Texas Proud and Circle of Gold (Long, Tall Texans #52) - Diana Palmer Page 0,112

on Harris’s truck last month? Yes, the one who doesn’t need a damned computer to tell him what’s wrong with the engine. Got his number? Just a minute.” He fished in the drawer for a pen, grabbed an envelope and wrote a number on it. “Sure thing. Thanks.” He hung up and dialed again.

While he spoke to the mechanic, Kasie finished transcribing John’s terrible handwriting neatly for Miss Parsons.

Gil hung up and got to his feet, retrieving his boots. “If you’ve got a few minutes free, I need you to take some dictation for me,” he told Kasie.

“I’ll be glad to.”

He gave her a narrow appraisal. “I’ve got a man coming over to look at my cattle truck,” he added. “If he gets here while I’m in the shower, show him into the living room and don’t let him leave. He can listen to an engine and tell you what’s wrong with it.”

“But it’s Sunday,” she began.

“I need the truck to haul cattle tomorrow. I’m sure he went to church this morning, so it’s all right,” he assured her dryly. “Besides...”

The ringing of the phone interrupted him. He jerked up the receiver. “Callister,” he said.

There was a pause, during which his face became harder than Kasie had ever seen it. “Yes,” he replied to a question. “I’ll talk to John when he gets back in, but I can tell you what the answer will be.” He smiled coldly. “I’m sure that if you use your imagination, you can figure that out without too much difficulty. No, I don’t. I don’t give a damn. Do what you please with them.” There was a longer pause and Kasie thought she’d never seen such coldness in a man’s eyes. “I don’t need a thing, thanks. Yes. You do that.”

He hung up. “My parents,” he said harshly. “With an invitation to come and bring the girls to their estate on Long Island next week.”

“Are you going?”

He looked briefly sardonic. “They’re hosting a party for some people who are interested in seeing what a real cattleman looks like,” he said surprisingly. “They’re trying to sell them on an advertising contract for their sports magazine and they think John and I might be useful.” He sounded bitter and angry. “They try this occasionally, but John and I don’t go. They can make money on their own. I’ll be upstairs if the mechanic comes. Tell him the truck’s in the barn with one of my men. He can go right on out.”

“Okay.”

He walked out and Kasie stared after him. The conversation with his parents hadn’t been pleasant for him. He seemed to dislike them intensely. She knew that they were never mentioned around the girls, and John never spoke of them, either. She wondered what they’d done to make their sons so hostile. Then she remembered what Gil had said, about their being used by their parents only to make money, and it all began to make sense. Perhaps they didn’t really want children at all. What a pity, that their sons were nothing more than sales incentives to them.

The mechanic did come while Gil was upstairs. Kasie went with him onto the long porch and showed him where the barn was, so that he could drive on down there and park his truck. The rain had stopped, though, so he didn’t have to worry about getting wet. There was a pleasant dripping sound off the eaves of the house, and the delicious smell of wet flowers in the darkness.

Kasie sat down in the porch swing and rocked it into motion. It was a perfect night, now that the storm had abated. She could hear crickets, or maybe frogs, chirping all around the flowering shrubs that surrounded the front porch. It reminded her, for some reason, of Africa. She vaguely remembered sitting in a porch swing with her mother and Kantor when their father was away working. There were the delicious smells of cooking from the house, and the spicy smells drifting from the harbor nearby, as well as the familiar sound of African workers singing and humming as they worked around the settlement. It was a long time ago, when she still had a family. Now, except for Mama Luke, she was completely alone. It was a cold, empty feeling.

The screen door suddenly opened and Gil came out onto the porch. His blond hair was still damp, faintly unruly at the edges and tending to curl. He was wearing a blue checked Western shirt with clean