Circle Of Gold

With his lips making a thin line, he went along the corridor barefoot to Kasie’s room. Without knocking, he opened the door and walked in. Sure enough, curled up as close as they could get to her, were Bess and Jenny.

He started to wake them up and insist that they go back to bed, when he saw the way they looked.

It had been a long time since he’d seen their little faces so content. Without a mother—despite the housekeeper and Miss Parsons—they were sad so much of the time. But when they were around Kasie, they changed. They smiled. They laughed. They played. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d seen them so happy. Was it fair to deny them Kasie’s company just because he didn’t like her? On the other hand, was it wise to let them get so attached to her when she might quit or he might fire her?

The question worried him. As he pondered the situation, Kasie moved and the cover fell away from her sleeping form. He moved closer to the bed in the dim light from the security lights outside, and abruptly he realized that she was wearing the sort of gown a dowager might. It was strictly for utility, plain and white, with no ruffles or lace or even a fancy border. He scowled. Kasie was twenty-two. Was it normal for a woman her age to be so repressed that she covered herself from head to toe even in sleep?

She moved again, restlessly, and a single word broke from her lips as the nightmare came again.

“Kantor,” she whispered. “Kantor!”

Chapter 3

Without thinking, Gil reached down and shook Kasie’s shoulder. “Wake up, Kasie!” he said firmly.

Her eyes opened on a rush of breath. There was horror in them for a few seconds until she came awake and realized that her boss was standing over her. She blinked away the sleepiness and pulled herself up on an elbow. Her beautiful thick chestnut hair swirled around her shoulders below the high neck of the gown as she stared at him.

“You were having a nightmare,” he said curtly. “Who’s Kantor?”

She hesitated for a few seconds. “My brother,” she said finally. “My twin.” She noticed that he was wearing a long robe and apparently nothing under it. Thick dark blond hair was visible in the deep vee of the neckline. She averted her eyes almost in panic. It embarrassed her to have him see her in her nightgown; almost as much as to see him in a robe.

“Why do you have nightmares about him?” he asked gently.

“We had an argument,” she said. She pushed back her hair. “I don’t want to talk about it.”

His eyes narrowed. Apparently it was a painful subject. He let it drop. His eyes went to the girls and not without misgiving. “Why are they in here with you?”

“The storm woke them up. They got scared and came to me,” she said defensively. “I didn’t go get them.”

He was studying them quietly. His expression was hard, grave, wounded.

“I’m sure they went to look for you first,” she began defensively.

His eyes glittered down into hers. “We’ve had this conversation before. Miss Parsons is supposed to be their governness,” he emphasized.

“Miss Parsons is probably snoring her head off,” she said curtly. “She sleeps like the dead. Bess had a fever week before last, and she didn’t even get up when I woke her and told her about it. She said that a fever never hurt anybody!”

“That was when she had strep and I took her to the doctor,” he recalled. “Miss Parsons said she was sick. I assumed that she’d been up in the night with her.”

“Dream on.”

He glared at her. “I’ll excuse it this time,” he said, ignoring the reference he didn’t like to Miss Parsons and her treatment of Bess. He’d have something to say to the woman about that. “Next time, come and find me if you can’t wake Miss Parsons.”

She just stared back, silent.

“Did you hear me, Kasie?” he demanded softly.

“All right.” She glanced from one side of her to the other. “Do you want to wake them up and carry them back to their own beds?”

He looked furious. “If I do, we’ll all be awake the rest of the night. We had cattle get out, and we got soaked trying to get them back in. I’m worn-out. I want to go to sleep.”

“Nobody here is stopping you,” she murmured.

His pale eyes narrowed. “I should have let you go when you offered to resign,” he said caustically.

“There’s still time,” she pointed out, growing more angry by the minute.

He cursed under his breath, glared at her again and walked out.

The next morning, Kasie woke to soft pummeling little hands and laughing voices.

“Get up, Kasie, get up! Daddy’s taking us to the movies today!”

She yawned and curled up. “Not me,” she murmured sleepily. “Go get breakfast, babies. Mrs. Charters will feed you.”

“You got to come, too!” Bess said.

“I want to sleep,” she murmured.

“Daddy, she won’t get up!” Bess wailed.

“Oh, yes, she will.”

Kasie barely had time to register the deep voice before the covers were torn away and she was lifted bodily out of the bed in a pair of very strong arms.

Shocked, she stared straight into pale blue eyes and felt as if she’d been electrified.

“I’ll wake her up,” Gil told the girls. “Go down and eat your breakfast.”

“Okay, Daddy!”

The girls left gleefully, laughing as they went to the staircase.

“You look like a nun in that gown,” Gil remarked as he studied his light burden, aware of her sudden stillness. Her face was very close. He searched it quietly. “And you’ve got freckles, Kasie, just across the bridge of your nose.”

“Put…put me down,” she said, unnerved by the proximity. She didn’t like the sensations it caused to feel his chest right against her bare breasts.

“Why?” he asked. He gazed into her eyes. “You hardly weigh anything.” His eyes narrowed as he studied her face thoroughly. “You have big eyes,” he murmured. “With little flecks of blue in them. Your face looks more round than oval, especially with your hair down. Your mouth is—” he searched for a word, more touched than he wanted to be by its vulnerability “—full and soft. Half-asleep you don’t come across as a fighter. But you are, aren’t you?”

Her hands were resting lightly around his neck and she stared at him disconcertedly while she wondered what John or Miss Parsons would say if they walked in unexpectedly to find them in this position.

“You should put me down,” she said huskily.

“Don’t you like being carried?” he murmured absently.

She shivered as she remembered the last time she’d been carried, by an orderly in the hospital…

She pushed at him. “Please.”