Free Lone Eagle by Danielle Steel Page B

help him over the walls he had built around himself. And she could see Kate do it at dinner. She was making every effort to put him at ease and draw him out.
    Kate wanted to make him comfortable, and help him feel at home. She didn't even know she was doing it. And as Elizabeth watched them, she knew the worst had already happened. More than Kate herself even knew, her mother sensed correctly that Kate already loved him. What Liz was not sure of was what Joe felt for her. Attraction certainly, and a kind of magnetic pull that he was having trouble resisting, but what lay beyond that, no one knew, not even Joe at this point. Elizabeth felt certain that whatever he felt for Kate, he was trying to resist, but without success.
    And as they left the dinner table, her husband whispered to her reassuringly, as he put an arm around her shoulders. “You see, they're just friends… I told you…” Clearly, he didn't see what she did.
    “What makes you think so?” she said sadly.
    “Look at them, they're talking like old friends. He treats her like a child most of the time. He teases her like a little sister.”
    “I think they're in love with each other,” she said, as they hung back for a moment from the others. They had had a nice group of friends to dinner, and Joe had been a valuable addition. It wasn't his dinner tableconversation that concerned her, but his intentions about Kate.
    “You're an incurable romantic, my love,” Clarke said, and then kissed her.
    “No, I'm not unfortunately,” she said sensibly. “I think I'm being a cynic, or maybe just a realist. I don't want him to hurt her, and he could. Very badly. I don't want that to happen to her.”
    “Neither do I. Joe wouldn't do that to her. He's a gentleman.”
    “I'm not so sure of that, and he's a man, in any case. And a very romantic figure. I think he's every bit as intrigued by her as she is with him, but there's something about him that seems wounded. He doesn't like to talk about his family, and his parents died when he was a baby. God only knows what happened to him as a child, and what scars lie too deep to be seen. And why isn't he already married?” They were normal questions for a parent to ask, but Clarke still thought she was unduly worried.
    “He's been busy,” Clarke reassured her, as they walked into the living room to join their guests. Kate and Joe were sitting in a corner, deep in conversation, and as her mother looked at them, she knew without a question. They were oblivious to everyone else in the room, and he looked as though he would have died for her, and she for him. It was already too late. All Elizabeth could do now was pray.

4
    O N FRIDAY, AFTER THANKSGIVING, Joe had picked Kate up at the house and spent the afternoon with her. They had gone for a walk in the Boston Garden, and afterward went to tea at the Ritz. Kate kept him amused the entire time with stories about their trip to Singapore and Hong Kong, and then regaled him with their adventures in Europe. Anyone who had ever flown with him, wouldn't have recognized him. He was more talkative with her than he had ever been in his life, and they spent the entire afternoon laughing.
    He took her to dinner that night, and then they went to a movie. They saw Citizen Kane, and they both loved it. It was nearly midnight when he took her home, and Kate was yawning when she said goodnight to him.
    “I had a wonderful time,” she smiled up at him, and he looked down at her with a look of pleasure.
    “So did I, Kate.” He seemed about to say something more to her, and then didn't. And a moment later, she went inside, and ran into her mother at the top of the stairs. She had just been to the kitchen to check on something.
    “Did you have fun?” her mother asked, trying not tolook worried. She wanted to ask her what Joe had said, and done, had he kissed her, or done anything he shouldn't. But she was taking her cues from her husband, and didn't press Kate about it.
    “I had a