by Diana Palmer
His hand stilled as he realized what he was doing. The girls were right in the next room, for God’s sake. Was he losing his mind?
He jerked his hand back as if he’d scalded it and his expression became icy. “You’d better change,” he said through his teeth.
She didn’t move. Her eyes were wide, curious, apprehensive. She didn’t understand his actions or his obvious anger.
But he was suspicious of her. He didn’t trust her, and he didn’t like his unchecked response to her. She could be anybody, with any motive in mind. She dressed like a repressed woman, but she never resisted anything physical that he did to her. He began to wonder if she was playing up to him with marriage in mind—or at least some financially beneficial liaison. He knew that she wasn’t wealthy. He was. It put him at a disadvantage when he tried to puzzle out her motives. He knew how treacherous some women could be, and he’d been fooled once in recent months by a woman out for what she could get from him. She’d been kind to the girls, too, and she’d played the innocent with Gil, leading him on until they ended up in her bedroom. Of course, she’d said then, they’d have to get married once they’d been intimate…
He’d left her before the relationship was consummated, and he hadn’t called her again. Not that she’d given up easily. She’d stalked him until he produced an attorney and a warrant, at which point she’d given up the chase.
Now, he was remembering that bad experience and superimposing her image over Kasie’s innocent-looking face. He knew nothing about her. He couldn’t take the risk of believing what he thought he saw in her personality. She could be playing him for a sucker, very easily.
“You don’t hold anything back, do you?” he asked conversationally, and it didn’t show that he’d been affected by her. “Are you like that all the way into the bedroom?” he added softly, so that the girls wouldn’t hear.
Kasie drew in a long breath. “I wouldn’t know,” she said huskily, painfully aware that she’d just made an utter fool of herself. “I’ll get dressed.”
“You might as well, where I’m concerned,” he said pleasantly. “You’re easy on the eyes, Kasie, but in the dark, looks don’t matter much.”
She stared at him with confusion, as if she couldn’t believe she was hearing such a blatant remark from him.
He slid his hands into his pockets and studied her arrogantly from head to toe. “You’d need to be prettier,” he continued, “and with larger…assets,” he said with a deliberate study of her pert breasts. “I’m particular about my lovers these days. It takes a special woman.”
“Which, thank God, I’m not,” she choked, flushing. “I don’t sleep around.”
“Of course not,” he agreed.
She turned away from him with a sick feeling in her stomach. She’d loved his touch. It had been her first experience of passion, and it had been exquisite because it was Gil touching her. But he thought she was offering herself, and he didn’t want her. She should be glad. She wasn’t a loose woman. But it was a deliberate insult, and she wondered what she’d done to make him want to hurt her.
Her reaction made him even angrier, but he didn’t let it show. “Giving up so easily?” he taunted.
She kept her back to him so that he wouldn’t see her face. “We’ve had this conversation once,” she pointed out. “I know that you don’t want to remarry, and I’ve told you that I don’t sleep around. Okay?”
“If I catch you in bed with that hack writer, I’ll fire you on the spot,” he added, viciously.
She turned then and glared at him from wet eyes. “What’s the matter with you?” she asked.
“A sudden awakening of reason,” he said enigmatically. “You look after the girls. That’s your job.”
“I never thought it involved anything else,” she said.
“And it doesn’t,” he agreed. “The fringe benefits don’t include the boss.”
“Some fringe benefit,” she scoffed, regaining her composure. “A conceited, overbearing, arrogant rancher who thinks he’s on every woman’s Christmas list!”
He lifted an eyebrow over eyes with cynical sophistication gleaming in them. “Don’t look for me under your Christmas tree,” he chided.
“Don’t worry, I won’t.” She turned and kept walking before he could say anything worse. Of all the conceited men on earth!
He watched her go with mixed emotions, the strongest of which was desire. She made him ache all over. He checked his watch. Pauline’s ten minutes were up, and he wanted out of this apartment. He called a good-night to the girls and went out without another word to Kasie.
