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СКАЧАТЬ She wondered what they’d done to make their sons so hostile. Then she remembered what Gil had said, about their being used by their parents only to make money, and it all began to make sense. Perhaps they didn’t really want children at all. What a pity, that their sons were nothing more than sales incentives to them.

      The mechanic did come while Gil was upstairs. Kasie went with him onto the long porch and showed him where the barn was, so that he could drive on down there and park his truck. The rain had stopped, though, so he didn’t have to worry about getting wet. There was a pleasant dripping sound off the eaves of the house, and the delicious smell of wet flowers in the darkness.

      Kasie sat down in the porch swing and rocked it into motion. It was a perfect night, now that the storm had abated. She could hear crickets, or maybe frogs, chirping all around the flowering shrubs that surrounded the front porch. It reminded her, for some reason, of Africa. She vaguely remembered sitting in a porch swing with her mother and Kantor when their father was away working. There were the delicious smells of cooking from the house, and the spicy smells drifting from the harbor nearby, as well as the familiar sound of African workers singing and humming as they worked around the settlement. It was a long time ago, when she still had a family. Now, except for Mama Luke, she was completely alone. It was a cold, empty feeling.

      The screen door suddenly opened and Gil came out onto the porch. His blond hair was still damp, faintly unruly at the edges and tending to curl. He was wearing a blue checked Western shirt with clean jeans and nice boots. He looked just the way a working cowboy should when he was cleaned up, she thought, trying to imagine him a century earlier.

      “Is the mechanic here?” he asked abruptly when he spotted Kasie in the swing.

      “Yes, I sent him on down to the barn.”

      He went down the steps gracefully and stalked to the barn. He was gone about five minutes and when he came out of the barn, so did the mechanic. They shook hands and the mechanic drove off.

      “A fuse,” he murmured, shaking his head as he came up the steps and dropped into the swing at Kasie’s side. “A damned fuse, and the whole panel went down. Imagine that.”

      “Sometimes it’s the little things that give the most trouble,” she murmured, shy with him.

      He put an arm behind her and rocked the swing into motion. “I like the way you smell, Kasie,” he said lazily. “You always remind me of roses.”

      “I’m allergic to perfume,” she confided. “The florals are the only ones I can wear without sneezing my head off.”

      “Where are my babies?” he asked.

      “Mrs. Charters is baking cookies with them in the kitchen,” she said, smiling. “They love to cook. So do I. We’ve all learned a lot from Mrs. Charters.”

      He looked down at her in the darkness. One lean hand went to the braid at the back of her head, and he tugged on it gently. “You’re mysterious,” he murmured. “I don’t really know anything about you.”

      “There’s not much to tell,” she told him. “I’m just ordinary.”

      He shifted, and she felt his powerful thigh against her leg. Her body came alive with fleeting little stabs of pleasure. She could feel her breath catching in her throat as she breathed. He was too close.

      She started to move, but it was too late. His arm curled her into his body, and the warm, hard pressure of his mouth pushed her head back against the swing while he fed hungrily on her lips.

      Part of her wanted to resist, but a stronger part was completely powerless. She reached up and put her arms around his neck and opened her lips for him. She felt him stiffen, hesitate, catch his breath. Then his mouth became rough and demanding, and he dragged her across his legs, folding her close while he kissed her until her mouth was swollen and tender.

      He nibbled her upper lip, fighting to breathe normally. “Don’t let me do this,” he warned.

      “You’re bigger than I am,” she murmured breathlessly.

      “That’s no excuse at all.”

      Her fingers trailed over his hard mouth and down to his chest where they rested. She stared at the wide curve of his mouth with a kind of wonder that a man like this, good-looking and charming and wealthy, would look twice at a chestnut mouse like Kasie. Perhaps he needed glasses.

      He touched her oval face, tracing its soft lines in a warm, damp darkness that was suddenly like an exotic, faraway place. Kasie felt as if she’d come home. Impulsively, she let her head slide down his arm until it rested in the crook of his elbow. She watched his expression harden, heard his breathing change. His lean fingers moved down her chin and throat until they were at the top button of her shirtwaist dress. They hesitated there.

      She lay looking up at him patiently, curiously, ablaze with unfamiliar longings and delight.

      “Kasie,” he whispered, and his long fingers began to sensually move the top button out of its buttonhole. As it came free, he heard her soft gasp, felt the jerk of her body, and knew that this was new territory for her.

      His hand started to slide gently into the opening he’d made. He watched Kasie, lying so sweetly in his embrace, giving him free license with her innocence, and he shivered with desire.

      But even as he felt the soft warmth of the skin at her collarbone, laughing young voices came drifting out onto the porch as the front door opened.

      Gil moved Kasie back into her own seat abruptly and stood up.

      “Daddy’s home!” Bess cried, and she and Jenny ran to him, to be scooped up and kissed heartily.

      “I’ll, uh, just go and get my pad so that you can dictate that letter you mentioned,” Kasie said as she got up, too.

      “You will not,” Gil said, his voice still a little husky. “Go to bed, Kasie. It can wait. In the morning, you can tutor Pauline on the computer, so that she can take over inputting the cattle records. John won’t be in until late tonight, and he leaves early tomorrow for the cattle show in San Antonio. There’s nothing in the office that can’t wait.”

      She was both disappointed and relieved. It was getting harder to deny Gil anything he wanted. She couldn’t have imagined that she was such a wanton person only a few weeks ago. She didn’t know what to do.

      “Okay, I’ll call it a night,” she said, trying to disguise her nervousness. “Good night, babies,” she told Bess and Jenny with a smile. “Sleep tight.”

      “Will you tell us a story, Kasie?” Bess began.

      “I’ll tell you a story tonight. Kasie needs her rest. All right?” he asked the girls.

      “All right, Daddy,” Jenny murmured, laying her sleepy head on his shoulder.

      They all went upstairs together. Kasie didn’t quite meet his eyes as she went down the hall to her own room. She didn’t sleep very much, either.

      Chapter Six

      Pauline Raines was half an hour late Monday morning. Gil had already gone out to check on some cattle that was being shipped off. John had left before daylight to fly to San Antonio, where the cattle trailer СКАЧАТЬ