Heart of the Wild by Rita Hestand Page B

did and always would. He'd kicked himself in the head a dozen times or more for being so stupid, but that deep down, dull ache in his gut told him he better keep on kicking.
    The truth was the rightness between him and Kasie was the closest he'd come to finding a woman for himself. She could make him ten feet tall, or take him down to the lowest denominator. He loved it.
    What a vision she was. He hadn't wanted to be attracted to her, then or now. She wasn't for him, he kept telling himself. She was going to be married soon. She was John's daughter, for God's sake!
    He couldn't help admiring her grit, her free spirit, her determination to survive no matter what circumstance he threw at her. And he deliberately threw a few of them her way. Deep down it was the independence she fought so hard for, from her parents, that made him admire her the most. It was a hard battle fighting Ava and John, too. He knew that much for fact.
    He secretly liked the way she cared how much he smoked. He liked her soft heart for animals. Hell, he just liked her! Kasie was quite a woman.
    Lord, the woman could kiss, too and being a gentleman had just gotten harder. Hell, he didn't want to be a gentleman, not any more. He wanted to take her to his bed, and make her his, the way it should have been eight years ago. Then, she had still been a child, now, she was the most beautiful creature he'd ever seen. Maybe that was the problem she was a woman now, not a cute, naive little kid. But no matter the age, she was still Kasie, deep down, where it counted, and he recognized it.
    What had her life been like for the past eight years? With Ava she must have wanted for nothing. Yet something about her newfound independence told him she didn't wallow in luxury. The woman had spunk.
    She was tall for a woman, he told himself, yet almost fragile looking. And he liked the fact that he didn't have to stoop over to touch her lips.
    He had deliberately sought women with robust figures, and short, they had to be short. He chuckled to himself, but no one had fit against him better than Kasie. It felt as though God himself had made her body just for him. He was Adam; she was Eve. He raised his eyes to the heavens, and prayed silently for some guidance. His faith had always kept him strong.
    She felt like the missing link to a puzzle. How could anything so right, be so wrong?
    He had called her a brat, to hurt her a little. He had to keep alive the memory of how she had hurt him; nurture it, so he didn't fall victim to it again. That famous Kasie charm was fatal to him. She was charming as a rattlesnake, but he liked it. Thrived on it.
    He wished more than ever that he could find a fatal flaw in her.
    His eyes went over her even more slowly, soaking in the beauty of her. Her face was still like butter cream, except when he managed to embarrass her, and her hair like the silver strings of a harp. He wondered what it would be like to run his fingers through the quicksilver. Her eyes looked innocent, restless, and the color of the sea. Strangely enough, he could still read most of her expressions.
    Don't let yourself get too carried away, she's not for you, he scolded himself silently. She never had been. She belonged to a man named Springer, now, and the sooner he expelled her from his life, the sooner he could get on with his own.
    Still, his curiosity got the best of him at times. What was this Springer character like? Had Ava picked him out? Did Kasie truly love the man? He doubted it. She hadn't mentioned him much. She didn't look as though she were pining for him, either.
    The proud Indian side warred continuously with the temperamental Irish. Chayton wanted answers too. Just like her father.
    He was deep into thought when she whirled around to put the quilts up, and saw him standing in the open doorway, staring.
    "I didn't hear you come in. Shut the door please, it's already getting cold in here."
    He bolted the door, not liking the intimacy it threw the room into.