by Carrie Elks
‘He’s lovely,’ Kitty told her.
‘What about his parents?’ Juliet asked. ‘Are they OK too?’
‘I wouldn’t know, I hardly see them. Even when his mum’s here, she’s always busy. It’s like she doesn’t know what to do with a child his age.’ Kitty screwed her nose up. Juliet nodded in sympathy. Of all the sisters, she knew what it was like trying to look after a child.
‘You’ve had no luck asking his dad about that internship then?’ Cesca’s voice was sympathetic.
‘Chance would be a fine thing.’ Kitty shrugged. ‘He’s hardly ever here, either.’
‘Maybe you can pin him down over the turkey,’ Cesca suggested. ‘Use a few skewers so he can’t wriggle away.’
‘I don’t think he likes me very much,’ Kitty said, remembering the few times they’d spoken. ‘I’m not sure any of the Kleins are my biggest fans, really.’ Apart from Jonas, that was. His enthusiasm for Kitty had only grown.
‘Why, who else have you upset?’
Kitty chewed at her thumbnail, remembering her encounter with Adam. ‘Everett’s brother seems to have it in for me. He shouts at me every time we meet.’
‘That’s horrible. I hope you’ve told him where to go.’ Lucy looked angry. Things were always black and white in her world. ‘I hate people like that.’
Kitty wasn’t very fond of him either. ‘I think I jinxed it from the start,’ she said, filling them in on her collision with the deer. Her sisters’ amusement only increased when she told them about her row with Adam by the lake.
‘You really asked him who pissed in his cornflakes?’ Cesca asked, trying to hide her grin. ‘What did he say?’
‘I can’t remember,’ Kitty admitted. ‘But I’m sure it wasn’t nice.’
‘Seriously, you’ve got guts, girl.’ Cesca lifted her hand up, as if to offer her sister a high five. ‘You insulted the famous Adam Klein.’
Kitty felt the blood drain out of her face. ‘What do you mean?’
‘I mean, he might have been some help with the internship, but not if he’s going to be an arse about it.’
‘Adam Klein,’ Kitty repeated, feeling her muscles weaken. ‘I didn’t realise…’
It was so obvious as soon as Cesca said it. Of course he was Adam Klein. OK, so he’d grown a beard and for some reason was shooting deer and cutting wood with an axe, but there was no doubt he was the documentary maker she’d studied in her graduate course.
The scourge of criminals everywhere, Adam Klein was famous for his documentaries investigating drug cartels and human traffickers. His documentaries were perfect examples of how film-making could make a difference in the world, and half Kitty’s class had a crush on him.
And she’d asked him if his morning cereal contained piss.
Dear God.
‘Are you OK?’ Cesca asked her. ‘You look a little pale.’
‘It must be the screen,’ Kitty said, her voice thin. ‘Don’t worry about me, I’m absolutely fine.’
Later that night, she sat at the end of Jonas’s bed reading aloud from the book on her lap, imitating the voices to make him giggle. They were reading the first book in her favourite childhood series, and she was enjoying it as much as he was. It reminded her of her mother; the way the brilliant actress performed, rather than read, a book, making the stories come to life in young Kitty’s head.
Another thing she missed about her mother. She’d been missing it since she was ten years old.
As she came to the end of the chapter, Kitty slid a bookmark in and closed it up. ‘We can read some more tomorrow,’ she told Jonas, anticipating his disappointment. ‘It’s time for bed now.’ She leaned forward to hug him. ‘Goodnight, sleep tight, don’t let the bedbugs bite.’
‘Can we go sledding again tomorrow, too?’ Jonas asked, a yawn forcing his mouth open wide enough so she could see his tonsils.
‘I can’t, I have to drive to the airport to pick something up.’
‘What do you need to pick up?’ Jonas sat up, looking at her intently. Like any child, something out of the ordinary was enough to catch his interest.
‘Nothing special, just something I left back in LA.’ She smiled at him, being deliberately evasive. The fact was, Mia had texted to ask her to pick up Jonas’s gifts. She’d had them shipped from LA at a huge cost.
‘How can something catch a plane?’ Jonas asked, his eyelids starting to droop. ‘Surely someone would have to bring it on the plane with them?’
‘Sometimes you can put things in the hold of the plane, they don’t always need a passenger to carry them on for you. Now try and lie down, it’s getting late.’
Jonas did as he was told, falling back onto the mattress. ‘What’s a hold?’
Kitty pulled the blankets over his slight body, tucking them firmly around him. ‘It’s like the trunk of a car, except it’s in the belly of the plane. That’s where they store all your cases when you fly. They also put parcels and packages in there, and even some animals sometimes.’
‘And humans.’
She shook her head. ‘No, sweetie, not humans. They travel on the seats.’
‘Not always. Dead bodies go in holds.’
A shiver forced its way down her spine. ‘Who told you that?’
Jonas’s voice was thick. ‘I heard it somewhere. Uncle Adam nearly ended up in the hold, but in the end he wasn’t shot, so he came back in the plane.’
‘He did?’ She opened her mouth to say something, then closed it again. What should she say to something like that? She was flummoxed.
