Night Whispers - Leslie Kelly [74]
“Congratulations, Mitch. You look well,” she said as she slipped her arm through his and smiled up at him.
“Thank you. I’m surprised to see you here.”
“Well,” she admitted with a trill of laughter, “I have a confession to make. I made quite certain Daddy and the rest of the board members of the society knew all about the wonders you’d done with your writing. I wanted this for you, Mitch.”
She tightened her grip on his arm, pressing her breasts against him, her eyes flashing an unmistakable invitation. Mitch felt more uncomfortable by the minute.
“Let’s go take our seats,” she said. “I’ve arranged for you to sit with Daddy and me.”
Mitch followed her to the table and spent most of the evening listening to rich men congratulate themselves on their charitable work. Not one of them looked as if he’d ever actually seen a homeless person, though they all claimed to be terribly concerned about them.
Accepting his award with his prepared remarks, Mitch bowed his head at the perfunctory applause and wished he could make a getaway out the back. The people surrounding him seemed to fade into a blur. They were frivolous and selfish, amusingly catty and condescending. And he knew he could end up just like them.
He felt sick to his stomach.
“Mitch, do say you’ll come over for Thanksgiving dinner,” Amanda invited. “It was so lovely last year when you joined us. And since you don’t have any family nearby, we’d hate for you to be alone.”
Mitch thought about the upcoming holidays. For the first time in several years, he pictured himself actually enjoying them. Cooking a turkey, watching a football game, eating so much he could barely move from the table. But when he pictured all these things, it wasn’t Amanda’s father’s mansion he saw. It was his own kitchen.
And Kelsey.
The banquet broke up around eleven, and everyone drifted outside to wait for their limousines. Amanda held on to his arm and urged Mitch to come out for a drink. He never even considered it.
He wanted to be home with Kelsey. Tonight, Thanksgiving night, every night before and after. He loved her. Mitch had admitted to himself that he loved her long before now, but finally the truth of it hit him. He didn’t love Kelsey for the person he wanted her to be. He loved her for the zany, irrepressible, gutsy person she was.
She had been right. In wanting her to give up her show, he’d been asking her to be someone she wasn’t. He was basically urging her to do what he had done in his own life: subdue emotion, live logically and by the rules. Doing just that had made Mitch secure financially and socially, but had also left him feeling vaguely unsatisfied, that he was missing out on something. And when Kelsey came waltzing into his ordered home, she’d reminded him of what that was. Passion. Exuberance. Excitement. Laughter. All the rich spices that blended to make a person’s life complete—all the flavors he’d tried so hard to make bland through work and ambition.
This evening’s glimpse of what his world had been like without her was all it took to convince him he wanted Kelsey to stay exactly the way she was. And to stay with him. Mitch grinned and laughed out loud. He felt like shouting to the moon, but settled for whistling instead.
He was about to make his excuses to Amanda when he saw her eyes widen and her mouth drop open in shock. She stood under a covered awning on a sidewalk outside the hotel and stared out at the street. Mitch followed her stare.
A city bus belching diesel made its way sluggishly up the street to the nearby covered stop. The bus was a typical grimy gray, and only one person waited to board it. Mitch didn’t realize what had so captured Amanda’s attention until he saw his own face gliding to a slow stop right in front of his eyes.
“Son of a…” he muttered softly, not believing what he saw.
A huge picture covered the side of the bus—a picture of Mitch and Kelsey…or, more accurately, of the pirate and his wench. A photo of Mitch bending toward Kelsey