made love,” she said. “It might have been worth it to see your father go into action to save you if I’d gotten pregnant.”

  He laughed and reached for her hand. “Be thankful. Neither of us would have ever been the same. I’d like to see a picture of your mother. I have a feeling old Derrick Davenport lost out on that deal.”

  Casey smiled back. “Who are you kidding? You’ve probably seen more of her pictures than I have.”

  “I’d like to see some taken by her family. Did his lawyers get in touch with you when Davenport died?”

  Casey shook her head. “Granny wouldn’t let me near the telephone or the mail for several months, just in case, but they never tried to contact us.”

  “Did it ever occur to you to file a claim on his estate?”

  “I was only thirteen years old, and Granny said it was best to let sleeping dogs lie.” Casey laughed. “Can you imagine the excitement around here if all that stuff about the long-lost Davenport love-child had come out back then?”

  “Lord, yes. Your grandmother is a smart woman.” He paused, and Casey knew he was marking her characteristic, sparkling gray eyes with their thick, curly lashes. “Derrick Davenport had no other children. You’d have been a seven-day wonder.”

  Casey shrugged. “I was a seven-day wonder when it did come out. I had reporters calling me from all over the country. The only good thing about it was that they lost interest in me when I flatly refused to sue the Davenport estate.”

  Kalin nodded. “In their eyes, that was tantamount to admitting Derrick Davenport wasn’t really your father, even though your mother named you Casey Evelyn.”

  Casey flashed him a swift glance. Almost no one remembered, or knew, that Derrick Davenport’s real name had been Evelyn Hubert Casey. So far, no reporter had paid attention to her name.

  “I just hope they leave me alone.” Casey scowled. “Surely the statute of limitations has run out by now.”

  “The statute of limitations on old scandals never runs out. You know that. If they ever run a close-up photogr
aph of you, the entire world will realize you’re Davenport’s child. Not to mention that DNA testing carries a lot more weight in the courts now.” He stopped once more and regarded her over the rim of his coffee cup. “You’d become much too important to spend time with an undistinguished fellow like me.”

  • • •

  Casey awakened the following morning with the feeling that her entire world had gone upside down. For five years, she had nourished the feeling that she would never be able to look Kalin McBryde in the face again. And now she had discovered that they had something surprising in common.

  Walter McBryde had been a celebrity in his own right. Because Kalin had spent almost all his vacation time in Winnie with Dr. Johnson, Casey had thought of Kalin more as Dr. Johnson’s nephew than as Walter McBryde’s heir — but she realized now that Kalin probably knew as much as she did about suffering unwelcome comparisons to a famous person. Walter’s career had ensured that Kalin’s life was compared to his father’s in every small detail. Kalin had said little five years ago, but in retrospect, she realized the reason he probably spent so much time in Winnie was to escape that constant scrutiny.

  Casey gathered that Walter McBryde’s death had unearthed illegal tax shelters and even some outright criminal deals with drug runners. Kalin had passed over that, but Casey read enough between the lines to know that he’d been thoroughly shocked when he began to settle his father’s estate.

  Kalin’s ideas on love and life had come from Jack Johnson rather than his own father.

  Casey showered and dressed, thinking of Kalin. They were more alike than she’d realized. No wonder Kalin understood how she’d fought against being thought like her mother.

  He’d even understood that she was still wary of him and had made no effort to do more than kiss her goodnight at her door when he took her back to Cap’n Bob’s the night before, a light brush of his lips over hers. Casey considered it more a gesture for old times’ sake rather than a real kiss.

  Casey hadn’t known whether to feel relieved or annoyed, especially when she recalled him saying he had loved her — which in her mind implied that he no longer did. In fact, she probably ought to be surprised that he had kissed her at all.

  “You look like someone threw sand in your eyes,” Alice Gray told her when she arrived at the hospital bearing the usual cardboard box.

  “It must be the pollen.” Casey set a bowl of Scotch-style oatmeal before her grandmother and poured cream and sugar on it.

  “It’s the middle of winter out there,” Alice said. “That I do know. Christmas in two more days, they say. Did you see that young man last night?”

  “What young man, Granny? Joe Kerns? I told you. He offered me a job, and I took it.” She placed one of Alice’s own silver spoons in her hand.

  “Not him. The other one. The one you were so keen on before you left.” Alice’s sharp old eyes studied her granddaughter’s carefully expressionless face.

  “Kalin McBryde,” Casey supplied. “Yes, I’ve seen him.”

  “Well?”

  “Well, what? He’s just an old friend, Granny.”

  Alice Gray snorted and took a bite of oatmeal. “Don’t try to tell me that, young lady. There’s only one reason I know of why you’d suddenly want to go to law school.”

  Casey grinned and sat on the chair beside her grandmother’s bed. News traveled fast, even news that wasn’t quite factual.

  “Absolutely,” she said. “If I can outdo Kalin McBryde in law school, my cup will be full.”

  “Don’t be tiresome, Casey Gray. He visited me a year or two ago. Asked me all sorts of questions about Cynthia.” She sniffed. “It was easy enough to see what was on his mind.”

  Casey laughed. “Is there something wrong with the oatmeal?”

  “Just the way I like it, and well you know it,” was all Alice said.

  “Then stop fussing and eat.”

  “Don’t get smart with me, young lady. I’m still your elder, and there isn’t a thing wrong with my mind. Are you going to marry him or not?”

