Kathleen tugged on the skirt that rode slightly above her crossed knees in a ladylike gesture that caused the middle-aged secretary to smile. Such an attractive girl, she thought.
Kathleen returned the smile. She was the paragon of professionalism as she sat in the beautifully decorated outer office awaiting her interview with Mr. Seth Kirchoff, owner of the exclusive department store Kirchoff’s in San Francisco.
Her calm facade belied the tumult within. Could anyone guess that inside Kathleen was shivering with anxiety? She needed this job so badly. It went beyond economic necessity. She needed it to restore her sanity, her equilibrium, both of which had been unbalanced since she had sat in that hospital waiting room in Arkansas and watched Erik’s wife rush to his side.
Unconsciously, Kathleen squeezed her eyes shut in a vain attempt to blot out the pain the vision still caused. Immediately, she opened them and darted a glance at the secretary, hoping that the woman hadn’t seen that moment of weakness. She hadn’t. She was leaning over a file cabinet behind her desk.
After two months, one would think the agony would have subsided, the ache would have become only a dull reminder; but the memory was there constantly, an open, gaping wound, still raw and bleeding.
Kathleen turned her face toward the wide picture window and gazed out at the San Francisco skyline. She noted the Transamerica Building and, far in the distance, the Bay, sparkling like a great sapphire in the brilliant sunlight.
How could she have been so naive? Why hadn’t she even considered the possibility that he was married? It had not once occurred to her. She had been so dazzled by the man, held by his magnetism, that she hadn’t looked beyond the obvious.
His seeming to care for her was all a sham. Tears of shame and humiliation clouded Kathleen’s eyes when she remembered how she had responded to him both physically and emotionally. His tutelage had been expert and she had been all too willing. The intimacies that had seemed so sacred when they had shared them now offended her.
At the hospital, when she had heard the pretty woman identifying herself as Mrs. Gudjonsen, by virtue of her name having the right to stand by Erik’s bedside, be privy to the information that had been withheld from Kathleen, she had wanted to flee, to run until she was exhausted and then slip off the edge of the earth to be swallowed up by oblivion.
She had fled. She had returned to the airport and waited there through the night while cleanup crews hauled away the wreckage of the crash and restored the field to operational capacity. Boarding the first plane going east, she had returned to Atlanta.
In the space of a few minutes, Kathleen Haley had grown up. Before, she had considered herself to be a mature woman, wise to the ways of the world, well acquainted with heartache and suffering.
What a fool she had been. Erik had robbed her of her innocence in more ways than taking her virginity. He had shown her just how self-serving a man could be. David Ross was an amateur compared to Erik Gudjonsen. Kathleen hadn’t known such intentional deceit could exist. Now she did. Never would she walk so blindly into any kind of relationship. The young woman she’d formerly been was gone. In her place was a woman with bruised hands and a bruised heart. Both would be a long time in healing.
She bought a Little Rock newspaper for several consecutive days, avidly poring over the accounts of the accident. Erik’s name never appeared on the list of casualties. To relieve her own mind, she called the hospital and was told he was mending well and would soon be released. When asked if she wished to be connected to his room or to leave a message, she declined.
Uppermost on her list of priorities was to close this chapter of her life. If she could have rubbed it out of her history, she would have done so, but that wasn’t possible. Her only hope was to put it behind her, chalk it up as a learning experience and go on from there. She wanted to start over, in another place, as another person, so she emptied her apartment and moved into a modest hotel until she could decide what to do.
For weeks, nothing happened. She read the classified ads in all the out-of-town newspapers she could buy on the Atlanta newsstands. She mailed letters of inquiry to major department stores all over the country, but if she received any reply at all, it was usually a polite but impersonal rejection. All the while, her bank account dwindled as surely as her spirits, which hadn’t recovered from the death-blow they had been dealt.
