Sweet Christmas Kisses (74 page)

Besides that, he’d truly missed her—all day. He’d missed her sweet voice, her company, but most of all, he missed kissing her. Sometime in the last four days they’d changed from being merely neighbors fulfilling a bargain to close friends. He’d always wanted it to be more than that, but he’d botched things so badly in the beginning he knew it would take more than wearing clothes to bed and a hand-delivered cup of coffee in the morning to change her low opinion of him.

Zelda and Marie were in the living room, sitting in front of a cozy fire when he walked in. Multi-colored lights on the Christmas tree twinkled like sparkling gems.

“Sorry I’m late, Mother. I couldn’t get away as soon as I’d planned, but we’ve still got enough time to get to the restaurant.” Ignoring Marie, he walked past her and glanced around. “Where’s Ki—I mean, my wife?”

Zelda set her mug on the coffee table and sat back, making room for Roscoe to leap into her lap. “Haven’t seen her,” she replied crisply and began stroking the spine of her furry orange monster. “Perhaps she’s gone out.”

“She wouldn’t do that,” Rock said, checking his watch. “We’re due to leave for dinner in fifteen minutes.” Or would she? Was that what she was trying to tell him this morning—that she’d changed her mind and wanted to move back to her own place?

Without a word, he left the living room and burst into his bedroom, hoping to find her napping or in the shower. He didn’t find her in either place and frantically searched the room for clues to her disappearance. The bed looked freshly made, but most of Diona’s things were missing from his closet—dresses, sweaters, even the shoes he used to trip over were mysteriously absent. What did she do, take the goods and run?

“No way,” he said aloud. “I’ve still got her Christmas tree. She’d never abandon that—or my Artisan mixer.” Just the same, he attempted to assure himself Kim hadn’t left him by looking around for her dog. “Hey, mutt,” he said and whistled softly. “Come here, little Sausage.” He checked around the room and even looked under the bed. No dog, no dog carrier, either.

Suddenly, he heard the elevator doors swish open and he dashed into the hallway. Kim walked toward him carrying the dog’s tote bag. She wore a simple black chemise with matching clutch purse, trimmed with sequins. The gown’s slight contours accentuated her petite frame; the rounded neckline exposed her ivory skin and perfect bone structure. A diamond-studded pendant adorning her neck and matching drop earrings reflected the light like tiny electric sparks under the glow of the chandelier.

She set the pink tote on the floor to let the dog jump out.

“Well, look at you,” Rock said, unable to hide his relief as he gazed into her clear blue eyes. He took her hand in his and twirled her around, making her laugh. “You look absolutely stunning.” His words lit up her face. Her shimmering pink smile was radiant, and only for him. Without knowing why, he began to sing a couple bars of Frank Sinatra’s song, “The Way You Look Tonight.”

“You never called me today,” she said with a thread of disappointment in her voice. “Didn’t you miss me?”

He slid his arm around her waist and pulled her close, holding her left hand to his chest as he began to guide her in a waltz to imaginary music. “More than you know,” he murmured in her ear then inhaled deeply, savoring the floral bouquet of her fragrance as he slowly guided her around the small, circular room. He couldn’t remember the name of it—something to do with a walk in the moonlight—but knew the scent well from many visits to Victoria’s Secret to purchase gifts.

“Rock, why are we dancing,” she asked with a laugh. “It’s fun, but there’s no music. Not even that piped-in elevator stuff that’s usually coming from the sound system in the ceiling.”

“I like waltzing you around the room,” he said honestly and pulled her closer, placing his chin on the top of her head. “It gives me an excuse to hold you in my arms.”

They stood still for a moment, quietly embracing each other.

Then without warning, Kim turned to ice and pulled away, focused on something behind him.

“What’s the matter? What happened?” Confused and caught off guard, he turned to see what had destroyed their intimate moment. Marie stood posed like a marble statue at the other end of the hallway—only the Venus de Milo she was not.

With fire in her eyes, Kim silently snatched The Sausage’s carrier and walked away, cutting a detour through the kitchen to avoid Marie completely. Rock followed Kim, wondering what to do now. He’d waited all day to take his wife to dinner at a great seafood restaurant in downtown Minneapolis, but the chill in this place felt like Frostbite Falls, Minnesota and it had him wondering what would happen next. Problem employees he could handle. He’d had professional training for that. But, when it came to the women in his life, he didn’t have a clue.