When he got back in, at two in the morning, he paused long enough to open Kasie’s door and look in.
She was wearing another of those concealing cotton gowns, with the covers thrown off. Jenny was curled up against one shoulder and Bess was curled into the other. They were all three asleep.
Gil ground his teeth together just looking at the picture they made together. His girls and Kasie. They looked more like mother and daughters. The thought hurt him. He closed the door with a little jerk and went back into his own room. Despite Pauline’s alluring gown and her spirited conversation, he had been morose all evening.
Pauline had noticed, and knew the reason. She was, she told herself, going to get rid of the competition. It only needed the right set of circumstances.
Fate provided them only two days later. Kasie and Gil were barely speaking now. She avoided him, and he did the same to her. If the girls noticed, they kept their thoughts to themselves. Impulsively Kasie phoned Zeke at his hotel and asked if he’d like to come over and have lunch with her at the hotel, since she couldn’t leave the girls.
He agreed with flattering immediacy, and showed up just as Kasie was drying off the girls.
“Surely you aren’t going to take them to lunch with you?” Pauline asked, laughing up at Zeke, who attracted her at once. “I’ll watch them while you eat.”
“Please can’t we stay and play in the pool?” Bess asked Kasie. “Miss Raines will watch us, she said so.”
“Please,” Jenny added with a forlorn look.
“You’ll be right inside, won’t you?” Pauline asked cunningly. “Go ahead and enjoy your lunch. I’m not going anywhere.”
For an instant, Kasie recalled that Gil didn’t trust Pauline with the girls. But it was only for a few minutes and, as Pauline had said, they were going to be just inside the nearby restaurant that overlooked the pool.
“Well, all right then, if you really don’t mind,” she told Pauline. “Thank you.”
“It’s my pleasure. Have fun now,” Pauline told her. “And don’t worry. Gil’s not going to be back for at least a half hour. He’s at the bank.”
Kasie brooded over it even while she and Zeke ate a delicious seafood salad. They were seated at a window overlooking the swimming pool, but a row of hedges and hibiscus obscured the view so that only the deep end of the pool could be seen from their table.
“Stop worrying,” Zeke told her with a grin. “Honestly, you act as if they were your own kids. You’re just the governess.”
“They’re my responsibility,” she pointed out. “If anything happened to them…”
“Your friend is going to watch them. Now stop arguing and let me tell you about this new hotel and casino they’re opening over on Paradise Island.”
“Okay,” she relented, smiling. “I’ll stop brooding.”
Outside by the pool, Pauline had noticed that Kasie and her companion couldn’t see beyond the hedges. She smiled coldly as she looked at the little girls. Jenny was sitting on the steps of the wading pool, playing with one of her dolls in the water.
Closer to Pauline, Bess was staring down at the swimming pool where the water was about six feet deep—far too deep for her to swim in.
“I wish I could dive,” she told Pauline.
“But it’s easy,” Pauline told her, making instant plans. “Just put your arms out in front of you like this,” she demonstra
ted, “and jump in. Really, it’s simple.”
“Are you sure?” Bess asked, thrilled that an adult might actually teach her how to dive!
“Of course! I’m right here. How dangerous can it be? Go ahead. You can do it.”
Of course she could, Bess thought, laughing with delight. She put her arms in the position Pauline had demonstrated and shifted her position to dive in. There wasn’t anybody else around the pool to notice if she did it wrong. She’d show her daddy when he came back. Wouldn’t he be surprised?
She moved again, just as Pauline suddenly turned around. Her leg accidentally caught one of Bess’s. Pauline fell and so did Bess, but Bess’s head hit the pavement as she went down. The momentum kept her going, and she rolled into the pool, unconscious.
“Oh, damn!” Pauline groaned. She got to her feet and looked into the pool, aware that Jenny was screaming. “Do shut up!” she told the child. “I’ll have to get someone…”
But even as she spoke, Gil came around the corner of the hotel, oblivious to what had just happened.
