Barri Bryan - Return to Paradise.html

by Return to Paradise (NCP) (lit)

  Belle stood to her feet and begin to send Cody little signals with her eyes, but he was too excited to notice. "Kate's not going home with us." She began to gather up her bags.

  "Staying with York, huh?" Cody took the heavy shopping bag from Belle.

  "How did you ever guess?" Kate thought she knew the answer already.

  "That high stepping filly Hank had with him gave us quite an ear full." Cody hooked the bag over his arm.

  Belle called over her shoulder, as she hurried away, "We have to go. See you at home, Katie baby."

  Ignoring Belle, Kate called after Cody, "Are you talking about Gina Morton?"

  Turning, Cody snapped his fingers. "That's her name. I knew she had a movie star's name and a movie star's bust line. It was Gina."

  Cody hurried after Belle's rapidly moving figure. "Wait for me." He called over his shoulder, "Have fun, Kate."

  Kate had a strong urge to catch up to her mother, and give her a good shake, then find Hank and Gina, and lambast the both of them. But she had promised to meet York for the street dance at six-thirty. The roped off area was all the way across the fair grounds. She glanced at her watch. It flashed six-fifteen. She would talk to Mamma later. As Kate threaded her way through the milling crowd, her anger began to cool. Hadn't York warned her that little towns were hot beds of gossip? Maybe beds was the operative word. That thought brought a smile to her lips.

  Kate reached the bleachers that lined one side of the street at exactly six-thirty. She scanned the area, looking for York. He was nowhere in sight. With a shrug, she sat down on the bottom row and watched the passing crowd. Second thoughts about what she had said to Belle earlier brought a bite of guilt. She had no idea what Hank and Gina had told her mother. The one thing she never wanted to do again, was jump to conclusions. With that thought, came again, the bitter remembrance of her quarrel with Suzie. Would she ever be able to make things right with her daughter again? A tear slid from her eye and rolled down her cheek. As Kate raised her arm to brush it away, long fingers locked around her hand. She turned to see York sitting beside her. "I didn't see you sit down."

  His fingers tightened. "That's my line, remember? Do you need a shoulder to cry on?"

  The tears in her eyes distorted his handsome face. "Are you offering one?"

  "If you need it, yes." He laid his arm across her shoulder. "Why the tears, Kate?"

  It seemed the most natural thing in the world to explain. "I quarreled with my daughter over two years ago, and I haven't seen her since. After all this time, I may have a chance for a reconciliation, and I'm scared."

  York's tone was sympathetic. "In a way you are most fortunate."

  "To have a quarrel with my daughter?"

  "To have a daughter. Carol couldn't have children."

  "Oh, York." Kate's hand flew to his cheek in a gesture of comfort. "I'm so sorry. I had no idea."

  York caught her hand before she could pull it away. "Of course, you didn't. His mouth moved to kiss her palm.

  Kate retrieved her hand, and lowered her head. "People are staring."

  "Are you concerned that people will talk?" He caught her hand in his. "I don't mind in the least."

  He may as well know. "I'm glad you don't mind, because someone is already talking."

  "And who could that someone be?" His fingers caressing the back of her hand.

  Kate's cheeks bloomed with color. "Hank and Gina saw us go into your town house. They mentioned it to Cody and Mamma."

  "I do believe you're blushing. You shouldn't. You've done nothing to be ashamed of." York's arm found its way back around Kate's shoulder. "I warned you about little-town gossips, and about Hank Sinclair. He can be vicious. And Gina is little more than the town tramp."

  Kate thought that was rather a harsh assessment. "How did they know?"

  "Gina lives at the apartment complex. Hank goes there often. Maybe Hank and Gina were indulging in a little of what they accused us of doing."

  That revelation sent a rush of renewed anger surging through Kate. "The hypocrites!"

  "It's best forgotten, Kate. Don't let petty people get to you."

  That sounded like good advise. "You're right." Kate's eyes scanned the street and the dancers. "The music is beautiful. But I don't recognize the dance."

  "It's a Mexican dance, called a cumbia. Do you like Tejano music?"

