A quiet knock brought his eyes open. The clock read just past nine. He got to his feet and opened the door. Kate stood in the hallway. As always seemed to be the case when he saw her, his body tightened and his heart began to race. It was ridiculous, the way she made him feel tense and uncertain.
He knew what he had to do with her, and it wasn’t at all what he wanted to do with her, which was to drag her into the room, and make love to her.
Wearing blue jeans and a pale pink sweater, her hair loose about her shoulders, she could have passed for younger than twenty-eight, until one looked closer and saw the tiny lines around her mouth and the shadows under her eyes. She’d lived a long life in those three years at sea. Maybe a longer life since then, as she’d tried to hold the family together.
“Hello,” she said with a weary note in her voice. “I bet I’m the last person you expected to see.”
“You could say that.”
“Can I come in?”
“Sure.” He stepped aside and motioned for her to enter.
“It’s nice,” Kate said, looking around the room.
He followed her gaze. It was a basic hotel room, although the Seascape Inn had provided a nautical-themed wallpaper trim as well as some interesting seascapes on the walls. “It’s okay. ”
Kate nodded, standing awkwardly in the center of the room. “Is the bed comfortable? Sometimes they’re so hard in a hotel you can bounce coins off the mattress. Caroline used to do that …” Her voice drifted away. “I didn’t come here to talk about hotel rooms.”
“Do you want to sit down?” he asked.
She glanced over at the desk where his laptop was open. “Are you researching me?”
“Why are you here, Kate?”
“I need a favor.”
Now he was surprised. “What kind of a favor?”
“Information.”
“About?”
“K.C. Wales.” She walked over to the computer and stared unabashedly at the screen. “I see you’re ahead of me.” She lifted her gaze to his. “Why are you researching K.C.?”
“Because he’s tied to your family in some way. I also find it interesting that he was the sole survivor of the ship that capsized during your race.”
“Why is that interesting?”
“Oh, I don’t know. A sole survivor might have a different story than everyone else.”
“He doesn’t remember what happened. He had a severe head injury and amnesia after the tragedy. The last thing he remembered was the start of the race almost eleven months earlier. Everything else was gone.”
Tyler straightened, sensing that this was the piece of information he’d been waiting for. “He had amnesia? I thought that only happened in books.”
She shrugged. “I’m not a doctor. He was unconscious for several days, and when he woke up he couldn’t walk or talk. The doctors said it wasn’t surprising that he didn’t remember a big chunk of his life, especially the recent memory. What else did you find out about him?”
“Probably nothing you don’t already know. What are you looking for?”
She hesitated for a long moment. “I want to find out about K.C. and my mother.”
“I don’t think that answer will be on the Internet.”
“I don’t, either.” She turned and walked back to him, digging her hands into her pockets. “But you could talk to him. You’re a reporter. You’d know how to get that story, wouldn’t you?”
“Maybe. What would I get in return?”
She sent him a pleading smile. “My deepest gratitude.”
“Try again.”
“Forget it. I knew you wouldn’t help me. I don’t know why I bothered to ask. In fact, I don’t even know why I came here.”
“If you want to know if K.C. and your mother had a personal relationship, you should ask your father. There’s something between those two men, something deep and very intense.”
Her eyes lit up with his words. “You saw it, too. It wasn’t just me?”
“It wasn’t just you.”
“I went down to the docks a little while ago to look at our old boat. I ran into K.C.’s son, David. He acted like he hated me. He was clearly jealous of the time I’d spent with his father when I was a kid.”
“David didn’t live with K.C.?”
Kate shook her head and sat down on the edge of the bed. Tyler took a seat in the desk chair.
“David lived with his mother in San Diego. K.C. and his wife divorced when David was just a little kid, maybe two or three. I never met his mother. But David would come and spend summers here on the island with his father.”
“So K.C. used to live here?”
“Part of the year, when he wasn’t sailing somewhere. He and my father ran charters for a while or worked for other people. ”
“Did K.C. come back here to recuperate after the race?”
“No. He was originally airlifted to the hospital in Oahu. After that he went to San Diego to be with David, I guess. I don’t know. We didn’t keep in touch.”
