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

The opening of the back door stopped the conversation dead. Gil came back in with his shirt and jeans dusty and a cut at the corner of his mouth. As he came closer, wiping away the blood, his bruised and lacerated knuckles became visible.

“So much for that little problem,” he said with cold satisfaction. His eyes were still glittery with temper until he looked at the little girls. The anger drained out of him and he smiled. “Dirty chicks,” he chided. “Go get Miss Parsons to clean you up.”

John put them down and Bess looked up at her father accusingly. “Miss Parsons don’t like little kids.”

“Go on. If she gives you any trouble, come tell me,” Gil told the girls.

“Okay, Daddy!”

Bess took Jenny’s hand and, with a shy grin at Kasie, she drew the other child with her up the winding staircase.

“They like Kasie already,” John commented. “Bess said…”

“Miss Parsons takes care of the kids,” Gil said shortly. “Show Kasie the way we keep records. She’s a computer whiz in addition to her dictation skills. She should be able to get all those herd records onto diskettes for you. Then we can get rid of the paper clutter before we end up buried in it.”

“Okay,” John said. He hesitated. “Sims get off okay?”

“Sure,” Gil said easily. “No problem.” He wiped the blood away from his mouth with a wicked look at his brother before he turned and went up the staircase after the children.

John just shook his head. “Never mind. Come on, Kasie. Let’s get you started.”

Kasie moved into the house that weekend. Most of her parents’ things, and her own, were at Mama Luke’s, about ten miles away in Billings, Montana, to whom she’d come for refuge after losing her family. She had only the bare necessities of clothing and personal items; it barely filled one small suitcase. When she walked into the ranch house with it, Gil was on the porch with one of his men. He gave her a curious appraisal, dismissing the man.

“Where’s the rest of your stuff?” he asked, glancing past her at the small, white used car she drove, which she’d parked beside the big garage. “In the trunk?”

“This is all the stuff I have,” she said.

He looked stunned. “Surely you have furniture…?”

“My other things are at my aunt’s house. But I don’t have much stuff of my own.”

He stepped aside to let her go inside, his face curious and his eyes intent on her. He didn’t say a word, but he watched her even more closely from then on.

The first week on the job, she lost a file that Gil needed for a meeting he was flying to in the family Piper plane. It was an elegant aircraft, twin-engine and comfortable. Gil and John could both fly it and did, frequently, trucking the livestock they were showing from one state to the next with employees. Kasie wished she could go with the livestock, right now. Gil was eloquent about the missing file, his deep voice soft and filled with impatience.

“If you’ll just be quiet for a minute, Mr. Callister, I’ll find it!” she exclaimed finally, driven to insubordination.

He gave her a glare, but he shut up. She rustled through the folders on her desk with cold, nervous hands. But she did find the file. She extended it, sheepishly, grimacing at the look in his eyes.

“Sorry,” she added hopefully.

It didn’t do any good. His expression was somber and half-angry. His eyes glittered down at her. She thought absently that he looked very nice in a gray vested suit. It suited his fair hair and light eyes and his nice tan. It also emphasized the excellent fitness of his tall, muscular body. Kasie thought idly that he must have women practically stalking him when he went to dinner meetings. He was striking just to look at, in addition to that very masculine aura that clung to him like his expensive cologne.

“Where’s John?” he asked.

“He had a date,” she said. “I’m trying to cope with the new tax format.”

His eyes narrowed. “Surely they taught tax compilation at your school?”

She grimaced. “Well, actually, they didn’t. It’s a rather specialized skill.”

“Buy what you need from the bookstore or the computer store and have them send me the bill,” he said shortly. “If you can’t cope, tell me that, too.”

She didn’t dare. She wouldn’t have a job, and she had to support herself. She couldn’t expect Mama Luke to do it. “I can cope, sir,” she assured him.

His eyes narrowed as he stared down at her. “One thing more,” he added curtly. “My girls are Miss Parsons’ responsibility, not yours.”

“I only read them a story,” she began, blushing guiltily.

His eyebrows arched. “I was referring to the way you braided Bess’s hair,” he said. “I thought it was an isolated incident.”

She swallowed. Hardly isolated. The girls were always somewhere close by when Kasie stopped for lunch or her breaks. She shared her desserts with the children and frequently read to them or took them on walks to point out the various sorts of flowers and trees around the ranch house. Gil didn’t know that and she’d hoped the girls hadn’t said anything. Miss Parsons was curt and bullying with the children, whom she obviously disliked. It was inevitable that they’d turn to Kasie, who adored them.

“Only one story,” she lied.

He seethed. “In case you didn’t get the message the first time, Kasie, I am not in the market for a wife or a mother for my daughters.”

The insult made her furious. She glared up at him, forgetting all her early teachings about turning cheeks and humility. “I came to work here because I need a job,” she said icily. “I’m only twenty-two, Mr. Callister,” she added. “And I don’t have any interest in a man almost old enough to be my father, with a ready-made family to boot!”

His reaction was unexpected. He didn’t fire back. He grew very quiet. He turned and went out of the room without another word. A minute later, she heard the front door close and, soon, an engine fire up.

“So there,” she added to herself.

Gil came home from his trip even quieter than when he’d left. There was tension between him and Kasie, because she hadn’t forgotten the insulting remark he’d made to her before he left. As if she’d come to work here just so she could chase him. Really! But there was another complication now, as well. Kasie was a nervous wreck trying to keep him from seeing how much time she actually spent with his little girls. She didn’t need to worry when he was off on his frequent business trips, but they suddenly stopped. He started sending Brad Dalton, his manager, to seminars and conferences. He stayed home on the pretext of overseeing massive improvements on the property.

It was just after roundup, when the cattle business was taking up a little less of his time. But there were new bunkhouses being built, as well as new wells being dug in the pastures and new equipment brought in for tagging and vaccinations of new calves. The trucks were being overhauled, along with the other farm machinery such as tractors and combines that harvested the grain crops. The barns were repaired, a new silo erected. It was a busy time.

Kasie found herself involved unexpectedly with Gil when John went out of state to show two new bulls at a pedigree competition and Gil’s secretary, Pauline Raines, conveniently sprained her thumb and couldn’t type.

“I need these yesterday,” he said without preamble, laying a thick sheaf of papers beside Kasie’s neat little hand on the desk. “Pauline can’t do them. She missed the tennis ball and hit her thumb with the tennis racket.”

She managed not to make a disparaging comment—barely. She didn’t like Pauline any more than Gil’s daughters did. The woman was lazy and seductive, and always hanging on Gil like a tie. What little work she actually did was of poor quality and she was pitifully slow as well. She worked at the ranch office near the front of the house three days a week, and Kasie had already inherited a good deal of her work. Pauline spent her time by the pool when Gil wasn’t watching. Now, Kasie thought miserably, she was going to end up doing not only John’s paperwork, including the unbelievably complex taxes that she was still struggling to understand, but Gil’s as well.

“I don’t guess she could type with her toes?” she murmured absently.

There was an odd sound, but when she looked up, Gil’s hard face was impassive. “How long will it take?” he persisted.

She looked at the pages. They weren’t data, as she’d first thought, but letters to various stock producers. They all had different headings, but the same basic body. “Is this all?” she asked with cool politeness.

He glowered at her. “There are fifty of them. They’ll have to be done individually…”

“No, they won’t,” she said gently. “All you have to do—” she opened a new file, selected the option she needed and began typing “—is type the body of the letter once and then just type the various addresses and combine them. An hour’s work.”

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.”