"Grown," Clint scoffed. "Twenty, and you've got all the answers, is that it?"
"But, Clint," Sarah cooed, "I'm just twenty-one, and you never fuss about me..."
"Shut up, Sarah," he said flatly.
"You'd never say that to me," Maggie told him. "I'd flatten you like a...!"
"Go to hell, Maggie,” Clint said with a hellish smile, and turning, drew Sarah along with him. "Get her home by midnight, Masterson," he called over his shoulder. “She turns into a pumpkin if you don't."
Masterson smiled at her. "Do you?" he asked, watching the emotions working on her wan face.
"I wish he would," she whispered hotly. "I don't need a big brother any more."
"I think you do." He folded his arms on the table and studied her. "I'm forty-two years old, little girl. And I'll guarantee that if Clint didn't know me personally, you'd never set foot outside this yard with me. But I don't have designs on you, and he knows that, too. I just need company, and it's very pleasant to have a conversation with someone who understands carbon dating and the lure of ancient tombs."
She smiled. "Thank you."
Both his heavy eyebrows went up.
"Thank you. Now, how would you like to hear about Pompeii?"
"Oh, I'd love it!" she replied, and settled down to listen, trying not to hear Clint's last angry words, trying to forget the hatred in his eyes...
The sale was over, the guests leaving, bare bones where the barbecued steer carcasses had been, when Maggie left with Masterson for the restaurant.
Clint had gone off with Sarah, and it was a blessed relief. She'd had about all the battle she could stomach for one day.
Over a nicely grilled steak, Masterson shared some of his journeys with her, smiling at the rapt expression on her young face as he described places she'd have given worlds to see.
"I've always wanted to see Stone-henge," she told him.
"Then why not go?" he asked. "Air fares aren't all that high, you know."
She smiled. "And I could always volunteer for a dig. It's just time. There never seems to be enough."
Something darkened his eyes for an instant. "I know. Don't let yours ran out before you do a few of the things you want to do, little girl."
She shrugged. "I've got plenty."
"No," he said softly, his eyes distant. "No, none of us has plenty."
It was midnight on the nose when Mas-terson pulled his rented car up in front of the ranch house.
"I enjoyed that so much," Maggie told him with a smile. "If you ever get to Columbus..."
"That's not on the books, little one," he said gently. His dark eyes smiled at her. "Thank you for keeping an old man company. Someday you'll understand how much it meant."
"Old man? You?" she asked incredulously.
He chuckled. "Now, that was a compliment. Goodnight, Margaretta Leigh."
"No goodnight kiss?" she asked saucily. "I think I'm insulted."
"You little minx..." He pulled her against his big, husky body and kissed her, hard and slow and with an expertise that was shattering. "Thank you, Maggie," he whispered, as he let her go.
"Goodnight," she told him, sliding reluctantly out of the car.
"Goodbye, honey," he replied softly. And in seconds, he was gone.
She stood watching the car's taillights as it wound around the driveway toward the highway, and for just an instant she wasn't in Florida at all. She was standing on the rains of an ancient civilization with the breeze stirring her hair and drams pounding in her blood. And he was there, too, but his name wasn't Masterson. She shivered. Another time, another place, those dark eyes had looked into hers and today in a few hours out of time his soul had reached out to touch hers. She felt ripples of emotion tingling through her taut body. How strange to meet and instinctively know all about him—as if in another life...
Five
"Come inside, little one."
She turned to meet Clint. He was still wearing his suit pants and his white shirt, but his tie and his jacket were gone. He looked dangerously attractive.
"I...I was just watching the car," she murmured as they went up the steps. The shiver went through her again and without thinking she slid her cold hand into Clint's, like a child seeking comfort. For just an instant his hand tensed. Then it curled, lean and hard, around hers and squeezed it.
"What's wrong, honey?" he asked.
She shook her head. "I felt...as if I'd known him somewhere before. And something was wrong, I felt it!"
"Deja vu?" he asked with a smile, leading her into the house, and then into his den.
