Circle of Gold

by Diana Palmer

  He averted his eyes, muttering under his breath. “You’re welcome,” he said tersely.

  “That man, Sims,” she continued, worried. “The day you fired him, John said that he had a mean temper and that he carried a loaded rifle everywhere with him. You…you be careful, okay?”

  She heard the soft expulsion of breath. He moved a step closer, his lean hands lifting her oval face to his. She could see the soft glitter of his blue eyes in the faint light from the windows.

  “What do you care if I get myself shot?” he asked huskily. “I’m the one who sent you packing without even giving you the chance to explain what happened in Nassau.”

  “Pauline didn’t like me,” she said. “And you trusted her. I was just a stranger.”

  “Not anymore, Kasie,” he said gruffly.

  “I mean, you didn’t know anything about me,” she persisted. She searched his eyes, feeling jolts of electricity flow into her at the exquisite contact. “I was upset and I behaved badly when you came to Mama Luke’s. But deep inside, I didn’t blame you for not trusting me.”

  His lean hands tightened on her face. “I’ve done nothing but torment you since the first day you came here,” he bit off. “I didn’t want you in my life, Kasie,” he whispered as he bent toward her. “I still don’t. But a man can only stand so much…!”

  His mouth caught hers hungrily. His arms swallowed her up against him, so that not an inch of space separated them. For long, achingly sweet seconds, they clung to each other in the soft darkness.

  He drew away from her finally and stood just looking at her in a tense, hot silence. His hands were firm around her arms, and she swayed toward him helplessly.

  She felt her knees go shaky, as if they had jelly in them instead of bone and cartilage. “Look, I’m very old-fashioned,” she began in a choked tone.

  “I almost never make love to women on the floor of the front porch.”

  She stared at him dimly, only slowly becoming aware that he was smiling and the words were both affectionate and teasing.

  A tiny laugh burst from her swollen lips, although the kiss had rattled her.

  “That’s better,” he said. His eyes narrowed. “How do you feel about my brother?”

  Her mind refused to function. “How do I what?”

  “Feel about John,” he persisted coolly. “When I asked you why you wanted this job, you said it was because John was a dish. I know you had a crush on him. How do you feel now?”

  She was at a loss to know what to say. “I like…him,” she blurted out. “He’s been kind to me.”

  “Kinder than I have, for damned sure,” he agreed at once. “And he believed you were innocent when I didn’t.”

  She frowned. “You explained why.”

  His hands tightened on her arms and his lips flattened. “He’s younger than I am, single and rich and easygoing,” he said harshly. “Maybe he’d be the best thing that ever happened to you.”

  Her eyes widened. “Thank you. I’ve always wanted a big, strong man to plan my future for me.”

  He let her go abruptly, angry. “You said it yourself. I’m a generation older than you with a ready-made family.”

  She couldn’t make head or tail of what he was saying. Her mind was spinning as she looked up at him.

  “Maybe you’re what he needs, too,” he added coldly. “Someone young and optimistic and intelligent.”

  “Are you going to buy the ring, too?”

  He turned away. “That wasn’t funny.”

  “I don’t want to marry your brother. Thanks, anyway.”

  He kept walking.

  She ran after him. “That man Sims has got a gun,” she called. “Don’t you dare go out there and get shot!”

  He paused on the top step and looked back at her as if he had doubts about her sanity. “John’s going out with me as soon as he finishes his phone calls.”

  “Great!” she exclaimed angrily. “I can worry about both of you all night!”

  “Worry about my daughters,” he told her bluntly. “That’s your only responsibility here. You work for me, remember?”

  “I remember,” she replied irritably. “Do you?”

  “Stay in the house with the girls until I tell you otherwise. I don’t want any of you on the porch or in the yard until we settle this, one way or another.”

  He did think there was danger. She heard it in every word. “I won’t let anything happen to Bess and Jenny. I promise.”

  He glared at her. “Can you shoot?”

  She shook her head. “But I know how to dial 911.”

  “Okay. Keep one of the wireless phones handy, just in case.”

  She moved toward him another step, wrapping her arms tight around her body. “Have you got a cell phone?”

