It proved to be an empty victory.
Jake eventually found the energy to move, and he rolled off her onto his back. They lay side by side, yet miles apart. Long minutes passed while the only sound to be heard in the room was the ticking of the mantle clock.
Finally Kat could bear the silence no more. “Anyone can write a note, Jake.”
His voice was a low, lonely sigh. “He wrote me letters when I was at school. I recognize his handwriting.”
Hmm. Handwriting can be imitated. Could someone be playing a cruel joke? Jake was wealthy. What if someone was trying to swindle him?
Jake was a swindler himself. He should be able to tell.
“All these years and he’s never once communicated with his family? How utterly horrid of him. I can’t believe he’d make your family suffer like that. Your father and sister both died not knowing the truth. He should be horsewhipped.”
“Kat,” Jake started to say.
“You recall that for months my family believed I’d died in a fire. The moment I found out, I knew how important it was to let them learn the truth. I can’t believe your brother would be so selfish as to let his family suffer for more than fifteen years.”
When Jake failed to respond to that, she added, “And I can’t believe you’ll jump to his beck and call on the basis of a long overdue note. As if you don’t have the children to think of, a life. A wife.”
She felt his body tense, but again he didn’t speak. He wouldn’t defend himself. Wouldn’t explain himself. A cauldron of emotions welled up inside her. She wanted to kick him, hit him, punch him in the gut. Make him see how stubborn and hardheaded he was being. Instead she rolled over onto her side and tried not to cry, tried to go to sleep. Eventually she drifted off.
She awoke to an empty bed. Jake had sneaked off, a thief in the night.
The sorry, no-good scoundrel had taken her necklace with him.
JAKE STOOD at the bow of the ship gazing forward as the Ulysses sailed away from England. Two weeks into the trip, he spent all his time at the stern, looking backward. He feared he’d given up a chance at a future because of a promise he’d made in the past.
Kat’s words haunted him. They rang in his ears and echoed through his mind, growing louder with every mile that stretched between them. She’d made a good argument. Daniel should have contacted the family before now. Their father had suffered over his eldest son’s loss until the day he died. Jake had spent the past seventeen years being haunted by a ghost who didn’t exit.
If Daniel could get a note out of his magical kingdom now, then why the hell hadn’t he done it years ago?
Knowing the isolation of the region and the difficulty of travel there, Jake was willing to cut his brother a little slack time-wise regarding notification. He could understand two years, three. Hell, even five.
Seventeen went beyond the pale. Seventeen was cruel.
But the Daniel Jake had known and loved was not a cruel person, so why had it taken him this long to contact the family? Why had that contact been so brief, raising more questions than it answered? Was it somehow tied to Shambhala?
Jake needed to know. He needed to know if his dream that day on the mountain had been real. He needed to know how Kat’s necklace played a part in the drama. He needed to know what family he was supposed to find—his brother or the woman he’d made his wife.
The woman he loved.
It was true. Somewhere along the way, he’d fallen in love with Kat. He didn’t know when it happened. Maybe that last night when she’d turned into a tigress in bed. Maybe that afternoon at the zoo when she’d jumped his butt for letting Belle get near the tiger’s cage. Hell, it could have been the very first time in Galveston when he’d glanced up and seen a Madonna on the beach.
So why the hell was he only figuring it out now?
“’Cause you’re dumb as a doorknob, that’s why.” Jake fingered the pendant in his pocket and watched the sea foam created in the ship’s wake. “Stupid and confused.”
What was he supposed to do? What did he want to do?
He wanted to verify that his brother was indeed alive and satisfy the promise he’d made his father on Bernard Kimball’s deathbed. He wanted to turn this ship around and return to Chatham Park, to Kat and to the children and satisfy the yearning in his heart.
But he couldn’t be in two places at once. Or could he? Who knows what magic Shambhala had to offer?
Jake had spent many years traveling the world in search of unique and wonderful things. The fantasy of Shambhala intrigued him. And yet, as England’s shores grew distant, Jake realized that the reality of his wife and family intrigued him even more.
