JAKrentz - Witchcraft (18 page)

"Don't you think we know that?" Wesley
Marland
asked bitterly. "But we can't undo the past, Kim. We can only work with the present and the future." He drew a deep breath and then announced grandly, "We want you to know that, as our only surviving descendant, you will be inheriting everything we own." Kimberly stared at them, utterly astounded. "My God," she gritted. "Do you really think I'd touch a penny of your money?" The
Marlands
stared back at her, obviously not prepared for the vehemence in her words.
Cavenaugh
quietly sipped his drink and watched Kimberly over the rim of his glass. Wesley cleared his throat. "Forgive me, my dear. It's just that, well, we understand it takes quite a while to become, uh, financially successful as a mystery writer and we thought that ... Kim, our money can be a legacy to your children. Perhaps you should think of them before you allow pride to dictate your answers."

"What children?" she asked politely. Anne glanced uneasily at
Cavenaugh
. "Surely when you and Mr.
Cavenaugh
are married you'll want children?"

"Not only has
Cavenaugh
failed to discuss marriage with me, he has certainly not brought up the subject of children." Kim flashed a brilliant smile at the man beside her. "Another little example of our failure to communicate, I suppose."

"Kim," he said roughly, "you're making this hard on everyone, including yourself. Why don't you deal with the situation like the warm, sensitive woman you really are?"

"What did everyone expect to accomplish with this dramatic encounter?" she demanded tightly. "A chance to get to know our only grandchild," Mrs.
Marland
said softly. "After your father was killed and we realized there was no hope of ... of ... "

"No hope of ever having a properly bred
Marland
heir?" Kim offered helpfully. "You don't understand how it was twenty-eight years ago," her grandfather said quietly. "Your father was so young. We were convinced that what he felt for your mother was only infatuation that would wear off quickly. Frankly, we believe that's exactly what did happen. John didn't put up all that much of a battle in the end. He seemed, well, almost relieved when we arranged the divorce for him. I know that's not what you want to hear, but that's the truth."

"Did it ever occur to either one of you that you had no right to arrange his life for him?" Kimberly demanded. "John had certain responsibilities," Anne
Marland
began firmly. "Or so we convinced ourselves at the time." Kimberly nodded. "I understand completely."

"You do?"
Marland
looked at her in surprise. "Certainly.

Cavenaugh
, here, is a perfect example of how family responsibilities can dictate a man's entire life. I really do understand the kind of pressure my father must have been under." She met
Cavenaugh's
eyes and the angry aggression in her began to disintegrate. "All of you have been the victims of that inbred sense of responsibility and loyalty. When I was very young I used to feel I had been denied something important because I had been disowned by my grandparents and by my father. Now I realize that I was very, very lucky. I grew up without the kind of pressure all of you must have endured. I grew up to be independent and self-contained. And I don't need my grandparents now. I don't need anyone." What a joke that was. If only she had never met
Cavenaugh
.

The words might actually have been true before she'd fallen in love with Darius
Cavenaugh
. Anne
Marland
leaned forward urgently. "Kim, my dear, you are on the verge of a very good marriage. The
Cavenaughs
are a solid, respectable, old California family. By acknowledging your grandfather and myself you can bring something important to that family.

You can bring a solid, respectable background of your own. Kimberly set down her glass with fingers that trembled. "Is that what this is all about?" She looked at
Cavenaugh
. "Were you hoping to establish a proper background for me before bringing me into the family?" Grim fury flared in the emerald ice of his eyes. "You know very well that's not why I did this." And quite suddenly Kim knew she believed him. She believed all of them. Closing her eyes briefly she summoned a small sad smile. "I know," she whispered. "I know. You were only doing what you thought was best for me." "For all of us, Kim," Wesley
Marland
said quietly. "Please believe me. Anne and I don't want to hurt you any more than we already have. We want to make up for what happened twenty-eight years ago. You were the one innocent victim in the whole mess."

"There was my mother," Kimberly pointed out wearily. Anne flicked a quick glance at her husband and then looked directly at Kimberly. "Darling, your mother was very young and very desperate to hold on to John."

