Lakeshore Secrets: The McAdams Sisters - Kate McAdams (By The Lake Series Book 1) (14 page)

She did laugh then. “Oh promises promises.”

“I never break my promises.”

She let the sharp pain that seared through her conscious slide and ate her pasta pushing the guilt further and further down.

After she’d finished eating she set her bowl on the table but didn’t move toward him. He stared at her, his bowl of pasta still half full. She stood up and stretched high, his shirt moving above her thighs. “I think I’m a little tired now,” she said. She rubbed her stomach. “All that delicious pasta.” He watched her. “I think I’m going to go lie in that large queen log bed and have an afternoon nap.” He watched her as she began to slowly step away. She unbuttoned the top button. “But now with all that wood in the fire it’s awfully warm.” She unbuttoned the next.

He stood. She grinned.

He slowly walked toward her and she continued taking steps back until his shirt was completely unbuttoned just resting on her shoulders and her back was against the closed bedroom door. Tantalizing brown eyes stared down at her and he stopped inches from her body not touching but she could feel him. He bent down to her ear. She thought he was going to whisper something and she closed her eyes anticipating his deep sexy voice. Instead he kissed her neck. Soft at first, trailing her collarbone and his hands up her stomach in the middle of her chest and slid his shirt off her, sliding his hands down his arm and grasping her hands. He lifted them above her and kissed her.

“Are you ready for more than snuggling?” he finally asked. She had waited over six years for more than snuggling. He definitely kept his promise, followed by a warm shower neither of them needed but it had nothing to do with need. Then they did end up snuggling in the warm thick sheets and quilts on the queen log bed, completely exhausted. Kate closed her eyes feeling like this was going to be the beginning of a love that had ended much too early.

They left early the next morning, reluctantly and not before a morning play date in bed followed by pancakes and a rendezvous in the shower...again. And to his surprise a company truck managed their way to the cabin to pick them up. He probably would have questioned them if Kate hadn’t been all over him like a lusting teenager he couldn’t resist.

In the elevator they each hit the button to their floors and when the doors closed, and they found themselves alone in the four walled cube, he quickly caught her in his arms for a last kiss. She laughed. Each floor chimed as they passed until, too quickly, the door opened and they were at her floor. She pulled away. “Have a safe ride home!” she called with a last wave and wink.

Marc slunk back against the wall. What had just happened? He hadn’t felt so whole in years. Lord, how he had missed her smile, laugh, sense of humor, everything that was her...not to mention her lips, her body. He shook his head sauntering out of the elevator. He wasn’t sure where they stood, what they were doing, but it felt so good he didn’t want to question it. She was considering coming home to start a business with her family. That would land them in the same town. Once again. And then would they have the future?

His uncle caught him in the hallway, showered and dressed in a plain grey suit with a smile across his face. Marc felt underdressed still in the day before outfit. A dry cleaned suit awaited him in his room. “Good morning,” his uncle greeted, his hands casually in pants pockets.

“Morning,” Marc said, skipping the usual suspicion that was beginning to be a pop up like weeds around his uncle.

“Looks like you had a good night. The car is being pulled around, pack your things and I will meet you in the lobby.” He patted Marc’s shoulder as he passed, heading to the elevator.

“Everything went smooth with the deal?” Alright, so he was a little curious. They hadn’t had the lawyers draw up the papers, meet them out here, and drive this whole way for him to dismiss it over one rendezvous with Kate. An amazing rendezvous none the less.

“Oh,” his uncle turned half way down the hall as if the thought had just come to him. “The deal fell through.” He waved a hand as though it was no big deal.

“What do you mean it fell through?” Marc started making his way back down the hall toward his uncle. How could it fall through? Everything was in that contract from both parties.

“Another day another deal, hurry up and pack. We have a long drive home.” He turned to leave again dismissing him, as usual, but Marc caught his arm. His uncle turned, a sharpness in his look from his hand to his eyes.

“What happened?” Marc demanded. Enough of this beating around the bush.

“Nothing out of the ordinary Marcus. You will learn sometimes deals don’t always go as planned. That’s part of buying and selling. You buy some and some you don’t. Get used to it.”

“I would like to talk to him.”

“He just wasn’t as interested as they presented. No need to waste either parties time on nothing. Pack your bags and meet me downstairs in ten.” Carl left no room for discussion and Marc released his arm, watching him walk toward the elevator. “I’m starving maybe we will stop for breakfast on the road.”

