Gentle Pirate (15 page)

Disappointment welled in those arrestingly blue eyes. "I reckon that'll have to do. I was sort of hopin' we'd get to talk a little about Jim while we took in the sights."

"Phil, I don't like to discuss Jim Talbot," she said quietly.

"I know. It probably hurts too much," he said quickly, patting her hand lightly. "It's been such a short time since his death. I see you couldn't even bear to have many things around that would remind you of him," he added, glancing around the kitchen and into the living room. "I remember he used to keep his collection of swords on one wall and his books on war history filled a couple of bookcases!"

"I didn't bring any of Jim's things with me," Kirsten told him in a determined voice, wishing he'd get the message.

"Nothing at all?" he asked incredulously, turning to look at her curiously. "You must have saved some stuff, though, Kirsten. I mean, being his widow and all and him not having any relatives to speak of. What about his Heart, for instance. Didn't you even keep that? And there was an old lighter. One I gave him, in fact. Used to be he never let those things out of his sight…"

Before Kirsten could answer that one Simon's steel hook struck the door. She knew for certain it was Simon this time. She had only been mistaken earlier because she had been so groggy. This was all she needed to complete her morning, she told herself as she went to greet her possible future husband. At least he held that status until he discovered she was entertaining other ex-Marines before eight o'clock in the morning, she thought wryly.

"Good morning, honey. I'm glad to see you're up bright and early. I've got plans for us today," Simon greeted her cheerfully, pulling her into his arms.

"Simon…" Kirsten tried only to be silenced with a kiss. A kiss that indicated he hadn't changed his mind about marrying her, at any rate. She made another attempt when he released her and stepped inside. "Simon, I've got a visitor," she said quickly, backing up as his solid body moved into the apartment.

"A visitor? At this hour? I can't leave you alone for a minute, can I, sweetheart? Who are you entertaining over the breakfast table this morning? Someone very short and frail, I trust!"

"Simon, I'm serious," Kirsten hissed in a whisper, embarrassed in case Phil could overhear.

"Yes, I can see you are. Better introduce myself, hadn't I?" Without further ado he covered the distance to the kitchen and came to a stop in the doorway.

"I'm Simon Kendrick, Kirsten's fiance, and I think it's only fair to tell you that I make a practice of crunching other men I happen to find at her breakfast table," he announced pleasantly to a startled Phil Hagood.

The other man got to his feet immediately, uncertain how to deal with Simon and glancing at Kirsten for guidance.

"Simon is only teasing you, Phil. Sit down and finish your coffee," she told him with a withering look at an un-repentent Simon. "Can I get you a cup, Simon?" she offered politely.

"Of course you can. It's one of the things I came over for." He lowered himself precariously onto one of the little chairs and faced Phil.

"Phil Hagood, Mr. Kendrick. I was a close friend of Jim Talbot's. Kirsten's husband," Phil noted by way of introduction.

"I'm aware of the bastard," Simon nodded agreeably. "I prefer not to discuss him, however. What are you doing here in Richland, Phil?" The agreeable tone of his voice did nothing to hide the steel reinforcement buried in it. Kirsten turned in time to catch sight of the hook being casually shifted and she knew instinctively that Simon had decided to be deliberately intimidating.

Hagood had whitened at Simon's reference to Jim Talbot but he controlled himself with an effort.

"Jim told me he married, Mr. Kendrick. He asked me to check on Kirsten if anything ever happened to him. Make sure she was getting along okay. You understand?"

"Ummm. Completely. Kirsten, this coffee is weak. Why don't you try adding another measure next time you make it?" Simon smiled blandly at her as she took the one remaining chair at the table.

"Make it yourself if you don't like the way I do it!" she told him unpleasantly, disgusted with his rudeness.

"All right. Starting tomorrow, making the coffee will be my task. It will be convenient if I don't have to walk all the way from my apartment to do it, though, so starting tonight you'll sleep under my roof."

Kirsten stared at him. A man like Simon Kendrick never did anything without a purpose. Why this kind of conversation in front of a total stranger? Baffled, she glared at him.

Before she could figure out an answer Simon was turning to the reddening Phil.