Then she saw a classified ad in a trade journal. There was no name, no telephone number, only a post office box to which to send a résumé. According to the ad, several jobs were open, but they weren’t listed specifically. Mechanically and without hope, she mailed the requested information, knowing that it was a shot in the dark.
To her surprise, she received an answer within a few days. If she was still interested in a job as fashion buyer, she was to call the enclosed telephone number and make an appointment.
If she was still interested! Quickly, Kathleen checked her bank balance and decided that if she lived frugally, it would be worth it to gamble on a trip to California.
“Ms. Haley?”
She jumped out of her reverie when the composed, assured secretary called her name. Another woman, chic, slim and fashionable, was coming out of the inner office. She eyed Kathleen with a calculating, shrewd look as she passed her on her way out the door. This applicant wanted the job, too.
“Mr. Kirchoff will see you now,” the secretary said graciously. “I’m sorry you had to wait.”
“Thank you,” Kathleen answered in kind. “I didn’t mind.”
She walked on trembling legs toward the austere door and went in. Why was she nervous? This wasn’t like her. She was usually so sure of herself. Was this to be another legacy of Erik Gudjonsen’s? This uncharacteristic self-consciousness and insecurity?
With determination to put down her feelings of inferiority, she tilted her chin back and crossed the luxuriantly deep blue carpet toward the intimidatingly large desk.
The man behind it glanced up at her with a detached expression, then almost did a double take as he lifted his dark eyes in a full, long appraisal. “Ms. Kathleen Haley?” he asked in a well-modulated voice.
“Yes,” she said, smiling.
“Sit down please. I’m Seth Kirchoff.” Though he didn’t stand, she accepted the well-manicured hand proffered across the desk and shook it.
“Thank you, Mr. Kirchoff,” she said as she sat down. “I’m pleased to meet you.” She was gaining her momentarily lost confidence now. She knew that she looked the part of the stylish, competent fashion buyer. Her linen suit was lightweight, as was dictated by the season, but the antique gold color bespoke the end of that season. The slim skirt fit her size six body to perfection. The short jacket was crisp but softened to femininity by the cream crepe blouse underneath it. Her brown pumps and matching clutch bag were a treat to herself from Gucci she had splurged on during a trip to New York the year before. The gold spheres in her ears were the correct amount of jewelry. Her dark auburn hair, enriched by the color of the suit, had been pulled back into a loose bun at the nape of her neck, but again was spared from severity by the natural wisps that lay on her cheek. She had artfully applied her makeup, the carefully chosen colors coordinating with her ensemble and her own coloring.
She looked at the man across the desk and took in his own handsome features. His hair was dark and wavy, hugging close to his well-shaped head. He was very good looking in a sensitive sort of way. He was not ruggedly virile like—
Stop that! Kathleen commanded herself as she continued to assess Mr. Kirchoff. His mouth was sensual, soft. His nose was long, narrow and sculpted to harmonize with the rest of his face.
Handsome as he was, it was his eyes that arrested Kathleen’s attention. They were a rich chocolate-brown, deep, dark, but not mysterious, as such eyes were usually characterized. They were open, warm, and bespoke sincerity and… what?… Compassion?
Kathleen’s green eyes slid down over the molded chin to the well-defined shoulders. There her gaze froze. Where she had expected to see an oversized leather chair, befitting a man of Mr. Kirchoff’s position, she saw the incongruous shine of chrome. Seth Kirchoff was sitting in a wheelchair.
Her fondest wish at that moment was that he hadn’t detected her shock, but he had. “It is rather gruesome when you first see it, isn’t it?” he asked, looking down at the arms of the chair. “But once you get used to it, it isn’t so bad.” He raised those compelling eyes to hers and smiled.
“I don’t find it gruesome,” she replied honestly. “It’s just that it was unexpected.”
He grinned winningly. “I’ve often considered putting a sign outside that read ‘Beware: Man in Wheelchair Inside.’ ”
Kathleen laughed spontaneously. “You might weed out a lot of tedious interviews that way.”
