"Don't be afraid of me, little girl," he murmured against her ear. "I'm not trying to seduce you."
She blushed, swallowing nervously, and she felt his deep, soft laughter vibrate against her. Over the thin cotton shirt, her small hands pressed against the warm muscles of his chest.
His mouth, slightly parted, caressed her high cheekbone, the soft line of her jaw, her chin. "Unbutton it," he murmured absently.
"W...what?" she managed, drowning in new sensations.
"My shirt," he breathed at the corner of her mouth.
Her slender hands curled against him. "I...I can't!" she whispered shakily.
"Don't you want to touch me, little innocent?" he asked quietly. "You did that night in the pool—until you realized what you were doing."
"Clint, must you...!" she moaned
"Hush," he whispered, his mouth moving until it was poised just above hers, so close that his warm, smoky breath mingled with hers. His hands moved on her face to tilt her chin up. "I need your mouth now, little girl, under mine, soft and warm and sweet."
Her eyelids opened briefly so that she could see him, and the look on his face made her tremble. "Clint..." she whispered tremulously.
"Tell me you want it," he whispered huskily.
A sob caught in her throat. "Oh, Clint...!"
His lips brushed against hers in a slow, unbearably tender tasting kiss that was everything she dreamed it could be. Vaguely she felt his fingers slide under her head to cup it, felt him stiffen as he began, ever so gently to deepen the kiss until it grew suddenly from a tiny spark to a bellowing flame between them.
A gasp broke from her lips at the fury of it, and her hands trembled as they went up to clutch at the broad shoulders above her. Clint. This was Clint, who taught her to ride, who bullied her, who broke her young heart that unforgettable summer— who was teaching her a lesson in ardor that nothing would ever erase from her mind or her heart. Clint, who was...loving her...!
All at once, he tore his mouth from hers and looked down at her with eyes that seemed to go up in green smoke.
One lean finger traced the soft, slightly swollen curve of her mouth in a lazy, tangible silence. "Margaretta Leigh," he whispered, his eyes sketching every line of her face. "What you know about love-making could be written on the head of a pin."
She jerked her eyes down to his chest. "I never pretended to be sophisticated," she said tightly. "I'm sorry if I disappointed you. May I get up now?"
"You didn't disappoint me," he said quietly, tilting her reluctant face up to his.
An irritating mist blurred him in her sight, and she hated the burr in her throat. “I don't know anything...!" she mumbled miserably.
"It makes for a hell of a change," he told her, and smiled patiently down at her. "I'm used to good-time girls who know everything, not sweet little innocents who need teaching."
Involuntarily, her fingers went up to touch the hard, firm mouth, feeling its sensuous contours. He kissed her fingers absently, his own going to the top buttons of his shirt to snap them open. He caught her searching hand and moved it down inside the opening, against the warm, slightly damp firmness of bronzed muscles and curling black hair.
With a gasp, she jerked her hand away as if it had been burned by the brief contact with his body.
His dark brows drew together, his eyes narrowed. "My God, is even that too intimate for you?" he growled. "You damned little icicle, do you think the touch of those slender young hands, untutored as they are, could send a man into a web of uncontrollable passion?"
She flinched at the anger in his deep voice. He rolled away from her to sit up, curbed violence in the way he put a cigarette between his lips and lit it.
"Put your boots on, little miss purity," he said roughly, "and I'll see you safely home with your honor intact."
"Clint, I'm sorry, please don't...!" she began tearfully.
"You heard me." He got to his feet, making a swipe for his hat on the ground and slamming it on his head. He moved through the underbrush to the horses, leaving her to follow.
She tugged her boots on over the damp socks, fighting tears, and blindly made her way to the little mare. She swung into the saddle, refusing to even look his way. She turned her mount and kicked her velvety flanks, startling her into a gallop. "Maggie...!" Clint called after her.
She leaned over Melody's neck, her fingers clinging to the soft mane, and urged her on recklessly. She wanted nothing more than to get away from him, and in a haze of pure panic, she forced the mare into a run.
