My Man Pendleton(77)
Author: Elizabeth Bevarly

Less than two months had passed since he last saw his sister, but she suddenly looked so much older than he remembered. Her brown eyes crinkled at the corners with the smile that lit her whole face, and her dark hair, half-in and half-out of a stubby ponytail, was kissed with bits of silver. Jeez, when did Carny start to go gray? If she was starting to show signs of aging herself—however appealing they were on her—how must he be faring himself?

He pushed the thought aside. “So Kit’s here? She’s safe?”

Only now was he beginning to realize how worried he’d been that Kit might be gone for good. At best, he thought she’d taken off for the Caribbean again. Over and over, he’d imagined her standing behind a bar in her sarong, being hit on by some jerk who wouldn’t have a clue how to handle her. Or worse, who would have more than a clue how to handle her. The week and a half that passed in her absence felt more like a decade and a half to Pendleton. Even now, he couldn’t quite believe he had her back.

Of course, he reminded himself, he didn’t have her back. Not completely. Not yet. But once they talked, once he explained everything, once he told her how he felt about her, he was certain everything would be all right. And somehow, it was just so appropriate she turned up here, at his parents’ house. Kit being with his family somehow made perfect sense, felt totally right.

Besides, he recalled with some distaste, Sherry’s wedding was only three days away. And, hey, Kit had been invited, after all. Social creature that she was, he was sure she was planning on making an appearance. Or a spectacle. Whatever.

Carny chuckled, jerking him out of his ruminations. “Kit’s safe enough for the time being,” she said. “But if she keeps telling Dad how to cook ribs, he’s gonna send her straight to the moon.”

Pendleton laughed, too. His father was generally a good-natured, easygoing man, the kind of person who made immediate friends with everyone he encountered. Unless you tried to come between him and his barbecue. Do that, and Axel Pendleton of Deptford, New Jersey became more temperamental than a Paris-dwelling, cordon bleu chef.

“She’s actually a very good cook,” he told his sister. “She could probably teach him a thing or two.”

Carny chuckled some more. “Yeah, I know. Mom says Kit hasn’t let her cook a meal since she arrived.”

For some reason, that didn’t surprise him at all. For all Kit’s wealthy, upwardly mobile upbringing, there was an earthiness, a down-home quality about her that was completely inborn. Her mother’s doing, he supposed. As well as Kit performed in high-brow social settings, she was still too real a human being to ever be too good for something like a blue-collar, South Jersey kitchen.

“I’m sorry no one called you before now,” Carny said. “I just found out about it myself last night. Evidently, she’s been here since Monday, but somehow she talked Mom and Dad into not telling you she was here. Said she wanted to surprise you.”

Pendleton could believe that. Kit could probably talk Queen Elizabeth into abdicating her throne and giving it to Izzy the charwoman.

“She’s been staying here at the house?” he asked his sister. Somehow, that didn’t surprise him, either. Hey, he’d seen for himself she had a propensity for such things.

“She started off at the Holiday Inn,” Carny told him, “but Mom talked her into checking out a couple nights ago and taking your old room instead.”

Pendleton paled. "My old room?” he demanded. “Kit’s been sleeping in my old room? Why not your old room? Those pink ruffled curtains are more appropriate for her than my race car wallpaper.”

Carny gaped at him as if his brain was oozing out his ears. “‘Cause Mom knows how I am about my Barbie collection, you big jerk.”

Oh, yeah. He forgot. Anybody who came between Carny and her Barbies, even now, wound up with a little plastic high heel sticking out of their nose.

Reluctantly, Pendleton released his sister. “It’s good to see you again,” he said. “I’ve missed you and Joey, and Mom and Dad. A lot.”

“We’ve missed you, too. But be warned—Joey’s still majorly pissed at you for moving away before the end of hockey season.”

“I’ll make it up to him. He can come visit in a couple weeks for the Kentucky Derby. Apparently, it’s something of a big deal down there.”

“So, you liking it all right in your new town?” she asked, the question carrying far more importance than her voice let on.

Pendleton took a moment to really think about it. South Jersey was in his blood, and Philadelphia was, to his way of thinking, the greatest city ever erected on the planet. Every milestone of significance in his young life had occurred within a few miles of the very spot where he now stood. He took his first step, rode his first school bus, cracked his first bat, copped his first feel, all within blocks of his parents’ house.

Yet somehow, this place didn’t quite feel like home anymore. He didn’t know why that was. It just felt different now. There was no longer a pull on his soul toward the history he had here. Instead, he felt tugged toward the future, wherever Kit McClellan called home.

“Yeah,” he finally told Carny. “I like it just fine.”

She nodded. “Maybe I’ll come down with Joey and to that Derby thing. And Mom and Dad, too.” She smiled one of those all-knowing sister smiles. “Or maybe we’ll all just wait and come down this summer. Like for the wedding, maybe.”

He smiled back. “Wedding? What wedding? Whatever could you be talking about, Carny?”

Carny wiggled her brows playfully. “Yours. Kit’s. Whatever.”

He was about to comment when a cry from the direction of the backyard silenced him. His father was yelling at the top of his lungs, something about…cumin?

Carny rolled her eyes. “Not again,” she muttered. “Mom says they’ve been having this argument ever since the night Kit arrived.”

Even knowing Kit as well as he did, Pendleton found this news to be a little confusing. “They’ve been arguing about cumin?”

Carny nodded. “Yeah.”

But she said nothing more to elaborate, only spun around and made her way through the living room toward the kitchen, with Pendleton following helplessly on her trail.

“Will you just trust me on this, Axel?” Kit’s voice rose from the backyard. “For once in your life? Don’t be such a Pendleton.”