Actually, Kate couldn’t imagine the inn being anything but a bed-and-breakfast. The family had always had their private quarters, and the guests who’d stayed with them over the years had left behind interesting stories that had become part of the house’s rich tapestry of history.
As a native daughter of Savannah, Kate had passed by Doris’s house dozens, if not hundreds, of times in her twenty-six years, but she had never known who lived here. She had certainly never been inside. She made a mental note to ask Gigi and Charles what they knew about it. Between the two of them, they knew practically everyone in the historic district.
Based on the address, Doris wasn’t hurting financially as a single mother. Because places like this—even the grand old houses that had fallen into the worst of disrepair, and this one looked impeccably preserved—didn’t come cheap. Suddenly Kate wondered about Doris’s story.
Kate hadn’t allowed herself to think too much about the woman since meeting her last weekend. Because that would have forced her to examine the fact that Doris obviously had a crush on Aidan. If she had thought about it too hard, she would have had to talk to Aidan about it and that would have made her seem jealous, or needy and territorial.
The only time Doris had come up in conversation was when Aidan had asked Kate if she would be willing to take Chloe to the afternoon gathering. It was her day off. He had said it would be a good chance to meet Chloe’s friends and their moms.
If Aidan had been interested in Doris, he could have gone to the gathering himself or come along with the two of them.
Because of that, she had pushed back the little voice that nagged in the dark corners of her brain—that beautiful, wealthy Doris Watson had a lot to offer a man.
But obviously, Aidan had had his chance to be with Doris if he had wanted to.
He swore he had been in his right mind when he had married Kate in Vegas. He was the one who had been determined to stay in the marriage and make it work.
Funny, as she walked up to the grand front entrance of Doris’s house, Kate realized, for the first time ever, that she wasn’t worried about being the one who was like her father. She was worried that Aidan might pull a Fred.
Actually, no. She wasn’t worried about that. Not at all.
Aidan Quindlin was nothing like Fred Clark.
When Aidan married her, he had promised to be faithful—she knew this because she’d revisited the keepsake book from the Elvis wedding chapel that contained a copy of the vows they had supposedly exchanged.
And he would remain faithful unlike her father, who, after cheating and leaving her mom, had returned years later to sue her for half of everything, left them in financial ruin and had broken Zelda’s heart, though he’d lost the case.
No. Aidan was nothing like Fred Clark.
She wasn’t going to insult him by letting petty insecurities make her doubt him.
She and Aidan were married now. Even if the marriage wasn’t based on love—even if he had just married her so that Chloe could have a mother—he had married her. Not Doris.
Kate lifted Chloe so she could used the lion’s head door knocker to knock on the large double doors that were painted in candy apple red lacquer.
Right away, a petite older woman dressed in a crisp white tunic blouse and cobalt blue pants that skimmed her ankles answered the door. Her small, manicured feet were encased in bejeweled thong sandals. Her jet-black hair was styled in a sleek bob. She looked as if she had stepped out of a Talbots ad featuring mature women.
“Hello! You must be here for Beatrice’s rock-painting party,” she said. “I’m Candice Watson, Beatrice’s grandmother.”
It didn’t escape Kate that the woman hadn’t called herself Doris’s mother. Same last name. Was Candice the paternal grandmother?
“I’m Kate Clark. This is my daughter, Chloe.”
“Of course, I know Chloe. She’s been over here to play with Beatrice many times since the girls moved in.”
Since the girls moved in?
“Come in, come in,” Candice said. “The party has started already. Everyone is in the kitchen.”
Were they late? Kate had made it a point to be here right at the time stated on the invitation. She could hear the sound of children laughing and female voices in another room.
The rich-looking foyer was all dark polished wood and Persian rugs. A mirrored, antique buffet with a marble top stood sentinel along the parallel wall and oil paintings with thick, ornately carved gilded frames graced the persimmon-colored walls on either side.
Candice walked ahead as if she expected them to follow.
Suddenly shy, Chloe clung to Kate’s hand and pressed her cheek against Kate’s hip, half hiding behind her. Kate gave the little girl’s hand a gentle and reassuring double squeeze, hoping to telegraph, No worries. I’m here for you.
Kate felt a bit nervous herself. Like she was walking into the lioness’s den.
Chloe had always seemed like such a good-natured child. Even during the time that Aidan had been in the hospital and she, Elle and Daniel had cared for her, she had seemed remarkably well adjusted. This was the first time she was noticing the more reticent side of Chloe.
Until now, it hadn’t dawned on Kate that this brave little girl had previously had no choice but to boldly march into mother-daughter get-togethers like this one alone, without a mother at her side. Or, at best, as the guest of another mother-daughter duo.
For Kate, being surrounded by the protective love and support of her sisters, mother and Gigi had always been such a given that sometimes she unwittingly took it for granted. She couldn’t imagine what it was
