Deadly Beginnings

by Jaycee Clark

  They kissed a bit more until he pulled away again. “So many blessings, Kaitie.”

  “It’s all just beginning, isn’t it?” she asked him. He held her in his arms and continued to kiss her.

  “A beginning worth waiting for.”

  Chapter 13

  He sat looking at the cinder-block wall. The man in the top bunk was snoring.

  Landon didn’t care. He wouldn’t be in here long. His parents hadn’t answered his letter and his lawyer said he needed to stop contacting them.

  His lawyer, what a joke. He needed to hire a better attorney. He’d find one. He was not staying in prison.

  He’d get out. Soon.

  He’d just have to be patient.

  And then he’d make them pay.

  A photo of her was on the wall.

  Someone had sent it to him in a letter a few weeks ago, sometime around Christmas. He was rotting in jail and others were enjoying Christmas.

  The judge had not granted him freaking bail.

  The newsprint photo showed a woman dressed in a gown smiling up at her husband. A wedding announcement.

  Jock. Fucking. Kinncaid.

  Katherine should not be smiling up at another man that way.

  The society pages had gushed about the guest list, about the festivities, the lovebirds and how one of the most eligible men had been taken off the market.

  Katherine . . .

  She was his.

  He looked at the photo and knew at their wedding things would be different. He’d wear a gray suit, not a black one. And she’d be in a perfect white dress. He already had it. She’d look beautiful in the long satin dress.

  She’d be perfect.

  He just had to be patient. He’d be out soon and then she’d be his . . .

  His to do with as he saw fit.

  His to teach a lesson on loyalty.

  His to make pay for putting him here and for ruining everything for him.

  One day soon . . .

  • • •

  “I don’t like owing anyone anything,” Jock said, sitting across from Frank DeSaro.

  DeSaro, dressed in a three-piece Italian suit, looked at him, his dark eyes unreadable, a half-rueful smile tilting his lips. “Neither do I. That is why I felt I should share about this matter in person.”

  Dead. The bastard would be dead. Jock wanted Landon Goldburg III dead. He wouldn’t lie, part of him was . . . relieved, glad even at the mere thought, but a larger part of him was pissed he wouldn’t be the one to stop the sick man. He was honest enough with himself to know that if the cops had not been there that day in Maryland, the doctor would be dead.

  DeSaro smiled. “Our families are linked, Kinncaid. I can see that. You saved my son from those bastards who were intent on robbing him.”

  It hadn’t been a robbery, hadn’t just been a beating. Those guys circling the younger DeSaro had been intent on killing the kid. Jock had simply been out walking and had seen someone who needed help. Right place, right time.

  “Your son is doing well?” he asked, standing then walking to the window.

  DeSaro nodded. “He’s much better, thanks to you. Between his nona’s cooking and his mother’s fussing, he healed quickly. After our meeting, I finally sent him to Sicily for a bit while things cooled off here and before they drove him mad.”

  Jock stared out the window, one hand in his pocket. He rubbed his lips with his forefinger. The offer was there, without so many words.

  “Photos of her?” he asked, the anger licking through his veins at the mere thought of that bastard having anything, any single damned thing, of Kaitie’s.

  “Many photos of her. My man inside does not know who is sending them to him, but I will find out. He had a large print of your very pregnant wife upon his wall. Apparently taken without her knowledge as she wasn’t looking at the camera. I believe she was in the park, with a kite.” The man’s voice dropped. “I’ve met Mrs. Kinncaid, as you well know. Lovely woman. One hesitates to think what a man like that is thinking when looking upon such goodness.”

  Jock bit down and took a deep breath. He looked out over D.C. He had a wife and a child now. Ones he’d do anything to protect.

  “They found him guilty of assault, but he is appealing, yes?” DeSaro asked.

  Jock nodded and explained what they’d found when arriving in Maryland that day almost a year ago. “Perhaps he’ll be in prison a good long while, especially if they ever discover who the other dresses, hair, and rings belong to.”

