September Morning (8 page)

“Kate, don't be ridiculous,” he growled after her. “You know what I meant. I don't want you wearing dresses with necklines cut to the waist, that's all. You're still too much a child to realize what you could be letting yourself in for.”

She turned at the door with great dignity, her carriage so perfect that Mademoiselle Devres would have cheered. “I'm not a child anymore, Blake,” she told him. “Am I?”

He turned away, bending his head to light a cigarette with steady hands. “When does that writer get here?”

She swallowed nervously. “Tomorrow morning.” She watched him walk to the darkened window and draw the curtain aside to look out. His broad back was toward her and unexpectedly, she remembered how warm and sensuous it had felt under the palms of her hands.

“Aren't you going to tell me to call it off again?” she asked, testing him, feeling a flick of danger run through her that was madly exciting.

He stared at her across the room for a long moment before he answered. “At least I won't have to worry about you sneaking off to go to that convention with him while he's under my roof,” he remarked carelessly. “And he'd have his work cut out to seduce you, from what I've seen tonight.”

Her eyes flashed at him. “That's what you think!” she shot back.

He only laughed, softly, sensuously. “Before you flounce off, hugging your boundless attractions to your bare bosom, you might remember that I wasn't trying to seduce you. You ought to know by now that my taste doesn't run to oversexed adolescents. Not that you fall in that classification,” he added with a mocking smile. “You're green for a young woman just shy of her twenty-first birthday.”

That hurt, even more than the devastating taste of him as a lover. “Larry doesn't think so,” she told him.

He lifted the cigarette to his hard mouth, his eyes laughing at her. “If I had his limited experience, I might agree with him.”

That nudged a suspicion in the back of her mind. “What do you know about his experience?” she asked.

He studied her for a long, static silence. “Did you really think I'd let you go to Crete with him and that harebrained sister of his without checking them out thoroughly?”

Her face flamed. “You don't trust me, do you?”

“On the contrary, I trust you implicitly. But I don't trust men,” he said arrogantly.

“You don't own me,” she cried, infuriated by his calm sureness.

“Oh, go to bed before you set fire to my temper again,” he growled at her.

“Gladly,” she returned. She went out the door without even a good night, and then lay awake half the night worrying about it.

Her dreams were full of Blake that night. And when she woke to the rumble of thunder and the sound of raindrops, she had a vivid picture of herself lying in his big arms while his mouth burned on her bare skin. It was embarrassing enough to make her late for breakfast. She didn't think she could have looked at Blake without giving herself away.

But her worries were groundless. Blake had already left to go to the office when Kathryn came downstairs to find Vivian sitting by herself at the breakfast table.

“Good morning,” Vivian said politely. Her delicate blond features were enhanced by her buttercup yellow blouse and skirt. She looked slim and ultra-chic. She eyed Kathryn's jeans and roll-neck white sweater with disgust. “You don't believe in fashion, do you?” she asked.

“In my own home, no,” she replied, reaching for cream to add to her steaming cup of coffee as Mrs. Johnson hustled back and forth between the kitchen, adding to the already formidable breakfast dishes.

Vivian watched her add two teaspoons of sugar to her coffee. “Don't count calories either, do you?” She laughed.

“I don't need to,” Kathryn said quietly, refusing to display her irritation. Where in the world were Maude and Phillip and Dick Leeds?

Vivian watched her raise the cup to her mouth, and her hawk eyes lit on the slightly raw lower lip, which was faintly throbbing this morning—a painful reminder of Blake's shocking intimacy.

The blonde's narrow eyes darted down to her plate as she nibbled at scrambled eggs. “You and Blake were downstairs together a long time last night,” she said conversationally.

“We…had some things to discuss,” Kathryn murmured, hating the memory of him that came back to haunt her with a vengeance. She was being forced to see Blake in a new, different way, and she wasn't at all sure that she wanted to. She was more afraid of him now than ever: a delicious, mushrooming fear that made her pulse race at just the thought of his mouth crushing hers. What would it have been like, she wondered reluctantly, if he hadn't been angry…

“You missed Blake this morning,” Vivian remarked, her eyes strangely wary as she watched Kathryn spoon eggs and ham onto her plate. “He asked me particularly to come down straightaway when the alarm went off so that we could have breakfast together.”

