LITMIR.BIZ

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started on the third try, made a loud roaring sound, and clanked when it was coaxed into low gear. She pulled out of the dirt driveway, careful not to scatter dirt in her haste, and bounced off toward the Diamond Spur with barely contained impatience and delight. If Jason wasn’t in jail, she knew he’d be pleased about her good fortune. She wondered if Mr. Tanner still had a bull and if not, whether he had pressed charges. Jason usually got his way, but there was always a first time.

       CHAPTER FOUR

      AS SHE DROVE up in front of the Donavan house Kate realized something. She had no girlfriends, unless she counted her mother. Her best friend, the only real friend she had, was Jason. It was ironic that she had no one else to share this milestone in her life with.

      She smiled about that as she darted up the steps and knocked furiously at the big hand-carved oak door, ignoring the modern doorbell altogether.

      Sheila opened it, her eyebrows arching. “What a nice surprise.”

      “I’ll bet,” Kate laughed. “Well, is he in jail or not?”

      The older woman grimaced. “He belongs there, all right. But Mr. Tanner decided that it would be easier to reinforce his fence and move that bull to another pasture after Jason explained the situation to him.”

      “I wish I’d been a bug on the fence,” Kate said with a mischievous grin.

      “Me, too,” Sheila whispered. She nodded her grizzled head toward the hall. “He’s in there with Gene and Cherry having supper. Go sit down and I’ll get you a dish.”

      “Oh, I’ve already eaten....”

      “The dish,” Sheila explained patiently, dragging her inside, “is for peach cobbler. I made one tonight.”

      “My favorite!” Kate enthused.

      “Fancy that,” came the tongue-in-cheek reply. “I didn’t know, of course, having only made it for you about a hundred times over the past few years.”

      Kate laughed delightedly. “What would I do without you?”

      “Starve, most likely, if you weren’t such a good little cook yourself. And I’ll pat myself on the back for teaching you how, too, because your sweet mama is the best seamstress and the worst cook I ever knew.”

      Kate started to argue, and then closed her mouth. “I thought hamburgers were supposed to be black and crunchy,” she said under her breath.

      Gene and Cherry were whispering when Kate walked into the elaborate dining room. Jason was sitting quietly at the head of the table, impressive in pale slacks and a tailored gray shirt open at the throat. He was tapping his silver fork against the tablecloth, lost in thought, brooding if that scowl was anything to go by.

      He looked up suddenly, as if he sensed Kate, and the scowl was still there. But something new kindled in his eyes, something born of their tempestuous interlude the day before. He was aware of her now, and she was just beginning to realize it. Her heart raced as his dark, very Spanish-looking eyes went over her like hands tracing every curve and line of her slender body.

      “Did somebody die?” he asked politely. “I haven’t seen you dressed like that since the last time you went to church with us.”

      Kate curtsied to cover her nervousness. “Do you like it? I made it myself.”

      “It’s beautiful,” Cherry sighed, propping her head on her hands to stare dreamily at the long full skirt and blouson top with its sky blue colors and detailed embroidery. “Gosh, Kate, you ought to open a boutique.”

      Kate could have hugged her. Cherry was petite and blonde and blue-eyed, always smiling, always enthusiastic. She encouraged Gene to be himself, to do what pleased him instead of what pleased big brother. But she did it in such an open, sweet way that Jason had become less antagonistic toward her. She was just eighteen now, and to Kate she seemed very young, despite the fact that there was less than three years between them.

      “I’ll second that,” Gene chuckled. He was thinner than Jason, a little shorter. He had lighter hair and dark eyes, but his features were more even and attractive than his older brother’s. Jason had the business sense and the steel will, but Gene was the male beauty of the family and had always seemed to have girls hanging all over him.

      Kate wondered sometimes if that wasn’t why she preferred Jason—he wasn’t a ladies’ man by anybody’s measure, although she was sure that he wasn’t naive. He’d had her trembling with need in no time at all. Not that he needed vast experience to accomplish that, when Kate thought the sun rose and set on him.

      “Jason would loan you the money to go into business for yourself, wouldn’t you, Jay?” Gene asked him with the careless certainty of youth.

      “Careers are the ruin of good women everywhere,” he commented dryly, leaning back in his chair with his hands behind his head. The posture outlined the powerful muscles of his chest and stomach, and it made Kate tingle to touch him. That must have showed, because his slow smile was knowing and faintly predatory. “A woman’s place is three steps behind her man.”

      Kate stared at him, and even though it sounded like teasing, it took some of the joy out of her surprise. His mother’s betrayal had warped his attitude toward marriage, and his one-time fiancée’s defection to Hollywood had compounded the prejudice.

      “Not this woman,” Kate told him as she sat down beside him at the table. “I think a woman’s place is at a man’s side.”

      “Here we go again,” Gene muttered to Cherry, who giggled.

      “Women shouldn’t have careers,” Jason repeated, his dark eyes level and somber. “Not unless they never plan to settle down.”

      “I plan to settle down one day,” she said unexpectedly. “And have a home of my own, and children. And a career. I’m going to be a designer.”

      “Without any help from me,” he returned blandly. “I’ll be damned if I’ll start you on the road to women’s liberation.”

      Her eyes flashed. It wasn’t the first time she and Jason had argued about the traditional place of a man and a woman in society, but it was the first time it had mattered.

      “I’m on the way already,” she shot back, “and without any need to go to you for help, thank God. I’ve just agreed to sign a contract with Clayborn to design a new line of leisure wear.”

      “Congratulations! Kate, that’s grand!” Cherry gushed.

      “I knew you could do it,” Gene chuckled.

      “What’s this? A career designing clothes?” Sheila asked from the doorway, all eyes. “Great! Design something for heavyset women, the moderately priced stuff I can afford makes me look like a tub of lard.”

      “Don’t say it,” Cherry gritted as Gene started to say something. “Not until after we get our peach cobbler, for heaven’s sake!”

      Gene looked as if he might burst. Sheila glared at him out of gimlet eyes, the bowl of cobbler held protectively against her waist, her head cocked threateningly.

      “I’ll throw it out,” she promised the young man.

      Gene sighed. “I love peach cobbler.” He grinned. “Sheila, you ravishing beauty, you, how about a taste of that exquisite dessert you concoct with such style and sensuality?” He wiggled his eyebrows.

      Sheila curtsied, almost falling over. “Why, thank you, kind sir, would you like to eat it or wear it?”

      “I’ll eat it, thanks, and I swear,” he stood, hand over his heart, “I’ll never make another sarcastic remark about your size.”

      Sheila nodded curtly. “See that you don’t. Here.”

      She set the deliciously browned dessert on the table and laid a serving spoon beside it.

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