Chapter Fifteen
Lying in bed, staring up at the ceiling, every so often glancing at the ever-changing digital numbers displayed on the clock face on the table beside the bed, Kendall passed the hours until dawn. The space of time between Zach leaving and the telephone calls beginning had been brief. Ethan's death had already hit the headlines and the news had quickly spread along the efficient person-to-person network that Pine Valley boasted. Kendall was sure she had spoken to everyone she knew and everyone her mother and Jack and Bianca knew. Fortunately many of them overlapped, or she would have been on the phone all night.
Still, the calls were numerous, but they were short; Kendall told each caller, including Myrtle, that she wasn't up to talking yet. And with each call, the palms of her hand bore ever deeper crescent-shaped impressions from her fingernails as her fists clenched in a superhuman effort to keep from screaming.
After the initial flurry of calls, Kendall had allowed a generous amount of time to elapse for Greenlee—or if Greenlee was too upset about Jack's continued disappearance, Ryan—to call. When no call from either Lavery was forthcoming, Kendall phoned them, and spoke with Ryan but not with Greenlee. Greenlee, he said, was trying to soothe Miranda, whose teething discomfort was keeping her awake, but they both very sorry to hear about Ethan, and they were both praying hard for everyone else.
Kendall believed the latter, but not the former. Ryan's insincerity in speaking of Ethan was palpable: He had cared for Ethan little more than he cared for Ethan's father—and he clearly despised Zach. At least Ryan tried to camouflage his opinion of Ethan in deference to her loss; Kendall knew Ryan too well to be fooled, but supposed he deserved credit for trying to be diplomatic. It was Ryan's quick turn to more practical matters, such as the impact Ethan's death would have on Cambias Industries and, therefore, on Ethan's co-heir to the company, Miranda, that Kendall ended the call.
She didn't want to be reminded again how, in her muddled state, she'd been so imprudent as to let the Laverys remove Miranda from her keeping. What mattered so much now wasn't Miranda's economic future, what mattered was figuring out how to regain possession of her sister's child, especially if…no, Kendall, do not go there. The discussion Ryan had in mind could wait, wait until Miranda was twenty-one and in a position to make her own decisions about running Cambias, as far as Kendall was concerned. For her own part, Kendall would have been happy to never hear the name Cambias again.
Rolling restlessly over on her side, she stared at the clock again. 3:00 a.m. already. The veil between reality and imagination Kendall frequently found so flimsy had flip-flopped along with the rest of life as she knew it. Lying in bed all alone, having lost a man she cared about, facing the likelihood of never seeing her dearest loved ones again in this life and, if so, wondering if she would really have to fight her erstwhile best friend—her niece's cousin—for custody of Miranda…oh, that was when imagination shrank from hard, cold, cruel reality.
Shadows faded away in daylight, you could shrug them off, put on a more flattering and comfortable outfit pulled from your closet of illusions. But when you had the misfortune to still be awake at 3:00 a.m., you came face to face with the naked truth making its rounds. And god help you, you couldn't hide from it then.
How could she deny it any longer? Zach was right all along. Cambias was a cursed name. It was even beginning to seem like a point in Zach's favor that he'd changed his name, rejected his heritage, and tried to reject it for Ethan. If Ethan had stayed in England and remained Ethan Ramsey, chances were excellent he'd still be alive. Maybe in prison for escalating his college con games, but for sure not meeting his end on a snowy mountaintop on the way to accumulate more riches. With my sister and mother you took with you? Kendall moaned to herself, then, What are you doing, Kendall? Blaming Ethan now for dying?
Changing positions so she could bury her head in her pillow, she still couldn't block out Zach's parting words to her, thanking her for loving and believing in Ethan. She might have accused Zach of having her condo bugged and using those words specifically to taunt her for the very doubts she'd harbored lately about Ethan's changing priorities, except that she'd never voiced them aloud…and, devious as he was, even Zach couldn't read her mind. He couldn't know she had those doubts. He also couldn't know it was her own remorse for that that she'd expressed in response to his…well, his compassion—if a man like Zach could be said to possess the quality.
And after all she'd accused him of…that there was still no proof he hadn't done, but…it was beginning to look as if maybe he really hadn't, but still…just because he'd been unexpectedly nice to her didn't mean she could let Zach off the hook. There were potential Miranda issues to resolve with him, too, that Derek's phone call had interrupted. Kendall squeezed back tears.
It all seemed so overwhelming, and she no longer had the luxury of zoning out at the mere prospect of the worst happening: The worst had already begun to happen. How am I supposed to deal with all this? she wondered dazedly. She was a fighter, but even the most indefatigable fighter eventually met her match.
Tired of watching the numbers keep marching forward to a morning whose arrival she shrank from facing even to escape the heartless night, tired of tossing and turning interspersed with fitful dozing, she finally arose before 5:00 a.m. and threw on a short robe over her skimpy nightgown. Myrtle's cure for almost anything was a cup of good, hot, strong tea. Maybe if she poured a shot of Amaretto into it…no, Ethan had tossed that, she recalled, dismissing it as too commonplace and replacing it with the Courvoisier XO he deemed more appropriate for the liquor cart of a multi-national CEO. As long as it has the desired effect, I don't care what I drink. Why even bother to boil water for a teabag? Go straight for the booze.
