Their coffee arrived at breakneck speed, and the waitress confided, “The guy who’s using the computer now is in here every night, so I told him his time was up in five minutes.”
“Thanks,” Jonah said.
Kathryn only raised her eyebrows and sipped her coffee.
Once they were in the enclosed booth, it took him hardly any time at all to set up the Internet connection so it would operate like a regular telephone. “Here.” He handed the headset microphone to Kathryn. “You talk in here, but your father’s voice will come out of the speakers.”
She hesitated. “And you’re certain he won’t know where I’m calling from?”
“If his system can figure out anything at all—which I doubt—it’ll tell him you’re in Seattle. Go on, dial the phone.”
She clicked out the number of Jock Campbell’s private phone line on the screen display, and just moments later heard her father’s voice. “Daddy?”
“Kathryn! Thank God. Where are you, darling? Are you all right?”
“I’m fine, Daddy.”
“And you’re coming straight home, aren’t you? Douglas is here with me. He’s upset, of course, and he doesn’t understand why you left anymore than I do, but he’s quite willing to let bygones be bygones.”
Kathryn shot a look up at Jonah, who had perched on the arm of her chair. “So he’s willing to marry me even though I ran away?”
“Of course he is, darling.”
In the background she heard an Ivy League accent. “Tell her we’ve both made mistakes. Of course I’ll forgive her.”
“Well, that’s too bad for him,” Kathryn said crisply, “because I’m not willing to forgive his. You might ask him about his last trip to Las Vegas, Daddy—the one when he was supposed to be somewhere else. And while you’re at it, you might take a really careful look at Douglas’s finances.”
Jock sounded puzzled. “What was that, Kathryn? I only heard part of that. Your voice was breaking up, as if there was some electronic interference.”
Jonah muttered, “Hang up.”
“Is there someone there with you, darling?” Jock’s voice sharpened into suspicion. “Is someone telling you what to say?”
“No, Daddy. I just called to tell you not to worry about me. But I won’t be coming home for a while.”
“Kathryn—”
She clicked the disconnect button and turned to Jonah. “There. I tried to be reasonable. Are you satisfied?”
He nodded absently. He was thinking hard.
“Good.” She led the way back to their booth. “Now that I’ve set Daddy’s mind at rest—so to speak—what’s next?”
He took a long swallow of coffee. “What else do you have in that purse besides a passport?”
“Credit card. Makeup. Nail file. That kind of thing.”
It figured, he thought. She carried everything she considered essential, but not much that was useful. “Any actual money?”
“Not much. I’ve never been in the habit of carrying cash.”
He supposed that for most of her life she hadn’t needed to. There would have always been someone with her to pay the bill or sign the charge ticket. “That’s too bad, because I don’t have a lot on me at the moment, either. Your credit card accounts are probably already being watched, so if there’s a transaction, Jock will know it before the ink’s dry. I’ve got a card, too, but it won’t be good for much longer, either.”
“Why not? Nobody knows you’re with me.”
“Jock will know soon enough, honey. They’ll be questioning everybody who was on the estate today. And when they find out that I left about the same time you did, and that nobody’s seen me since…. Well, it never did take Jock Campbell long to add two and two and come up with half a dozen. We are going to need to get hold of some serious cash.”
“Why?”
“Because we’re going to be on the run for a while. I wish the library was open.”
She frowned a little and said very gently, as if she was humoring him, “If you’re thinking of somewhere to rob, wouldn’t it be better to choose a bank?”
“Thank you for that excellent advice, Katie Mae,” he said dryly. “I’m not planning to steal the overdue book fines, I want some information—because at the moment, I don’t know how far we’ll have to go, or even in what direction.”
“For what?” She was beginning to sound exasperated.
“To find a state…” he set his coffee cup down with a firm click and looked at her very deliberately “…where we won’t have to jump through a lot of hoops in order to get married.”
Kathryn choked on a mouthful of coffee. “You mean…you…”
“I’ll marry you, yes. Or are you backing out of the deal?”
Am I? She’d have expected to feel relief at his announcement, not this sudden wave of blinding panic. This was what she’d wanted, she told herself desperately. What she’d asked for. But now…
It’s just the suddenness of it, she told herself. It’s the same good idea it always was. I’m just surprised that he changed his mind, that’s all.
Of course, said a little voice in the back of her brain, fifteen percent of a national restaurant chain was well worth changing one’s mind for.
But wasn’t that the whole point? She knew exactly why he was marrying her; that absolute certainty was why she’d made the offer in the first place.
“No,” she said as firmly as she could manage. “I’m not backing out.”
“Then from here on out, we’re partners. Fifty-fifty in everything, right?” He held out a hand.
She laid her palm against his and felt an almost electrical zing from the contact.
“What am I thinking? I don’t need a library,” he muttered, and only an instant after taking her hand, he pulled away. Before Kathryn could gather her wits, he’d crossed the room again to a vacant computer station.
She sipped her coffee. It was cold now, but she didn’t care.
Married. She could almost hear her father roaring at the news that within hours of her broken engagement she was seriously planning to marry a different man.
A very different man, she thought. With Jonah, there were no false promises, no crossed fingers behind the back, no faked declarations of love. Just honesty and openness. And kindness, of course. Perhaps that was the most important factor of all, in Kathryn’s estimation. Few men would brave Jock Campbell’s wrath in order to help his daughter, even with the promise of a good chunk of his empire dangling before them. Jonah—despite his firsthand experience of what the man was capable of—hadn’t hesitated. And he’d done a good deal of helping even before she’d offered him the deal of a lifetime.
Well, Kathryn corrected, he hadn’t hesitated much.
Jonah came back to the table, folding a paper napkin. “This may be a little trickier than I thought. It appears that the easiest places to get married in this country are a long way from Minnesota.”
“Well, putting some distance between us and my father might not be a bad idea.”
“A very long way. We don’t have