Diamond Spur (9 page)

between them and playing hell with his good intentions, not to mention his agonized body.

She glanced up to find a faint, rather forced amusement in those dark eyes. "Oh, so it's that

way, is it?" she took

him up, delighted at the new familiarity they were sharing so unexpectedly. "I'd have to seduce

you, I gather?"

"Damned straight," he returned. "I'm not one of those fast city boys. You won't get me into

bed without a fight."

She laughed, her eyes sparkling, her face radiant. "Well, I never."

"I know," he mused.

She hit his chest with a small, playful fist. "Tease."

"Flirt."

She stared up at him with pleasure and adoration written all over her. "If you're going to play

hard to get, I'll just go home."

"That might be wise," he sighed. He dragged a cigarette from his pocket with fingers he had to

force to be steady, and lit it. "You're getting me all stirred up."

Her eyebrows lifted. "Well, you started it."

"I guess I did." He touched her cheek gently. "Are you sorry?"

She shook her head. "If we're making confessions, I've wondered for a long time what it would feel like if you kissed me." His chest swelled. "I've wondered the same thing about you, just lately." She smiled with aching pleasure. "I thought you were mad at me when you came out here." "I think I was." He drew from his cigarette, and said, "I just don't want to lose you." "And I've already told you, I'm just going to a few fashion shows, that's all. I'm not going to

have my head turned by fancy living."

"It's easy to say, isn't it?" he asked with faint cynicism. "I grew up poor, honey. I remember what it was like when we started making money here. But that's something you're going to have to find out for yourself, I guess."

"That doesn't make sense," she said softly.

"It will. Kiss me good night and go home. Want me to follow you in the Bronco to make sure you get there all
right?"

She was still staggering from his request. Her wide eyes welded to his, she couldn't be bothered to worry about getting home.

"Kiss you good night?" she whispered.

"Don't you want to?" he whispered back, bending. "This kind of thing can get addictive, especially when it feels this sweet. Come on. Open that soft little mouth and fit it to mine, Katy," he murmured as his face came closer.

She obeyed him, trembling as she felt the moist warmth of his lips so close against her own. She parted her lips and nudged them up against his, and moaned when he returned the caress with biting hunger. The sound worked on his blood like fire. He looped an arm around her shoulders and brought her roughly against his chest while the pressure of his mouth pushed her head back onto his muscular arm. Time hung like the stars while they fed on each other, and it was a long time before Jason could manage to drag himself away.

Jason's eyes were almost frightening with their hot glitter as they searched Kate's. "You and your damned soft breasts are giving me hell," he breathed shakily. "Next time, wear a bra, unless you want to watch me strip you to the waist out of sheer frustration."

Her mouth opened on a gasp and he bent long enough to crush his own over it for an instant. Then he let her go and moved back a step. She tried to stop shaking.

"Jason!" she exclaimed.

"I'm not made of solid rock," he reminded her. His eyes went to her blouson, where the sharp tips of her breasts were straining against the thin fabric. "God, that excites me," he said roughly.

She blinked, because in some ways, her education was a little faulty. "What?"

He sighed wearily. "Kate...this." He brushed the back of his hand softly over her breast, and she jerked back on an inverted breath. "Didn't you know that a woman's body shows arousal that way?'' he asked her gently.

"I do now, thanks," she fumbled, wrapping her arms around herself in a flurry of embarrassment.

"Stop that," he scolded gently. "Remember who I am, Kate."

"I'm trying," she replied lightly, her eyes fascinated with him and this new and sudden intimacy. But she moved her arms. Odd, how her body tingled when he looked at her breasts. For one wild instant, she thought about what he'd threatened, about stripping her to the waist and looking at her there....

"Why the wild blush?" he asked, his voice deep and velvety. He kissed her closed eyelids. ' 'If you want to experiment, I'll let you do it with me. At least you'll be safe that way."

"Oh, Jason," she moaned, "I feel so strange...!"

