life is to watch soap operas and walk around with her hair in curlers.”
“She’s just eighteen,” she said.
“I tried so damned hard to get them to wait.” He opened the passenger door and helped her up into the high cab with a steely hand and closed it. Before she could get him to listen to her protests, he was under the wheel, managing very well with his right arm. With the bucket seats so close together, she was almost touching it, too. Kate was fascinated by the inside of this vehicle. It had power windows and cruise control, a stereo radio, tape deck, and two gearshifts—one for automatic drive and one for four-wheel drive. The old Ford that Kate shared with her mother was a straight shift with no frills, and by comparison, the Bronco was sheer luxury, right down to the comfortable fabric-covered seats.
“You aren’t fit to drive,” she complained.
“Nobody’s driving me anywhere, unless it’s to the cemetery one day,” he returned. He fumbled for a cigarette, but he couldn’t manage the wheel with his injured arm. “Damn.”
“I thought you’d quit,” she mused. She took the cigarette, lit it, and handed it to him, making a face at the tangy, unpleasant tobacco taste.
“I did,” he agreed with a faint grin. “I quit for a week, in fact. And I quit last month, too. I quit religiously about every third week.”
“Your ashtray looks like it,” she observed, watching him thump ashes over a pile of finished butts the size of a teacup upended. “How can you stand that mess?”
“If I clean it out, it will depress people who ride with me.”
She stared at him. “Come again?”
“Most of my men aren’t neat. If I start cleaning out ashtrays, they’ll think they have to do it, too. They’ll feel threatened and they’ll all quit, and I’ll have to handle roundup all by myself.”
He had a dry wit that few people ever experienced. Kate, sitting contentedly beside him, felt constant amazement that of all the people he knew, she was the only one who ever got this close. He seemed never to see her as a threat, which was more irritating to Kate the older she got. She was becoming a woman, and he didn’t even seem to notice.
Well, he did hate women, she had to admit. He didn’t date, or he hadn’t in the past few years. Not since that Eastern tenderfoot had come out to visit a neighbor and Jason had fallen head over heels in love with her. He’d been all set to propose, with the ring bought and everything, when she suddenly announced that she was off to Hollywood where she’d been offered a movie career. Jason had tried to talk her out of it, but she wouldn’t be budged. Men were a dime a dozen, she’d laughed at him. Movie contracts were thin on the ground. Sorry, sucker, in other words. And Jason had gone on a three-day drunk that had become legendary in local circles, all the more shocking because he never touched liquor in any form. That prejudice was a holdover from his childhood because J.B. Donavan’s drinking had brought violence down on his sons’ heads.
Although Kate had grown up next door, and her father had worked for the Donavans, Jason was so much older that she’d had very little contact with him. But Gene and Kate had gone to school together, and she often helped him with his grammar. He’d talked occasionally about their upbringing, and it had softened her toward Jason who one afternoon just after his almost-fiancée’s defection, had chanced to come growling out of his study, dead drunk. Jason’s unexpected appearance had first disturbed, then shocked Kate. She’d never seen him anything except cold sober and in complete control of himself. Until then.
“Little Miss English tutor,” he’d laughed coldly, those dark eyes frankly insulting as Gene had tried unsuccessfully to push him back into the study. “Is English all you’re teaching my brother in these cozy afternoon sessions?”
“Come on now, Jay,” Gene had coaxed, half a head shorter and not a fraction as strong as the jean-clad, unshaven man he was trying to budge. “Don’t pick on Kate.”
“I don’t want damned women cluttering up my house! Not even your women!” Jason had stormed, black eyes flashing, his lean sharp face as hard as marble. Stone.
But Kate knew the look of pain. She had an uncanny empathy for people who were hurt; she could see it through anger or bad temper or even drunkenness. Jason’s heart was broken, couldn’t Gene see how much he was hurting? It was like watching a poor, wounded animal trying to escape from a bullet.
Ignoring Gene’s frantic signs to go away, she went right up to Jason and took one of his lean, strong hands in hers. “Come on, Jason,” she said, her voice as soft as it was when she talked to the kittens at home. “You’re tired. You need to lie down.”
Gene’s pale, broad face winced as he waited for Jason to knock her down. But, amazingly, his brother’s sharp features relaxed. Through a haze of alcohol, Jason went with her like a lamb back into his study.
“How about getting Sheila to make a pot of coffee, Gene?” Kate asked him, nodding as her eyes told him to step on it.
“Sure. Right now.”
He was gone and Kate closed the door, coaxing Jason to the long leather lounger. She helped him down and sat beside him, her slender fingers gently stroking back his disheveled hair. He was beautiful, in a rough sort of way, she thought, her eyes going over his chiseled sharp features, the stubborn jutting chin, the beautifully carved mouth. He lay quietly, watching her with eyes that only half saw, black and intent.
“It’s only been a few months since Daddy died,” she said, keeping her voice low and soft. “He was my whole world, the only person who ever cared enough to let me be myself. He didn’t want me to marry money or be famous. He loved me just the way I was. At first,” she continued, because he was really listening, “I thought the pain would never stop. But day by day, little by little, I got through it. You will, too, Jason. One day, you won’t even remember what she looked like.”
He caught the soft fingers stroking his damp brow. “How old are you?” he asked unexpectedly.
She smiled. “Eighteen.”
“A very wise old eighteen, little girl,” he replied. His drawl was a little slurred, but his eyes never wavered from her face. “What the hell do you care if I mourn myself to death?”
“Jason, you’ve been awfully good to Mama and me since Daddy died,” she said gently. “And I guess nobody else looks deep enough to see how bad it’s hurting you....”
“I’m not hurting,” he interrupted curtly. “No damned woman is ever going to hurt me!”
She closed her fingers around his. “Of course not,” she agreed, soothing him back down. “You’re just worked to death. But you need time to get your life back in order. Why don’t you go away for a week or two? Gene says you never rest. A vacation would put the bloom back in your cheeks,” she said with a mischievous smile. “The vinegar back into your black heart....”
“Shut up or I’ll throw you out the front door,” he replied. But there was a faint glimmer in his eyes, and it didn’t sound like any serious threat. “God, you’re brave.”
“Somebody has to save you from yourself,” she sighed. “Alas, I guess I’ve been chosen. Now how about a nice bowl of razor blade soup and an ugly pill?”
He burst out laughing. Gene and Sheila came
