Chapter Forty-Five

As she drove to the hospital, Kendall found her thoughts turning to more than the impact on Miranda, Zach, and herself of Miranda's Cambias side-of-the-family inheritance. The disappearance of Erica, Bianca, and Jackson had left so many unanswered questions, but the legalities still had to be dealt with. Through her mother, Miranda was also a Kane and a Montgomery; she stood to inherit a great deal of wealth and influence from both of those connections. Since Bianca had died intestate, her considerable assets, including her large Montgomery trust fund, automatically passed on to her daughter.

Raising the issue now with Livia Cudahy seemed premature, but once Miranda was out of danger, Kendall knew that as excruciating as it would be, it was crucial. And Erica…Kendall swallowed past the expanding lump in her throat…Livia would have to help with Erica's will as well, since Jackson, Erica's own lawyer, was gone now too. Although she expected to be a major beneficiary, along with Bianca and Miranda, that aspect of it was the least of Kendall's concerns. What mattered to Kendall was ensuring Miranda's future—ensuring her niece was in receipt of everything to which she was entitled, and protected in every way she and Zach could possibly foresee as being necessary.

That necessity made their marriage seem even more urgent, Kendall reflected. Both as the means for her and Zach to be united in a secure and permanent relationship for Miranda's personal benefit, and because it solidified their position as her guardians. Nothing was a done deal yet; they couldn't afford to become complacent. What if Greenlee changed her mind about custody? She'd renounced it only because she'd discovered she was pregnant. If something happened to the Laverys' unborn child, however, all bets could very well be off. The Slaters and the Laverys could end up squaring off in court after all. And while J.R.'s blackmail scheme seemed to have been dealt a mortal blow, Kendall wouldn't put it past him to try to raise it from the dead if he scented the tiniest opening.

With all of that to preoccupy her, Kendall arrived at Pine Valley Hospital to find Miranda was still undergoing the second of her three chemotherapy treatments in the reverse isolation chamber in which she'd been placed. The good news was Miranda was still holding her own, but the treatment made her currently inaccessible to all but medical personnel. Neither Greenlee nor Ryan was anywhere in sight, nor had been seen all day.

There was nothing else for Kendall to do but spend the balance of the afternoon and early evening hours by herself in the waiting room, fidgety and bored out of her skull by her own company, but afraid to leave in case anything happened. Finally, to her relief, Greenlee sauntered in and took a seat, giving Kendall what could only be termed a maternal smile.

"I didn't think you were going to make it," Kendall said conversationally, trying to mask her annoyance.

With the air of an expert, Greenlee replied, "Just wait until Zach gets you pregnant, Kendall, and you get morning sickness. If you get even half as nauseous as I do, you'll be spending most of your time worshipping the porcelain pagoda and you'll wonder why they call it morning sickness because it hits you morning, noon and night."

Making a show of moving away, Kendall asked in distaste, "Do you sound a warning before you start to heave?"

"Ha ha, very funny, Kendall. Ryan says there's nothing more beautiful than a pregnant woman, so there. I've been okay for awhile now so I thought it was safe."

"So where's the proud father? Don't tell me he actually lets you out on your own now."

"Oh, I got this huge taste for peanut butter cheese crackers on the way in, but we could only find those awful cheese-filled cheese crackers in any of the vending machines we passed so far. So Ryan's going around the hospital trying to find me some peanut butter cheese ones," Greenlee explained as if it made perfect sense. "And I told him to buy me all he could find, so if he can find enough of them and if you're hungry too, maybe I could share—?"

"No, thanks, Greenlee, I wouldn't want to deprive you," Kendall said hastily, although she was hungry. "If you and Ryan are planning to be here for awhile, I want to go home and check on Zach."

"Oh, how's he doing after his surgery?" Greenlee asked disinterestedly. "Hey, look at my stomach, Kendall—tell me, do you think it looks any rounder yet? I can't decide if my dress fits any tighter than usual."

"After you've been puking all day? Nope! Sorry, Greenlee, it still looks flat as a board." Kendall climbed to her feet. "Oh, and Zach is fine, by the way. He said when I saw you to give you and Ryan his congratulations."

"How kind of him! Did you hear that, little Bianca Erica or Jackson Ryan?" Greenlee cooed to her abdomen. "You may not be very big yet, but everybody is just so thrilled you're on the way!"