“I might at that. Maybe I should do it.” They smiled at each other, each frankly approving of the other. “At the risk of sounding piteous, I’ll tell you straightaway that I was in an automobile accident the night of my college graduation. Three of my fraternity brothers were killed. I was spared, but a broken back left me paralyzed from the waist down.”
“You were very lucky.”
He propped his chin on his fists, supporting them with his elbows on the arms of his chair. “That’s a very unusual response, Ms. Haley. Most people would say, ‘I’m sorry,’ or something to that effect. Over the years, I’ve catalogued people’s reactions to my disability. They either express pity or embarrassment, and won’t look me in the eye, or else they ignore it totally, as though if they don’t see it, it will go away. You have done none of those. I think I like you, Ms. Haley.”
She grinned. “I think I like you, too.”
He laughed good-naturedly. “Would you like some coffee?” Without waiting for her answer, he pressed a button on his desk component, and within seconds the secretary was in the office.
“Ms. Haley, this is Mrs. Larchmont. She insists that I call her that in spite of our friendship.”
“I wouldn’t want anyone to suspect that we’re carrying on a hot and heavy love affair,” retorted Mrs. Larchmont. Claire Larchmont was a woman in her early fifties, Kathleen guessed accurately. Kathleen thought she was an executive’s dream for an attractive, competent assistant.
It was apparent that these two shared a mutual affection and were secure enough in that relationship to tease each other. She turned to Kathleen. “You may call me Claire.”
“Ms. Haley, would you like some coffee?” Seth asked her again.
“Yes, with cream please,” she addressed Claire.
“And I—” Seth started.
“I know what you want, Mr. Kirchoff,” she said as she left the office.
“She’s priceless, isn’t she?” Seth asked Kathleen.
“The two of you seem to work very well together,” she said.
“Yes, we do.” He clasped his hands together on the desk and said, “Now, I want to tell you what I’m looking for.”
He launched into a brief history of the department store, which had been established by his grandfather in the 1920s. Over the years, through the Depression and World War II, Kirchoff’s had managed to survive. Seth’s father had taken control of the business after the war and had increased its volume of business and profits. He had died three years ago.
“One might think that the business would have naturally fallen to me, but it was specified in my father’s will that the reins of power go to my uncle. You see, Father thought that when the rest of me had been paralyzed, so had my brain. He never quite forgave me for becoming a cripple.”
There was no bitterness in Seth’s voice, only a deep-lying sadness. “Anyway, my uncle died last year quite suddenly, and virtually by force, I moved into this office.”
He paused in his story long enough to accept a silver tray from Claire. On it were china cups and a carafe of coffee. When the coffee had been poured and served, Claire withdrew, leaving them alone again.
“Ms. Haley, Kirchoff’s has the potential of being an important name in the fashion industry of San Francisco, but it has been in the hands of old men with no vision, my father included.”
He sipped his coffee, then continued, “When I seized control, I began to lop off heads—figuratively, of course.” He smiled and Kathleen was blessed with the full impact of his charm. “It wasn’t an easy thing to do, since some of the people I fired had been here for twenty years or more, but nonetheless it was necessary. I gave the supervisor of each department ample time to restructure his or her section. When he or she didn’t, he was excised. Forgive me.” He paused. “Would you care for more coffee?”
“No, thank you,” she said, replacing her cup on the tray.
“I’ll get to the point of this interview, Ms. Haley. I know you must wonder where all this is leading.”
“I haven’t been bored, Mr. Kirchoff.”
He returned her smile and then pressed a lever that engaged the gears of his motorized chair. He steered it around the desk until he was beside her chair. Judging from the length of his body and legs, he must have stood tall before his accident.
“I’m looking for someone to coordinate all the fashion buying for my store. And I’ll share a secret with you. There will be two more stores under construction by the end of the year. By next Christmas, there will be three Kirchoff’s in the Bay Area.”