“Why not?” Tyler asked sharply. “Your families were best friends, then that’s it? It’s over?” There was something she wasn’t telling him.
She stared back at him. “My father and K.C. had a falling out long before that race. In fact, I think one of the reasons we entered was so we could beat K.C. and his crew. I can’t help wondering now if that falling out had something to do with my mother, which I never considered before. But the last time K.C. was friendly to me or my sisters was just before Mom died.” She paused. “I remember he spent a good hour or two with her the day before she passed away, but he didn’t stay for the funeral. He said he couldn’t handle it or something. I don’t remember exactly.”
Kate got up and paced restlessly around the room. “I should be talking to Caroline or Ashley, not you.”
“Why aren’t you talking to them?” he asked curiously.
“Because …” She waved her hand in the air as if the answer would magically appear.
“Because why?”
“David said something to me that is ridiculous. I don’t believe him, and it would really upset everyone if I even mentioned it.”
“Are you going to tell me? Or make me guess?”
“I shouldn’t tell you.”
Tyler saw the indecision in her face. “Come on, spill it. It can’t have anything to do with whatever you’re hiding, or else you wouldn’t be here. I already know you well enough to know that. It has to be personal, because you’d protect your family no matter what the cost. But yourself? That’s a different story.”
“I’m that easy to read?”
“I’ve been studying you for a while now.”
“You’re right. It was about me. David said, actually he implied, that K.C. might be my real father. Isn’t that just ridiculous? It can’t be true. I am my father’s daughter, right? I certainly don’t look like K.C. And my father and mother were madly in love with each other, especially when they first got married. There’s no way there could have been an affair so early on. But then again …” She paused, sending him a desperate look. “Say something, Tyler. Convince me that I’m right.”
“I don’t know what to say,” he muttered, more than a little surprised by the twist in events. “I guess anything is possible.”
“That’s not what I wanted to hear.”
He shook his head. “I have no idea if K.C. slept with your mother, or if he fathered you. It seems to me you have only two choices: ask your father or ask K.C.”
“I doubt my father is in any condition to ask, if he continued drinking after I left him earlier.”
Tyler tipped his head at her silent question.
“That’s what I thought,” she said grimly. “And I wouldn’t give K.C. the satisfaction of the question. I know he’s got something up his sleeve. I could see it in his eyes earlier, but I didn’t think it was something like this.”
“No, you thought it had something to do with your other secret,” Tyler said, taking a wild guess.
She stiffened. “I don’t have another secret. I wish you’d let that idea go. At any rate, I have enough to worry about besides you and your questions. I’m afraid your presence here is no longer going to make the top ten on my worry list.”
He smiled. “I’m hurt. I thought I was at the top of your list.”
Her returning smile was weak at best. “I have to talk to my father, but I really don’t want to have that conversation.”
“It’s your best option, Kate.”
“I suppose. To tell you the truth, I don’t know how my mother got mixed up with either one of them. She was kind and honest, with tons of integrity, which is why this is so unbelievable. My father wasn’t one to lean on, but my mom, she was rock solid. She knew right from wrong, and she always did the right thing.”
“And she raised you to do the same.” Tyler was beginning to understand how Kate had become so conflicted after her mother’s death when she’d been left to temper her father’s ambitions.
“My mom tried to raise me right. But I’ve let her down,” she said with a sigh.
“I find that difficult to believe.”
“I promised I would take care of my sisters and my father, that I would make sure the family stayed together, but I didn’t do that.”
He heard the regret in her voice, the blame, and he was moved by the torment in her eyes. He knew what that kind of guilt felt like and how it could eat away at your soul. He didn’t want to see that happen to Kate.
“She asked me that last day,” Kate continued, her voice somewhat dreamy as she recalled the memory. “I didn’t know she was so close to the end. I guess a part of me still thought she’d get better. But she was so thin, and her hair was gone, just little wisps of reddish blond on the top of her bald head.” Kate’s mouth trembled.
“You don’t have to tell me,” he said quietly.
