Her somber eyes came up. She was barely breathing. “Don’t…joke about things like that.”
“Kasie, I didn’t mean it that way,” he began.
She forced a smile. “Of course not. I have to get dressed.”
He lifted an eyebrow. “You might as well come as you are. I haven’t seen a gown like that since I stayed with my grandmother as a child.” He shook his head. “You’d set a lingerie shop back decades if that style caught on.”
“It’s a perfectly functional gown.”
“Functional. Yes. It’s definitely functional. And about as seductive as chain mail,” he added.
“Good!”
He burst out laughing. “All right, I’m leaving.”
He went out, sparing her a last, amused glance before he closed the door.
Kasie dressed in jeans and a dark T-shirt. She put her long hair in a braid and pulled on sneakers. She felt a twinge of guilt because she’d missed so many Sunday sermons in past months. But she couldn’t reconcile her pain. It needed more time.
The whole family was at the table when she joined them for breakfast. John gave her a warm smile.
“I hear you had visitors last night,” he told Kasie with a mischievous glance at the two little girls, who were wolfing down cereal.
“Yes, I did,” Kasie replied with a worried glance that encompassed both Gil and Miss Parsons.
“You should have called me, Miss Mayfield,” Miss Penny Parsons said curtly and glanced at Kasie with cold dark eyes. “I take care of the children.”
Kasie could have argued that point, but she didn’t dare. “Yes, Miss Parsons,” she said demurely.
Gil finished his scrambled eggs and lifted his coffee cup to his firm lips. He was wearing slacks and a neat yellow sports shirt that emphasized his muscular arms. He looked elegant even in casual wear, Kasie thought, and remembered suddenly the feel of those strong arms around her. She flushed.
He noticed her sudden color and caught her gaze. She couldn’t seem to look away, and he didn’t even try to. For a space of seconds, they were fused in some sort of bond, prisoners of a sensual connection that made Kasie’s full lips part abruptly. His gaze fell to them and lingered with unexpected hunger.
Kasie dropped her fork onto her plate and jumped at the noise. “Sorry!” she said huskily as she fumbled with the fork.
“Didn’t get much sleep last night, did you?” John asked with a smile. “Neither did any of us. About midnight, I thought seriously about giving up cattle ranching and becoming a door-to-door vacuum cleaner salesman.”
“I felt the same way,” Gil confessed. “We’re going to have to put a small line cabin out at the holding pens and keep a man there on stormy nights.”
“As long as I’m not on your list of candidates,” John told his brother.
“I’ll keep that in mind. Bess, don’t play with your food, please,” he added to the little girl, who was finished with her cereal and was now smearing eggs around the rim of her plate.
“I don’t like eggs, Daddy,” she muttered. “Do I gotta eat ‘em?”
“Of course you do, young lady!” Miss Parsons said curtly. “Every last morsel.”
Bess looked tortured.
“Miss Parsons, could you ask Mrs. Charters to see me before she plans the supper menu, please?” Gil asked.
Miss Parsons got up. “I will. Eat those eggs, Bess.”
She left. Gil gave his oldest daughter a sign by placing his forefinger across his mouth. He lifted Bess’s plate, scraped the eggs onto his, and finished them off before Miss Parsons returned.
“Very good,” she said, nodding approvingly at Bess’s plate. “I told you that you’d grow accustomed to a balanced breakfast. We must keep our bodies healthy. Come on, now, girls. We’ll have a nice nap until your father’s ready to go to the movies.”
Bess grimaced, but she didn’t protest. She got up with Jenny and was shepherded out by the governess.
“Marshmallow,” John chided the older man, poking the air with his fork. “You should have made her eat them herself.”
“When you start eating liver and onions voluntarily, I’ll make Bess eat eggs,” Gil promised. “Want to come with us to the movies?” He named the picture they were going to see.
“Not me,” John said pleasantly. “I’m going to Billings to see a man about some more acreage.” He glanced at Kasie speculatively. “Want to tag along, Kasie?”
The question surprised her. While she was trying to think of a polite way to say she didn’t, Gil answered for her.
“Kasie’s going with us to the movies,” he replied, and his pale eyes dared her to argue. “The girls will have conniptions if we leave her behind. Besides, she likes cartoons. Don’t you, Kasie?”
“I’m just crazy about them, Mr. Callister,” she agreed with a tight smile, angry because he’d more or less forced her into agreeing to go.
“Mr. Callister was our father,” Gil said firmly. “Don’t use it with us.”
She grimaced. “I work for you. It doesn’t seem right.”
John was gaping at her. “You’re kidding.”
“No, she isn’t,” Gil assured him. “When you have a free minute, get her to tell you why she braids her hair. It’s a hoot.”
She glared at Gil. “You cut that out.”
He wiped his mouth with a white linen napkin and got to his feet. “I’ve got some phone calls to make before we go. We’ll leave at one, Kasie.”
“Phone calls on Sunday?” she asked John when his brother had left them alone.
“It’s yesterday in some parts of the world, and tomorrow in some other parts,” he reminded her. “You know how he is about business.”
“Yes,” she agreed.
“What amazes me,” he mused, watching her, “is how much he grumbles about you. He loves women, as a rule. He’s always doing little things to make the job easier for Mrs. Charters. He lets Pauline get away with only working three days of the week, when he needs a full-time secretary worse than I do. But he’s hard on you.”
“He doesn’t like me,” she said quietly. “He can’t help it.”
“You don’t like him, either.”
She smiled sheepishly. “I can’t help it, either.” She picked up on something he’d said earlier. “How can Pauline make ends meet with only a part-time job?” she asked curiously.
“She’s independently wealthy,” John told her. “She doesn’t need a job at all, but she caught Gil at a weak moment. He doesn’t have many of them, believe me. I think she attracted him at first. Now things have cooled and he’s stuck with her. She’s tenacious.”
“Why would she need to work?” she wondered aloud.
“Because Gil needed a secretary, of course. She hasn’t had any business training, and I don’t doubt that the files are in a hellacious mess.”
“Couldn’t he get somebody else?”
“He tried to. Pauline cried all over him and he gave up.”
“He doesn’t look like a man who’d even notice tears,” she said absently.
“Appearances are deceptive. You