Kat wiped a sweaty palm on the leg of her new designer jeans. Then she looked at the palm a moment and realized that she’d been hoping for an excuse to go back where she belonged, if only for a night.
“I’ll be there as soon as I can get a plane.”
“You got money for flying?”
“Sure.” Kat shut her eyes. Nathan wants me to be happy. Well, this makes me happy. She’d leave word with his administrative assistant so that he’d know where she’d gone.
If Nathan was really proud of her the way she was, he wouldn’t mind.
NATHAN REACHED THE auditorium—one of those concrete relics from the thirties, with gargoyles on the outside and lots of cracking plaster on the inside—in time to see Kat’s entrance.
He almost groaned aloud. Was she so damned desperate to get away from him that she’d go back to this humiliating life? He made his way down to the front. Since this was a weeknight the place was only half-full, so he managed to find an empty seat in the third row.
Nathan stared hard at her and hoped that she’d spot him in the audience, but she didn’t. He sat on the edge of his folding chair, his fingers digging into the dark trousers he wore with a white pullover.
He hadn’t been in New York at all. He’d been up in North Carolina, talking Grandpa Sam into giving him Kat’s medallion. Nathan wanted to present it to her himself, when the time was right. Grandpa Sam, being a romantic, had agreed. He’d just finished translating it, and he understood that Nathan was the man who was meant to love Kat.
But now this. Nathan cursed under his breath. He wouldn’t lose her to this carnival, no matter how much she despised what he planned to do with her family’s land.
“Hi ya, folks!” she yelled to the crowd.
Well, at least she’d given up the dime store powwow talk. But he winced inwardly at the silly face paint and gaudy warbonnet, at the tight leather top and fringed miniskirt which revealed too much of her to the men around him.
“Swing that wampum. Princess!’ someone called.
Lady Savage grabbed her and she punched in retaliation. Lady Savage dragged her into the ring and they went down in a heap of flesh—most of it belonging to Lady Savage.
There was a giant redneck next to Nathan, his tractor cap emblazoned with the bottom half of a woman’s bikini-clad body and an obscene slogan. He stood up, cupped his hands around a mouth full of gold-capped teeth, and yelled, “Shake that booty, Princess!”
Nathan stood also, swung the man toward him, and laid a fist into the mother lode.
There was general chaos after that, and Nathan was dimly aware of the redneck’s fist crunching into his face and of the man’s slow, pained collapse as he got a knee in the groin. A small, gleeful war broke out among the men around them.
The security guards showed up, some of them carrying billy clubs. Nathan went down seeing stars after a club slammed into the back of his head. With people stepping on him, he was only vaguely aware when someone grabbed his arms.
“Help me pull, Muffie!”
A second later he was out of the chaos, feeling the cool concrete floor of the auditorium under him, his head in a soft, sweaty lap. He’d recognize that lap anywhere.
“Katie, gal,” he said groggily, trying to blink away the blackness over his eyes. “You didn’t think they’d hang an old buzzard like me, did ya?”
That didn’t make sense. He couldn’t figure out why, because his head was still celebrating the Fourth of July, but he heard Kat say desperately, “He’s addled. We’ve gotta get him to a hospital.”
That jarred him back to reality. “Hate hospitals,” he muttered. “Everything’s too clean.” The blackness receded and he gazed up into Kat’s face.
“Are you in there, Nathan?” she asked in a small, ragged voice. She bent over him, tears smearing her war paint, her hand stroking his forehead with quick, worried movements. For a movement she searched his eyes, then exhaled with relief.
“I came to get you out of all this,” he said weakly, and shut his eyes against a wave of dizziness. He felt her small, gentle hand dabbing a cloth under his nose. “Bleeding?” he asked.
“Yeah,” she whispered. “Like a stuck pig. A handsome stuck pig, though.”
“I started the fight.”
“Why?”
“Jerk said something … ugly about you.”
Her hand stopped moving. “And you were ashamed.”
