My Man Pendleton(58)
Author: Elizabeth Bevarly

Holt tipped his head toward the telephone that sat on the end table within her reach. “You going to give him a call? Let him know you won’t be home tonight?”

She started to reach for the receiver, stroked her fingers over it lightly a few times, then finally shook her head. “No, I don’t think it’s necessary. It’s not like he’s going to worry about me. He probably won’t even notice I’m gone.”

Chapter 14

Where the hell was she?

Pendleton paced the length of his living room, then hastened to the front window again, shoved aside the lace—God, lace—curtains again, and stared out into the white eddies of snow dancing in the darkness beyond. He could barely distinguish the anemic glow of the lamp at the end of his front walk, and he certainly saw no sign of a Mercedes S-class, double-parked or not. It was past midnight, and he was worried about Kit.

Worried about Kit, he marveled again. How could this be happening? He was honestly concerned about the safety and well-being of a woman who had turned his life inside-out and his house into a Speigel catalog. Worried in the truest, most clichéd sense of the word, that she was out there lying dead in a ditch somewhere. Hell, he ought to be celebrating the fact that his house—his life—was finally his own again.

As he had ever since that ill-fated, albeit unbelievably enjoyable, embrace in front of the fireplace less than a week ago, he forced himself to stop thinking about it. He was no closer now to understanding what that particular incident was about than he’d been the night it happened. Surely there was some psychologically sound, socially acceptable explanation for what occurred that night. He’d been all warm and rosy and missing his family, and Kit was handy. Likewise, she probably only responded to him out of some intense physical needs that had been too long neglected.

Simple stuff. Basic chemistry. They were both feeling lonely, and they both turned to each other in a fit of handiness. Period. Fortunately, Kit came to her senses before anything very important happened. Well, nothing more important than a soul-shattering, reality-bending, mind-scrambling explosion of libido, anyway. Still, no reason to dwell on it, right? He should simply continue to pretend it didn’t happen, just as the two of them had been pretending—however lamely—all week long.

So Pendleton only gazed out at the white-on-black night, as if in doing so, he might somehow conjure Kit up from the darkness, safe and sound. Behind him, from a cowering position on the rug before the fireplace, Maury whined his distress, as if he, too, were worried. Pendleton turned and offered the dog a halfhearted smile.

“It’s okay, boy,” he said. “She’s fine. She’ll be home any minute now.”

But he knew Maury didn’t believe him any more than he believed himself. He shoved a restive hand through his hair, bit back the panic that threatened to overtake him, and wondered if he should call the police. Hell, there must be almost a foot of snow on the ground by now.

The storm had come out of nowhere and caught everyone by surprise. The weather guy on channel three said not to worry, though, that these spring blizzards were notorious for appearing quickly, only to be followed by balmy, springlike conditions that erased the results just as rapidly. By dark tomorrow night, the meteorologist promised, the temperatures would be pushing seventy, and the snow would be melting faster than the Wicked Witch of the West.

But right now, the temperatures were hovering around thirty, and right now, the snow wasn’t going anywhere except higher. Normally, Pendleton liked snow. But not when it was wet and heavy like this. Not when it trapped people in their houses so they couldn’t get out and find people they were worried about. Not when it could be potentially lethal to people who happened to get caught out in it in their Mercedes S-class.

Dammit, where was she?

He released the curtain, somehow not minding anymore that it was lace. Kit was fine, he told himself adamantly. More than likely, she ventured out to do something that would wreak more havoc in his life, only to realize, too late, that she wouldn’t make it home. For all he knew, she was snuggled safe in her bed at Cherrywood, blissfully asleep, dreaming about the kinds of things that only the incredibly rich dreamed about. Still, it would have been nice if she phoned to let him know she wouldn’t make it back tonight. To tell him that she was safe and sound, and not lying dead in a ditch somewhere. To reassure him that she would be home soon.

Home. Now that was a good one. He really was worried beyond sense if he were thinking that his house was her home. Obviously, he needed some rest.

He should just go to bed, he told himself. Even if there was no way he’d be going in to work in the morning, it wasn’t going to help matters to stay up worrying about Kit. Surely she was all right. Yeah, he ought to just use this opportunity to sleep in his own bed for a change, instead of on the couch.

But as Pendleton turned toward the stairs, a section of loose, crumbling plaster on the wall near the stairwell caught his attention. Really, it wouldn’t take long at all to patch that, he thought. He had the materials in the basement. It would be a snap. He could take care of that one by the fire-place, too, he thought further, turning back toward the exposed area by the chimney. While he was at it, he might as well patch those places on the dining room wall and ceiling. And the ones in the kitchen.

Hey, it wasn’t like he was going anywhere anytime soon.

He’d finished patching up all the places on the first floor and was taking care of the ones on the second when Kit finally came home. Her arrival made Pendleton feel very, very good inside.

For about three seconds.

Then that very, very good feeling was immediately eclipsed by one that was decidedly much less good, because all of the worry, concern, anxiety and yes, dammit, fear, he managed to keep at bay for too many hours than he cared to think about suddenly roared up inside him in one huge, angry rush of emotion.

At the sound of the front door closing downstairs, he leaped down from the ladder in his bedroom, nearly toppling it and the tub of wet plaster beneath it. Then he stomped with great gusto out the door, down the hallway, to the top of the stairs. Kit gazed back up at him from her position just inside the door, appearing to be only mildly surprised to see him. Dammit, she was standing there looking at him as if nothing in the world were wrong. As if she hadn’t been missing from his life for almost thirty-six hours without explanation. As if he hadn’t been terrified of losing her.

As if she didn’t care for him nearly as much as he was beginning to care for her.