Page 31 of The Honorable Texan
She flushed.“Well…”
“There’s a hard case, if ever there was one,” he said.“You’re taking a chance, Violet.A big one.”
“Sir?”
“We all know you were out at his house,” he replied easily.“News travels like wildfire around here.We’ve heard that those cats don’t like company at all.”
“They’re sort of antagonistic,” she confessed, without mentioning her scratches.
“Kemp took another lawyer home for supper one day and the man had to go to the emergency room.He was allergic to cat scratches.”
She cleared her throat.“They are sort of possessive,” she replied.“But I’m no threat.We’re just friends,” Violet said firmly.“He wanted to introduce me to his cats.”
“That explains everything,” Duke mused, grinning.“It’s the cats who are interested in you, then?”
Curt Collins poked his head in the door, shamelessly eavesdropping.“And of course, Kemp loves his cats, so he brings home strangers that he thinks they’ll like,” he added.
“You two!”Violet exclaimed, laughing at the absurdity of it all.“I’m leaving.See you tomorrow.”
They said their goodbyes and watched her go out the door.
She knew what they meant about the cats.
Mr.Kemp was a notorious loner.He never took women to his house.If he was entertaining Violet on the weekend, something was going on.She knew it was all over town if even Duke Wright knew about her visit.She wondered if the gossip had gotten back to Blake and that’s why he hadn’t phoned her.Of course, he could be feeling regret at his loss of control as well.She was feeling something similar.Her only excuse was that she loved him.Sadly, she knew it wasn’t the same with him.Desire wasn’t love.
* * *
Violet spent asleepless night worrying about her lapse of judgment at Kemp’s house, and his avoidance of her.She couldn’t forget what her mother had said, about his attitude toward children.She hoped with all her heart that there wouldn’t be consequences.Surely, she couldn’t get pregnant from one brief interlude!
She went to work the next morning and found Duke Wright making coffee.He glanced up when she came in the door, and smiled at her.
“I’ve got to be out of town today.Think you can hold the office together until I get back?”
“I’ll do my best, sir,” she promised.
“If Kemp shows up, you can have a long lunch hour,” he added with a grin.“But don’t let him know I said that.”
“He’s not a bad man.”
“You don’t have my perspective on him,” Duke replied quietly.
She was aware of that.Duke’s divorce had been a messy one, and he blamed Kemp for his wife’s unreasonable demands.She didn’t say a word.
He shrugged.“Sorry.I have bad memories.I’ll see you tomorrow, Violet.”
“Yes, sir,” she said.“Have a safe trip.”
“I hope to.”
She watched him walk out with a sense of foreboding.She couldn’t shake the feeling that something was going on.
* * *
And it was.Kemp walked into his office and motioned Libby Collins back down the hall with him.
He told her the results of the state crime lab’s autopsy on her father, which was negative.
She was relieved, and showed it.
