Gentle Pirate (9 page)

Resolutely Kirsten gave the yellow bedspread one last straightening tug and then went back into the living room to feed her fish.

"You guys certainly weren't a lot of help last night," she accused, lifting the lid of the twenty-gallon tank and watching the fish swim to the surface in conditioned reflex. Obligingly she sprinkled food on the water and observed while they wolfed it down. Greedy little creatures!

"Why didn't you defend the place?" she questioned the two guppies. "You're normally so aggressive." The small, shy glassfish grabbed his food and flashed down through the water to hide in the miniature of a shipwrecked boat.

"Something tells me I'm not even going to get a description from any of you. That's it! Stay uninvolved! Don't you know that's one of the chief social diseases of the age?" The door opened behind her and Kirsten dropped the tank lid, feeling like a fool. Simon stood there grinning.

"Some people talk to plants, I've got a woman who talks to fish!"

"They don't talk back!" she snapped, feeling herself redden slightly.

"Must be dull for you in the evenings," he commented, closing the door behind him. He waved a key in her frowning face.

"It's all settled, honey. I'm two doors down, number twenty-five. Want to help me move out of the hotel? I'll call a furniture rental agency and arrange to have the basics delivered as soon as possible."

"No, I don't want to help you move! Did you think I would?" she said waspishly, regarding him with her hands on her hips, feet apart.

"I think," he said, enunciating clearly, "that you had better stop acting like a spoiled brat." He came to a halt in front of her, the smile gone from his mouth and his eyes.

"What will you do if I don't behave as you wish me to, Simon?" she asked evenly. "Hit me? Beat me?"

"No, I've got other methods," he replied steadily, watching her face.

"Such as?"

"Push me too hard and you'll find out, honey." The smile reappeared. "I know that's a challenge you'll probably find impossible to resist eventually, but I don't think you have quite enough nerve at the moment." He picked up his coat and the shoebox and walked back to the door. "If I'm going to have to do the job myself, I'd better get started. I'll see you later, Kirsten."

"Hey! Wait a minute! What do you want with that shoebox? I told you I was going to toss it out!" Kirsten exclaimed, alarmed.

"Consider it tossed, honey." Then he was gone.

Kirsten stood in the middle of the living room, fuming, for a long moment and then threw up her hands in disgust.

She didn't see him much during the weekend. Occasionally he'd wave cheerfully as he carted boxes in from the back of the Mercedes and once he invited her over for a cup of coffee after the furniture had arrived from the rental store. She accepted warily, but the conversation was only of casual things such as the hassles of moving. Neither one seemed anxious to start an argument. Simon didn't abandon his proprietary air toward her, but at least he didn't attempt to monopolize her for the whole weekend, Kirsten thought grudgingly.

She didn't see Ben Williamson during the weekend. On Monday, when she caught a glimpse of his blond head bent over the equally blond head of the new secretary, Kirsten had the feeling she was going to have to look elsewhere for male companionship. She watched Ben and Joyce studying a document together and decided they would probably make a good couple. This magnanimous feeling lasted for about an hour: the length of time it took for the new gossip to spread through the halls of Silco.

It wasn't that she missed Ben, Kirsten told herself as she went alone to her coffee break for the first time in weeks, it was simply that it was uncomfortable being the cause of so many speculative looks. Against her will she found herself almost wishing Simon's huge frame would appear in the cafeteria and stride over to sit beside her. Wishful thinking, of course. It was well known the man seldom took coffee breaks.

"Well, hello, Kirsten. All alone this morning?" Liz Wilford's dulcet tones interrupted Kirsten's thoughts and she glanced up to see the voluptuous redhead standing beside her table.

"Hello, Liz. How was your weekend?" Kirsten couldn't think of anything else to say. She had absolutely nothing in common with the younger woman.

"My weekend was wonderful! Roger took me out on the boat. I gather yours wasn't quite so enjoyable?" The green eyes slid over to the corner where Ben and his new friend sat close together.

"I got a lot done," Kirsten lied, refusing to follow the other woman's glance. "It's so easy to get behind on the housecleaning when you're working, isn't it?"

