She peeked at him, but he seemed remote now, unapproachable. With a faint grin, she turned and started toward the steps.
“I’ll be in Montana looking at Beefmaster bulls for a few days next week,” he said unexpectedly. “And at the end of the month, I’ll be headed for Australia. I’ll bring you back something pretty from there.”
“You’re doing a lot of traveling,” she said quietly. “Will you be in Australia long?” she asked, sounding miserable because she was.
He wished he wasn’t going all of a sudden. He studied her face. “I know a man up in the Northern Territory who’s experimenting with some new Indian cattle, crossbreeding them with shorthorns. I’ve been invited to spend a month over there getting familiar with the operation. It’s something I’m interested in trying here, so I’ve accepted, and Gene’s going to run things while I’m away, despite the fact that I had to browbeat him into it. I can’t spare the time, but I need to see about expanding the operation.”
“A whole month away?” she murmured, trying not to let him see how disappointed she felt.
“Yes. But not for a few weeks yet.” He smiled. “Don’t borrow things to brood about. Live one day at a time.”
“That’s easy to say,” she sighed.
“You’ll get the hang of it.” He put a fresh cigarette in his mouth and lit it. “Watch your speed.”
She nodded. One last glance at his face was all she got before Jason turned and went back to the swing to sit down. When she pulled out of the driveway, he was still sitting there. By the time she got home, she wondered if she might have dreamed the whole interlude. But her mouth was swollen from his kisses and her breasts ached from the gentle crush of his chest. Kate walked in feeling on air, and only barely managed to camouflage her budding emotions from her mother’s eagle eye. She didn’t want to share her secret just yet. She didn’t want Mary to know what had happened. But life had suddenly taken on new meaning, and she felt alive as she never had before.
THE FIRST TWO outfits that Kate designed had been cut, and sewn, and Dessie Cagle had them sitting on a mannequin the next day in the sample room when Kate got to work.
Dessie beamed at her, and the designer, Sandy, laughed at the expression on her face.
“There you go,” Sandy mused, one hand on her ample hip. Her salt-and-pepper hair was elegantly coiffed, and she wore a simple blue pantsuit. “What do you think? The first samples with the Kathryn of Texas label.”
“Almost,” Dessie added. “The labels were supposed to come by UPS, but they’re late.”
Kate sighed over the sky blue and cream combinations, a heavy silver-toned concho belt linking the bottom to its blouson top. “Imagine,” she shook her head, astonished. “That’s all mine.”
“Well, not quite,” Sandy said slowly. “Kate, there are a couple of changes in the darts, because of production time. I hope you don’t mind,” she added, and she showed Kate the minor alterations.
“Oh, that’s no problem,” Kate said, and meant it. “Mr. Rogers had said already that there might have to be a change here and there. We learned compromise in design school,” she grinned. “I don’t do these in concrete.”
“Thank God, she’s not going to be a prima donna,” Sandy gushed, dancing Dessie around the room. She glanced at Kate with a rueful smile. “Our last new designer lasted one week. She’d designed us a skirt with eight set-in pockets and sixteen belt loops. We had to alter the design, and we even tried to compromise because it would have cost more to make it than we could have sold it for. Our little designer raised the roof, threatened to sue us individually and collectively, and in her fury overturned a buggy of scraps on one of the quality control ladies.” She shook her head. “I don’t guess you heard about it out on the floor?”
Kate pursed her lips. “Actually, we all knew about it, and I decided then and there that if I ever sold a design I’d bite off my tongue before I’d argue about production changes. Am I still loved?”
Sandy hugged her warmly. “Of course you are! Now. How are you coming with that new slant bodice on your blouson...?”
Kate pulled out her sketchbook and laid it on the desk to show her boss. But while she was talking, her eyes kept darting to the outfit on the mannequin. Kathryn of Texas. Now she had a label. And she was going to make it one to be proud of.
Mary had lunch with her in the canteen, and spent most of the half hour groaning over the repairs they had to get through. Some of the cuts were farmed out to a division of the company in the Caribbean, where labor was less expensive. But when they came back in, some of them didn’t make it through quality control and had to be taken through the sewing line again.
“Those repairs are never going to stop,” Mary sighed as she finished her ham sandwich and washed it down with a swallow of canteen coffee in a Styrofoam cup. She rested her tired arms on the polished yellow finish of the long table they were sharing with a few other scattered sewing hands. “I think my body is growing to my machine.”
“God forbid,” Kate laughed. “There, there, I’ll get rich and support you.”
“Promises, promises.” Mary stretched, looking older than ever in the orange slacks and patterned matching top she’d made. Orange really wasn’t her mother’s color, but Kate hadn’t been able to talk her out of the fabric she’d made them from.
“You’d look good in white,” Kate told her mother.
“Sure. Covered with lint in camouflage and khaki shades and smeared with machine oil,” her mother agreed dryly. “Any other helpful comments you care to make?”
“Why don’t you make eyes at that new mechanic,” came the quick comment. “He’s about your age and dashing....”
“And the only thing he’s ever said to me was, ‘Hand me my screwdriver.’ No, thanks. He’s got a wart on his nose.”
“Maybe he was a frog and somebody kissed him,” Kate suggested.
Mary gave her a hard glare. “I have to work over today,” she said. “Do you want to wait for me or get a ride home?”
“I want to wait until the truck comes in from Dallas and see if it’s got my buttons and lace,” Kate told her. “They’re a day late already. I need to check them against the fabric and make sure they look the way I want them to.”
“You picky designers,” Mary chided as she got up. “You’ll be standing in a retail store, complaining about the way they stick on the price tags.”
“Oh, to design clothes so fancy that they wouldn’t have price tags,” Kate sighed.
Mary just grimaced and left her there. Kate sipped her coffee, her eyes going blankly out the window at the blue skies. She wondered if Jason was still out with the men, and decided that probably he was. Roundup seemed to go on forever. Tempers got worse as it went along and she didn’t imagine that she was going to see him for several days. That was vaguely worrying, because he’d be going to Montana next week, and it was already Thursday. Her mind went back to the way he’d kissed her. She smiled, going off into a daydream where she was a famous designer and Jason was her husband, and he was accompanying her to a grand show in New York during one of the market weeks. She’d glitter, and he’d be so proud of her. She’d be hailed on the street in her famous finery, and Jason would accompany her to parties....
She blinked. Jason wouldn’t be at any of those parties for the simple reason that he didn’t approve of her designing aspirations. He still thought a woman belonged in the bedroom or the kitchen, and he wasn’t likely to change overnight.
A part of her mind kept asking why