Circle Of Gold

“Miss Mayfield!”

She jumped as her name was called in a deep, authoritative tone. “Yes?”

“Come in, please.”

She put a smile on her face as she clutched her small purse in her hands and walked into the paneled office, where plaques and photos of bulls lined the walls and burgundy leather furniture surrounded the big mahogany desk. A man was sitting there, with his pale eyes piercing and intent. A blond man with broad shoulders and a hard, lean face that seemed to be all rocky edges. It was not John Callister.

She stopped in front of the desk with her heart pounding and didn’t bother to sit down. Gil Callister was obviously doing the interviews, and now she was sure she wouldn’t get the job. She knew John Callister from the drugstore where she’d worked briefly as a stock clerk putting herself through secretarial courses. John had talked to her, teased her and even told her about the secretarial job. He’d have given her a chance. Gil would just shoot her out the door. It was obvious that he didn’t like anything about her.

He tossed a pen onto the desk and nodded toward the chair facing it. “Sit down.”

She felt vulnerable. The door was closed. Here she was with a hungry tiger, and no way out. But she sat anyway. Never let it be said that she lacked courage. They could throw her into the arena and she would die like a true Roman… She shook herself. She really had to stop reading the Plinys and Tacitus. This was the new millennium, not the first century A.D.

“Why do you want this job?” Gil asked bluntly.

Her thin eyebrows lifted. She hadn’t expected the question. “Because John is a dish?” she ventured dryly.

The answer seemed to surprise him. “Is he?”

“When I worked at the drugstore, he was always kind to me,” she said evasively. “He told me about the job, because he knew I was just finishing my secretarial certificate at the vocational-technical school. I got high grades, too.”

Gil pursed his lips. He still didn’t smile. He looked down at the résumé she’d handed him and read it carefully, as if he was looking for a deficiency he could use to deny her the job. His mouth made a thin line. “Very high grades,” he conceded with obvious reluctance. “This is accurate? You really can type 110 words a minute?”

She nodded. “I can type faster than I can take dictation, actually.”

He pushed the résumé aside and leaned back. “Boyfriends?”

She was nonplussed. Her fingers tightened on her purse. “Sir?”

“I want to know if you have any entanglements that might cause you to give up the job in the near future,” he persisted, and seemed oddly intent on the reply.

She shifted restlessly. “I’ve only ever had one real boyfriend, although he was more like a brother. He married my best friend two months ago. That was just before I moved to Billings,” she added, mentioning the nearby city, “to live with my aunt. So, I don’t date much.”

She was so uncomfortable that she almost squirmed. He didn’t know about her background, of course, or he wouldn’t need to ask such questions. Modern women were a lot more worldly than Kasie. But she’d said that John was a dish. She flushed. Good grief, did he think she went around seducing men or something? Was that why he didn’t want her in his house? Her expression was mortified.

He averted his eyes. “You have some odd character references,” he said after a minute, frowning at them. “A Catholic priest, a nun, a Texas Ranger and a self-made millionaire with alleged mob ties.”

She only smiled demurely. “I have unique friendships.”

“You could put it that way,” he said, diverted. “Is the millionaire your lover?”

She went scarlet and her jaw dropped.

“Oh, hell, never mind,” he said, apparently disturbed that he’d asked the question and uncomfortable at the reaction it drew. “That’s none of my business. All right, Kasie…” He hesitated. “Kasie. What’s it short for?”

“I don’t know,” she blurted out. “It’s my actual name.”

One eye narrowed. “The millionaire’s name is K.C.,” he pointed out. “And he’s at least forty.”

“Thirty-seven. He saved my mother’s life, while she was carrying me,” she said finally. “He wasn’t always a millionaire.”

“Yes, I know, he was a professional soldier, a mercenary.” His eyes narrowed even more. “Want to tell me about it?”

“Not really, no,” she confided.

He shook his head. “Well, if nothing else, you’ll be efficient. You’re also less of a distraction than the rest of them. There’s nothing I hate more than a woman who wears a skirt up to her briefs to work and then complains when men stare at her if she bends over. We have dress codes at our businesses and they’re enforced—for both sexes.”

“I don’t have any skirts that come up to my…well, I don’t wear short ones,” she blurted out.

“So I noticed,” he said with a deliberate glance at her long dress.

She fumbled with her purse while he went over the résumé one last time. “All right, Kasie, you can start Monday at eight-thirty. Did John tell you that the job requires you to live here?”

“No!”

His eyebrows arched. “Not in his room, of course,” he added just to irritate her, and then looked satisfied when she blushed. “Miss Parsons, who has charge of my daughters, lives in. So does Mrs. Charters who does the cooking and housekeeping. We have other part-time help that comes infrequently. Board and meals are provided by us, in addition to your salary.” He named a figure that made Kasie want to hold on to something. It was astronomical compared to what she’d made working at the drugstore part-time. “You’ll be a private secretary,” he added. “That means you may have to travel with us from time to time.”

“Travel?” Her face softened.

“Do you like to travel?” he asked.

“Oh, yes. I loved it when I was little.”

She wondered by the look he gave her if he assumed that her parents had been wealthy. He could not know, of course, that they were both deceased.

“Do you want the job?” he asked.

“Yes,” she said.

“All right. I’ll tell the others they can leave.” He got to his feet, elegant and lithe, moving with a grace that was unequaled in Kasie’s circle of acquaintances. He opened the office door, thanked the other young women for coming and told them that the position had been filled. There was a shuffle of feet, some murmuring, and the front door closed.

“Come on, Kasie,” Gil said. “I’ll introduce you to…”

“Daddy!” came a wail from the end of the hall. A little girl with disheveled long blond hair came running and threw herself at Gil, sobbing.

He picked her up, and his whole demeanor changed. “What is it, baby?” he asked in the most tender tone Kasie had ever heard. “What’s wrong?”

“Me and Jenny was playing with our dollies on the deck and that bad dog came up on the porch and he tried to bite us!”

“Where’s Jenny?” he demanded, immediately threatening.

A sobbing little voice answered him as the younger girl came toddling down the hall rubbing her eyes with dirty little fists. She reached up to Gil, and he picked her up, too, oblivious to her soiled dress and hands.

“Nothing’s going to hurt my babies. Did the dog bite either of you?” Gil demanded.

“No, Daddy,” Bess said.

“Bad doggie!” Jenny sobbed. “Make him go away!”