Gentle Pirate Read Free Page A

shrugged and smiled back. "Nothing as drastic as a bite, but I wouldn't want to be hanging around at feeding time! I don't think there's a lot of mercy in the man!"
    "That goes without saying." Ben grinned. "Why do you think Silco hired him in the first place? You don't send a lamb to do a wolf's job!" His masculine appreciation of an older, tougher man was obvious. In five years, when Ben reached thirty-five, thought Kirsten sarcastically, he probably hoped people would talk about him in the same terms! Men!
    "You're right," she finally sighed. "You have to remember I'm more accustomed to the sedate atmosphere of academic libraries where people aren't so inclined to measure accomplishment in money terms. Or if they are, they manage to be more civilized about it!"
    "I know, love. Look, it's Friday. Don't forget I'm picking you up around seven for dinner, right?"
    Kirsten took in the ingratiatingly friendly smile and nodded agreeably. "I won't forget." For some reason the way Ben's hair curled slightly around his ears reminded her of how severe Simon Kendrick's hair was cut. In both cases, she decided, the haircuts were indicative of the personalities of the two men. Ben was a man a woman would never need to fear, no matter how he hoped to become more like Kendrick! With that thought Kirsten relaxed a little more. She hadn't realized just how tense she had been in the interview.
    "See you at seven." she called and continued the rest of the way down the hall. Walking into the one-room library, she discovered an engineer examining a technical manual on transistors and immediately the professional side of her nature took over. Putting Simon Kendrick completely out of her mind, she went forward to help. So many engineers had seemingly never learned to read!
    That evening Kirsten took her time getting ready for the date with Ben. He was a good man, she told herself firmly, pulling on sheer panty hose. A man totally different from Jim Talbot, and wasn't that what she wanted? Never again would she get involved with the tough domineering type, she promised herself. That sort of man was all very well in romantic novels, but she had learned the hard way how painful marriage to the type could be. Literally. It would be a long time, if ever, before she forgot the fear and pain of the last night she had seen her husband alive. That had been over three months ago. Jim had been killed in a car accident within a week after she had fled the house in the dark hours of the early morning. She had left with nothing but her clothes and the keys to the car that had been hers before the short-lived marriage.
    Taking a deep breath, she put the whole sordid picture out of her head and concentrated on preparing for the evening with Ben. Safe, dependable Ben. Deliberately she selected a long, soft yellow dress that would be pleasant for dancing. Ben was fond of dancing and that suited Kirsten. They had started dating a month ago, although Kirsten knew that was far too soon for a newly widowed bride to be out gallavanting around. But this bride had felt no grief after her husband's death. Only a sense of relief. Besides, few people knew how recent the tragedy had been. She made no secret of her status as a widow, but had carefully allowed people to think more time had passed since Jim's death than was the case. If some wondered why she had gone back to using her own last name, none questioned it to her face. And what business was it of anyone else's?
    Kirsten took a last turn before the mirror in the bathroom with its yellow towels hanging from the racks, the yellow shower curtain, and the yellow rug. It was difficult to tell where the bathroom furnishings stopped and the yellow gown began, she thought with a sudden giggle. An objective survey of her slender form revealed nothing new. After twenty-eight years Kirsten had no illusions about the limitations of her own looks. The large, intelligent gray eyes were the best feature of an otherwise pleasant but