Home to Eden (28 page)

"Vegas, huh?" David's smile widened. "That's where her mother and I were married. I guess that makes it something of a family tradition, doesn't it, Katie?"

"It would seem so." Her smile was perfunctory. There was an awkward little silence. Nick wondered if he should suggest that they go sit down, rather than stand around awkwardly, but he hesitated in the face of Kate's cool response to her father. She didn't look as if she wanted to do anything that might prolong the visit. Still, they could hardly stand here like a bunch of statuary. He put his arm around Kate's shoulders and drew her against his side, ignoring her stiffness.

"I was about to make some coffee," he said. "Would you like some?"

"I wouldn't say no to a cup," David said. Then he looked at Kate, his expression oddly hesitant. "As long as it won't be too much trouble."

"It's no trouble at all," she said. She smiled and Nick thought he could feel the effort it cost her. He felt her hook her fingers through the belt loop on his jeans as if she needed something to hold onto. "But I should warn you, Nick uses any leftover coffee as paint stripper."

"Sounds good to me," David said. His tone was a bit too hearty, and Nick's curiosity sharpened. Just what was going on?

A change of setting didn't do anything to dispel the tension between Kate and her father. While he made coffee, he tried to keep the conversational ball rolling because it was clear that, if he didn't do it, no one would. As it was, Kate's contribution to the conversation consisted of a few strained smiles and an occasional comment. David Moran was more forthcoming, though he didn't seem any more at ease than his daughter.

He seemed to have left Seattle on a whim, without a particular destination in mind. He was thinking about going to Texas or maybe Michigan and hadn't decided yet. "I've saved up a few dollars so I don't have to make any quick decisions. A friend of mine has a job lined up for me in Saginaw, but I hear they're building in Texas again so I might go there first. 'Course, summer isn't exactly the best time of year to be visiting Houston." He glanced at Kate, smiling. "Remember the summer we spent in Galveston? You were about eight, I think. You and your mother spent quite a bit of time on the beach."

"I remember." The memory didn't seem to bring her any pleasure. "It was after Miami and before Tucson. Mama liked Galveston."

"So she did." David's smile faded and he looked at his hands. They were strong hands, long-fingered and supple—an artist's hands, Nick thought. When he looked up, his smile was back in place. "She liked Tucson just fine, though. Said it was a good place to spend the winter."

"She never complained," Kate said expressionlessly, leaving the flat statement open to interpretation.

Nick saw her glance at the clock and guessed she was counting the minutes until Brenda arrived and put an end to this meeting. He couldn't blame her. The undercurrents in the room were strong enough to pull under an Olympic-class swimmer.

"Kate said you're a carpenter," he said, hoping to move the conversation onto neutral territory, not an easy task when he didn't know what war was being fought.

"That's right. I do finish work, some custom cabinetry, things like that. The pay's good and I can usually find work without too much trouble."

"While you're here, maybe you could give me some suggestions about some of the work around here. I'm more of a handyman than anything else and I'd—"

"Actually, Nick is an architect—a very good one," Kate interrupted. From her tone, it was difficult to tell whether she was praising him or throwing his degree out as a challenge. Nick couldn't begin to guess which it might be.

"Is that so?" David said, looking interested.

"More or less. I haven't done any designing recently, though." Nick turned to get cups out, grateful for something to do. He felt like he was walking through a minefield—one wrong step and the situation would blow up in his face. He set the cups down and looked at Kate. "Do you want me to put water on so you can boil some weeds for tea?"

"Weeds?" David raised a questioning brow.

"Herb tea," Nick said, grinning at Kate. It was an ongoing joke between them.

"I gave up caffeine a couple of years ago," Kate lied calmly. "It was making me uptight. Nick doesn't approve."

"I just think the stuff tastes like wash water." He picked up her lead immediately and saw her eyes flicker with relief and something that might have been gratitude. He added another question to the growing mental list he was keeping. Why didn't she want her father to know she was pregnant?

Kate looked at the clock again. This time, as if in answer to a prayer, the doorbell rang.

"That will be Brenda," she said immediately and even managed not to sound openly relieved. She looked at her father. "My truck is in the shop so my boss is picking me up this morning."

"Nice boss," he said.

"Yes, she is. I'm sorry to cut this short."

"That's okay." David straightened away from the counter he'd been leaning against. "I should have called before I came over. I knew it was a bit early to be dropping in but I was anxious to see you."

"Will you be staying in town long?" Kate asked, avoiding any direct response to his comment.

"I haven't made any plans." He smiled. "You know me—always going where the wind blows me."

"Yes. I remember." For just a moment, her expression was chill and then she gave him another of those quick, meaningless smiles. "We'll have to get together for dinner while you're here," she said as if she was talking to a casual acquaintance.

"I'd like that," David said eagerly.

The doorbell rang again.

"I have to go," she said.

"Not without a kiss," Nick said lightly, catching her hand and pulling her. Their eyes met, his searching, hers shuttered. He had a thousand questions but this was not the time to ask them. Resigning himself to frustration, he dropped a kiss on her mouth.

She was gone the moment he released her, and Nick looked after her thoughtfully. Considering the tension between them, he was a little surprised she'd been willing to leave him alone with her father. He wondered if he should be flattered that she trusted him that much or if it was just a measure of her desperate need to escape. His gaze shifted to his father-in-law. The older man was looking after his daughter with such an expression of pain that Nick looked away, feeling as if he'd intruded on something private. He felt as if he'd been dropped into the middle of a play without the least idea of what the plot might be.