“How wonderful!” she exclaimed sincerely.
“I hope so. But I want our image to grow with the expansion. For years, we have catered to a particular customer. She buys four to six dresses a year. She is very conservative and budget-minded. Her taste is reserved. Her imagination, nil.”
“I know the customer well. The scourge of every fashion merchant,” Kathleen said dryly.
He laughed. “That’s why we need to update our image. I want the clientele of Kirchoff’s to change. I want the customer who buys four to six ensembles a season. She is stylish, fashion-minded, courageous, a trendsetter. She’s a mover and shaker. Active in civic affairs. Professional. Possibly both. In either case, she dresses the part. She also outfits her children as stunningly as herself.”
“Wow,” Kathleen said, impressed. “You have done your market research.”
“Indeed I have. I want an updated misses’ department that handles everything from sexy lingerie to debutante gowns. I want an extensive junior department that will carry mother’s little darling from her first training bra to her bridesmaids’ dresses.”
Kathleen’s mind was ticking. “Price range?” she asked.
“Expensive to very expensive.”
“Accessories?”
“Only the best. If a customer needs a three-hundred-fifty-dollar belt to set off her silk evening skirt, I want her to know she can come to Kirchoff’s and find a large selection of them.”
“Men’s and children’s?”
“I’ve hired other buyers for those departments, but you’d have the authority to check their orders and make certain they’re keeping pace with your departments.”
“Do you want to stay with domestic designers?”
His brow creased in concentration. “Not exclusively, but I prefer to buy out of New York rather than Europe. Yankee pride, I guess.”
“Your buying budget?”
“At this point, it’s unlimited. We’ll be jumping in all the way.”
It was a dream come true! Unconsciously, Kathleen gnawed her bottom lip as she envisioned all she could do with such unrestricted license.
“When can you start?”
The question was so abrupt that Kathleen jumped in surprise and riveted her wide, glowing eyes on Seth. “Wh-What? You mean… I…?”
“Yes, you have the job. If you want it. The salary is forty thousand dollars a year, excluding sales bonuses and employee discounts. Is that satisfactory?”
Satisfactory? She didn’t know what to say. “Mr. Kirchoff, are you sure? I mean, yes, I want the job, but aren’t you interviewing others? Maybe you should wait—”
“No, Ms. Haley. I knew you were what I wanted the moment you walked through the door. I despise women who barnstorm their way in here, spouting all their grandiose ideas and not listening to what I’m saying. You’re a good listener. You have style and experience. I can tell that by the way you dress and by your résumé. Your taste is impeccable. Yet, and this is very important to me, you’re extremely feminine. I want my customers to want to look like you—assured but soft, independent but entirely female.”
She blushed under his close scrutiny.
“I gladly accept your offer, Mr. Kirchoff. And in answer to your question, I’m available immediately. Or as soon as I can find a place to live and move my things from Atlanta.”
“Very good. Shall we say,” he consulted a calendar on his desk, “Monday the sixteenth? That will give you ten days. If you need more time, let me know.”
“Thank you. That should be more than sufficient. I’m anxious to begin.”
His smile was warm. “Good.”
She extended her hand, which he shook heartily. His grip was strong and comfortable. “Thank you, Mr. Kirchoff. I won’t let you down.”
“I’m not afraid of that. I only ask that you drop the Mr. Kirchoff stuff and call me Seth.”
“Then I’m Kathleen.”
“Kathleen,” he said softly, as if savoring the sound of her name on his lips.
She stood up self-consciously, aware of the fact that he must remain seated. But as she walked toward the door, she heard the soft whirring sound of the wheelchair’s motor as he followed her.
“I’d break my back again if I could have the privilege of opening the door for you, Kathleen, but would you mind too much doing the honors?”
She laughed with him. “Not at all.” She held the door while he wheeled through it and then followed him. A man in a dark gray suit was standing beside the secretary’s desk.
“Ah, George,” Seth said. “Is it time to go already?”
