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

“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…

It was almost two in the morning when Gil and John got back from the holding pens. There had been a stampede, and two hundred head of cattle broke through their fences and spilled out into the pasture that fronted on a highway. The brothers and every hand on the place were occupied for three hours working in the violent storm to round them up and get them back into the right pasture and fix the fence. It helped that the lightning finally stopped, and in its wake came a nice steady rain. But everyone was soaked by the time they finished, and eager for a warm, dry bed.

Gil stripped off his wet clothes and took a shower, wrapping a long burgundy silk robe around his tall body before he went to check on the girls. He opened the door to the big room they shared and his heart skipped a beat when he realized they were missing.

Where in hell was Miss Parsons and where were his children? He went along to her room and almost knocked at the door, when he realized suddenly where the girls were most likely to be.

With his lips making a thin line, he went along the corridor barefoot to Kasie’s room. Without knocking, he opened the door and walked in. Sure enough, curled up as close as they could get to her, were Bess and Jenny.

He started to wake them up and insist that they go back to bed, when he saw the way they looked.

It had been a long time since he’d seen their little faces so content. Without a mother—despite the housekeeper and Miss Parsons—they were sad so much of the time. But when they were around Kasie, they changed. They smiled. They laughed. They played. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d seen them so happy. Was it fair to deny them Kasie’s company just because he didn’t like her? On the other hand, was it wise to let them get so attached to her when she might quit or he might fire her?

The question worried him. As he pondered the situation, Kasie moved and the cover fell away from her sleeping form. He moved closer to the bed in the dim light from the security lights outside, and abruptly he realized that she was wearing the sort of gown a dowager might. It was strictly for utility, plain and white, with no ruffles or lace or even a fancy border. He scowled. Kasie was twenty-two. Was it normal for a woman her age to be so repressed that she covered herself from head to toe even in sleep?

She moved again, restlessly, and a single word broke from her lips as the nightmare came again.

“Kantor,” she whispered. “Kantor!”

Chapter Three

Without thinking, Gil reached down and shook Kasie’s shoulder. “Wake up, Kasie!” he said firmly.

Her eyes opened on a rush of breath. There was horror in them for a few seconds until she came awake and realized that her boss was standing over her. She blinked away the sleepiness and pulled herself up on an elbow. Her beautiful thick chestnut hair swirled around her shoulders below the high neck of the gown as she stared at him.

“You were having a nightmare,” he said curtly. “Who’s Kantor?”

She hesitated for a few seconds. “My brother,” she said finally. “My twin.” She noticed that he was wearing a long robe and apparently nothing under it. Thick dark blond hair was visible in the deep vee of the neckline. She averted her eyes almost in panic. It embarrassed her to have him see her in her nightgown; almost as much as to see him in a robe.

“Why do you have nightmares about him?” he asked gently.

“We had an argument,” she said. She pushed back her hair. “I don’t want to talk about it.”

His eyes narrowed. Apparently it was a painful subject. He let it drop. His eyes went to the girls and not without misgiving. “Why are they in here with you?”

“The storm woke them up. They got scared and came to me,” she said defensively. “I didn’t go get them.”

He was studying them quietly. His expression was hard, grave, wounded.

“I’m sure they went to look for you first,” she began defensively.

His eyes glittered down into hers. “We’ve had this conversation before. Miss Parsons is supposed to be their governness,” he emphasized.

“Miss Parsons is probably snoring her head off,” she said curtly. “She sleeps like the dead. Bess had a fever week before last, and she didn’t even get up when I woke her and told her about it. She said that a fever never hurt anybody!”

“That was when she had strep and I took her to the doctor,” he recalled. “Miss Parsons said she was sick. I assumed that she’d been up in the night with her.”

“Dream on.”

He glared at her. “I’ll excuse it this time,” he said, ignoring the reference he didn’t like to Miss Parsons and her treatment of Bess. He’d have something to say to the woman about that. “Next time, come and find me if you can’t wake Miss Parsons.”

She just stared back, silent.