Free September Morning by Diana Palmer

night.”
    Kathryn's fork fumbled through her fingers and hit the china plate with a loud ringing sound. Her startled eyes jerked up. “W-what?” she faltered. “He
told
you?” she asked incredulously.
    Vivian looked the picture of sophistication. “Of course, darling,” she replied. “He was bristling with regrets, and I just let him talk. It was the dress, of course. Blake is too much a man not to be swayed by a half-naked woman.”
    “I was not…!”
    “He makes love very well, don't you think?” Vivian asked with a secretive smile. “He's such a vibrant lover, so considerate and exciting…”
    Kathryn's face was the color of red cabbage. She sipped her coffee, ignoring the blistering touch of it.
    “You do understand that it mustn't be allowed to happen again?” the older woman asked softly, smiling at Kathryn coolly over her china cup. “I quite realize why Blake hasn't told you the true reason I came over here with my father, but…” she let her voice trail away insinuatingly.
    Kathryn stared at her, feeling her secure, safe little world dissolving around her. It was like being buried alive. She could hardly breathe for the sudden sense of suffocation. “You mean…?”
    “If Blake hasn't told you, I can't,” Vivian said confidingly. “He didn't want to make the announcement straight away, you know. Not until his family had a chance to get to know me.”
    Kathryn couldn't manage words. So that was how it was. Blake planned to marry at last, and this blond barracuda was going to swim off with him. And after last night, she'd actually thought…Her face shuttered. What did it matter, anyway? Blake had always been like a brother, despite his brutal ardor last night. And that had only been to warn her, he'd said so. He was afraid she'd read something into it, was he? She'd show him!
    Vivian, seeing the look of despair that came into the young girl's face, hid a smile in her coffee cup as she drained it. “I see you understand,” she remarked smugly. “You won't let Blake know that I said anything?” she asked with a worried look. “He'd be so unhappy with me…”
    “No, of course not,” Kathryn said quietly. “Congratulations.”
    Vivian smiled sweetly. “I hope we're going to become great friends. And you mustn't think anything about what happened with Blake. He only wants to forget it, as you must. It was just a moment out of time, after all, nothing to be concerned about.”
    Of course not, Kathryn thought, feeling suddenly empty. She managed a bright smile, but fortunately the rest of the family chose that moment to join the two women, and she was able to bury her grief in conversation.
    ***
    Kathryn had always liked the airport; it excited her to see the travelers with their bags and bright smiles, and she liked to sit and watch and speculate about them. A long-legged young woman, tall and tanned and blond, ran into the arms of a big, dark man and burst into tears. Studying them as she waited for Lawrence Donavan's plane to get in, Kathryn wondered if they were patching up a lovers’ quarrel. They must have been, because the man was kissing her as if he never expected to see her again, and tears were running unchecked down her pale cheeks. The emotion in that hungry kiss made her feel like a peeping Tom, and she looked away. The depth of passion she sensed in them was as alien to her as the Andes. She'd never felt that kind of hunger for a man. The closest to it that she could remember coming was when Blake had kissed her the second time—that sensuous, aching touch that kindled fledgling responses in her untried body. If he'd kissed her a third time…
    A movement caught her eye and she rose from the chair to find Larry Donavan coming toward her. She ran into his outstretched arms and hugged him, lifting her face for a firm, affectionate kiss.
    His blue eyes laughed down into hers under the shock of red hair that fell rakishly across his brow.
    “Miss me?” he teased.
    She nodded,