The Men of Medicine Ridge - Diana Palmer [78]
He really scowled then. “Why?”
She thought of her parents and then of Kantor, and her eyes closed on the pain. “Love hurts too much.”
He didn’t speak. For an instant, he felt the pain that seemed to rack her delicate features, and he understood it, all too well.
“You loved someone who died,” he recalled.
She nodded and her eyes met his. “And so did you.”
For an instant, his hard face was completely unguarded. He was vulnerable, mortal, wounded. “Yes.”
“It doesn’t pass away, like they say, does it?” she asked softly.
“Not for a long time.”
He moved a step closer, and this time she didn’t back up. Her eyes lifted to his. He slid his big, lean hand into the thick waves of her chestnut hair and enjoyed its silkiness. “Why don’t you wear your hair down, like this?”
“It’s sinful,” she whispered.
“What?”
“When you dress and wear your hair in a way that’s meant to tempt men, to try to seduce them, it’s sinful,” she repeated.
His lips fell open. He didn’t know how to answer that. He’d never had a woman, especially a modern woman, say such a thing to him.
“Do you think sex is a sin?” he asked.
“Outside of marriage, it is,” she replied simply.
“You don’t move with the times, do you?” he asked on an expulsion of breath.
“No,” she replied.
He started smiling and couldn’t stop. “Oh, boy.”
“The girls will be waiting. Are you really taking them to a movie?” she asked.
“Yes.” One eye narrowed. “I need to take you to one, too. Something X-rated.”
She flushed. “Get out of here and stop trying to corrupt me.”
“You’re overdue.”
“Stop or I’ll have Mama Luke come over and lecture you.”
He frowned. “Mama Luke?”
“My aunt.”
“What an odd name.”
She shrugged. “Our whole family runs to odd names.”
“I noticed.”
She made a face. “I work for you. My private life is my own business.”
“You don’t have a private life,” he said, and smiled tenderly.
“I’m a great reader. I love Plutarch and Tacitus and Arrian.”
“Good God!”
“There’s nothing wrong with ancient history. Things were just as bad then as they are now. All the ancient writers said that the younger generation was headed straight to purgatory and the world was corrupt.”
“Arrian didn’t.”
“Arrian wrote about Alexander the Great,” she reminded him. “Alexander’s world was in fairly good shape, apparently.”
“Arrian wrote about Alexander in the distant past, not his own present.” His eyes became soft with affection as he looked at her. “Why don’t I like you? There isn’t a person in my circle of acquaintances who would even know who Arrian was, much less what he wrote about.”
“I don’t like you much, either,” she shot right back. “But I guess I can stand it if you can.”
“I’ll have to,” he mused. “If I let you walk out, the girls will push me down the staircase and call you back to support them at my funeral.”
She shivered abruptly and wrapped her arms around herself. Funeral. Funeral…
“Kasie!”
Her somber eyes came up. She was barely breathing. “Don’t…joke about things like that.”
“Kasie, I didn’t mean it that way,” he began.
She forced a smile. “Of course not. I have to get dressed.”
He lifted an eyebrow. “You might as well come as you are. I haven’t seen a gown like that since I stayed with my grandmother as a child.” He shook his head. “You’d set a lingerie shop back decades if that style caught on.”
“It’s a perfectly functional gown.”
“Functional. Yes. It’s definitely functional. And about as seductive as chain mail,” he added.
“Good!”
He burst out laughing. “All right, I’m leaving.”
He went out, sparing her a last, amused glance before he closed the door.
Kasie dressed in jeans and a dark T-shirt. She put her long hair in a braid and pulled on sneakers. She felt a twinge of guilt because she’d missed so many Sunday sermons in past months. But she couldn’t reconcile her pain. It needed more time.
The whole family was at the table when she joined them for breakfast. John gave her a warm smile.
“I hear you had visitors last night,” he told Kasie with a mischievous glance at the two little girls, who were wolfing down cereal.
“Yes, I did,” Kasie replied