Hearing the names of her sister and mother reduced to such saccharine baby talk, Kendall muttered, "Greenlee, you're about to turn my stomach."

Looking up, Greenlee asked brightly, "What was that, Kendall?"

"Um…I said bon appetit and I hope you can keep down those crackers when Ryan shows up with them. If not…." Kendall pointed out the waste bin by the exit as she left. Outside the door, she ran into a scowling, empty-handed Ryan. "The mighty hunter returns to his mate empty-handed, I see," she said breezily in passing, glad to be escaping both of the Laverys for the time being.

"Just what the hell do you mean by that, Kendall?" Ryan stopped her by blocking her path.

Kendall stared at him in shock. "What did I mean? I didn't mean anything by it. It was only a harmless question. What do you mean, Ryan?"

Condescendingly, he returned her stare. "A harmless question? I don't buy it, Kendall. Of course you meant something. It's the exact bitter, sarcastic reaction I expected from you after you found out Greenlee and I were having a child."

"But I'm happy for you and Greenlee," she protested. "Why on earth would I be bitter now? I'm planning my own life with Zach—and Miranda."

"That's exactly why—because you are marrying Slater," Ryan scowled. "What else is that but a colossally bitter 'fuck you' to me and the rest of the world?"

"Ryan…I don't know where this is coming from but you're way off base."

"You think? Word through the grapevine is your intended'll be rolling in Cambias dough before long. You sure played your cards right on that one, didn't you, Kendall?"

"Is that what this is about?" she asked in genuine, growing, bewilderment. "Are you bitter—about losing Cambias again, to Zach this time? Otherwise I don't know—"

Defensively, Ryan replied, "Me, bitter? Not at all. I have everything I need. I just would have thought you'd be more careful where you aimed your digs, seeing as how we've opted to relinquish custody of Miranda. Remember, it's not too late for us to change our minds."

Kendall gasped. "Jesus Christ, Ryan! Look who's aiming digs! I wasn't doing that at all. But now what, do I wait for you to trot out that threat about Miranda every time you decide I somehow haven't shown you the proper deference?"

Ryan folded his arms across his chest and went on scowling "As a matter of fact, I am opposed to turning Miranda over to you and Slater. I'm only going along with that…for now…because I don't want Greenlee stretched too thin. Nothing is carved in stone yet, so do consider it a warning."

Standing her ground in spite of the alarm bells Ryan's words were ringing in a tightening circle around her feet, Kendall responded with more spirit than she felt, "Oh, now I get it, Ryan—gee, what took me so long? It's the same old story. I'm always the one on trial—you're always the one who gets to act as jury, judge, and executioner."

Ryan's tone was almost bullying. "Kendall, as always you try to make it all about you and it's not. It's also about the lowlife you've chosen to throw your lot in with. I don't give a rat's ass if every last ounce of bone marrow sucked out of Slater's carcass got spun into twenty-four karat gold matching the border around his new Cambias stock. He'll never be fit to raise Bianca's child."

You hypocritical, jealous bastard, Kendall thought furiously. It kills you that Zach could save Miranda and you couldn't, and it kills you that you didn't get any of Cambias back after Ethan died. Zach was right not to just hand that back to you on a silver platter. Aloud, she said only, "Well, not very many of us can live up to your high standards, can we, Ryan? But if Miranda's custody does go to trial, it won't be your standards the judge applies."

"We'll see about that, Kendall. I advise you not to press your luck."

"Ryan? What have you been doing out there all this time?" Her voice sounded peevishly as Greenlee edged out from behind Kendall. "Kendall, why are you holding him up? You know I'm waiting for my crackers. Don't you have my crackers, Ryan? I'm absolutely famished!"

"Er—," Ryan stuttered, turning from Kendall to Greenlee with an almost comically visible attempt to shift his focus from a touchy, potentially consequential discussion to a far more trivial one.

A flood of relief washed over Kendall at the disruption. "I was just leaving, Greenlee. Far be it from me to get between you and food. And," she flung over her shoulder as she walked away, "please tell your husband the only thing I was even thinking about when I ran into him was how very hungry you were."

"The hell you were, Kendall," Ryan called after her. "You were taunting me about how things have shaken down—"

"Ryan, I was simply referring to your lack of success in finding cheese crackers for Greenlee—although maybe that is a related subject."

