The Longing (32 page)

“Don’t you dare judge me.” Richard shoved his
hair out his eyes. “Everything has always come easy for you, Kyle.
Ever since we were boys you’ve led the way. Just once, I wanted to
be better at something than you, so I went to law school to try to
do that.” Richard backhanded the blood from his lip. “I hated it. I
couldn’t make grade my first year, and after my father died, there
seemed little point in trying. I couldn’t come back here and admit
I’d failed, so I worked the dock while I tried to figure out what
to do.” He sighed and looked at Duke. “That’s where I met Sam. We
became friends and gambled at night with each other and some of the
other dock hands. After a while, we had so many men sitting in that
Sam and I had full pockets on a regular basis. That’s when I
realized how much money we could make in a gaming business.”

“Then why did you keep blackmailing Tom?”
Kyle asked, his anger cooling to slowly be replaced by pity and
disgust.

“I didn’t know how long the money from our
gambling ring would last. And I had some debts to pay off before I
could even think about the crazy idea I had.” Richard straightened
his shirt and reached for the wine glass he’d set aside when Kyle
and Duke had arrived. He downed the rest of the burgundy liquid,
but kept the glass in his shaking fingers. “I wanted to own my own
ship.” He met Kyle’s eyes, his expression defensive, as if
expecting Kyle to laugh at him, but Kyle didn’t laugh. He could
understand the allure of owning a trading vessel. “I fell in love
with the schooners while working for the shipping company,” Richard
said, “but I needed a ton of money to even own a partnership in a
ship. My earnings and gambling take were nowhere near enough. I was
saving the money, but I used it when I opened the gaming hall with
Sam.”

“Then you blackmailed Tom because you hated
him?”

Richard shook his head. “I envied him as much
as I envied you. You were both so successful. You owned your own
businesses and could do anything you wanted to do with your
lives.”

Kyle snorted. “No, we couldn’t, Richard. Tom
and I had other people depending on us. We had to take care of our
crews, our families, and the people who needed our lumber. We were
never free. We were as chained to responsibility as you were.”

Richard set his glass on the wine cart, then
met Kyle’s eyes. “I’m sorry.” He sighed, his eyes filled with
torment as he shifted his gaze between all them. “I’m truly sorry
for everything.”

“I don’t want your apology, Richard. I want
you to pay Victoria and Amelia every penny you’ve stolen from
Tom.”

Richard nodded and his shoulders sagged. “I
swear it.” He turned to Catherine. “I’m sorry I insulted you. I’ll
take a room at the Inn until we settle this.”

“No.” She shook her head. “That will just
start unnecessary gossip. This is your home, too, Richard, and you
can live here without my permission. But if you want my respect
then you’ll have to earn it by repairing the damage you’ve
caused.”

“You can start by apologizing to my wife,”
Kyle said, then made his own apology to Catherine and fled a house
filled with too many secrets and memories.

o0o

Amelia rushed to the lumberyard to get her
father’s jacket, but to her surprise, Jeb and her mother were
sitting outside the bunkhouse talking.

Unable to greet them through her tears,
Amelia hurried into the office and swept the jacket off the file
cabinet, desperate for the comfort of her father’s arms, but
settling for an armful of fabric with the faded smell of soap and
hair tonic and all the wonderful scents of the outdoors she’d
always associated with her father.

Seconds later, her mother and Jeb entered the
office with stricken expressions. “What’s happened?” her mother
asked, rushing to the desk where Amelia sat sobbing.

“I just wanted to make Papa proud, Mama, but
I’ve let him down.” Between her tears, Amelia confessed everything:
her lost virginity, her father’s blackmail, and Kyle’s affair with
Catherine. She talked about her father’s collapse and how she’d
blamed Kyle when it was really Richard who had upset her father so
badly. Finally, Amelia buried her face in her hands and confessed
that she loved Kyle so much it was tearing her in half, but she
could never go back to him because she’d forced him to marry her
when he cared for another woman.

Jeb quietly stepped outside, but her mother
sat on the edge of the desk and stroked Amelia’s back as if she
were still a little girl. “If Kyle wanted Catherine, he would have
married her,” she said.

“He asked her, Mama! Catherine declined.”