Liz lifted one shoulder dismissingly. "First things first, I always say. If that's what's most important to you…" She let the sentence end on a suggestive note. "But then Ben does sometimes seem a bit young for his age, doesn't he? All that endless talk about sports. I don't know how you tolerated it so long, Kirsten!"

"He's a nice person, Liz." Kirsten found herself defending her former escort in forceful tones.

"Oh, I don't doubt that, but I can certainly understand that a woman might want something more in a man. Roger, for example, has a much wider range of interests than poor Ben."

"Really?" Kirsten let the disinterest show in her voice and lifted her cup of coffee for another sip. It wasn't as strong as the thick brew Simon had made for her on Sunday when he had invited her over for a brief inspection of his newly furnished apartment. Now where had that thought come from?

"Really," Liz Wilford affirmed and then smiled a languid good-bye.

"Annoying woman," Kirsten muttered to herself and finished the coffee with a quick gulp.

When she lunched in the cafeteria on Tuesday, Kirsten made a point of stopping by the small table where Ben and Joyce were ensconsed. She chatted brightly, determined to show that none of the three who were generating gossip had the least worry about it. It was true Ben's brown eyes mirrored a small flash of guilt but it died quickly as Kirsten smiled engagingly down at the couple.

"Has Ben been able to settle your fears concerning the nuclear business?" she asked Joyce cheerfully before walking on to another table. She would be lunching alone again. Simon usually spent his noon meals in conferences, so he wouldn't be coming around to bother her. She should be grateful!

"Oh, yes," Joyce Osborne laughed charmingly, happy blue eyes smiling at Kirsten. A nice girl. "He's explaining everything to me. I was a little nervous, you know," she went on confidentially. "But there seem to be so many backup systems in those plants that I don't see how anything serious could ever go wrong!"

Nothing could go wrong! Kirsten hid a grimace. Didn't the girl realize that the nuclear plants were machines designed by humans, built by humans, and run by humans and that therefore the possibility of human error was always present? Still, she was hardly in a position to be critical of the industry. It was paying her a rather hefty salary, Kirsten reflected with self-derision.

"I'm glad you're feeling better about it. Ben knows a great deal about the subject and should be able to explain it well," she replied, feeling very virtuous for giving her former dating partner such a nice pat on the back. She could see him preening under it.

"Thanks, Kirsten!" he chuckled. "You know, Joyce and I are discovering we have a lot in common! She wants to learn to water ski and I'm going to teach her. And she's a great basketball fan!" he added with an admiring look at his new girl friend. Joyce blushed attractively and Kirsten felt as if she were intruding on two teenagers in the throes of first love. Time to make a dignified exit. A basketball fan, she thought wryly. Never in a million years could she have worked up an interest in basketball.

"Well, I'll see you two later," she excused herself easily, and with another smile, went to her table to eat lunch. She was pleased that the small exchange had not gone unnoticed by the crowd in the cafeteria. A first step toward putting the gossip to rest, she thought bracingly.

By Wednesday morning, Kirsten was seriously wondering if she shouldn't consider returning to the world of academic librarianship. The world she had left to marry Jim Talbot. The termination of what she had to admit had been a dull little relationship with Ben Williamson and the fears that Simon Kendrick produced in her were combining to throw life in Richland into sharper perspective. Not a single man had walked into the library this week, she told herself, whom she could honestly say she wanted to get to know better. Unable to pinpoint the source of her restlessness, Kirsten decided it had to do with the fact that she simply didn't feel at home in a community where what passed for intelligent conversation tended to revolve around the evils of environmentalists and the wonders of nuclear power. Sports was the chief topic when talk went into a lighter vein.

A boomtown, she thought, depressed. A genuine boomtown. The energy industry dominated the life of the highly transient population of engineers and craftspeople and it was only to be expected that the pace of life was not conducive to the more reflective mode of living she had known elsewhere. But was she really giving the place and the people a chance? After all, outside of Ben, she hadn't really dated. And Simon Kendrick couldn't exactly be described as typical of the average engineer. No, she needed to find someone in the middle ground. A man of intelligence who had a civilized approach to life. She was in the middle of a phone call to apprise an engineer of the availability of a particular government standard on piping when she looked up from the notes on her desk to see Roger Townsend enter the room. Somewhere in her mind a curious little question arose. Townsend had never sought out the services of the library before.

