September Morning (12 page)

Chapter Seven

S
he was purposely late for breakfast, and when she got downstairs she glanced around quickly, hoping to find that Blake had already eaten.

Maude was just finishing a piece of toast across from Phillip, who was sipping his coffee. Blake, Dick Leeds and Vivian were nowhere in sight.

“My, aren't you dressed up,” Maude commented, her approving glance resting on Kathryn's pretty beige suit and crepe de chine eggshell blouse with its neat bow. Her hair was drawn into a soft chignon, with wisping curls around her face, her feet encased in spike-heel open-toed sandals in beige and brown. She looked the picture of working womanhood.

“Trendy-looking,” Phillip added with a wink. “Where are you off to in your fine feathers, little bird?”

“I'm going to get a job,” she said with a cool smile.

Maude choked on her toast and had to be thumped on the back by Phillip.

“A job?” she gasped. “Doing what, Kathryn?”

“It depends on what I can find,” the younger woman said with a stubborn light in her green eyes. “Now, don't argue, Maude,” she added, catching the quick disapproval in the pale, dark-eyed face.

“I wasn't going to, dear,” Maude protested. “I was just going to ask how you planned to tell Blake.”

“She already has,” Blake told them, appearing in the doorway dressed in a becoming gray suit with a patterned tie that emphasized his darkness. “Let's go, Kate.”

She sat there almost trembling with emotion, her wide green eyes pleading with him, even as she knew she wasn't going to fight. All her resolutions vanished when Blake confronted her. After yesterday, all the fight was gone, anyway. She didn't have the heart for it anymore.

“She hasn't had breakfast,” Phillip observed.

“She'll learn to get downstairs in time, won't she?” Blake replied, and there was something vaguely menacing about the way he was looking at his younger brother.

Phillip grinned sheepishly. “Just an observation, big brother.” He laughed.

Blake's dark eyes went to Kathryn, skimming over her possessively. “I said, let's go.”

She got up, leaving a cup of fresh coffee and a plate of scrambled eggs behind her as she followed him out into the hall apprehensively.

“Where are we going?” she asked.

Both heavy brows went up. He opened the front door for her. “To work, of course.”

“But, I don't have a job yet.”

“Yes, you do.”

“What as?” she asked.

“My secretary.”

She followed him out to his dark sedan in a daze, only speaking when they were going down the driveway at Blake's usual fast pace.

“Did I hear you right?” she asked, and stared at his profile with unconcealed disbelief.

“You did.” He took out his cigarette case and extracted a cigarette from it as he drove, leaning over to push in the cigarette lighter.

“But, Blake, I can't work for you,” she protested.

His dark eyes scanned her face briefly. “Why not?”

“I can't type fast enough,” she said, grasping at straws. Having to be near him all day, every day, would be more agony than ecstasy.

“You're about average, little one. You'll do.” He lit his cigarette and pushed the lighter back in place. “You said you wanted a job,” he reminded her.

She watched cars in the other lane passing by them, not really seeing anything as she sat stiffly beside Blake.

“Where was Vivian this morning?” she asked quietly. “The two of you were out late last night.”

“So we were,” he said noncommitally.

“It's none of my business, of course,” she said tightly, avoiding his eyes.

He only smiled, keeping his attention on the road.

***

The Hamilton Mills complex was located in a sprawling ground-level facility in the city's huge industrial park, modern and landscaped. Kathryn had been inside the building many times, but never as an employee.

She followed Blake into his attractive carpeted office, where the dark furniture was complemented by elegant furnishings done in chocolates and creams. Her eye was caught and held by a portrait that spanned the length of the big leather sofa under it. She stared at the sweeping seascape, the sunset colors mingling in the clouds, the palm-lined beach a swath of white and silver. In the foreground were the shadowy outlines of a man and a woman.

“Like it?” he asked as he checked the messages on his desk.

She nodded. “It's St. Martin, isn't it?” she asked quietly. “I recognize that spot.”

“You ought to. We shared a bottle of champagne under that spread of trees on your eighteenth birthday. I nearly had to carry you back to the beach house.”