“Not ashamed.” He tried to shake his head. “Always take care of you. Always have. Always will.”
She called his name softly and kissed him on the forehead. “Let’s go home, sweetcakes, and I’ll take care of you.”
IT WAS LONG past midnight before they got back to Atlanta. She kept one arm around his waist and watched him anxiously as she guided him through his penthouse to the bedroom.
“You walk okay for an addled man,” Kat noted.
He nodded, peered at her over the bandage covering his scraped nose, and smiled gingerly. “Thanks.”
After he lay down, Kat pulled his clothes off and brought him a handful of ice wrapped in a washcloth. She sat beside him and held the ice to his face. “What am I gonna do with you? You can’t go around beating people up on my account.”
His voice was muffled, but firm. “I won’t be fighting again because you won’t be wrestling.”
Kat counted to ten. After all, he was hurt and addled. “That an order, master?”
He pulled the ice pack off his face and looked at her. “I never got the feeling that you like to wrestle.”
“I like to work. I like to be around people. I can’t sit here alone all day.”
“Go to college.”
Kat shook her head. “College is one more thing you’d have to pay for. I want to wrestle—just part-time, okay? You keep saying that you want me to do what makes me happy.”
“Not wrestling.”
“So it is an order,” she said grimly, tingling with anger.
“Yep. If there’s no other way to stop you from being a proud fool, then it’s an order. Here’s another one. Go down to Georgia State University tomorrow and get a catalogue and admission forms. I want you enrolled in college.”
She got up from the bed and gazed at him with barely concealed fury. “I won’t do it.”
“You will do it. Or you won’t ever get your medallion.”
Kat listened in amazement as he explained that her legacy from great-aunt Dove was now in his possession. “How’d you con that sweet old man out of it?” she demanded.
“That’s a secret between Grandpa Sam and me. It was no con.”
Her teeth clenched, she said, “Don’t ever tell me I’m free to do what I want again. And don’t ever try to make me think I’m not your slave.” She backed away a few steps, clasped her hands, and bowed low.
He threw the ice pack onto the floor. “Dammit, stop that!”
“You won’t need me in bed tonight, master. You’re in no shape to enjoy me. Your nose is bleeding again, for one thing. Can I have the night off and sleep in the guest room?”
“No! I want you in this bed now!” His face was contorted with pain from yelling. He looked miserable, and a stab of concern nearly dissolved Kat’s anger.
So this was what it meant to love someone. Even when she wanted to strangle him, she didn’t want him to hurt.
“Naked?” she asked.
“Buck-naked! If it’s good enough for me—”
His eyes flickered shut and he winced from pain. Kat dropped her jeans, T-shirt, and underwear, retrieved the ice pack, and crawled into bed beside him.
“Just keep your mouth closed, Chatham, and maybe I won’t punch you myself.” She pressed the pack to his face, bending close to him with her bare breasts flattened on his shoulder.
He raised the hand next to her, fumbled for a moment, then finally grabbed one of her knees and held it tightly. “I’m trying to do what’s best for you.”
“I said keep quiet,” she ordered. Kat reached across him, tu
rned out the bedside lamp, then gently pulled his head to her breasts and held him. “Go to sleep. I’ll keep the ice pack on your face for a while.”
“I’m trying to do what’s … best,” he repeated, but his voice was drugged with pain and exhaustion.
Then love me, she told him silently.
THE PHONE RANG. Good, something to do. There were about a dozen extensions in Nathan’s apartment; half the fun was just deciding which one to use. She turned Geraldo Rivera off in the den and went to the jungle room to pick up the phone there.
“Chatham residence. “
“It’s Echo.”
Kat froze. “Yeah?”
“Kat, are you with Nathan Chatham?”
There was no point in bluffing. “I’m with him,” Kat said wearily.
“Tess and Erica tried to find you on the wrestling tour. My grandpa finished translating Dove’s papers, and there are a lot of things you need to know.”
Kat breathed in shallow gulps. “They tried to find me?”
