Kate's Vow (Vows) by Sherryl Woods Read Free Book Online Page A

her of that. And David Winthrop happened to be in the vicinity when the awakening occurred.
    That had to be it. That was something she could understand. That was something she could control. She nodded in satisfaction as she parked in the garage of her modest Malibu beach house. She had no intention of indulging those wayward hormones, but it was good to know what she was battling here. She would be on her guard, especially around David Winthrop.
    She winced as she recalled how easily he’d detected her motive for insisting that Davey join them for dinner. She might have protested for a month that her client had a perfect right to sit in on their meeting, but neither she nor David would have believed that was all there was to it. She wanted a chaperon, just as he’d accused in that amused tone of voice. And they both knew that the only reason she felt that way was because she was attracted to him and feared that attraction.
    In the living room of the beach house, after opening the sliding glass doors to the pounding of the Pacific’s surf, she dug through a stack of magazines she subscribed to mainly to have on hand for weekend guests. The most recent issues of a slick, monthly film magazine were buried amidst news weeklies, women’s magazines and upscale architecture and gourmet periodicals. Kate flipped through, looking for any mention of David Winthrop or his set designs. Maybe she’d stumble across something that would cast him in such a negative light it would kill this stirring of fascination she felt.
    She was skimming the last issue in the stack, one over a year old, when she turned a page and saw his face staring up at her. Eyes alight with excitement, he was standing in the interior of a comic-book world created for a blockbuster that had been released at Christmas. In his denim shirt and jeans, he looked every bit as handsome as the actor who’d played the superhero. In fact, she decided with careful objectivity, he was probably even more attractive with his natural, rugged masculinity, his careless hairstyle, the faint stubble of a beard on his cheeks. He appeared to be a man unaware of his looks, just confident in himself.
    What struck her even more, though, was how alive he looked. Enthusiasm had chased away the shadows in his eyes. He seemed perfectly comfortable and happy in this make-believe world of primary colors and cartoon-style structures. It occurred to her, given the date of publication, that the picture had probably been shot before his wife’s death, perhaps even before her illness had progressed to its terminal stages.
    Kate touched her fingers to the laughing curve of his mouth and wondered if she would ever see this relaxed, lighthearted side of David Winthrop. She had a feeling if he was disturbing her equilibrium now with just a glimmer of his charm, he would be devastating if he ever turned the full force of that smile in her direction.
    She was still holding the magazine when she finally fell into a restless, dream-filled sleep in which a larger-than-life hero bearing an uncanny resemblance to David Winthrop saved her from mythical dragons.
    * * *
    What the hell had he been thinking of? David wondered as the dinner hour approached on Tuesday night. The very last thing he wanted to do was have dinner with a woman whose avowed intention was to separate him from his son. Finding her in his living room in sleepy disarray the night before had momentarily blinded him to Kate Newton’s real character.
    After she’d gone, he’d looked over that damnable list she’d given him. Couched in legalese, it ordered him to adhere to a militaristic schedule of meetings with his son. He hadn’t a doubt in the world that she intended to see that the timetable was enforced.
    Dorothy poked her head into his office for their end-of-the-day consultation on the status of all his projects. “You’re looking even grumpier than usual,” she observed cheerfully as she came in and closed the door. “What’s