“My goodness, where have you been,” Zelda said to Kim, displaying her usual bossiness as they entered the living room. “We must be on our way or we’re going to be late.” She blotted her lips with her monogrammed handkerchief and turned to him. “I need a bite to eat.” She put a hand over her heart. “I’m feeling faint.”

Rock looked up and did a double take at Kim’s narrow-eyed stare.

“I went down to the security guard’s office this afternoon. Monday is Al’s day for his weekly blood pressure reading,” Kim said to Zelda then cut a sideways glance at Marie. “Afterward we had a
nice
chat.”

Zelda and Marie exchanged a knowing look. Kim folded her arms, but said no more, as though waiting for them to make the next move.

Oh-oh, Rock thought worriedly and pulled back his suit jacket, shoving his hands into his pockets. The cauldron of animosity bubbling between Kim and Marie indicated that something serious must have happened to blow Kim’s cover.

The jig was up, as his mother would say.

****

Standing between Rock and Marie, Kim faced off with Zelda, waiting for the old lady to take the bait.

Zelda set Roscoe aside and sat up straight, looking pointedly at Kim. “Speaking of chats, Arnie Daye rang me up this morning.” She folded her hands on her lap. “He said he’s never heard of you or your mum.”

From the corner of her eye, Kim saw Rock flinch. He’d have some serious explaining to do eventually, but that was his problem. He shouldn’t have started down this road in the first place. Then again, Zelda wasn’t going to escape unscathed, either. Not if she had anything to do with it.

“He’s never heard of you because you aren’t his niece,” Zelda continued in a smug, authoritative tone. “You don’t hail from the Vineyard and you’re certainly not part of his social circle.” She emphasized the words
social circle
as though growing up in any class other than the wealthiest five percent constituted a disgrace all by itself. “Perhaps it’s time you confess who you really are and why you’re sleeping with my son, pretending to be someone you’re not.”

Rock attempted physically to get between the women, but Kim quickly sidestepped him, letting him know that she intended to defend herself.

“I am Mrs. Rock Henderson,” she said boldly, staring directly at Marie/Diona as she held up her left hand, showing off her four-carat chunk of ice.

“You wish!” Marie/Diona cried with a smug look and shoved Kim’s hand away. “Zelda’s attorney hired a private investigator to run a check on you. I emailed him a picture of you on Friday night with my cell phone. All he had to do was show it to Al Grabowski and the rest was easy.” Marie/Diona gave her the once-over with a critical eye. “We know who you are.”

“Well, well,” Kim spouted dryly, “the mummy can speak.”

Marie/Diona’s eyes flared. “Shut up!”

“You did what?” Rock angrily shook his head, staring down at his mother. “So this is what you two have been up to...”

“Miss Stratton,” Zelda said with authority, ignoring her son, “I suggest you drop the pretense, pack your bag and leave at once. Go back to your ‘storage locker,’ that modest condominium you occupy on the sixth floor and leave us alone. My son no longer needs your services.”

“She’s not going anywhere, Mother,” Rock said and clasped his hand around Kim’s, lacing his fingers between hers. “This is my home and I want her here—” he gazed intently into her eyes, “with me.”

“If anyone should drop the pretense, it’s you, Zelda,” Kim said and pulled away from Rock while removing a flat box of cigarettes from her clutch. “Recognize these? I believe you left them in the pocket of your Chinchilla.”

Zelda looked startled for a moment, but quickly composed herself. “Those are
old
. They’ve been tucked under my gloves for months.”

“Oh, really?” Kim flashed her best killer smile, resisting the urge to burst out laughing. Gotcha! “Then you must like to smoke old cigarettes when you sit outside on the balcony in the middle of the night. They probably go better with your
old
wine.”

Zelda’s face flushed crimson with fury. “Don’t try to change the subject, young lady, by turning the focus upon me. My conduct is not in question here. Your association with my son is.”

Kim moved toward Zelda with her hands on her hips. “Excuse me, but your conduct is very much in question here! You had no right to violate my privacy by dispatching an investigator to weasel information out of the security guard in this building—the nicest guy in the world, I might add—for the sole purpose of prying into my background to assassinate my character. Even so, I have nothing to hide. I didn’t grow up in Martha’s Vineyard, but I do have relatives there and we did visit some of them once a year.”