“And they couldn’t. Because you never went back to the tour, did you?”
“No,” Kat said, defeated.
“So—”
“They suspected me and Nathan all along, didn’t they.”
“Yes.”
“How’d you trace me here?”
Echo sighed. “Give Jeopard Surprise twenty-four hours and he could probably find Jimmy Hoffa and Amelia Earhart.”
Her knees weak, Kat sank onto a chair. “So they think I double-crossed ’em?”
Echo’s voice was regretful. “Yes, they do.”
Kat shut her eyes and thought. Now I’m going to lose my family, too.
WHEN HE GOT home that night Nathan found her sitting in the dusky light of the garden room, dressed in a beautiful gray jumpsuit and matching pumps, her hair pulled up in a sleek braided coil, her face utterly composed and unfathomable.
“Good day?” she asked, and got up to kiss him.
“Yeah.”
She hugged him—no, she let him hug her, and as soon as he loosened his grip she moved away, not with distaste, just not particularly interested in being near him.
“Hope you’re hungry,” she said pleasantly. “I called one of the restaurants over at Lenox Square and ordered everything short of a side of beef. Real gourmet.”
She chuckled. “Everything has parsley on it. Head for the dining room and I’ll cart it to ya.”
“You okay?” he asked, sliding his hand around her arm to halt her easy stroll out of the room.
“Sure.” But though she looked up at him with a smile, her eyes squinted as if in pain.
Nathan took her face between his hands and rubbed his thumbs across her lower lids. They felt hot and a little puffy. “Have you been crying?” he murmured.
“Nah. I sat in the Jacuzzi too long, that’s all. Makes me bloat.” She grinned at him.
He wasn’t sure he believed her, but he didn’t press for details. Nathan chucked her under the chin. “We’ve got to find something to keep you out of the Jacuzzi so much. Did you go down to Georgia State today?”
She shrugged. “Sure, I got a catalogue. No hurry. You tired of me already?”
“Nope, but whatd’ya think I brought you here for? Just to order food and look pretty and ravish me every time I come home?”
The smile that stayed on her mouth didn’t do a thing to hide the discomfort creeping deeper into her eyes. “Whatever you want.”
Frustration jabbed at him. “I want you to act like this is your home and I’m your friend.”
“Okay. I can act that way.”
He made a growling sound of disgust. “I don’t mean act, dammit.”
“Then tell me how I’m supposed to feel. I’ve never lived with anybody before, except when I was married.”
Nathan said loudly, “Well, pretend that we’re married.”
She trembled and stepped back from him.”Nope,” she said in a soft, fierce voice. “ ‘Cause we’re not married and we’re never gonna be married. I’m going to stay here as long as you want me, and when you say leave, I’m leavin’.”
Stunned by her vehement words, he gazed at her silently and watched her struggle to regain her calm façade. The fact that she was able to do it nearly tore him apart, and dull fury poured into the wound.
“If I want an actress I’ll hire one,” he told her.
“If you want dinner you better come get it,” she answered, and left the room.
A minute later, after he got his anguish under control enough to speak normally, he walked into the kitchen to talk. This was not the Kat Gallatin he knew, the woman who had a deep and true need for him.
She stood at a counter putting baked fish on a platter. When she heard his footsteps on the tile she turned, smiled carefully, and said, “I’ll learn how to cook, if you say so.”
Nathan halted, his control evaporating in light of her continued nonchalance. She just wanted to do her part and be left alone. In front of an audience she could play Princess Talana and fake fear, anger, or pain. In front of him she could play his happy lover and fake contentment.
“Take the night off,” he said with sick disappointment that made his tone cruel. “I’ll go out to get dinner—and anything else I need.”
He left the apartment with the memory of her haunted eyes as his only victory.
NATHAN HAD WALKED less than a block from the building when the fat yellow cab made a U-turn across three lanes of city traffic and bounced off the sidewalk in its careening journey toward him.
It screeched to a stop too close to his legs, and the dull agony simmering inside him exploded into violence. Nathan vaulted around the front of the cab and jerked the driver’s door open.