  “Granny, I haven’t seen him in five years. Marriage is the farthest thing from my mind.”

  Alice Gray kept her attention on her oatmeal. “No doubt that’s why you look like you cried all night.”

  Casey wisely kept her mouth shut, but before heading for Cap’n Bob’s, she drove home and applied more makeup. As she stood before the bathroom mirror glaring at herself, the telephone rang.

  “Casey,” Merrick exclaimed. “I’m so glad I caught you. Listen, I know this is sudden, but if you want to get accepted this fall, the time to take the test is right now. I’ve got the application forms, and I’m coming over with them right away. You’ll have to pay a late fee, but that’s nothing.”

  In fact, Merrick was so persuasive and so determined to be helpful, Casey found herself filling out the forms meekly and writing out a check for the fee. Merrick took the forms and rushed off with them, to get things started at once.

  Casey stood in the doorway watching Merrick drive away, grinning and shaking her head. Casey’s lack of a regular college degree no longer seemed to matter to Merrick.

  A delivery truck turned in the driveway and disgorged the ten large boxes Casey had packed with her worldly possessions when she closed out her New York apartment. She had them placed in her grandmother’s bedroom out of sight until she could unpack them. There was no sense in giving anyone premature ideas about her remaining in Winnie — even if she did, by some miracle, pass the LSAT test.

  No doubt she had gone crazy, going so far as to pay good money to take a test she would probably flunk, but somehow the pretense that she wanted to go to law school gave her more strength in facing Kalin. Just why she needed more strength to face him, she wasn’t sure, but one thing was certain — the process would help keep her too busy to moon about Kalin.

  Shrugging, Casey grabbed her purse. Perhaps her credits would prove acceptable to a law school somewhere. If she didn’t look out, she was liable to find herself being addressed as “Counselor” instead of “Chef.”

  Before she could get to the door, the doorbell shrilled.

  “What time did you get up?” Kalin demanded, when she opened the door to him. “You should be resting.”

  He wore jeans and a plaid flannel shirt, with a blue windbreaker. Casey had to look away to keep him from knowing how the bare sight of him affected her.

  “I’m on the way in to Cap’n Bob’s.”

  “Cap’n Bob’s.” His tone left no doubt as to his opinion. “Are you meeting someone for breakfast?”

  “Nope. I’m taking over for Joe for a few days.” In her opinion, he had no reason to sound so annoyed.

  “You’re what?”

  “I still have a lot of feeling for the old place.” Casey pulled the door shut behind her. “Joe was itching to get away, and when I showed up, it was the answer to his prayers.”

  “I’m going to give him an answer to his prayers he won’t soon forget,” Kalin said grimly.

  Casey faced him, all too conscious of her own tendency to hark back in time to cool, sunny winter days when Kalin would show up on her porch after a hunting trip with his uncle. “No, you won’t. I need a job, and Cap’n Bob’s is a real challenge. Joe has let the place deteriorate. In fact, I’m really looking forward to walking in there this morning.”

  “I’ll just bet you are. What I want to know is, when do you sleep?” Kalin frowned at her tailored wool suit and pale pink blouse. “Why did you tell Joe you’d run that miserable restaurant for him if you’re so busy taking care of your grandmother?”

  “Granny doesn’t take up that much time. It’s preparing for the LSAT test that’s taking up my time.”

  “Just so long as you make time to have dinner with me tonight.” He followed her off the porch and to her car.


  “I’ll be working,” she said.

  “No, you won’t. If you don’t take a break and get some rest, they’ll be hauling you out on a stretcher.” To her surprise, he climbed into her little car beside her and buckled his seat belt. “I’ll ride in with you.”

  She drove swiftly to Cap’n Bob’s and listened to Kalin’s commentary on why she should take a day off and go fishing.

  At Cap’n Bob’s, the man Joe had hired to clean every morning before business unlocked the door for her.

  “Nice to see you this morning, Miss Gray,” he said. “What’s this I hear about you going to law school?”

  Kalin burst into laughter, and Casey elbowed him.

  “Actually, I’m still in the application stage,” she said. “I’m hoping to outperform one Kalin McBryde on the LSAT. If I can do that, my goal will be achieved and I can retire from law without ever actually attending law school.”

  “McBryde,” the janitor said thoughtfully. “Wasn’t his father the famous crooked lawyer — ”

  “His father was a criminal lawyer,” Casey broke in hastily.

  Beside her, Kalin appeared likely to choke on laughter.

  “All criminal lawyers are crooked,” the janitor said. “Take it from me. Crooks need lawyers who are crookeder than they are.”

  Kalin agreed with considerable enthusiasm. “Casey will be even more famous than Walter McBryde. She’s twice as mean.”

  Casey rolled her eyes. “In that case, I don’t see why I have to darken the doors of a law school. They ought to grant me a license and let me hang out my shingle tomorrow.”

  “There’s one thing you learn in law school that you can’t learn anywhere else,” Kalin said, grinning. “That alone is worth the entire price of the tuition.”

  “Oh, yeah?” Casey started toward the kitchen. “What is this wondrous item?”

  “Legalese.”

  Chapter 6

  Casey had to admit Kalin had a point. Soon after she arrived at Cap’n Bob’s Cajun Cooking, she and Joe Kerns settled at a table with a thick sheaf of papers between them. Casey calculated it would take a good two years of law school before she could even decipher the first page of the legal document.