Chapter 7
Chapter Seven
Kendra hadn’t really ever believed in blackout memory fugue until she’d found herself on the porch of her agent’s house, freezing cold, empty-handed, and heartbroken, and hadn’t remembered how she’d gotten there.
LaKeisha Easton had opened the door after the third knock, her hair and clothes rumbled, telling Kendra that she’d woken the woman from her warm bed.
“Kendra?” LaKeisha had blurted, obviously surprised to find her client on her doorstep at midnight. “What happened?” she’d asked, concern blanketing her familiar, warm chocolate features. “Come inside—where’s your coat?”
Numb all over, even on the inside, Kendra had allowed LaKeisha to pull her inside, drag her to the couch, and there Kendra had opened her mouth and all the truths spilled out unchecked—what Gideon had said that night, how their “romance” had begun, and about the pregnancy.
Like the professional she was, and the friend she’d become over the years, LaKeisha listened, her expression morphing from shock to anger to sympathy to determination.
After handing her tissues, forcing her into a shower and a borrowed pair of sweats, LaKeisha tucked Kendra into bed with a promise that tomorrow would be better.
It hadn’t been, and none of the days since had offered her even a modicum of relief or happiness or joy—not even the sudden reminders of the baby nestled in her belly.
That next morning, LaKeisha had given her a prepaid Visa card, a prepaid cell, and drove her upstate to the Schroon Lake house, which had previously been shuttered for the winter.
That meant no housekeeping staff, no cooks, no grounds crew, no Gideon minions to tattle about where she was, not that Gideon gave her a second thought.
Why would he? She meant nothing to him.
That was three days ago.
Three long, achingly hollow days and nights without the man she loved, the father of her baby, the man who’d taken every hope and dream she’d had for her future and set them on fire.
Now, quietly ensconced in the only place she could think of hiding away, she sat on a soft, pillowy armchair, facing floor-to-ceiling windows that looked out over what would—come spring—be a full English cottage garden.
She’d designed it herself, along with all the features in the Schroon Lake house Gideon had bought after they were married.
He’d told her to remodel and then decorate to her heart’s content, and so she had.
She’d turned it into the ideal dream home she’d always envisioned when she was a lonely, heartsore yet whimsically hopeful outcast kid in the group homes.
She’d lie awake on her bunk bed in a room with three other bunk beds, staring into the ceiling, dreaming about the home she’d build just for herself.
It would be warmth, welcome, smell of apples and cinnamon, have a vibrant garden with all the flowers and butterflies, and it would have a family to go with it… .
And Gideon had given her that just after their wedding.
He’d called it his wedding gift to her, and she’d taken hold of that gift with such excitement and joy that she’d hadn't stopped to think about what it really was—a way for Gideon to keep her busy, out of the way, out of sight, out of mind during the nights when he wasn’t trying to breed her like a choice mare.
Her cell chose that moment to ring, and she glanced at it warily. She’d only given LaKeisha and Cora the number, not wanting any of the Maddoxes to have access to her.
Not even Logan and all his hacker brilliance could track her using the prepaid cell, especially since LaKeisha told her she paid an unhoused person to buy it for her. That meant there was no link to her.
The cell rang again and, with a heavy sigh, Kendra picked it up from beside the now ice cold mug of peppermint mocha that hadn’t done a thing to help lift her spirits.
The cell flashed Cora’s number so Kendra answered, cautious.
She’d given the number to Cora after she’d remembered she was supposed to watch Pearl and Winnie but hadn’t called to cancel.
She’d felt like the world’s worst auntie, so she’d called and explained to Cora that she’d be out of town for a while.
When Cora asked why and for how long, Kendra had lied.
She wasn’t ready to rip open her chest once more in the few days between that night and her call to Cora.
Cora said she understood and for Kendra to call if she wanted to talk, and they’d ended the call.
That was two days ago, and the cell had been silent since then.
Until this call.
Had something happened to the girls?
“Cora?” Kendra answered, concerned yet uncertain. “Is something wrong?”