Back in his room he changed, packed and headed out, against his uncle’s warning, to find the owner. He boarded the elevator and set out toward the main lobby. He noted the day before that the offices were beyond the main lobby desk and down a hall off the main lobby.

He left his bags at the front desk with the friendly ladies and headed across the foyer.

He caught sight of his uncle standing by the very hall he needed to pass, conversing with Kate. Those suspicious weeds wouldn’t have started growing around had their body language not been rigid and bitter, possessing matching icy cold stares like the frosted bush they had trailed through the afternoon before.

He stopped dead in his tracks. His uncle held an envelope in his hand that he continued trying to make her accept. Dressed just as she’d stepped off the elevator, she pushed it back, shaking her head. A chill so cold in her eyes it made its way through Marc’s entire body. There were words exchanged, words he could not hear nor make out, but they weren’t friendly but were sparked by anger and disagreement.

A realization set off the ticking time bomb quietly resting, waiting in his mind after all these years to finally reach the end of its wick. Putting together the envelope, their
accidental
run-in initiated by the fuming brunette and finally a missed meeting his uncle didn’t want him anywhere near for weeks that coincidently fell through with no reason, sent the bomb exploding anger all the way to his clenching fists.

Marc didn’t want to talk to either betraying contributors however they were blocking the hall to the office and he couldn’t simply walk by his uncle without prompting more friction between them.

Marc walked right toward the two engaged in what appeared to be an argument and took Kate by the arm planting a kiss on her trembling lips.

“Will you excuse us?” Surprising both of them he managed to guide her down the hall and around the corner. When they were out of sight he let her go.

“Marc, what are you doing?” she asked with a smile forming. “That was awfully blunt right in front of your uncle. We don’t even know where this is going.” She looked anything but concerned.

“Using you, like you used me.” His tone was cold.

The sweetness he’d cuddled with that morning traveled away like she had six years ago.

“Don’t look so shocked Kate. I’m not the fool you seem to think I am. Did Carl pay you to sleep with me?”

Her eyes grew round horrified. “Marcus!”

“Is that a yes in disguise? Whatever is going on between you two probably dates back to my father.”

She quietly glared at him.

“I’m not far off am I?”

Her arms crossed slowly in front of her like rope binding them below her chest. “I refuse to be a part of this Marc. If you have something going on with your uncle, take it up with him. Don’t throw accusations at me.”

“Accusations I’ve always suspected.” But never wanted to believe. Didn’t believe. Until now.

She stood tall and didn’t shy away like a scared kitten. “I didn’t sleep with you for money from your uncle. If that’s your first instinct on a conversation I’m having with your uncle we should both do ourselves a favor and stop here.”

“Consider it stopped.”

She nodded. “Watch it Caliendo, your reflection is starting to look a lot like that of your fathers. I guess my decision all those years ago was the right one.” Without a blink she walked past him and left him alone in the hall.

The office door was only feet down the hall, but confusion muddled around his head. He was exactly where he had planned on being, down the hall to the office without his uncle’s suspicion. He stared after Kate. He hadn’t thought any of that conversation through sounding like an accusing, unfiltered Izzy. But how far from the truth was he?

***

Marc was beyond furious by the time the silent, tense eight hour drive had ended and he parked the vehicle in the underground parking lot at the resort. He popped the trunk for his uncle but refused to get his own luggage, leaving him alone in the parking lot. He was at his limit. One second Marc was doing everything right and the next he was brushed under the rug. Marc couldn’t figure him out. As usual when Carl didn’t want to get into detail, he had brushed off the detailed conversation he had shared in that office. He was giving it the benefit of the doubt.
Come clean; tell me what is going on.
Nothing.

Marc didn’t know what to think. His father’s warning, and then the hotel owner telling him that he and his uncle shared a lack of thirst for power that his father had possessed. What the hell was he supposed to do with all of that!

If his uncle wouldn’t talk to Marc about it then he was going to go to the next best source, Eliza. And if the two of them or either one were undertaking shady deals like his father, he didn’t want his name attached to it. He would pack a bag and go back south.

However, now wasn’t a good time to face his mother. He was exhausted and angry. In all his life he couldn’t remember being this furious, except when Kate had left. Maybe that was what was spawning this reaction so unlike him that he felt the need to cool off in his suite until his thoughts could rationalize. He was the spitting image of his mother’s level-headed, lack of temper, but not at the current moment.

Unfortunately his mother was stretched out by the pool, her nose dipped in a book in the main area of their living quarters. He hoped he could sneak past her but she was too observant and glanced up at him with a huge, smiling, delightful greeting asking him how the trip was.

