To Wear His Ring: Circle of Gold / Trophy Wives / Dakota Bride

He looked as if he’d been slapped. “Excuse me?”

“This word processor does all that for you,” she explained. “It’s very simple, really.”

He looked angry. “I thought you had to type all fifty individually.”

“Only if you’re using a prehistoric typewriter and carbon system,” she pointed out.

He was really angry now. “An hour?” he repeated.

She nodded. “Maybe less. I’ll get right on it,” she added quickly, hoping to appease him. Heaven only knew what had set him off, but she recognized that glitter in his eyes.

He left her and went to make some phone calls. When he came back, Kasie was printing the letters out, having just finished the mailing labels. There was a folding machine that made short work of folding the letters. Then all she had to do was stuff, lick, stamp and mail the envelopes.

Gil put on the stamps for her. He watched her curiously. Once, when she looked up into his eyes, it was like an electric shock. Surprised, she dropped her gaze and blushed. Really, she thought, he had a strange effect on her.

“How do you like your job so far?” he asked.

“Very much,” she said. “Except for the taxes.”

“You’ll get used to doing them,” he assured her.

“I suppose so.”

“Can you manage John’s load and mine as well, or do you want me to get a temporary to help you?”

“There isn’t a lot,” she pointed out. “If I get overwhelmed, I’ll say so.”

He finished stamping the envelopes and stacked them neatly to one side. “You’re very honest. It’s unusual in most people.” He touched a stamp with a floral motif. “My wife was like that.” He smiled. “She said that lies were a waste of time, since they got found out anyway.” His eyes were far away. “We were in grammar school together. We always knew that we’d marry one day.” The smile faded into misery. “She was a wonderful rider. She rode in the rodeo when she was younger. But a gentle horse ran away with her and a low-lying limb ended her life. Jenny was only a year old when Darlene died. Bess was two. I thought my life was over, too.”

Kasie didn’t know what to say. It shocked her that a man like Gil would even discuss something so personal with a stranger. Of course, a lot of people discussed even more personal things with Kasie. Maybe she had that sort of face that attracted confidences.

“Do the girls look like her?” she asked daringly.

“Bess does. She was blond and blue-eyed. She wasn’t beautiful, but her smile was.” His eyes narrowed in painful memory. “They had to sedate me to make me let go of her. I wouldn’t believe them, even when they swore to me that no means on earth could save her…” His fingers clenched on top of the envelope and he moved his hand away at once and stood up. “Thanks, Kasie,” he said curtly, turning away, as if it embarrassed him to have spoken of his wife at all.

“Mr. Callister,” she said softly, waiting until he turned to continue. “I lost…some people three months ago. I understand grief.”

He hesitated. “How did they die?”

Her face closed up. “It was…an accident. They were only in their twenties. I thought they had years left.”

“Life is unpredictable,” he told her. “Sometimes unbearable. But everything passes. Even bad times.”

“Yes, that’s what everyone says,” she agreed.

They shared a long, quiet, puzzling exchange of sorrow before he shrugged and turned away, leaving her to her work.

Chapter Two

Kasie was almost tearing her hair out by the next afternoon. John’s mail was straightforward, mostly about show dates and cancellations, transportation for the animals and personal correspondence. Gil’s was something else.

Gil not only ran the ranch, but he dealt with the majority of the support companies that were its satellites. He knew all the managers by first names, he often spoke with state and federal officials, including well-known senators, on legislation affecting beef production. Besides that, he was involved in the scientific study of new grasses and earth-friendly pesticides and fertilizers. He worked with resource and conservation groups, even an animal rights group; since he didn’t run slaughter cattle and was rabidly proconservation, at least one group was happy to have his name on its board of directors. He was a powerhouse of energy, working from dawn until well after dark. The problem was, every single task he undertook was accompanied by a ton of paperwork. And his part-time secretary, Pauline Raines, was the most disorganized human being Kasie had ever encountered.

John came home late on Friday evening, and was surprised to find Kasie still at work in the study.

He scowled as he tossed his Stetson onto a rack. “What are you doing in here? It’s almost ten o’clock! Does Gil know you’re working this much overtime?”

She glanced up from the second page of ten that she was trying to type into the computer. None of Pauline’s paperwork had ever been keyed in.

