The Heart's Haven

by Jill Barnett

  He swatted the fly away. Despite the fact Hallie was Jan’s daughter, Kit owed her, too. She had moved to his home as he’d asked, she’d handled the children, and she’d been a great help to his aunt. He was the one who had caused all the problems. He was attracted to Hallie, and he couldn’t deal with what she made him feel. What it boiled down to was, the almighty Kit Howland, tower of self-restraint, had thought he’d become immune to women. The realization that he wasn’t as strong as he thought was as emasculating as his lack of control where Hallie was concerned. So he’d blamed her.

  Also, he knew deep in his craw that there was no way he could wipe Hallie from his mind, especially after the other night. They were bonded together, both lawfully and in his lusty head; and now that he admitted that bond, it wasn’t so bad. After all, Kit mentally justified, he wasn’t in love with her, and that kept him safe. Why shouldn’t he make the most of his mistakes? Hell, it would be better for Hallie, he reasoned, and he’d be doing his duty to her both as Jan’s daughter and as his wife. He could view this marriage as a business partnership, and maybe they could become friends. He would like that, because he really did like her. Hallie’s lopsided way of thinking made him laugh. She was proud and stood up to him. He liked her spunk.

  Lee returned, grinning as if he’d just struck gold. “They open tomorrow night, and guess who got the last box?” Lee waved the tickets under Kit’s nose.

  Kit eyed the tickets. “How many seats in the box?”

  “Four.”

  Lee was enjoying this; Kit could read it in his friend’s devilish eyes. “You’re not going to make this easy, are you?”

  “Nope.” Lee smiled.

  “All right. Mind if we join you?”

  “We?”

  “Hallie and myself!”

  “Sure.” Lee remounted. “It’s good to see you’ve come to your senses.”

  “Well, I need a good night’s sleep in a real bed,” Kit admitted, rubbing his sore neck. Even now it wasn’t easy to admit aloud that he’d been wrong.

  “Uh-huh,” Lee agreed with a smirk.

  Kit rode on, absently thinking aloud. “Moving into the study wasn’t smart. Now I’ve painted myself into a corner. I’ve got to get back in Hallie’s good graces, Maddie’s, too, and still save face.”

  “Your ugly old face,” Lee joked. “The theater tickets should help.”

  “Maddie will appreciate that I’m taking Hallie to the theater,” Kit said. “But I’m not sure about Hallie. She’s afraid of me,” he said quietly, remembering their encounter this morning and the fear he’d read in her eyes.

  “I’m sure we’ll think of something,” Lee added with a laugh and punched him. “At least, if we’re ever going to save that ugly old face of yours.”

  Hallie glanced across the table. The twins’ heads were bent together and they chattered to each other behind their cupped hands. “What are you two whispering about?” she asked.

  Both boys looked up, their eyes wide. They glanced at each other and replied in unison, “Nothing.”

  Hallie exchanged a knowing look with Maddie before she continued dishing up the boys’ plates. She buttered their biscuits, and the boys’ eyes lit up. They loved any kind of bread, as long as it was soaked yellow with butter.

  She handed them their plates. “You boys eat now, and no more whispering.”

  The meal continued in silence, at least until Gunnar finished his third biscuit. “Hallie, how do I know when I’m older?”

  She smiled at Knut. “When you have your next birthday, in November, you’ll be another year older.”

  Gunnar looked thoughtful, and then he asked, “Can you only get older in years?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Am I only older each year on my birthday?”

  Liv snickered, bringing a glare from Hallie and a negative shake of Maddie’s head. Liv returned to her food, and Hallie was sure her own glare had nothing to do with her sister’s obedience. Turning back to Gunnar, Hallie explained, “No, you don’t just age on your birthday. Every minute, every hour, or every day, you get older. Like right now, you’re older than you were this morning because you’re closer to your next birthday.”

  Gunnar appeared to be soaking all this in.

  “Me too?” Knut asked, his little voice threaded with excitement.

