Kiss Me Kate

by Mari Carr

  I will not stare at her breasts. I will not stare at her breasts. He was here representing his stepfather, so he had better behave. That meant going out of his way not to notice the way the outline of her pebbled nipples was clearly visible against the clingy fabric.

  Lord, have mercy.

  “Who says I do need you?” she challenged with faux sweetness. “After all, my verbal agreement is with Frank. Perhaps I’ll just make another appointment with him.”

  “You might be waiting a while.” Lack of sleep and stress made his voice gruff. “The doctor has him on bed rest.”

  “The doctor?”

  “Frank had a heart attack yesterday. That’s why I came up from Brisbane—to take over his workload while he recovers.”

  “A heart attack?” Her hand fluttered to her throat. “I had no idea. How awful.”

  “Yeah, well,” KD said, her obvious distress quelling his momentary annoyance. “The attack was mild, so he’ll be fine with rest and the change in his diet he was told to make after his last checkup.”

  “He was told… He should have been watching his diet?”

  “The doctor has been telling him to for years.”

  Kelsey’s face paled. “I guess strenuous activity is out of the question, too.”

  “He’s supposed to be taking it easy, yeah.”

  “Oh, God. I feel terrible about this. I shouldn’t have… Poor Frank. Gabby!” She rushed toward the kitchen, leaving KD standing in the hall. Mystified, KD followed her, and could easily hear her conversation with another woman.

  “What’s up?”

  “It’s Frank. He had a heart attack last night.”

  “Oh no! Is he alright?”

  “How can he be? He’s in the hospital. And get this. He’d had warnings from the doctor. He should have been dieting, avoiding strenuous activity. I didn’t know he had a bad heart. He never said anything. If he had I certainly would never have—”

  “Of course, you wouldn’t have,” Gabby rushed to assure her. “I know what you’re thinking and you can just stop it. It was up to Frank to resist. This has nothing to do with you.”

  “But I feel just terrible. I tempted him.”

  “That’s just silly, Kels. Frank’s a big boy and responsible for his own actions. You can’t give a man heart failure.”

  KD couldn’t believe the ideas racing through his head. Hell, he could barely fathom the concept. If any man in the world was reliable, faithful, it was Frank Brevan. He had been an emotional rock for KD and his mother for going on twenty years.

  But Kelsey Simmons was one hell of a gorgeous woman. He had himself been blindsided by her luscious curves, the silken swing of her thick, shiny hair. And why not? She had opened the door to him draped in that dress, the one she had apparently donned for Frank’s benefit. His stepfather’s sense of fidelity and honor wouldn’t have stood much of a chance against this woman hell-bent on full-tilt seduction.

  And she thought she’d caused Frank’s heart attack. Only one way KD figured she could come to that conclusion, and that was that she’d seduced him half to death.

  The thought of their sordid little affair made him sick to his stomach. The contempt was clear in his voice. “What do you have, a father fetish?”

  Both women jolted as though they’d forgotten his presence entirely. Of course Kelsey had dismissed him from her mind. He was way too young for her.

  The blonde woman, who looked like she’d swallowed a beach ball, frowned at him. “Just who are you?”

  Kelsey took care of the introductions with a distracted air. “Gabby, this is KD. Laura’s son.”

  “Oh.” As comprehension dawned, the scowl dropped from Gabby’s face. Immediately she jumped to Kelsey’s defense. “Don’t listen to her, she didn’t know Frank had a bad heart. Frank’s a grown man.”

  “A bad heart would have stopped her? What a saint.”

  “Come on, it’s not like she’s the only one in town Frank’s been coaxing sweets from.”

  KD’s mouth fell open. Frank must be going through a midlife crisis. None of this was in character and he was having a hard time digesting the information. He might have come close to hitting a note only prepubescent choirboys could reach when he demanded, “You mean—he’s done this before?”

  “Sure. With Mrs. Flannery when he goes to mow her lawn. Ms. Edgar when he painted her house last month.”

  “Sweet Jesus, I don’t believe this.” Did everyone in town know about his stepfather’s indiscretions? Did his mother know?