He nodded, his eyes finally squeezed shut. ‘Yeah, Dad said he was lucky.’
‘Yes, he was.’ She waited on the chair beside his bed until Jonas fell asleep, his blankets rising and falling with his regular breaths as he escaped into his dreams.
Leaving his bedroom, flicking the lamp out and the nightlight on as she went, Kitty turned to check Jonas one more time before she pulled his door softly closed. Then she turned to walk down the hallway to the stairs, and smacked straight into a tall, hard body.
‘Oh!’ She stepped backwards. ‘I’m sorry, I didn’t see you there.’ In the gloom of the hallway, it took her a moment to realise who it was.
‘I was waiting for you,’ Adam told her. He leaned his head to the side, looking down at her.
‘You were?’ She swallowed hard. ‘Why?’
‘Can we talk somewhere?’
‘What about?’ Her hackles rose on the back of her neck. She wanted to say something snarky, but this was Adam Klein.
Adam bloody Klein. She should be fangirling at his feet or something.
His face twisted, as though he was thinking something through. ‘I guess here will do,’ he said. ‘I know Mia and Everett are out, I asked Annie. And my dad’s visiting my mom in hospital, so nobody will interrupt us.’
She glanced back at Jonas’s door. ‘If we keep our voices down, maybe we won’t wake the kid up either.’
For the first time since she’d met him, he unleashed a smile on her. And boy, was it glorious. One of those all-American, handsome grins that made you weak at the knees.
Or they did if you were into that kind of thing. Which Kitty wasn’t. Not at all.
‘I owe you an apology,’ Adam said, reaching out to lean casually on the wall beside her. ‘I said some things I shouldn’t have, and I definitely said them in a way I shouldn’t have. I’m sorry.’
Well this was unexpected. Kitty couldn’t think of a single word to say in response. It was as though somebody had taken her brain and replaced it with a giant ball of cotton.
‘So will you forgive me?’ Adam prompted.
Kitty’s eyes felt as wide as a ten-ton truck. ‘OK?’
‘Is that an “OK, I forgive you” or “OK, I’ll say anything you want if you’ll just leave me alone because you scare the shit out of me”?’ Adam asked.
‘Um, a bit of both, probably.’
He laughed, and it animated his whole face, crinkling the skin between his eyes, and caus
ing his cheeks to rise up. He was horribly handsome. No, not horribly, just handsome. God only knew how much better he looked without the overgrown beard.
‘I guess I’ll take it, then.’ He pushed himself off the wall, giving Kitty the space she didn’t realise she needed. Her body sagged with relief. ‘I really am sorry, I’m not normally such an asshole, at least I never used to be. I promise that next time I see you, I won’t snap your head off. Goodnight, Kitty.’
There was going to be a next time? Oh boy. Kitty wasn’t sure whether that thought excited or terrified her.
A bit of both, probably.
8
I desire to hear her speak again,
and feast upon her eyes?
– Measure for Measure
From his vantage point inside the treeline, Adam stopped to catch his breath as he watched Everett climb into the black sports utility vehicle, holding his phone to his ear as though it was some kind of body part. Waving absent-mindedly at his son who was standing beside Annie Drewer, Everett barely even looked at Jonas, too busy shouting orders into his mouthpiece to notice his son’s expression of disappointment.
That’s when Kitty came running out, coming to a stop where Jonas was standing, looking sad. Heading back towards the boy, she scooped him up into her arms, tickling his sides and blowing raspberries on his neck.
Adam found himself smiling when he heard his nephew’s high-pitched giggles – his hysteria was just on the right side of humour. It teetered on the edge, threatening to become tearful, but the girl whispered in Jonas’s ear, bringing another smile to his face.
The next moment she looked up, her eyes scanning the treeline, and Adam found himself stepping back, as if to avoid her gaze. He couldn’t help but stare at her sculpted cheeks and full lips, admiring the way her ice-blue eyes flashed. She sparkled like a jewel beneath the cold winter sun. He tried to swallow down the flash of desire that shot through his body. It was just the abstinence talking, after all.
‘Are you ready, Kitty?’ Everett shouted from the back seat of the Escalade, pulling his cell phone from his ear long enough to show his displeasure. ‘We need to leave now. I’ve a plane to catch.’
Kitty ran to the car, a flustered expression on her face, while Everett shut the window, tinted glass obscuring his face.
The engine sparked to life, growling like a hungry lion, and Kitty pulled the car away slowly. Adam watched them turn the corner onto the main road, following their progress until they disappeared around the bend, the low hum slowly dissipating to nothing.
He was about to restart his run when he heard Annie’s shout. ‘You can come out now.’
Adam looked around, trying to work out who she was yelling at.
‘You think I can’t see you behind the trees, Adam? I can see you perfectly fine. You’ll be pleased to hear that it’s just me and Jonas, so you might as well come in and have a coffee.’
Running a hand through his hair, Adam stepped free of the forest and across the driveway, where Annie and Jonas were standing in the shelter of the porch. His nephew grinned wildly, delighted to see him, while Annie wrinkled her nose at his dishevelled appearance. A bead of perspiration ran down his forehead.
