Diamond Spur

Kate started to argue, and then closed her mouth. “I thought hamburgers were supposed to be black and crunchy,” she said under her breath.

Gene and Cherry were whispering when Kate walked into the elaborate dining room. Jason was sitting quietly at the head of the table, impressive in pale slacks and a tailored gray shirt open at the throat. He was tapping his silver fork against the tablecloth, lost in thought, brooding if that scowl was anything to go by.

He looked up suddenly, as if he sensed Kate, and the scowl was still there. But something new kindled in his eyes, something born of their tempestuous interlude the day before. He was aware of her now, and she was just beginning to realize it. Her heart raced as his dark, very Spanish-looking eyes went over her like hands tracing every curve and line of her slender body.

“Did somebody die?” he asked politely. “I haven’t seen you dressed like that since the last time you went to church with us.”

Kate curtsied to cover her nervousness. “Do you like it? I made it myself.”

“It’s beautiful,” Cherry sighed, propping her head on her hands to stare dreamily at the long full skirt and blouson top with its sky blue colors and detailed embroidery. “Gosh, Kate, you ought to open a boutique.”

Kate could have hugged her. Cherry was petite and blonde and blue-eyed, always smiling, always enthusiastic. She encouraged Gene to be himself, to do what pleased him instead of what pleased big brother. But she did it in such an open, sweet way that Jason had become less antagonistic toward her. She was just eighteen now, and to Kate she seemed very young, despite the fact that there was less than three years between them.

“I’ll second that,” Gene chuckled. He was thinner than Jason, a little shorter. He had lighter hair and dark eyes, but his features were more even and attractive than his older brother’s. Jason had the business sense and the steel will, but Gene was the male beauty of the family and had always seemed to have girls hanging all over him.

Kate wondered sometimes if that wasn’t why she preferred Jason—he wasn’t a ladies’ man by anybody’s measure, although she was sure that he wasn’t naive. He’d had her trembling with need in no time at all. Not that he needed vast experience to accomplish that, when Kate thought the sun rose and set on him.

“Jason would loan you the money to go into business for yourself, wouldn’t you, Jay?” Gene asked him with the careless certainty of youth.

“Careers are the ruin of good women everywhere,” he commented dryly, leaning back in his chair with his hands behind his head. The posture outlined the powerful muscles of his chest and stomach, and it made Kate tingle to touch him. That must have showed, because his slow smile was knowing and faintly predatory. “A woman’s place is three steps behind her man.”

Kate stared at him, and even though it sounded like teasing, it took some of the joy out of her surprise. His mother’s betrayal had warped his attitude toward marriage, and his one-time fiancée’s defection to Hollywood had compounded the prejudice.

“Not this woman,” Kate told him as she sat down beside him at the table. “I think a woman’s place is at a man’s side.”

“Here we go again,” Gene muttered to Cherry, who giggled.

“Women shouldn’t have careers,” Jason repeated, his dark eyes level and somber. “Not unless they never plan to settle down.”

“I plan to settle down one day,” she said unexpectedly. “And have a home of my own, and children. And a career. I’m going to be a designer.”

“Without any help from me,” he returned blandly. “I’ll be damned if I’ll start you on the road to women’s liberation.”

Her eyes flashed. It wasn’t the first time she and Jason had argued about the traditional place of a man and a woman in society, but it was the first time it had mattered.

“I’m on the way already,” she shot back, “and without any need to go to you for help, thank God. I’ve just agreed to sign a contract with Clayborn to design a new line of leisure wear.”

“Congratulations! Kate, that’s grand!” Cherry gushed.

“I knew you could do it,” Gene chuckled.

“What’s this? A career designing clothes?” Sheila asked from the doorway, all eyes. “Great! Design something for heavyset women, the moderately priced stuff I can afford makes me look like a tub of lard.”

“Don’t say it,” Cherry gritted as Gene started to say something. “Not until after we get our peach cobbler, for heaven’s sake!”