It happened with incredible speed. One minute she was firmly in control. The next, she caught a glimpse of blue sky, a glimpse of green grass, and her body came into shuddering contact with the hard ground.
She was vaguely aware of a voice calling her, of a touch that was none too gentle. She was too winded to answer, and her head hurt. She moaned as she opened her eyes and the sky, along with Clint's dark, tight face, came into blurry focus above her.
"You damned little fool!" he thundered at her, and the look in his eyes was frightening.
"I...fell," she managed in a winded whisper.
"And it's too damned bad you didn't break your stupid neck," he growled mercilessly. "I just may do it for you. Where do you hurt?"
Her lips trembled shakily. "My... head," she murmured.
His hands ran over her helpless body, feeling surely for breaks. His face was lined as she'd never seen it, emphasizing his age, and there was a pallor around his mouth that hinted of strain. "M...Melody?" she got out.
"She's all right," was the terse reply. "No thanks to you," he added.
That was the proverbial straw. Tears began to flow down her cheeks in agony, her chest rising and falling jerkily with suppressed sobs.
"If you cry, so help me, I'll hit you, Maggie," he threatened darkly.
"You...big bully!" she wept. "I hate you!"
"That's no news." His arms went under her knees and her back, lifting her gently against him. "If I put you on Melody, can you hang on until we get home?"
"Yes," she replied doggedly. She'd hang on until hell froze over, just to spite him.
"We'll go slow," he said quietly, easily lifting her onto the small mare and making sure she had the reins firmly in hand. "Can you make it?"
She glared down at him with fierce green eyes. "You can bet on it," she said icily.
He ignored the anger, and the ice, and swung into the saddle himself. "Let's go."
It was the longest ride she could ever remember, and she was bathed in sweat when they reached the ranch house. Clint reached up for her just as she swayed dizzily in the saddle and carried her upstairs yelling for Emma as he went.
"What in the world...?" Emma asked in concern.
"Annie Oakley fell off," Clint said roughly. "Stay with this stupid child while I call Dr. Brown."
"I hope you trip and fall down the stairs!" Maggie called after him tearfully, wetness burning her eyes as she lay panting and disheveled, sore and miserable on the coverlet of her bed.
Emma sat down beside her and smoothed the wisps of hair out of her eyes. "Oh, my poor baby," she cooed, frowning in quiet empathy. "Does it hurt much?"
She began to cry, burying her face in Emma's apron. "I hate him," she sobbed. "Oh, I hate him, I..."
"I know," Emma said gently. "I've always known. Men can be so very blind, Maggie, and so hurtful. That one more than most. I've never known him to care about a woman. It's as if he's afraid of any deep emotional involvement. Even Lida— that was a physical thing, you know."
“Everything... with him is...physical," she wept.
"His father loved his mother deeply," Emma recalled, gently smoothing the dark waving hair on her knee. "But Mrs. Ray-gen was never able to return that love, even though she was fond of him. Perhaps the age difference was really too much. But Clint sensed that lack of balance in his parents' marriage, and it affected him. Love is a word he doesn't understand, my darling," she sighed. "I'm sorry it's taken y
ou so many years, and so much heartache, to learn it."
"Oh, Emma, so am I," she whispered.
Six
Dr. Brown wanted to see her immediately, and she went reluctantly with Clint to his office to spend over an hour being X-rayed and probed and checked from head to toe. It was a mild concussion, and she was sent home with orders to stay in bed for at least twenty-four hours and for Clint to contact him if there were any nausea or unusual sleepiness.
"I'm sorry for the inconvenience," Maggie said tersely on the way home, drowsy already from the office visit and emotional stress. “I’ll make up my work."
He took a long draw from his cigarette. "No sweat, Maggie," he said.
She leaned her head against the window, closing her eyes. She was already asleep when they got back home, not even aware of being carried upstairs and tucked in her bed. Not aware of the tall, solemn figure that sat quietly watching her for the better part of an hour with an intensity that would have shaken her if she'd seen it.
