My Man Pendleton(75)
Author: Elizabeth Bevarly

Kit realized then that she wasn’t just talking about Faith’s situation with Holt anymore. The advice she found so easy to offer someone else, the solution that seemed so clear to her, was suddenly far more personal, and therefore far more impossible.

“Look,” she said, standing, “maybe you’re right. Maybe this is none of my business. I didn’t mean to intrude. I apologize. I just know that my brother cares for you very much. And I wanted to try to talk you into giving him a chance. Into giving yourself a chance. So both of you might find happiness.”

“Your brother has already tried to talk me into giving him a chance,” Faith said. “What makes you think anything you say will change my mind?”

“I don’t know,” Kit replied honestly. “Maybe because I’ve been where you are. I know how it feels to have someone you cared for, someone you trusted, turn on you. But I know my brother, too. Holt may have his faults, even in sobriety, but betrayal isn’t one of them. You can trust him. Truly you can. There aren’t many people I can say that about.”

Faith said nothing in response right away, conceding neither victory nor defeat. For several long moments, the two women only stared at each other in silence, the late evening sun spilling through the blinds in shafts of pale yellow, gilding into fairy light the dust dancing in the air around them. When it seemed their impasse would remain just that, Kit turned away and covered the distance to the door in a few slow strides. Just as she settled her fingers over the knob, Faith’s voice came softly from behind and halted her.

“And you, Kit,” she said. “You say you’ve been where I am. If someone offered you a second chance, would you take it? Could you take it? Would you be able to trust that you wouldn’t be betrayed again?”

Kit swallowed hard as she turned to meet the other woman’s gaze. But she simply did not know how to answer. In a way, she had taken a second chance. And, just as before, the person she cared for betrayed her. But it was Pendleton this time, she reminded herself. Unlike Michael Derringer, she loved Pendleton. And that changed everything. Didn’t it?

“If you want to talk for some reason,” she told Faith, “I’ll be staying at the Seelbach for a few days.” The other woman looked puzzled. “Why are you staying in a hotel?”

Kit shrugged halfheartedly. “I’m in the middle of some traveling right now. It’s just easier this way. But I’ll be in town for another week.” She smiled as she tugged the door open and took a step through it. Over her shoulder, she tossed out, “After that, I’m heading up to New Jersey for a few days. I’ve been invited to a wedding.”

The week following Kit’s disappearance passed like a slow boat to China as far as Pendleton was concerned. No, wait—that wasn’t exactly right. That metaphor had far too romantic a connotation, not to mention an appropriateness and possible reality he just didn’t want to consider. He could visualize too clearly Kit all wrapped up in a blanket, wearing big sunglasses and a floppy straw hat, lounging in an Adirondack chair on the deck of a tramp steamer, while crew members with names like Sven and Bjorn and Helmut, dressed in little white shorts and knee socks, waited on her hand and foot.

Nuh-uh. No way would he let her get away with that.

So the week following her disappearance actually passed more like… more like… like a…hmmm… More like a kidney stone. Yeah, that was it. The week passed like a kidney stone. Painfully. Uncomfortably. Slowly. Always on his mind. And there wasn’t a damned thing he could do about it but wait. And wait. And wait.

But the postcard he was hoping for never materialized. Nor was there a letter. Nor a brief note, a phone call, a fax. No telegram. No Hallmark card. No e-mail. No jungle drums. Nary a smoke signal to be had. Not even a flare. Wherever Kit had gone, she clearly intended to stay gone this time, and for a lot longer than a few days. All he could do was—

“Pendleton!”

Dammit. Why did McClellan, Sr. always interrupt him right when he got to the depressing, self-pitying part?

Pendleton had yet to tell his employer that his daughter was gone. Not only was he not sure it was any of the CEO’s business, but he was fairly certain his boss was somehow to blame for it. Even with the evidence of Sherry’s wedding invitation staring him in the face, thereby making himself a key player in Kit’s motivation for bolting, Pendleton decided that since the McClellans were the ones who put the fun in dysfunctional, they must be the ones who were really to blame. Even if Pendleton could have prevented this whole idiotic mess just by telling Kit how much he loved her.

“Sir?” he responded halfheartedly to his boss’s summons.

McClellan, Sr. eyed him warily. “Novak just made an excellent point about diversifying and upgrading proactive criteria. What do you think?”

What Pendleton thought, McClellan, Sr. didn’t want to know. Frankly, he was getting awfully tired of all the corporate double-speak that once rolled so fluidly off his tongue. He had some damned important things on his mind right now, for God’s sake, and diversifying and upgrading proactive criteria sure the hell wasn’t one of them.

So he met his boss’s gaze levelly and said, “Sir, I have just one word to say to you.”

McClellan, Sr. arched his eyebrows in expectation. “And that word would be?”

Pendleton narrowed his eyes in what he hoped was a convincing show of je ne sais quois.And he announced in a bold, where-no-man-has-gone-before voice, “Incentivizing.”

His employer gazed back at him without expression for a moment, then began to nod slowly. “I like it. I like it very much. Incentivizing. Yes. That shows real insight.”

Pendleton swallowed the gag reflex before it could make itself public. “Thank you, sir.”

“Why don’t you and Kit come round to the house tonight?”

Oh, great. “Sir?” he asked, stalling.

“You. Kit. My daughter. Come over for dinner tonight. Bart’s home on leave, and Mick is supposed to be calling from Yemen.”

Pendleton brightened. “Oh, so he’s already made it to the countries beginning with a Y, has he?” he asked in an effort to stall some more. “That’s got to feel good. Very manly, and all that.”

“Pendleton.”

“Yes, sir?”

“Are you and Kit coming or not?”

“Uh, no sir, I don’t guess we will.”

“Why not?”