  DeSaro shrugged. “Cops and lawyers mean little to me. If you want him in prison for the rest of his days, perhaps it will be so.”

  The thought of that man staring at Kaitie’s photo, let alone while she carried Jock’s child, of Goldburg thinking of her at all, twisted something in Jock, stroked a beast inside him.

  “You’ll let me know when you learn how he’s receiving photos of my wife?” he asked over his shoulder.

  DeSaro tilted his head.

  “Thank you,” Jock finally said.

  “There is nothing to thank me for. You saved my son, for that, I would do many things, Kinncaid. And this is . . . a small thing in return.”

  Jock took another breath. A small thing. Right.

  “Your wife had your child, yes?” DeSaro’s voice carried the rich flavors of Italy. “You now have a son of your own.”

  Jock nodded again and turned back to his guest, then sat, picking up his scotch and swirling it. He couldn’t hold in the grin. “I do, yes. Aiden. His mother complains he looks too much like me.”

  “Family is everything, is it not?” The dark eyes held his.

  “It is,” he said. “It is indeed.”

  “Then we’re agreed.”

  The bastard would be dead. A threat, a shadow eliminated.

  He held the other man’s eyes and nodded. “Soon would be best.”

  “Soon will be best.” DeSaro smiled, held his glass up so the sun caught the facets and scattered rainbows throughout the room. “To family.”

  Jock held his up as well, the old family motto running through his head. This I’ll defend. “To family.”

  Epilogue

  Present day

  All the kids and grandkids were there. The house was as busy and bursting as it had ever been.

  Aiden, Jesslyn and crew had arrived late, but then she was moving slow these days, pregnant again. With the twins, Ian and Alec, almost eight, Holden almost six. Aiden watched her too carefully in Kaitlyn’s—and Jesslyn’s—opinion.

  Ian and Rori lived in D.C. part of the year and wherever else they wanted the rest. Daria had started fourth grade and was bumped to fifth because she was too bored. The twins, George and Nick, adopted from Kenya, were in third grade and always fighting. They and Aiden’s twins kept everyone busy. They’d also adopted another little girl from an ICE raid in LA. No one claimed her and they weren’t about to let her be lost in the system. When no one came forward, Jasmine had become a Kinncaid. Six and shy, she hid most of the time, but things were getting better. Everyone heard her laugh earlier.

  Gavin and Taylor were pregnant again as well. This time with another girl. Ryan mother-henned his younger sister. Now in high school, he watched over everyone. Tried to keep his cousin out of trouble, and got sent home from school when he took a football player to the ground when the guy wouldn’t leave Tori alone. Taylor had grounded him. Kaitlyn knew Gavin and Brayden, especially, had taken him the three days of his expulsion, and did whatever guys did when they didn’t want their women to know what they were teaching their sons. Ian had even joined them. God only knew what went on those three days.

  Brayden and Christian spent their time between carting kids. Tori had music recitals and dance recitals and practices, and her younger sister was joining her in her interests. They ran the shop, had opened others in London and New York, and one each in Seattle and New Orleans, where they spent a lot of their time with Christian’s family. They had claimed they were done having kids.
Apparently fate laughed at that idea. They were expecting their son any day now.

  Such was life. When you made plans, she’d learned, life rearranged things so you went the way you were meant to.

  Quinlan and Ella and little Grace were in for an extended stay. There was a hurricane moving into the Gulf so Quinlan had moved them up to D.C. for a while. Gracie was four and into everything. Ella and Quinlan were expecting twins but they didn’t want to know what they were having. They both wanted to be surprised. Everyone in the family had a running pool going as to when the newest Kinncaid twins would be born, whether they’d be boys or girls, and how freaked out Quin was going to be. They ran shelters both here and in New Orleans for runaway teens. Ian’s firm provided security.

  They’d lost Becky two years ago when she’d been diagnosed with stage-four breast cancer. They’d tried chemo and radiation, but in the end it hadn’t worked. She’d wanted to go home. The entire family had taken her back to Grammy’s cottage in Ireland. Kaitlyn missed her, missed the sound of a voice that always reminded her of Ireland.

