The Men of Medicine Ridge - Diana Palmer [83]
The other woman sighed. “No, I guess I’ll sit with the girls. Nice to have seen you,” she added, and moved ahead with the girls, looking bored all over again.
Gil slid his hand down into Kasie’s. She reacted nervously to the unexpected touch, but his fingers clung, warm and strong against her own. He drew her along to the line already forming alongside the velvet ropes as the ticket takers prepared to let people through to the various theaters.
“Humor me,” he said, and it looked as though he were whispering sweet nothings into her ear. “I’m the entrée, in case you haven’t noticed.”
Kasie glanced around and saw a number of women with little children and no man along, and two of them gave him deliberate, wistful glances and smiled.
“Single moms?” she whispered back, having to go on tiptoe.
He caught her around the waist and held her against his hip. “No. Get the picture?”
Her breath caught. “Oh, dear,” she said heavily.
He looked down into her wide eyes. “You’re such a child sometimes,” he said softly. “You don’t see ugliness, do you? You go through life looking for rainbows instead of rain.”
“Habit,” she murmured, fascinated by the pale blue lights in his eyes.
“It’s a rather nice habit,” he replied. The look lasted just a few seconds too long to be polite, and Kasie felt her heart begin to race. But then, the line shifted and diverted him. He moved closer to the ticket-taker, keeping the girls ahead carefully in sight while his arm drew Kasie along with him.
She liked the protectiveness of that muscular arm. He didn’t look like a body-builder, all his movements were lithe and graceful. But he worked at physical labor from dawn until dusk most days. She’d seen him throw calves that had to be doctored. She’d seen him throw bulls, too. He was strong. Involuntarily she relaxed against him. It was delicious, the feeling of security it gave her to be close to him, to the warm strength of him.
The soft movement caught him off guard and sent a jolt of sensation through him that he hadn’t felt in a long time. He looked down at her with curious, turbulent eyes that she didn’t see. She was smiling and waving at the girls, who were darting off down into the theater with the little girl and her mother.
“They like you,” he said.
“I like them.”
He handed their tickets to the uniformed girl, who smiled as she handed back the stubs and pointed the way to the theater that was showing the cartoon movie.
Gil caught Kasie’s hand in his and drew her lazily along with him through the crowd of children and parents until they reached the theater. But instead of going down to the front, he drew Kasie to an isolated double-seat in the very back row and sat down beside her. His arm went over the back of the chair as the theater darkened and the previews began showing.
Kasie was electrified by the shift in their relationship. She felt his lean fingers on her shoulder, bringing her closer, and his cheek rested against her temple. She hadn’t ever been to a movie with a man. There had been a blind double date once, and the boy sat on his own side of the seat and looked nervous until they got home again. This was worlds away from that experience.
“Comfortable?” he asked at her ear, and his voice was like velvet.
“Yes,” she said unsteadily.
His chest rose and fell and he found himself paying a lot more attention to the feel of Kasie’s soft hair against his skin than the movie. She smelled of spring roses. Her hair was soft, and had a faint herbal scent of its own. Twenty-two. She was twenty-two. He was thirty-two, and she’d already said that he was too old for her.
He scowled as he thought about that difference. She needed someone as young as she was, with that same vulnerable, kind, generous spirit. He had two little girls and a high-pressure business that gave him little free time. He was still grieving, in a way, for Darlene, whom he’d loved since grammar school. But there was something about Kasie that made him hungry. It wasn’t desire, although he was aware of heady sensations when she was close to him. No, it was