Cora, the sweetheart, replied, “What could possibly be wrong? One of my best friends and the best auntie in the world vanished, my brother-in-law is acting like an even bigger asshole than usual, and no one will tell me what the hell is going on.”
Suddenly, Kendra felt like a world class bitch.
“Sorry, Cora, I—”
“No, you don’t have to explain, hon, I’m just venting because I haven’t had Kendra-Cora time in too long, and Pearl is driving me crazy asking about Auntie ‘Kenda’,” Cora said, then heaved a sigh.
“So…this sabbatical…will you be back in time for Christmas? The girls want to make sugar cookies and decorate gingerbread houses, and I find that my creativeness leans more toward the alpha-numeric and not frosting and cookie dough, so we need your Christmas elf-ness to make sure it’s not a disaster. ”
That made Kendra smile for the first time since Gideon had stepped into their kitchen and opened hell on earth at her feet.
“I miss you all, and….” How did she tell Cora that she might not be back for Christmas, New Years, or even Independence Day—that she might just root herself in Upstate New York for the foreseeable future because her dream marriage with her dream man had turned into a nightmare?
“Honestly, Cora, I don’t know when I’ll be back,” she finally admitted, her throat thick with unshed tears.
“I just need time.” Time to figure out how to move forward when the future she’d been planning was now blown to pieces.
Cora hummed thoughtfully, then asked, “Where are you? Do you need Pearl and Winnie cuddles, ‘cause I can bring them, like the world’s best medicine, straight from the pharmacy of Cora.”
Again, Kendra smiled. “I wish you could, but….”
“You don’t want anyone to know where you are, especially those nosy, intrusive, drunk on their own power Maddoxes?”
“Yes.” And she knew she didn’t need to offer more than that, because out of all the women Kendra had met in her life, Cora was the most likely to understand the importance of keeping a secret.
“I don’t like it, but I understand it,” Cora replied. “I do have to tell you, though, if Gideon really wanted to find you, he’d have Logan tracking my calls, which means the moment you called me that first time, he could have figured it out.”
Crap! She hadn’t thought of that—not that it mattered. Two days had passed since then, and there was no sign of Gideon Maddox having left his throne of skulls and gold bars.
“No sweat, though, hon, I’ve got you covered,” Cora said, a smirk in her voice.
Kendra wanted to ask how, but in that moment a wave of nausea overwhelmed her, making her gag. She hurried to the guest bathroom, cell clutched in her hand, just in time to vomit into the sink.
After a few minutes, Kendra remembered she was till on the phone with Cora.
Was she busted? She hadn’t meant to keep her pregnancy a secret, but after Gideon’s words, and her rush to get away, she hadn’t even considered telling anyone. It felt like something she needed to keep safe. Keep secret. Until she couldn’t hide it anymore.
“Kendra, are you okay?” Cora’s worried voice carried over Kendra’s dry retching. “You don’t sound good. Let me—
“No,” she bleated, “I’m fine.”
“You don’t sound fine! You were just puking, Kendra—are you okay?”
“Yes. I just shouldn’t have paired Moscato and Budweiser.” The lie came out smoothly.
Cora snorted, then replied, “Day drinking, Kendra? You need to take it easy, especially if what I think happened actually happened.”
There was a knowing edge to her voice that told Kendra that Cora knew more than she was saying.
She wanted to ask her sister-in-law what she thought might have happened, but after that retch-fest, she was all bled out of energy and just wanted to curl into a ball and nap.
“I need to go,” she muttered, hating that she couldn’t be open and honest with the one friend she’d gained over the last three years, because the woman was married to Gideon’s brother, and she didn’t want to force Cora to keep a secret from her husband.
“Okay, babe. Keep in touch, and please let me know if I can help—the offer of niece cuddles is still on the table.”
She chuckled weakly. “I will. Give the girls kisses from me.”
They ended their call, and Kendra curled onto the bed, the heat from the fireplace in the master bedroom unable to stop the chill that invaded her as she let exhaustion drag her under.