He ordered the Ulysses to the nearest port where transportation back to England could be found. He appointed an assistant to be expedition leader and spent the next two days writing letters to smooth his replacement’s way.
He cooled his heels in Africa for days, waiting for a ship headed west to arrive. A day into that voyage, engine trouble forced another delay. The broken axle on the carriage he’d hired to take him to Chatham Park was icing on his bad-luck cake.
Or, so he thought.
Riding a horse he’d purchased from an extortionist innkeeper, he entered the wide, tree-lined avenue leading up to Chatham Park. For the first time in what felt like forever, he relaxed, and a pleasing sense of homecoming settled over him. At his first glance of the house, Jake smiled with anticipation. Finally, after weeks of trying, he’d come back to Kat.
He fantasized about how she and the children would greet him. They’d be up in the nursery playing tea party. He’d appear in the doorway; the children’s faces would light up. They’d jump up and run to him, wrap their little arms around him in a hug, all talking at once as Jake’s gaze would meet Kat’s across the nursery, she’d smile warmly, then rise and walk toward him. Then, because she was, after all, Kat, she’d make a fist and throw a hard punch to his gut, and then when he bent over, she’d place her other hand around his neck and kiss him.
Grinning, Jake signaled his horse to run faster. The fantasy was a joy, but he was smart enough to know the reality might go a little rougher. He’d been a coward to leave without telling the children goodbye, and they might well make him grovel a bit before warming up to him. And Kat…well…she probably wasn’t too happy that he stole her necklace again. He’d probably have to do some fancy talking to get back into her good graces.
He wouldn’t tell her he loved her right off. He’d wait until they had some privacy for that.
Before Jake could dip into yet another fantasy, he arrived at the house. He bounded up the steps and opened the front door. Inside he looked and listened for the sight and sound of children.
He heard only silence.
Well, it was a big house, a big estate. He’d find one of the servants to tell him where to look.
Jake started toward the kitchen, but a woman’s voice stopped him. “Mr. Kimball?”
Jake turned and spied a maid emerging from the library, a dust cloth in her hand, a shocked expression on her face. “Hello, Susan,” he said with a grin. “Where will I find my wife?”
Her mouth worked, no words emerged. Jake felt a niggle of unease. “Susan?”
“Mrs. Kimball’s not here, sir.”
The niggle grew to a nudge. “The children?”
“They’re with Mrs. Kimball.”
“And where is Mrs. Kimball?”
Again the maid’s mouth worked, and again she made no sound. Finally she sent a desperate look above him. Jake slowly looked up.
Chatham Park’s butler stood at the top of the staircase, a grave expression on his face. “Carstairs!” Jake exclaimed. “Where are Mrs. Kimball and the children?”
The butler descended the stairs, straightened his lapels, then faced his employer, his shoulders squared, his hand linked behind his back. He cleared his throat. “Texas, Mr. Kimball. Your wife has taken the children to Texas.”
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
&n
bsp; Fort Worth, Texas
KAT TOOK A DEEP breath, shifted Robbie’s weight from one arm to the other and climbed the front porch steps of Willow Hill. Home. Finally. After a long journey and a truly difficult day. Emotion clogged her throat, and she swallowed hard against it as she waited for the girls to join her. “All right, ladies. Let’s have a look at you. Miranda, fix your hair bow. Belle, tie your shoe. Caroline, you’ve a smudge of chocolate on the side of your mouth.”
“What about me, Kat?” Theresa asked.
Kat’s gaze swept over the girl, noted the two splotches of cherry crème on her pinafore. Anxious for news about Mari’s pregnancy and wanting to reward the girls after their sweet and sensitive behavior while Kat visited her daughter’s grave, she’d stopped by Indulgences on her way home. Though Mari was home resting, Kat learned that her sister had delivered twins, a boy and a girl, early the previous week. Mother and babies were healthy and happy at home. They’d celebrated the news with a treat, and now the children were chocolate messes. Clucking her tongue, Kat said, “You’re hopeless, love. My papa’s going to love you.”