She held up the sheaf of paperwork in six files with a sigh. “I think of it as job security,” she offered.

He moved around beside the desk and looked over what she was doing. “Good God, he’s not sane!” he muttered. “No one secretary could handle this load in a week! Is he trying to kill you?”

“Pauline hurt her thumb,” she said miserably. “I get to do her work, too, except that she never put any of the records into the computer. It’s got to be done. I don’t see how your brother ever found anything in here!”

“He didn’t,” John said dryly, his pale eyes twinkling. “Pauline made sure of it. She’s indispensable, I hear.”

Kasie’s eyes narrowed. “She won’t be for long, when I get this stuff keyed in,” she assured him.

“Don’t tell her that unless you pay up your life insurance first. Pauline is a girl who carries grudges, and she’s stuck on Gil.”

“I noticed.”

“Not that he cares,” John added slowly. “He never got over losing his wife. I’m not sure that he’ll ever remarry.”

“He told me.”

He glanced down at her. “Excuse me?”

“He told me specifically that he didn’t want a mother for the girls or a new wife, and not to get my hopes up.” She chuckled. “Good Lord, he must be all of thirty-two. I’m barely twenty-two. I don’t want a man I’ll have to push around in a wheelchair one day!”

“And I don’t rob cradles,” came a harsh, angry voice from the doorway.

They both jumped as they looked up to see Gil just coming in from the barn. He was still in work clothes, chaps and boots and a sweaty shirt, with a disreputable old black Stetson cocked over one eye.

“Are you trying to make Kasie quit, by any chance?” John challenged. “Good God, man, it’ll take her a week just to get a fraction of the information in these spreadsheets into the computer!”

Gil frowned. He pulled off his hat and ran a hand through his sweaty blond hair. “I didn’t actually look at it,” he confessed. “I’ve been too busy with the new bulls.”

“Well, you’d better look,” John said curtly.

Gil moved to the desk, aware of Kasie’s hostile glare. He peered over her shoulder and cursed sharply. “Where did all this come from?” he asked.

“Pauline brought it to me and said you wanted it converted to disk,” she replied flatly.

His eyes began to glitter. “I never told her to land you with all this!”

“It needs doing,” she confessed. “There’s no way you can do an accurate spreadsheet without the comparisons you could use in a computer program. I’ve reworked this spreadsheet program,” she said, indicating the screen, “and made an application that will work for cattle weight gain ratios and daily weighing, as well as diet and health and so forth.”

“I’m impressed,” Gil said honestly.

“It’s what I’m used to doing. Taxes aren’t,” she added sheepishly.

“Don’t look at me,” John said. “I hate taxes. I’m not learning them, either,” he added belligerently. “Half this ranch is mine, and on my half, we don’t do tax work.” He nodded curtly and walked out.

“Come back here, you coward!” Gil muttered. “How the hell am I supposed to cope with taxes and all the other routine headaches that you don’t have, because you’re off somewhere showing cattle!”

John just waved his hand and kept walking.

“Miss Parsons knows taxes inside out,” Kasie ventured. “She told me she used to be an accountant.”

He glared at her. “Miss Parsons was hired to take care of my daughters.” He kept looking at Kasie, and not in any friendly way. It was almost as if he knew…

She flushed. “They couldn’t get the little paper ship to float on the fish pond,” she murmured uneasily, not looking at him. “I only helped.”

“And fell in the pond.”

She grimaced. “I tripped. Anybody can trip!” she added in a challenging tone, her gray eyes flashing at him.

“Over their own feet?” he mused.

Actually it had been over Bess’s stuffed gorilla. The thing was almost her size and Kasie hadn’t realized it was there. The girls had laughed and then wailed, thinking she’d be angry at them. Miss Parsons had fussed for hours when Bess got dirt on her pretty yellow dress. But Kasie didn’t scold. She laughed, and the girls were so relieved, she could have cried. They really didn’t like Miss Parsons.

He put both hands on his lean hips and studied her with reluctant interest. “The girls tell me everything, Kasie,” he said finally. He didn’t add that the girls worshiped this quiet, studious young woman who didn’t even flirt with John, much less the cowboys who worked for the family. “I thought I’d made it perfectly clear that I didn’t want you around them.”

She took her hands off the keyboard and looked up at him with wounded eyes. “Why?”

