My Man Pendleton(70)
Author: Elizabeth Bevarly

For a long time, McClellan said nothing, as if he were letting that suggestion settle in. Then he replied, “So if Kit blows the entire fortune, loses every nickel that generations of my family have worked most of their lives to earn, then I shouldn’t worry, because I’ll still be able to watch the sunset every night, is that it?”

Pendleton nodded, but knew the suggestion sounded lame when phrased like that. In spite of that, he said, “It’s my understanding that your great-great grandfather started off with nothing but a recipe and an illegal still way up in the mountains.”

McClellan nodded. “Yes. That’s true.”

“So who do you think enjoyed his work more? You or him?”

The other man inhaled deeply, then released the breath in a slow, steady steam. “I’m not a simple man, Pendleton. Neither is my father. Neither are any of us. We’ve grown up with a certain lifestyle, and I, for one, don’t want to lose it. Especially when it’s such an easy matter to preserve it.”

“And I’m saying that maybe if you stepped back and looked at the big picture, you and your old man might have more success preserving the family fortune than you’ve had messing around with Kit’s life. There’s more to that fortune than money. A lot more.”

McClellan narrowed his eyes at him. “I don’t follow you.”

Pendleton nodded angrily. “Yeah, I know. That’s the problem.”

Concerned that saying anything more might further confuse the matter, he pushed himself up from the pavement and began to make his way to the house. Almost as an afterthought, he spun around and lobbed the basketball carelessly toward the goal. It bounced on the rim before hitting the backboard, then it spun on the hoop a few times before finally falling through the net. When it did, McClellan caught it deftly in both hands, then looked up at Pendleton with a frown.

And all Pendleton could do was shake his head, and wonder how a smart guy like McClellan, Jr. could be so damned dumb.

Kit fought off the ripple of déjà vu that threatened to swamp her when the dinner party retired to the living room with coffee. It was hard to believe a month had passed since that first night at Cherrywood. Pendleton was a complete stranger to her then, and she suspected he was nothing more than a corporate drone dancing at the end of her father’s leash. She’d so looked forward to taking him down a peg that evening. But things didn’t turn out quite the way she planned. Since that night, everything had blown up in her face.

Because she, like an idiot, had gone and fallen in love.

Oh, but hey, no biggie. It was love, not brain surgery. She’d get over it. Eventually. Certainly by the end of the twentieth millennium or so. By then, if what all those post-nuclear-holocaust, dystopian movies said was true, the world would just be a big ol’ ball of dried-up, burned-out carbon anyway. And where was the fun in pining for someone when you had to wear a gas mask all the time?

She sensed Pendleton’s approach long before she felt him move up behind her, and a shiver of anticipation mixed with apprehension skittered through her. Before she could acknowledge him, he leaned in close, his mouth hovering right at her ear. His breath, his entire body, was warm, welcome, intoxicating. She found that she simply could not wait to go home and get na**d with him.

“You ready to go?” he asked, his voice low and seductive, murmuring her own thoughts just loud enough for them to hear. “We could get an early start on all those things we planned on doing.”

A sad, salacious smile curled her lips as she nodded. “Most definitely.” She turned to her father and brother and added, more loudly, “Pendleton and I have to be going. It’s getting late.”

Her father’s eyebrows shot up in surprise, but the smile that curled his lips was victorious, Kit noted dispiritedly. Strange that he acted so triumphant all evening, when not once did he mention her relationship with Pendleton. Not once did he demand to know how things with the two of them were going. Not once did he ask if they’d made any wedding plans. It almost felt as if he knew something they didn’t. She really hated feeling that way.

“So soon?” he asked. Before either of them could offer to stay longer—not that either of them was going to offer to stay longer—he rushed on, “Well, if you must. Good night. Drive safely. Holt? You up for a nightcap?”

Without further notice, he spun on his heel and departed for the library. Holt shook his head at her, smiled, and shrugged, then, after a quietly uttered good night, departed in the same direction as their father.

“My family,” Kit said wistfully as she watched them go. “I suppose I have no choice but to keep them. They’re just smart enough to leave a trail of bread crumbs if I tried to abandon them in an enchanted forest.”

Pendleton smiled. “At least we have each other.”

For now, at any rate, she thought.

They made it all the way to the car before Kit realized she left her purse behind. Seeing as it was one of those evening bags roughly the size of an electron, she knew it could be hiding almost anywhere.

“It’s probably in the kitchen,” she told Pendleton as he opened the passenger side door for her. “I put it down to set the table for Mrs. Mason. Go ahead and start the car. I’ll only be a minute.”

But it wasn’t in the kitchen, she noted quickly. She must have left it in the dining room. That room, too, however, provided her with no clue as to her purse’s whereabouts. She mentally retraced her steps of the evening and finally concluded she left it in the library. Where her father and Holt had retired for a nightcap. Gee, just like old times. They were doubtless having one of those major father-son conversations right, and there was always that outside chance that her name might crop up…

She slipped her shoes from her feet and dangled them from her fingers as she tiptoed quietly to the library, remembering this was exactly how that first, fateful evening with Pendleton concluded. How terribly ironic. Sure enough, the moment she entered the main hallway, she heard the soft murmur of masculine voices, and silently made her way to just outside the door. She hugged the wall and cocked an ear, eavesdropping shamelessly on the conversation coming from within.

“…about wedding plans?” Holt was asking.

“It wasn’t necessary to ask them about any wedding plans,” her father answered.

Holt chuckled anxiously. “We have a month before the deadline expires, and you don’t think it’s necessary to ask when Kit’s getting married?”