"And so threatened. And there's no need." He pressed his mouth to her forehead. "I'm going to take exquisite care of you. Now go home before things get out of hand. Lovemaking is one thing, but sex is something else again." He lifted his head and searched her eyes. "I won't let you sleep with me, Kate. Virginity is something you should save for marriage."

"Nobody else does," she replied.

"Bull," he shot back. "That's another myth. It's the fashion to be sexually liberated these days, but it's damned dangerous, too. And I don't mean just because girls can get pregnant. It's because there are so many things you can catch that can kill you, or at the very least make you un
touchable. You understand me?"

"Is that why you don't run around?" she asked, her eyes curious.

"It's one of many reasons I don't," he admitted. His eyes drew slowly over her face. "Even a man has to be careful these days. I'd cut off my arm before I'd expose you to any kind of disease."

"And that's the only reason you don't want me to sleep with other men?" she coaxed.

His face hardened. "I feel the same way about that as you seem to feel about thinking of me
in bed with other women."

Her eyes fell. "Oh."

"Kate, I'm getting in over my head here, and I need a cold shower like hell. So will you please go home?" She smiled at the way he said it, delighted at the way he was reacting to her, and at the new relationship they were heading for. "Okay."

"Drive carefully."

"I will."

She peeked at him, but he seemed remote now, unapproachable. With a faint grin, she turned and started toward the steps.

"I'll be in Montana looking at Beefmaster bulls for a few days next week," he said unexpectedly. "And at the end of the month, I'll be headed for Australia. I'll bring you back something pretty from there."

"You're doing a lot of traveling," she said quietly. "Will you be in Australia long?" she asked, sounding miserable because she was.

He wished he wasn't going all of a sudden. He studied her face. "I know a man up in the Northern Territory who's experimenting with some new Indian cattle, crossbreeding them with shorthorns. I've been invited to spend a month over there getting familiar with the operation. It's something I'm interested in trying here, so I've accepted, and Gene's going to ran things while I'm away, despite the fact that I had to browbeat him into it. I can't spare the time, but I need to see about expanding the operation."

"A whole month away?" she murmured, trying not to let him see how disappointed she felt.

"Yes. But not for a few weeks yet." He smiled. "Don't borrow things to brood about. Live one day at a time." "That's easy to say," she sighed. "You'll get the hang of it." He put a fresh cigarette in his mouth and lit it. "Watch your

speed."

She nodded. One last glance at his face was all she got before Jason turned and went back to the swing to sit down. When she pulled out of the driveway, he was still sitting mere. By the time she got home, she wondered if she might have dreamed the whole interlude. But her mouth was swollen from his kisses and her breasts ached from the gentle crush of his chest. Kate walked in feeling on air, and only barely managed to camouflage her budding emotions from her mother's eagle eye. She didn't want to share her secret just yet. She didn't want Mary to know what had happened. But life had suddenly taken on new meaning, and she felt alive as she never had before.

Chapter Five

The first two outfits that Kate designed had been cut, and sewn, and Dessie Cagle had them sitting

on a mannequin the next day in the sample room when Kate got to work.

Dessie beamed at her, and the designer, Sandy, laughed at the expression on her face.

"There you go," Sandy mused, one hand on her ample hip. Her salt-and-pepper hair was elegantly coiffed, and she wore a simple blue pantsuit. "What do you think? The first samples with the Kathryn of Texas label."

"Almost," Dessie added. "The labels were supposed to come by UPS, but they're late." Kate sighed over the sky blue and cream combinations, a heavy silver-toned concho belt linking the bottom to its blouson top. "Imagine," she shook her head, astonished. "That's all mine."

"Well, not quite," Sandy said slowly. "Kate, there are a couple of changes in the darts, because of production time. I hope you don't mind," she added, and she showed Kate the minor alterations.