“Then she didn’t love him. Honey, we all have
a past. Kyle and Catherine were probably friends because they
didn’t have any reason not to be.”

“They were far more than
friends
.”

“Well, as long as it’s in their past it
shouldn’t threaten your marriage to Kyle.” Her mother tipped her
head to look into Amelia’s wet face. “How do you think Kyle is
feeling right now after learning about Richard?”

The quietly spoken question caught Amelia off
guard and she sat back in the chair. Kyle’s heart probably felt as
raw as hers did. He’d lost his best friend. He was surely feeling
betrayed and hurt that Richard’s friendship wasn’t sincere, that
Amelia hadn’t told him about her relationship with Richard.

The thought of Kyle’s heartache added to her
own, and tears streamed from Amelia’s eyes. She gave up trying to
wipe them away. “I didn’t know one mistake could ruin so many
lives.”

Her mother reached into her sleeve and pulled
out a handkerchief as she’d done a thousand times or more while
Amelia was growing up. She handed it to Amelia. “It was Richard’s
manipulation that ruined lives, honey, not your mistake. Giving
yourself to a boy you love because you believe you’ll marry him
shouldn’t destroy the lives of several people. Not that I’m
endorsing intimacy before marriage, but I was close with your
father before we married and it turned out fine.”

Amelia gripped the handkerchief and her
father’s jacket in her damp fingers. “I should never have told Papa
about Richard. If he hadn’t known, he wouldn’t have tried to make
Richard marry me and Richard wouldn’t have blackmailed him. Then
none of this would have happened.”

“Honey, a father is supposed to protect his
daughter. I would have far less respect for your father if he
hadn’t gone after Richard. As deeply as I sympathize with you right
now, it’s a relief knowing your father spent his time at the
lumberyard because of financial concerns. I wondered at times if
there might be another woman. My heart aches considerably less
knowing the truth.”

“I wish I could say the same.” Amelia wiped
her face and blew her nose, then met her mother’s concerned eyes.
“What am I going to do, Mama?”

Her mother sighed and patted Amelia’s
shoulder. “Go home and talk to your husband.”

“He won’t talk, Mama. He never does.”

Kyle
entered the depot warehouse where Marcus, his youngest crew member,
was sitting in dim lantern light to read a book. “Why are you
sitting beside this hot bastard?” Kyle asked, glaring at their
black monstrosity of a stove. He would die in this heat, but he
couldn’t go home and witness the devastation in Amelia’s eyes. Not
for at least the next ten years.

Marcus glanced up in surprise and lowered his
book to his lap. “There’s a hole in the ash pan. Doesn’t look too
big, but I’ve been keeping an eye on it. I’ll fix it tomorrow.”
Marcus looked at his watch. “You’re about seven hours early, aren’t
you?”

“It’s your lucky evening.”

Marcus grinned. “It will be if my wife can
get the baby to bed early enough.”

Kyle forced himself to smile, but he felt
like knocking Marcus’s pretty teeth out of his head. The kid had
been married a year and hadn’t stopped grinning since his wedding
day. Kyle jerked his chin toward the door. “Get out of here.”

Marcus slapped his book closed and jumped to
his feet. “Thanks, boss!”

“Don’t tell me about it in the morning or
I’ll kill you.”

The door cut off Marcus’s laughter and Kyle
was suddenly surrounded with quiet solitude. Despite the heat, it
suited his mood. The hum of the stove and smell of drying wood was
more inviting than the loud bar he’d considered escaping to.

It was definitely preferable to seeing Amelia
in pain, or remembering the gut-wrenching shock he’d felt when he
discovered that Richard was the man Amelia had loved.

Richard, the bastard, hadn’t even appreciated
the gift Amelia had given him, what she’d sacrificed for him. Kyle
shook his head and paced the warehouse, wondering if he’d ever
really known Richard. Maybe when they were boys, possibly before
Kyle’s father died, but after that, he and Richard had merely
passed in and out of each other’s lives. Kyle definitely didn’t
know the Richard who’d just confessed to blackmailing Tom.

It wasn’t Richard’s blackmail, or his
betrayal of Kyle’s friendship, that had made Kyle lose control. It
was the devastated expression on Amelia’s face when Richard said
he’d used her as a diversion from Catherine that made Kyle want to
kill him.

