September Morning. Diana Palmer

with me before inviting him,” he added roughly. “What were you going to do, Kathryn, meet him at the airport and then tell me about it? A fait accompli?”

      She couldn't meet his eyes. “Something like that.”

      “Cable him. Tell him something came up.”

      She lifted her eyes and glared at him, sitting there like a conqueror, ordering her life. If she buckled under one more time, she'd never be able to stand up to him. Never. She couldn't let him win this time.

      Her jaw set stubbornly. “No.”

      He got to his feet slowly, gracefully for such a big man, and the set of his broad shoulders was intimidating even without the sudden, fierce narrowing of his eyes.

      “What did you say?” he asked in a deceptively soft tone.

      She laced her fingers together in front of her and clenched them. “I said no,” she managed in a rasping voice. Her dark green eyes appealed to him. “Blake, it's my home, too. At least, you said it was the day you asked me to come live here,” she reminded him.

      “I didn't say you could use it as a rendezvous for romantic trysts!”

      “You bring women here,” she tossed back, remembering with a surge of anguish the night when she had accidentally come home too early from a date and found him with Jessica King on the very chairs where they were now sitting. Jessica had been stripped to the waist, and so had Blake. Kathryn had barely even noticed the blonde, her eyes were so staggered by the sight of Blake with his broad, muscled chest bared by the woman's exploring hands. She'd never been able to get the picture of him out of her mind, his mouth sensuous, his eyes almost black with desire…

      “I used to,” he corrected gently, reading the memory with disturbing accuracy. “How old were you then? Fifteen?”

      She nodded, looking away from him. “Just.”

      “And I yelled at you, didn't I?” he recalled gently. “I hadn't expected you home. I was hungry and impatient, and frustrated. When I took Jessica home, she was in tears.”

      “I…I should have knocked,” she admitted. “But we'd been to that fair, and I'd won a prize, and I couldn't wait to tell you about it…”

      He smiled quietly. “You used to bring all your triumphs straight to me, like a puppy with its toys. Until that night.” He studied her averted profile. “You've kept a wall between us ever since. The minute I start to come close, you find something else to put up in front of you. Last time it was Jack Harris. Now, it's that writer.”

      “I'm not trying to build any walls,” she said defensively. Her dark eyes accused him. “You're the mason, Blake. You won't let me be independent.”

      “What do you want?” he asked.

      She studied the delicate scrollwork of the fireplace with its beige and white color scheme. “I don't know,” she murmured. “But I'll never find out if you keep smothering me. I want to be free, Blake.”

      “None of us are that,” he said philosophically. His eyes were wistful, his tone bitter. He stared at her intently. “What is it that attracts you to Donavan?” he asked suddenly.

      She shrugged and a wistful light came into her own eyes, echoing his expression the minute before. “He's fun to be with. He makes me laugh.”

      “That's all you need from a man—laughter?”

      The way he said it made shivers run down her stiff spine, and when she looked at him, the expression on his hard face was puzzling. “What else is there?” she asked without thinking.

      A slow, sensuous smile turned up the corners of his mouth. “The fires a man and woman can create when they make love.”

      She shifted restlessly in her chair. “They're overrated,” she said with pretended sophistication.

      He threw back his head and roared.

      “Hush!” she said. “You'll wake the whole house!”

      His white, even teeth were visible, whiter than ever against his swarthy complexion. “You're red as a summer beet,” he observed. “What do you know about love, little girl? You'd pass out in a dead faint if a man started making love to you.”

      She stared at him with a sense of outrage. “How do you know? Maybe Lawrence…”

      “…maybe not,” he interrupted, his eyes confident, wise. “You're still very much a virgin, little Kate. If I'd had any fears on that account, I'd have jerked you off Crete so fast your head would have spun.”

      She grimaced. “Virginity isn't such a prize these days,” she sighed, remembering Missy Donavan's faintly insulting remarks about it.

      His silent appraisal lasted so long that her attention was caught by the faint ticking of the big grandfather clock in the hall. “Don't get any ideas about throwing yours away,” he warned softly.

      “Oh, Blake, don't be so old fashioned,” she grumbled. “Anyway,” she added with a faint, mischievous smile, “where would you be today if all the women in the world were pure?”

      “Rather frustrated,” he conceded. “But you're not one of my women, and I don't want you offering yourself to men like a nymphomaniac.”

      She sighed. “There's hardly any danger of that,” she said dully. “I don't know how.”

      “That dress is a damned good start,” he observed.

      She glanced down at it. “But it covers me up,” she protested. “It's a lot more modest than what Nan was wearing.”

      “I noticed,” he said with a musing smile.

      She peeked at him through her lashes. “Nan thinks you're the sexiest man alive,” she said lightly. “She knew you'd be at the party.”

      His face hardened. “Nan's a child,” he growled, turning away with one hand rammed in his pocket. “And I'm too old to encourage hero worship.”

      Nan was Kathryn's age, exactly. Her heart seemed to plummet, and she wanted to hit out at him. He always made her feel so gauche and ignorant.

      She studied his broad back. He was so good to look at. So big and vibrant, and full of life. A quiet man, a caring man. And a tyrant!

      “If you won't let me invite Larry here,” she murmured, “I suppose I could fly down to the coast and go to that writers’ convention with him.”

      He turned, staring at her, hard and intimidating even at a distance. “Threatening me, Kate?” he asked.

      “I wouldn't dare!” she replied fervently.

      His dark face was as unreadable as a stone sculpture. “We'll talk about it again.”

      She scowled at him. “Tyrant,” she grumbled.

      “Is that your best shot?” he asked politely.

      “Male chauvinist!” she said, trying again. “You do irritate me, Blake!”

      He moved toward her lazily. “What do you think you do to me, little Kathryn?” he asked, his voice a low growl.

      She looked up into his arrogant face as he came within striking distance. “I probably irritate you just as much,” she admitted, sighing. “Pax?”

      He smiled down at her indulgently. “Pax. Come here.”

      He tilted her chin up and bent his head down. She closed her eyes, expecting the familiar brief, rough touch of his mouth. But it didn't come.

      Puzzled, she opened her eyes and looked straight into his at an unnerving distance. She was so close that she could see the flecks of gold in his dark brown irises, the tiny crinkled lines at the corner of his eyelids.

      His fingers touched the side of her throat, warm and strangely caressing.

      “Blake?”