by Diana Palmer
“Oh, please, shut up,” Kathryn managed in a tortured whisper.
“But, darling, you were so brave at the Barringtons,” Phillip chided. “Don't you want to martyr yourself to the cause of freedom?”
“No, I want to be sick,” she corrected, swallowing hard. She glanced up at Blake's hard-set face. The harsh words all came back, and she wished fervently that she'd accepted Nan's invitation to spend the night.
Blake swirled the amber liquid in his glass absently. “Good night, Mother, Phil.”
Maude threw Kathryn an apologetic glance as she headed for the staircase with Phillip right behind.
“You wouldn't rather discuss the merger with the Banes Corporation?” Phillip grinned at Blake. “It would be a lot quieter.”
“Oh, don't desert me,” Kathryn called after them.
“You declared war, darling,” Phillip called back, “and I believe in a strict policy of non-interference.”
She locked her hands behind her, shivering in her warm sable coat despite the warmth of the house and the hot darkness of Blake's eyes.
“Well, go ahead,” she muttered, dropping her gaze to the open neck of his white silk shirt. “You've already taken one bite out of me, you might as well have an arm or two.”
He chuckled softly and, surprised, she jerked her face up to find amusement in his eyes.
“Come in here and talk to me,” he said, turning to lead the way back into his walnut-paneled study. His big Irish Setter, Hunter, rose and wagged his tail, and Blake ruffled his fur affectionately as he settled down in the wing armchair in front of the fireplace.
Kathryn took the chair across from his, absently darting a glance at the wood decoratively piled up in the hearth. “Daddy used to burn it,” she remarked, using the affectionate name she gave Blake's father, even though he was barely a distant cousin. He was like the father she'd lost.
“So do I, when I need to take the chill off. But it isn't cool enough tonight,” he replied.
She studied his big, husky body and wondered if he ever felt the cold. Warmth seemed to radiate from him at close range, as if fires burned under that darkly tanned skin.
He tossed off the rest of his drink and linked his hands behind his head. His dark eyes pinned Kathryn to her chair. “Why don't you get out of that coat and stop trying to look as if you're ten minutes late for an appointment somewhere?”
“I'm cold, Blake,” she murmured.
“Turn up the thermostat, then.”
“I won't be here that long, will I?” she asked hopefully.
His dark, quiet eyes traveled over the soft, pink skin revealed by her white dress, making her feel very young and uncomfortable.
“Must you stare at me like that?” she asked uneasily. She toyed with a wisp of chiffon.
He pulled his cigarette case from his pocket and took his time about lighting up. “What's this about a revolution?” he asked conversationally.
She blinked at him. “Oh, what Phil said?” she asked, belatedly comprehending. She swallowed hard. “Uh, I just…”
He laughed shortly. “Kathryn, I can't remember a conversation with you that didn't end in stammers.”
Her full lips pouted. “I wouldn't stammer if you wouldn't jump on me every time you get the chance.”
One heavy dark eyebrow went up. He looked completely relaxed, imperturbable. That composure rattled her, and she couldn't help wondering if anything ever made him lose it.
“Do I?” he asked.
“You know very well you do.” She studied the hard lines of his face, noting the faint tautness of fatigue that only a stranger would miss. “You're very tired, aren't you?” she asked suddenly, warming to him.
He took a draw from the cigarette. “Dead,” he admitted.
“Then why aren't you in bed?” she wanted to know.
He studied her quietly. “I didn't mean to ruin the party for you.”
The old, familiar tenderness in his voice brought an annoying mist to her eyes and she averted them. “It's all right.”
“No, it isn't.” He flicked ashes into the receptacle beside his chair, and a huge sigh lifted his chest. “Kate, I just broke off an affair. The silly woman's pestering me to death, and when you said what you did, I overreacted.” He shrugged. “My temper's a little on edge lately, or I'd have laughed it off.”
She smiled at him faintly. “Did you…love her?” she asked gently.
