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Chapter Four
Kitty saw that Matt was glowering across the table at her father and knew he was even more uncomfortable than she was with the idea of him holding Maddy for very long. "You know, Matt's right, Father," she said, quickly reaching to the middle of the table to fill three plates for Matt, Wayne and herself. "The three of them can really put away the food, so you better not wait too long if you want anything in this house." She passed Matt a plate and set one in front of herself and at her father's place. "Why don't I take her so you can eat?"
"Of course," he said, somewhat reluctantly, as Kitty stood and reached for the baby. All four males at the table began to rise. "Oh, sit down," she sighed in exasperation. Maddy squealed and her face lit up with a smile when her mother picked her up. Kitty cuddled Maddy against her shoulder and went to pick up a basket from the corner of the room, which she set on the remaining chair between her and Matt.
"I can see you don't believe I would remember what Kitty looked like as a baby," Wayne said contritely, in between bites of food. "You're partly right. I wouldn't, if I didn't have something to remind me." Putting his fork down, he reached into his suit jacket for his wallet. He opened it and took out a folded piece of paper. Kitty had her hands full propping Maddy into a sitting position in the basket, so he passed it across the table to Matt. Matt glanced at Kitty and then looked back across the table at Russell with a stony glare, before carefully unfolding the paper. Inside it there was a small photograph. He studied it, frowning slightly, while everyone else waited. Finally a slow grin came to his face and he looked up at Kitty. He handed her the picture wordlessly. She stood next to his chair, leaning against his shoulder while she looked at it.
In the photograph, a baby wearing a frilly dress was posed sitting on a lacy crocheted baby blanket in a high-backed velvet chair. She looked directly into the camera, smiling. Her hands were in midair, reaching forward. Her hair looked lighter in the picture, and a bit shorter, but otherwise she looked exactly like Maddy. "Well, this looks…familiar," she said slowly. "I remember that chair. Mother had a copy of this picture." She looked at it a bit longer, remembering. Matt had his arm around her, stroking her back gently. "Mother said I didn't want to hold still to have my picture taken, so she was sitting on the floor in front of the chair, and I was holding my hands out so she'd pick me up." Her voice had dropped to a whisper, and she felt all eyes in the room on her. She let the picture fall to the table. "Excuse me." She pulled away from Matt and snatched Maddy from the basket as she retreated from the kitchen.
"Kitty!" Wayne exclaimed, a chagrined look on his face. He and Matt stood nearly at the same time, Matt's chair falling backward in his haste to rise. He glared at his father in law ominously.
"Russell, sit down and shut up!" he ordered as he stalked angrily out of the room. Wayne sat back down and pushed the food around on his plate; genuinely sorry for the distress he'd caused his daughter. He had to admit, at least to himself, that he had thought his having Kitty's picture in his possession would work in his favor, even if it wasn't enough to convince her and her husband that there was no ulterior motive in his visit. He wondered if he had done just the opposite by upsetting Kitty.
Chester and Joe, the forgotten witnesses to what had just taken place, sat ill at ease, neither of them sure what, if anything, to say to Mr. Russell. Joe, who was seated between Chester and Matt, reached over to Matt's place and picked up the picture. "This looks just like Maddy," he enthused, showing Chester.
"Well, forevermore."
"Daddy, why would that make Miss Kitty sad? You'd think she would be happy that Maddy looks like her."
"Well, son, that's just how ladies are, kinda sentimental about things like 'at," Chester tried to reassure Joe, even though he wasn't sure if he believed it himself.
"Your father's quite right, Joe. Sometimes we mere males tend to forget that ladies are more sensitive than we are."
Chester looked at Mr. Russell resentfully. He didn't particularly feel like entertaining the man who had just driven his hosts from their own kitchen. He had a better idea, one that might result in this outsider leaving sooner. "Joe and I are done eating," he announced, "so we'll just go take a look at that buggy for you. You go on and help yourself to whatever's on the table." He emphasized the last three words.
"Thank you, Chester, that's very kind of you. I'm sure Kitty or her husband will rejoin me soon."
Chester cast a somewhat baleful look his direction as he stood and grabbed some apples from the bowl to eat on the way. "Come on, Joe!" he admonished his son.
Instead of going upstairs like Matt thought she would, he found Kitty in the sitting room standing in front of the same window she'd seen her father pass by less than two hours before. Maddy's head rested on her shoulder, and she swayed back and forth gently, humming softly. She spoke quietly without looking at him when she heard him approach. "I don't think she was really ready to get up. She'd only just fallen asleep when I caught my father skulking around outside."
He touched her other shoulder. "Kitty?"
"I'm all right."
"You sure?"
"No, but I will be eventually."
He put his other arm around her waist and pulled her against him. He wanted to rip Wayne Russell in half for what he'd just done, but it wouldn't help. And even as angry as he was, he had to admit Russell couldn't have anticipated that reaction from Kitty. After all, he'd been the one to give Kitty the picture, not realizing himself that it would trigger that memory for her.
"The offer still stands, Kitty. If you don't want to see him anymore, I'll send him away right now."
"No, I don't want you to do that, Matt. I want to know what he's doing here, good or bad."
He turned Kitty around to face him and saw that Maddy had fallen back to sleep. "All right, then, why don't you go put Maddy back to bed so you can eat something. I'll go see about getting that buggy fixed. I'm going to ride into town with him when he goes back and see if I can get some answers."
Kitty looked down at Maddy, considering what Matt said. "All right," she said, nodding. As he turned to leave, something occurred to her. "Matt!" He looked back at her. "You aren't going to threaten him, are you?"
"I will if it comes to it, Kitty." With that, he took his hat from the hook near the door, settling it on his head as he strode back into the kitchen.
TBC