Authors: Shirley Wine
Paula gave an approving smile as Kate emerged.
"Now here's a coffee and something to eat."
Kate knew from past experience that it was useless to argue with Paula when she was in, what Brett termed, her
mothering mode
.
She sat down and sipped the cappuccino she was given, relieved to hand over responsibility for a few short hours.
Brett returned just as she finished eating. He sat in a chair and looked at her in brooding silence.
"You had no trouble?"
"No." He gave a wry grin. "Where the hell did you meet a man like that, Kate? Let alone be on car borrowing terms?"
"Like what?" Paula asked curiously.
"Dark, dangerous and Greek to his fingertips," Kate replied in an empty, bleak voice. "It's a very long story."
"We have all night." Paula leaned forward and poured them all more coffee. "The children are in bed."
"Kate may not want to tell," Brett cautioned softly.
"Actually, I do." Kate took a shaky breath. "In twenty four hours Alex Korda has managed to turn my life upside down for the second time. He almost got me sacked this morning."
"How?" Brett leaned forward, eyes bright with anger.
"I threw a vase of flowers at him at him." Kate gave a shaky laugh at their disbelief.
"You what?" Paula shrieked.
"You'd better start at the beginning, Kate." Brett saw the anguish and heartache she found impossible to hide. He picked up one of her hands. "You've held this in for far too long."
"It all began on my eighteenth birthday, when we lived at Narrabeen, just north of Sydney." Kate gave a choked sob. "Daddy gave Chris and me a car each for our birthday."
"Chris?"
Paula asked in a hushed voice.
"My twin. He's dead, and so is Dad." She stared at her hands lying limply in her lap. Paula's hand gripped her shoulder. "That night we had a birthday bash at the beach and I got tipsy. Chris wouldn't let me drive home so we left my car there, locked. And I went home with him."
She looked up at Brett and Paula. "The next morning my car was parked in our garage, badly damaged and covered in blood, the key in the ignition. The police were at the door telling me Marcos Korda, Alex's nephew had been killed in a hit and run."
"How on earth?" Paula asked shaking her head in disbelief.
"I didn't know then, but I knew damn well I hadn't hit the kid, nor had I parked my car in the garage."
"Your brother?"
"Chris was adamant I came home with him. No-one believed us." Kate looked at her friends. "The police said the kid's uncle had given them my car's rego and a description of the driver, a woman like me."
There was a brief silence. Paula stared at her. "Kate you didn't?"
"I did. I went to see him and…" her voice broke.
Brett poured her a glass of brandy. She sipped it and managed to regain control. "It was a big mistake. Alexandros Korda didn't believe me either. But he insisted I lay my flowers beside the bier holding the boy's coffin."
"How awful."
"It was." Kate swirled the brandy in the glass. "I'd never seen a dead person before."
"So what happened?" Brett gripped her hand.
"Alex insisted I stay for refreshments. And terrified of offending, I did." Kate took a deep breath. "The coffee was so bitter I loaded it with sugar."
"It was drugged?" Brett asked eyes brilliant with anger.
Kate nodded. "When I woke up I was on an Island, I later learned was in the Whitsundays."
"He kidnapped you?" Paula shook her head. "Did no one miss you?"
"Everyone thought I'd run away rather than face manslaughter charges for the hit and run. The long and the short of it was that when Alex arrived, he said…he said…" her voice broke and she took a gulp of brandy before she could finish. "He said I was going nowhere until I gave him a child to replace the one I'd killed."
Brett's breath escaped in a rasping rush. "An eye for an eye…"
"Exactly." Kate swallowed. "When forensics found my cousin's prints in the blood on the car, she confessed to the hit and run after questioning. Jessica and I are very alike. It appears I'd dropped my keys, with the garage door remote on the key ring, and she found them."
"So what happened then?" Paula asked.
"Jessica was jailed, I was pregnant and Alex," Kate shook her head, trying to push down the awful memories. "Alex aged overnight."
Alex's heart has never stopped bleeding.
Gregori's words returned to haunt her.
"As well he might, the bastard." Brett paced across to the sideboard and back. "Why didn't he end up in jail, too?"
"My father and brother wanted to visit me. But I was so angry with them. If they didn't believe me, I wasn't going to see them. Gregori, Alex's PA, told me this morning, my dad wanted to visit because he wanted me to lay charges against Alex."
"Why didn't he?" Paula asked watching her, frowning.