Gene looked as if he might burst. Sheila glared at him out of gimlet eyes, the bowl of cobbler held protectively against her waist, her head cocked threateningly.

“I’ll throw it out,” she promised the young man.

Gene sighed. “I love peach cobbler.” He grinned. “Sheila, you ravishing beauty, you, how about a taste of that exquisite dessert you concoct with such style and sensuality?” He wiggled his eyebrows.

Sheila curtsied, almost falling over. “Why, thank you, kind sir, would you like to eat it or wear it?”

“I’ll eat it, thanks, and I swear,” he stood, hand over his heart, “I’ll never make another sarcastic remark about your size.”

Sheila nodded curtly. “See that you don’t. Here.”

She set the deliciously browned dessert on the table and laid a serving spoon beside it. “Kate goes first, since we’re celebrating.”

“Well, I won’t argue with that.” Gene grinned. “She’s earned it. When did you find out?”

“This morning,” she replied, digging with the serving spoon through the sugar-sprinkled crust to the sweet smell of sugary peach and dumpling beneath. She filled her dish, aware of Jason’s dark glare on her averted features. It was difficult to keep her hands from trembling as she began to sample the dish.

“It’s wonderful,” she told Sheila, who beamed and went back into the kitchen.

Gene got up and did an impression of the ample-hipped housekeeper waddling away, only to turn and find the object of his demonstration scowling at him from the doorway.

He cleared his throat and sat down quickly. “I lost a button, I was looking for it.”

Sheila glared at him. “Ha, ha. You just hold your breath until I cook you that vanilla pound cake you keep begging for.”

“I’ll repent!” He ran into the kitchen after her and the door closed behind them.

“Disgusting, watching him grovel.” Cherry grinned. She grabbed the cobbler. “Maybe if I hurry, I can finish his part and mine before he gets back.”

“Evil girl,” Kate accused. She glanced at Jason, who hadn’t said a single word through all the wordplay. He didn’t seem to hear what was going on around him. In fact, he didn’t. He was still hearing Kate rave about her career. He’d never realized how ambitious she was. It bothered him because he didn’t like to think of losing her to the big city and high fashion. And that was vaguely surprising. He’d been fighting the memory of her soft mouth for a whole day without success, and that hadn’t helped his temper.

“Don’t you want any cobbler?” Kate asked him.

“I’ve lost my appetite.” He lit a cigarette, daring anyone to object, and leaned forward to stare at Kate while she tried to eat her cobbler. “What will it mean, this job?”

“More money to start with. And I’ll get to do a lot of traveling once the designs are finished and we have samples made up,” she told him. “I’ll go to New York for market week this October and talk to the buyers and salesmen, and if my designs sell well, I’ll get to do another collection. All with my own name on it. I may even get to go to Europe to look at styles before I start on my next designs.”

Jason stared at her quietly. That wouldn’t suit Kate. She was meant for a kitchen and a house of her own, for children. Not this house, of course, not his children. He didn’t want any kind of permanent relationship even with Kate. He frowned. She’d meet all kinds of men in a job like that, predatory men. He didn’t like to think about some suave stranger seducing her.

“You’re too damned green for a sophisticated job like that,” he said aloud, shocking her.

She gaped at him, her fork poised in mid-air. So did Cherry. “What?!” Kate asked, torn between exasperation and laughter.

He crossed his long legs and took a heavy draw from his cigarette. In the overhead light, his dark straight hair seemed to have black highlights. “You’ll get in trouble back East, with no one to look out for you.”

“Well, you’ll probably bleed to death while I’m gone,” she shot back, “since nobody else can convince you that blood poisoning is dangerous.”

“I’ve been looking out for myself just fine.”

“Oh, of course,” she agreed. “Ripping your arm open, trying to shoot people...how’s the bull, by the way?”

His jaw tautened. “The bull is alive, through no fault of mine. I had to sell six cows to Tanner because his bull bred them. Luckily, I had plenty of replacement heifers this time.”