LITMIR.BIZ

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he couldn’t.

      Chapter Three

      She was late.

      Brett would be by soon and Kate had yet to finish packing.

      Yet where was she? In her room packing?

      No.

      She was standing in the wide arch of her father’s bedroom, struggling with the urge to turn around and leave. The room was dark, the heavy velvet drapes at the windows drawn against the morning sky.

      She shouldn’t have left this task so late, she thought. Visiting her father when she felt so uneasy about going to Boston with Brett was probably not the wisest course, but he was her father. She was a Stockwell. And Caine, for all of his many faults, had drilled into his children the fact that Stockwells looked after their own.

      She moistened her lips and entered the room. She quietly greeted Gunderson, her father’s primary nurse, and approached the hospital bed that was situated in the center of the cavernous room. Caine lay back against the white bedding. The muscular, wide-shouldered build that he’d passed on to his sons was wasting away on Caine; he looked much older than his sixty years.

      She sat down on the chair beside his bed. His eyes were closed, but when she tentatively touched his hand, his head moved and he looked at her. “Hi, Daddy.”

      If Caine recognized her, he gave no indication. She’d visited him every day—except when he’d still been strong enough to tell her to go away. She’d told herself that his actions then had been because his pride didn’t want her seeing him in his condition; but a part of her knew it was just as likely because he didn’t want to be bothered with her.

      “Gunderson?” She looked over her shoulder at the man. “I’d like to be alone with my father for a moment, if you don’t mind.”

      He looked as if he did mind, but he nodded after a moment and left.

      Kate turned back to face her father. “I’m going to Boston this morning,” she told him. “With Brett Larson.”

      She saw Caine’s lip curl, still managing to communicate his derogatory feelings without a word. He’d always treated Brett as if he weren’t fit to step foot on Stockwell property. He’d been appalled when, at only twenty years of age, Kate had announced flatly to him that she was planning to marry Brett.

      She swallowed and gathered her thoughts. This wasn’t about Brett. It was about Caine’s lies. About finding their mother. “We’re going to find Madelyn,” she continued, and at that, Caine’s eyes flickered.

      Though she’d promised herself that she was finished with tears, they burned, threateningly near. She’d cried more in the past twenty-four hours than she had in years. And now she struggled with tears and the need to escape. She’d always felt a sense of fearsome awe for her father; now she felt pity and a hundred other emotions too tangled to define. “We’ve been a disappointment to each other, Daddy. You and I, both. But I—”

      Beneath her hand, his fingers curled. “Madelyn? You came back to me.”

      She bit her lip, dropping her forehead onto their hands, praying for strength. It wasn’t the first time Caine had mistaken her for her mother. She heard a rustle behind her and knew that Gunderson had decided that she’d used up her allotment of privacy. She lifted her head and looked again at her father. “I just wanted to tell you about my plans.”

      “Leave.” The word was an order, despite the sigh that shuddered through his frail form.

      She wondered if it was because, in his delusions he’d taken her for Madelyn, or if he knew it was his daughter he was ordering away. Sadly, it mattered little. She rose and began to walk from the room. Yet when she reached the archway, she paused. Looking back at him. There were so many things she wished had been different.

      She drew in a shuddering breath and walked back to Caine’s bedside. She gently smoothed his sheet over his chest. Then leaned over and pressed a soft kiss to his cheek.

      “Goodbye, Daddy. I do love you.”

      She realized she was waiting for a response from him that would never come. Not even if he’d been physically able. Particularly if he’d been physically able.

      Swallowing, Kate straightened and walked blindly from the room, stopping short at the sight of Mrs. Hightower.

      “You have another call,” the other woman said, handing Kate a cordless phone, then turned on a silent heel and glided away.

      Kate held the phone, feeling rather like a child who’d been caught receiving phone calls after curfew. She’d been fielding calls all morning, taking care of last minute details with her associates.

      She sighed, glancing at her watch. Brett would be arriving any minute, and she still had to complete her packing.

      She hurried to her bedroom, pushing the button on the phone as she went. “This is Kate Stockwell,” she greeted, half afraid it would be Brett, calling to tell her he’d changed his mind after all. But hearing the voice of Bobby Morales’s father, Kate knew that the garment bag, open and empty on her bed, would have to wait a little while longer.

      She was late.

      Brett looked at his watch again and climbed out of his car. He looked up at the set of windows on the second story that overlooked the front grounds.

      Kate’s windows.

      At least they used to belong to her bedroom suite, he amended silently, remembering the day when he’d climbed up there and sneaked through her window just to leave her a rose on her pillow. For all he knew now, she could be occupying one of the pool cabanas out back.

      But as he watched the windows, he saw a shadow pass by them and knew by the tightening at the base of his neck that it was Kate. Probably packing stuff she’d never need, he thought, as impatient with himself for agreeing to let her go to Boston as he was with her for being late.

      He glared at the upper-story windows. Very nearly reached over the car door to lay on the horn. He had no particular desire to go up into the house to collect her.

      House.

      The place was called Stockwell Mansion. And a mansion it was. An enormous, cold mansion inhabited by a coldhearted man.

      There were few people that Brett could say he truly hated. But Caine Stockwell headed the list. And because of it, Brett knew he probably shouldn’t have accepted this particular case. He also knew that, because of it, he did accept this particular case.

      He looked at his watch again then headed for the door. He didn’t bother ringing the bell. He’d had to stomach enough glares from Emma Hightower across the threshold over the past few days to last him a lifetime. She’d made it abundantly clear that she figured he should still be using the servants’ entrance in the rear.

      Maybe it was high-handed, but Brett just pushed open the enormous door, and headed straight for the central staircase.

      At the top, he turned unerringly toward the suite that Kate used to occupy. The door was opened and he could see her pacing back and forth across the thick carpet.

      He also noticed the opened—but empty—suitcase sitting on the foot of her bed.

      “Some things never change,” he said, halting in the doorway.

      She whirled, clearly startled as she pressed the phone clutched in her hands to her chest. “And some things do,” she said, her tone frosty. “I should have locked my door.”

      “You oughta know that locks don’t keep me out.”

      “Breaking and entering. Sneaking up on people. Well, I suppose that’s what a professional snoop does.”

      “Don’t turn up your pretty nose at that, princess,” he said smoothly. “My snooping is going to lead you to your mother.”

      She frowned and turned away, tossing the phone onto

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