Texas Proud and Circle of Gold (Long, Tall Texans #52) - Diana Palmer Page 0,121

family in an air crash. Why?”

“The subject didn’t come up,” she said gruffly.

“If it had,” he replied curtly, “you wouldn’t have been sitting alone, despite Pauline’s little machinations with the seat assignments.”

She was taken aback by the anger in his tone. “Oh.”

“You make me feel like a gold-plated heel from time to time, Kasie,” he said irritably. “I don’t like it.”

“I was all right,” she assured him nervously. “Zeke took care of me.”

That set him off again. “You’re getting paid to take care of my children, not to holiday with some refugee from a press room,” he pointed out, his voice arctic.

She stiffened. “I hadn’t forgotten that, Mr. Callister,” she added deliberately, aware that the girls had stopped playing and were staring up at the adults with growing disquiet. She turned away. “Come on, babies,” she said with a forced smile. “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