“We didn’t buy a hotel,” he said straight-forward and continued his pace.

“Your uncle already told me.” He stopped a few feet away from her. Of course he had. She waved her hand at him. “Who needs another hotel anyways? Just more responsibility. I want to know how your day was. With Kate,” she added.

She wasn’t the least bit curious about the reason behind the deal falling through. He suspected because she knew exactly why they didn’t get it. Funny, he had no idea.

“I don’t want to talk about it.”

She frowned. “Oh no Marcus, what happened?”

“Nothing,” he snarled, definitely not about to get into Kate details with her.

She sat up straighter, surprised by his attitude. “Marcus, what has gotten into you today?” She stared up at him with puzzlement. How could she possibly be puzzled? She knew. He knew she knew.

“Do you really want to know?” he asked.

“Of course I do. Tell me.” That was his mother, always there to listen and guide.

He crossed his arms over his chest. “I’m tired of all the bullshit here.”

“Marcus!” He hadn’t even noticed Emma, Violet and her kids across the pool in the shallow end splashing around. He would have never missed a detail like that if he wasn’t so distracted.

Violet ushered the kids out of the pool. “Go to your rooms and get changed for bed.” Violet and Emma, neither dressed for swimming, walked their way towards the loud voices.

“What’s going on?” Violet asked, crossing her arms.

“I want to know exactly what is going on with Carl and you.” He stared at his mother. “I don’t want excuses or brush offs. I want the truth Mother and you are going to give it to me.”

She looked even more shocked with his abruptness. “Marcus, please, where on earth is all this coming from?”

“I am tired of being screwed around! ‘Be a part of this Marcus,’ ‘no don’t worry about that detail Marcus,’ ‘here’s only half the truth,’ if it’s even the truth.” He threw his hands in the air. “You and Carl are taking me this way and that way.” His hands were flying one direction and then the next and he felt like Izzy dramatically trying to get her point across. “You want my involved and then you don’t. You want me to take Dad’s position, but not all of it. Let’s just get all the facts out here so I know where I stand.”

He watched the surprise and shock slink away from her face and knowledge and guilt creep in.

“Marcus, let’s talk about this later,” she said. “Maybe once you have calmed down.”

He shook his head. He had been all keen for that but now that it was out there he wasn’t about to walk away. “No, I want the answers now.”

Eliza looked up at her daughters. “I would prefer to discuss this with Carl present.”

“I’m here.” His deep voice came from behind them. Marc didn’t turn. He watched his mother glance past him her eyes speaking to him in a language Marc couldn’t read. Marc wasn’t sure if he wanted his uncle present or not.

She looked at her daughters. “Girls, could you give us some privacy please?”

Marc held his hand up to stop them from moving. What difference did it really make if they stayed or left? They were finished hiding secrets from each other. The truth was for them all, they were a family in this together. “You two stay.” He looked at his mom. “You can explain to all of us why you insisted I come back to take over with praise one second, then dismissal the next. Tell me what Dad was referring to when he said Carl wasn’t who he appeared to be. I’m not like Dad if that’s what you are trying to create. I don’t want to be involved in dishonest deals. I didn’t come back to hurt people for money.”

She slowly rose to her feet, her eyes absorbed with concern. She closed the distance between them, then standing before him, only inches shorter than him, with her shoulders squared. “I didn’t realize you felt this way Marcus. Why didn’t you come and talk to me sooner? You have always talked to me.” She touched his hand. “I didn’t realize Robert had said anything to you.”

“Do you know what he is referring too?”

She nodded.

He hadn’t thought differently. “Robert left us with a lot of messes to clean up after he passed. And Carl and I have been trying to sort through it quietly without involving any of you children.” Her eyes made rounds to everyone, each daughter, Carl and back to him. “Robert was not an honest man. He’s hurt people too, with his actions and we have been trying to repair the damage.” Marc didn’t think now was a wise time to mention his father had requested he acquire the responsibilities they’d both taken on. “Marcus I want you to run a clean resort and all the transactions and investments you make I want them to be honest ones. I’m sorry I did not come and talk to you sooner,” she looked around again. “To all of you and explain our decision.” Marc relaxed, the pent up anger he wasn’t used to withholding slowly parted like the fall wind breaking leaves away from the branches. If they had been honest with him, he felt the last months would have gone much smoother. It still didn’t explain his father’s warnings about his uncle. Marc wanted to glare at him. He had better not be manipulating his mother. These were all her words, and what were his uncle’s thoughts?