“Daddy!” Jenny screamed. “Bess falled in the swimmy pool!”
Gil didn’t even break stride. He broke into a run and dived in the second he was close enough. He went to the bottom, scooped up his little girl and swam back up with all the speed he could muster. Out of breath, he coughed as he lifted Bess onto the tiles by the pool and climbed out himself. He turned the child over and rubbed her back, aware that she was still breathing by some miracle. She coughed and water began to dribble out of her mouth, and then to gush out of it as she regained consciousness.
“Call an ambulance,” he shot at Pauline.
“Oh, dear, oh, dear,” she murmured, biting her nails.
“Call a damned ambulance!” he raged.
One of the pool boys saw what was going on and told Gil he’d phone from inside the hotel.
“Where’s Kasie?” Gil asked Pauline with hateful eyes as Jenny threw herself against him to be comforted. Bess was still coughing up water.
There it was. The opportunity. Pauline drew in a quick breath. “That man came by to take her to lunch. You know, the man she met on the plane. She begged me to watch the girls so they’d have time to talk.”
Gil didn’t say anything, but his eyes were very expressive. “Where is she?”
“I really don’t know,” Pauline lied, wide-eyed. “She didn’t say where they were going. She was clinging to him like ivy and obviously very anxious to be alone with him,” she added. “I can’t say I blame her, he’s very handsome.”
“Bess could have died.”
“But I was right here. I never left them,” she assured him. “The girls mean everything to me. Here, let me have Jenny. I’ll take care of her while you get Bess seen to.”
“Want Kasie,” Jenny whimpered.
“There, there, darling,” Pauline said sweetly, kissing the plump little cheek. “Pauline’s here.”
“Damn Kasie!” Gil bit off, horrified at what might have happened. Kasie knew he didn’t trust Pauline to watch the girls. Why had Kasie been so irresponsible? Was it to get back at him for what he’d said the night they arrived in Nassau?
When the ambulance arrived, Kasie and Zeke left their dessert half-eaten and rushed out the door. Zeke had to stop to pay the check, but Kasie, apprehensive and uneasy without knowing exactly why, rounded the corner of the building just in time to see little Bess being loaded onto the ambulance.
“Bess! What happened?!” Kasie asked, sobbing.
“She hit her head on the pool, apparently, and almost drowned, while you were away having a good time with your boyfriend,” Gil said furiously. The expression on his face could have backed down a mob. “You’ve got a ticket home. Use it today. Go back to the ranch and start packing. I want you out of my house when I get back. I’ll send your severance pay along, and you can thank your lucky stars that I’m not pressing charges!”
“But, but, Pauline was watching them—” Kasie began, horrified at Bess’s white face and big, tragic eyes staring at her from the ambulance.
“It was your job to watch them,” Gil shot at her. “That’s what you were paid to do. She could have died, damn you!”
Kasie went stark white. “I’m sorry,” she choked, horrified.
“Too late,” he returned, heading to the ambulance. “You heard me, Kasie,” he added coldly. “Get out. Pauline, take care of Jenny until I get back.”
“Of course, darling,” she cooed.
“And get her away from the swimming pool!”
“I’ll take her up to my room and read to her. I hope you’ll be fine, Bess, darling,” she added.
Kasie stood like a little statue, sick and alone and frightened as the ambulance closed up and rushed away, its lights flashing ominously.
Pauline turned and gave Kasie a superior appraisal. “It seems you’re out of a job, Miss Mayfield.”
Kasie was too sick at heart to react. She didn’t have it in her for a fight. Seeing Bess lying there, so white and fragile was acutely painful. Even Jenny seemed not to like her anymore. She buried her face against Pauline and clung.
Pauline turned and carried the child back to her chaise lounge to get her room key. Not bad, she thought, for a morning’s work. One serious rival accounted for and out of the way.
Zeke caught up with Kasie at the pool. “What happened?” he asked, brushing a stray tear from Kasie’s cheek.
