To Wear His Ring: Circle of Gold / Trophy Wives / Dakota Bride. Wendy Warren

“Let’s go change into our bathing suits, then we can go play on the beach!”

      “All of you stay out of the water,” Gil said shortly. “And I want you back up here before I leave with Pauline.”

      “Yes, sir,” Kasie said, just because she knew it made him angry.

      He said something under his breath and slammed the door to his own room behind him. Kasie had a premonition that it wasn’t going to be much of a holiday.

      She and the girls played in the sand near the ocean. On the way outside, Kasie had bought them small plastic buckets and shovels from one of the stores in the arcade. They were happily dumping sand on each other while, around them, other sun-worshipers lay on towel-covered beach chaise lounges or splashed in the water. The hotel was near the harbor, as well, and they watched a huge white ocean liner dock. It was an exciting place to visit.

      Kasie, who’d only ever seen the worst part of foreign countries, was like a child herself as she gazed with fascination at rows of other luxury hotels on the beach, as well as sailboats and cruise ships in port. Nassau was the brightest, most beautiful place she’d ever been. The sand was like sugar under her feet, although hot enough to scorch them, and the color of the water was almost too vivid to believe. Smiling, she drank in the warmth of the sun with her eyes closed.

      But it was already time to go back up to the room. She hated telling the girls, who begged to stay on the beach.

      “We can’t, babies,” she said gently. “Your dad said we have to be in the room when he leaves. There’s a television,” she added. “They might have cartoons.”

      They still looked disappointed. “You could read us stories,” Bess said.

      Kasie smiled and hugged her. “Yes, I could. And I will. Come on, now, clean out your pails and shovels, and let’s go.”

      “Oh, all right, Kasie, but it’s very sad we have to leave,” Bess replied.

      “Don’t want to go.” Jenny pouted.

      Kasie picked her up and kissed her sandy cheek. “We’ll come out early in the morning, and look for shells on the beach!”

      Jenny’s eyes lit up. She loved seashells. “Truly, Kasie?”

      “Honest and truly.”

      “Whoopee!” Bess yelled. “I’ll get Jenny’s pail, too. Can we have fish for supper?”

      “Anything you like,” Kasie told her as she put Jenny down and refastened her swimsuit strap that had come loose.

      Above them, at the window of his room, Gil watched the byplay, unseen. He sighed with irritation as he watched the girls respond so wholeheartedly to Kasie. They loved her. How were they going to react if she decided to quit? She was very young; too young to think of making a lifelong baby-sitter. Pauline said she’d been very adamant about sending the girls away to school, but that was hard to believe, watching her with them. She was tender with them, as Darlene had been.

      He rammed his hands hard into the pockets of his dress slacks. It hurt remembering how happy the two of them had been, especially after the birth of their second little girl. In the Callister family, girls were special, because there hadn’t been a girl in the lineage for over a hundred years. Gil loved having daughters. A son would have been nice, he supposed, but he wouldn’t have traded either of his little jewels down there for anything else.

      It wounded him to remember how cold he’d been to Kasie before and after the plane trip. He hadn’t known about her family dying in a plane crash. He could only imagine how difficult it had been for her to get aboard with those memories. And he’d been sitting with Pauline, talking about Broadway shows. Pauline had said that Kasie wanted to sit by herself, so he hadn’t protested.

      Then, of course, there was this handsome stranger who’d comforted her on the flight to keep her from being afraid. He could have done that. He could have held her hand tight in his and kissed her eyes shut while he whispered to her…

      He groaned out loud and turned away from the window. She was worming her way not only into his life and his girls’ lives, but into his heart as well. He hadn’t been able to even think about Pauline in any romantic way since Kasie had walked into his living room for the job interview. Up until then, he’d found the gorgeous blonde wonderful company. Now, she was almost an afterthought. He couldn’t imagine why. Kasie wasn’t really pretty. Although, she had a nice figure and a very kisseable mouth and those exquisitely tender eyes…

      He jerked up the phone and dialed Pauline’s extension. “Are you ready to go?” he asked.

      “Darling, I haven’t finished my makeup. You did say five-thirty,” she reminded him.

      “It is five-thirty,” he muttered.

      “Give me ten more minutes,” she said. “I’m going to make you notice me tonight, lover,” she teased. “I’m wearing something very risqué!”

      “Fine,” he replied, unimpressed. “I’ll see you in ten minutes.”

      He hung up on her faint gasp of irritation. He didn’t care if she wore postage stamps, it wasn’t going to cure him of the hunger for Kasie that was tormenting him.

      He heard the suite door open and the sound of his children laughing. Strange how often they laughed these days, when they’d been so somber and quiet before. She brought out the best in people. Well, not in himself, he had to admit. She brought out the worst in him, God knew why.

      He went out into the big sitting room, still brooding.

      “Daddy, you look nice!” Bess said, running to him to be picked up and kissed heartily. “Doesn’t he look nice, Kasie?” she asked.

      “Yes,” Kasie said, glancing at him. He was dishy in a tuxedo, she thought miserably, and Pauline probably looked like uptown New York City in whatever she was wearing. Pauline was like a French pastry, while Kasie was more like a stale doughnut. The thought amused her and she smiled.

      “Bess, get the menu off the desk and take it in your room. You and Jenny decide what you want to eat,” Gil told them.

      “Yes, Daddy,” Bess said at once, scooping up the menu and her sister’s hand as they left the room.

      “Don’t let them fill up on sweets,” he cautioned Kasie. His pale eyes narrowed on her body in the discreet, one-piece blue bathing suit she was wearing with sandals and a sheer cover-up in shades of blue. Her hair was down around her shoulders. She looked good enough to eat.

      “I won’t,” she promised, moving awkwardly toward the bathroom with the towel she’d been sunbathing on.

      “Next time, get a towel from the caretaker down on the beach,” he said after she’d put the towel in the bathroom. “They keep them there for beach use.”

      She flushed. “Sorry. I didn’t know.”

      He moved toward her. In flats, she was even shorter than usual. He looked down at her with narrow, stormy eyes. The curves of her pretty breasts were revealed in the suit and he thought for one insane instant of bending and putting his mouth right down on that soft pink skin.

      “Mr. Callister,” she began, the name almost choking her as his nearness began to have the usual effect on her shaking knees.

      His lean hand moved to her throat and touched it lightly, stroking down to her bare shoulder and then back to her collarbone. “You’ve got sand on your skin,” he observed.

      “We had a little trouble making a sand castle, so the girls covered me up instead,” she said with an unsteady laugh.

      His hand flattened on the warm flesh and he looked into her huge, soft eyes, waiting for a reaction. Her pulse became visible in her throat. His blood began to surge, hot and turbulent, in his veins. His fingers spread out deliberately, so that the touch became intimate.

      She wasn’t protesting. She hadn’t moved