“Kinzie, how nice to meet you,” she blustered, rushing forward to take Kinzie’s hand in both of hers.
“Thank you, Mrs. Langston. Thanks for allowing me to come,” Kinzie responded graciously, but the corners of her eyes shot daggers at me. Maybe I’d screwed this up.
“Please, call me Janis. I’m not old enough to be Greg’s mother, even if he calls me that,” the fake blonde tittered. Give me a break. She was more than old enough to be my mother. She just wasn’t. “And I have to apologize. Greg didn’t tell us you were coming,” she added, shooting me a dirty look as well. “You’re more than welcome, of course. But if we’d known, we would have made arrangements to do something special. Maybe we can still have dinner at the club. What do you think, David?”
“Wonderful idea,” Dad agreed, toeing the line as always. “I’m sure they’ll get us in.”
Janis’s face dropped as her eyes scanned Kinzie’s clothes. “Oh, but you aren’t dressed for it,” she pouted.
Kinzie blushed and I jumped in. “She’s not here to play your social games, Mom. We’ll grab something on our own.” I led Kinzie out of the kitchen.
“I shouldn’t be here,” she hissed when we were out of earshot. “I can’t believe you didn’t tell them!”
“You’re fine,” I assured her, regretting her discomfort, but I’d had no other option. “Look, if I’d told them, Janis would have put together an elaborate Christmas Eve party. I don’t think you’d want to spend the evening having polite conversation with her Barbie-doll friends any more than I do. Imagine three dozen Janis-clones milling around sipping hard eggnog and hinting about us getting married.”
Kinzie grinned a little, trying to hang on to her annoyance. But then she snickered. “It might be a fascinating study of an alien culture. Too bad Sasha isn’t here. She’d fit right in.”
I groaned at the thought as we dropped Kinzie’s bag in the small guest room across the hall from my suite. She eyed the turned down bed and plush terry bathrobe laid out on it. Two wrapped Godiva chocolates lay nestled on the pillow. “You’re expecting company,” Kinzie surmised. “I shouldn’t be here. I’ll be in the way.”
“You are the company, Kinzie. I didn’t tell Janis or Dad you were coming, but that doesn’t mean I didn’t tell anyone. Rosita got the room ready.”
“Who is Rosita?”
“Our housekeeper.”
“Housekeeper. Wow,” she said with a laugh. “So can I get a formal tour of this place, or do I need to arrangements with the concierge?”
I grimaced and led her across the hall to my suite. She peeked through the curtains on the French doors, and stopped to watch the flickering fireplace in the corner of the room. “Nice,” she said approvingly.
“This is the master bedroom of the guest wing,” I explained. “I moved over here from the main house when I was sixteen. More privacy.”
A laugh popped out of her mouth at that. “Your house has different wings. My house only has one wing – it’s called the house. A tour would be shorter than the time it took to walk through your room. It’s like the size of that one out by the street,” she said comfortably.
“The caretaker’s cottage?” I asked to confirm the one she meant.
Kinzie smirked. “Caretaker’s cottage? Jeez, where does the housekeeper stay?”
The blood rushed to my face. “We don’t have one now. A caretaker, I mean.”
She laughed at my expression. “You’re rich, Greg. It isn’t a federal offense, just not what I’m used to. Come on. Show me the rest of the manse.”
I led her back to the main house, curious that Kinzie – the girl who’d worried about the cost of a dinner – was comfortable with what was here, when I couldn’t find that part of me anymore. Kinzie scrutinized each room as I showed her around, like she was on a treasure hunt for clues to my childhood. But Janis had redecorated twice since she’d married my dad ten years ago, so little of me remained. In Dad’s study, though, Kinzie struck gold, spotting an album of school pictures. She examined each page, running a finger over the pictures to find me, cooing that I was adorable in preschool, and picking me out in the soccer team photos. She especially liked the geeky middle school ones. I had to fight to get the album out of her hands, and she moved over to my dad’s desk as I put it away.
“Is this from you?” she asked, picking up an ordinary rock painted with blue and green stripes.
I nodded. “I made that in Kindergarten. I don’t know why he keeps it.”