“Yes, Seth. You have a lunch appointment with your sister.”
“George, I want you to meet Kirchoff’s newest employee, Ms. Kathleen Haley.”
“So you hired her!” exclaimed Claire Larchmont from behind her desk. “Oh, I’m so glad.”
“Why?” Seth teased. “I may have hired her to replace you.”
“Never,” she said, unperturbed. Then she smiled graciously at Kathleen. “Welcome aboard, Ms. Haley.”
“Kathleen,” Kathleen said. Claire smiled at her and nodded, then turned back to her computer terminal.
“Kathleen, George goes with the territory. He’s my valet, chauffeur, therapist, drinking buddy and best friend. George Martin.”
“Mr. Martin,” Kathleen said, smiling.
“Please call me George, or I might not hear you,” he said. He was a tall, thin, middle-aged man who radiated a strong moral character and dependability. His smile was welcoming.
“Now everyone is on a first-name basis except you, Mrs. Larchmont,” Seth said. Claire turned around to face him, as usual, unscathed by his taunt. “Please see to all the bureaucratic red tape of putting another employee on the payroll—insurance, things like that. Also, issue Kathleen a check for five thousand dollars to cover her moving expenses.”
Kathleen started to object, but Seth stopped her. “I won’t have it any other way. If we were a large corporation transferring an executive, you would receive that kind of consideration. And I look upon you as an executive.”
“Thank you,” she said, flabbergasted at all that was happening. After she put the check in her purse, she shook hands again with Seth. “I’ll see you on the sixteenth,” she said.
“We all look forward to it.” He smiled that sincere-sad smile as he clasped her hand tightly.
She nodded her goodbyes to Claire and George. While waiting for an elevator, she looked at her wristwatch. She congratulated herself. A full half-hour had transpired since she had thought of Erik.
* * *
Her move to San Francisco was accomplished with relative ease, considering that she moved from one side of the country to the other.
After her interview with Seth, Kathleen went directly to a downtown lunchroom and purchased a newspaper. Over a tuna-salad sandwich, she began perusing the classified ads for a suitable apartment.
Some listings she was able to eliminate after a telephone conversation. Others required expensive cab rides, only to prove that they weren’t what she was looking for. Finally, at sunset, she checked into a hotel and spent a dreamless night, exhausted and exhilarated after the day’s events.
The next morning, she found a place that was more what she had in mind. It was one of four apartments carved out of an old house. The furnishings were outmoded, but clean and quaint, as was the exterior of the house. Only the occupants had keys to the main door, and Kathleen’s apartment was on the ground floor. It was small, having only a combination bedroom-living room, a tiny kitchen alcove and a small bathroom, but that was all she would require for a while. She put down the requested deposit and first month’s rent with the landlord and then made flight arrangements back to Atlanta.
In the southern city, she sold her car to a used-car dealer, sacrificing it, she knew, but saving the time and trouble of selling it herself. She didn’t want to drive it to San Francisco. Since her former apartment had been furnished, she had little in the way of household items to discard. Most of these she donated to charitable organizations. What few personal items she had she packed in boxes to be shipped by air on her return flight. Within a matter of days, she was ensconced in her new apartment in the Bay City.
She reveled in this jewel of a city, gloried in the climate that, with the fall season, was brisk and invigorating. She jogged in Golden Gate Park, went sightseeing on Fisherman’s Wharf.
She bought a used compact car, making a small down payment with some of the money Seth had given her for “moving expenses,” and signing a note of credit for the balance. With a map in one hand, she set out, by trial and error, to learn her way around the hilly streets of her new home. She enjoyed the time off, the freedom to be lazy, but by the Sunday evening before she would start her new job, she was ready to get down to work.
“Tomorrow I start over,” Kathleen averred to the darkness as she lay on the convertible sofa bed that came with the apartment. “In a few months, I won’t even remember him.”