She shrugged, dropping wearily down onto the sofa. "I guess. I don't know. It frightened me." She watched him pour a neat whiskey, drop ice into it, and toss it back. "Tell me about him."
Clint moved across the room and went down on one knee beside her, his darkening eyes almost on a level with her in the position. His hands caught hers where they lay in her lap.
"He's got cancer, honey," he said very gently. "There's nothing they can do for him, and from what he told me himself, he's got less than two more months."
A sob broke from her and tears rolled down her cheeks. "I like him," she murmured through a pale smile.
"So do I. A hell of a man, Masterson. I've known him most of my life." He took his handkerchief and mopped her eyes. "You know, he accomplished more in his forty-two years than most men do in a lifetime. He didn't waste a second of it. It's hard to grieve too much for a man like that."
She looked into his quiet eyes for a long time. "I...I can't picture you grieving for anyone,” she said softly.
“Can't you, honey?" He smiled at her, gently, his hand smoothing the hair away from her damp cheeks. "Do you still think I'm invulnerable?"
"I don't know." She studied his dark, quiet face for a long time. "I don't know very much about you at all. I...I didn't even know you liked country-western music."
"I like any kind of music. And storms, the wilder the better. And sensitive young women with liquid jade for eyes," he whispered deeply. "And if you weren't still cherishing that kiss Masterson gave you out in the car, I'd take your mouth and make you beg for mine, little girl."
She blushed to the roots of her hair, and tried to steady her breathing so that he wouldn't notice the effect those soft words had on her fragile emotions.
"I...I might not even...even like it," she replied, struggling for even a small surge of indignation to use against him.
"You've spent the past four years wondering how my mouth would feel on yours," he said quietly, his eyes biting into hers. "We both know that."
Shakily, she got to her feet and moved around him toward the door.
"When are you going to stop running from me?'' he asked, as her hand went to the doorknob.
"Goodnight, Clint," she replied, ignoring the question.
"Don't trip on your way to the nursery," he growled.
She could taste the bitterness in those harsh words, and it served him right to be thwarted. For pure conceit, he was unbeatable.
"Margaretta."
The breathless sound of her name on his lips, so strange, so unfamiliar, made her freeze. She turned to catch an expression on his face that she couldn't understand.
"Go riding with me tomorrow," he said gently. "I'll take you down to that little branch of the creek where you and Janna used to go wading."
She hesitated. "Why?" she asked.
"Maybe I want to get to know you again," he said carelessly.
"Did you ever know me?" she asked
him.
He shook his head. "I'm beginning to think I didn't. Will you come?"
She chewed on her lower lip. "If...if Brent isn't home, I will."
His eyes narrowed, a muscle in his jaw working. "Brent isn't coming back," he said tautly. "He called while you were out and asked me to ship his bull to Mississippi. He's on his way to Hong Kong."
"Oh." She turned away.
"Don't look so damned lost! My God, Irish, how man
y men does it take for you lately?" he growled hotly.
"What does it matter to you?" she shot back.
He still hadn't answered her when she went upstairs.
He was waiting for her at the breakfast table, a red knit shirt stretched across the broad expanse of his chest with bronzed flesh and curling dark hair just visible in the V-neck. His pale eyes searched hers for an instant before they dropped to the eggshell blue blouse over her blue jeans. They narrowed on the thin ribbon that bound her hair at the nape of her neck.
"Why did you drag your hair back like that?" he asked quietly.
"It gets in my eyes when I ride," she replied, taking her seat at the table.
"How do you want your eggs, sweet?" Emma called from the kitchen.
"None for me, Emma! Just coffee this morning," she called back.
"No appetite?" Clint chided.
She looked up into his eyes. "No," she said in a voice that sounded breathless even to her own ears.
Smiling, he studied her over the rim of his coffee cup. "No makeup?" he asked gently.
She watched the light catch the silver threads in his hair and make them burn. "I...I haven't put it on yet."
