Gentle Pirate Read Free

him cautiously, naming the apartment complex in which she was living and instantly regretting having been careless with the information.
    "I've had very little time to hunt for an apartment. It seems as if I've been swamped since the first hour I arrived!" he told her with more feeling than Kirsten would have expected. If the effort at chatting was being made to lower her barriers a little, she decided, it wasn't going to be successful. She'd had too much experience with large, domineering men who thought in military terms.
    "Silco has probably put you in the River Inn?" she suggested politely, knowing that's where virtually all of the new high-level employee's stayed until they found private residences.
    Simon Kendrick nodded, the lines of his mouth turning down expressively as he did so. "I'm growing heartily sick of hotel food already and I've only been there a week. I thought I'd do some serious apartment hunting this weekend. I've been collecting as much information from others as I can so that I don't waste my time looking at unlikely places."
    Realizing abruptly that her own complex might now be included on his list. Kirsten decided to remove it from consideration immediately. Some basic female instinct prompted her words, although she hadn't yet acknowledged any genuine danger.
    "You would probably want one of the new town-house apartments on the golf course," she suggested quickly, too quickly.
    "Oh, I don't need a great deal of space." He smiled pointedly. "And I don't enjoy golf." It didn't occur to Kirsten for an instant that his lack of interest in the sport was in any way due to his missing hand. If Simon Kendrick wanted to swing a club at a small white ball, he would find a way. Probably a very efficient way. "How big are the apartments where you're living?"
    "One and two bedrooms." she answered in a small voice, thinking fast. "But the rooms really are small. And the place could use more landscaping. The pool is tiny. During the summer I imagine there won't be room to move in it," she finished on a happier note. Simon Kendrick looked like a man who liked his exercise. He wouldn't be content with doing laps in a postage-stamp-size pool!
    "It's almost spring already and I can't even imagine using a pool right now. For a desert, this area certainly isn't very warm." he remarked calmly, never shifting his gaze away from Kirsten's.
    "But thisis a desert, you know," she went on as chattily as possible, fighting down a strange trapped feeling. "I've been told the temperature can reach a hundred and ten in July and August." What was she so worried about? From the look of things she probably wasn't going to be around herself this summer! What did she care where this man chose to live? There wasn't any rational reason for it, but Kirsten knew she didn't want Simon Kendrick living near her.
    "Good. I've always preferred heat to cold," he told her without batting an eye. Reaching out suddenly with the hook on his left arm, he snagged a memo calendar, drew it close, and jotted down the name of Kirsten's apartment complex. Then he nodded in the dismissal she had been expecting.
    "Thank you, Miss Mallory, you've been most helpful. I'll get back to you as soon as I've had a chance to study your report, if not before…" He let the sentence end with an unfinished note, almost a speculative note, but Kirsten wasn't paying much attention. She was removing herself quickly and thankfully from his office.
    With an automatic smile for Susan Phillips, the efficient older woman Kendrick had selected the first day as his secretary, Kirsten hurried into the corridor and down the stairs of the two-story building to her library. Ben Williamson stuck his elegantly shaggy blond head out of his office and stopped her en route.
    "How did it go, Kirsten? Did the ogre take a bite out of you?" Ben's laughing brown eyes met hers and she forced herself to relax. After all, nothing terrible had occurred yet. Why was she so tense?
    Casually Kirsten