Texas Proud and Circle of Gold (Long, Tall Texans #52) - Diana Palmer Page 0,122

for her to get aboard with those memories. And he’d been sitting with Pauline, talking about Broadway shows. Pauline had said that Kasie wanted to sit by herself, so he hadn’t protested.

Then, of course, there was this handsome stranger who’d comforted her on the flight to keep her from being afraid. He could have done that. He could have held her hand tight in his and kissed her eyes shut while he whispered to her...

He groaned out loud and turned away from the window. She was worming her way not only into his life and his girls’ lives, but into his heart as well. He hadn’t been able to even think about Pauline in any romantic way since Kasie had walked into his living room for the job interview. Up until then, he’d found the gorgeous blonde wonderful company. Now, she was almost an afterthought. He couldn’t imagine why. Kasie wasn’t really pretty. Although, she had a nice figure and a very kissable mouth and those exquisitely tender eyes...

He jerked up the phone and dialed Pauline’s extension. “Are you ready to go?” he asked.

“Darling, I haven’t finished my makeup. You did say five-thirty,” she reminded him.

“It is five-thirty,” he muttered.

“Give me ten more minutes,” she said. “I’m going to make you notice me tonight, lover,” she teased. “I’m wearing something very risqué!”

“Fine,” he replied, unimpressed. “I’ll see you in ten minutes.”

He hung up on her faint gasp of irritation. He didn’t care if she wore postage stamps, it wasn’t going to cure him of the hunger for Kasie that was tormenting him.

He heard the suite door open and the sound of his children laughing. Strange how often they laughed these days, when they’d been so somber and quiet before. She brought out the best in people. Well, not in himself, he had to admit. She brought out the worst in him, God knew why.

He went out into the big sitting room, still brooding.

“Daddy, you look nice!” Bess said, running to him to be picked up and kissed heartily. “Doesn’t he look nice, Kasie?” she asked.

“Yes,” Kasie said, glancing at him. He was dishy in a tuxedo, she thought miserably, and Pauline probably looked like uptown New York City in whatever she was wearing. Pauline was like a French pastry, while Kasie was more like a stale doughnut. The thought amused her and she smiled.

“Bess, get the menu off the desk and take it into your room. You and Jenny decide what you want to eat,” Gil told them.

“Yes, Daddy,” Bess said at once, scooping up the menu and her sister’s hand as they left the room.

“Don’t let them fill up on sweets,” he cautioned Kasie. His pale eyes narrowed on her body in the discreet, one-piece blue bathing suit she was wearing with sandals and a sheer cover-up in shades of blue. Her hair was down around her shoulders. She looked good enough to eat.

“I won’t,” she promised, moving awkwardly toward the bathroom with the towel she’d been sunbathing on.

“Next time, get a towel from the caretaker down on the beach,” he said after she’d put the towel in the bathroom. “They keep them there for beach use.”

She flushed. “Sorry. I didn’t know.”

He moved toward her. In flats, she was even shorter than usual. He looked down at her with narrow, stormy eyes. The curves of her pretty breasts were revealed in the suit and he thought for one insane instant of bending and putting his mouth right down on that soft pink skin.

“Mr. Callister,” she began, the name almost choking her as his nearness began to have the usual effect on her shaking knees.

His lean hand moved to her throat and touched it lightly, stroking down to her bare shoulder and then back to her collarbone. “You’ve got sand on your skin,” he observed.

“We had a little trouble making a sand castle, so the girls covered me up instead,” she said with an unsteady laugh.

His hand flattened on the warm flesh and he looked into her huge, soft eyes, waiting for a reaction. Her pulse became visible in her throat. His blood began to surge, hot and turbulent, in his veins. His fingers spread out deliberately, so that the touch became intimate.

She wasn’t protesting. She hadn’t moved an inch. She didn’t even seem to be breathing as she looked up into his pale, glittery eyes and waited, spellbound, for whatever came next.

Without saying a word, his fingers slid under the strap that held up her bodice. They inched into