‘You go and take a shower while I fill up the coffee pot.’ She fussed around him, the same way she did when he was about ten years old. Some things didn’t change. ‘I can’t have you stinking out my kitchen.’
Adam smiled, pulling her into a hug that made her squeal.
‘Get your hands off me, you dirty, sweaty boy.’
‘What shall I put on after my shower? Or do you want me sitting in your kitchen in my birthday suit?’ He raised his eyebrows at her, his voice teasing. Annie grabbed a dishcloth from beside the stove, attempting to swat him with it.
‘It’s nothing I haven’t seen before, young man,’ she grumbled. ‘But there’s plenty of clean clothes in the laundry room. Unless you’ve put weight on since you brought them over, of course, in which case maybe you should go back and finish your run.’
‘Where is everybody anyway?’ Adam asked. He knew that Annie would never swing a trap on him. If she said it was only she and Jonas, he believed her.
‘Mrs Klein has gone to Fragrant Pines,’ Annie told him, referring to an expensive spa near on sixty miles away. ‘And Everett has been called back to LA.’
Adam swallowed, staring out of the window. ‘Why’s he taken the nanny with him?’
Annie tipped her head, staring at him strangely. ‘Kitty?’ she asked. ‘Why do you want to know?’
‘I don’t,’ he replied hastily. ‘I was just making conversation.’
Annie narrowed her eyes. ‘Whatever you say. I’ll believe it if you do. And anyway, she’s not heading back to LA, she’s just dropping him off. You’ll be pleased to know that after that, she’s coming straight back here.’
Not wanting to get embroiled in that kind of conversation, he gave an enigmatic shrug then headed for the stairs. ‘Guess that’s my cue to take a shower,’ he called back to her with a grin. ‘Unless you want me to stand here gossiping like an old woman.’
The dishcloth whistled through the air, narrowly avoiding his head. Adam reached down to grab it, flicking it back easily, so it landed on the kitchen table. It all felt so normal, so real. Like he was a kid again, with little more than an assignment to mar his day.
For the first time in for ever, it was hard to wipe the smile from his face.
‘Uncle Adam, why don’t you like my dad?’ Jonas leaned down to grab a handful of snow, patting it onto the abdomen of the giant snowman they were building. Spending alone-time with his nephew was a pleasure, and one Adam hadn’t had much chance to indulge in since Everett and his family had arrived in Cutler’s Gap. There was something about the innocence of Jonas that took his mind off things, stopped him from getting too lost in his own thoughts.
Adam wasn’t so keen on the penetrating questions, though.
‘I don’t hate him, we just don’t get on very well. He wanted me to do something I didn’t want to do, and we ended up having a big argument.’
‘Was that why you left California without saying goodbye?’
Adam frowned. ‘Something like that.’ He had no idea how much Jonas knew about that day in LA. Hopefully very little.
‘I asked Dad where you’d gone and he wouldn’t tell me, he just stomped off and went out to work. Mom told me to stop asking so many questions, and that I was upsetting him.’
‘You don’t ask too many questions,’ Adam said, his voice thick. ‘You just ask the questions people are afraid to answer. The right kind of questions.’
Jonas looked surprised. ‘I do?’
‘Yes, you do. That doesn’t mean I always want to answer them, though. Doesn’t mean I will, either. But you shouldn’t stop asking questions because they make people uncomfortable. That only means you’re on the right track.’
Jonas took this as a green light for more. ‘So why did you leave? Was it because I used to bother you all the time?’
Dropping onto his haunches, Adam pulled his nephew close. He yanked his glove off along with Jonas’s hat, ruffling the boy’s blond curls with his large, calloused hands. ‘That wasn’t why I left. The reason I had to go was because your dad and I had a big falling-out, the same way you do with some of your friends. We decided it would be better if I came back here.’ Not quite the truth, but not a lie either.
From the look on Jonas’s face he didn’t understand. Not that Adam could blame him. In Jonas’s world grudges were held for hours, not days or months. And in the schoolyard, resentments were held over some imagined slight that was soon forgotten.
Jonas opened his mouth to ask another question, then closed it again as a car swung into the driveway, its wheels crunching on the gravelled path. The old Ford came to a stop by the porch steps, and Francis Klein – Adam’s dad – climbed out, pausing before he closed the door to rub his hands across the face.
‘Grandpa!’ Jonas dropped the snow he
was holding and ran over to the car. ‘We’ve been sledding and making a snowman and Uncle Adam was telling me all about him and my dad.’
His father glanced over at Adam, their eyes meeting in a moment of understanding, and Adam felt a shot of warmth injected into his cold body. His dad looked old – even older than his seventy years. A stark contrast to the vital, driven man Adam remembered from his youth.
‘Did he now?’ Francis stooped to cup Jonas’s cheeks. ‘I hope he told you all about the trouble they used to get up to when they were boys. They used to drive Annie crazy in their school vacations.’
‘They used to build forts and go swimming in the lake and pretend to be pirates,’ Jonas rabbited on. ‘But now they don’t like each other very much.’