The question surprised him. He scowled, trying to think up a fair answer. Nothing came to mind, which made him even madder.

“I don’t have any ulterior motives,” she said simply. “I like the girls very much, and they like me. I don’t understand why you don’t want me to associate with them. I don’t have a bad character. I’ve never been in trouble in my life.”

“I didn’t think you had,” he said angrily.

“Then why can’t I play with them?” she persisted. “Miss Parsons is turning them into little robots. She won’t let them play because they get dirty, and she won’t play with them because it isn’t dignified. They’re miserable.”

“Discipline is a necessary part of childhood,” he said curtly. “You spoil them.”

“For heaven’s sake, somebody needs to! You’re never here,” she added shortly.

“Stop right there, while you still have a job,” he interrupted, and his eyes made threats. “Nobody tells me how to raise my kids. Especially not some frumpy little backwoods secretary!”

Frumpy? Backwoods? Her eyes widened. She stood up. She was probably already fired, so he could just get it from the hip. “I may be frumpy,” she admitted, “and I may be from the backwoods, but I know a lot about little kids! You don’t stick them in a closet until they’re legal age. They need to be challenged, made curious about the world around them. They need nurturing. Miss Parsons isn’t going to nurture them, and Mrs. Charters doesn’t have time to. And you aren’t ever here at bedtime, even if you’re not away on business,” she repeated bluntly. “Whole weeks go by when you barely have time to tell them good-night. They need to be read to, so they will learn to love books. They need constructive supervision. What they’ve got is barbed wire and silence.”

His fists clenched by his side, and his expression darkened. She lifted her chin, daring him to do anything.

“You’re an expert on children, I guess?” he chided.

“I took care of one,” she said, her eyes darkening. “For several months.”

“Why did you quit?”

He was assuming that she’d meant a job. She didn’t. The answer to his question was a nightmare. She couldn’t bear to remember it. “I wasn’t suited to the task,” she said primly. “But I won’t corrupt your little girls by speaking to them.”

He was still glowering. He didn’t want Kasie to grow close to the girls. He didn’t want her any closer to him than a desk and a computer was. His eyes went involuntarily to the desk piled high with Pauline’s undone work. The files were supposed to have been converted to computer months earlier, when he’d hired the woman. He’d assumed that it had been done, because she was always ready with the information he needed. He felt suddenly uneasy.

“Check out Black Ribbon’s growth information for me,” he said suddenly.

She hesitated, but apparently she was still working for him. She sat down and pulled the information up on the computer. He went to his desk and pulled a spreadsheet from a drawer. He brought it to Kasie and had her compare it with the figures she’d just put into the computer. There was a huge difference, to his favor.

He said a word that caused Kasie’s face to grow bright red. That disturbed him, but he didn’t allude to it. “I’ve made modifications to improve what seemed like a deficiency in diet. Now it looks as if it wasn’t even necessary. How long will it take you to get the breeding herd information transcribed?”

“Well, I’ve done about a third of it,” she said. “But John has letters and information to be compiled for this new show…”

“You’re mine until we get this information on the computer. I’ll make it all right with John.”

“What about Pauline?” she asked worriedly.

“Pauline is my concern, not yours,” he told her.

“Okay, boss. Whatever you say.”

He made an odd gesture with one shoulder and gave her a long scrutiny. “I told you to let me know if there was too much work. Why didn’t you?”

“I thought I could keep up,” she said simply. “I wouldn’t have complained as long as I could do it within a couple of weeks, and I can.”

“Working fourteen-hour shifts,” he chided.

“Well, work is work,” she said. “I don’t mind. It’s not as if I have an active social life or an earthshaking novel to write or anything. And I get paid a duke’s ransom as it is.”

He frowned. “Why don’t you have a social life?”

“Because cowboys stink,” she shot right back.

He started to speak, burst out laughing and walked to the door. “Stop that and go to bed. I’ll have you some help by morning. Good night, Kasie.”

“Good night, Mr. Callister.”

He hesitated, turned, studied her, but he didn’t speak. He left her tidying up and went upstairs to change out of his work clothes and have a shower.

The next morning, when she went into the office, Pauline was there and so was Gil. They stopped talking when Kasie walked in, so she assumed that they’d been talking about her. Apparently it hadn’t been in a friendly way. Pauline’s delicate features were drawn in anger and Gil’s eyes were narrow and glittery.