“How nice,” came the stilted reply.

Kathryn's head was bent, and she missed the faintly malicious smile that curled Vivian's full lips.

“He was anxious to leave before you came down,” the blonde went on in a low, very cool voice. “I think he was afraid you might have read something more than he intended into what happened last night.”

Kathryn's fork fumbled through her fingers and hit the china plate with a loud ringing sound. Her startled eyes jerked up. “W-what?” she faltered. “He
told
you?” she asked incredulously.

Vivian looked the picture of sophistication. “Of course, darling,” she replied. “He was bristling with regrets, and I just let him talk. It was the dress, of course. Blake is too much a man not to be swayed by a half-naked woman.”

“I was not…!”

“He makes love very well, don't you think?” Vivian asked with a secretive smile. “He's such a vibrant lover, so considerate and exciting…”

Kathryn's face was the color of red cabbage. She sipped her coffee, ignoring the blistering touch of it.

“You do understand that it mustn't be allowed to happen again?” the older woman asked softly, smiling at Kathryn coolly over her china cup. “I quite realize why Blake hasn't told you the true reason I came over here with my father, but…” she let her voice trail away insinuatingly.

Kathryn stared at her, feeling her secure, safe little world dissolving around her. It was like being buried alive. She could hardly breathe for the sudden sense of suffocation. “You mean…?”

“If Blake hasn't told you, I can't,” Vivian said confidingly. “He didn't want to make the announcement straight away, you know. Not until his family had a chance to get to know me.”

Kathryn couldn't manage words. So that was how it was. Blake planned to marry at last, and this blond barracuda was going to swim off with him. And after last night, she'd actually thought…Her face shuttered. What did it matter, anyway? Blake had always been like a brother, despite his brutal ardor last night. And that had only been to warn her, he'd said so. He was afraid she'd read something into it, was he? She'd show him!

Vivian, seeing the look of despair that came into the young girl's face, hid a smile in her coffee cup as she drained it. “I see you understand,” she remarked smugly. “You won't let Blake know that I said anything?” she asked with a worried look. “He'd be so unhappy with me…”

“No, of course not,” Kathryn said quietly. “Congratulations.”

Vivian smiled sweetly. “I hope we're going to become great friends. And you mustn't think anything about what happened with Blake. He only wants to forget it, as you must. It was just a moment out of time, after all, nothing to be concerned about.”

Of course not, Kathryn thought, feeling suddenly empty. She managed a bright smile, but fortunately the rest of the family chose that moment to join the two women, and she was able to bury her grief in conversation.

***

Kathryn had always liked the airport; it excited her to see the travelers with their bags and bright smiles, and she liked to sit and watch and speculate about them. A long-legged young woman, tall and tanned and blond, ran into the arms of a big, dark man and burst into tears. Studying them as she waited for Lawrence Donavan's plane to get in, Kathryn wondered if they were patching up a lovers’ quarrel. They must have been, because the man was kissing her as if he never expected to see her again, and tears were running unchecked down her pale cheeks. The emotion in that hungry kiss made her feel like a peeping Tom, and she looked away. The depth of passion she sensed in them was as alien to her as the Andes. She'd never felt that kind of hunger for a man. The closest to it that she could remember coming was when Blake had kissed her the second time—that sensuous, aching touch that kindled fledgling responses in her untried body. If he'd kissed her a third time…

A movement caught her eye and she rose from the chair to find Larry Donavan coming toward her. She ran into his outstretched arms and hugged him, lifting her face for a firm, affectionate kiss.

His blue eyes laughed down into hers under the shock of red hair that fell rakishly across his brow.

“Miss me?” he teased.

She nodded, and the admission was genuine. “Would I fight half my family to drive this distance to pick you up if I hadn't?” she asked.

“I know. It is a pretty long drive, isn't it? I could have caught a bus…”

“Don't be silly,” she said, linking her hand with his as they walked toward the baggage conveyor. “How would you like a grand tour of Charleston before we head home? Blake's guests got it, and you're just as entitled…”

“Guests?” he echoed. “Have I come at an inopportune time?” he asked quickly.