She gazed into his eyes with so much pain it almost hurt to look at her. “She took hold of my hand. She could barely lift her arm, but somehow she managed. I can still feel the pressure on my fingers. It was like she was trying to hang on to life through me. And I didn’t want to let her go, but I didn’t know what to do. She asked me to promise to keep the family together, to watch out for my dad, and to protect my younger sisters. She told me that I had to be the strong one. I had to take her place. And I said yes, I’d do it. She closed her eyes then and she let go.” Kate stopped as a tight sob broke through her lips. “I’m sorry,” she said quickly, struggling to regain her composure.
“It’s okay.” He put his arms around her and pulled her against his chest. “It’s hard to be strong all the time.”
“Sometimes I get tired,” she admitted.
“I know. I understand.” He stroked her back, hoping she would let herself lean on him for at least a moment.
“You do understand, don’t you?” she said, looking up at him. “You’re the strong one, too.”
“Oldest-child syndrome.”
“I want to keep my promise.”
“I know you do. And you will. I’m sure of it.”
She shook her head. “I wish I could be sure of it. I’ve already made so many mistakes, Tyler.”
“Don’t be so hard on yourself, Kate. You were a young girl when you made that promise to your mother. And maybe she shouldn’t have asked you.”
“It was the least I could do. She suffered so much at the end. I would have promised her anything to ease her mind.” Kate took a deep breath, then stepped out of his arms. “Thanks for the shoulder to cry on.”
“Anytime.” He paused. “I mean that, Kate.”
“Thanks. I guess I’ll go home and forget about this until tomorrow. I need to talk to my father when he’s sober. But even if he is sober -- how will I know if he’s lying? He’s very good at it.” She took a breath. “Caroline always tells me I’m the suspicious one, looking over my shoulder, suspecting the worst from people instead of the best. It’s because I don’t trust myself to know what’s the truth and what’s not.”
“You should have more faith in your instincts.”
“I wish it was that easy. Where my father is concerned, I’m often baffled. Even if he tells me the truth, will I believe it? Or will the doubts eat away at me? Will I have to live with something else I can’t stand to live with?” She stopped abruptly, realizing what she’d said.
“Something else?” he queried.
“Nothing.”
It was definitely something, he thought, as she averted her gaze. What was she having trouble living with? Having given up her baby to a stranger? His stomach churned. Was that what haunted her? But would she protect her own secret so ferociously? Or did the secret belong to someone else -- someone she’d promised her mother to protect, Caroline or Ashley.
Or maybe he just wanted it to be one of them.
“I have to go,” Kate said. “I shouldn’t have come here and dumped all this on you.”
“You needed to talk.”
“And you were hoping I’d drop something juicy for you to bite into.”
“I thought you were starting to trust me.”
“I really can’t let that happen.”
He looked directly into her eyes. “I don’t trust easily, either, Kate. My father lied endlessly to me, and I bought most of his sorry stories, I’m sad to say. But you live and you learn, and eventually you figure out who you can trust. You stop making those mistakes.”
“Really? You think so? Because I just trusted you by telling you something I don’t really want anyone else to know. Was that a mistake?”
He wanted to reassure her, but the words wouldn’t come. If he and the McKennas ended up on opposite sides, he would choose his brother.
Disappointment flashed in her eyes. “Well, your silence is enlightening. Thanks for the chat. Good night.” The door shut firmly behind her and Tyler punched his fist against the wall with a muttered curse.
He wanted to help his brother and his niece, not hurt Kate. But she would be hurt as soon as she found out just how far his deception went.
Yanking his wallet out of his pants, he pulled out the photograph of Amelia and stared hard at it. Her sweet, innocent face, blond curls, and blue eyes reminded him of Kate. But Amelia wasn’t Kate; she was a child who had already lost her mother and almost her father.
He had to stay strong. He had to protect Amelia. Kate could take care of herself.
“Is there anything I can help you with?” Kate asked a young woman browsing the bestseller rack early Monday morning.
“I’m looking for a good mystery for my father. He doesn’t like the mystery to be too easy or the love scenes to be too graphic or for there to be too many female characters. He’s a little on the picky side.”