Heather Graham (24 page)

“Venison.”

“Venison? You mean one of those beautiful deer?”

“Yes.”

Katie felt a little ill. She hadn’t been cut out to be a mountain girl, that was for sure.

“Nice night,” she murmured dryly. “I get to bathe with a snake, then find out I’ve eaten Bambi for dinner.”

“If you kill an animal,” Kent replied softly, “it should only be for food.”

She turned around. He had walked back into the kitchen. She heard a chunk of ice falling in a glass. A moment later Kent came back into the room, swirling that ice cube around in a glass of scotch. He approached the window and pulled the drape back further without touching Katie. He frowned, then allowed the drape to fall back in place with a grimace.

“What was that for?” Katie asked as he walked back to the couch.

“What?”

“That frown?”

He shrugged. “The snow just looks pretty severe, that’s all.”

“Pretty severe? What does that mean?” Katie asked, her dismay growing. “Please don’t tell me we could get stuck here.”

“It’s likely.”

“Oh, God!”

Katie strode back to the kitchen and added a little Coke and a lot of rum to her drink. Pausing a moment, she then clutched both bottles beneath her arm and headed through the living room, intending to continue straight down the hallway. Kent’s sudden laughter brought her to a halt. She turned and regarded him coolly.

“Going to drink yourself into oblivion, Miss Hudson?”

“Possibly,” she replied with a cool smile and slight hike of a brow.

“Rum is a poor substitute for warmth,” he said, his features and eyes enigmatic.

She lifted her glass to him. “It will do for the evening.”

“Be careful, then, Miss Hudson,” he warned her softly. “I seem to recall that you’re a woman with a rather low tolerance level.”

“As a matter of fact, Mr. Hart, I have no tolerance left at all,” she replied, neatly sidestepping his meaning and asserting her own. “And your responsibility is completely at an end. I’ve been warmly bathed, fed, and watered. I assume I’m completely free to retire for the night?”

“You are.” He raised his glass as if toasting her. “But I’m curious, Miss Hudson. What if—just if—the snow continues?”

“It can’t,” she told him with determination.

“Why? It shouldn’t matter so much to you. You were supposed to trail me until the Superbowl—weren’t you? Oh, no! I keep forgetting,” he added with mock dismay, “there’s more in the East than just
World Magazine,
isn’t there?”

“Is there?” She saluted him stiffly and started down the hall again. She reached the bedroom door, opened it, and resolutely closed it behind her.

It was going to be a long evening. But she was going to get through it intact, she told herself.

Kent drained his scotch in one long swallow, fully aware that he was drinking more than he should be with the big game only two weeks away. But the alcohol burned nicely through him. He stretched out a hand, clenched it into a fist, unclenched it again, then leaned his head on the back of the sofa and closed his eyes.

Why can’t I leave her be? he wondered. Her angry self-defense rang with such a scathing truth! But he had known her for such a short time, and Sam wouldn’t have called if there hadn’t been some smoke to the fire.

He rubbed his temple and sighed. No fool like an old fool, he reminded himself. And tonight he felt very old and worn. Kent smiled to himself bitterly. Wound an animal, and it will strike. Was he just like an old battle cat, gouged and down, and more than ready to pounce back?

Yes, that was precisely it. She had gotten to him, right beneath the skin. Desire had become caring, and caring … somehow it had become love. It had just hurt unbearably to realize that he had trusted love again only to find he was being used.

And he still didn’t know just what was or wasn’t true. Something about the whole game thing was very wrong; it also seemed as if part of the picture was missing. What? It just wasn’t falling completely into place. So Paul Crane was on the take to smash the Saxons into the ground. Crane would be doing his damnedest to do that anyway—every man on the Titans would be playing it that way. It was the name of the game.

There’d be no way in hell to prove any of it. So what did it matter? The Saxons would have to play a very careful game.

Kent closed his eyes, then shook his head. He felt as if he’d been given a child’s jigsaw puzzle, only to discover that the piece that completed the whole picture was missing.

He shrugged. It was just a game, right? The Saxons would battle it out their hardest, and they’d either win or lose. So what was he looking for?