The next day, she was sore and stiff, but the headache had eased, and some of the heartache with it. Another week and she could go back to the apartment, and Janna, and a new job, and leave all this behind. All this. Clint. Clint! Her eyes closed miserably. This time, she'd have to leave him behind for good. No more trips to the ranch, ever, not even for a few days in the summer, and Emma wouldn't understand and neither would Janna. There'd have to be a very good excuse by then. Maybe if she had an overseas job...
"You'll have premature wrinkles if you keep scowling like that," Clint remarked from the doorway.
She spared him a quick glance, noting that he was dressed in a neat gray business suit instead of his jeans, and his dark head was bare. He looked more like a businessman than a rancher—and devilishly attractive.
"Going away, I hope?" she asked sweetly, concentrating on her cold hands.
"For a few days," he replied, a mocking smile touching his hard mouth. "I thought that might cheer you up."
"It's doing wonders for my disposition," she agreed.
There was a long pause before he shouldered away from the door and came to stand beside the bed, his eyes dark green and strangely solemn as he looked down at her.
"Head better?" he asked.
She nodded. "Lots, thanks.”
"Look at me."
The quiet note in his deep voice brought her eyes up to meet his in a silence laced with tension.
"I want to know," he said, "why you were afraid to touch me that day by the stream."
She felt and hated the color that warmed her cheeks. "It's over, can't we just...?"
"Hell, no, we can't!" he shot back, his whole look threatening. He sat down beside her on the bed. "Tell me."
She pressed back against the pillows in an effort to escape any physical contact with him. "It's just a game with you," she said quietly. "You know a lot about women and you can tie me in knots without really trying, and you enjoy taunting me with it. But I'm not a toy, Clint, I'm a human being, and I don't like being... used!"
He stared at her without any expression at all in his dark face. "You thought I was...playing, Maggie?" he asked.
Her eyes riveted themselves on the silken knot of his tie. "I should never have come," she said softly, regret in her tone. "That summer I made a fool of myself is still there, like a curtain you like to pull down often enough that I'll never forget what I did. Don't you think," she asked bitterly, "that I've been punished enough, Clint?"
"I'll agree with you on one point," he said curtly. "You shouldn't have come. Why I let myself be talked into it..."
"I'll be gone in another week," she reminded him.
"Back to what?" he asked then, his eyes narrow and assessing. "Back to the two-timing boyfriend? Back to your old job in his office?"
Her lower lip trembled. "Where I go and what I do is none of your business, Clint Raygen!"
His smile was mocking. "Thank God," he replied.
She sighed heavily. "You are, without a doubt, the most maddening man I've ever known!"
"So you're going to run out on me," he taunted. “Leave me here with no secretary and no prospects of finding one before you leave."
"You said two weeks," she reminded him narrowly.
"Make it four."
"Clint..."
"Just until Janna comes, little girl," he said quietly.
She avoided his eyes. "You don't want me here."
"No, I don't," he said, suddenly serious, "and remind me one day to tell you why—in about five years."
"Is it going to take that long to make up an answer?" she asked pertly.
He studied her face for a long time. "No," he said finally, "but it looks like it's going to take that long for you to grow up enough to understand the answer."
"Will you still be around then, you poor old doddering thing?" she asked in mock innocence.
His hands caught her face and held it in a vise-like grip on the pillow. "You damned little irritating cat, will you stop throwing my age at me?''
"Turn about's fair play," she said sweetly. "You take every opportunity to remind me of mine."
"And you've never stopped to wonder why, have you?" he growled.
She pushed against his hard chest. "Don't you have a plane or bus or train or something to catch?" she muttered.
His lips made a thin line as he glared down at her. "Can I trust you not to pull any more harebrained stunts until I get back?"
"Harebrained?" she replied hotly. "And just who upset me in the first place...!"
“If you hadn't panicked while I was making love to you..."
"You were not...!” she gasped.
His thumb pressed against her lips, stopping the indignant protest. "I would have been," he said quietly, "if you hadn't chickened out."