  “You sure are,” Hallie assured him.

  Knut looked at Gunnar. “Did you hear her? We’re older now!”

  Gunnar frowned thoughtfully and then turned to Maddie. “Are we really older now, Aunt Maddie?”

  Maddie smiled. “Yes you are.”

  “Remember when you said we could have a pet when we got older?” Gunnar recited.

  Maddie and Hallie had been had.

  “I meant a lot older,” Maddie explained. “Like six or seven.”

  “But that’s not what you said,” Knut whined. “We found a pet, and we want to keep it like Liv. You just said we were older.”

  Maddie and Hallie exchanged looks, and Gunnar added, “You did.” He nodded his bright little head. “You really did.”

  “Wait till you see’m!” Knut jumped down from his chair and ran to the back door. He pulled it open and dragged a sack inside before Hallie or Maddie could do a thing. He bent over the sack and opened it, lifting out their pet. Turning, he carried it toward the kitchen table.

  “Look!” Knut said, holding up the animal.

  “Good Lord!” Maddie screamed. “It’s a skunk!”

  At Maddie’s scream, Knut dropped the skunk and it ran under the table.

  Maddie grabbed a broom and yelled, “Catch that thing before it sprays!”

  “How?” Hallie shouted, standing on her chair, as was Liv, who was pinching her nose, just in case.

  “I don’t know, just do it!” Maddie waved her broom in the air.

  The boys were peering under the table, and Knut kept calling, “Here skunky, here skunky . . .”

  Maddie started poking her broom at the table, and Gunnar ran and grabbed the bristled end of the broom. “Don’t hurt him, Aunt Maddie!”

  “We’re not going to hurt him, Gunnar, we just need to catch him!” Maddie turned toward Hallie. “Get on the other side of the table while I shake the broom around . . . Gunnar! Let go!”

  Hallie wasn’t going to touch that thing for the life of her. She’d had enough bad luck lately. She called out to Maddie, “I can’t catch it!”

  “Thunderation! Where in the blazes is Duncan?” Maddie yelled, trying to get Gunnar to let go of her broom. “Duncan! Duncan!”

  The door burst open and Kit, Lee, and Duncan came running into the room.

  “What the hell is going on?” Kit bellowed, staring at his aunt, who was shouting while she played tug of war with one of the twins. Kit turned around. Hallie and Liv were huddled next to each other, on chairs.

  Liv’s voice caught his attention. “There’s a skunk under the table!”

  His worried gaze shot beneath the table. “Don’t scare it!” Kit ordered.

  At that instant the skunk raced from beneath the table right toward Duncan and Lee. Duncan stepped aside and the animal ran right through Lee’s legs and out into the hall.

  “Don’t let it upstairs!” Maddie shouted, wresting the broom from Gunnar and waving it frantically in the air.

  Lee and Duncan ran after it. Seconds later a door slammed so hard the candles in the ceiling lamp shimmied. Kit pushed open the kitchen door while the women and children huddled behind him, peeking like nosy ferrets through any open space left in the doorway.

  Lee leaned casually against the wall, with a silent Duncan by his side. “I locked it in the study,” Lee announced with a slight grin.

  Hallie waited for Kit’s bellow of anger, but it never came. He looked at Lee for a
n intense moment, and then Lee said the strangest thing.

  “I just saved your ugly old face.”

  And all Hallie heard was Kit’s ringing laughter.

  Kit pushed open the bedroom door. Hallie sat in the overstuffed chair, her face blanched with fear. Her eyes darted to his loaded arms. “What are you doing?”

  “Moving back in,” Kit answered, pointedly ignoring her gasp.

  “Why?”

  He dropped the folded shirts onto the dresser top. “I can’t very well sleep in the study. It’ll take days to air out.” The hellish smell still lingered in Kit’s nostrils. He glanced at Hallie, noting the dread in her pale face.

  Raising a shirt to his nose, he sniffed. “Hallie, would you see if these smell like skunk? To me, everything smells like skunk.” Kit handed her his clothes and she sniffed at the shirts and then handed them back.