  He didn’t realize Kelsey was approaching him until she rested her hand in what she probably thought was a soothing touch on his arm. His bicep flinched beneath the unexpected contact. “I do hope your mother won’t be angry with me. Although I suppose she has a right to be.”

  “No shit.” He uncrossed his arms, forcing off her hand. “I should think my mother has a right to be angry. I should kick your tempting tush from here to Sunday myself. Good God, Frank didn’t stand a chance against you and what you offered.”

  A guilty flush rose up to color her cheeks and she recoiled, looking contrite. “I know, I know. My buns are pretty spectacular.”

  “Oh, they’re spectacular alright. Not to mention the rest of you. Jesus your—” Even in his agitated state, KD balked at using the word that first sprang to mind to a woman’s face, so he gestured toward the vicinity of her chest. “I mean, what a fantastic set of…you-know-whats. Hell, woman, what man could resist you dressed like that?”

  Kelsey regarded him in utter bewilderment. “You don’t think you’re overreacting, just a little maybe? And what has any of this got to do with my”—the way she shuffled her feet hinted at discomfiture, but she still managed a lofty demeanor as she finished—”set of you-know-whats?”

  “If you’ve been walking around advertising them in front of Frank, they have everything to do with this.”

  “Advertising?” Kelsey gasped. She tugged at the neckline of her dress, seeming as embarrassed as she was indignant. Never taking her blazing glare off KD, she said, “Gabby, I think we can conclude that the dress is too much after all.”

  “Or too little,” KD muttered.

  “Umm, Kelsey,” Gabby injected tentatively.

  “No, it doesn’t matter what you say now, Gabby. This”—Kelsey narrowed her eyes at him—”person obviously thinks I look like a…a…”

  KD detected glistening beneath the woman’s lashes and wondered how in the hell she managed to make him feel like sack of dirt with her pretense of fighting tears. It was possible she had no idea what kind of effect she had on men. Her big gold brown eyes and lush, trembly lips didn’t look like those of a ruthless homewrecker.

  Wake up, KD. She was having an affair with Frank.

  The sound of barely suppressed laughter made them stare at Gabby, who was covering her mouth with one hand in a vain attempt to stifle a fit of giggles. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t be laughing.”

  “Damn right,” KD concurred.

  “I’m so sorry about Frank. Really. It’s just that I think there’s been a misunderstanding.”

  “Well, I’m certainly not understanding any of this,” Kelsey said. “I don’t know why this…man would be so angry over a few cakes and a bit of manual labor.”

  “Cakes?” KD had the terrible premonition that he was about to end up looking like a complete jackass.

  “I think,” Gabby began, no longer hiding her amused grin, “KD has gotten the impression you’re having an affair with his stepfather.”

  Chapter 2

  “A—what?”

  “Yes, I think so. Isn’t that what you thought, KD?” Gabby asked.

  Kelsey turned on him again. “What on earth—How could you think that?”

  “How could I?” KD repeated, incredulous. “How about the way you’re dressed? And you felt guilty about causing Frank’s heart attack. What am I supposed to make of that?”

  “Kelsey likes to bake.”

  KD flicked Gabby
an irritated glance. “What?”

  “You know muffins and stuff like that.”

  He gritted his teeth and enunciated, “I know what baking is.”

  “Righto. Well, she used to bake her special chocolate mud muffins for Frank. That’s Kelsey’s specialty. Mrs. Flannery’s is passionfruit cheesecake and Ms. Edgar’s is… Well, Ms. Edgar doesn’t actually bake anything very well, but I suppose that’s beside the point.”

  The feeling that he was about to end up looking like the biggest idiot in town intensified. But KD crossed his arms over his chest, refusing to admit defeat. “What about her buns?”

  “What?”

  The gasped word came from Kelsey and KD turned back to face her. She looked like she wanted to throttle him and he couldn’t imagine her baking sweet treats for anyone at that moment. “Your spectacular buns. Your words, not mine,” he pointed out. Although, from what he had seen when he had followed her down the hall, he agreed. His opinion of her delicious rear aside, KD added a little feeling to his sneer. “A little stuck on yourself, aren’t you?”