She laughed, remembering her own bubbling pleasure that night, Blake's company and the sound of the surf. They'd talked a lot, she recalled, and waded in the foaming surf, and drunk champagne, while Phillip and Maude visited one of the casinos and lost money.

“It was the best birthday party I ever had,” she murmured. “I don't think we had a cross word the whole trip.”

“Would you like to do it again?” he asked suddenly.

She turned. He was standing in front of his desk, his legs slightly apart, his hands on his lean hips.

“Now?” she asked.

“Next week. I've got some business in Haiti,” he explained mysteriously. “I thought we might stay in St. Martin for a few days and I could go on to Haiti from there.”

“Why Haiti?” she asked, curious.

“You don't have to come on that leg of the trip,” he said with a finality that permitted no further questioning.

She studied the painting again. “We?” she asked in a bare shadow of her normal voice.

“Vivian and Dick, too,” he admitted. “A last-ditch effort to get his cooperation.”

“And hers?” she asked with more bitterness than she knew.

There was a long pause. “I thought you knew by now why she came along.”

She dropped her eyes to the huge wood frame of the painting, feeling dead inside. So he was finally admitting it. “Yes,” she whispered. “I know.”

“Do you? I wonder,” he murmured, scowling at her downcast face.

“Is anyone else coming?” she asked. “Phillip?”

“Phillip?” he said harshly. His face hardened “What's going on between you two, Kathryn Mary?”

“Nothing,” she said defensively. “We just enjoy each other's company, that's all.”

Blake's dark eyes seemed to explode in flames. “By all means, we'll take Phillip. You'll have to have someone to play with!” His voice cut.

“I'm not a child, Blake,” she said with quiet dignity.

“You're both children.”

She squared her slender shoulders. “You didn't treat me like one yesterday!”

A slow, faint smile touched his hard mouth. “You didn't act like one.” His bold, slow eyes sketched her body in the becoming suit.

She felt the color creeping into her cheeks at the words, remembering the feel of his warm chest, the hair-roughened texture of it against her breasts.

“Phillip,” he scoffed, catching her eyes and holding them. “You'd burn him alive. You're too passionate for him. For Donavan, too.”

“Blake!” she burst out, embarrassed.

“Well, it's true,” he growled, his eyes narrowing on her face, darkening with memory. “I barely slept last night. I could feel your hands touching me…Your body like silk, twisting against mine. You may be green, little girl, but you've got good instincts. When you finally stop running from passion, you'll be one hell of a woman.”

“I'm not running…” she whispered involuntarily before she realized what she was saying.

She stood there watching him, suddenly vulnerable, hungry as she remembered the touch of his hands against her bare skin and the violence of his emotion. She wanted to touch him. To hold him. To feel his mouth against hers…He read that surge of longing accurately. His eyes darkened violently as he rose and came around the desk toward her. There was no pretense between them now; only a thread of shared hunger that was intense and demanding.

“You'd damned well better mean what I read in your eyes,” he growled as he reached her, his big hands shooting out to catch her roughly by the waist and pull her close.

She gloried in the feel of his big, muscular body against the length of hers. Her face lifted to his and her heart floundered as her eyes met his from a distance of scant inches. His head started to bend, and she trembled.

His mouth was hungry, and it hurt. She reached up, clinging to him, while his lips parted hers and burrowed into them ardently.

“Blake,” she whispered achingly.

His big hand moved up from her waist to cover her breast, taking its slight weight as his tongue shot into the warmth of her mouth.

“You're in my blood like slow poison, Kate,” he whispered roughly. His fingers contracted, and he watched the helpless reaction on her flushed face. “I look at you, and all I can think about is how you feel under my hands. Do you remember how it was between us yesterday?” he whispered against her mouth. “Your breasts crushed against me and not a stitch of fabric to stop us from feeling each other's skin…”

“Oh, don't,” she moaned helplessly. “It isn't fair…”

“Why isn't it?” he demanded. He lifted her until her eyes were on a level with his. “Tell me you didn't want what I did to you in the gazebo. Tell me you weren't aching every bit as much as I was when I let you go.”

