September Morning

“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 the 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.”