  Her eyes narrowed. Her lips pursed. KD could practically hear her seething. “You…insulting, contemptuous…rude…”

  When she paused, KD cordially inquired, “You need a thesaurus?”

  “What I need,” she began, breathing heavily, “is a frying pan. Or a stockpot. Something really, really heavy.”

  Her breasts were rising and falling inside that inadequate bodice. KD sensed it viscerally, even as he managed with some inhuman will not to leer. “Alright, I’ll bite. Why?”

  “To hit you over the head with, you unimaginable bastard.”

  “Well, you got me there, Miss Simmons.”

  Recognizing the irony in his tone, Kelsey felt a stab of regret. Everyone in town knew the basics of Laura McKinley’s past. She was neither ashamed nor secretive about it. She had gotten pregnant young and by mistake. The father—KD’s father—refused to marry her and took off without a second look back.

  She couldn’t have picked a more apt—or cutting—word than ‘bastard’.

  But Kelsey fought the urge to apologize. He hadn’t yet apologized for calling her—by insinuation if not words—a husband-stealing slut. “What I got, Mr. McKinley, is a mind not to hire you.”

  “Fine.” His shrug was not an affectation, Kelsey realized right away. He was as happy to wheedle his way out of this job as she was to have him gone. “I came here as a favor to my stepfather, because I owe him that much, and more. You don’t want me to do the job? No skin off my nose. I’m not gettin’ down on my knees, lady.”

  Kelsey was shocked to the point of breathlessness at the image that flashed, vivid and utterly sexual, through her mind. She wouldn’t mind having Mr. KD McKinley down on his knees, where she could be in control of him, where she could have him doing things to her that no man had done in longer than she cared to recall.

  Oh. My. God.

  She knew only enough to find him detestable and she was thinking like that? Oh Lord, Stefan better respond to this dress the way she wanted him to, because deprivation was finally catching up. It had been four long years since she had made her vow to stay celibate until she found Mr. Right. In the view of some—well, in the view of one Gabrielle Murray—that practically made her a virgin again.

  She wondered if KD McKinley’s opinion of her would change if he knew that.

  “Fine,” Kelsey agreed, her voice breathy. His eyebrow moved, almost infinitesimally, making her wonder if her thoughts had been telegraphed. She felt suddenly, frighteningly naked. Not much of a stretch, considering what she was wearing. It didn’t exactly scream virginal.

  She had to get this man out of here.

  Pulling herself together, she gave her hair a haughty toss and walked, deliberately casual, by him. “Don’t let the door hit you on the butt when you leave, Mr. McKinley.”

  * * * *

  “Do you suppose he worked out that you were talking about cinnamon buns?”

  Kelsey held the cordless phone between her shoulder and cheek as she spread strawberry jam on a slice of wholemeal toast. “I told you not to mention him again.”

  “Oh, come on. That little exchange between you and Laura’s prodigal son was the highlight of my week,” Gabby said unapologetically. “Paul laughed his head off, too.”

  “You told Paul?” Kelsey groaned.

  “Of course. It’s this pesky ring on my finger. I’m contractually obliged to tell the man everything, whether he’s listening or not.”

  “Funny, I don’t remember hearing that in the vows you spoke.”

  “It’s in the fine print. Along with ‘I promise to squander my youth by remaining barefoot and pregnant for the majority of my twenties’. Thomas, stop pinching your sister!”

  Kelsey waited until Gabby dealt with the altercation in the background before pointing out, “As I recall, you were the one who wanted children right away. A big family like your own and all that.”

  “Yeah, yeah. That was before I had two and one more on the way. After this one, that’s it. Paul is getting the old snip-snip.”

  “Really?”

  Gabby hesitated. Kelsey could imagine her giving her rounded stomach an affectionate pat. “Well…maybe. Anyway, I didn’t call to talk about me. What are you going to do about hunky handyman?”

  “Do?”

  “I hear he’s a fully qualified carpenter and they aren’t exactly thick on the ground around here.”

  Kelsey knew this. Her attempts yesterday to find an alternative replacement for Frank Brevan had proven fruitless. She’d even made calls to Brisbane, but no one had been keen to travel more than an hour to take on her small project.