She pulled the pillow from under her head and hugged it to her. “I won’t remember. I won’t.” She pressed her face into the softness, and even as she vowed she would forget, she saw his face vividly. Tears managed to eke out of the squeezed lids as she saw him wave to her as he disappeared into the fuselage of the airplane.
“Erik, Erik,” she sobbed. “Why did you do that to me? Why?”
Did he ever think of her? What was he doing this very moment? Was he sleeping? Making love to his pretty wife? Was he stroking her with those treacherous hands and lying to her with his persuasive lips?
Did he make love to his wife as ardently as he had to Kathleen? Was she perhaps cool to his fervor? Was that why he sought lovers? Obliging ones. Like herself. Kathleen buried her shame-scalded face in the pillow.
As jealous as Kathleen was of that blonde woman who rightfully claimed Erik’s love and name, she felt a great wave of pity for her. Did she know of his unfaithfulness? Was Kathleen his first extramarital dalliance? No, of course not. He couldn’t have seduced her so smoothly, without the least shred of guilt, had he not been adept at it.
She wanted to hate him. She did hate him! But as she turned to her side and raised her knees to her chest in a position of self-protection, she ached to feel his hard, lean body next to her. She was chilled without the warmth of his embrace. One night in his bed had spoiled her to needing his strength during the night, to awakening periodically in the security of his arms, to hearing the rich, steady cadence of his breathing.
And this night, like all the others, she felt a pain, more cruel than death, eating at her, squeezing her heart, destroying her spirit.
* * *
The next morning, she got up early, ate a piece of dry toast and drank two cups of coffee as she put on her makeup. Determinedly, she shed the shroud of despair that blanketed her each night, and looked forward to her new job with renewed enthusiasm. This would save her. It must.
She chose her dress carefully. It was essential to create a good first impression with both her new employers and her subordinates. The tailored navy dress had a designer label, but she had bought it as a sample on a buying trip to New York and had paid barely a fourth of the retail cost.
It had a round, collarless neck and buttoned down the left side, over her bosom to her knee. The long sleeves were slim. It hung as a chemise, but she belted it with a copper leather belt that matched her shoes and bag. It wasn’t a coincidence that the leather was almost the exact color of her hair. A gold pin held a paisley scarf around her neck. It was a rainbow of navy, copper and green. Small gold loops were in her ears, and her hair was pulled back into a functional, professional-looking bun.
In the full-length mirror on the back of the door, she critically surveyed the results of her half-hour in the bathroom and decided that she was the best that she could be.
Having familiarized herself with the streets of San Francisco, she negotiated rush-hour traffic with only a modicum of trepidation. If she could survive Atlanta’s famous traffic jams, she could survive anything.
Arriving at the skyscraper building where the corporate headquarters was located, she identified herself to the garage attendant. He smiled at her and said, “Yes, ma’am. Mr. Kirchoff said to give you this. Stick it on the fender of your car and you can park here anytime.”
“Thank you,” she said as she drove into the dim cave of the garage.
She arrived at the twentieth floor and went into Seth’s office. As she expected, Claire Larchmont was already busy at her desk. She waved merrily, though she was speaking into the telephone cradled between her shoulder and chin.
“Right. Mr. Kirchoff said those proposals must be ready by the end of the day and subject to his approval.” She hung up. “Kathleen! This is your big day. Are you excited? Did you get moved in all right? Is there anything you need?”
Kathleen grinned. “ ‘Yes’ to the first question. ‘Yes’ to the second. And ‘I’ll let you know’ to the last.”
“I’m sorry.” Claire laughed good-naturedly. “Seth tells me all the time that I’m a motor mouth.”
“Seth? I thought it was strictly Mr. Kirchoff.”
Claire winked. “I only do that to irritate him.”
Kathleen laughed. “Is he in?”
“Not yet. This is his morning for physical therapy. He and George exercise in his pool on Mondays and Thursdays, so they’re always an hour later. Ms. Kirchoff is in there. His sister. You might as well meet her now, I suppose.”
