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

wallet back into his pocket and glanced at Kate once before telling his late wife’s parents, “You’re welcome to visit Gil anytime you want to, but I won’t send him here. Not until he’s old enough to take care of himself.”
    Kate was staring at Sean, hardly able to believe what she’d heard. Gil had nearly been kidnapped? That in itself was news to her, but it had actually seemed, for a moment there, as though Sean thought the senator might have been behind the attempt.
    When Sean walked out of the study, Kate followed, partly because she didn’t want to listen to another of her father’s tirades and partly because she had to confront Sean. He couldn’t go around accusing good people of a crime and then just turn and walk away!
    Kate said a hasty goodbye to her mother and father and followed Sean outside.
    “I assume you want a ride home,” Sean said as he opened the car door on the driver’s side. It was the first indication he’d given that he was aware of her presence.
    Kate answered by getting into the car. “What the hell do you mean by implying that my father would abduct a child?” she demanded the moment Sean was behind the wheel.
    He ground the key into the ignition, and the engine started with an angry roar. “He wouldn’t try it personally, of course,” he snapped. “He paid someone to steal my son off the playground.”
    “That’s a lie!”
    Sean stopped the car without warning and glared at Kate. “Is it?” he rasped. “The man the police picked up admitted everything—he said he was working for a powerful American politician, and I guessed the rest.”
    Kate felt the color drain from her face. “No,” she whispered, stunned. Her father would never do a thing like that. He was honorable and good, the kind of man who belonged in a Norman Rockwell painting. “I don’t believe you.”
    “Believe what you like, love,” Sean sighed. “I don’t really give a damn.”
    Kate stiffened in her seat. “If my father was guilty,” she challenged, “why didn’t you take your case to the press? That would have ruined his career.”
    Sean didn’t look at her. He appeared to be concentrating on the road, and his strong hands were tense where they gripped the steering wheel. “I couldn’t,” he answered in a low voice. “I once loved a daughter of his, you see.”
    Kate sat back. This had been one hell of a day. “So now you’re just going to fly back home and forget that Gil has a family here in the States?”
    They had reached the bottom of the driveway. “Yes,” he replied. “If you want to see him, you’ll have to pay a visit to the land of Oz.”
    Kate remembered the nickname Australians had given their country from her sister’s early emails. The later ones had been filled with anger and fear and a wild, keening kind of despair. “I might just do that,” she said. It would be good to get away from what Brad had done, away from her father’s campaign.
    Sean gave her a quicksilver glance, one she nearly missed. “Really?”
    “I’d need to get a visa,” Kate told him. “But, with my father’s connections, that shouldn’t take long.”
    Kate couldn’t tell whether Sean was pleased at the prospect of a visit from his former sister-in-law or not, since the car was too dark and he revealed nothing by his tone or his words. “Where do you live?”
    She gave him the address of her building, and he nodded in recognition. It was near his hotel, he said.
    “How long are you staying?” she asked as the expensive car slipped through the dark city streets.
    He moved his powerful shoulders in a casual shrug. “Another few days, I suppose. I want to take the plane up at least once more before I make my recommendation.”
    Kate knew he was testing the airliner his company was considering buying from Simmons Aircraft. “Just how many planes are we talking about here?” she asked.
    Sean favored her with a grin that might have been slightly contemptuous. She couldn’t quite