“An unfortunate situation, from what I understand,” Zelda said, lowering her brows in genuine seriousness. “But then, if I had a daughter who’d foolishly squandered her entire inheritance on an unscrupulous man that I disapproved of and then had a child out of wedlock with him, I might be tempted to disown her as well. I must say, the man has made somewhat of a name for himself now, but I am told that you possess the common sense to have nothing to do with him and I at least give you credit for that.”

Time stood still as Kim blinked in confusion. Spots appeared in front of her eyes and a strange buzzing invaded her head. Her knees began to tremble. She grabbed Rock’s arm for support. What did Zelda just say?

Rock slid his arm across her back to assist her. “Darling, are you all right?”

She ignored him, focusing her attention on this earth-shattering revelation. She knew very little about Veronica’s family and absolutely nothing about her biological father. Several times during her childhood and teenage years, Kim had asked her mother pointed questions about the people mysteriously absent in their lives, but Veronica refused to talk about them. She preferred to dwell on her current boyfriend instead.

Kim held on to her sanity for dear life and looked into Zelda’s eyes. “You—you mean—you know the identity of my father?”

Zelda’s flustered expression revealed her ignorance of the fact that Veronica had kept the man’s name to herself until she died. No photos, no scrapbooks, not even a card or gift remained of her relationship with Kim’s father.

The shock in Rock’s eyes made it plain that his mother’s announcement had taken him by surprise, too.

Suddenly, Kim realized her face must have broadcast the entire tragic story of her life because Zelda’s neck and ears turned crimson.

“Don’t you?”

“No,” Kim said in a small voice, feeling like a lonely eight-year-old again. “I don’t.”

Marie/Diona burst out a triumphant laugh and glared disdainfully. “Well, that’s one more reason why Rock could never marry you for real. Cinderella’s story only works in the fairy tale. In this day and age, you must have more going for you than a cute face,” she said as she haughtily looked Kim up and down, “and the wardrobe of a Keebler elf. You need to have
class
.”

Kim let go of Rock and clenched her fists, tempted to rearrange Marie/Diona’s perfect patrician nose, but put her hands behind her back instead as she got in the woman’s face. “I’d rather look like a Keebler elf than Norman Bates’ mother!”

“I’m the genuine Diona, the one Rock loves!” Diona cried, ripping off her square, oversized glasses and ratty wig. She reached back and pulled a flat clip out of her hair, sending her thick, coppery tresses tumbling past her shoulders. Even with no makeup and pale skin, now that her true looks were exposed, she proved to be a ravishing beauty. The reddish hair, the whiny voice—it all came back to Kim now—in her mind’s eye she saw Ann Margaret in an old Elvis film,
Viva Las Vegas
.

A true diva.

Suddenly, many things began to make sense, like the small disasters that had been plaguing Kim ever since she moved in with Rock.

“Those clothes you abandoned in Rock’s closet,” Kim said. “The seams didn’t rip out by themselves, did they?” At Diona’s smug laugh, Kim continued, “You sabotaged them, didn’t you? You must have cut them with one of Rock’s razor blades just to embarrass me and make me look stupid!”

Diona had also been the culprit who’d taken the picture of Rock at NASCAR, Kim thought as the blank wall space above the loveseat crossed her mind.

Diona smirked. “Remember the oil on the dining room floor? You looked so funny lying on your backside!”

All Diona wanted was to make me appear foolish, clumsy and naïve in front of Rock simply to make herself look better
.

Diona pushed Kim aside and slid her arms around Rock’s neck, gazing longingly into his eyes. “You and I were meant to be married, Rock. We understand each other. We’ve spent a lot of wonderful nights in each other’s arms.” Her lips formed the perfect Mona Lisa smile. “You know there’s nothing I won’t do for you.”

He gently, but firmly disentangled her limbs from his neck and stepped back, silently putting distance between them as he shook his head. “I don’t know you at all.”

Diona cut Zelda a sidewise glance.

Zelda scooted to the edge of the sofa, her face flushed with agitation. “Dear boy, what’s holding you back? See here, she’s the proper match for you in every way and I wholeheartedly approve of her. Once you marry and produce a grandchild, I’ll revise my will and die a happy woman. What more do you need?”