  He indicated the case on his belt. That was when she noticed an old Colt .45 strapped to his other hip, under the denim shirt he was wearing open over his black T-shirt.

  Her breath caught. Until that minute, when she saw the gun, it was a possibility. But guns were violent, chaotic, frightening. She bit her lower lip worriedly.

  “I’ll be late. Make sure you lock the doors before you go upstairs. John and I have keys.”

  “I will,” she promised. “You be careful.”

  He ignored the quiet command. He took one long, last look at her and went on down the steps to his pickup truck, which was parked nearby.

  She stood at the top of the steps until he drove away, staring after him worriedly. She wanted to call him back, to beg him to stay inside where he’d be safe from any retribution by that man Sims. But she couldn’t. He wasn’t the sort of man to run from trouble. It wouldn’t do any good to nag him. He was going to do what he needed to do, whether or not it pleased her.

  She got the girls ready for bed and tucked them in. She read them a Dr. Seuss book they hadn’t heard yet. When they grew drowsy, she pulled the covers over them and tiptoed to the door, pausing to flick off the light switch as she went out into the hall.

  She left the door cracked and went on down the hall to her own room. She got ready for bed and curled up on her pillows with a worn copy of Tacitus’s The Histories. “I wonder if you ever imagined that people in the future would still be reading words you wrote almost two thousand years ago,” she murmured as she thumbed through the well-read work. “And nothing really changes, does it, except the clothes and the everyday things. People are the same.”

  Her heart wasn’t in the book. She laid it aside and turned off the lights, thinking how it would have been two thousand years ago to watch her husband put on his armor and march off to a war in some foreign country behind one of the Roman generals. That made her think of Gil and she gnawed her lip as she lay in the darkness, waiting for some sound that would tell her he was still all right.

  It was two o’clock in the morning before she heard a pickup truck pull up at the bottom of the steps out front. She threw off the covers and ran to the window, peering out through the lacy curtain just in time to see Gil and John climb wearily out of the truck. John had a rifle with the breech open under one arm. He led the way into the house, with Gil following behind.

  At least, thank God, they were both still alive, she thought. She went back to bed and pulled the covers up to her chin. Relieved, she slept.

  She’d forgotten John’s invitation to the movies, but he hadn’t. And he looked odd, as if he was pondering something wicked, when he waited for her to come down the stairs with the girls.

  Kasie was wearing a pretty dark green silk pantsuit with strappy sandals and her hair around her shoulders. She smiled at the little girls in their skirt sets. They looked like a family, and John was touched. He went forward to greet them, pausing to kiss Kasie’s cheek warmly.

  Gil, who was working in the office, came into the hall just in time to see his brother kissing Kasie. His eyes splintered with unexpected helpless rage. His fists clenched at his sides. She wouldn’t leave the house with him, but here she was dressed to the nines an
d all eager to jump into a car with his brother.

  John glanced at him warily and hid a smile. “We’re off to the movies! Want to come?”

  “No,” Gil said abruptly. He avoided looking at Kasie. “I’ve got two more hours of work to finish in the den.”

  “Let Miss Parsons do it and come with us,” John persisted.

  “I gave Miss Parsons the day off. She’s visiting a friend.”

  “Let it wait until tomorrow, then.”

  “No chance. Go ahead and enjoy yourselves, but don’t get too comfortable. Watch your back,” he said tersely, and returned into the study. He closed the door firmly behind him.

  John, for some ungodly reason, was rubbing his hands together with absolute glee. Kasie gave him a speaking glance, which he ignored as he herded them out into the night.

  The movie was one for general audiences, about a famous singer. John didn’t really enjoy it, but Kasie and the girls did. They ate popcorn and giggled at the funny scenes, and moaned when the heroine was misjudged by the hero and thrown out on her ear.

  “That looks familiar, doesn’t it?” John murmured outrageously.

  “She should hit him with a brickbat,” Kasie muttered.

  “With a head that hard, I don’t know if it would do any good,” he said, and Kasie thought for a minute that it didn’t sound as if he were referring to the movie. “But I have a much better idea, anyway. Wait and see.”