"Oh, that's no problem," Kate said, and meant it. "Mr. Rogers had said already that there might have to be a change here and there. We learned compromise in design school," she grinned. "I don't do these in concrete." "Thank God, she's not going to be a prima donna," Sandy gushed, dancing Dessie around the room. She glanced at Kate with a rueful smile. ' 'Our last new designer lasted one week. She'd designed us a skirt with eight set-in pockets and sixteen belt loops. We had to alter the design, and we even tried to compromise because it would have cost more to make it than we could have sold it for. Our little designer raised the roof, threatened to sue us individually and collectively, and in her fury overturned a buggy of scraps on one of the quality control ladies." She shook her head. "I don't guess you heard about it out on the floor?" Kate pursed her lips. "Actually, we all knew about it, and I decided then and there that if I ever sold a design I'd bite off my tongue before I'd argue about production changes. Am I still loved?" Sandy hugged her warmly. "Of course you are! Now. How are you coming with that new slant bodice on your blouson...?" Kate pulled out her sketchbook and laid it on the desk to show her boss. But while she was talking, her eyes kept darting to the outfit on the mannequin. Kathryn of Texas. Now she had a label. And she was going to make it one to be proud of. Mary had lunch with her in the canteen, and spent most of the half hour groaning over the repairs they had to get through. Some of the cuts were farmed out to a division of the company in the Caribbean, where labor was less expensive. But when they came back in, some of them didn't make it through quality control and had to be taken through the sewing line again. "Those repairs are never going to stop," Mary sighed as she finished her ham sandwich and washed it down with a swallow of canteen coffee in a Styrofoam cup. She rested her tired arms on the polished yellow finish of the long table they were sharing with a few other scattered sewing hands. "I think my body is growing to my machine." "God forbid," Kate laughed. "There, there, I'll get rich and support you." "Promises, promises." Mary stretched, looking older than ever in the orange slacks and patterned matching top she'd made. Orange really wasn't her mother's color, but Kate hadn't been able to talk her out of the fabric she'd made them from. "You'd look good in white," Kate told her mother. "Sure. Covered with lint in camouflage and khaki shades and smeared with machine oil," her mother agreed dryly. "Any other helpful comments you care to make?" "Why don't you make eyes at that new mechanic," came the quick comment. "He's about your age and dashing...." "And the only thing he's ever said to me was, 'Hand me my screwdriver.' No, thanks. He's got a wart on his nose." "Maybe he was a frog and somebody kissed him,'' Kate suggested. Mary gave her a hard glare. "I have to work over today," she said. "Do you want to wait for me or get a ride home?" "I want to wait until the truck comes in from Dallas and see if it's got my buttons and lace," Kate told her. "They're a day late already. I need to check them against the fabric and make sure they look the way I want them to." "You picky designers," Mary chided as she got up. "You'll be standing in a retail store, complaining about the way they stick on the price tags." "Oh, to design clothes so fancy that they wouldn't have price tags," Kate sighed. Mary just grimaced and left her there. Kate sipped her coffee, her eyes going blankly out the window at the blue skies. She wondered if Jason was still out with the men, and decided that

probably he was. Roundup seemed to go on forever. Tempers got worse as it went along and she didn't imagine that she was going to see him for several days. That was vaguely worrying, because he'd be going to Montana next week, and it was already Thursday. Her mind went back to the way he'd kissed her. She smiled, going off into a daydream where she was a famous designer and Jason was her husband, and he was accompanying her to a grand show in New York during one of the market weeks. She'd glitter, and he'd be so proud of her. She'd be hailed on the street in her famous finery, and Jason would accompany her to parties....

She blinked. Jason wouldn't be at any of those parties for the simple reason that he didn't approve of her designing aspirations. He still thought a woman belonged in the bedroom or the kitchen, and he wasn't likely to change overnight.

A part of her mind kept asking why she was mooning over a man who wouldn't want her the way she wanted to be, and who would expect his wife to stay home, have babies, and help entertain his business guests. She couldn't face those limits, so she ignored them. At the moment, all she could think about was the sweet savagery of his mouth and the unexpected pleasure of loving him. If the lovely dream only lasted for a few days, until she came to her senses, she was going to enjoy it while it did. He was right. It was better to live for the moment rather than worry about the future. Because for her and Jason there was no future.