Kane Read Free Page B

check on you later.”
    â€œDon’t bother.” The words were as close to a dismissal as she could make them.
    â€œOh, it’s no bother,” he said, his smile crooked as he met her gaze across the room. “No bother at all.”
    He knew she didn’t want to see him, but meant to force the issue. Perhaps he thought he could shake her again, make her say something she didn’t intend. Or possibly he meant to take up his questioning where he had left off. Well, she wasn’t going to play his game. She had too much at stake. No matter what Kane Benedict thought, said, or did, he would get nothing from her. She would do the job she had been sent to Louisiana to accomplish, then she would be gone. She had no other choice.
    Nor did she want one. Not now, not ever.
    Swinging from the two men, she walked away. She didn’t look back.

2
    K ane watched from the parlor window as Regina Dalton marched down the drive and got into her car. She moved with swift steps and no trace whatever of sexy hip sway. She had forgotten him, had no idea he might be watching her movements. Regardless, the sight of her skirt conforming to her slender form, the flash of skin above her knee as she slid into the car seat, caused a drawing sensation in his groin. That kind of instant juvenile reaction was extremely inconvenient under the circumstances. It wasn’t the right time or place and certainly not the right person. The Fates had a warped sense of humor.
    â€œI won’t belabor the question of your misconduct,” Kane’s grandfather said as he moved to join him at the parlor window, “but I will point out that I’ve been handling my affairs for some time without your interference. If—and I do mean if —I had been about to make a valuable gift to that attractive young lady, I would consider what you just did an act of unmitigated gall.”
    â€œI know,” Kane said in moody acceptance as he gazed after Regina Dalton’s rental car driving away.
    â€œAnother question altogether is why you believedI’d succumb to an itch for a female young enough to be my granddaughter.”
    Kane sent a brief smile over his shoulder at his grandfather. “You always did like redheads.”
    â€œShe does have amazing hair, doesn’t she? So bright it makes a man want to touch it to see if he’ll get burned. Not that either of us paid much attention.”
    Kane, recognizing the sly dig behind the last words, made a sound between a snort and a sigh.
    â€œThat’s what I thought.” The older man chuckled. “I could put her off so she stays around a while.”
    â€œNot,” Kane said evenly, “on my account.”
    â€œToo bad.” As a large yellow tomcat appeared from under a rattan table and glided forward to wind around his leg, the older man reached down and picked him up. Draping the animal over his arm and smoothing the fur, he went on. “You should have driven her back to her hotel.”
    â€œI think she’d had enough of me for one day.”
    â€œVery likely. Can’t say I blame her, either, considering the hand you had in her injuries.”
    â€œIt was that damn cat.” Kane thrust his hands into his pants pockets as he turned and leaned his backbone against the window frame.
    â€œSamson here may have started it, but you compounded the problem. What set you off?”
    Kane was silent a moment, then he said, “I came in the back way, through the kitchen. Dora told me you had someone with you. I was going to join you, but stopped a second outside the door you’d left open like a gentleman, not wanting to barge in if your business was private. Something about your guest, the way she was smiling at you, struck me as all wrong.”
    â€œSeductive, you mean?” His grandfather’s eyes narrowed.
    â€œIt seemed that way at the time.” Kane lifted a shoulder and let it drop. “Are you sure she’s