  She pondered that enigmatic remark all through the movie. They went home, had dinner and watched TV, but it wasn’t until the girls went up to bed and the study door opened that Kasie began to realize what John was up to. Because he waited until his brother had an unobstructed view of the two of them at the foot of the staircase. And then he bent and kissed Kasie. Passionately.

  Kasie was shocked. Gil was infuriated. John winked at Kasie before he turned to face his brother. “Oh, there you are,” he told Gil with a grin. “The movie was great. I’ll tell you all about it tomorrow. Sleep well, Kasie,” he added, ruffling the hair at her temple.

  “You, too,” she choked. She could barely manage words. John had never touched her before, and she knew that it hadn’t been out of misplaced passion or raging desire that he’d kissed her. He’d obviously done it to irritate his big brother. And it was working! Gil looked as if he wanted to bite somebody.

  He moved close to Kasie when John was out of sight up the steps, whipping out a snow-white handkerchief. He caught her by the nape and wiped off her smeared lipstick.

  “You aren’t marrying my brother,” he said through his teeth.

  “Excuse me?”

  “I said, you aren’t marrying John,” he repeated harshly. “You’re an employee here, and that’s all. I am not going to let my brother become your meal ticket!”

  She actually gasped. “Of all the unfounded, unreasonable, outrageous things in the world to say to a woman, that really takes the cake!” she raged.

  “I haven’t started yet,” he bit off. He threw the handkerchief down on the hall table and pulled her roughly into his arms. “I’ve never wanted to hit a man so badly in all my life,” he ground out as his mouth went down over hers.

  She couldn’t breathe. He didn’t seem to notice, or care. His mouth was warm, hard, insistent. She clung to his shirtfront and let the sensations wash over her like fire. He was insulting her. She shouldn’t let him. She should make him stop. It was just that his mouth was so sweet, so masterful, so ardent. She moaned as the sensations piled up on themselves and left her knees wobbling out from under her.

  He caught her closer and lifted her against him, devouring her mouth with his own. She felt her whole body begin to shiver with the strength of the desire he was teaching her to feel. Never in her life had she known such pleasure, but even the hungry force of the kiss still wasn’t enough to ease the ache in her.

  Her arms went up and around his neck and she held on as if she might die by letting go. He groaned huskily as his body began to harden. He wanted her. He wanted to lay her down on the Persian carpet, make passionate love to her. He wanted…

  He dragged his mouth from hers and looked down at her with accusation and raging anger.

  “I’m mad,” he growled off. “You aren’t supposed to enjoy it.”

  “Okay,” she murmured, trying to coax his mouth back down onto hers. She had no will, no pride, no reason left. She only wanted the pleasure to continue. “Come back here. I’ll pretend to hate it.”

  “Kasie…”

  She found his mouth and groaned hoarsely as he gave in to his own hunger and crushed her against the length of his tall, fit body. It was the most glorious kiss of her entire life. If only it would never end…

  But it did, all too soon, and he shot away from her as if he’d tasted poison. His eyes glittered. “If you ever let him kiss you again, I’ll throw both of you out a window!”

  She opened her mouth to speak, but before she could manage words, the front doorbell rang.

  It was one of the cowboys. Two more head of cattle had been shot, and the gunman was still out near the line cabin. One of the cowboys had him pinned down with rifle fire and needed reinforcements. It took Gil precisely five minutes to call John, load his Winchester and get out the door. He barely took time to caution Kasie about venturing outside until the situation was under control. She didn’t even get a chance to beg him to be careful. She went upstairs, so that she’d be near the girls, but she knew that this was one night she wouldn’t sleep a wink.

  Chapter 11

  Kasie lay awake for the rest of the night. When dawn broke, she still hadn’t heard Gil come into the house. And once she’d thought she heard a shot being fired. Remembering how dangerous the man Sims was supposed to be made her even more uneasy. What if Gil had been shot? How would she live? She couldn’t bear the thought of a world without Gil in it.

  She got up and dressed just as Mrs. Charters went into the kitchen to start breakfast. John and Gil were nowhere in sight.