  Kaitlyn looked around at everyone in the large living room. A motley crew they had. The kids were out somewhere. Probably in the game room. She laughed at Jesslyn, who rubbed a hand over her stomach. “I swear if Aiden doesn’t cool it, I’m going to smother him in his sleep. You’d think this was the first time I had a baby.”

  A hand in front of her grabbed her attention.

  Jock held his hand out to the woman who’d stolen his heart so long ago. “Come away with me, Kaitie?”

  She looked up, smiled that smile that was only his and placed her hand in his.

  “Where are we going, Jock? We’ve got a houseful of people.”

  He led her to the new French doors they’d installed after the others had been blown out when someone had been hunting Ian. It was actually the third set because he hadn’t liked the others.

  “I know we’ve a houseful of people, that’s why I want you to come away with me.”

  She sighed but kept her hand in his, and they walked out into the cooling early fall air.

  They meandered the brick path along the front of the house around to the side. “I have a present I wanted to give you.”

  “What?”

  “I thought I’d make it a surprise,” he added.

  Kaitie both loved and hated surprises. “Jock.”

  He stopped them beneath the huge old tree in the backyard, sitting on the padded bench. It sucked getting older, but that was life.

  “Well, it took me a lifetime, but I finally got it.”

  “Got it? That I’m right and you’re usually wrong?” she asked him.

  He swatted her bottom as she sat down. “No, Kaitie lass.”

  She grinned at him. “What are you up to?”

  He reached into the pocket of his coat and withdrew the frame and the envelope with the deed and handed it to her.

  She frowned at the photo staring up at them.

  So long ago.

  “Do you remember?” he asked her.

  In the photo he sat looking at her, a grin on his face, as she leaned in, pretending to kiss him but looking up at the camera he’d held at arm’s length. The lake was behind them.

  “I do.” She ran her finger over the glass. “Where did you get this? I’ve never seen it.”

  He smiled. “I’ve carried it with me for years. Had to let go of it long enough for Ian to scan it and do something with it to take the creases out. Had it printed for me when I told him I wanted one. I think he made several copies, truth be told.”

  She grinned and shook her head. “I didn’t know you had this and kept it all this time.”

  “Open the other, love.”

  She bit her lip but opened the document.

  “I don’t understand.”

  “The cabin. The old owner never wanted to sell, not that I could blame him. Kids held on to it for years but they decided to sell. As I’ve offered them exorbitant amounts over the years, I guess they thought I’d want it.”

  She just read the letter. He knew it didn’t take that long.

  Finally she looked up at him with watery green eyes. “Our cabin?”

  “Yes, sweetheart, our cabin.”

  “But . . . Our cabin. The one you call a cabin but is, in fact, a mini mansion in the woods? The one you took me to. Where we first . . .”

  He only smiled when she trailed off.

  “But I thought you said years ago it had fallen down.”

  He shrugged. “It had, it is. It’ll take some work. I’ve already hired contractors and I was going to wait and surprise you for Christmas or something. It won’t be completely redone until the spring more than likely, but—”

  “Oh, Jock!” She leaned into him and kissed him. “You are the greatest man!”

  “I’ve said that for years.”

  She slapped his shoulder. “You shouldn’t have done this.”

  “Why the hell not? We’re not decrepit. The kids are all safe and settled now. I don’t do anything with the business anymore really. You’ve retired from the hospital and the board. We can’t spend all our time chasing after grandkids. We could travel and stay in our hotels, but”—he shrugged—“I figured we could enjoy our own space that no one’s known about. Ever. Keeps the kids away. We can spend some time fishing.”

  She grinned. “Fishing? You? That requires patience.”

  “I can fish.”

  She snuggled into him. “I’d rather just skip rocks.”

  He grunted on a smile. “You’d scare the fish away.”

