LITMIR.BIZ

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course not,’ Kim denied and had to stifle a chuckle at the mental image this conjured up. ‘Why?’

      ‘I thought if we went dancing it might be easier to get close to you without there being any misunderstandings with your dog.’

      This time Kim didn’t even try to stifle her laughter.

      ‘It’s not that funny,’ he assured her.

      ‘What exactly did you have in mind?’

      ‘Sorry to fall into the category of your typical “businessmen” but I was wondering if you’d have dinner with me and then we could go on to a nightclub.’

      ‘I am also sorry,’ she said and directed a sparkling blue look up at him, ‘for all the dangerous situations I’ve put you in, Mr Richardson. As for your suggestion, I like the sound of it very much and I will attempt to keep things safe for you.’

      He grimaced.

      ‘But I’ll have to go home to get changed and then drive back into Bunbury—’

      ‘I’ll send a car for you,’ he said, interrupting her.

      Kim looked at him with a faint frown in her eyes as she wondered why he didn’t pick her up himself.

      He gestured. ‘I have a heap of stuff to deal with—the penalty for taking a day off.’

      ‘Well, OK. Thanks.’

      ‘Seven-thirty suit you?’ He raised an eyebrow at her.

      ‘Fine, but really, I could drive in.’

      ‘No.’ He said it lightly but quite definitely.

      ‘If that isn’t an example of how you like to get your own way, I don’t know what is,’ she commented a little dryly.

      ‘Not at all,’ he denied. ‘It’s concern for your welfare, that’s all.’

      Several expressions chased across Kim’s face, exasperation being foremost. Then her lips twisted and she looked rueful. ‘Hoist by my own petard. All right.’

      He laughed.

      CHAPTER TWO

      THERE was no one home when Kim got back to Saldanha from Margaret River.

      There was nothing unusual in this. Her parents travelled frequently as well as socializing often and they were currently in Perth.

      Kim taught at a boarding school down the coast at Esperance so she’d moved down there for term time but she spent the school holidays at home.

      Fortunately, most of her formal clothes still resided in her bedroom at home and she was able to have a choice of what to wear for dinner and a nightclub with Reith Richardson.

      Her bedroom was always a comfort to her. Her mother had given her carte blanche to redecorate it when she left school and she’d created a blue room, saying, ‘If you can have a green room, why not a blue one?’ And it was not only where she stored her clothes and slept, it was where she read, dreamed, played her harp and wondered sometimes what kind of a wife and mother she would be.

      She showered and washed her hair while she thought what she would wear, then, decision made, thought back over the day. And she was a little startled to feel a tremor run through her just at the thought of Reith Richardson …

      I’m falling, she thought. In love or prey to a massive physical attraction? Strange, he didn’t lay a hand on me today, other than just before…‘You made your intentions clear,’ she said to Sunny Bob, who was lying on the carpet beside her.

      The dog lifted his head and thumped his tail, then went back to sleep.

      Kim grimaced and pictured what would have happened but for Sunny Bob. She would have revelled in Reith’s arms, she knew. Just the thought of it now made her blush and she picked up her perfume bottle and touched the cool glass to her cheeks.

      Whoa, she thought then. Take it slowly, Kim. Don’t let this get out of hand. You need to know a lot more about this man …

      She put the bottle down and picked up her brush, turning it slowly over and over in her hand as she thought of some of her actions today. Such as, for example, her precipitous dash from the cool and shade of the umbrella down the beach to the water earlier.

      What had prompted that had been embarrassment. Yes, she wanted to know more about him but, in hindsight, asking him if he was married had sounded juvenile, and then intrusive, especially in the light of learning he had lost his wife.

      So what was it about him that threw her off her usually even keel? she wondered. That underlying disapproval she’d sensed in him from the start? But why would he disapprove of her? Unless he thought she was completely wacky. But, if so, why would he want to keep on seeing her …?

      Perhaps that was part of her enjoyment in his company, however—the light-hearted sparring she, at least, undertook, to challenge his perception of her?

      She shook her head and stood up and got dressed. Her choice was a pair of dark grey palazzo pants and a silvery-grey halter top with wide lapels at the front and a low back. She wore no jewellery and no bra. Her shoes were high black sandals, her hair was sleek and smoothed back in a chignon.

      Not over-dressed, not under-dressed, just right, she thought as she studied her reflection. The sun and the surf had given her a glow but there was still a frown in her eyes, indicating some inner unease.

      She wandered over to her harp and plucked the strings. Romance, she conceded, had been a slightly bumpy road for her until she’d learnt to sort the wheat from the chaff—sort the men who were on the make and drawn by her wealthy parents and background more than by her soul, she thought with a dry little twist of her lips.

      And, sadly, there had been more of the ‘on the make’ kind than the other with the result that she was very wary these days and on the lookout for fortune-hunters. Wary, somewhat hardened and definitely cynical. But did Reith Richardson fall into that class?

      On the surface, it appeared not. He didn’t seem to be at all interested in her background, but of course they’d only known each other for a short time. Yet there was something—her brow creased—a sort of stamp of authority about him that was impressive. There was also a reserve she sensed.

      She sighed and picked up her purse at the sound of a car on the drive. ‘Just—take it very slowly with this man,’ she advised herself and went downstairs to be driven into town.

      A few hours later, she stirred in his arms and said in a low husky voice, ‘Do you ever take your own advice?’

      He swung her round on the small, darkened, crowded floor with its coloured spotlights above, and they came together again. They’d danced for hours. It was the height of sophistication, the nightclub, on the second floor of a beautifully restored old building in Bunbury, and the music had been sensational.

      ‘Sometimes.’ He looked down at her rather wryly. ‘How about you?’

      ‘Not always.’ She laid her head on his shoulder as, rather than dancing, they swayed to the music and, as she’d suspected, she revelled in being in his arms.

      In fact, when she’d first laid eyes on him, when she’d walked into the restaurant and he’d stood up in a dark suit, the jacket of which had moulded his broad shoulders, she’d missed a step because he’d been so darkly attractive. From that moment on she’d been physically conscious of him in a way that had taken her by storm because she’d never felt this way before, never had her senses so stirred up by a man.

      At the same time as a river of rhythm had flowed through her veins, so had a river of sensuality. His hands on her hips had ignited a swathe of sensation up and down her body. And to rest her body against his, to feel the hard strength of him, the power, had made her feel as light as a feather and giddy with pleasure.

      ‘Not always, which is very stupid

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