  “Have they come in at all?” she asked Mrs. Charters.

  “Not yet,” the older woman said, and looked worried. “There were police cars and sheriff’s cars all over the place about two hours ago,” she added. “I saw them from my house.”

  “I thought I heard a shot, but I didn’t see anything,” Kasie said, and then she really worried.

  “You couldn’t have seen them, it was three miles and more down the road. But I’m sure we’d have heard if anything had happened to Gil or John.”

  “Oh, I hope so,” Kasie said fervently.

  “I’ll make coffee,” she said. “You can have some in a minute.”

  “Thanks, Mrs. Charters. I’m going to go sit on the front porch.”

  “You do that, dear.”

  The ranch was most beautiful early in the morning, Kasie thought, when dawn broke on the horizon and the cattle and horses started moving around in the pastures. She loved this part of the day, but now it was torment to sit and wonder and not be able to do anything. Had they found Sims? Was he in custody or still at large? And, most frightening of all, was the memory of that single gunshot. Had Gil been hurt?

  She nibbled at her fingernails in her nervousness, a habit left over from childhood. There didn’t seem to be a vehicle in the world. The highway was close enough that the sound of moving vehicles could be heard very faintly, but at this hour there was very little traffic. In fact, there was none.

  She got up from the porch swing and paced restlessly. What if Gil had been shot? Surely someone would have phoned. John would, she was certain. But what if the wound was serious, so serious that he couldn’t leave his brother’s side even long enough to make a phone call? What if…!

  The sound of a truck coming down the long ranch road caught her attention. She ran to the top of the steps and stood there with her heart pounding like mad. It was one of the ranch’s pickup trucks. She recognized it. Two men were in the cab. They were in a flaming rush. Was it John and one of the hands, come to tell her that Gil
was hurt, wounded, dying?

  Dust flew as the driver pulled up sharply at the front steps. Both doors flew open. Kasie thought she might faint. John got out of the passenger side, whole and undamaged and grinning. Gil got out on the other side, dusty and worn, with a cut bleeding beside his mouth. But he was all in one piece, not injured, not shot, not…

  “Gil!” She screamed his name, blind and deaf and dumb to the rest of the world as she came out of her frozen trance and dashed down the steps, missing the bottom one entirely, to rush right into his arms.

  “Kasie…” He couldn’t talk at all, because she was kissing him, blindly, fervently, as if he’d just come back from the dead.

  He stopped trying to talk. He kissed her back, his arms enfolding her so closely that her feet dangled while he answered the aching hunger of her mouth.

  She was shaking when he lifted his head. His eyes were glittery with feeling as he searched her eyes and saw every single emotion in her. She loved him. She couldn’t have told him any plainer if she’d shouted it.

  John just chuckled. “I’ll go drink coffee while you two…talk,” he murmured dryly, bypassing them without a backward glance.

  Neither of them heard him or saw him go. They stared at each other with aching tenderness, touching faces, lips, fingertips.

  “I’m all right,” he whispered, kissing her again. “Sims took a shot at us, but he missed. It took two sheriff’s deputies, the bloodhounds and a few ranch hands, but we tracked him down. He’s in jail, nursing his bruises.”

  She traced the dried blood on his cheek. “He hit you.”

  He shrugged. “I hit him, too.” He smiled outrageously. “So much for pretending that you only work for me, Kasie,” he said with deliberate mischief in his tone.

  She touched his dusty hair. “I love you,” she said huskily. Her eyes searched his. “Is it all right?”

  “That depends,” he mused, bending to kiss her gently. “We discussed being old-fashioned, remember?”

  She flushed. “I wasn’t suggesting…”

  He took her soft upper lip in both of his and nibbled it. “This is the last place in the world that you and I could carry on a torrid affair,” he pointed out. “The girls can take off doorknobs if they have the right tools, and Mrs. Charters probably has microphones and hidden cameras in every room. She always knows whatever’s going on around here.” He lifted his head and searched her eyes. “I’m glad you love children, Kasie. I really don’t plan to stop at Bess and Jenny.”