by Diana Palmer
She drew away a breath and looked up at him with tears streaming down her pale face, lines of weariness and worry making her look suddenly older.
He looked older, too, his face heavily lined, his dark eyes bloodshot as if he hadn't slept in a long time. She searched his beloved face, everything she felt for him showing plainly in her green eyes.
“I love you so,” she whispered brokenly. “Oh, Blake, I love you so!”
He stood there frozen, staring down at her with eyes so dark they seemed black.
Embarrassed at having been so stupidly blunt, she tugged weakly at his arms and stepped back. “I…I'm sorry,” she choked. “I…didn't mean to…to throw myself at you a second time. Vivian told me…how disgusted you were yesterday,” she added in a whipped tone.
“Vivian told you what?” he asked in a strange, husky whisper.
She stepped away from him, but she still clung helplessly to his big, warm hand, walking quietly beside him, the top of her head just coming to his chin, as they moved to join the others.
“It doesn't matter,” she said with a painful smile. “It's all right.”
“That's what you think!” he said in a voice she didn't recognize.
Vivian came running to meet him, shooting a poisonous glance at Kathryn. “Oh, Blake, darling! We were so worried!” she exclaimed, reaching up to kiss him full on the mouth. “How lovely that you're safe!”
Maude and Phillip echoed the greeting, Maude with tears misting her eyes.
“Close call?” Phillip asked with keen perception.
Blake nodded. “Too close. I wouldn't care to repeat it.”
“What about the plane?” Maude asked gently.
“I'm glad it was insured,” Blake replied with a faint smile. “I came down in the rain forest on Puerto Rico. The plane made it, barely, but I clipped off the wings.”
Kathryn closed her eyes, seeing it in her mind.
“I'll buy you a drink,” Phillip said. “You look like you could use one.”
“A drink, a hot bath, and a bed,” Blake agreed. He glanced at Kathryn as she moved away toward Phillip. She wouldn't meet his eyes.
“I…I'm going to pack,” she murmured, turning away.
“Pack?” Blake asked gruffly. “Why?”
“I'm going home,” she said proudly, letting her eyes meet his, only to glance off again. “I…I've had enough sun and sand. I don't like paradise…it's got too many serpents.”
She turned toward the car. “Phillip, will you please drive me back to the house?” she asked with downcast eyes.
“Let Maude,” he said, surprising her. “Would you mind, darling?” he asked his mother.
“No, not at all,” Maude said, taking the younger girl's arm. “Come along, sweetheart. Vivian, Dick, are you coming?”
They declined, preferring to go with the men into the bar. Maude drove Kathryn home in a smothering silence.
“Don't go,” Maude pleaded as Kathryn went upstairs to get her things together. “Not yet. Not today.”
She turned at the head of the stairs with eyes so full of heartache they seemed to glow with it. “I can't stay here anymore,” she replied softly. “I can't bear it. I…I want to look for an apartment before he…” She turned and went on upstairs. The tears choked her voice out.
***
She had packed everything in her bags and had changed into a neat pin-striped blue blouse and white skirt for traveling when the door opened suddenly and Blake walked in.
She stared wide-eyed at him across the bed. He looked more relaxed, but he still needed a shave and sleep.
“I…I'm almost ready,” she murmured, brushing back a wild swath of long, waving dark hair from her flushed cheek. “If Phillip could drive me…”
He leaned back against the closed door and watched her. He was wearing a white shirt open halfway down the front, with dark blue trousers. His thick hair was ruffled, his face hard, his eyes narrow and dark and searching.
“The Leedses are leaving,” he said quietly.
“Oh, are they?” she murmured, staring down at the white coverlet. “For how long?”
“For good. I went to Haiti to sign a contract. I'm switching the London mill to Port au Prince,” he replied.
She stared at him. “But, Vivian…”
“Kathryn, I brought her over because I knew she was the power behind her father,” he said wearily. “I knew if I could convince her to meet my terms, she'd convince him. But you misread the situation completely, and I suppose it was partially my fault. I wanted you to misread it.”
She glanced at him and away. “It doesn't matter now.”
“Doesn't it?” he asked softly.
“I'm going to look for an apartment when I get home, Blake,” she told him, lifting her flushed young face proudly. “I want to be by myself.”
He searched her eyes. “You told me you loved me, Kathryn,” he said quietly, watching the color flush into her cheeks at the impact of the words.