  They looked on as the rest of the family spilled out around the side of the house, the grandkids in the lead and the adults trailing behind. They were eating out on the back terrace later.

  Ian threw a football and Ryan caught it, dancing away as Tori tried to tackle him.

  “We did good, didn’t we, Jock?” she asked softly.

  “None better, Kaitie lass.”

  She smiled at him; he’d always and forever love her smile.

  “Whoever would have thought it would start with me looking across some damned ballroom and thinking, ‘She’s the girl I’m going to marry.’”

  “Not me. I didn’t think you were serious at all until . . .” She trailed off.

  He jostled her a bit. “Not serious? When did the light finally dawn?”

  She looked at him a minute, then glanced away as her eyes filled again. She swallowed once. Twice.

  “Kaitie?”

  “Oh, I knew you were serious, but I didn’t realize . . . I was so confused then, Jock, and didn’t have anyone but you really. I was afraid you felt sorry for me and just . . .” She sighed. “You thought I was asleep. I pretended to be asleep because I was so confused and scared and didn’t know what I was going to do or where I was going to go and—” She shook her head. “We were lying in bed after you’d moved me out of that stupid apartment, after everything that happened with that man . . .”

  “And?”

  Still she didn’t look at him, but at their family. “I already knew I was half in love with you, this charismatic man who laughed and teased, and yet hinted at danger. You could be so fierce.”

  “I was not fierce.”

  “Not in words, not in actions, really. Not when we first met, not then, no.” She glanced at him and grinned. “It was your Kinncaid eyes. That first time we met when you came outside and saw me with him. Your eyes were fierce.” She reached up and touched the edge of his eyes. “So fierce and blue.” She looked back at their brood, pulling her hand away.

  “And then when you pretended to sleep?”

  “I was worried you just felt sorry for me.”

  “I did.”

  “Jock!”

  “Well, I did. You were like this lost waif.”

  “I wasn’t a waif.”

  “Okay, a lost spitfire.”

  “Never mind, forget it.” She made to stand. He settled his arm on her shoulders and kept her where she was. “I’l
l just take it to my grave. Leave you wondering and—”

  “No, I’m sorry, what were you saying?”

  She looked down at the deed, traced the notary pattern with her finger. “You’d brought me here to see your home, after Ireland, do you remember? You’d showed me around that day, and said you wanted the wedding here and told me where on the lawns you saw things . . .”

  “Hard to forget.” He remembered. He grinned. They’d made love in half the rooms of the house.

  “I was looking out the window, praying for God to give me some sign, some sign that you were the man I thought you were and that I wasn’t making another mistake.”

  “And, as we’re looking on our ragtag bunch, I’m assuming you got your sign.”

  She looked at him, a little sad.

  He brushed a strand of hair, now gray behind her ear.

  She caught his hand, laced her fingers through it. “Our hands were just like this, your arm across my stomach. I thought maybe you were asleep and then you said something.”

  He had? What the hell had he said? He frowned.

  She grinned, then her laugh danced out. “You don’t remember, but that’s okay. I do. You pulled me tighter to you and whispered, ‘As those before me, and my sons after will follow, the woman I’m blessed with and the family we’ll share, to life and to death, this I’ll defend.’”

  He grunted, pulled her to him and kissed her forehead and then kissed her stupid. She was the only woman who ever stole his heart. He’d given it to her beside a lake half a century before. She pulled back. “Guess you might remember after all?”

  “That line has gotten more Kinncaids laid through the ages—”

  “Jock Kinncaid!” She laughed as she slapped his shoulder again.

  “Ah, Kaitie lass, I never gave another woman that vow.” Never even thought about it. Once he’d whispered it to her that was it. She didn’t know, though, that hadn’t been the first time he’d whispered it to her. The other times she apparently had been asleep. He’d whispered it the first night they’d made love and he’d held her in his arms, the moonlight after the storm slashing through the windows to bathe her in silver. He’d just keep that to himself though. “Told you on our wedding day, in front of a lawn full of people.”