September Morning Read Online Free PDF Page A

said it was the day you asked me to come live here,” she reminded him.
    “I didn't say you could use it as a rendezvous for romantic trysts!”
    “You bring women here,” she tossed back, remembering with a surge of anguish the night when she had accidentally come home too early from a date and found him with Jessica King on the very chairs where they were now sitting. Jessica had been stripped to the waist, and so had Blake. Kathryn had barely even noticed the blonde, her eyes were so staggered by the sight of Blake with his broad, muscled chest bared by the woman's exploring hands. She'd never been able to get the picture of him out of her mind, his mouth sensuous, his eyes almost black with desire…
    “I used to,” he corrected gently, reading the memory with disturbing accuracy. “How old were you then? Fifteen?”
    She nodded, looking away from him. “Just.”
    “And I yelled at you, didn't I?” he recalled gently. “I hadn't expected you home. I was hungry and impatient, and frustrated. When I took Jessica home, she was in tears.”
    “I…I should have knocked,” she admitted. “But we'd been to that fair, and I'd won a prize, and I couldn't wait to tell you about it…”
    He smiled quietly. “You used to bring all your triumphs straight to me, like a puppy with its toys. Until that night.” He studied her averted profile. “You've kept a wall between us ever since. The minute I start to come close, you find something else to put up in front of you. Last time it was Jack Harris. Now, it's that writer.”
    “I'm not trying to build any walls,” she said defensively. Her dark eyes accused him. “You're the mason, Blake. You won't let me be independent.”
    “What do you want?” he asked.
    She studied the delicate scrollwork of the fireplace with its beige and white color scheme. “I don't know,” she murmured. “But I'll never find out if you keep smothering me. I want to be free, Blake.”
    “None of us are that,” he said philosophically. His eyes were wistful, his tone bitter. He stared at her intently. “What is it that attracts you to Donavan?” he asked suddenly.
    She shrugged and a wistful light came into her own eyes, echoing his expression the minute before. “He's fun to be with. He makes me laugh.”
    “That's all you need from a man—laughter?”
    The way he said it made shivers run down her stiff spine, and when she looked at him, the expression on his hard face was puzzling. “What else is there?” she asked without thinking.
    A slow, sensuous smile turned up the corners of his mouth. “The fires a man and woman can create when they make love.”
    She shifted restlessly in her chair. “They're overrated,” she said with pretended sophistication.
    He threw back his head and roared.
    “Hush!” she said. “You'll wake the whole house!”
    His white, even teeth were visible, whiter than ever against his swarthy complexion. “You're red as a summer beet,” he observed. “What do you know about love, little girl? You'd pass out in a dead faint if a man started making love to you.”
    She stared at him with a sense of outrage. “How do you know? Maybe Lawrence…”
    “…maybe not,” he interrupted, his eyes confident, wise. “You're still very much a virgin, little Kate. If I'd had any fears on that account, I'd have jerked you off Crete so fast your head would have spun.”
    She grimaced. “Virginity isn't such a prize these days,” she sighed, remembering Missy Donavan's faintly insulting remarks about it.
    His silent appraisal lasted so long that her attention was caught by the faint ticking of the big grandfather clock in the hall. “Don't get any ideas about throwing yours away,” he warned softly.
    “Oh, Blake, don't be so old fashioned,” she grumbled. “Anyway,” she added with a faint, mischievous smile, “where would you be today if all the women in the world were pure?”
    “Rather frustrated,” he conceded. “But you're not one of my women,