Her eyes flashed up at him. She jerked her face aside. "You flatter yourself that I'd have let you!" she returned.
"Or Philip?" he asked quietly. His eyes narrowed at the color in her cheeks. "I don't think I've ever known a woman as chaste as you are. You're so damned afraid of anything physical, Maggie, that I thought it was coldness for a long time, but it isn't. You're afraid to let go with a man."
"Am I?" she returned calmly, careful not to let him see how close to the truth he was. "Or is it soothing to your pride to think I am?"
"You little brat!" he growled, and, leaning forward, he caught her face in long, merciless fingers, spearing them into the hair at her temples to hold her. "Was it too close to the truth, Maggie?"
Her hands went up against his chest, pushing at it helplessly. "Let go of me! You think you know so much...!"
The fingers holding her head suddenly released it to catch her wrists like traps and slam them up over her head, pinning them to the bed.
There was something strangely ruthless in the way he looked down at her struggling, twisting body, in the burning half-smile that flamed on his chiseled mouth. "Fight me, wildcat," he murmured in a dangerous, low tone. "I love it when you fight...!"
She twisted instinctively, but his body went down to half cover hers, pressing her slenderness into the mattress, leaving only her eyes free to struggle.
The look on his dark face frightened her almost as much as the green fires that burned deep in his eyes, as he looked down at her with something like triumph. His glittery gaze shifted to her parted, trembling mouth.
“Don't!" she protested shakily as his dark head moved down.
He only laughed, softly, confidently. “Try being a woman instead of a cowering child," he said against her soft mouth as he took it.
An outraged cry broke from her under the punishing force of the kiss. She was aware of struggling briefly, fighting him until she felt the sting of his teeth against her soft lips, until the warm, steely nearness burned through the bedclothes against her, until he forced her trembling mouth to part for him and taught her sensations she'd never been capable of feeling.
She began to relax involuntarily when his mouth eased its pressure
and became caressing, seductive, arousing. He released her wrists and his warm, long-fingered hands came down to cup her face, tilting it gently as he deepened the kiss in an intimacy she'd never shared with a man. A soft, barely audible protest broke from her.
"Not yet," he murmured deeply, his breath mingling with hers as he nipped sensuously at the soft contours of her mouth. "Kiss me back."
Her wet lashes opened lazily over misty, confused eyes, to find him staring back at her. He was so close that she could see the tiny lines around his eyelids, the dark eyebrows above them. Wonderingly, her fingers went up to trace them down to the hint of a frown that wrinkled his brow.
He drew back slowly, studying her. Her mouth was parted, her hair wild and disheveled, her eyes shimmering with mingled pleasure and awe.
"Beautiful little cat," he murmured, and his breath came heavily with the words. His hands slid into the thick tangle of hair at her ears, gently caressing. "Your eyes are like emeralds. I like the way you feel under me, Maggie."
Her lips parted as she tried to catch her breath, her heart racing under the warm crush of his chest. "You...hurt me," she whispered.
"That's what it's all about, little girl,” he said quietly. His mouth brushed hers tenderly. "You bit me," he whispered against the moist, bruised softness.
She sighed against the dragging brash of his warm mouth, drowning in pleasure. "You...you bit me back," she murmured.
He laughed softly. "With a vengeance. I was afraid I'd drawn blood," he mused, studying the braised little mouth so close under his. "I've never fought so damned hard for a kiss."
Her lips pouted up at him, her eyes clouding. "Well, don't think I enjoyed it!" she muttered.
"Didn't you, honey?" he asked deeply, and leaned down to tease her mouth with his in a heady, coaxing pressure that tore a moan from her throat as she raised up against him in a silent plea.
But he drew away and stood up in a smooth, graceful motion to bend a calculating gaze down at her. His dark hair was raffled, his mouth sensuous from the contact with hers. The silk tie was disarranged, and he looked altogether masculine and disturbing.
He turned away to straighten his tie and his hair in her mirror. "What are you going to do while I'm gone?" he asked carelessly.
Books By Diana Palmer Page 49