The Men of Medicine Ridge - Diana Palmer [103]
“You don’t hold anything back, do you?” he asked conversationally, and it didn’t show that he’d been affected by her. “Are you like that all the way into the bedroom?” he added softly, so that the girls wouldn’t hear.
Kasie drew in a long breath. “I wouldn’t know,” she said huskily, painfully aware that she’d just made an utter fool of herself. “I’ll get dressed.”
“You might as well, where I’m concerned,” he said pleasantly. “You’re easy on the eyes, Kasie, but in the dark, looks don’t matter much.”
She stared at him with confusion, as if she couldn’t believe she was hearing such a blatant remark from him.
He slid his hands into his pockets and studied her arrogantly from head to toe. “You’d need to be prettier,” he continued, “and with larger…assets,” he said with a deliberate study of her pert breasts. “I’m particular about my lovers these days. It takes a special woman.”
“Which, thank God, I’m not,” she choked, flushing. “I don’t sleep around.”
“Of course not,” he agreed.
She turned away from him with a sick feeling in her stomach. She’d loved his touch. It had been her first experience of passion, and it had been exquisite because it was Gil touching her. But he thought she was offering herself, and he didn’t want her. She should be glad. She wasn’t a loose woman. But it was a deliberate insult, and she wondered what she’d done to make him want to hurt her.
Her reaction made him even angrier, but he didn’t let it show. “Giving up so easily?” he taunted.
She kept her back to him so that he wouldn’t see her face. “We’ve had this conversation once,” she pointed out. “I know that you don’t want to remarry, and I’ve told you that I don’t sleep around. Okay?”
“If I catch you in bed with that hack writer, I’ll fire you on the spot,” he added, viciously.
She turned then and glared at him from wet eyes. “What’s the matter with you?” she asked.
“A sudden awakening of reason,” he said enigmatically. “You look after the girls. That’s your job.”
“I never thought it involved anything else,” she said.
“And it doesn’t,” he agreed. “The fringe benefits don’t include the boss.”
“Some fringe benefit,” she scoffed, regaining her composure. “A conceited, overbearing, arrogant rancher who thinks he’s on every woman’s Christmas list!”
He lifted an eyebrow over eyes with cynical sophistication gleaming in them. “Don’t look for me under your Christmas tree,” he chided.
“Don’t worry, I won’t.” She turned and kept walking before he could say anything worse. Of all the conceited men on earth!
He watched her go with mixed emotions, the strongest of which was desire. She made him ache all over. He checked his watch. Pauline’s ten minutes were up, and he wanted out of this apartment. He called a good-night to the girls and went out without another word to Kasie.
When he got back in, at two in the morning, he paused long enough to open Kasie’s door and look in.
She was wearing another of those concealing cotton gowns, with the covers thrown off. Jenny was curled up against one shoulder and Bess was curled into the other. They were all three asleep.
Gil ground his teeth together just looking at the picture they made together. His girls and Kasie. They looked more like mother and daughters. The thought hurt him. He closed the door with a little jerk and went back into his own room. Despite Pauline’s alluring gown and her spirited conversation, he had been morose all evening.
Pauline had noticed, and knew the reason. She was, she told herself, going to get rid of the competition. It only needed the right set of circumstances.
Fate provided them only two days later. Kasie and Gil were barely speaking now. She avoided him, and he did the same to her. If the girls noticed, they kept their thoughts to themselves. Impulsively Kasie phoned Zeke at his hotel and asked if he’d like to come over and have lunch with her at the hotel, since she couldn’t leave the girls.
He agreed with flattering