His smile turned to a full-blown grin as he leaned back against the couch and threaded his fingers behind his head. “Well, I’ll be damned.”
Seeing how happy he was made Kate remember how unhappy she was. Tears threatened again. She’d cried more in the last few weeks than she had in a year. She was sick of being such a girl. She rose, wiped her face again. “I need to go lie down.”
He pushed off the couch. “Are you going to be okay?”
That was a ludicrous question at the moment. Her heart had just been ripped to shreds, and she still didn’t understand what had really happened to her. But knowing that wasn’t the answer Mitch wanted to hear, she mustered up a pathetic smile. “I’ll survive. I’ve learned how to cope along the way.”
***
Wind pelted the small house. A sliver of moonlight peeked through the sheer curtains in Kate’s living room, shining right in Mitch’s eyes. Tossing an arm over his face to block out the light, he muttered curses. Whatever happened to real curtains?
Slap. Slap. Slap.
Good God, what was that? He flopped onto his side and yanked the pillow over his head to block out the relentless sound and obnoxious light. How the hell did Kate ever fall asleep in this place?
Slap. Slap. Slap.
No way he was sleeping with that incessant noise. On a frustrated groan, he tossed back the covers and moved toward the kitchen. Waves crashed against the sand outside. Placing a hand up to the window, he peeked into the backyard.
Slap. Slap. Slap.
The screen flapped furiously in the wind. Pulling the back door open, he eased down the back steps in his bare feet, shivering in the cool night air. Sand gritted between his toes. A gust of wind whipped his hair in his face, reminding him he needed another haircut already. Damn thing grew like a weed.
The screen hung carelessly on rusted hinges. He ran his fingers along the doorjamb searching for a hook or latch of some kind. No way Kate just let it flop around all day and night. Unable to find anything, he made a mental note to fix it for her tomorrow. If nothing else, he could give her a peaceful night’s sleep.
A twig cracked behind him. His fingers paused on the wood. He turned. A shadow darted to the side. Pain exploded in the side of his head before he could follow the movement.
“Motherfucker.” He gripped his head and made it up one step before everything went black.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Light from the refrigerator spilled over Ryan into the dark kitchen. He stood with the door open, peering into the massive cavern. He wasn’t hungry, and a beer wasn’t going to quench the ache in the pit of his stomach. But lying in that bed upstairs remembering Katie next to him wasn’t doing much to help him relax either.
He glanced toward the phone. He should call her. But he didn’t know if she’d listen or just hang up on him. Rubbing a hand over the pain in his chest, he let out a long breath and closed his eyes. He’d give her a day. Then he’d try again. She wasn’t getting rid of him that easy.
His cell phone rang, and he jumped. Slamming the refrigerator door, he reached for it on the counter. Hope pulsed through him. Hope that she’d finally come to her senses.
“Katie?”
“Ryan, it’s Simone.”
“Oh, hey.” Disappointment flowed.
“Ryan, Mitch isn’t answering his phone.”
The hair on the back of his neck stood up at the panic he heard in her words. “What?”
“He’s not answering his cell. He told me he’d have it on him at all times. Kate’s not answering her home phone or cell, either.”
Oh, shit. He didn’t even think, just headed for the hall where he’d left his shoes. “I hired security to sit outside her house. They haven’t called. It could just be the storm.”
“Right,” Simone said, but he knew she believed that as much as he did. “My PI finally emailed his report. My server was down today so I just got it. Ryan, Walter Alexander had two daughters. One of them died of cancer five years ago. Paula McKellen.”
Ryan stopped with one hand on the front door, the keys to his rental car in his hand as realization dawned. “That’s how he was linked to the McKellen name. He married into it.”
“Yes. Walter Alexander is—or was—Karl McKellen, president of McKellen Publishing. His daughter Paula married a Jacob Alexander eight years ago. She died