Borrowed Vows (2 page)

“A problem? What sort of problem?” She tried to keep cool, even though anger was already bubbling inside.

“Someone fouled up with the dimensions so one of the elevator shafts doesn’t fit.”

“Is that all?”

His blue eyes were cold. “It mightn’t seem much to you, but from where I stand it’s pretty vital.”

“Are you the one who fouled up?”

“No, it was Brand.”

Brand Philips was one of the senior partners at his firm. She raised an eyebrow. “If it was him, why are
you
the one who has to go sort it out? Shouldn’t he do it?”

“Yes, he should, but it’s my project now.”

“Since when?”

“Since the ninth hole, damn it. He told me at the ninth, okay?” He went to fix a Scotch and water.

“So, over a casual round of golf, he happens to mention this goof, and tells you to go clear up his mess?”

“It wasn’t quite like that.”

“But near enough,” she replied dryly. Brand was always a little too quick to pass the buck. He was never there when problems he’d created cropped up, but was
always
around when medals were handed out. Maybe that was how he’d gotten to be a senior partner.

“Look, the thing needs clearing up quickly or we’ll be into penalties for overrunning.” He swirled the Scotch and drank half the glass.

“Why can’t he do it?” she asked shrewdly, wondering what sort of get-out clause Brand had dreamed up this time.

“He can’t.” He avoided her eyes again.

“Why?”

He didn’t reply.

“Come on, Richard. Why can’t he go?”

“Because he’ll be on vacation!” With an angry gesture, he finished the drink and poured another.

Kathryn gave an incredulous laugh. “Well, if that doesn’t beat all! He must have
his
vacation, but ours can go to hell!”

He swirled his glass and took a more conciliatory stance. “We can go to England another time.”

“Can we?” she replied dryly.

“You know we can. Oh, come on, Kathryn, what’s the fuss? What does it matter if we go now or later?”

“The fuss is, we need to go now,” she said quietly.

“It’s only a goddamn vacation! Can’t you be adult about it? Your career might be going down the tubes, but mine isn’t!”

She was so upset she didn’t trust herself to answer, and so turned to look out at the New York skyline. There were tears in her eyes. She didn’t want it to be like this. There had been good times, and maybe they’d find them again. Two leisurely weeks in England would have been ideal, but now he’d pulled the rug
out
from under
her
, and her resentment was such she could feel herself trembling.

He spoke again. “Kathryn, you have to be reasonable about this. My career—”

She saw red. “Okay, you’ve made the point, your career’s still important, mine clearly isn’t, so you go to Chicago if you want, and I’ll go to England on my own.” She hadn’t even realized the words were on her lips, but the vacation meant too much to give it up because of Brand Philips’s ineptitude! Maybe there was no chance now of using England to patch up the holes in their marriage, but she could sure as hell use it to give some real thought to her other problems!

He was startled as well. “On your own?” he repeated.

“Yes.”

“You can’t be serious.”

“Why not?”

“What the heck interest is Gloucester to you?”

“It’s the place where we’ve rented and paid for a luxury apartment for two weeks, that’s what the interest is. Besides, as you pointed out so sensitively, my career’s down the tubes, so I’ve got some thinking to do, and right now Gloucester seems blessedly far away from here!”

He ran his fingers through his hair. “I’m sorry I said that about your career. I didn’t mean it.”

“Oh, yes, you did.”

“Look, I want this vacation too, so can’t we put it off a while? Just until I get back from Chicago.”

“How long will that be?”

He hesitated. “Well, Chicago might not take all that long,” he admitted, “but after that I might have to go to Phoenix.”

“Oh?”

“There’s a prestigious new project there, a leisure complex. But there’s a question mark over it, and Brand might be back in time to go instead of me.”

“You can bet your life he will!” she observed sourly. “If it’s prestigious, good old Brand will be there in the front line. Until he fouls up again, that is.”

Richard glowered. “I only said I
might
have to go to Phoenix. It’s not definite, but I can hardly go ahead with vacation plans until things are clearer.”