“It’s about time you got down here!” Pauline said icily.

“It’s eight twenty-five,” Kasie said, taken aback. “I’m not supposed to be in here until eight-thirty.”

“Well, let’s get started, then,” Pauline said, flopping down at the computer.

“Doing what, exactly?” Kasie asked, disconcerted.

“Teach her how to put information on the computer,” Gil said in a voice that didn’t invite argument. “And while she’s doing that, you can tackle John’s work.”

Kasie grimaced. Her pupil didn’t look eager or willing. It was going to be a long morning.

It was, too. Pauline made the job twice as tedious, questioning every keystroke twice and grumbling—when Gil was out of the office—about having to work with Kasie.

“Look, this wasn’t my idea,” Kasie assured her. “I could do it myself if Mr. Callister would just let me.”

Pauline didn’t soften an inch. “You’re trying to get his attention, playing up to those kids,” she accused. “You want him.”

Kasie just looked at her. “I love children,” she said quietly. “But I don’t want to get married.”

“Who said anything about marriage?” Pauline chided.

Kasie averted her eyes. “I needed a job and John needed a secretary,” she murmured as she turned a spreadsheet page.

“Funny. You call him John, but Gil is ‘Mr. Callister.’ Why?”

The younger woman blinked. “John is just a few years older than I am,” she replied.

Pauline frowned. “How old are you?”

“Twenty-two.”

There was a long pause. “Well!” she said finally. She pursed her lips and entered a number into the computer. “You think Gil is old, do you?”

“Yes.” She didn’t, really, but it seemed safer to say so. She did, after all, have to work with this perfumed barracuda for the immediate future.

Pauline actually smiled. But only for a minute. “What do I do now?” she asked when she finished entering the last number.

Kasie showed her, faintly disturbed by that smile. Oh, well, she’d figure it out later, maybe.

Pauline went home at five o’clock. By now, she had a good idea of how to use the computer. Practice would hone her skills. Kasie wondered why Gil, who had the lion’s share of the work, only had a part-time secretary.

When he came back in, late Saturday night, dressed in evening clothes with a black tie and white ruffled shirt, Kasie was still in the office finalizing the spreadsheets. She looked up, surprised at how handsome he was dressed like that. Even if he wasn’t really good-looking, he had a natural authority and grace of carriage that made him stand out. Not to mention a physique that many a Hollywood actor would have coveted.

“I thought I told you to give up this night work,” he said curtly.

She spared him a glance while she saved the information onto a diskette. “You won’t let me play with the girls. I don’t have anything else to do.”

“Watch television. We have all the latest movies on pay-per-view. You can watch any you like. Read a book. Take up knitting. Learn Dutch. But,” he added with unnatural resentment, “stay out of the office after supper.”

“Is that an order?” she asked.

“It damned well is!”

He was absolutely bristling, she thought, frowning as she searched his pale blue eyes. She closed the files and shut down the program, uneasy because he was glowering at her.

She got up, neat and businesslike in her beige pantsuit, with her chestnut hair nicely braided and hanging down her back.

But when she went around the desk to go to the door, he blocked her path. She wasn’t used to men this close and she backed up a step, which only made things worse. He was so tall that she wished she were wearing high heels. The top of her head barely came up to his nose.

His pale eyes glittered even more. “Old age isn’t contagious,” he said with pure venom in his deep voice.

“Sir?”

“And don’t call me sir!”

She swallowed. He was spoiling for a fight. She couldn’t bear the thought of one. Her early life had been in the middle of a violent battleground, and loud noises and voices still upset her. “Okay,” she agreed immediately.

He slammed his hands into his pockets and glared more. “I’m thirty-two. Ten years isn’t a generation and I’m not a candidate for Social Security.”

“Okay,” she repeated uneasily.

“For God’s sake, stop agreeing with me!” he snapped.

She started to say “Okay” again, and bit her tongue. She was as rigid as a ruler, waiting for more explosions with her breath trapped in her throat.

He took his hands out of his pockets and they clenched at his sides as he looked down at her with more conflicting emotions than he’d ever felt. She wasn’t beautiful, but there was a tenderness in her that he craved. He hadn’t had tenderness in his life since Darlene’s untimely death. This young woman made him hungry for things he couldn’t grasp. He didn’t understand it, and it angered him.