He burst out laughing. “What a child you are,” he chuckled. “Do I have to love a woman to take her into my bed?”
The flush went all the way down her throat. “I don't know,” she admitted.
“No,” he said, the smile fading, “I don't suppose you do. I believed in love, at your age.”
“Cynic,” she accused.
He crushed out the cigarette in his ashtray. “Guilty. I've learned that sex is better without emotional blinders.”
She dropped her eyes in mortification, trying not to see the unholy amusement on his dark face.
“Embarrassed, Kate?” he chided. “I thought that experience with Harris had matured you.”
Her green eyes flashed fire as they lifted to meet his. “Do we have to go through this again?” she asked.
“Not if you've learned something from it.” His gaze dropped pointedly to her dress. “Although I have my doubts. Are you wearing anything under that damned nightgown?”
“Blake!” she burst out. “It's not a nightgown!”
“It looks like one.”
“It's the style!”
He stared her down. “In Paris, I hear, the style is a vest with nothing under it, worn open.”
She tossed her hair angrily. “And if I lived in Paris, I'd wear one,” she threw back.
He only smiled. “Would you?” His eyes dropped again to her bodice, and the boldness of his gaze made her feel strange sensations. “I wonder.”
She clasped her hands in her lap, feeling outwitted and outmatched. “What did you want to talk to me about, Blake?” she asked.
“I've invited some people over for a visit.”
She remembered her own invitation to Lawrence Donavan, and she held her breath. “Uh, who?” she asked politely.
“Dick Leeds and his daughter Vivian,” he told her. “They're going to be here for a week or so while Dick and I iron out that labor mess. He's the head of the local union that's giving us so much trouble.”
“And his daughter?” she asked, hating herself for her own curiosity.
“Blond and sexy,” he mused.
She glared at him. “Just your style,” she shot at him. “With the emphasis on sexy.”
He watched her with silent amusement. Blake, the adult, indulging his ward. She wanted to throw something at him.
“Well, I hope you don't expect me to help Maude keep them entertained,” she said. “Because I'm expecting some company of my own!”
The danger signals were flashing out of his deep brown eyes. “What company?” he asked curtly.
She lifted her chin bravely. “Lawrence Donavan.”
Something took fire and exploded under his jutting brow.
“Not in my house,” he said in a tone that might have cut diamond.
“But, Blake, I've already invited him!” she wailed.
“You heard me. If you didn't want to be embarrassed, you should have consulted with me before inviting him,” he added roughly. “What were you going to do, Kathryn, meet him at the airport and then tell me about it? A fait accompli?”
She couldn't meet his eyes. “Something like that.”
“Cable him. Tell him something came up.”
She lifted her eyes and glared at him, sitting there like a conqueror, ordering her life. If she buckled under one more time, she'd never be able to stand up to him. Never. She couldn't let him win this time.
Her jaw set stubbornly. “No.”
He got to his feet slowly, gracefully for such a big man, and the set of his broad shoulders was intimidating even without th
e sudden, fierce narrowing of his eyes.
“What did you say?” he asked in a deceptively soft tone.
She laced her fingers together in front of her and clenched them. “I said no,” she managed in a rasping voice. Her dark green eyes appealed to him. “Blake, it's my home, too. At least, you said it was the day you asked me to come live here,” she reminded him.
“I didn't say you could use it as a rendezvous for romantic trysts!”
“You bring women here,” she tossed back, remembering with a surge of anguish the night when she had accidentally come home too early from a date and found him with Jessica King on the very chairs where they were now sitting. Jessica had been stripped to the waist, and so had Blake. Kathryn had barely even noticed the blonde, her eyes were so staggered by the sight of Blake with his broad, muscled chest bared by the woman's exploring hands. She'd never been able to get the picture of him out of her mind, his mouth sensuous, his eyes almost black with desire…
“I used to,” he corrected gently, reading the memory with disturbing accuracy. “How old were you then? Fifteen?”