“Get outta there, you SOB!”
“Get in this car, you SOB,” a female voice demanded.
“Immediately,” another said.
Nathan bent down and looked past a terrified driver into the back. Tess and Erica leaned toward him, poised like two dangerous tigers just waiting for an excuse to pounce.
“We came to see our cousin,” Erica said.
“But you’ll do nicely,” Tess finished. “Get in.”
Nathan gave them a grim smile, nodded, and went to the front passenger side. He was ready for another good fight.
TWO BEERS, TOO little sleep, then when she did sleep, rotten dreams. Kat woke the next morning with a pounding headache and a thick cloak of misery around her.
She dragged herself off the couch, looked down at the wrinkled mess of her jumpsuit, and turned around in a circle, feeling groggy and trying to put the world right.
Her hair was in her eyes—that was part of the problem. She pawed it aside, then realized that it had been braided atop her head when she’d gone to sleep. Now it was undone, and someone had brushed it very gently so she wouldn’t wake up.
She wobbled in place, her heart twisting, then called out plaintively, “Nathan?” She had a desperate need to feel his arms around her.
Kat hurried through the rooms, bumping into things because her head hurt and she was upset. He wasn’t anywhere, and the closet door stood open. Kat stared at it and couldn’t bring herself to see if his clothes were gone.
Aw, why would he leave his own place? He’d tell her to leave. But fear churned inside her as she went back to the den. Now she was awake enough to notice that her hairbrush lay on the teakwood coffee table by the couch. Under the brush was a sheet of Auraria, Inc., letterhead with a handwritten note from Nathan.
“Kat. The mining rights are yours, now—yours and your cousins’. I found out some things that put the family feud in a different light. Tess and Erica are staying at the Peachtree Plaza, waiting to see you this morning. Don’t worry. They know the truth now, and they’re proud of you. Our deal’s done. I’m going to Surador. You’re free, Katie.”
Kat lay back on the couch, tears scalding her eyes. “Not free,” she whispered. “Just alone.”
CHAPTER 10
TESS AND ERICA
grabbed her duffel bag, then drew her into their hotel room and hugged her. She immediately began to cry. “You don’t hate me?” Kat asked.
“For trying to rescue the land?” Erica asked, sniffling.
“And falling in love with a sweet man like Nathan?” Tess added.
“How do you know I’m in love with him?”
They led her to a couch and sat down on either side of her. “We suspected it that day at the homeplace.”
“We know how people look at each other when they’re in love.”
“We’re really quite expert on it, both of us.”
Kat smiled at them wanly. Nathan didn’t love her, but she couldn’t bring herself to say so at the moment. “Why did he give us the mining rights back?”
“Because he loves you.”
“And because it’s the only honorable thing to do, now that he’s seen the other side of the Chatham-Gallatin feud.”
Kat wiped her eyes and looked from Tess to Erica in surprise. “Another side?”
“The family history Dove wrote down. Grandpa Sam finished translating it,” Erica explained. “We told Nathan. He said it was too detailed and made too much sense not to be true.”
She took Kat’s right hand. Tess took her left one. Kat looked back and forth between them, scrutinizing the solemn excitement in their eyes. “What did Dove say?”
Tess smiled. “Your great-grandfather Holt didn’t shoot Nathaniel Chatham, but he was a prime suspect because everyone knew the Gallatins despised Nathaniel.”
“Nathaniel was the Union officer who captured Justis in the Indian Territory during the war,” Erica reminded Kat. “His men took everything the Gallatins owned. The only way Katherine could save Justis from being executed was to bribe one of Chatham’s men with the three medallions. After Justis escaped, Chatham found out about the bribe and confiscated the medallions.”
“That’s what the big scandal was about,” Tess noted. “Chatham was accused of taking part in the bribe, because he also had a gold nugget that belonged to Justis.”
Kat frowned, trying to sort everything out. “So Chatham kept our medallions?”