“Because you made it for him,” she explained, making it sound obvious. She put it down, and poked through the collection of framed photos, stopping at one near the back. Her lip slid into her mouth as she studied it. “Is this your real mom?” she asked, picking up the old wedding photo. “You look like her a bit. I think it’s the shape and color of your eyes – hers are the same.”
“I… I look like my dad,” I stammered as my heart stopped dead for a moment before hammering in panic.
Kinzie caught it. “What happened to her?”
I closed the eyes, willing my heart to beat evenly and my stomach to unclench, but it wasn’t working. Kinzie’s hand reached out to my arm, sending that strange but wonderful current through me, relaxing my brain, making me feel like everything would be okay. I’d never told anyone about my mom, but now, even though my heart was still pounding, I took a deep breath and tried. “When I was seven, a car cut them off. My dad was pretty banged up, but Mom ...” Suddenly, I was back screaming for my mom in my godmother’s arms. I didn’t want those memories, or the desperate feelings that went with them. I closed my eyes tighter to seal them away. Kinzie gave me a hug, and I buried my face in her hair, breathing in the scent that reminded me of springtime and new leaves. Somehow, it was okay to let her see things I never showed anyone else – not even myself. I took a last comforting breath.
“I’m sorry. I don’t like thinking about it,” I said, letting her go. “Come on. Let me show you around outside before it gets dark.”
We walked the boundaries of our property as the snow deepened around us. When we reached the edge of the bordering golf course, Kinzie stopped and looked back through the trees toward the house, her mittened hand shielding her face from the falling doily flakes.
“Why do we get along so well?” she asked. “We lead such different lives. My house has a yard; yours has property. Yours was meant to have servants tending it; mine could be the servant’s quarters,” she said. “I can’t imagine living like this.”
“Neither can I,” I joked back, and began to realize how much that had been bothering me – the stuff. It was mine. All of it, and more. This was the whole of my life. And the emptiness of it was swallowing me. I shoved my hands in my pockets and headed back for the house.
A snowball smashed against my arm, disintegrating and sending ice-cold powder into my face. Kinzie stood ten feet away, with a giant grin on her face and mittens covered in snow. It was a challenge to leave my morose thoughts behind. One I gladly accepted.
“You know this means war,” I called out, scooping snow into my hands. I ran after her as she dodged through the trees, nailing her with several good hits, receiving just as many. I bent down to gather more, when she attacked from the rear, dumping fistfuls of snow over me. I spun around and grabbed her. My hands went for her ribs to get my revenge. Every girl was ticklish, and Kinzie was no exception, even through her heavy coat. She squealed, begging me to stop as she collapsed into my arms.
“You cheated,” she laughed, peering up at me. Snowflakes glistened on her dark lashes as her smile faded. She was so beautiful … This was the problem with my personal equation. It didn’t have a place for Kinzie. She was my best friend – not like anyone I’d ever known. Someone I could trust to see the real me. But I had to keep weighting the friend side of the equation so she wouldn’t fall into the nullifying abyss of the sexual plaything my body wanted her to be. God, there was something wrong with me.
My face grew hot with the embarr
assment of the thoughts she never needed to know. I dropped my arms. “I … uh … sorry. So, tell me more about Rothston,” I suggested, but I couldn’t force myself to meet her eyes.
“You know I can’t,” she said, sheepishly kicking at snow. “It’s all security clearance stuff. I’m not allowed to talk about it.”
“Don’t you think that’s kind of weird?” I asked. “I mean, I know it’s a think tank, but all these college kids with government clearances?”
She laughed nervously. “It’s not like that.”
I led her toward the tennis court. “So tell me what it is like.”
Her eyes were studying the snow swirling slowly from the sky. “It’s … it’s just that … I guess there are some things I can tell you.”
We meandered through the drifts while she confessed she was having trouble with something she was supposed to analyze, but she couldn’t figure it out. I couldn’t be much help, since she wouldn’t tell me what it was, but at least I could be a sympathetic ear. “The answer is there,” she complained. “I know it is. Something that’s staring me in the face that I’m missing.”