But she felt cold, so cold. Cognac went down warm but it wasn't warm when you wrapped your hands around it and Kendall craved something to warm her on the outside as well as the inside. Filling the kettle with filtered water she set it to boil and wandered into the living room. A glow appeared around the edges of the closed front window blinds. Curiously she pried an opening in them and peeped out. The glow came from Zach's front window across the courtyard. In the light leaking through the partially opened slats of his own blinds she saw him pacing back and forth.
Well, he's not cold. Kendall widened the gap in her blinds. Zach wore a gray tank-style T-shirt and dark running shorts, exhibiting far more of his well-muscled physique then she'd ever before seen. As she watched, he grabbed a warm-up jacket from the back of a chair, put it on, and headed for his door. He must be going running, she realized, or to the gym for a dawn workout. She kept watching, unable to tear her gaze away. Even with the two walls separating them—and the open courtyard space between the walls—the visual display of Zach's innate strength acted as a magnet on her depleted spirit like steadily burning candlelight would draw to it a weakened, fluttering moth.
Once outside, Zach finished locking his door behind him, turned around, and happened to look her way—straight at her, through the hole in her blinds. At that moment, the tea kettle shrieked, startling Kendall into dropping the blinds with a clatter, making it even more obvious she'd been spying on him. Oh, shit. Caught in the act. Red-faced, she dashed to the stove to turn off the burner. But wait…what if Zach's appearance was opportune? God knew human company besides her own would be welcome after the endless, aching night. Well, almost any human company.
Although he was Ethan's father…the downside to inviting Zach Slater in for a cup of tea was that she wasn't convinced he was actually human—and she wasn't sure what it would accomplish, or even what she was trying to accomplish. A genuine truce? Or a less magnanimous maneuver? At a time when all she veered dizzily from numbness to feeling as though all her nerve-endings were exposed and back again to numbness, Kendall had no idea. She could only hope her instincts weren't leaving her completely in the lurch.
Running her hands through her unruly curls, she went to the door, remembering at the last second to securely cinch her robe, and reassuring herself with the knowledge there wasn't much she could do to make this bad situation much worse than it already was anyway. If Zach was already gone in the time she'd dithered, she'd take it as an act of whichever god was on duty.
But Zach was still out there, about equidistant from his door and hers, as if he too had dithered. The reach of the spotlights over each of their doors didn't quite extend to him. Distinguishing the expression on his face was difficult.
"Zach?" Kendall called nervously. At first she thought he was going to ignore her.
But he said, "What, Kendall?"
"I was fixing myself some tea. I saw your light was on," she continued inanely. "I guess you're leaving now, but I was going to ask if you wanted some."
He stepped closer. In the light shining upon him he looked so haunted Kendall felt a corresponding chill, a chill for which tea was utterly inadequate. "I actually wasn't planning to drink mine straight. I was planning to pour in enough top of the line cognac until I was—until I was three sheets to the wind," she confessed, her voice suddenly catching.
His head cocked a fraction to the side. "I already tried that with Scotch, but you know what? I tried and tried but I couldn't drink enough to knock myself out."
"Don't tell me you're going running like that? You sure have a hard head."
Zach grimaced. "Run? Stumble, most likely. My head is pounding."
"Well, I have aspirin. I could make coffee instead of tea," Kendall heard herself say. "Strong coffee."
In response his voice was hoarse and distrustful and suddenly cruel. "Who the fuck are you and what have you done with Kendall?"
Now they were returning to less unfamiliar territory. "If you don't want it just say so," she snapped.
His hand went to the back of his neck and massaged it. "Sorry. I'm not in good shape right now nor fit for human contact."
"No kidding you're not in good shape, Zach." Kendall softened her own voice. "I don't think you should try running right now. Stumbling?—good luck with that, too. More like falling flat on your face, you mean."
He shook his head a few times. Kendall realized it wasn't because he was disagreeing with her. He was trying to focus his eyes. This was absurd.
Finally, he replied, "I shouldn't really think you'd care."
She was beginning to feel quite exasperated. No good deed ever went unpunished, did it? "You know, Zach, I really don't. Just forget I said anything, and I'll do the same." She wondered if she could forget it, though…against her will, Zach reminded her so of a wounded lion with a thorn in his paw, only she was an unlikely Androcles. "It's cold out here and my hot water for tea is cooling off. I'm going back inside."
But Kendall didn't move and neither did he. The standoff lasted several more seconds. Then Zach gave a shrug and began to move stiffly away from her door toward the courtyard exit. The effort was half-hearted; before he had taken many more steps he stopped again. After a few more seconds passed by, he turned back toward her. "Kendall."
She waited with more patience than she normally demonstrated.
Rubbing his neck again, Zach said, "Maybe…maybe coffee's a good idea."
Without further comment—and with no small amount of ambivalence, but with a tiny, tiny involuntary gleam of relief in the blue eyes she averted from him—Kendall motioned Zach to enter her condo.