Witchcraft

He hadn't been back to her room since that one night they had spent together. For the hundredth time Kimberly considered that fact. Was he truly playing the gentleman or was there more to it? Perhaps he hadn't found her as physically satisfying as she had found him. Kimberly's fingers closed tightly around an awning pole and she stood looking out in the darkness. Before her was a section of shadowy garden, and beyond that the rock wall she had been forbidden to pass. In the distance the building that held the fermentation tanks loomed in the darkness. The acres of grapes stretched out on all sides, gliding over gentle hills beneath a pale moon. It was a lovely, prosperous, peaceful setting. Kimberly wondered how it differed from the kind of lifestyle Cavenaugh had lived before he had returned home.
    "Isn't it a little cold out here, Kim?" She whirled at the sound of Starke's familiar, gravelly voice and smiled at him. She had decided she liked this strange, aloof man, even though she couldn't quite figure him out. "I needed some fresh air. I'll come back inside in a few minutes," she told him. "Having a good time, Starke?"
    "I'm not much for cocktail parties," he murmured blandly. "Neither am I. Is Cavenaugh ?"
    "There's a lot you don't know about him yet, isn't there?" Surprised by the question, Kimberly shook her head. "Sometimes I think I know him.
    Other .... " She let the sentence drift off into the darkness. "He feels the same way about you, I think. Human nature." Kimberly slid him an amused glance. "You're a student of human nature?" Starke held up the glass in his hand. "It's the whiskey. Brings out my intellectual qualities, as I was just explaining to Cavenaugh ."
    "Fascinating. What other observations have you got on the subject?"
    "Of you and Cavenaugh ?
    Just the obvious, I guess."
    "Which is?"
    "That you're right for each other," Starke explained. "He needs you, Kim."
    "I don't know, Starke," she replied gently. "He has so many other things and people in his life--the winery, his duty to his family. So much. Why would he need me?"
    "You can keep those things from taking over his whole life. You can give him a separate world where he can relax and be alone with someone who puts him first." She stirred uneasily. "Maybe that's what I want, too, Starke. Someone who can put me first in his life."
    "You don't think Cavenaugh can do that?"
    "How can any man in his position do that?" she asked helplessly. "You still don't know him very well. Give him a chance, Kim. And-" Starke hesitated and then finished bluntly "-try not to be too hard on him on the occasions when you don't understand him completely. He's only a man." Kim's lips lifted in a teasing smile. "So are you. Are you sure you're qualified to explain the species to me?" Starke took a long swallow of whiskey. "Probably not, but I guess I felt obliged to try." Instantly Kim softened.
    "You're very loyal to Cavenaugh , aren't you?"
    "He saved my life a long time ago. Later on I was able to return the favor. That sort of thing builds a certain bond between two people."
    "How did he save your life?"
    Kim demanded with a slight frown. "It's not important now," Starke said, shifting with an uneasiness that told Kim it was a subject he wished he hadn't brought up for discussion. "I had gotten myself into a messy situation in the Middle East. I was trying to make contact with someone and got caught in the middle of a riot. Cavenaugh had also gotten trapped on the street. All hell broke out and, being the nearest Americans in the vicinity, we got mistaken for devils by the local crowd. I found myself up against a wall, literally. And then Dare arrived. He knew someone in the neighborhood with whom he'd done business. That association gave him enough clout to get me free from the mob. By the time everyone figured out that his connections shouldn't be allowed to stand in the way of a little mob vengeance, we were clear. Dare used his contacts to pull some strings and got us both out of the country about two steps ahead of the full-scale war that broke out a day later." Kimberly drew a deep breath. "I had no idea the import-export business could be so, uh, volatile."
    "It had its moments," Starke reflected, lifting his glass again. He stared into the whiskey for a few seconds, as if seeing something Kimberly couldn't.
    "Especially the way Dare ran things." Kimberly couldn't be sure she'd heard those last few words. Her voice sharpened. "When did you save his