“Maybe being here for a few days will be good. Take your mind off of it, and start fresh when you get back.”
“I hope so. I sure don’t want to go through any more physicals.”
I stopped and tipped my head. “Physicals? Because you can’t figure something out?”
“No. I mean … not because of that, but …” she stammered.
“Then what? Why would you be having a physical in an internship? Is something wrong?”
“No, nothing’s wrong,” she said, trying to sound definitive, but she wouldn’t look me in the eye. She was hiding something. My pulse sped up. There couldn’t be anything wrong with her.
“What’s going on, Kinzie? Is it those headaches? They’ve gotten worse, haven’t they?”
“I’m fine,” she insisted, looking around like she’d find a way out of the conversation. There wasn’t one. “Look, it was just a routine physical, that’s all. They do it to make sure everyone is okay,” she explained, but it still didn’t sound right to me.
“And did you tell them about your headaches?”
She hesitated, taking slow steps through the snow. “Well, no. But with the MRI and the EEG they would have found it if something was –”
“The what?” I asked, grabbing her arm to stop her. “An MRI? What the hell, Kinzie? They don’t do those for no reason. What’s going on?” My stomach clenched with thoughts of tumors or aneurysms or a hundred other deadly ailments.
“Nothing, Greg,” she snapped, pulling her arm back. She began walking away as if nothing was up. But it was an act. She was lying to me.
I caught up to her quickly. “Tell me what it is,” I demanded. “Whatever it is, whatever is wrong, I can help. I’ll get you the best specialists in the country. Hell, in the world. As many as it takes. But you’ve got to tell me what’s going on. You can’t leave me hanging like this.” The last part came out like a plea.
Kinzie paused and her eyes flashed at me. “Leave you hanging? This has nothing to do with you, Greg,” she said harshly, then strode away, but I kept pace.
“You can’t do this. You have to tell me exactly what’s going on,” I demanded.
She flung her mittened hand into the air to dismiss my words. “You don’t order me around!”
“But …”
“There is absolutely nothing wrong with me that is any concern of yours,” she declared loudly. “And … and it really isn’t any of your business. You aren’t part of my life.”
I stopped in my tracks as her words punched into my stomach like an unseen hand, ripping out everything inside. I wasn’t part of her life? Was that whole of my problem? Kinzie didn’t fit in my life, or vice versa. But a tidal wave of desperation rose up at the thought. And it knocked the weights of my existence into place. My personal equation balanced. The missing variable had been staring me in the face, but I hadn’t seen where it fit in the equation. I was an idiot.
“Wait, Kinzie. Wait.” I went after her, grabbing her arm. She yanked it away and sped up, so I tackled her into the snow.
“Get off of me,” she yelled, kicking and hitting me. “I don’t need you to take care of me.”
“You’re right.” I gently covered her mouth with my glove to get her to listen. When she was quiet, I rolled off and sat up in the snow. “You don’t need me, and I have no right, but … but maybe ...”
“Maybe what?” she snapped with her eyes narrowed. I could see her shutting me out, and it shattered me into a trillion shards. But I had to go on. Maybe I was about to lose my best friend, but nothing would ever make sense the way things were now.
I took a deep breath. “Maybe I need somebody. Maybe I want to be part of your life, but not like this.” I couldn’t make myself finish, nor could I look at her. I studied the snow caked to my jeans. The seconds ticked by like days, as the silence loomed on. I had to speak again. “I think about you every day, Kinzie – every minute. I don’t think you’re just my friend anymore.” More silence. I’d lost her. Chased her away. She was looking for a way out. She had to be. And I’d respect her wishes. I had no other choice. “If you don’t want to stay here, I’ll get you a flight back to Maine, or a hotel, or whatever you want to do.”
Kinzie didn’t speak, or acknowledge me at all. But after a moment, she rose and stalked deliberately toward the house. I let her go, falling back into the snow to think about what I’d just done. Damn. I’d screwed up everything. And Boomer had been right all along.
