Read Love and Honor: The Coltrane Saga, Book 7 for Free Online Page B

helped her. We missed the train. It couldn’t be helped.”
    Travis shook his head. “I don’t know, Kit. Parents are always stricter with girls, I guess, but she seems extra hard on you. I think it’s because she wants you to pick up where she left off and be famous, so she can live her life over again through you. It’s sad, and I’m sorry it’s like that for you.”
    “It’s too late for her,” Kit said somewhat harshly. “I love to dance, but I never cared for ballet, and she’s always been a little hurt about that. No, I think she just wants to see me properly married. She’s worried that I’ve got a wild streak and will ruin the good name of Coltrane.”
    “You’d never do that, and she knows it. I also think that Mother is bored with Spain. If it hadn’t been for her constant traveling around Europe, she wouldn’t have been able to stand it for as long she has. But now there’s so much going on back in the States that she can’t stand being away any longer. She wants to go home, but you don’t, do you?”
    “Home?” Kit echoed. “Spain is the only home I’ve ever really known, Travis. I was just a little girl when we came here. I’ve grown up feeling that this is home, and the times we went to New York for a visit, I couldn’t wait to get back here. I love everything about it, and I don’t want to leave. And I’ll tell you something else, too…” She leaned forward and met the steady gaze of his steel-gray eyes, so like their father’s and grandfather’s. “I’ve never told anyone this, not even Grandma, but if they move back to New York, I swear to you I’ll find a way to come back here.”
    Travis looked at her as though he thought she’d lost her mind. “Come back to what? They’ll sell the ranch. You’ll have nothing left to come back to. And even though you don’t like to be reminded of the fact, Kit, you are a woman, and women just don’t go to foreign countries to live by themselves. Father wouldn’t stand for it. You know that.”
    Kit pursed her lips thoughtfully. She could confide anything to her twin, so she plunged on. “What about Grandma and Marilee?”
    “What about them? Marilee is going to finishing school in Switzerland next year, remember? And what makes you think Grandma would want to live in Spain?”
    “She might. With me.”
    “Probably,” he conceded. “It’s no secret that you’re her favorite.”
    Kit made no attempt to deny it, since everyone knew it was so. “Besides, she’ll be lonesome in Paris when you go to West Point.”
    “ If I go to West Point,” Travis solemnly corrected.
    “If? Ha! You’re certain to get an appointment from the President himself, and you know it. That should be the least of your worries, and I’m proud and happy for you. I read the papers, Travis,” she reminded him with a frown, “and I know there are a lot of problems between America and Mexico. I’ll be just as happy as our parents to see you in West Point for the next four years instead of in Europe…trying to stay out of war, if it comes, and away from demimondes,” she finished with a giggle, leaping from the divan as he reached to give her hair a playful yank.
    “Mother is right,” he yelled after her, pretending to be mad. “You’re incorrigible!”
    Kit ran from the room, warmed by the cognac…and thoughts of the exciting evening ahead.

Chapter Four
    Everything went according to plan. Kit dressed in a green satin gown, the epitome of quiet elegance, and made her appearance in the foyer. Her mother, lovely in blue velvet, was fretting about Kitty being so slow. Her father was as handsome and striking as her brother. They both wore formal tuxedoes with tails, pleated white shirts, white vests, bold red ties, and shining black patent slippers. They could almost have passed for twins, Kit mused, were it not for her father’s close-clipped mustache and the distinguished gray at his temples.
    Marilee was adorable in her pink and white ruffled