Brett returned just as she finished eating. He sat in a chair and looked at her in brooding silence.
"You had no trouble?"
"No." He gave a wry grin. "Where the hell did you meet a man like that, Kate? Let alone be on car borrowing terms?"
"Like what?" Paula asked curiously.
"Dark, dangerous and Greek to his fingertips," Kate replied in an empty, bleak voice. "It's a very long story."
"We have all night." Paula leaned forward and poured them all more coffee. "The children are in bed."
"Kate may not want to tell," Brett cautioned softly.
"Actually, I do." Kate took a shaky breath. "In twenty four hours Alex Korda has managed to turn my life upside down for the second time. He almost got me sacked this morning."
"How?" Brett leaned forward, eyes bright with anger.
"I threw a vase of flowers at him at him." Kate gave a shaky laugh at their disbelief.
"You what?" Paula shrieked.
"You'd better start at the beginning, Kate." Brett saw the anguish and heartache she found impossible to hide. He picked up one of her hands. "You've held this in for far too long."
"It all began on my eighteenth birthday, when we lived at Narrabeen, just north of Sydney." Kate gave a choked sob. "Daddy gave Chris and me a car each for our birthday."
"Chris?" Paula asked in a hushed voice.
"My twin. He's dead, and so is Dad." She stared at her hands lying limply in her lap. Paula's hand gripped her shoulder. "That night we had a birthday bash at the beach and I got tipsy. Chris wouldn't let me drive home so we left my car there, locked. And I went home with him."
She looked up at Brett and Paula. "The next morning my car was parked in our garage, badly damaged and covered in blood, the key in the ignition. The police were at the door telling me Marcos Korda, Alex's nephew had been killed in a hit and run."
"How on earth?" Paula asked shaking her head in disbelief.
"I didn't know then, but I knew damn well I hadn't hit the kid, nor had I parked my car in the garage."
"Your brother?"
"Chris was adamant I came home with him. No-one believed us." Kate looked at her friends. "The police said the kid's uncle had given them my car's rego and a description of the driver, a woman like me."
There was a brief silence. Paula stared at her. "Kate you didn't?"
"I did. I went to see him and…" her voice broke.
Brett poured her a glass of brandy. She sipped it and managed to regain control. "It was a big mistake. Alexandros Korda didn't believe me either. But he insisted I lay my flowers beside the bier holding the boy's coffin."
"How awful."
"It was." Kate swirled the brandy in the glass. "I'd never seen a dead person before."
"So what happened?" Brett gripped her hand.
"Alex insisted I stay for refreshments. And terrified of offending, I did." Kate took a deep breath. "The coffee was so bitter I loaded it with sugar."
"It was drugged?" Brett asked eyes brilliant with anger.
Kate nodded. "When I woke up I was on an Island, I later learned was in the Whitsundays."
"He kidnapped you?" Paula shook her head. "Did no one miss you?"
"Everyone thought I'd run away rather than face manslaughter charges for the hit and run. The long and the short of it was that when Alex arrived, he said…he said…" her voice broke and she took a gulp of brandy before she could finish. "He said I was going nowhere until I gave him a child to replace the one I'd killed."
Brett's breath escaped in a rasping rush. "An eye for an eye…"
"Exactly." Kate swallowed. "When forensics found my cousin's prints in the blood on the car, she confessed to the hit and run after questioning. Jessica and I are very alike. It appears I'd dropped my keys, with the garage door remote on the key ring, and she found them."
"So what happened then?" Paula asked.
"Jessica was jailed, I was pregnant and Alex," Kate shook her head, trying to push down the awful memories. "Alex aged overnight."
Alex's heart has never stopped bleeding. Gregori's words returned to haunt her.
"As well he might, the bastard." Brett paced across to the sideboard and back. "Why didn't he end up in jail, too?"
"My father and brother wanted to visit me. But I was so angry with them. If they didn't believe me, I wasn't going to see them. Gregori, Alex's PA, told me this morning, my dad wanted to visit because he wanted me to lay charges against Alex."
"Why didn't he?" Paula asked watching her, frowning.
"By this time, Alex and I were living in one of his mansions at Indooroopilly, overlooking the Brisbane River." Kate looked down at her clenched hands. "He overruled me, and told me Dad and Chris were coming to see me."
She lapsed into silence as she finished the rest of the brandy.
"And?" Paula asked quietly.
"They were killed in a smash on their way north." Weak tears over flowed. "Two days later, I went into premature labour at 26 weeks."
"Your baby died too?" Paula put an arm around Kate shoulder.
"No one thought she'd survive, she was so tiny." Kate looked at Paula through a film of tears. "Gregori came to see me and gave me a heap of money and I couldn't bear to watch my baby die, so I left."