Kasie was wavering between a dash for the door or backing up again. “Do you want me to quit?” she blurted out.

His teeth ground together. “Yes.”

She swallowed. “All right. I’ll leave in the morning.” She moved around him to the door, trying not to take it personally. Sometimes people just didn’t like other people.

“No!”

His voice stopped her with her hand on the doorknob.

There was a long pause. Kasie turned, surprised by his indecision. From what she already knew of Gil Callister, he wasn’t a man who had trouble making decisions. But he seemed divided about Kasie.

She went toward him, noticing the odd expression on his face when she stopped within arm’s length and folded her hands at her waist.

“I know you don’t like me,” she said gently. “It’s all right. I’ll really try hard to stay away from the girls. Once Pauline learns how to input the computer files, you won’t even have to see me.”

He seemed troubled now. Genuinely troubled. He sighed as if he were carrying the weight of the world on his shoulders. At that moment, he looked as if he needed comforting.

“Bess would love it if you took her and Jenny to one of those cartoon movies,” she said out of the blue. “There’s a Sunday matinee at the Twin Oaks Cinema.”

He still didn’t speak.

She searched his cold eyes. “I’m sorry that I’ve gone behind your back to spend time with them. It’s not what you think. I mean, I’m not trying to worm my way into your family, even if Pauline does think so. The girls…remind me…of my own little niece.” Her voice almost broke but she controlled it quickly.

“Does she live far away?” he asked abruptly.

Her eyes darkened. “Very…far away…now,” she managed. She forced a smile. “I miss her.”

She had to turn away then, or lose control of her wild emotions.

“You can stay for the time being,” he said finally, reluctantly. “It will work out.”

“That’s what my aunt always says,” she murmured as she opened the door.

“I didn’t know you had family. Your parents are dead, aren’t they?”

“They died years ago, when I was little. My aunt was in charge of us until we started school.”

“Us?”

She couldn’t say it, she couldn’t, she couldn’t. “I ha…have a twin brother,” she corrected quickly.

She lifted her head, praying for strength. “Good night, Mr. Callister.”

She heard the silence of his disapproval, but she was too upset to care. She went up the staircase with no hesitation at all, straight to her room. She locked the door and lay down on the covers, crying silently so that no one would hear.

There was a violent storm that night. The lightning lit up the whole sky. Kasie heard engines starting up and men’s voices yelling. The animals must be unsettled. She’d read that cattle didn’t like lightning.

She got up to look out the window, and then she heard the urgent knocking at her door.

She went to it, still in her neat thick white cotton gown that concealed the soft lines of her body. Her hair was loose down her back, disheveled, and she was barely awake.

She opened the door, and looked down. There were Bess and Jenny with tears streaming down their faces. Bess was clutching a small teddy bear, and Jenny had her blanket.

“Oh, my babies, what’s wrong?” she asked softly, going down on her knees to pull them close and cuddle them.

“The sky’s making an awful noise, Kasie, and we’re scared,” Bess said.

She threw caution to the winds. She was already in so much trouble, surely a little more wouldn’t matter.

“Do you want to climb in with me?” she asked softly.

“Can we?” Bess asked.

“Of course. Come on.”

They climbed into bed with her and under the covers, Jenny on one side and Bess on the other.

“Want a story,” Jenny murmured.

“Me, too,” Bess seconded.

“Okay. How about the three bears?”

“No, Kasie, that’s scary,” Bess said. “How about the mouse and the lion?”

“Aren’t you scared of lions?” she asked the girls.

“We like lions,” Bess told her contentedly, cuddling closer. “Daddy took us to the zoo and we saw lions and tigers and polar bears!”

“The lion it is, then.”

And she proceeded to tell them drowsily about the mouse who took out the thorn in the lion’s paw and made a friend for life. By the time she finished, they were both asleep. She kissed their pretty little sleeping faces and folded them close to her as the lightning flashed and the thunder rolled. She wondered just before she fell asleep how much trouble she’d be in if their father came home and found them with her, after she’d just promised not to play with them. If only, she thought, Gilbert Callister would get a thorn in his paw and she could pull it out and make friends with him…