  "What is that?" Kate asked, fascinated by the way the soft Spanish words slid off York's tongue.

  York turned his head to one side. "How can I explain? Except to say Tejano is to Mexican music what western is to American music."

  "Maybe I should stay with western." Kate watched the dancers move about in a wide circle to the syncopated beat of the music. "The steps are so fast, and complicated, at the same time so graceful."

  "That's an apt description of Tejano dancing," York told her as the last strains of music died away.

  Then, crying violins replaced the sound of ringing accordions. "Would you like to dance?" York held out his hand. "The band is playing a waltz."

  "I'd love to." Kate preceded him into the roped off section of the street.

  York was a precise, careful dancer, but Kate couldn't seem to relax.

  York's hold around her waist tightened. "I like holding you."

  "It's been a long time since I've danced." She felt the tension in her body began to ease.

  "No one would ever know. You're so beautiful, a vision of grace and color."

  Kate looked up, set to deny his words, and read the sincerity of his compliment etched in the smile on his face, the gleam in his eyes. "We do make a striking couple."

  "Like a prince charming and his lady love? Why not, didn't we agree that fantasy has its merits?" He swung her gracefully across the dance area.

  They danced several dances. Kate mustered up her courage, and with York leading her slowly through the steps, tried some of the less complicated Tejano dances.

  Darkness fell, and a gentle breeze blew in from the south, caressing the trees, and whispering like some misplaced wraith, through the ribald music and raucous cries of the dancers.

  After a fast Mexican polka, Kate fell onto the end of a bleacher, and tried to catch her breath. "I think I'd better sit the next one out."

  "I'll get you something to drink." York offered. "What will it be?"

  Kate leaned back and thought for a few moments. "Could I have a beer?"

  "Beer it is." York turned to go. "I'll be back. Don't go away."

  Kate watched him push his way through the milling crowd toward the refreshment stands until he was swallowed up in the swirl of humanity that ebbed and flowed like a restless sea.

  Kate's eyes wandered upward to look at the vaulted dome of sky overhead. Sapphire stars spiked through a velvet cover, and a crescent moon hung like a tilted canoe near the western horizon.

  A raspy voice intruded into her thoughts. "You should have asked for water."

  Kate turned to see the tall figure of Hank Sinclair standing directly behind her. Anger, mixed with fright, stiffened her spine. "Are you trying to scare me out of my wits?"

  The intimation of a smile hovered around his mouth, and stopped just short of his restless eyes. "I wouldn't want to deprive you of your wits." He came around the end of the bleachers and sat down beside her. "You may decide some day to use them."

  "You were eavesdropping. Do you make a habit of going around butting into things that don't concern you?" Kate's voice snapped with indignation.

  "You are my concern, Kate. You're my employee. I want you on the job in the morning, not somewhere in bed with York Taylor, nursing a hangover."

  Was he trying to make her angry? It crossed Kate's mind that if she flew into a blind rage, and slapped his arrogant face, it would be no more than he deserved. "You're not going to upset me with your sarcastic remarks."

  "You're already upset." Hank propped his booted feet on the bleacher in front of him. "Has Taylor been telling you what a rotten bastard I am?"

 
; "Not everybody goes around telling every thing they know." Kate's eyes darkened with smoldering scorn. "Or see." Who was he, to sit in judgment on her, when just this afternoon he had been in bed with Gina Morton? "You couldn't wait to tell Mamma and Cody that you saw me going into York's town house, could you?"

  "What's wrong with telling the truth?" Hank questioned on the end of a amused chuckle. "And I didn't tell them, Gina did."

  "Why would she do that?" Kate's irritation was directed, partially, toward herself. Her lips pulled into a narrow, uncompromising line.

  One of Hank's shoulders rose and fell in a careless shrug. "You'd have to ask Gina that."

  "Where is Gina?" Kate glanced around her.

  "Over there." Hank inclined his head toward the throng of dancers, then observed with blasé indifference, "Something tells me York didn't get any farther in his fancy town house than I did in my lowly line shack. You're as uptight and nervous as a tom cat in a room full of rocking chairs."

