Twin of Ice Read online

  Houston began unwrapping food. “It means that when we return to Chandler, your reputation as the most romantic man in town will be further enhanced.”

  “My what?”

  “Yes,” she said as she unwrapped a package of Vienna rolls. “It started when you carried me out of the Mankins’ garden party and was added to later when people began repeating the story of how you ran the cowboys who accosted me out of town. And then there was the romantic dinner party you gave at your house with the pillows and candles.”

  “But it’s because I ain’t got any chairs, and I spilled food all over you, and was I supposed to stand around and let those cowboys bother you?”

  Houston opened a can that contained creamed lobster soup. “Whatever the true reason, the result is the same. By the time we return, I expect adolescent girls to stare at you on the street, and to tell each other that they hope they marry a man who drags them away from their own weddings to a lonely mountain cabin.”

  For a moment, Kane said nothing, but then he grinned and came to sit by her. “Romantic, am I?” he said, kissing her neck. “I don’t guess anyone’ll see that it’s the lady I married that’s keepin’ me from lookin’ like a fool in front of ever’body. What’s that gray stuff?”

  “Pâté de foie gras,” she said, spreading some on a cracker with a little pearl-handled knife Opal’d included. She put it in his mouth for him.

  “Not bad. What else you got?”

  There was a piece of Stilton cheese, an artichoke which Kane thought was a waste of time to eat, tomatoes, soft-shell crabs, chicken croquettes, Smithfield ham, sirloin steak in onion gravy, and fried chicken.

  When Houston saw the chicken, she laughed. It hadn’t been on the menu that she’d planned for the wedding. No doubt Mrs. Murchison had prepared it especially for her dear Mr. Taggert. Houston wondered how many other people had been involved in packing the food for her “secret” runaway.

  “What in the world is this?” Kane asked.

  “I thought the wedding might be a good place to introduce a few foreign foods to Chandler. That is a German pretzel, and some Italian pastries were served, but I don’t think any were packed for us.”

  As Houston talked, she unwrapped more food: a cloth bag filled with fruit, a tin of Waldorf salad, a big round box filled with slices of several different pies, gingerbread, a bag of peanut candy, one of fudge. There were three loaves of bread, a box of sliced meats, cheese, and onions, a jar of olives, another of mustard.

  “I don’t think we’ll starve. Ali! Here it is.” She showed Kane the inside of a metal box that contained a large section of wedding cake.

  He took the little knife from the bed, cut a piece of cake and fed it to her from his fingertips. Houston held his hand and licked away every last crumb. He put his hand to the side of her face and kissed her lingeringly.

  “A body could starve to death with you around,” he murmured. “Why don’t you feed me before you seduce me again?”

  “Me!” she gasped. “You’re the one who . . . ”

  “Yes?” he said as he picked up a piece of fried chicken. “I did what?”

  “Perhaps I won’t pursue that line of thought. Would you pass me that can of soup?”

  “Did you find my weddin’ present to you? In that little leather trunk?”

  “The one in the sitting room?” When he nodded, she said she hadn’t had time to look at it. “What’s in it?”

  “Wouldn’t that spoil the surprise?”

  Houston continued eating for a moment. “I think that wedding gifts should be given on the day of the wedding. And since we are here, and the trunk is there, I’d like another gift.”

  “You ain’t even seen what’s in that trunk and, besides, how can I buy you somethin’ up here?”

  “Sometimes, the most precious gifts aren’t purchased in a store. What I want is something personal, something very special.”

  Kane’s face showed that he had no idea what she was talking about.

  “I want you to share a secret about yourself with me.”

  “I already told you all about myself. You wanta know where I have money hidden in case some of my investments fall through?”

  Delicately, she cut herself a piece of Camembert. “I was thinking more in the line of something about your father or mother, or perhaps about your hatred for the Fentons, or maybe about what you and Pam talked about in the garden this morning.”

  Kane was too stunned to speak for a moment. “You don’t ask for much, do you? Anythin’ else you want, like maybe my head on a platter? How come you wanta know things like that?”

  “Because we’re married.”

  “Don’t you go puttin’ your lady face back on. A lot of married people are like your mother and that sober ol’ man she married. She calls him Mr. Gates out of respect, like you used to do to me. I’ll bet your mother never asked Gates questions like you’re askin’ me.”

  “Well then, maybe I’m just terribly curious. After all, it was my curiosity that made me want to see your house, and that led to now, and . . . ” She let her voice trail off and the blanket slide down another two inches.

  Kane looked at the sliding blanket with amusement. “You sure do catch on fast. All right, I guess there is somethin’ I better tell you ’cause Pam says it’s gonna be all over town in just a few days.”

  He paused a moment, looking down at the food. “You ain’t gonna like this too much, but there ain’t much I can do to change it now. You ’member that I told you that Fenton kicked me off his land when I was a kid ’cause I’d been messin’ around with his daughter?”

  “Yes,” she said softly.

  “I always thought that somebody’d snitched on us and told Fenton, but today Pam said she was the one that told him.” He took a deep breath, looked at her with an air of defiance, and continued. “Pam told her old man that she was expectin’ my kid and she wanted to marry me. Fenton, bein’ the bastard he is, sent her away to marry some ol’ man that owed him money, and told me Pam never wanted to see me again.”

  “Is that the reason you hate Mr. Fenton?”

  He looked her in the eye. “No, it ain’t. I just learned all this today. The point of all this storytellin’ is that Pam’s come back to Chandler to live, and with her is her thirteen-year-old son who also happens to be my son. And accordin’ to Pam, he looks enough like me to set a few tongues waggin’.”

  Houston took her time in replying. “If everyone will know this shortly, it’s not really a secret, is it?”

  “It was damn well a secret to me until a matter of hours ago,” he said with some anger in his voice. “I didn’t know I had a kid somewhere.”

  When needed, Houston’s stubbornness could match his. “I asked for a real secret, not something that next week everyone will know and be discussing over tea. I want to know something that only you know about yourself, something that even Edan doesn’t know about you.”

  “How come you wanta know about me? How come you can’t just put the furniture away and sleep with me?”

  “Because I’ve come to love you and I want to know about you.”

  “Women are always sayin’ they love you. Two weeks ago you were in love with Westfield. Damn it! All right, I’ll tell you somethin’ that’s none of your business, but you’ll probably like hearin’ it. This mornin’ Pam came to me and told me she’d been in love with me all these years, and she wanted me to leave with her, but I turned her down.”

  “For me?” Houston whispered.

  “Ain’t you the one I married? With no thanks to that idiot sister of yours, I might add.”

  “Has something happened between you and Blair that makes you two snarl at each other?”

  “One secret to a weddin’ day,” he said. “You want another secret, you gotta work for it. And the best way you can work is to get that food off this bed and take that blanket off and come rub up against me.”

  “I’m not sure I can stand such torture,” she said, as she frantic