As she reached for the doorknob, she couldn’t help but remember another homecoming, the day she’d returned to Willow Hill surprising parents who’d believed her to be dead. This wasn’t a surprise of quite the same magnitude, but it was close. She hadn’t warned them of her marriage or of her recent return to motherhood. While Emma might have mentioned Jake in letters she wrote the family, she wouldn’t have known the developments subsequent to her departure from Chatham Park. There were plenty of developments.
After returning from her honeymoon, Kat had begun a dozen letters to her parents, but she’d never found the right words to explain what she’d done. Then, when the rotten scoundrel left her and she’d decided to go home, she figured she might as well wait and explain in person. Her papa always did better learning news in person.
She opened the door, stepped inside and called, “Hello?”
Her seventeen-year-old brother, Billy, sauntered out of the kitchen eating an apple. Spying Kat, his brows winged up. Taking in the sight of the toddler in her arms and quartet of girls hanging on to her skirt, he started choking on his fruit.
Miranda dropped her hold on Kat and flew to Billy’s rescue, pounding him on the back. My God, Kat thought, the boy had grown a foot in the short time she’d been gone. He must be as tall as Papa now. And he’d filled out. He looked like a man.
“You can stop,” Billy said. “I’m fine. Uh, that’s enough. Hey, that hurt!”
“I saved your life!” Miranda exclaimed.
Billy glared at his sister, then at the miniature mother hen. “Who is this squirt?”
“I’m not a squirt! I’m a lady.”
Kat winked at Miranda, then said, “Billy, I’d like you to meet my new daughter, Miranda Barrett.”
“Your what?” her brother asked.
“Your daughter?” her mother said from the kitchen doorway, her entire face alight with a brilliant smile.
“Katie-cat! You’re home!” Trace McBride barreled down the hallway that led to his office. “Thank God you’re home.”
Kat’s father swept her into his arms and held her tight burying his face in her hair until Robbie grabbed a handful of his and yanked while he babbled, “Ya ya ya ya.”
“Hello, there, bruiser,” Trace said with a grin. He took a step back, his blue eyes bright with pleasure, and asked, “Did I hear right? You’ve given us more grandchildren?”
“Yes, Papa.”
He looked closer at Kat’s crew, and his eyes went wide. She could see him mentally counting. One, two, three, four, five! Five? “Stupendous!”
Kat’s tension eased. She’d known her parents would accept the children, but it helped to have her confidence in them justified. Kat introduced each of the children, saving Caroline for last. “This little one doesn’t speak, but she adores apples. Mama, do you have more apples in the kitchen?”
“I do.”
Turning to her brother, Kat asked, “Billy, would you show the girls where Mama keeps the apples?”
“Sure.” Then he winked at Miranda and asked, “You won’t hit me anymore, will you?”
“I saved your life!”
Billy led the girls into the kitchen, where, knowing Billy, he’d find some cookies to give them along with their fruit. “Here, let me hold the little one,” Jenny McBride said. When Kat handed him over, she added, “Aren’t you just precious.”
Robbie cooed and giggled as Jenny led Kat and Trace into the parlor. Trace took the opportunity to give Kat another long hug. “I missed you, girl. It’s been a long few months without you and Emma around. And speaking of your sister, the facts in her letters are sketchy. What do you know about—”
“Trace, no,” Jenny interrupted. “You’ll get all worked up, and you won’t get to hear about Kat and how she’s managed to bring us new grandbabies.” Glancing toward her daughter, she added, “Including one who doesn’t speak? She’s obviously not deaf. Was she injured somehow?”
“Her heart has been injured. We believe Caroline can speak, but chooses not to.” Kat took a seat in her customary spot on the settee next to her mother and began her tale, sparing herself no quarter. She told her parents about the incident at the zoo and her decision to retrieve her necklace and the altar cross. She told of Jake’s bride hunt and Emma’s application and her own disguise.
“So that’s where she met up with this MacRae fellow?” Trace asked.
Kat nodded.
His face went red as he said, “What sort of man convinces a woman to—”
‘Trace,” Jenny warned. Robbie snuggled his head against her shoulder and appeared to be going to sleep. “Honey, continue your story.”
