From the Heart

the balls again. “Just hit the cue ball into the rack. Whatever drops in is yours.”
    “Why, thank you, Dr. Rhodes.” Kasey walked down to the end of the table.
    “Hold the cue this way,” Jordan instructed, positioning her fingers. “Keep it steady, but let it slide through. See?”
    “Yes.” She glanced over her shoulder at him. “I’m to smack it into the ball marked one, right?”
    “That’s one way to put it.” He could kiss her now, he thought, right now, and send Harry into apoplexy. He could smell her hair as he stood over her, feel the smooth skin of her shoulder under his hand.
    “I won’t be able to hit anything on the table if you keep looking at me like that,” she murmured. “And Dr. Rhodes is beginning to blush.”
    He stepped away. Kasey took a moment to steady herself, then bent over the table and shot.
    She sank three balls on the break. Moving around the table, Kasey positioned and shot again. And again. She leaned over, narrowed her eyes to figure the angle and neatly sank the next ball. She stopped to chalk her cue while letting her eyes sweep the table to analyze the best strategy. The room was completely quiet.
    She picked up her drink, took a quick sip and went back to work. There was a clatter and the thud of balls, then Harry’s bluster as she executed a three-bank shot. Jordan watched her as she concentrated on the next quarry. Leaning on his stick, he enjoyed the view as she stretched out over the table in front of him and nipped the next ball into the pocket. She cleared the table, sending two balls into opposing corner pockets. Straightening, she rubbed her nose with the back of her hand and smiled at her opponents.
    “Let’s see, that’s fifteen dollars each, isn’t it? Would you like to break this time, Harry?”
    Jordan threw back his head and laughed. “Harry,” he said and patted the other man’s shoulder. “We’ve just been hustled.”

5
    J ordan studied her. Kasey was reading over a portion of his notes in silence. She had been quiet for more than twenty minutes. There was something inexplicable about the way she could switch the power off and on. She was teasing his mind as no other woman had ever done. When he asked her a direct question about herself, she answered, rambling agreeably but more often than not avoiding the real question. She revealed very little about Kasey Wyatt.
    What secrets roamed around in that brain of hers? he wondered. What is it she’s not telling me when she seems to be saying everything that comes to her mind? And why am I obsessed with learning it all? Jordan frowned at her and thought of the changes she had already brought into his life.
    A child lived in the house now. There was laughter and noise and excitement. How long had he let things drift? For the three years Alison had been with him? And how long before that?
    He had left the running of the household—and the responsibility of his niece—almost exclusively in his mother’s hands. It had been simpler. Simpler, he reflected. His life, on a whole, had been simpler before Kasey had strolled through the front door. He had been content. And, he realized, like Alison, he had been bored. Harry had called it restlessness. There was little difference. No one in the household had been unaffected by her arrival.
    His mother. Jordan frowned again and pulled out a cigar. Beatrice had already dropped a few subtle complaints. But then, he had learned to block out his mother’s comments years before. For as long as he could remember, Beatrice had been involved in her committees, her designers, her luncheons. Both he and his brother had been turned over to a variety of nannies and tutors. Jordan had accepted it. Now, however, he wondered if he had been wise to put Alison’s upbringing into her hands. Simpler, he thought again. But simple was often far from right. Apparently the time had come to take another look at things. He studied Kasey again. Quite a number of things.
    “You’re very perceptive, Jordan,” Kasey commented and pushed her glasses back up on her nose.
    “Do you think so?” he asked. Once he would have agreed. Now he was beginning to wonder how much he had allowed to slip by him.
    “You’ve explained your character’s motivation very well here. It’s beautifully done. I envy you.”
    “Envy me?” Jordan took a long drag. “Why?”
    “Words, Jordan.” She glanced up at him and smiled. “I envy you your words.”
    “I’ve noticed you have a