“And how long do you reckon it will be before you know for sure?”

“If it goes ahead, two months at least.”

“Two months! And how long after that before you might feel you can spare two weeks for us?” Her tone couldn’t have been more heavily ironic if she’d tried.

“You know how long new projects take to get off the ground.”

“So we’re talking maybe next year some time?”

“Possibly.”

She was aghast. A minimum of six more months of this?

He glanced at her. “Look, it mightn’t come to that. It might just be that I can come back from Chicago, and we can go.”

“But it might not. I can’t wait that long, Richard. I’m desperate to go now.”

“Aren’t you being a little selfish?”

“As is my wont, you mean?” she inquired acidly.

He fell silent.

She watched the way he kept swirling his glass. “Besides,” she added, “what difference will it really make to you whether I’m here in New York or in England? Either way, you’ll be in Chicago with your damned elevator shaft, or in Phoenix doing whatever it is you have to do there.”

Her tone needled him. “I have a job to do, Kathryn!”

“Don’t give me that. You’re going to Chicago because it suits you, and you’re hoping like hell to get that Phoenix project too. Anything to further your career.”

“And that rankles with you right now, doesn’t it?” he fired back.

“Yes. No. Oh, I don’t know.” She looked out at the skyline again. “All I do know is that I want you to come to England, like we planned.”

“You know your trouble? You have an attitude problem!”

“If by that you mean I think this vacation is more important than getting Brand Philips out of his own hole, then yes, I
do
have an attitude problem! Maybe you don’t know, but I don’t just have an attitude problem. I have a marriage problem too. Correction,
we
have a marriage problem. Haven’t you noticed that things aren’t hunky-dory around here anymore?”

He gave a cold laugh. “Oh, I’ve noticed, all right. I’ve noticed that any difficulties we have are usually your doing. You’ve made it pretty damned clear lately that you resent my career, which I think is a little rich coming from someone who once put her own career before everything else. If you hadn’t lost the baby...” He didn’t finish the sentence, but looked accusingly at her, his blue eyes bright with bitterness.

Was this the long-overdue explosion? The one that was far too late in coming? She made herself meet his eyes. “Lost the baby? You make it sound like I mislaid it somewhere in the subway!”

“Do I? Well, that wasn’t my intention,” he said evenly.

The tone wasn’t lost on her. “Then what was your intention?” He averted his gaze, so she pressed him. “Come on, Richard, there’s obviously something on your mind, so you might as well say it.”

“All right, damn it, I will! Your selfishness caused that miscarriage. You were so darned determined to keep your failing career going that you sacrificed our child! And for what? A career not worth mentioning anymore anyway!”

“It wasn’t selfishness,” she whispered.

“No, you preferred to call it independence! Well, screw your independence! I’ve no doubt that part of you is glad about what happened, for a top TV reporter can’t be tied down by babies, can she? But it had already gone west anyway because Joe Carini retired and Diane Weinburger took over.”

The accusing words hung in the air long after he’d said them, and for a moment she was too distressed to respond. She’d always known he blamed her for the miscarriage, but she hadn’t realized he thought she didn’t regret it. “Is...is that what you really think? That I was glad I lost the baby?” she asked haltingly.

He shifted uncomfortably. “How could I not think it?”

Tears leapt to her eyes as she fired her own reproaches back. “Did you ever bother to ask? You’re so quick to accuse me of selfishness, but what of yours? When it all happened, you were so wrapped up in your own grief, you never gave a thought to how
I
felt! Well, for your information, I
did
want that baby, I wanted it more than anything else in the world.”

He’d colored a little when she pointed out his lack of concern toward her at the time of the miscarriage, but guilt made him continue the attack. “I wish I could believe you, Kathryn, but somehow I can’t help doubting.”

“Then there’s not a great deal more to be said, is there?” she observed quietly.

“Meaning what, exactly?”

“That we should seriously consider if there’s anything left to save.”