He held her eyes across the table, his face solemn. "Don't. I don't like the taste of it."
Her lips parted on a protest, but Emma came in with a steaming cup of coffee and Maggie gave it her wholehearted attention. It was a perfect morning for a lazy horseback ride. Even the sweltering heat was unnoticeable under the shade of the mammoth pecan trees in the sprawling orchard. Maggie never failed to be impressed with the orderly lines they'd been planted in so many years before.
"I wonder how old they are," she murmured absently.
"The trees?" Clint smiled. "Older than either one of us, that's a fact."
"Speak for yourself, Grandpa," she returned impishly.
He slanted a vengeful glance her way and pulled his hat low over his brow. "Dangerous ground, Maggie."
"I'm not afraid of you," she teased. "Your poor old bones are so brittle they'd probably break if you chased me."
He reined in his stallion and glared at her. "I think Brent had a point," he told her. "How about guns at fifty paces tomorrow morning?"
"Are you sure your hand's steady enough to hold a gun...?"
"Damn you!" he laughed.
She laughed back, and the years nearly fell away. "Race you to the meadow!" she called, and put her heels to Melody's flanks.
She thought she had him beat as they rode across the green pasture with its scattering of wildflowers and headed toward the woods. But before she could reach them, Clint passed her as if the small mare she rode was backing up. No one, she thought miserably, could beat him at this. He was a superb horseman, almost part of the horse he rode, and a study in masculine grace and power.
" Where've you been?" he asked as she reined up beside him. He paused in the act of lighting a cigarette to grin at her flushed, angry face. "Sore loser!"
She made a face at him. "Why do you always have to win?"
"It's my land," he replied nonchalantly.
Her eyes swung over the lush, grassy pasture to the fences far away in the distance, to the herds of cattle that looked like red and white dots. "It's beautiful," she murmured softly.
"You didn't always think so," he reminded her. "And you were right. Ranch life has its drawbacks, Maggie. There isn't much night life around here, much excitement. It can get pretty lonely."
"Is that how I strike you?" she asked with a wistful smile. "A city girl with a passion for nightclubs?"
He studied her narrowly over his cigarette. "Definitely a city girl. You always were."
She let her eyes follow the flight of a vivid yellow and black butterfly nearby. "I'm glad you know me so well."
There was an explosive silence. "If you hate the city so damned much, why do you live there?"
She flinched at the quiet fury in his voice. "What else could I do? All I know how to be is a secretary." She glared at him. "There aren't many jobs available for women cowhands, in case you've forgotten. Or is it," she added coldly, "that you just never noticed I wasn't a boy?"
His eyes twinkled with humor. "To tell the truth, honey, I never gave it much thought."
She touched the mare's flanks gently and urged her into a walk. "Thanks."
The path through the woods was wide enough for both horses to walk abreast— more a fire road than a trail. The peace was hypnotic, only broken by the soft swish of the pines in the breeze, the near-far sound of bubbling, soft-running water.
"This way," Clint said, turning his mount down a smaller, less clear path.
She followed him to what seemed to be a wall of underbrush. He stepped down out of the saddle and tied the stallion, motioning Maggie to tie the mare several yards beyond.
He held the branches back for her, and as she strode forward into the small clearing, it was suddenly like stepping back through time. The tiny stream where she and Janna once spent lazy summer afternoons wading and sharing dreams over a picnic lunch was there. As clear and sweet and sandy as ever.
"Watch where you walk," he cautioned her as he settled his tall form under a low-hanging oak. "I've had cattle mire down in that soft sand."
She glared at him as she sat down to pull off her socks and boots. "If I moo politely, will you haul me out?"
He grinned under the concealing brim of his hat, as he lay back with his hands under his head. "I might."
She waded into the clear stream, delighting at the feel of the cold water on her bare feet, the damp smell of sand and silt and sweet wildflowers along the banks.
"I used to come here when I was a boy," he remarked lazily. "I learned to swim just a few yards downstream where it widens out."