"By this time, Alex and I were living in one of his mansions at Indooroopilly, overlooking the Brisbane River." Kate looked down at her clenched hands. "He overruled me, and told me Dad and Chris were coming to see me."
She lapsed into silence as she finished the rest of the brandy.
"And?" Paula asked quietly.
"They were killed in a smash on their way north." Weak tears over flowed. "Two days later, I went into premature labour at 26 weeks."
"Your baby died too?" Paula put an arm around Kate shoulder.
"No one thought she'd survive, she was so tiny." Kate looked at Paula through a film of tears. "Gregori came to see me and gave me a heap of money and I couldn't bear to watch my baby die, so I left."
"You poor little thing." Paula rubbed a hand over her back. "What happened today?"
In a voice often little more than a thread, Kate told them.
"The bastard," Brett said savagely, when she got to the confrontation this afternoon at the inn. "It's iniquitous that he can actually get away with something so criminal."
"I know," Kate said in a soft, sad murmur, "but in one way he's right. I did abandon Sarah and I know, now, I could never have mothered her properly, hating Alex as much as I did then. It was no fault of hers and she deserved better than I could ever have given her."
"Have you been back to Narrabeen?" Paula asked quietly.
"No." Kate gave a despairing sob, "What's there to go back to? Not daddy or Chris."
"You need to go back." Paula gripped Kate's hands tightly "You need to go home. Until you do, you'll never find peace. Dave said you were owed some leave. Take it. Go home. Visit your brother's and father's graves. Go and confront your cousin. Get well away from here, and any chance encounter with that fiend."
"Paula's right, Kate." Brett looked down from where he was leaning an elbow on the mantle shelf. "Go away and have a good holiday."
Kate rang Dave and he readily agreed.
"Take as long as you need. Leave Korda to me. I guessed he'd upset you badly when he raced here to ask if I'd seen you."
"He would've been more worried about his precious car. I drove off in it."
"Geeze. You didn't prang it?"
"No such luck."
"If you say so, Kate." He gave a gruff bark of laughter. "Have a decent break. You've earned it."
As she put down the receiver, Kate felt protected within the security of these trusted friends.
"No problems?" Brett asked as she came back.
"All I have to do is pack. I don't want to go home alone. Alex could come around."
"I'll come with you," Brett said savagely. "If he dares show up he'll find a man to deal with. Not a slip of a woman."
Chapter Five
N
ot until the taxi turned into the street where she'd grown up, did Kate pause to consider whether or not Alex had sold her old home when he'd settled up her father's affairs.
She nibbled on her lower lip as the taxi cruised to a stop.
"Is this the house, ma'am?" The driver turned to look at her when she made no attempt to alight.
"Yes." She stared at the house biting on her lower lip, uncertain what to do. "I'm not sure if it's okay for me to stay here. Will you wait?"
"Sure thing."
With real trepidation she walked to the front door. The gardens were so neat the house had to be occupied. Anxiety fisted in her belly. What should she do if she was proved right?
She pressed the bell and the door swung open before she had time to lift her finger. The breath left her lungs.
Am I hallucinating?
She closed her eyes. When she opened them, Luke Harder was still framed in the doorway.
"You," she stuttered. "What are you doing here?"
"Welcome home, Catriona."
Kate stared, totally incapable of rational thought.
At last I've flipped into some alternate reality.
Luke looked over her shoulder at the taxi waiting by the curb.
"Why don't you go inside and let me get your luggage." He propelled her into the hallway.
Too stunned to disagree, she went inside and instinctively went to the small room that had once been hers and Chris's den.
There was nothing she recognized; bewildered she sank into a comfortable wing chair, beyond shocked.
"Here you are." Luke came into the room. "Would you like a coffee?"
Kate stood up and faced him, eyes glinting with determination. "Not so fast, Luke, I want an explanation. Who are you? And why are you living here, in my family home?"
"After you've had coffee." His blue eyes swept over her in one comprehensive look. "Come through to the kitchen."
Kate stared at his retreating back, her thoughts in turmoil.
Slowly, she followed him, taking time to look about her. Although basically the same, the house had had a complete make-over. She sank into a comfortable chair in the breakfast nook.
Here too everything was different.
New kitchen counters of dark granite, stainless steel appliances, set off painted plaster walls. The sheer Dorothy curtains her mother had loved were gone, in their place modern roman blinds.
Luke moved around the kitchen, pouring coffee and putting cakes on a small plate. He gave her a mug of coffee and put sugar and cream on the table before sitting opposite.