"What's that supposed to mean?" Wesley sighed. "Kim, your mother deliberately got pregnant when the divorce proceedings started. She admitted as much to John. She hoped that a baby would hold the marriage together. We never heard from her after that. In fact, we all assumed ... well, we assumed she'd probably had an abortion when she realized she wasn't going to receive a large settlement." Kimberly shook her head. "I'm not going to argue with you. You may be right for all I know. Women have done less intelligent things when they're in love."

She was aware of
Cavenaugh
slanting a cool glance at her but she ignored it. "There's really no point in rehashing the past, is there? No good can come of it now. What's done is done." She smiled wryly at the
Marlands
. "But I'm afraid you really will have to find something else to do with your money. Give it to a worthy charity. How about starting a fund for impoverished, unpublished writers?" Wesley looked directly at
Cavenaugh
. "Don't let her throw away her inheritance, Mr.
Cavenaugh
."

Cavenaugh
shrugged. "I don't care what she does with the inheritance.

I only brought her here today to reestablish contact with you. I wanted her to see that her grandparents weren't monsters and that she doesn't have to be afraid of families that are bound by loyalty and responsibility."

"Are we such monsters?" Anne
Marland
asked sadly. "We did what we thought was best at the time. We were wrong." Kimberly shook her head. Her grandmother had paid a heavy price for interfering in her son's life so many years ago. "Who am I to punish you now?

You've lost everything that really counted, haven't you? Your son and heir, a granddaughter to spoil, the hope of future generations who will acknowledge you on the family tree. No, Mrs.
Marland
, you're not a monster. I wish you and Mr.
Marland
all the best. I truly mean that.

I'm not holding a grudge against you any longer. But neither can I give you back everything you threw away twenty-eight years ago."

"You can give us great-grandchildren," Wesley
Marland
stated gruffly. "You wouldn't deny us our great-grandchildren, would you, Kim?" Anne asked desperately. "I don't have any to offer you," Kimberly pointed out simply. "Yet,"
Cavenaugh
interjected coolly. She wasn't going to argue with him now. Kimberly was feeling emotionally drained. There wasn't enough energy left over for an argument with
Cavenaugh
. Besides, there was nothing left to argue about. An awkward silence descended on the table as the four people sitting around it confronted one another and themselves. Then Wesley asked cautiously, "Would it be too much to hope you and Darius will join us for dinner, Kim?" Too much to hope? These proud, wealthy, influential, eminently respectable people had reached the far end of their lives and found themselves reduced to begging for some time with their granddaughter. Twenty-eight years ago they could not possibly have dreamed that it would all turn out this way.

Twenty-eight years ago they had probably assumed money could buy them anything. They had learned the hard way that it had its limits. It could not buy a meal shared with a granddaughter. They could only hope that the granddaughter would grant it to them.
Cavenaugh
waited for her answer along with the
Marlands
. He made no effort to force her into the next step of the fragile relationship. "
Cavenaugh
and I will have dinner with you," Kimberly said quietly. The relief and gratitude in the proud eyes of her grandparents were eloquent thanks. But it was the satisfaction in
Cavenaugh's
gaze that roused some of Kimberly's anger and despair. Who did he think he was to play God with her life like this? Sitting next to her,
Cavenaugh
felt the immense effort of will Kimberly was exercising to maintain a cool, polite facade, and his own sense of foreboding increased. He had been so certain that the way he had chosen to handle the situation was the best, so convinced of the rightness of his instincts in the matter. Now he was not so sure.

