Just Kate: His Only Wife (Bestselling Author Collection) Read Free

headlights and the engine and got out of the car. He walked around to help Kate, but she’d pushed the door open before he reached her.
    “Where is the boy?” the senator demanded. No hello. No “What brings you all the way to America?” It was clear enough that Sean wasn’t welcome in his own right.
    “He’s in school in Sydney, where he belongs,” Sean answered. He’d never been the slightest bit intimidated by the senator, and Kate suspected that was one of the reasons her father disliked him so intensely.
    Senator Blake doubled one hand into a fist and pounded it into his palm. “Blast it all, Harris, that child belongs with his family!”
    “I’m his family,” Sean said quietly. Kate felt a certain admiration for his composure, even though she wanted her sister’s son to visit the United States on a regular basis as much as her parents did.
    Kate’s mother, Irene, appeared in the massive double doorway behind the senator. “Let’s not stand outside, making a public spectacle of ourselves,” she scolded. “There may be reporters from those awful tabloids lurking in the shrubbery.”
    Despite everything, Kate had to smile at that. The tabloids didn’t pick on dull men like her father. They fed on scandal.
    Then her smile faded as she stepped into the light and warmth of her parents’ house. Once word of Brad’s profitable little sideline got out, there would be scandal aplenty.
    “What are you doing here?” the senator demanded of Sean the moment they were all inside his study with the doors closed. He sounded for all the world as though he thought Sean should have had his permission before entering the country.
    “I’ve been in Seattle for a week, if it’s any of your business,” Sean answered evenly. “My company is thinking of placing an order with Simmons Aircraft.”
    Kate saw the sudden interest in her father’s face. Simmons Aircraft was one of the largest employers in the state, and the company was a pet concern of the senator’s. “You’re still with the airline, then?”
    “You could say that,” Sean replied. A forest of crystal decanters stood on the bar, and he helped himself to a snifter of brandy, lifting it once to the senator before raising it to his lips. “But you didn’t have your daughter drag me up here so we could talk about Austra-Air, did you?”
    Kate felt a flash of resentment. Sean made it sound as though her father orchestrated her every move.
    “No,” Senator Blake responded. “It’s about my grandson.”
    Sean set the snifter aside, then brought a thin leather wallet from the inside pocket of his tuxedo jacket, opening it and extending it to his former father-in-law. Kate caught a glimpse of a handsome blond boy smiling up from a photograph.
    It was no secret that Gil resembled his late mother, but surprise moved in the senator’s aging face all the same—surprise and pain. “He’s a fine-looking lad,” the old man said in a strange, small voice. “Does he do well in school?”
    “Mostly,” Sean answered quietly. “He’s got a weak spot when it comes to spelling and the like.”
    Mrs. Blake hovered close behind the senator’s shoulder, peering hungrily at her grandson’s picture. “Abby was the same way,” she said.
    The air in that large, gracious room suddenly seemed to be in short supply. Kate went to the window behind her father’s desk and opened one side a little way.
    “The boy has a right to know his mother’s family,” said the senator.
    “A few years ago I might have agreed with that,” Sean replied, pulling the photograph out from behind the plastic window in his wallet and extending it to Mrs. Blake.
    “What changed your mind?” the senator wanted to know. It seemed to Kate that he was having trouble meeting Sean’s gaze, but she was wrong, of course. Her father was virtually fearless.
    “When a man’s son is nearly kidnapped,” Sean answered, “it tends to change his mind about a lot of things.” He tucked his