  Kate returned his insolent stare. "I won't dignify that with an answer."

  "Hank, Honey," Gina had detached herself from a tall cowboy, and was walking toward the bleachers. When she recognized Kate, she stopped in her tracks. "I can't leave you for a minute, can I Hank honey?"

  "Hello, Gina." Kate greeted the other woman with enough ice in her voice to freeze a square mile of Arizona desert.

  Her uneasiness apparent, Gina answered. "Hi, Kate. Your name is Kate?"

  Hank chuckled as Gina hooked her hand through his arm. "You know the lady's name. Gina." Then over his shoulder, he called, "See you tomorrow, Kate."

  "Not," Kate said under her breath, "if I see you first." She heaved a sigh of relief as Hank and Gina dissolved into the flow of the crowd.

  York emerged from the human sea, and came toward her with a beer in each hand, causing Kate to dismiss the entire incident from her mind.

  It was well past midnight before Kate and York left the dance. As York drove onto the interstate, Kate rested her head against the back of the plush seat, and smiled. "I had a lovely time."

  York's long fingers held the steering wheel with practiced ease. "I'm glad, because so did I."

  Kate closed her eyes, as the memories of the evening slid through her mind.

  "Kate?"

  She raised her head. "Yes?"

  "I saw Hank Sinclair talking to you this evening. Did he annoy you while I was away?"

  She hadn't realized that York has seen Hank. "No. Not really."

  "But he did accost you?" York glanced briefly in her direction.

  "Accost is a strong word. I think Hank wanted to give me a bad time. He was his usual offensive self."

  York shook his head. "I'm sure he spent most of his time maligning my character."

  In the darkness Kate smiled to herself. "As a matter of fact, he spent most of his time asking if you had been maligning his character. What is it with you two, anyway?"

  She heard the amusement in York's voice. "If I told you I'd have to malign Mr. Sinclair's character." But Kate sensed a turbulent hatred beneath his moderate words.

  Curiosity overrode discretion. "Why does he hate you, York?"

  "The same reason I hate him. It goes back a long way." The dim dash light cast eerie shadows across York's rigid profile. "We grew up together. Our families were neighbors, our fathers were friends. We attended the same schools, moved in the same circles, then..." York's voice died away, as if the subject was too painful to discuss.

  "You don't have to tell me."

  "Somebody will, sooner or later." York's breath dragged through his throat. "Maybe I'm selfish, but I'd like you to hear my version first."

  Kate wondered what could possibly bring such agony to the face of this controlled man. She folded her hands in her lap, and gave York her undivided attention.

  "Sinclair and I were rivals through high school. Nothing vindictive or malicious, just healthy teenage competition in sports and academics, and with girls. But underneath all that healthy rivalry, we shared a basic dislike for each other. A lot of people thought I was jealous of him, because he always seemed to come out the winner, in everything, but I wasn't, until Carol came along."

  "Your wife?" Surprise tilted Kate's voice upward.

  "Yes, she was so beautiful, so young and trusting, and so vulnerable to a man like Sinclair." York swallowed, deeply.

  "York, maybe..." Kate wasn't sure she wanted to hear this after all.

  York continued in a goaded voice, "We both dated her, but it was Sinclair who won her heart. She thought he was going to marry her."

  "How do you know all this?" Kate was wide awake now, and listening intently.

  "Carol told me, years later, after we were married. Most of it came out in bits and pieces, over a long period of time."

  "Maybe we shouldn't talk about it anymore." Kate hated seeing York in such pain.

  "No, let me finish." York held up one hand. "He deserted her, Kate. My Carol was pregnant with his child, and he walked away and left her."

  "Did Hank know Carol was going to have a baby, his baby?" Recollections of what Hank had said in the line shack about not making promises floated around the edges of Kate's memory.

  "Of course he knew. He didn't give a damn."

  Kate didn't want to believe Hank would be that heartless, but those words he had said to her that day in the line shack, came back now, with haunting clarity. "I never make promises I know I wouldn't keep."