ψ
The water in the guest bathroom turned off. Again. I sat on the marble counter in my bathroom, holding my breath as I listened through the wall for any sound Kinzie might make next door. Like some auditory voyeur. No, like a schoolboy with a crush. Or a man waiting for a death sentence. Or both. She’d been soaking in the tub for nearly an hour and there was nothing I could do but wait. I turned and leaned my back against the travertine wall. This all seemed so wrong.
I could have any girl I wanted. I knew what to say to them, the looks to give them, how to run my hands down their bodies. To have them swept away by my looks, or maybe it was the money I never talked about but was always there. None of that fit, now. Not with Kinzie.
And what about this MRI? That wasn’t a part of any standard physical I’d ever heard of, and why the hell would this think-tank place do one? They were looking for something. Brain tumor? Cancer? The thoughts were tearing at the fibers of my heart. What wasn’t she telling me?
There couldn’t be anything wrong with her, I told myself, as if I could make it true. I finally had someone to give my life meaning – something that made sense – only to have her ripped away with me helpless to do anything? I couldn’t allow that. But if she wouldn’t even tell me what was wrong, there was nothing I could do.
Eventually, the water in the next bathroom glugged down the drain, and I went back into my room. I sat on the bed, straining to hear sounds from across the hall. Was she packing her duffle to leave? Would she say goodbye, or just call a cab to pick her up and disappear forever. What would happen to her then? What would happen to me? Maybe I should go talk to her. Maybe I should tell her I was joking before, just to make her smile again. Just to keep her here.
The door to the guest room cracked open, and she peered across to mine. “Greg?” she said tentatively.
“Yeah, I’m here.”
Kinzie walked into my room, wearing the thick terry bathrobe Rosita had set out for her. Her face was as grim as I’d ever seen. She bit her lip as she settled cross-legged on the bed, and I knew from her expression that my world was about to end.
“We have a problem,” she said factually.
“Whatever it is, I’ll help. We can get the best specialists. Lots of them if we need to. You don’t need to worry about …” The words were spilling out of me, when she held up her hand to stop me. A slight smile lit the corners of her mouth, but it faded
just as fast.
“No. I’m okay. It’s nothing like that,” she said softly, and my lungs filled with air as if I’d been sitting in a vacuum until then. She was okay. I dropped my eyes down to the threads of the cotton duvet so she wouldn’t see them watering at that simple thought: Kinzie wasn’t dying.
Once I’d gotten a better grip, I looked back up at her. “So, what’s the problem?”
Her eyes wandered around the room for a moment, like she was searching for an answer. “I think I have a crush on you,” she said solemnly. My heart skipped a beat, although her expression said that happiness was premature. She paused, glancing up quickly to see if she should continue. I nodded and she dropped her head. “My heart beats faster when you smile at me, and I like the feel of your arms around me and the way you smell. I think that’s why I keep forgetting to give your sweatshirt back. I really like the way you smell. That sounds weird, doesn’t it?” she asked, wrinkling her nose as she said it.
My heart leapt for joy. The pheromones were on my side! “No, it isn’t weird,” I assured her.
Kinzie held me with her eyes, and smiled back. Then her bottom lip slid into her mouth again and the smile vanished with it. “But … it’s you and … and it doesn’t make sense. I mean … maybe I made you think that you…” she started, but looked puzzled and shook her head to abandon the thought. “Maybe you’re just a beautiful guy who makes my head spin because you pay attention to me,” she concluded, looking back down. My heart opened wider at her word choice – no one called me beautiful except her.
“You’re scared,” I challenged gently.
“I’m confused,” she corrected me. “I think I might have done something I didn’t mean to.” She started to withdraw, like she was mentally pulling herself away.
“Wait,” I said, carefully picking up her hand from her lap. She didn’t resist. The tingle of her skin rushed through me, but it evened the pace of my heart. “You didn’t do anything wrong, Kinzie. And none of this makes sense to me, either. I’ve been torturing myself for two weeks, trying to logically figure out why nothing felt the same – what had changed. But I’ve been refusing to see what it was because it doesn’t make sense.” It was her turn to wait for me as I stopped my ramble and carefully sorted out what to say. The warm tingle from her hand continued to spread.
Foreseen (The Rothston Series) Page 17