"You poor little thing." Paula rubbed a hand over her back. "What happened today?"
In a voice often little more than a thread, Kate told them.
"The bastard," Brett said savagely, when she got to the confrontation this afternoon at the inn. "It's iniquitous that he can actually get away with something so criminal."
"I know," Kate said in a soft, sad murmur, "but in one way he's right. I did abandon Sarah and I know, now, I could never have mothered her properly, hating Alex as much as I did then. It was no fault of hers and she deserved better than I could ever have given her."
"Have you been back to Narrabeen?" Paula asked quietly.
"No." Kate gave a despairing sob, "What's there to go back to? Not daddy or Chris."
"You need to go back." Paula gripped Kate's hands tightly "You need to go home. Until you do, you'll never find peace. Dave said you were owed some leave. Take it. Go home. Visit your brother's and father's graves. Go and confront your cousin. Get well away from here, and any chance encounter with that fiend."
"Paula's right, Kate." Brett looked down from where he was leaning an elbow on the mantle shelf. "Go away and have a good holiday."
Kate rang Dave and he readily agreed.
"Take as long as you need. Leave Korda to me. I guessed he'd upset you badly when he raced here to ask if I'd seen you."
"He would've been more worried about his precious car. I drove off in it."
"Geeze. You didn't prang it?"
"No such luck."
"If you say so, Kate." He gave a gruff bark of laughter. "Have a decent break. You've earned it."
As she put down the receiver, Kate felt protected within the security of these trusted friends.
"No problems?" Brett asked as she came back.
"All I have to do is pack. I don't want to go home alone. Alex could come around."
"I'll come with you," Brett said savagely. "If he dares show up he'll find a man to deal with. Not a slip of a woman."
Chapter Five
Not until the taxi turned into the street where she'd grown up, did Kate pause to consider whether or not Alex had sold her old home when he'd settled up her father's affairs.
She nibbled on her lower lip as the taxi cruised to a stop.
"Is this the house, ma'am?" The driver turned to look at her when she made no attempt to alight.
"Yes." She stared at the house biting on her lower lip, uncertain what to do. "I'm not sure if it's okay for me to stay here. Will you wait?"
"Sure thing."
With real trepidation she walked to the front door. The gardens were so neat the house had to be occupied. Anxiety fisted in her belly. What should she do if she was proved right?
She pre
ssed the bell and the door swung open before she had time to lift her finger. The breath left her lungs. Am I hallucinating?
She closed her eyes. When she opened them, Luke Harder was still framed in the doorway.
"You," she stuttered. "What are you doing here?"
"Welcome home, Catriona."
Kate stared, totally incapable of rational thought. At last I've flipped into some alternate reality.
Luke looked over her shoulder at the taxi waiting by the curb.
"Why don't you go inside and let me get your luggage." He propelled her into the hallway.
Too stunned to disagree, she went inside and instinctively went to the small room that had once been hers and Chris's den.
There was nothing she recognized; bewildered she sank into a comfortable wing chair, beyond shocked.
"Here you are." Luke came into the room. "Would you like a coffee?"
Kate stood up and faced him, eyes glinting with determination. "Not so fast, Luke, I want an explanation. Who are you? And why are you living here, in my family home?"
"After you've had coffee." His blue eyes swept over her in one comprehensive look. "Come through to the kitchen."
Kate stared at his retreating back, her thoughts in turmoil.
Slowly, she followed him, taking time to look about her. Although basically the same, the house had had a complete make-over. She sank into a comfortable chair in the breakfast nook.
Here too everything was different.
New kitchen counters of dark granite, stainless steel appliances, set off painted plaster walls. The sheer Dorothy curtains her mother had loved were gone, in their place modern roman blinds.
Luke moved around the kitchen, pouring coffee and putting cakes on a small plate. He gave her a mug of coffee and put sugar and cream on the table before sitting opposite.
"What did Alex tell you?" Luke stirred sugar into his coffee.
"So you are related to Alex." She spooned sugar and cream in her coffee, before taking a fortifying sip.
"He's my brother."
She inhaled coffee the wrong way and choked, coughing and spluttering. "Your brother?"
"Half-brother." Luke picked up his coffee and sipped, looking at her across the top of the mug. "My mother was Alex's father's pillow friend."
"Pillow friend?" Kate feared she sounded like and echo.
"Mistress or lover. Take your pick. It's a common enough arrangement." A wry smile touched the corners of his mouth. "Alex and I never knew each other existed until I was twenty."
While this explained the incredible likeness between the two men, it didn't explain his presence in the Howard family home. "Why are you living here?"
"You know Alex was trustee for Fraser's affairs?"
