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

Pauline had hardly dared hope for so much time with him. She was going to try, really try, to take care of the girls and make them like her.

“Bess, shall I go and ask if they have chocolate ice cream?” she asked, trying to make friends. “I’m really sorry about accidentally knocking you into the pool.”

“I want Kasie,” Bess muttered.

“Kasie’s gone home,” Gil said abruptly, not adding that he’d fired her.

“Gone home?” Bess’s face crumpled. “But why?”

“Because I told her to,” he said shortly. “And that’s enough about Kasie. We’re going to have a good time…Oh, for God’s sake, don’t start bawling!”

Now it wasn’t just Bess crying, it was Jenny, too. Pauline sighed heavily. “Well, we’re going to have a very good time, aren’t we?” she said to nobody in particular.

Mama Luke never pried or asked awkward questions. She held Kasie while she cried, sent her to unpack and made hot chocolate and chicken soup. That had always been Kasie’s favorite meal when she was upset.

Kasie sat down across from her at the small kitchen table that had a gaily patterned tablecloth decorated with pink roses and sipped her soup with a spoon.

“You don’t have to say a word,” Mama Luke told her gently, and smiled. She had eyes like her sister, Kasie’s mother, dark brown and soft. She had dark hair, too, which she kept short. Her hands, around the mug, were thin and wrinkled now, and twisted with arthritis, but they were loving, helping hands. Kasie had always envied her aunt her ability to give love unconditionally.

“I’ve been a real idiot,” Kasie remarked as she worked through her soup. “I should never have let Pauline look after the girls. She isn’t really malicious, but she’s hopelessly irresponsible.”

“You haven’t had a man friend in my recent memory,” Mama Luke remarked. “I’m sure you were flattered to have a handsome young man want to take you out to lunch.”

“I was. But that doesn’t mean that I should have let Pauline talk me into leaving the girls with her. Bess could very easily have drowned, and it would have been my fault,” she added miserably.

“Give it time,” the older woman said gently. “First, let’s get you settled in. Then you can help me with the garden,” she added with a grin.

Despite her misery, Kasie laughed. “I see. You’re happy to have me back because I’m free labor.”

Mama Luke laughed, too. It was a standing joke, the way she press-ganged even casual visitors into taking a turn at weeding the garden. She prescribed it as the best cure for depression, misery and anxiety. She was right. It did a lot to restore a good mood.

In the days that followed, Kasie worked in the garden a lot. She thought about Gil, and the hungry way he’d kissed her. She thought about the girls and missed them terribly. She’d really expected Gil to phone her. He knew she had an aunt in Billings, and it wouldn’t have taken much effort for him to track her down. In fact, she’d put Mama Luke’s telephone number down on her job application in case of emergency.

The thought depressed her even more. He knew where she’d be, but apparently he was still angry at her. God knew what Pauline had said at the hospital about how the accident happened. She’d probably blamed the whole thing on Kasie. Maybe the girls blamed her, too, for leaving them with Pauline, whom they disliked. She’d never felt quite so alone. She thought of Kantor and grew even sadder.

Mama Luke came out into the garden and caught her brooding. “Stop that,” she chided softly. “This is God’s heart,” she pointed out. “It’s creation itself, planting seed and watching little things grow. It should cheer you up.”

“I miss Bess and Jenny,” she said quietly, leaning on her hoe. She was dirty from head to toe, having gotten down in the soil to pull out stubborn weeds. There was a streak of it across her chin, which Mama Luke wiped off with one of the tissues she always carried in her pocket.

“I’m sure they miss you, too,” the older woman assured her. “Don’t worry so. It will all come right. Sometimes we just have to think of ourselves as leaves going down a river. It’s easy to forget that God’s driving.”

“Maybe He doesn’t mind back seat drivers,” Kasie said with a grin.

Mama Luke chuckled. “You’re incorrigible. Almost through? I made hot chocolate and chicken with rice soup.”

“Comfort food.” Kasie smiled.

“Absolutely. Stop and eat something.”

Kasie looked at the weeding that still had to be done with a long sigh. “Oh, well, maybe the mailman has some frustrations to work off. He’s bigger than I am. I’ll bet he hoes well.”

“I’ll try to find out,” she was assured. “Come on in and wash up.”

It was good soup and Kasie had worked up an appetite. She felt better. But she still hated the way she’d left the Callister ranch. Probably everybody blamed her for Bess’s accident. Especially the one person from whom she dreaded it. “I guess Gil hates me.”

The pain in those words made Mama Luke reach out a gentle hand to cover her niece’s on the table. “I’m sure he doesn’t,” she contradicted. “He was upset and frightened for Bess. We all say things we shouldn’t when our emotions are out of control. He’ll apologize. I imagine he’ll offer you your job back as well.”

Kasie shifted in the chair. “It’s been a week,” she said. “If he were going to hire me back, he’d have been in touch. I suppose he still believes Pauline and thinks he’s done the best thing by firing me.”

“Do you really?” Her aunt pursed her lips as her keen ears caught the sound of a car pulling up in the driveway. “Finish your hot cocoa, dear. I’ll go and see who that is driving up out front.”

For just a few seconds, Kasie hoped it would be Gil, come to give her back her job. But that would take a miracle. Her life had changed all over again. She was just going to have to accept it and get a new job. Something would turn up somewhere, surely.

She heard voices in the living room. One of them was deep and slow, and she shivered with emotion as she realized that she wasn’t dreaming. She got up and went into the living room. And there he was.

Gil stopped talking midsentence and just looked at Kasie. She was wearing old jeans and a faded T-shirt, with her hair around her shoulders. He’d missed her more than he thought he could miss anyone. His heart filled with just the sight of her.

“I believe you, uh, know each other,” Mama Luke said mischievously.

“Yes, we do,” Kasie said. She recalled the fury in his pale eyes as he accused her of causing Bess’s accident, the fury as he fired her. It was too painful to go through again, and he didn’t look as if he’d come to make any apologies. She turned away miserably. “If you’ll excuse me, I have to clean up,” she called over her shoulder.

“Kasie…!” Gil called angrily.

She kept walking down the hall to her room, and she closed and locked the door. The pain was just too much. She couldn’t bear the condemnation in his eyes.

Gil muttered under his breath. “Well, so much for wishful thinking,” he said almost to himself.

“Come along and have some hot cocoa, Mr. Callister,” Mama Luke said with a gentle smile. “I think you and I have a lot to talk about.”

He followed her into the small, bright kitchen with its white and yellow accents. She motioned him into a chair at the table while she poured the still-hot cocoa into a mug and offered it to him.

“I’m Sister Luke,” she introduced herself, noting his sudden start. “Yes, that’s right, I’m a nun. My order doesn’t wear the habit. I work with a health outreach program in this community.”

He sipped cocoa, feeling as if more revelations were in store, and that he wasn’t going to like them.

She sipped her own cocoa. He was obviously waiting for her to speak again. He studied her quietly, his blue eyes troubled and faintly disappointed at Kasie’s reception.

“She’s still grieving,” she told Gil. “She didn’t give it enough time before she started back to work. I tried to tell her, but young people are so determined these days.”

He latched on to the word. “Grieving?”

“Yes.” Her dark eyes were quiet and soft as they met his. “Her twin, Kantor, and his wife and little girl died three months ago.”

His breath caught. “In an airplane crash,” he said, recalling what Kasie had said.

“Airplane crash?” Her eyes widened. “Well, I suppose you could call it that, in a manner of speaking. Their light aircraft was shot down—”

“What?” he exploded.