She swallowed nervously, and traced an idle pattern on the coverlet with her finger. “I…was upset,” she faltered.
“Don't play games. Don't hedge. You said you loved me. How? As a big brother—a guardian—or as a lover, Kate?”
“You're confusing me!” she protested feverishly.
“You've confused me for a solid year,” he said flatly. His eyes smoldered with reined emotion. “All I do lately is slam my head against a wall trying to get through to you.”
She gaped at him. “I don't understand.”
He jammed his hands in his pockets and leaned back against the door, letting his eyes trace the line of her body with an intimate thoroughness.
“You never have,” he replied roughly.
Her soft eyes touched the worn, weary lines in his face. “Blake, you look so tired,” she said gently. “Why don't you go to bed for a while?”
“Only with you, Kate,” he said shortly, watching the color go back and forth in her cheeks. “Because I'm not going to close my eyes only to open them again and find you gone.
“Donavan,” he growled. “And then Phillip. My own brother, and I hated him because he could get close to you and I couldn't. And you thought that I just wanted you!”
Her face opened like a bud in blossom, and she stiffened, barely breathing as she listened to his deep, harsh voice.
“Wanted you!” he repeated, eyes blazing, jaw tightening. “My God, I've been out of my mind wondering whom I substituted for that night on the beach, and all along…!” He drew a short breath. “How long had you planned to keep it from me, Kathryn?” he demanded. “Were you going to go home and lock it away inside you?”
Tears were misting her eyes. She moved to the foot of the bed and held onto the bedpost, smoothing over the silky mahogany. “Blake?” she whispered.
“You told Phillip that I had to be alive, because your heart was still beating,” he said in a strange, husky voice. “It was that way with me over a year ago. As long as I'm still breathing, I know you are, because there is no way on earth I could stay alive without you!”
She ran to him blindly, seeing only a big, husky blur as she reached up to be folded against him in an embrace that all but crushed the breath from her slender body.
“Kiss me,” he whispered shakily, bending to take her soft mouth under his. “Kathy, Kathy, I love you so…!” he ground out against her soft, eager lips.
They kissed wildly, hungrily, and she could feel the rhythm of steel drums in her bloodstream as the pressure of his mouth became deep and intimate, expertly demanding a response she gave without restraint.
He tore his mouth away finally and buried it against her soft throat. With a sense of wonder, she felt the big arms that were holding her tremble.
“I thought you hated me,” she whispered, drowning in the unbelievable sensation of loving and being loved.
“For what?” he asked gruffly. “Trying to seduce me on the beach?”
“I wasn't,” she protested weakly.
<
br /> “It felt like it. You'll never know exactly how close to it you came.”
“I loved you so,” she whispered, “and I thought I'd lost you, and I wanted one perfect memory…”
“It was that,” he said softly. His arms contracted lovingly. “I'll always see you the way you looked in the moonlight, with your skin like satin, glowing…”
“Blake!” she whispered, reddening.
“Don't be embarrassed,” he said quietly. “Or ashamed. It was beautiful, Kate, every second of it was beautiful. It's going to be like that every time I touch you, for the rest of our lives.”
She drew away and looked up at him. “That long?” she asked.
He searched her soft green eyes. “That long. Will you marry me?”
“Yes.”
He reached down and brushed her mouth with his, very gently—a seal on the promise. “I hope you like children,” he murmured against her soft lips.
She smiled lazily. “How many do you want?”
“Let's get married next week and talk about it.”
“Next week!” Her mouth flew open. “Blake, I can't! The invitations, and I'll have to have a gown…!”
He stopped the flow of words with his mouth. Through a fog of sensation, she felt his hands moving slowly, expertly, on her soft body and she moaned.
He drew back a breath. “Next week,” he whispered unsteadily.
“Next week,” she agreed under her breath and reached up to draw his head back down.
Outside, the sunset was lending a rose glow to the bay, where fishing boats rocked gently at the shore. And in the orange and gold swirls of color on the horizon there was a promise of blue skies ahead.
*****
DIANA PALMER
The prolific author of more than one hundred books, Diana Palmer got her start as a newspaper reporter. A multi–New York Times bestselling author and one of the top ten romance writers in America, she has a gift for telling the most sensual tales with charm and humor. Diana lives with her family in Cornelia, Georgia.
Visit her website at www.DianaPalmer.com.
eISBN: 978-1-4603-4534-4
September Morning
Copyright © 1982 by Diana Palmer
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