She nodded, looking away from him. “Just.”
“And I yelled at you, didn't I?” he recalled gently. “I hadn't expected you home. I was hungry and impatient, and frustrated. When I took Jessica home, she was in tears.”
“I…I should have knocked,” she admitted. “But we'd been to that fair, and I'd won a prize, and I couldn't wait to tell you about it…”
He smiled quietly. “You used to bring all your triumphs straight to me, like a puppy with its toys. Until that night.” He studied her averted profile. “You've kept a wall between us ever since. The minute I start to come close, you find something else to put up in front of you. Last time it was Jack Harris. Now, it's that writer.”
“I'm not trying to build any walls,” she said defensively. Her dark eyes accused him. “You're the mason, Blake. You won't let me be independent.”
“What do you want?” he asked.
She studied the delicate scrollwork of the fireplace with its beige and white color scheme. “I don't know,” she murmured. “But I'll never find out if you keep smothering me. I want to be free, Blake.”
“None of us are that,” he said philosophically. His eyes were wistful, his tone bitter. He stared at her intently. “What is it that attracts you to Donavan?” he asked suddenly.
She shrugged and a wistful light came into her own eyes, echoing his expression the minute before. “He's fun to be with. He makes me laugh.”
“That's all you need from a man—laughter?”
The way he said it made shivers run down her stiff spine, and when she looked at him, the expression on his hard face was puzzling. “What else is there?” she asked without thinking.
A slow, sensuous smile turned up the corners of his mouth. “The fires a man and woman can create when they make love.”
She shifted restlessly in her chair. “They're overrated,” she said with pretended sophistication.
He threw back his head and roared.
“Hush!” she said. “You'll wake the whole house!”
His white, even teeth were visible, whiter than ever against his swarthy complexion. “You're red as a summer beet,” he observed. “What do you know about love, little girl? You'd pass out in a dead faint if a man started making love to you.”
She stared at him with a sense of outrage. “How do you know? Maybe Lawrence…”
“…maybe not,” he interrupted, his eyes confident, wise. “You're still very much a virgin, little Kate. If I'd had any fears on that account, I'd have jerked you off Crete so fast your head would have spun.”
She grimaced. “Virginity isn't such a prize these days,” she sighed, remembering Missy Donavan's faintly insulting remarks about it.
His silent appraisal lasted so long that her attention was caught by the faint ticking of the big grandfather clock in the hall. “Don't get any ideas about throwing yours away,” he warned softly.
“Oh, Blake, don't be so old fashioned,” she grumbled. “Anyway,” she added with a faint, mischievous smile, “where would you be today if all the women in the world were pure?”
“Rather frustrated,” he conceded. “But you're not one of my women, and I don't want you offering yourself to men like a nymphomaniac.”
She sighed. “There's hardly any danger of that,” she said dully. “I don't know how.”
“That dress is a damned good start,” he observed.
She glanced down at it. “But it covers me up,” she protested. “It's a lot more modest than what Nan was wearing.”
“I noticed,” he said with a musing smile.
She peeked at him through her lashes. “Nan thinks you're the sexiest man alive,” she said lightly. “She knew you'd be at the party.”
His face hardened. “Nan's a child,” he growled, turning away with one hand rammed in his pocket. “And I'm too old to encourage hero worship.”
Nan was Kathryn's age, exactly. Her heart seemed to plummet, and she wanted to hit out at him. He always made her feel so gauche and ignorant.
She studied his broad back. He was so good to look at. So big and vibrant, and full of life. A quiet man, a caring man. And a tyrant!
“If you won't let me invite Larry here,” she murmured, “I suppose I could fly down to the coast and go to that writers’ convention with him.”
He turned, staring at her, hard and intimidating even at a distance. “Threatening me, Kate?” he asked.
“I wouldn't dare!” she replied fervently.
His dark face was as unreadable as a stone sculpture. “We'll talk about it again.”