Now Kat was getting to the difficult part. She explained about Jake’s proposition, her refusal, then what led to her changing her mind. “I couldn’t abandon these children, Mama. I thought maybe I was destined to care for them. They needed me, but I needed them, too. And it turns out I needed them desperately. They opened my eyes about losing Susie. They helped me see beyond her loss to her life. I can remember her now with joy and laughter, not only with sorrow and heartbreak. They helped me heal, Mama, and that’s enabled me to come home.”
Tears welled up in Jenny’s eyes. “I’m so glad, honey. So very glad.”
Trace rubbed the back of his neck, then cleared his throat. “Wait a minute. Need a little clarification. You actually married this man?”
All right, she only thought she’d gotten to the difficult part before. “Yes, Papa. I did.”
“He couldn’t have named you a guardian and gone about his business?”
“We feared that might leave the matter up to challenge from another relative, an aunt who treated the children poorly during the time they spent with her prior to Jake’s return to England.”
“So it was like a…what…a marriage of convenience?”
Kat guessed that depended on one’s definition of convenience. Certainly Jake, the rat scoundrel, had found it convenient. And to be honest, for a while she’d found it convenient, too.
She knew her father, however, and knew he was asking about the intimate side of marriage, never mind that it certainly wasn’t any of his business. Well, those were details she intended to keep to herself.
“I’d term it more a marriage of necessity,” she said, sidestepping the issue. “These children needed their uncle to marry me.”
Trace narrowed his eyes and frowned. “I don’t like it. It’s not right that you’re married to a man who’s half a world away.”
“Some might say that’s the ideal marriage,” Jenny wryly observed.
Kat chuckled softly. “I wouldn’t argue the point.”
Trace paced back and forth in front of the fireplace. “I think it’s shameful. No matter why he married her, he married her. He had a duty to her from the moment he said ‘I do.’ What kind of man marries a woman intending to leave her? What kind of man abandons the c
are of children—five children—to someone who is little more than a stranger? Sure, he picked a gem in Kat, but what if she’d fooled him? What if she was a poor caretaker for those children? He can’t do a damned thing about it from Timbuktu.”
“Tibet,” Kat corrected.
“What are your plans, honey?” Jenny asked, subtly diverting her husband’s attention as she patted the back of a sleeping Robbie.
“Money isn’t an issue. I have a veritable fortune at my disposal.”
“Harrumph.” Trace was clearly not impressed.
“Caring for five children is a full-time job. I was able to hire help on the voyage to Galveston, but the train trip home…” She paused, shuddered at the memory. “I hope to find a nanny soon.”
“You wouldn’t need one if your husband was here to help,” groused Trace.
Ignoring him, Kat continued. “My first order of business will be finding a house.”
“You’ll stay here,” Trace declared.
“No, I don’t think that’s a good idea.”
Her father frowned. “Now, Katrina.”
“It’s different this time, Papa. I’m able to care for the children. I want to make a home for them. Our home. All of us need that.”
Storm clouds gathered in Trace McBride’s eyes, but his wife stepped forward to dispel the blow. “You’re in luck, Kat. I know the perfect place. It’s less than two blocks away. The Braxtons decided they’d had enough of the Texas summer heat and moved back to Minnesota. That house is perfect for children. Plus it’s close to us and your uncle’s place, so we’ll get to see lots of the little ones.”
Kat pictured the sprawling home so near her parents and nodded. “Knowing you and Aunt Claire, I’ll probably never see them.” Then, turning to her father, she asked, “Would you see to the paperwork for me, Papa?”
Frowning, he suggested, “You’re welcome to live here, you know. Your mama and I like having curtain climbers around.”
“I know, Papa. Thank you.” Kat rose from the sofa, crossed to her father, went up on her tiptoes and pressed a kiss against his cheek. “I think it’s best I take the Braxton house, but I know I’ll need your help quite a lot in the coming months. Why, I’ll probably ask you to come by every day to fix something or another.”
Her Scoundrel Page 22
