Diana Palmer - September Morning

He tossed off the rest of his drink and linked his hands behind his head. His dark eyes pinned Kathryn to her chair. “Why don't you get out of that coat and stop trying to look as if you're ten minutes late for an appointment somewhere?”

“I'm cold, Blake,” she murmured.

“Turn up the thermostat, then.”

“I won't be here that long, will I?” she asked hopefully.

His dark, quiet eyes traveled over the soft, pink skin revealed by her white dress, making her feel very young and uncomfortable.

“Must you stare at me like that?” she asked uneasily. She toyed with a wisp of chiffon.

He pulled his cigarette case from his pocket and took his time about lighting up. “What's this about a revolution?” he asked conversationally.

She blinked at him. “Oh, what Phil said?” she asked, belatedly comprehending. She swallowed hard. “Uh, I just…”

He laughed shortly. “Kathryn, I can't remember a conversation with you that didn't end in stammers.”

Her full lips pouted. “I wouldn't stammer if you wouldn't jump on me every time you get the chance.”

One heavy dark eyebrow went up. He looked completely relaxed, imperturbable. That composure rattled her, and she couldn't help wondering if anything ever made him lose it.

“Do I?” he asked.

“You know very well you do.” She studied the hard lines of his face, noting the faint tautness of fatigue that only a stranger would miss. “You're very tired, aren't you?” she asked suddenly, warming to him.

He took a draw from the cigarette. “Dead,” he admitted.

“Then why aren't you in bed?” she wanted to know.

He studied her quietly. “I didn't mean to ruin the party for you.”

The old, familiar tenderness in his voice brought an annoying mist to her eyes and she averted them. “It's all right.”

“No, it isn't.” He flicked ashes into the receptacle beside his chair, and a huge sigh lifted his chest. “Kate, I just broke off an affair. The silly woman's pestering me to death, and when you said what you did, I overreacted.” He shrugged. “My temper's a little on edge lately, or I'd have laughed it off.”

She smiled at him faintly. “Did you…love her?” she asked gently.

He burst out laughing. “What a child you are,” he chuckled. “Do I have to love a woman to take her into my bed?”

The flush went all the way down her throat. “I don't know,” she admitted.

“No,” he said, the smile fading, “I don't suppose you do. I believed in love, at your age.”

“Cynic,” she accused.

He crushed out the cigarette in his ashtray. “Guilty. I've learned that sex is better without emotional blinders.”

She dropped her eyes in mortification, trying not to see the unholy amusement on his dark face.

“Embarrassed, Kate?” he chided. “I thought that experience with Harris had matured you.”

Her green eyes flashed fire as they lifted to meet his. “Do we have to go through this again?” she asked.

“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.”