She scowled at him. “Tyrant,” she grumbled.
“Is that your best shot?” he asked politely.
“Male chauvinist!” she said, trying again. “You do irritate me, Blake!”
He moved toward her lazily. “What do you think you do to me, little Kathryn?” he asked, his voice a low growl.
She looked up into his arrogant face as he came within striking distance. “I probably irritate you just as much,” she admitted, sighing. “Pax?”
He smiled down at her indulgently. “Pax. Come here.”
He tilted her chin up and bent his head down. She closed her eyes, expecting the familiar brief, rough touch of his mouth. But it didn't come.
Puzzled, she opened her eyes and looked straight into his at an unnerving distance. She was so close that she could see the flecks of gold in his dark brown irises, the tiny crinkled lines at the corner of his eyelids.
His fingers touched the side of her throat, warm and strangely caressing.
“Blake?” she whispered uncertainly.
His jaw tautened. She could see a muscle jerk beside his sensuous mouth.
“Welcome home, Kate,” he said roughly, and started to move away.
“Aren't you going to kiss me?” she asked without thinking.
All the expression drained out of his face to leave his eyes smoldering as they looked down into hers. “It's late,” he said abruptly, turning away, “and I'm tired. Good night, Kate.”
He walked out the door and left her standing there, staring at the empty doorway.
Chapter Three
Blake was strangely reserved for the next few days, and Kathryn found herself watching him for no reason at all. He was just Blake, she kept telling herself. Just her guardian, as familiar as the towering old house and its ring of live oaks. But something was different. Something…and she couldn't quite grasp what.
“Blake, are you angry with me?” she asked him one evening as he started upstairs to dress for a date.
He scowled down at her. “What makes you think that, Kathryn?” he asked.
She shrugged, and forced a smile for him. “You seem…remote.”
“I've got a lot on my mind, kitten,” he said quietly.
“The strike?” she guessed.
“That, and a few other assorted headaches,” he agreed. “If you're through
asking inane questions, I am on my way out.”
“Sorry,” she said flippantly. “Heaven forbid that I should keep you from the wheat fields.”
“Wheat fields?”
“Where you sow your wild oats, of course,” she said with what felt like devastating sophistication as she turned to go back in the living room where Phillip and Maude were talking.
He chuckled softly. “Your slip's showing.”
She whirled, grasping her midi-length velveteen skirt and staring down at her shapely calf. “Where?”
He went on up the stairs with a low chuckle and she glared after him.
***
Later, she watched him come back downstairs, dressed in a pair of dark slacks with a white silk shirt open at the neck and a tweed jacket that gave him a rakish look. What woman was he taking out, she wondered, and would she know how to appreciate all that dark, vibrant masculinity? Just the sight of him was enough to make Kathryn's pulse race, and involuntarily she thought back to the night of her homecoming party and the strange look in Blake's eyes when he started to kiss her and didn't. That hesitation had puzzled her ever since, although she tried not to think about it too much. Blake would be frighteningly dangerous in any respect other than that of a cherished adopted brother.
***
Nan Barrington came over early the next morning to go riding with Kathryn. Petite and fragile-looking in her jodhpurs, she was wearing a blue sweater, very tight, that was the exact shade of her eyes.
She brushed by Kathryn with a tiny sigh, her eyes immediately on everything in sight as she searched the area for Blake.
“He's gone out,” Kathryn said with an amused smile.
Nan looked wildly disappointed. “Oh,” she said, her face falling. “I just thought he might be going with us.”
Kathryn didn't bother to mention that Blake was doing everything short of joining a monastery to avoid her. That would have led to questions she didn't want to face, much less answer.
“Well, there she is, the golden girl,” Phillip said from the staircase, gazing with exaggerated interest at the petite blonde. “You luscious creature, you.”
Nan laughed delightedly. “Oh, Phil, you're such a tease,” she said. “Come riding with us and let me prove that I can still beat the socks off you.”