Kate glanced around, expecting her father to materialize at the mention of his name.
"He couldn't leave the house empty," Luke said slowly. "Neither did he want strangers here if you did decide to return. And as he'd undertaken to provide a home for my mother, he decided it was best to put all your family's effects into storage and my mother to move in."
Kate cup clattered in the saucer, she glanced around gripped by a sense of desperation. Was there nowhere, in this world she could escape Alex's influence?
She pushed the chair back with a loud scrape.
"I can't stay here," she blurted out as Luke rose to his feet and caught her by the shoulders, preventing her precipitate flight.
"Why not? It's your house. My mother will be back soon."
"I can't stay here."
"Running again, Kate?" Luke taunted softly. "You'll never banish your demons, until you have the courage to face them."
"What do you know about my demons?" she asked, rounding on him. "Or are you to be my jailer this time?"
His hands dropped from her shoulders and he crossed to the window, his back to her. After a few moments he turned to face her.
"To answer your first question, I assume you regard Alex as your demon. As for me being your jailer." He shook his head, white lipped with anger. "My mother is caretaker of your home. You're free to come and go as you choose, or ask her to move out if you wish. Do you?"
"No, of course not." She shrugged and spread her hands as she sank down into the chair, Luke's anger catching her by surprise.
Her anger wasn't directed at him, yet how could she explain? She shook her head, overcome by fatigue.
"You're exhausted, Kate." Luke extended a hand. "Why not leave all your questions until you're rested?"
"I am tired," she admitted, managing a smile.
"Mother has kept your bedroom ready for you."
Kate's heart beat out a panicky rhythm as he escorted her down the once familiar corridor.
He opened the door and as she walked into her old bedroom, the years tumbled backwards in a kaleidoscope of memories.
She stared around her with disbelieving eyes.
The room was exactly as she'd left it to undertake that fateful visit.
The wallpaper, with its overblown cabbage roses she'd helped her mother choose, the same wallpaper she'd refused to change after her mother's death.
Then she saw the photographs on the polished bureau. A small distressed sound escaped as she picked up a photo.
Chris stared back at her.
Her fingers shook as she traced his face through the glass.
"He's dead." She looked up at Luke, tears trickling down her cheeks.
"I know," Luke said very softly.
"Oh Chris…Chris…Chris…" Kate clutched the photo to her heart, sobbing as she crumpled.
*****
For days on end, Kate lay in a shadowed world of troubled dreams and high fever. She tossed and turned in her effort to escape the uneasy dreams of her exile.
With her resistance already so low, she succumbed to a chest infection. Worried, Emily Harder summoned the Howard family physician, Jeff Hart.
"We'd better call Alex Korda." Doctor Hart pulled his stethoscope from his ears and looked at Luke and Emily.
Luke was tempted to protest but there was no gainsaying Jeff Hart so, with a philosophical shrug, he left the room and rang Alex at his Sydney office.
"He's on his way." Luke walked back into the bedroom.
"She doesn't want to fight back." Jeff Hart stroked his chin, his old eyes shrewd and sad.
Deep seated anger blazed in Luke. "Alex has a lot to answer for."
"Luke," Emily protested. "You have no right to say that."
His mother's sharp rebuke did little to stem his anger. He felt used. Why had Alex asked him to go to Clevedon and visit Kate? Her reaction, her fear haunted him. He was left in little doubt she was afraid of his powerful brother.
"Oh, why do you say that?" The old doctor asked, eying Luke.
"It's his fault she's so ill."
"Is that so?"
Kate stirred and Jeff patted her hand. "It's okay, Catriona. Alex is coming."
Her restless movements stilled, as he checked her pulse.
"How long will he be?"
"He said it should be about half an hour, depending on the traffic."
"I'll set afternoon tea." Emily left the two men alone.
Luke felt heat crawl up his cheeks under the old doctor's shrewd scrutiny.
"I want to talk to you. Alone." He motioned Luke to precede him from the room and with a resigned shrug Luke led him into a small sitting room, shutting the door behind them.
"You're young Luke. You have your life and career ahead of you."
The old doctor pulled his pipe out of a baggy jacket pocket and scraped the tobacco out of the bowl before painstakingly filling it again. He struck a match and held it to the bowl between his cupped hands. Luke fidgeted under his shrewd, knowing look.
"There's no point in you hankering after that young woman in there."
Luke stared at him, a pugnacious tilt to his jaw. "Why?"
"Rivalry over a woman is destructive, whether between friends or brothers."
&n
bsp; Luke fought down an irrational anger, and then gave a deep shrug and turned away. "Alex and I have never had a brotherly relationship."
Yesterday's Sins Page 6