"Good morning, Kirsten. Thought I'd take a few minutes to get in some casual reading." He nodded his well-groomed dark head toward the file of current engineering magazines she kept in the corner. "I've been so swamped since Kendrick arrived and started yelling for reports and figures that I've gotten behind on my professional reading."

"Help yourself. The back issues are filed over there." Kirsten indicated another shelf nearby. He nodded, and settled himself near the rack. With a last, curious glance in his direction, Kirsten went back to work.

Half an hour later Roger stretched, tossed a magazine aside, and got to his feet to stroll over to her desk.

"I was about to escape to the cafeteria for a cup of coffee. Care to join me?" he invited, smiling charmingly.

Kirsten regarded the smoothly styled hair, the absolutely right coat, and the casually elegant frames of Roger's glasses and returned the smile. Didn't this man represent the middle ground she had told herself she wanted to try? But why was he asking her to coffee? What had become of the slinky Liz? Still, it would be pleasant to share her coffee break again.

"Sounds great," she agreed with abrupt decision. What did she have to lose? At least it would change the subject matter of the gossip slightly. Kirsten wondered what people would make of the situation. Would the news get back to Simon? That wasn't such a humorous thought. It was true she hadn't seen much of the man during the past few days because he was spending long hours at the office. She was often in bed before she heard the Mercedes in the parking lot at night. But she didn't have the impression he had forgotten her either. Only that he was putting his business with her aside while he dealt with other matters. It was disturbing to realize that one could be shelved until it was more convenient, Kirsten thought grimly as she walked with Roger to the cafeteria.

It was also disturbing to be pumped for information, she decided gloomily as she stirred cream into her coffee several minutes later and listened to Roger introduce Simon Kendrick ever so gently into the conversation.

"The man moves fast, doesn't he? He's already dating the librarian after being at Silco for one week! I have to admit that until I saw you Friday night I hadn't realized what that prim hairdo and those businesslike clothes were hiding." Very white teeth flashed in a very engaging smile. Kirsten forced a response, not bothering to correct him on the matter of who she had been with Friday night. If the office gossip was now saying her date had been with Simon instead of Ben, so what?

"Perhaps his ability to see beyond the obvious is the reason Silco hired him," she suggested with false charm. She had to hand it to him, Townsend took the setdown well.

"I'm always willing to learn from a professional," Roger grinned, unabashed.

Kirsten said nothing, contenting herself with a sip of coffee. Where was all this leading?

"A lot of jobs around here could depend on what Kendrick comes up with in the way of recommendations. You know he's only hired for a short time. He's really a consultant, although management would like him to make the position permanent. He's got other interests, I understand, down in California. Nothing to lose by making sweeping suggestions that could get a lot of folks thrown out on their ears!" Roger smiled again. Kirsten was coming to the conclusion she didn't care for his teeth. "How's your sense of company loyalty, Miss Librarian?"

"Why do you ask, Roger?"

"It occurred to me that you might be in a position to learn a few interesting facts over the next few weeks…"

"I doubt it. You're mistaken about the situation. I don't intend to date the man," Kristen announced firmly, her delicate mouth straightening at the corners.

"Hey, I never said you were! But would you actually refuse if he asked you out?" Roger demanded with a frown. Probably couldn't believe any woman would turn down a date with someone as influential as Simon, Kirsten thought with an inner smile.

"That's my business, Roger," she told him gently.

"You're absolutely right," he agreed instantly. "Please forget I said anything at all. In the meantime, if he hasn't already got the inside track, would you consider going out with me Friday evening?"

Vastly surprised, Kirsten said the first thing that came into her head.

"Why?" she demanded baldly and immediately felt foolish. What a thing to say to someone who has just asked you out!