The outcome, he thought dryly. The day when he would know whether or not every word he had said to Kathleen Hudson had been repeated to the opposition.

No … it went further than that, he thought. Much further. He wasn’t as worried about her repeating secrets as he was about her. He didn’t want her anywhere near Paul Crane. Maybe it was because there was something about being a woman’s first lover that entrapped a man’s soul; maybe it was just because he had fallen in love with her. But, as mad and furious as he’d been, he didn’t want her going back—to either New York or Paul Crane. He wished there were a way to lock her up for the next two weeks—maybe for eternity.

Except, of course, that she was never going to forgive him. His words had been harsh, totally condemning. And if she was innocent, the things he had said and done were totally unforgivable.

Kent rubbed his temple; he was coming down with a hell of a headache. He glanced down the hallway. Damn, but it would be nice if it were still last night, or this morning—any time before Sam’s call had turned him into a raving madman and then left him riddled with doubt and guilt. If only he could go to her, lie down beside her, and feel the fluid movements of her fingers tease away his weariness.

The phone rang suddenly, cutting into the pictures in his mind. Kent stayed where he was, since the machine would catch the phone. Then he jumped up and headed for the kitchen extension. He didn’t want Katie to hear any recorded messages.

“Hello?”

“Kent?”

“Yes. Paula?” He was startled to hear his ex-wife’s voice. She had known he was coming here with Katie, and Paula never intruded on his private life.

“Oh, Kent! I’m so sorry to be calling you. I wouldn’t, you know, unless I was really worried—”

“Paula, it’s okay. You can call me any time you need to. Really. What’s the matter?”

“Oh, Kent! It’s—”

Kent jerked the phone from his ear as static suddenly overwhelmed her words with a loud crackle.

“Kent?”

He heard her voice again.

“I’m here, Paula. We’ve just got a horrible connection. There’s a storm here.”

“Oh. I’ll try to speak quickly. This all just started yesterday morning—”

“Paula, what started yesterday morning?”

“You know I never say anything at all about what you’re doing, even when I know.”

“Paula,” Kent said quietly and firmly. He frowned quizzically. Paula never stumbled in her speech, and she never prattled.

“I just don’t know what’s—”

The static came again, wiping out Paula’s voice.

“Paula? Paula?”

Kent pulled the receiver from his ear once again, hesitated, then tried again. “Paula?”

The line had gone completely dead. Frustrated, Kent slammed the phone into the receiver. He cautioned himself to patience, then picked up the phone again, assuring himself that he could call her back, but the line was still dead.

He sighed, hung up the phone, and walked back into the living room to pull open the drapes. The snow was coming down with such a force that it looked like one big white sheet. His wires were probably down.

“Damn!” he exploded out loud. Shoving his hands into his pockets, he began to pace the room restlessly, wondering what had been so serious that Paula had decided to call him.

Maybe, he tried to tell himself, she had heard some more rumors about the upcoming game, and all she had wanted to do was warn him to take care of himself. No, he decided, she’d already told him what she knew about Paul Crane. The name left a bitter taste in his mouth. He forced himself to go forward with his thinking.

Maybe Paula had just had some kind of a really bad argument with Ted and needed some advice or a shoulder to cry on. No to that, too, he decided with a dry groan of irritation. Years ago, Paula had experienced some domestic problems, minor in the full scope of her marriage but major at the time. She’d started to talk to Kent about it but had then withdrawn, saying that it just wasn’t fair to Ted to bring Kent in on the situation.

What?

Anne, he thought with a rush of pain. Something was wrong with Anne.

He went to the window and jerked back the curtain again. There wasn’t a thing he was going to be able to do about it. Not tonight. It didn’t look as if he’d even be able to open the front door.

“Damn!” he muttered again through grated teeth. Restlessly, he strode back to the phone and picked up the receiver to be met by dead silence once again. He slammed the receiver back into the hook and paced furiously back to the living room.

He tried to reason with himself. Paula was worried, but she didn’t say that anything had happened. Maybe Anne had discovered boys and was just experiencing the normal emotional crisis that occurred in any thirteen-year-old’s life. Not “just,” he told himself firmly; whatever was going on was surely very important to his daughter.