"Peanut butter cheese crackers, Ryan! You know they have to have peanut butter—"

Rounding a corner, Kendall proceeded several more yards down the corridor at a rapid pace until Greenlee faded out completely. Then she came to a stop, leaned against the wall, and exhaled a deep sigh of relief, immediately followed by a quickly pervading apprehension inspired by Ryan's antagonism. Why can't he just be happy with Greenlee and their own baby? Why is he still looking to put me in the wrong over the littlest thing? I knew it was too good to be true, that they would just let us have Miranda without a fight. I was right to be worried.

A sudden weariness began to descend on Kendall and weigh her down with unaccustomed inertia. She was just so tired of being forced to fight for everything—the same thing—over and over again, so very tired of taking one step backward for every two steps forward. Where was it written that everything good that came to her must come so damn hard? Who decided that the balance sheet had finally tipped against her enough to start tipping the other way? When would it be determined that any of the punishing struggles she endured for once entitled her to come out ahead?

Zach, a little voice reminded Kendall. You have Zach. You're not struggling alone.

That was true…without Zach's support the situation would have been completely hopeless; with it, it was far from that, but Zach was recovering from surgery, dealing with his own sources of pain. Now she had to go home and admit to him that as far as Miranda was concerned they might be right back where they'd started. To add to Kendall's depression, the night was chilly and damp, with drizzle beading her hair and eyelashes with moisture as soon as she left the hospital's canopied entrance.

The wet roadways reflected street lights, headlamps, and taillights in confusing patterns, obliterating road markings and making the route home from the hospital seem unfamiliar. Despite knowing it blindfolded, Kendall found herself making a right turn too soon. By the time she realized her mistake, the drizzle had intensified into a driving rain with which the windshield wipers could barely keep up, further disorienting her. This narrow two-lane route had no streetlights, and no landmarks, being bordered on either side by long stretches of vegetation broken up by an occasional house set too far back from the road for any sort of recognition..

On the verge of an unreasoning panic that she knew was uncalled for but felt unable to control, Kendall began to look for a driveway in which to turn around. The problem was that no sooner did she manage to make one out along the dark, wet shoulder of the road than she had already driven past it. Uttering every swear word in her vocabulary, Kendall gripped the steering wheel and drove slowly on, alternately praying the road eventually intersected with one she recognized.

Dim lights flickered to the right. Braking almost to a halt, Kendall realized they were reflective driveway markers. She turned onto the driveway apron, pulling forward just enough to clear the road, then threw the transmission into reverse and accelerated. But instead of backing the car out on the road as directed, the wheels only spun uselessly, keeping her car in place. The harder Kendall pushed her foot down on the accelerator, the faster they spun.

"Shit!" she cried. "Shit! Shit! Shit! Don't even tell me I'm stuck!" Gingerly stepping out into the rain and onto the mix of gravel and mud under the car, Kendall walked carefully around the hood of the car to inspect the other side. She discovered that she had indeed misjudged the width of the driveway and the right front and rear wheels were half sunk into a muddy berm, her efforts to move the car having only dug them in deeper. Swearing would obviously be of little further use. Kendall went back to the car for her cell phone.

SEARCHING FOR SIGNAL…SEARCHING FOR SIGNAL…was the only message she could get the phone to display. "Fuck," she muttered.

Maybe another car would come along soon, with a driver who was not a psychopathic maniac and who was inclined to help her, and maybe it wouldn't. In the meantime, Kendall decided to investigate where the driveway led. If it led nowhere she was no worse off than she was now, and perhaps it led to some form of rescue. One thing was certain: She could not become any wetter than she already was. Swallowing bravely, Kendall peered rather ineffectively through the downpour and, treading cautiously, traveled onward. A short distance ahead, she became aware of a dark structure looming out of the rain.

Hoping it offered shelter, Kendall cupped her hand over her eyes and impulsively darted toward it. With her vision adjusting to the darkness, she was able to make out more details as it came closer and she was seized by a vague sensation of having been this way before, similar to a feeling of déjà vu…not frightening, exactly, but alien to her normal existence. Then the vague sensation sharpened into conviction as a door creaked open, a soft golden glow spilled forth, and a warm, accented voice, evidently originating from the bulky figure silhouetted in the doorway against the backlight, said, "Good evening to ya, Kendall Hart. What took ya so long?"