“Bess almost drowned,” she said huskily. “Pauline promised to watch her. How did she hit her head?”
“I wouldn’t put much past that woman,” he told Kasie somberly. “Some people won’t tolerate rivals.”
“I’m no rival,” she replied. “I never was.”
Having noted the expression on her boss’s face at the airport when he’d said goodbye to Kasie, he could have disputed that. He knew jealousy when he saw it. The man had been looking at him as if he’d like to put a stake through his heart.
“He fired me,” Kasie continued dazedly. “He fired me, without even letting me explain.”
“Trust me, after whatever she told him, it wouldn’t have done any good. Go home and let things cool down,” he added. “Most men regain their reason when the initial upset passes.”
“You know a lot about people,” Kasie remarked as they started up to her room.
“I’m a reporter. It goes with the territory. I’ll go with you to the airport and help you change the ticket,” he added grimly. “Not that I want to. I was looking forward to getting to know you. Now we’ll be ships that passed in the night.”
“So we will. Do you believe in fate?” she asked numbly.
“I do. Most things happen for a reason. Just go with the flow.” He grinned. “And don’t forget to give me your home address! I won’t be out of the country forever.”
Chapter 8
It didn’t take long for Kasie to pack. She wouldn’t let herself think of what was ahead, because she’d cry, and she didn’t have time for tears. She changed into a neat gray pantsuit to travel in, and picked up her suitcase and purse to put them by the door. But she stopped long enough to find the phone number of the hospital and check on Bess. The head nurse on the floor, once Kasie’s relationship to the girls was made clear, told her that the child was sitting up in bed asking for ice cream. Kasie thanked her and hung up. She wondered if the news would have been quite as forthcoming if she’d mentioned that she’d just been fired.
She moved out into the sitting room with her heart like a heavy weight in her chest. She looked around to make sure she hadn’t forgotten anything and went into the hall with her small piece of carry-on luggage on wheels and her pocketbook. It was the most painful moment of her recent life. She thought of never seeing the girls and Gil again, of having Gil hate her. Tears stung her eyes, and she dashed at them impatiently with a tissue.
As she passed Pauline’s room, she hesitated. She wanted to say goodbye to little Jenny. But on second thought, she went ahead to the elevator, deciding tha
t it would only make matters worse. Besides, Pauline was probably still at the hospital with Gil. She wished she knew what had really happened by the pool. She should never have left the girls with Pauline, despite the other woman’s assurances that she’d look after them. Gil had said often enough that she was responsible for them, not Pauline. She should have listened.
Downstairs, Zeke was waiting for her. He put her small bag into the little car he’d rented at the airport and drove her to the airport to catch her flight.
At the hospital, Bess was demanding ice cream. Gil hugged her close, more frightened than he wanted to admit about how easily he could have lost her forever.
“I’m okay, Daddy,” she assured him with a grin.
“Does your head hurt?” he asked, touching the bandage the doctor had placed over the cut, which had been stitched.
“Only a little. But ice cream would make it feel better,” she added hopefully.
“I’ll see what I can do,” he promised with a strained smile.
The nurse came in, motioning Pauline and Jenny in behind her. “I thought it might help to let her sister see her,” she told Gil confidentially.
“Hi, Bess,” Jenny said, sidling up to the bed. “Are you okay?”
“I’m fine,” Bess assured her. “But it was real scary.” She glared at Pauline. “It was your fault. You tripped me.”
“Bess!” Gil warned his daughter while wondering at Pauline’s odd expression.
“I did not trip you!” Pauline shot back.
“You did so,” Bess argued. “I wouldn’t dive in, and you tripped me so I’d fall in.”
“She’s obviously delirious,” Pauline said tautly.
“You told Kasie you’d stay right with us,” she continued angrily. “And she told us not to go swimming, but you showed me how to dive and you told me to dive into the pool. And when I didn’t, you tripped me!”