But she was all right—Anne had to be all right. He would make sure that he talked to her as soon as possible and help her through whatever the problem was.

Kent spotted his glass on the end table where he had set it, plucked it irritably into his hand, and strode back to the kitchen. The game was two weeks away. Tonight he needed another drink—a stiff one—if he was going to sleep.

He poured himself the drink, giving himself stern mental warnings as he did so. There wasn’t a damn thing he could do with the storm outside. And, as serious as things might be, he’d just have to handle them when he could.

There was a small noise behind him, and he spun around. Katie was standing there, watching him with wide eyes. She’d changed into her forest-green robe, and her hair fell about her shoulders in glossy waves.

“I—I heard the phone,” she explained at his questioning look, “and your pacing. Is anything wrong?”

Kent didn’t know what stole over him as he watched her standing there—probably a nagging sense of betrayal, an insecurity he had never thought to experience, or maybe guilt. Maybe it was just a combination of his worry about Anne and the tension from all that had happened between them. He needed help, but he didn’t know how to reach for it. And so he lashed out instead.

He leaned back against the counter as he looked at her coldly. “Were you expecting a phone call? From your fiancé perhaps? Well, it wasn’t for you.”

She stared at him a minute, then told him exactly what she thought he should do with himself. When she started down the hallway, he remained silent until she neared the bedroom door.

“Katie!”

She paused, looking back at him.

He straightened, setting down his scotch, sticking his hands into his pockets and clenching them tightly into fists.

“I’m sorry for that. I—uh—yes, something is wrong. It was Paula, my ex-wife, and we were cut off. I’m worried that something might be wrong with my daughter.”

Her lashes fell over her eyes; her hand was still on the doorknob. “I hope that everything is all right.” She started to push the door open.

“Katie,” he said again, wondering how he could feel so awkward.

She looked at him again.

“I am sorry.”

“For jumping at me now?” she asked quietly.

“Yes.”

“But not for calling me a whore?”

“I—uh—yes. I shouldn’t have said that.”

She laughed, and the sound carried bitterness. “You’re sorry for your language … but not the meaning behind it.”

He felt very stiff, very rigid. Yes. I’m sorry about everything, about the whole damn mess! he wanted to say. But he couldn’t. It was still there. A nagging anxiety and doubt. She was really very, very beautiful. And there had been a time when she had hated him immensely.

Paul Crane, the newspapers, everything; it was just too much of a coincidence.

He stood there mutely, watching her. She waited, but when he didn’t speak, she reentered the room.

In the stillness that followed, he clearly heard the click of the lock.

“Oh, the hell with this!” he muttered. “The hell with this whole damn night!”

He stared at his scotch for a minute, then tossed back his head and swallowed it in a gulp. He shook from head to toe as the fiery liquid burned its way down. Then he set the glass down with a sharp click and walked down the hall to the guest bedroom.

He stripped down to his briefs in the darkness and crawled beneath the sheets and blankets. He tossed about, trying to get comfortable on the standard-sized bed. It was just too small—his feet hung off and his arms kept hitting the headboard.

With a long, drawn-out sigh Kent forced himself to settle down. But it felt as if his mind were on fire. He just kept thinking about Katie, the game, about Paula and Anne. What the hell was going on while he was cooped up in this snowbound cage?

The game, injuries, Paul, his daughter. Daughters in general. Katie … Dante’s daughter.

When he finally slept, his thoughts were in a jumble, so maybe it wasn’t so strange that he dreamed of Dante Hudson. They were back on a football field—Kent didn’t really know which one, he couldn’t even tell the state or the season, but he knew it was a dream, and so it didn’t matter. Dante was there. As real as he had ever been in life. A tall man, broad at the shoulders, but very trim, wiry, and as healthy as a thoroughbred horse. He was full of life and laughter.

“Never let them know you’re hurting, Cougar. When they’ve blitzed you into the ground, you just gotta laugh, no matter how much you ache. Keep them all worried about you.”

“Sure thing, Dante. But what happens when they drag you off the field?”

“That’s when you gotta give them your biggest smile.”