“Blake's courting a labor union and a woman at the same time,” she said with a trace of bitterness in her tone. “We'll simply keep out of the way. Phillip and Maude and I will take care of you, don't worry.”

“Blake's the guardian, isn't he?” he asked, pausing to grab his bag from the conveyor as it moved past.

“That, and a distant cousin. The Hamiltons raised me,” she murmured. “I'm afraid it isn't the best weather for a visit,” she apologized, gesturing toward the rainy gray skies as they stepped outside and walked toward the parking lot. “It's been raining off and on all day and we're expecting some flooding before we're through. Hurricanes really get to us in the low country.”

“How low is it?” he asked.

She leaned toward him, taking the cue. “It's so low that you have to look up to see the streets.”

“Same old Kat,” he teased, using his own nickname for her, and he hugged her close. “It's good to be down south again.”

“You only say that because you're glad to get away from all that pollution,” she told him.

He blinked at her. “Pollution? In Maine?” he asked incredulously.

She batted her eyelashes up at him. “Why, don't you all have smokestacks and chemical waste dumps and bodies floating in the river from gang wars?” she asked in her best drawl.

He laughed brightly. “Stereotypes?”

She grinned. “Didn't you believe that we wore white bedsheets to the grocery store and drank mint juleps for breakfast when you first met me?”

“I'd never known anyone from the south before,” he defended himself as they walked toward her small foreign car. “In fact,” he admitted, “this really is the first time I've spent any time here.”

“You'll learn a lot,” she told him. “For instance, that a lot of us believe in equality, that most of us can actually read and write, and that…”

The sky chose that particular moment to open up, and rain started pouring down on them in sheets. She fumbled with her keys, barely getting them into the car in time to avoid a soaking.

Brushing her damp hair back from her face, Kathryn put the small white Porsche into reverse and backed carefully out of the parking space. It wasn't only due to her drivers’ training course that she was careful at the wheel. When Blake had given her this car for her birthday last year, he'd been a constant passenger for the first week, watching every move she made. When he talked she listened, too, because in his younger days, Blake had raced in Grand Prix competitions all over Europe.

She swung into gear and headed out of the parking lot onto the busy street.

“It's raining cats!” She laughed, peering through the windshield wipers as the rain shattered against the metal roof with deafening force. It was hard to see the other cars, despite their lights.

“Don't blame me.” Larry laughed. “I didn't bring it with me.”

“I hope it lets up,” she said uneasily, remembering the two bridges they had to cross to get back to King's Fort and on to Greyoaks. When flash floods came, the bridges sometimes were underwater and impossible to cross.

She saw an opening and pulled smoothly out into it.

“I see palm trees!” Larry exclaimed.

“Where did you think you were—Antarctica?” she teased, darting a glance at him. “They don't call us the Palmetto State for nothing. We have beaches in the low country, too, just like Florida.”

He looked confused. “Low country?”

“The coastal plain is called that because…well, because it's low,” she said finally. “Then there's the up country—but you won't see any of it this trip. King's Fort, where the family lives, is low country, too, even though it's an hour and a half away.” She smiled apologetically. “I'm sorry we couldn't fly down to pick you up, but the big Cessna's having some part or other replaced. That's why Blake had to drive down for his guests. There's a company executive jet, too, but one of the vice-presidents had to fly down to another of the mills in Georgia.”

He studied her profile. “Your family must own a lot of industries.”

She shrugged. “Just three or four yarn mills and about five clothing manufacturing companies.”

He lifted his eyes skyward. “Just, she says.”

“Well, lots of Blake's friends own more,” she explained. She headed straight down I-26 until she could exit and get onto Rutledge Avenue. “We'll go the long way around to the Battery, and I'll show you some of the landmarks on Meeting Street—if you can see them through the rain,” she said drily.

“You know the city pretty well?” he asked, all eyes as they drove down the busy highway.

“I used to have an aunt here, and I stayed with her in the summer. I still like to drive down on weekends, for the night life.”