"Now that you've seen Kirsten is safely settled with another Marine I expect you'll want to be on your way, won't you?" he inquired outrageously.

"Officer?" Phil asked uneasily and then glanced briefly at the gleaming hook just visible beneath Simon's white cuff. '"Nam?"

"Right both times. Would Kirsten accept anything less?" Simon asked curiously.

"Simon!" she yelped furiously. "What's gotten into you? You're behaving like a… a…"

"A Marine?" Simon smiled dangerously at her and unaccountably she decided to shut up. The man was plotting. She had a feeling…

"How far have you come, Phil?"

"Drove over from the coast," Phil muttered, looking harassed.

"Last night?" Simon pursued.

Hagood blinked and shook his head negatively. "Got a real early start this morning," he explained briefly. Kirsten took pity on her guest.

"It's been a long drive which he undertook for the sake of his friend, Simon. You can't ask him to leave…"

"Kirsten, honey, go into the bedroom and pack an overnight bag. I thought it might be nice to spend the weekend, or what there is left of it, in Seattle. We'll have to hurry, though, or we'll miss the plane. It's only an hour's flight over to the city. We'll be there by the time the stores open. Now run along like a good girl while I show Mr. Hagood out."

Kirsten stared at him helplessly. But there was no arguing with the man and she knew it instinctively. There were times when it was safe to stand up to him and other times when it was the last thing in the world a sane person would do. Confused and angry, she slammed her coffee cup back onto the saucer and stalked away to the bedroom.

Ten minutes later she heard the front door close and tiptoed carefully back down the hall. Simon smiled benignly and came toward her.

"Finished packing already? Good girl. We'll have to rush."

"Simon, I am not packed and you know it. Why did you run Phil Hagood out of here? He was only trying to do a good deed." She faced him firmly, sensing that a confrontation was safer now.

"I'm absolutely serious about the packing, woman. If you don't get to it, you'll have to spend the night in Seattle in whatever you've got on at the moment. Which would be a pity considering the restaurant I have in mind. You won't believe the wine list, honey. Enough to make a person drool clear over here in Richland! Now run along. I'll feed those monsters in the aquarium!"

Kirsten hovered a moment longer, trying to decide if she was being teased, while Simon lifted the lid of the fish tank with his hook and dropped a tiny pinch of food into the water. When he glanced up she turned on her heel and fled in the direction of the bedroom.

The scruffy desert surrounding Richland and the neighboring towns of Pasco and Kennewick fell away rapidly as the commuter plane climbed into the sky forty minutes later. They had barely made the flight. The rich farmland of the Yakima Valley was passing underneath before Kirsten had the courage to direct Simon's attention back to Phil Hagood.

"I don't think you should have been so abrupt with him, Simon. He didn't know what the situation had been between Jim and me!"

"The guy's a con artist, Kirsten. There's no point being polite to con artists, honey, it only encourages them," Simon countered smoothly, opening the airline magazine to an article on home computers.

"A con artist! How would you know a thing like that?" she demanded, irritated. "He seemed like a perfectly pleasant farmer type to me. And it was nice of him to go through all that trouble to find me…" Kirsten broke off, remembering something. "I meant to give him Jim's Purple Heart and that lighter. I think Phil's the one person in the world who would care to have them. I got so flustered when you started acting the part of the jealous fiance that I forgot," she frowned.

"I wasn't acting, sweetheart. Believe it or not, I really do intend to put a stop to this habit you're developing of inviting strange men to breakfast!" he announced dryly, glancing up briefly from his magazine.

"Simon, don't be an idiot!" she snapped. "You're the only other 'strange' man I've had to breakfast in ages. Come to think of it, maybe I should put a stop to the practice," she added musingly. "Look what happened to me after I fed you."

He grinned. "Meeting you has caused a severe interruption in my routine, too, honey! I haven't had a dull moment since I knocked on your door that night after Williamson left!"

"Yes, you looked anything but bored last night with Liz Wilford," Kirsten commented in dulcet tones, turning her widest, most innocent gaze on him.

"Little cat," he said, amused. "It wasn't my fault I was left at loose ends last night. It would have been you dancing with me if you had accepted my invitation instead of electing to get into trouble."