  Yet she said to Gabby, “So maybe I’ll wait until someone’s available. Or start on things myself.”

  “You’re going to turn that poky toilet into an ensuite and install French doors?”

  “Nooo.” Kelsey drew out the word. She took a bite of her toast, chewing and swallowing before she continued. “I’ll just have to abandon that idea and do the surface stuff.”

  “You, abandon an idea? Miss See-things-through-to-the-end-if-it-kills-me? Don’t do it, Kels. The universe might shift off balance and we could all be doomed.”

  “Ha, ha.” Kelsey took another bite just as there was a knock on the front door. Walking down the hall, her powder blue pumps clicking on the floorboards, she said into the phone, “I’ve got to go, Gab. Someone’s at the door.” Probably Mrs. Lipitz from the neighboring house, calling in for an ill-timed and much too lengthy chat. She could think of no one else who considered it appropriate to knock at seven-thirty in the morning.

  “Okay. The last thing I’ll say on the matter is this. Why don’t you call a truce with hunky handyman and hire him?”

  “Would you stop calling him hunky—” Kelsey swung open the front door and fell silent, gaping at the view of firm pectoral muscles that confronted her. Her eyes traveled upward, slower than she liked, to see broad shoulders before connecting with a pair of dark blue eyes the color of the deepest parts of the Pacific Ocean.

  Speak of the devil and he shall appear.

  “Why not? He is hunky. You’re not so wrapped up in Stefan that you didn’t notice.”

  “Miss Simmons?”

  His voice was softer than she remembered, as soft as the white cotton of his T-shirt. It made Kelsey feel like his words caressed her.

  Oh, stop it you fool. “Gab, I really have to go.”

  “He’s there, isn’t he?”

  “Gab, I’m hanging up.” Kelsey pressed the end button on the cordless phone. Fisting the implement, she rested it against her hip and gathered her wits with effort.

  “Good morning, Mr. McKinley. Did you think of another insult you wanted to hit me with?”

  *

  KD made his expression neutral, while inside he warred between annoyance and outright lust. Which in turn fueled his annoyance. She wore a streamlined skirt suit in powder blue and a silky white blouse wi
th the top three buttons undone. The sight of her dressed for business was a shock after the lasting impression that little red dress had left. The dreams he’d had…

  Well, they didn’t bear thinking about when standing toe-to-toe with their star. He was not here to make matters worse between him and the irritatingly delectable Kelsey Simmons. Unfortunately, he was here to eat a healthy serving of crow.

  “Not if you don’t give me any ammunition.” Damn. He was supposed to be ingratiating himself, not getting into it with her again.

  “I don’t recall giving you any ammunition last time.” Her haughty demeanor only rankled his nerves further.

  “I don’t know. My stepfather has a bad heart, as it turns out. You could have given him a coronary opening the door in that excuse for a dress you were wearing Sunday, whether you meant to seduce him or not.”

  “Whether I meant… How many times do I have to deny that I want to get your stepfather into bed?”

  KD shrugged in lieu of a response. Okay, so he figured Kelsey and Frank hadn’t been having any kind of affair. When he’d told his mother about the conclusion he had drawn, she had laughed for the first time since Frank had been taken to hospital. Then she’d reamed him out for losing Frank the job he had been so looking forward to, the job he would still want to be a part of, even if it was only in a consultative role.

  That was when she’d demanded he come skulking back to Kelsey Simmons’s doorstep and beg forgiveness. Under the circumstances, KD couldn’t deny his mother the favor.

  But damn, it was harder than he had imagined.

  He cleared his throat. “Do you suppose I could come in?”

  “No.”

  He put his hands on his hips, unconsciously mirroring her pose. “Do you suppose we could start over again? I’d like to offer you that estimate I never got around to.”

  “That depends.”

  “On what?”

  “If you’re here to apologize.”

  KD felt his temperature shoot up about seven degrees. She was actually going to make him say he was sorry, when he shouldn’t have to. He had drawn a perfectly logical conclusion the other day. And he hadn’t been completely kidding when he’d said that dress could have given Frank a heart attack.