"And catch tadpoles and spring lizards, too, I'll bet."
"Nope. Just water moccasins," he replied.
She froze in her tracks. "In...here?" she asked.
"Sure. It used to be full of them."
Chills washed up her arms. She froze in the middle of the stream, warily looking around her. Suddenly every thin stick she saw was a hissing enemy.
"C...Clint? What do I do if I see one?" she asked.
"What did you used to do when you and Janna came here?"
"We never saw any."
"Pure luck," he remarked. He lifted the edge of his hat and peeked at her before he let it down again. "Well, Maggie, if you do see one, you'd better run like hell. It won't do a lot of good, of course, they're fast snakes and they've been known to chase people..."
She was sitting beside him with her boots and socks in hand before he finished the sentence.
He burst out laughing. "My God, I was teasing," he chuckled.
"You know how afraid I am of snakes," she muttered.
"After last summer, I've got a pretty good idea," he agreed.
She dried her feet with her socks, ignoring him.
"What did you do for amusement in Columbus?" he asked.
She wound one of the socks around her hand and stared at the diamond-sparkle on the water. She shrugged. "I spent most of my time digging up the backyard and planting things in the spring. In the summer, I liked to fish on the Chattahoochee. In the fall I'd go to the mountains with some of the other girls and watch the leaves turn. In the winter, I'd drive up to Atlanta to hear the symphony or watch the ballet." She studied the crumpled sock. "Dull things like that. I'll bet you can't stand classical music."
"In fact, I do," he said quietly. "Although my tastes run to the old masters— Dvorak, Debussy, Beethoven. I don't care for many contemporary compositions."
She stared at the hat over his face. "Sarah said you liked country-western."
"I do. And easy listening." His hand fished blindly in his shirt pocket for a cigarette. "I like art, too, little girl. I used to drive all the way in to Tallahassee for exhibits."
"When the King Tut exhibit was in..." she exclaimed.
"I saw it," he broke in. He removed the hat and toss
ed it to one side, while he lit a cigarette and looked up at her with eyes a darker green than the leaves on the tree overhead. "Let your hair down. I don't like it tied back like that."
"You just want it to flop in my eyes so I can't see," she pouted, but she loosened the ribbon all the same, and let the black waves fall gently to frame her face.
He reached out a long arm and his fingers caught a thick strand of it, testing the softness. "Long and thick and silky," he murmured quietly. "Black satin."
She couldn't seem to get her breath. Her eyes drifted to the tree trunk behind him. "Do...do you still like to hunt?" she asked breathlessly.
"Only venison," he murmured. "Your eyelashes are almost too long to be real, did you know that?"
She caught a shaky breath. "Clint, hadn't we ought to..."
"Ought to what, sweetheart?" he asked softly.
She met his quiet, searching gaze and lost the rest of her breath as her eyes widened with something like shock.
Without taking his eyes from her, he flipped his cigarette into the stream and began to draw her closer to him.
"Clint...!" she whispered fearfully, pressing her small hands against his broad chest as he leaned over her, easing her back into the dry leaves and pine straw that blanketed the hard ground.
His lean fingers touched her face, gently exploring it in a silence that throbbed with controlled emotion. "What are you afraid of?" he asked softly.
"You," she whispered shakily, trembling as his fingers lightly traced her nose, her high cheekbones, her mouth.
"Why, Maggie?" he asked, his gaze dropping intently to her mouth as his thumb rubbed across it, parting it, testing its silky softness.
Her heart raced under the soft, sweet pressure, and her eyes closed helplessly. The silence was as pure as dawn, broken only by the gentle swish of the tree limbs with their long gray beards of Spanish moss—and the erratic sound of her own breathing.
His lean fingers speared into the soft hair at her temples, holding her flushed face firmly as he bent; and she felt his firm, chiseled mouth touch her closed eyelids. His broad chest eased gently down against her in a contact that sent a shudder of pure pleasure rippling through her slen-derness.
Books By Diana Palmer Page 48