  “They’re fine,” she said, still looking at him tentatively.

  He bent and picked up his woolen stockings. “You didn’t check these,” he said, frowning to mask his smirk.

  Hallie shot out of the chair. “I will not smell your socks!” She crossed her arms and glared at him.

  This Hallie was much better than the frightened rabbit she’d been a few seconds before. He bit back his satisfied smile. He had to admit he enjoyed teasing her. “You’re shirking your wifely duties.’’

  “I did not promise to smell your socks! Besides, the wedding was a farce. Your exact words, remember?” She plopped down on the bed.

  Kit turned to face her. “I’m sorry you heard that, Hallie.”

  “I bet you are. Sorry I heard, not sorry you said it.” Her chin lifted.

  “That’s not what I meant.” Kit ran a hand through his hair and took a deep breath. “I am sorry I said those things, and that I hurt you.” He walked to the bed and started to reach for her.

  “Stay away, Kit.” Hallie scooted back on the bed. “Don’t touch me.”

  He stopped. “Hallie, please, I won’t touch you. I just want to talk about this.”

  She crawled around to the other side of the bed, stood and went back to sit in the chair. She looked him right in the eye and waved her hand in the air. “So talk.”

  “I’d like to start over and try to forget what happened.”

  “I’d like to forget a lot of things,” Hallie muttered.

  Kit sighed, looking for patience. Then he sat on the edge of the bed. “Okay, Hallie. You tell me, what can I do? I didn’t want to hurt you, and I still don’t. There’s nothing you can say that I haven’t already heard, either from Lee or from my own conscience.”

  Silently, she watched and waited.

  “We’ve gotten ourselves into this—”

  “We?” she interrupted.

  “Okay, me. I’m the one who made the mistakes. I’ll take the blame, but can’t you meet me halfway? I’d like to pick up the pieces of this marriage, and maybe we can reach some compromise.”

  Hallie looked away, but she appeared to be thinking over his words.

  “The damage is done, Hallie,” Kit reminded her.

  When she turned back to him, her eyes revealed her pain. He knew he’d hurt her, but the knowledge didn’t make viewing the deep hurt any easier. His shoulders sagged and he tried again. “I’m sorry.” The words sounded empty and shallow, even to him.

  Her eyes filled with tears, and she looked away, but Kit could see her biting her lip in an effort to hold them back. She was trying to hold her own, and her show of strength touched something in Kit. “You make the terms, Hallie. I’ll agree.”

  She stood, picked up a hankie from the table and twisted it in her hands, seemingly unaware of her nervous action. “Where will you sleep?” she asked.

  “Here.”

  “In the bed?”

  “I’m tired of sleeping on the sofa.”

  She appeared thoughtful. For long seconds her eyes looked everywhere but at him. Then she said, “Okay. We’ll try, on my terms, right?”

  “Right.”

  “And you don’t have to sleep on the sofa anymore.” She smiled, the first smile he’d seen on her lips in weeks.

  Kit smiled back. It had worked!

  She walked over to the armoire and opened it. She turned around with a blanket in her hands and she threw it at him. It hit him right in the chest. “You can sleep in the chair.”

  Chapter Nineteen

  Hallie pulled the coverlet over the pillows the next morning, then walked over to the chair and folded Kit’s blanket. His pipe and tobacco pouch sat on the small table, and some colored paper stuck out from beneath the pouch. Hallie strained to read the writing, but it was too small. She glanced at Kit. He was delving through the dresser drawers, cursing under his breath.

  She used the folded blanket to block his view, and slid one of the papers out from under the pouch, straining to try to read it.

  “They’re theater tickets, for tonight.”

  Hallie jumped at the sound of his voice, reading into the depths of her devious mind. He had a perfect view of her actions because he was on his hands and knees, looking at her while he felt around underneath the dresser.

  “We’re going with Lee.”

  “Who’s going?”

