dated other good-looking men, many more personable, at least initially, but none had affected her as Ron did. She couldn't decide what it was about him that made the difference, but there definitely was a difference.
She wasn't supposed to like him, but she did. Regardless of how well he answered her questions, no woman interested in a family, a husband who would come home to dinner and remain faithful to her, would take him on. There were simply too many challenges, too many hurdles. She should never have become involved with him. She should have limited herself to making sure he didn't force Cynthia to go home against her wishes. She was crazy to have let him talk her into giving him sensitivity training.
She had been so sure it would be a simple matter to convince him he needed professional help. Not only had she overestimated her ability and underestimated his understanding, she hadn't once mentioned professional help. Then she'd let herself get seduced into going out on a date with him. She had to be losing her mind. Maybe something about this man engendered insanity in people around him. Maybe that was the secret of his success.
"We'd better go, miss," the limousine driver said. "The police will give me a ticket if I stay here any longer."
Kathryn's sense of her surroundings came back with a jolt. She was still standing on the sidewalk outside the airport terminal staring at the door as if she expected someone to come through any minute. She turned and got back in the car.
"Do you want to go home?" the driver asked.
"Yes." She gave him the address and settled back in the deep, luxuriously cushioned seat. It seemed almost a metaphor for what was happening to her. She was being virtually swallowed by the deeply seductive personality of Ron Egan, pulled into an intoxicating illusion that was as fleeting as it was unsubstantial. Tomorrow would come, or the day after, and everything would change. Once he got back in Geneva, got swallowed up in the excitement of his work, Ron might forget to come back.
He knew Cynthia would be safe. Kathryn would look after her. Why should he take a leave of absence from the career he loved? Cynthia would soon be off to college, a career or marriage. She would have a life of her own. She wouldn't need him, might not even have a place for him. Telling him he ought to take time off for his daughter was another piece of supreme arrogance on her part. In ten years of running the shelter she'd never done anything like that. She was an administrator, not an advisor.
If Ron Egan did come back in two days, she had to be prepared to send him away. Being around him was too dangerous.
"Are you going to see Leigh?" Kathryn asked Cynthia. The four girls were having breakfast. Ruby was moving around, putting food in front of the girls, making it plain she expected them to eat every bite.
"I don't know," Cynthia said.
"I don't see why not," Lisette said. "You can't stay locked up here forever. Besides, you'll want your old friends around after the baby's born and you're ready to go out again."
Kathryn was certain Lisette never considered letting the fact she was a mother interfere with her social life. She probably didn't see the two as having anything to do with each other.
"I think you ought to see her," Julia said. "I don't see why having a baby should cause you not to be friends anymore."
"What do you think, Betsy?" Kathryn asked.
Betsy was so painfully shy she blushed when anybody spoke to her. Kathryn couldn't imagine what stratagems the father of her child had used to seduce her. Betsy blushed, stammered and stared at her glass of milk before she answered.
"I don't think I could see anybody," she said. "I'd be too ashamed."
"Cynthia's not ashamed, and neither am I," Lisette announced. "Having a baby is proof your boyfriend is crazy about you."
Kathryn hoped Lisette learned some tact one of these days, but she wasn't holding her breath. Kerry had been to see her every day, two and three times on occasion, but it couldn't have escaped her notice that none of the other girls had received visits from their boyfriends.
"That may be true," Kathryn said to Lisette, "but getting pregnant while you're in high school can ruin your life if you're not careful."
"It won't ruin mine," Lisette declared. She swallowed the last of her