Kathleen looked closely at Claire’s face, which had lost some of its animation.
“Oh?” Kathleen asked leadingly.
“Find out for yourself,” Claire said guardedly, and Kathleen had to respect the secretary’s reticence in talking about her employers.
“I’ll bring in some coffee,” Claire said as Kathleen’s hand closed around the doorknob.
She pushed the door open and went into the room, seeing immediately the straight back of the woman standing at the window. Kathleen closed the door behind her so that the latch clicked audibly to alert Ms. Kirchoff that she wasn’t alone.
“Claire?” she asked, and turned around on the heels of her pumps. “Oh,” was her only comment when she saw that she had made a mistake.
“Hello, Ms. Kirchoff, I’m Kathleen Haley.” Kathleen closed the distance between them, but for some reason unknown to her, didn’t extend her hand to be shaken. The other woman’s rigid posture and arms folded defensively across her chest spoke a very eloquent body language.
“Ms. Haley, I’m Hazel Kirchoff,” she said, nodding her head like a feudal lord greeting a serf. “My brother told me that he had hired you.”
How did one respond to a comment like that? There was nothing to say, so Kathleen merely inclined her head, much in the same way Hazel Kirchoff had only moments before. There was an uncomfortable silence while the two women squared off and assessed each other.
Hazel Kirchoff was a short woman with a matronly, though well-proportioned, figure. Her tussah silk suit was impeccable in cut as well as fit, and her blonde hair was worn in a short, soft style. If anything was a trifle overdone, it was her jewelry. She wore two diamond-encrusted rings on each of her third fingers, a diamond watch and three bangle bracelets. At her ears were small diamond studs. Her makeup was attractively applied but couldn’t completely camouflage faint, weblike lines around her eyes and mouth. She was considerably older than Seth, Kathleen thought, and well established in middle age.
Her eyes, like her brother’s, held one’s attention. Though unlike his, which shone with compassion and tolerance, hers were cold and haughty. They weren’t the same rich chocolate-brown of Seth’s but a colorless gray that reflected no life, no spontaneity, and were chilling in their blank, piercing stare that revealed nothing, yet saw everything.
“I trust you have found our city to your liking,” she commented at last.
“Yes,” Kathleen said. Then she smiled and laughed under her breath. “It’s certainly different.”
“Indeed.”
There was another one—a sentence for which there was no easy response. Undaunted, Kathleen tried again. “I’m looking forward to working at Kirchoff’s. Seth has outlined some very attractive prospects.”
“My brother often does and says things impulsively.”
Had Hazel Kirchoff been better acquainted with Kathleen, she would have realized that the glimmer of green fire that suddenly flashed in her eyes was a warning of the temper now lying close to the surface.
Kathleen pushed her caution aside even if she was facing a new employer. “And you think hiring me was one of these impulsive gestures?”
Hazel smiled, though there was no humor in the expression. “Many young women would love to work for Kirchoff’s, but Seth was quite taken with you. He came home with a glowing report of your physical attributes. He described you perfectly.” The gray eyes raked down Kathleen’s body as if they were looking at something distasteful. “You are not the first opportunist to take advantage of my brother.”
Kathleen was aghast at the blatant insult. “I did no such thing! I am qualified for this job and I’ll work hard for Kirchoff’s. Seth is a very intelligent, visionary man—”
“He is a cripple,” the woman snapped. “I must constantly protect him from women preying on that fact. He depends on me for everything.” She had almost impassioned herself to anger, and just in time saved herself that indignity. She pulled herself up to her full height and turned away from Kathleen in a gesture of dismissal. “However, nothing we say matters. I’ll see to it that you’re not with us for long. Your type never is.”
Before Kathleen could issue the furious retort on the tip of her tongue, George swung the door open and Seth wheeled into the office. “So! My two favorite ladies! I see that you’ve met.”