She couldn't, because she had wanted him, and it was in every line of her flushed face, in the wide green eyes that searched his helplessly in the silence of the office.

“I'd like to take you to Martinique alone, do you know that?” he breathed huskily. “Just the two of us, Kate, and I'd lay you down in the sand in the darkness and taste every soft, sweet inch of your body with my lips.”

Her breath caught at the passionate intensity in the words. “I…I wouldn't…”

“Like hell you wouldn't,” he whispered. His mouth took hers hungrily, his hands slid down to grasp her hips and grind them sensuously into his until she cried out at the sensations it caused.

“Want me, Kate?” he taunted in a deep whisper. “God knows, I want you almost beyond bearing. It was a mistake for me to touch you the way I did. Now all I can think about is how much more of you I want. Kiss me, honey. Kiss me…”

She did, because at that moment it was all she wanted from life. The feel of him, the touch and taste and smell of him, Blake's big arms riveting her to every inch of his powerful body while his mouth took everything hers had to give. It seemed like a long time later when he finally raised his head to let his eyes blaze down into hers.

With a suddenness that was almost painful, the door swung open and Vivian's high-pitched voice shattered the crystal thread of emotion binding them.

“Well, hello,” she said in her clear British accent. “I do hope I'm not interrupting anything?”

“Of course not,” Blake said, turning to her with magnificent composure and a smile. “I promised you a tour, didn't I? Let's go. Kate,” he said over his shoulder, “you come along, too.”

She was still trembling, and she longed to refuse. But Vivian's eyes were already suspicious, and she didn't dare.

Blake escorted them through the huge manufacturing company, pointing out the main areas of interest—the training room where the new seamstresses were taught how to use the latest modern equipment; the pants line, where each sewing machine operator performed a different function in the manufacture of a pair of slacks; the cutting room, where huge bales of cloth were spread on long tables and cut by men with jigsaws through multiple layers of thickness. Kathryn remembered the terms peculiar to the garment industry from her childhood: “bundle boys” who carried the bundles of pattern pieces out to the sewers; “foreladies” who were the overseers for each group of seamstresses; “spreaders” who spread the cloth; “cutters” who cut it; and “inspectors” who were responsible for catching second- and third-quality garments before they could be shipped out as “firsts.” Then there were the pressers and packers and the “lab lady” who washed test garments. Hundreds of sewing machines were running together in the room where the shirt line was located, and this section had button-holing machines as well as the other equipment found on the pants line. Kathryn's eye was caught by the brilliant colors.

“That shade of blue is lovely!” she exclaimed.

Blake chuckled. “I'll have to take you through the yarn mill sometime and show you how it's made. Bales of cotton go through a process that takes a rope of raw material and runs it through a volley of spindles in different rooms to produce a thread of yarn. We use cotton and rayon now. In the old days, the mill ran strictly on cotton.”

“How interesting,” Vivian said with little enthusiasm. “I've never actually been in a mill.”

Kathryn gaped at her. This wasn't
her
first trip by a long shot. She was forever tagging along after Blake and Phillip in her younger days, because the whole process of making clothing had fascinated her. But she hadn't been in a yarn mill since her childhood, and she'd been too young to understand much of what she'd seen then.

“How many blouses come out of here in a week?” Kathryn asked, watching blouses in different states of readiness at each machine row as they walked past. She had to practically yell in Blake's ear to make him hear her above the noise.

“About ten thousand dozen,” he told her, smiling at her shocked expression. “We've added a lot of new equipment here. We have over six hundred sewing machine operators in this plant, and it takes about a hundred and fifty thousand yards of material a week to keep these women busy.”

Kathryn looked back the way they'd come. “The slacks…?”

“That's a separate plant, honey,” he reminded her, glancing toward the door that linked the two divisions. “We only have about three hundred machines on the pants line. Our biggest business here is blouses.”

“It's enormous!” she exclaimed.

Blake nodded. “We do a volume business. We have contracts with two of the biggest mail-order houses, and you'll remember that we have our own chain of outlet stores across the country. It's a hell of a big operation.”

“It must make lots of money,” Vivian commented, and Kathryn saw dollar signs in the older woman's eyes.