Starke had warned him that women didn't like surprises.
Cavenaugh
watched Kimberly as she carefully chatted with her grandparents. She was behaving very civilly now, although there was not yet any sign of her relaxing. There was even an occasional smile. It was almost painful to see how eagerly the
Marlands
greeted the faint hints of Kimberly's softened mood. They couldn't be any more grateful than he was,
Cavenaugh
thought as he finished his drink. For a while there he thought he'd set a match to a powder keg. Now, although the threat of immediate explosion seemed to have passed, he knew he was still dealing with a woman on a very short fuse. She wasn't used to having someone else in her life, he assured himself as they all rose to go into dinner in the hotel dining room. Kim was so damned independent, so accustomed to making her own decisions without any input from people who cared, that it was probably difficult for her to adjust to what he had done tonight. But she was an intelligent, sensitive woman and she would understand that he'd handled this the only way he could. Ultimately,
Cavenaugh
decided as he ate his trout mousse, Kim would relax and accept the situation.
Afterall
, just look how much progress had already been made. Here she was communicating quite politely, if a little stiffly, with people she had once sworn to never even contact. But even as he tried to cheer himself with that thought,
Cavenaugh
couldn't shake his own sense of apprehension. He was both thankful and wary as the evening drew to a close. "I want both of you to feel free to visit us at the winery soon,"
Cavenaugh
said as he shook Wesley
Marland's
hand in farewell. "Thank you," his wife answered gratefully. "We'd like that very much." She looked uncertainly at Kim, obviously not sure how to say good-bye to her newfound granddaughter.
Cavenaugh
realized he was holding his breath but he needn't have worried. Kimberly hesitated and then leaned forward to quickly kiss her grandmother's pale cheek. Mrs.
Marland
patted her awkwardly on the shoulder and then turned away with tears in her eyes. "You've made her very happy, Kim," Wesley
Marland
said quietly. "We shall always be grateful for your generosity tonight."

"Don't thank me," Kimberly said. "Thank
Cavenaugh
. It was all his doing."
Marland
shook his head. "He set things up but you're the one who made it work. Good night, Kim." He turned away to take his wife's arm.
Cavenaugh
watched them walk through the lobby to a waiting taxi. Two intensely proud people. What it must have cost them to acknowledge the mistake they had made twenty-eight years ago, he thought. "Well,
Cavenaugh
, you pulled it off. Congratulations. I never even suspected that you had this little scene up your sleeve when you said we were going to spend an evening in San Francisco." Kimberly collected her small, black evening bag and smiled at him with the same brittle expression he'd already seen on her at various times during the confrontation. "It's over, Kim," he murmured as he took her arm. "You handled it very well."

"Golly, thanks. You can't imagine how terrific that makes me feel." Warning signals hummed along his nerve endings.

Cavenaugh
kept a very tight grip on Kimberly's arm as they made their way out of the dining room. He had the oddest impression that if he didn't physically hang on to her he might lose her tonight. "You're through the hard part, honey. You've made the contact and
fo
und out that, while they may be far from perfect, your grandparents aren't inhuman despots, either. No one is going to make you accept them completely but you needed to face them and understand them." He didn't like the innocently blank look she gave him. "Why?"
Cavenaugh
felt his tension increase. This was going to be more difficult than he had anticipated. "Because I wanted you to get over your fear of a certain kind ... of family relationship. I didn't want you holding the actions of your father's family against me for the rest of your life. I wanted you free of the past. Can't you understand that, Kim?"

"I was free of my past. I had absolutely no contact with it. How much freer can a woman be?" she asked with an unnatural calm. "The hell you were.

It was between us constantly. You were wary of me from the beginning because of it. You constructed your Amy Solitaire character to be as unfettered and emotionally free as you wanted to be and then you gave her the perfect mate, Josh Valerian. A man who has no other responsibilities in the world except the ones he has to Amy. Damn it, Kim, I felt I had all these ghosts from your past to deal with before I could have you. She came to a halt in the middle of the lobby, amber eyes cool and fathomless under her lashes. "You've already had me, remember? The ghosts didn't seem to get in your way."
Cavenaugh
gritted his teeth. "How long are you going to punish me for the way I handled this whole thing tonight?" She turned away. "I'm not going to punish you,
Cavenaugh
. I don't have that kind of power." He caught her arm but when she shot him a defiant glance he released her. The last thing he wanted was a major scene here in the lobby. Kimberly was walking swiftly toward the bank of elevators. Lights from the heavy crystal chandeliers dappled the amber of her hair. Her head was high and she carried herself with a pride he had just witnessed in two other people.