How could Richard have been so cruel? Kyle
shook his head, knowing his own words and actions had inflicted the
most pain on Amelia. He should have found a way to tell her that
he’d proposed to Catherine, to explain why he’d done it.

Dammit! Why the hell did he always struggle
with words? All he’d wanted to do was explain, to tell her how
sorry he was, how deeply he regretted hurting her. Why did it have
to be so damned difficult for him?

With a curse of frustration, Kyle kicked the
black belly of the stove. Thunder rolled through the building and
soot spilled from the pipe. Wood tumbled inside the stove and a
loud pop shook the cast-iron box.

With another curse, he bent over to look
underneath the stove to see if any glowing coals had slipped out.
The wood floor was clear, but he was still too tense to sit down so
he paced the width of the warehouse until his shin and shoulders
ached. After an hour, he was exhausted, sick to his stomach, and
falling asleep on his feet. With a hard sigh, he grabbed the chair,
dragged it toward the back of the warehouse, and sat down. All he
could think about was Amelia’s beautiful face wet with tears. Kyle
scrubbed his palms over his forehead, wishing he could forget the
heartbroken look in her eyes tonight, but it kept circling in his
mind. Just like the thought of her lying with Richard.

Kyle slouched in his chair and propped his
feet on a stack of beams. He knew Amelia hadn’t told him about
Richard because she hadn’t wanted to risk breaking their
friendship. She hadn’t intended to deceive him. Amelia was too
sincere for deceit. She’d endured Richard’s presence in their home
to please Kyle.

Everything she did was for someone else. Kyle
closed his eyes and leaned his head back, remembering the way she’d
sat on the floor with Cinnamon and Ginger the night he brought them
home for her. They’d made her laugh through her pain, and Kyle had
watched her draw comfort from those two rambunctious fur balls,
knowing it should have been his own arms that consoled her.

As memories and regrets tumbled through his
mind, his breathing slowed and he drifted in memories, hearing the
splash of the falls, feeling Amelia’s soft skin against his as they
made love, listening to the way she’d laughed. As if he were right
there behind the falls, Kyle watched the way her hair swung around
her shoulders as she lunged forward and fell on top of him. But as
the night deepened, her image grew elusive and slipped from his
grasp, and finally, Kyle lost her altogether in the blackness.

The thunder of pounding feet and panicked
shouts jolted him from sleep and Kyle bolted up in his chair. Smoke
billowed around him and his throat felt clogged with burning smoke
that stole his ability to breathe.

“Kyle! Where are you?” Boyd yelled from the
front of the building.

“Back—” Kyle choked and staggered to his
feet. A hard cough wrenched his chest and gut and doubled him over
until tears streamed down his face. He dragged an arm across his
eyes and peered through the smoke, but couldn’t see more than three
feet in front of him. Holy God, the building was on fire. The
stove! He’d kicked the stove like a goddamned idiot! And he’d never
checked the stove pipe.

“Kyle! Answer me, dammit!”

He crouched to his knees and gulped a breath,
but his hoarse squawk couldn’t be heard more than a few feet away.
The loud crackling of burning wood filled the air then a heavy
shudder shook the building.

“It’s coming down! Get out!” Boyd
shouted.

“Give me your ax. I’m going around back.”

That was Duke’s voice. Kyle buried his face
in his shirt and crawled toward the door. The heat drove him back
before he’d gone three feet. Suddenly, he understood very clearly
that he was trapped and he was going to die.

The building had no back door and no windows
to escape through. Though the plank walls were old, Kyle doubted he
could kick through the wood, but it was his only hope of getting
out alive.

On hands and knees, he felt his way along the
wall toward the back of the building where the smoke wasn’t as
dense. Trying to gauge the condition of the wood through watery
eyes was impossible. Kyle pushed against the slats with his elbow
until he felt a board spring. Knowing his time would run out before
he could locate a weaker spot, he stopped searching and lay on his
back. He kicked the plank with both feet. Pain ripped through his
tender shin, but he kept hammering the springy piece of pine. The
board bowed beneath his fierce blows, but it wouldn’t crack.

“Come on!” Kyle coughed and kicked harder as
a spray of hot cinders burned his skin. The wall splintered several
feet above him.