My Man Pendleton(55)
Author: Elizabeth Bevarly

As he exited the four-car garage behind Cherrywood, his gaze fell on the battered basketball hoop fastened to the side. He hesitated, oblivious to the fat flakes of wet snow that clung to his hair and snuck down his collar, trying to remember the last time anyone used it. Years. Maybe more than a decade. He couldn’t recall the last time the hollow thump-thump-thump of seemingly careless dribbling pounded the walkway from the back door to the garage. There were seasons when that hoop was never idle, though, when he and his brothers—and frequently Kit—spent the entire weekend battling it out on the concrete court below. Their mother would lounge with a book by the pool, watching, egging on whoever happened to be her favorite that day, until suppertime rolled around. Then she’d go in the house and fry a couple of chickens, and they’d all have supper at the umbrella tables outside.

For all their wealth and prominence, Lena Hensley McClellan made sure her children led normal, wonderful lives when they were little. She loved to cook, and she made sure they were all home for supper every night. Once a week, she dressed them all in nondescript jeans and T-shirts, piled them into their grandfather’s pickup truck, as if they were any middle-class family in the world, and scuttled them off to all the best places in town. To the Louisville Zoo, where she let them ride the train as many times as they wanted through the green hills pungent with animal smells. Or to Huber Farms in Starlight, Indiana, right when they started pressing the apples for cider, when the air was cold and brisk and redolent of autumn. Or to the Frito-Lay factory for one of those kiddie tours, where they sent everyone home with a free bag of Fritos, and you felt as if you’d been given the most wonderful gift in the world. Or to Showcase Cinemas, back before they chopped it to pieces, when the screens were vast and enormous and the picture virtually surrounded you, and from the fabulous fourth row, you felt like you were a part of the film.

Holt closed his eyes and inhaled deeply of the snowy evening, the scent of the cold air assaulting him with too many memories for his brain to process, too many emotions for his heart to hold. God, he missed being a kid. Almost as much as he missed his mother. He wished he could rewind the years and relive them all in slow motion. Not just to experience the joy all over again, but to make amends for some of the things he said and did.

As always, when such feelings came over him, his first impulse was to pour himself a drink. As always, when such impulses came over him, he immediately shoved them aside. Instead, he turned his back on the basketball hoop and trudged to the back door, then made his way immediately to the library, where his father kept the best stocked bar. He opened the liquor cabinet, reached past the bottles of Hensley’s and found a club soda at the very back.

A soft sound from behind had him spinning around, and he was surprised to see Kit standing at the library entrance. Immediately, he held the bottle in his hand aloft for her inspection. “Club soda,” he said. “Really.”

She smiled. “You don’t have to prove it to me, Holt. I have faith in you.”

He smiled back at her choice of words. “Yeah, well, that makes one of us.” He twisted the cap off the bottle as he turned to fill a glass with ice. “What are you doing home? Did you and Pendleton have a lovers’ spat?”

A chuckle erupted from behind him. “Not hardly,” she said. “We’d have to be lovers for us to have a lovers’ spat, wouldn’t we?”

Holt turned to face her, drink in hand, and feigned surprise. “What? You mean all that stuff you told Dad about the two of you sleeping together isn’t true? Kit. I’m shocked, you would lie to our father that way.”

She strode easily into the room and dropped down onto the loveseat. But she said nothing in response to his assertion.

He sipped his soda, then set it on the side table as he shrugged out of his coat and tossed it into a chair. “So what brings you home?” he asked again as he joined her on the loveseat.

She tipped her head back and stared at the ceiling. “I needed a little break. And, just for the record, I didn’t lie to Daddy. Pendleton and I really did sleep together that first night. He just didn’t find out about it until he woke up the next morning.”

“So it really was sleeping, and nothing else?”

She nodded.

“And the status quo has remained unchanged?”

“Oh, no, it’s changed,” she said. “Pendleton has been sleeping on the couch since then.”

Holt chuckled. “I knew Dad underestimated him. I can’t see Pendleton buckling under to either one of you, in fact, even if he did let you move in with him.”

Kit turned her head to gaze at him, her expression inscrutable. “Are you suggesting I underestimated him? How do you know I don’t have him right where I want him?”

“And just where is it that you want him, Kit? Do you even know? Besides spread-eagle, belly-up, food for the buzzards, I mean.”

She seemed to give his question great thought before finally replying, “I never wanted to make him food for the buzzards. He is kind of cute, after all. I’m sure I could find some use for him.”

“Other than as a revenge tool against Dad, you mean.”

She made a face. “Please, Holt. You make me sound so conniving.”

“If the shoe fits…”

She sighed heavily, an empty, defeated sound, but she said nothing to contradict his allegation.

So Holt told her, “Dad might not know what you’re up to, little sister, but I do. And I don’t like it.”

She glanced away, but not before he saw the flicker of anguish that skittered across her features. “I have no idea what you’re talking about,” she said softly.

“Oh, yes you do. You’re letting Dad think that you and Pendleton are building a little love nest together, just to lull him into a false sense of security and make him think you’ll be getting married soon. That way, he’ll leave you alone, and you can jerk the rug right out from under him at the last minute.”

“I am not building a love nest with Pendleton,” she denied. But he found curious the two bright spots of pink that stained her cheeks.

“No, what you’re building is a house of cards,” he told her. “And it’s going to come down on you eventually. You might be able to fool Dad for a little while, but not for long. He only has a little over a month left to get you married. Once he finds out what you’re up to…” Holt deliberately left the statement unfinished, knowing Kit would draw far worse conclusions if left to her own devices.