He cleared his throat. “Look, we’re both overwrought. I’ve been working too hard, and I know your health has taken a long time to recover since the baby...”

It was an olive branch of sorts, and in spite of the bitterness of the altercation, she responded to the conciliatory tone. They might be racing toward the brink, but the brakes could still be applied. If only he’d come to England with her...

She pleaded again. “I’m begging you to come on this vacation, Richard. We desperately need to spend time together away from here.”

He drew a heavy breath. “I hear what you’re saying, but I simply
must
go to Chicago. It really is important. You see, Brand’s going to retire and `he’s considering putting me up for a partnership in his place.”

“So, that’s the carrot, is it?” she replied coldly.

His eyes flashed again. “Call it what you will, it’s what matters to me. I want to be a partner.”

She saw how useless it was. What room did such ambition leave for marriage? “Do what you want, Richard.”

“Then you agree to postpone things?”

She shook her head. “No, I’m still going to England.”

His temper snapped. “Then go, damn it!”

“I intend to.” She walked from the room.

He was in Chicago when she left at the end of July. Right up to the moment her flight took off she hoped he’d change his mind and join her. He didn’t.

She didn’t know she’d never see him, her homeland or her friends again, or that she was flying to a destiny so fantastic she’d never have believed it possible.

Chapter Three

England was all Kathryn could have hoped for. Even the weather. She drove out of London in brilliant summer sunshine, and soon left the capital far behind as she made her way west toward Gloucester, choosing to go across country rather than follow the main routes. She liked the rolling green countryside, quaint towns, and slower pace. She even liked the narrow roads and the evil gears of her rental car, but in her present frame of mind she’d probably have liked anything that took her away from the twin battlegrounds of marriage and career. Right now, both Richard Vansomeren and Diane Weinburger were magnificently far away on the other side of the Atlantic.

She was determined to use the next two weeks to think carefully about the future. There was no point in having this time to herself if going home meant picking up where she left off. Something had to give in her marriage, or she and Richard were headed straight for the divorce court. As for her fond wish of becoming a top TV reporter, well as things stood she’d already kissed that good-bye.

All this was going through her head as she drove, but as she reached the edge of the escarpment above the wide valley where Gloucester and neighboring Cheltenham were laid out before her, something happened that was so strange it made her temporarily forget all her problems.

The moment the panoramic view came into sight, she was struck by such a fierce feeling of
déjà vu
that she almost swerved her car into the path of an oncoming truck. With a scream she slammed on the brakes and the truck thundered past. It was a close call, and her heart pounded as she rested her forehead weakly against the steering wheel.

Recovering a little, she looked at the view again. There was something so oddly familiar about the way the magnificent medieval tower of Gloucester cathedral rose from the late afternoon haze that she shivered in spite of the summer heat. Then she shook her head. The prospect was clearly a famous one, for there was a special parking area just for admiring it, so she told herself she must have seen it in a travel magazine or something. But if she had, it wasn’t recently, because she hadn’t looked at any of the literature Richard had sent for. A wry smile touched her lips. If anyone should experience
déjà vu
here, it was Richard, not her. After all, it was his mother’s family, the Larvilles, who came from these parts.

The “been here before” feeling lingered as she drove on down into the wide valley that had been carved by the River Severn, and intensified the closer she went to the city. By the time she turned into the short cobbled street that led to the cathedral gates, the sensations were so strong she felt that at any moment she’d see someone she knew. But there was no one.

The rented apartment lay just off the street, and was reached by a paved alley between the cathedral gates and a picturesque half-timbered restaurant called the Monk’s Retreat. The alley was fifty yards long and wide enough to drive down, ending in a rose-decked courtyard where simple seventeenth-century townhouses had been transformed into luxurious tourist accommodation. The little development was right in the heart of the medieval part of the city, but at the same time was very private and secluded, and every apartment enjoyed a splendid view of the cathedral tower against the flawless blue sky.

There was a resident janitor, a burly, comfortable man, with a broad smile and equally broad Gloucestershire accent. He came out the moment her car halted in the yard.