  “We are, you and I, husband and wife.” He leaned into the dresser, still searching.

  The theater. Hallie’d never been to a theater, not ever. She watched for a moment, both stunned and excited.

  “Where the hell is that thing?” Kit straightened and immediately grabbed his lower back, groaning.

  “Are you all right? What thing?”

  He grabbed the dresser and stood, slowly and stiffly. “I can’t find my brush.” He started opening and closing the drawers again.

  His brush? Hallie’s mind flashed with the picture of Liv, using Kit’s brush on her cat. While he slammed around the room, Hallie walked across the hall and retrieved the brush. She walked back into the room and held it out to a grumbling Kit. “Is this it?”

  He spun around, scowling. He glanced at the brush and then grabbed it, drawing it through his thick curly hair before Hallie had a chance to warn him.

  “Where was it?”

  Hallie stepped closer, automatically brushing the cat hair from the shoulders of his white shirt.

  He stopped brushing his hair. “What are you doing?”

  Hallie smiled. “Brushing the cat hair off your clean shirt.”

  He examined the brush. “Liv?”

  Hallie nodded, biting back her grin. She plucked the brush out of his hand and walked away. “I’ll clean this for you. After all, I wouldn’t want to be accused of shirking my wifely duties.” She left the room laughing.

  “I’ll be right back.” Kit jumped down from the carriage and loped up to the door of a narrow brick building.

  Leaning away from the carriage lamplight, Hallie watched him wait at the door of the tall narrow house. He looked so handsome, in the silk high hat, and so impressive, cloaked in black except for the stark collar of his white dress shirt, which caught the light from the narrow windows. Though his face was shadowed, she could picture every fine, masculine feature, and she squirmed, her thoughts making her uneasy and more nervous than she already was.

  Hallie stared at the white lace of her gloves. They made her hands look softer and more pink—at least Maddie had said so when she had helped button her into the white lace gown. Pushing aside the deep rose velvet of her cloak, she fingered the silk lace. It shimmered in the soft carriage light, and she knew this wasn’t a dream. She was really here, dressed like a princess and on her way to her first play, and she was with Kit, her husband.

  Her stomach fluttered. She wasn’t sure if this was good or bad. Her truce with him was new and tenuous. She had no idea what he expected of
her. Furthermore, she didn’t know what she expected of herself. Was she smart for making the best of her situation, or was she weak for giving in to Kit, whom she loved so hopelessly?

  The carriage door opened and the wind blew a spicy, exotic fragrance into the vehicle’s already tight interior. A woman was lifted through the door and she sat right across from her. Her midnight-blue silk skirts and matching cloak took up almost the entire carriage seat.

  Lee poked his red-bearded head inside and smiled a hello. “Hallie, this is Miss Sabine Dolan.” Lee smiled at the woman. “This is Kit’s wife, Mrs. Howland.”

  His words sent Hallie’s head reeling. The only other time she’d been called Mrs. Howland was by her husband the night they were married, and somehow, hearing it again made Hallie feel strange and even more jittery, until she sensed the woman’s penetrating gaze.

  Hallie really looked at Sabine Dolan. Her features were perfect. She had flawless white skin and eyes the exact shade of her dress, but it was her hair that rang a warning in Hallie. It was red, not the lively orange red of Maddie’s, but a deep, dark mahogany red, the same color as her Norwegian kusine, Anja, the one who used to pinch her. Hallie decided she was being silly, associating her mean, pinching cousin with this woman just because they had the same hair color. Then Hallie caught the woman’s frosty smile, and she changed her mind.

  Suddenly, Kit sat down beside her and the carriage took off, rocking its way through the narrow, hilly streets. Sabine dominated the conversation, just like she dominated the carriage seat and the men’s attention. She made Hallie feel inadequate, so she sat quietly, listening to Sabine’s flirting and trying not to consider her evening ruined. Kit reached over and threaded his hand through hers. When she looked up, he winked, and Hallie no longer gave a fig about Sabine or her chatter.