"I wasn't in trouble," Kirsten muttered. "I just got mad at Roger and decided to come home on my own!"

"You mean with a little help from a friend, don't you?"

Kirsten ignored the humorous note in his words, deciding to go on the attack. "I wasn't aware you and Liz were such good friends," she remarked aloofly.

"We aren't. At least, we're not any closer than you and Roger," he told her gently, the laughter lighting up the hazel eyes. "I'm afraid Townsend was trying to cover all bases."

"You mean Liz was supposed to be pumping information out of you, too?" Kirsten thought about that a moment and an irrepressible grin bubbled to the surface. "I resent that!" she exclaimed with mock indignity. "He didn't even give me a chance! I might have made it very successfully as a spy! But if you knew what she was doing, why did you let her wangle the date out of you?"

"I've told you. I had nothing else to do except wait for you to come home. I decided to amuse myself until the time came for me to start calling Townsend's apartment every fifteen minutes," he informed her blandly.

"What! You mean on top of merely threatening the poor man with his job you were going to pester him over the phone, too?" Kirsten demanded, not certain whether to scream or laugh and very much afraid she would do thi latter. Simon was so incredibly determined to have thing run his way!

"Whatever it took to make sure he kept his hands of you," Simon agreed with a massively indifferent shrug.

"This
relationship
of ours appears to suffer from a lack of personal privacy," she announced feelingly.

"It's not privacy you need, sweetheart, it's something to keep you out of trouble. I'm hoping marriage will do that but if it doesn't at least I'll be close enough to step in before things get out of hand."

Kirsten shot a quick look at him and then concentratei her gaze on the huge, circular, irrigated fields that dottei the landscape below the plane. "Simon, were you really serious last night?" she asked as softly as the noise of th plane allowed.

"I never say anything I don't mean," he answered simply, flipping to the next article in his magazine.

Kirsten ground her teeth at his casual attitude towar the subject of their marriage. Perhaps he married regularly?

"Simon, are you divorced?" she said quietly, remembering the vague "mistake" he had alluded to the morning sh had told him about Jim. She turned a bit in the seat't meet his steady hazel gaze.

"Yes," he said honestly. "But you needn't concern yourself with worries over an ex-wife who may descend on you at any moment. She's completely out of my life and there were no children. Does that satisfy you?"

She stared at him for a long moment, reluctant to put her thought into words but found herself unable to avoi it. Trying to cover the remark with a decidedly flippar note, she said, "It's only that I can't imagine a woman leaving you alone after she'd been married to you."

Simon smiled and reached out his right hand to flick he cheek affectionately. "I told you, honey, the marriage was a mistake. Like you, I had pretty well decided that I was not fated to enjoy a great love in my life. In fact, I had decided that there was no such thing. Sylvia came along right after I had come to that conclusion and she offered everything I thought a rising executive ought to have in a wife. And she did. We managed to live two separate lives under the same roof quite successfully. Then came the day when I decided I no longer wanted to be the rising executive she had married. Our marriage had been something of a business arrangement and, in a sense, I was not holding up my end of the business any longer. We split. No hard feelings on either side."

"But, Simon, you are obviously successful now. Did you change your mind and go back to your original ambitions after the divorce?" Kirsten asked wonderingly, thinking privately that the split between Simon and his ex-wife probably hadn't been quite as smooth as he made it sound.

"Nope," he grinned down at her. "Poor Kirsten! You don't know very much about me, do you? I only do this consulting bit a couple of times a year for short periods to supplement my regular income which, until recently, has been rather limited."

"But the Mercedes, your clothes… Simon, you don't look particularly poor," she pointed out, confused.

"Window dressing, sweetheart. I have to maintain an image or I wouldn't get the juicy contracts I've needed." He spoke in a very off-hand fashion. "No one would hire a management consultant who looked as if he needed a job!"

Kirsten giggled, delighted. "Then you're not terribly rich?"

"Most of what I possess is tied up in my land," he smiled, watching her interestedly. "Will it bother you to live in an old stone house in a vineyard in Napa Valley?"