  After a painful silence, Kate asked, "What happened then?"

  Over a tortured sigh, York continued. "Sinclair went off to college, and Carol, who was little more than a scared child, went to some butcher in San Antonio, and had an illegal abortion. Complications set in, and she almost lost her life. She never fully recovered, and she was never able to have another child."

  "How terrible," Kate sympathized.

  York's hands tightened into a death grip on the steering wheel. "When Carol was well enough to go back to school, her parents sent her to a private school in San Antonio. They thought it best that she didn't come back to St. Agnes to face all the gossip and painful memories."

  "Hank must have known what happened." A sad ache moved in around Kate's heart. How Carol must have suffered. "Did he try to see Carol?"

  "Sinclair came home several times in the next four years. Carol wasn't here. She stayed in San Antonio and went to college. She became a teacher. She saw teaching as some kind of compensation. She couldn't bear children, so the next best thing was working with them."

  Kate couldn't bear the agony that etched itself into York's every word. "I've heard enough."

  York ignored her plea. "Five years later, Carol did come back to St. Agnes to accept a teaching position in the elementary school. I had just taken over the reins of the bank after my father had retired. Carol and I begin to see each other."

  "And you were married," Kate asserted, hoping to end the story, and York's obvious pain.

  "Not right away. That happened two years later. I would have married her the month after she returned, but Carol held out all that time. She felt it was unfair for her to marry me and not be able to give me children. It took me that long to convince her that I loved her, and it didn't matter that she couldn't have children." His voice rose in pitch and volume. "It didn't matter to me, but oh, how it mattered to her."

  The vehemence in his outcry lashed like a wet rope across Kate's tender heart. "I'm so sorry."

  York released his grip and let his fingers slide loosely around the steering wheel. "Now can you understand why I hate Hank Sinclair?"

  Kate was more shaken than she cared to admit. "I understand so many things now."

  "I hope you don't think I was saying these things to play on your sympathy," York stopped his car before the gate to Paradise.

  Should she tell him he had aroused her sympathy, as few people had ever done before? That would be unwise. He didn't want sympathy, and she could understand that. "I'm glad you told me." She got out of the car, a
nd hurried to open the gate.

  As York brought the car to a stop beside the house, he dropped his hands from the steering wheel, and turned to look at Kate. "I want to see you again, Kate."

  Kate opened the door and was thankful for the dome light that spread brightness through the car. "I know."

  "May I call you?"

  Why was she suddenly afraid? Kate lifted Gertrude into her arms, and pushed the door with her elbow. "We don't have a telephone."

  "Perhaps I can come by some night on my way home." She could hear the hope in his voice.

  "I have Mama's wedding next week."

  "Then may I call on Gertrude? I look on her as a friend." The words were bantering; the tone was determined.

  She was making excuses, and she didn't know why. "My children will be here. I'll see you at the wedding." She attempted to lighten the moment. "You can call on Gertrude then, too."

  His smile told her that he knew she was feeling threatened. "I won't push you, but I won't give up either. When is the wedding?"

  "Next Saturday, at two-thirty. I hope you will come, but I have to warn you Hank will be here."

  York's back stiffened, "And Gina? Is she coming too?"

  "No. Not Gina." A macabre thought snaked into Kate's tired brain. Mamma had met Gina this afternoon. It was not beyond the stretch of her imagination to think Mamma had invited Gina to the wedding. "At least, I don't think Gina's coming."

  "Don't you know?"

  "Mamma met Gina this afternoon, so I don't know."

  "Your mother wouldn't invite someone she had met only once to her wedding."

  Kate smiled. "You don't know Mamma. She might do just that."

  "Do you really think so?"

  "I know so." It was too late, and Kate was too tired to try to explain Mamma to a near stranger. She extended her hand. "Good night, York. Thank you for a lovely time." York clasp her hand with his long fingers. "After the wedding, I want to take you out. We can drive to San Antonio for dinner and dancing. Would you like that?"

  Kate thought she might. "Ask me after the wedding." She got out of the car, and hurried toward the house.