Just what was going on between Kate and her father?

Nick didn't get a chance to talk to Kate alone until after dinner. Harry joined them for the meal, as he almost always did. Nick thought it was interesting that Kate didn't mention her father's unexpected visit to Harry. Was she hoping David Moran would leave as abruptly as he'd appeared, without her having to acknowledge his presence to anyone? If he hadn't happened to be home this morning, would she even have told him about her father's visit?

He waited until Harry had gone to the guest house, leaving them alone, before he broached the subject.

"You want to tell me what was going on this morning?" he asked as he snagged a flour-sack towel from the rack and picked up a dish to dry.

"I don't know what you mean." Kate didn't look at him as she rinsed another plate under running water and set it in the drainer. "You don't have to do that. They'll air dry just fine."

"It gives me something to do while we talk."

"I don't want to talk about my father," she said flatly. She dropped a fistful of silverware into the sink, letting it clatter against the porcelain as if punctuating her statement.

"There's obviously a problem—" he began, but she cut him off ruthlessly.

"If there is, then it's my problem."

Nick finished drying a plate and set it on the counter before reaching for a glass. He let the silence stretch while he debated whether or not to push. She'd said she didn't want to talk about her father and that should be an end of it. And yet... And yet, he couldn't shake the feeling that, whatever it was, it should be brought out in the open.

"Did he stay long?" she asked abruptly, almost as if against her will.

"Half an hour or so."

"Did you— What did you talk about?" Every word seemed pulled from her. She didn't look at him but kept her eyes on the fork she was washing as if the fate of the world depended on it being perfectly clean.

She was obviously upset, and Nick would have given a great deal to be able to comfort her, but there wasn't much he could do when he didn't know what was wrong.

"We talked about the work on the house," he told her. "He obviously knows his stuff. I didn't tell him about the baby, if that's what you're worried about."

She shrugged. "It doesn't matter, I guess."

"It seemed to matter this morning."

"I was...surprised to see him and I guess I overreacted."

"Actually, I think the word should be under-reacted. I've seen people greet IRS agents with more enthusiasm." Nick was careful to keep any hint of criticism from his tone, but Kate's head came up, her eyes bright with anger when she looked at him.

"I don't owe him anything,'" she said fiercely.

"I didn't say you did."

"Not everyone has a close family like yours." She was very much on the defensive.

"I know that." He tossed the towel over the edge of the drainer and leaned one hip against the counter, watching her. "You want to tell me about it?"

"No." But there was no force behind the word. Kate stared at the water in the sink. She trailed her fingers through the slowly dissipating suds, vividly aware of Nick watching her. Waiting.

Seeing her father had stirred up emotions she'd thought were long dead and buried. Things she'd told herself were all but forgotten, anger she'd convinced herself she no longer felt. She'd spent the day feeling restless and with a knot in her stomach the size of a fist. The emotional turmoil had exhausted her, and yet she was too wired to think about resting. She felt as if her skin hummed with nervous tension.

She didn't want to talk about her father, didn't want to think about him.

"Did he say anything more about how long he's going to be around?" The question had been haunting her ail day.

"No. Just that he didn't have any firm plans."

"That figures." She pulled the plug from the sink and stood watching the water drain. "He never liked to plan more than a few days in advance, if he could avoid it."

"A spontaneous kind of guy?" he questioned cautiously.

"A selfish, self-centered, self-indulgent kind of guy," she said and immediately wished she could call the words back. "I don't want to talk about him."

"Maybe you don't want to, but I get the feeling you need to." Nick offered her a towel to dry her hands.

"Don't tell me what I need!" she snapped, jerking the towel from him. His brows rose at her tone and she felt herself flush. "I'm sorry. I... It's not your fault. I just... I wasn't expecting to see him."

"I know his job required a lot of moves when you were a child," he said cautiously.

"It didn't require moves," she corrected him. She began pleating the towel, starting at one end and making neat little back and forth folds, keeping her eyes on the process. "He chose to move. I never went to school in the same place twice. We moved every year. Every year, I was the new kid. Yd eventually make friends but then we'd be gone again. I finally stopped trying to make friends."

"Didn't he see how hard it was on you?"

"I don't think he wanted to see." Kate threw the towel on the counter and shoved her hands in the pockets of her slacks. She didn't look at him but focused her gaze on the clock on the wall, watching the second hand tick its way around the dial. "He just had to keep moving, always looking for... something. I never did know what. The perfect job. The perfect town. I doubt if he even knew what he was looking for."

"What about your mother? How did she feel about moving so often?"

"His happiness was always her primary concern. Everything else came second to that." A tired kind of bitterness colored the words. "She did insist that we didn't move in the middle of the school year, but that was as far as it went."

"Maybe she liked moving?" Nick hazarded. Once again, he had the sensation of picking his way through an emotional minefield.

"I don't think she cared one way or another,"

Kate said, shaking her head. "As long as she was with him, she was happy. He felt the same way about her. They were...complete. Children were nice, but we weren't necessary."

"We?'' Nick pounced on the word, his expression startled. "You have brothers and sisters?"

"Had," Kate said softly, almost as if speaking to herself. "I had a brother and a sister."

Nick stared at her, feeling as if he'd just been kicked in the chest. "What happened?"

"My mother died when I was twelve. We were in Denver then. Joshua was three and Mary was just over a year old—just babies, both of them. Mother got pneumonia and it just didn't respond to treatment. Before she died, she asked me to take care of them and of Daddy. I told her I would. I promised her."