“No, you didn't, did you?" she asked bitterly. "You wanted to take the hide off Lida, but she wasn't here and I was. Maybe things will look up now, since she's coming back."
"Maggie, not like this, for God's sake!" he growled as she started for the door. "I want to tell you...!" .
"The score's even, Clint, you said so," she told him from the porch, her eyes accusing. "There's nothing more you can say that I want to hear. You said it all last night."
His eyes narrowed as if in pain, his gaze searching, quiet, as if he'd never seen her before and couldn't get enough of her face. "No, honey," he said gently. "I didn't say enough. Maggie..."
A loud blare from a car horn coming up the driveway interrupted him, and she turned and started down the steps with a burst of relief that made her slender shoulders slump. "Tell Emma goodbye," she called over her shoulder, "and tell Janna I'll write!"
He didn't answer her, his face dark and still, his eyes riveted to the slender form as it crawled into the cab and the door closed. He watched her go, his eyes haunted and tortured as the cab slowly faded to a yellow speck in the distance.
Emma came out onto the porch behind him, drying her hands on the white apron.
"I've got breakfast," she said gently.
He didn't answer her, his eyes blank, his face drawn.
"You wanted her to go," Emma reminded him. "That's what you told me last night."
He turned and went into the house, into his den, closing the door behind him firmly. With a sigh, Emma went back to the kitchen, idly wondering how she was going to explain any of this to Janna.
Later, sitting wearily on the bus to Miami, Maggie read Duke Masterson's letter for the third time and said a silent thank you to the big dark man for this way out. She couldn't have borne going back to the apartment just yet, facing Janna and the inevitable questions. The wound was too raw, too new to be probed just now. In a few days, a few weeks...she gazed lovingly at the ticket that promised escape. It was a reprieve from too much hurting, too much pain. Philip, then Clint...especially Clint. She closed her eyes against the bitter memory. Would she ever forget how he'd humbled her; would she ever heal from the crippling blow her pride had suffered?
Her eyes turned to the window, to the palmettos and pines on the horizon, the occasional home tucked away in a nest of trees. Things were going to be awkward from now on. She wouldn't be able to spend holidays with Janna ever again if they meant the ranch and Clint. It would be worse when he flew into town on business and came to see his sister. She sighed wearily. Perhaps it would be better if she looked for a job in Atlanta and moved away from her childhood friend. That would be painful, too. But maybe, in the long run, it would be for the best.
She leaned her head back against the seat and closed her tired eyes. It seemed so long since she'd slept, since she'd felt any peace at all. Her mind was full of Clint, of the old days.
It seemed so long ago that she and Clint had sat on the porch swing together and talked about horses. Or went for long rides in the forest as she listened to his tales about the early days of Florida's exploration when canoes sailed down the Suwan-nee River on scouting trips.
He made the Sunshine State come alive for her. She could see the proud Spanish conquistadores tramping through the underbrush by the river. She could hear the drums of the proud, fierce Seminoles, who were never conquered by the United States government despite a series of three wars they fought between 1817 and 1858. She could picture the tall sailing ships that departed Florida's sandy coast, bound for the Indies or South America.
She sighed. Clint had liked her as a child. They'd been friends. But now he was an enemy, and all her tears wouldn't change that. Not after what he'd done to her. Her eyes closed with pain at the memory. Had that really been necessary, she wondered, the humiliation he'd caused? Why should it have upset him so, what she said while they were out riding, about being ashamed of what he could make her feel?
She shook her head idly. If he'd wanted to shame her, he'd accomplished that. But what puzzled her was the look on his face the next morning, the dark, hungry look in the green eyes that watched her leave the ranch. Had it been guilt in his eyes—or pain?
Her brows came together. She wondered what Janna would think when she got there; or would Clint even tell his sister the whole story? She hadn't mentioned that she was going to Miami. Nobody knew she had the cruise ticket. Clint and Emma had simply assumed that she was going home to Columbus.
Well, what difference did it make, she wondered, her eyes on the cloudy landscape outside the tinted bus window as the sunset made lovely flames in the sky. How quickly the day had passed, and soon the Miami skyline would come into view on the horizon. She shifted restlessly on the comfortable seat. Miami. Would any of them worry besides Emma and Janna? Well, she would mail Janna a postcard from Greece or Crete or wherever she landed. Janna and Emma, she corrected.
Eight
She got off the bus in Miami and took a cab to Miami Beach where Collins Avenue boasted almost wall to wall hotels. She gaped like a country girl at the sights and sounds of Miami Beach at night, drinking in the salt sea smell, the glorious fairyland colors of the night lights. There was no parking space available at the hotel she chose, so the driver let her out across the busy street and lifted out her suitcase.
"Watch the traffic, lady," he cautioned as he handed her the change from her fare.
She nodded and smiled. "Awesome, isn't it?" she laughed.
"Not after you've been here a while." He grinned as he drove away.
She lifted the suitcase, still smiling as she surveyed the bigness and richness of this man-made Mecca. In just hours, she'd be on that cruise ship heading out into the Atlantic. Leaving behind her worries, her heartaches, her obligations, just for a little while. She took a deep breath of warm sea air. Thank you, Duke Masterson, she said silently, feeling a twinge of sadness that the big, dark man wouldn't be somewhere in those ancient ruins waiting for her.
She started toward the hotel across the street, her mind far away, her eyes unseeing. She didn't notice the powerful car pulling away from the curb with a squealing of tires just a few meters away. Not until she felt the sudden impact and everything whirled down into a painful sickening blackness....
Sound came and went in vague snatches, from a great distance.
"...Several ribs broken, internal injuries. She's not responding."
"She's got to! My God, do something, anything! I don't give a damn what it costs!"
"We're going to do all we can, of course. But...she's not trying, you see. To live, I mean. The will to live can make the difference in cases like these."
The voices faded away, and then one of them came back, deep and slow, and she was dimly aware of fingers curling around hers, holding them, caressing them.
"Running out on me?" the voice growled. "Is that what you're trying to do, Maggie, run some more?"
Her eyes fluttered, her brows contracted.
Her head moved restlessly on the cool pillow.
"I...don't want...to," she whispered half-consciously.
"Don't want to what?"
"Live," she managed. "Hurts...too much."
"Dying's going to hurt more," came the short reply. "Because if you go, I'm coming, too. You won't escape me that way. So help me, God, I'll follow you! Do you hear me, Maggie?"
Her head tossed. "Leave me...alone!" she whispered painfully.
"Why the hell should I? You won't leave me alone."
The fingers tightened, and she felt or thought she felt a surge of emotion flowing through them, warming her, touching her, gently holding her to life.
She licked her dry, cracked lips. "Don't...let go," she murmured, clenching her hand around those strong fingers.
"I'll never let go, little girl. Hang on, sweetheart. Just hang on."
"Hang...on," she breathed, and the darkness came again.
The voices came and went again, now droning, now arguing. A feminine one joined in, ple
ading, soft. It was like a strange symphony of sound, mingled with the clanging of metallic objects, the coolness of sheets, the feel of warm water and cool hands. And that one voice...
"Don't give up now," it commanded, and she felt the strong fingers gripping hers. "You can do it if you try. Just hang on!"
She took short, sharp breaths and they hurt terribly. She grimaced with the effort. "Oh, it...hurts!" she moaned.
"I know. Oh, God, I know. But keep trying, Maggie. It'll get better. I promise."
So she kept trying, fading in and out of life until the sounds became familiar, until one day she opened her eyes and saw the white sheets and smelled the medicinal smell and saw sunlight filtered through the blinds across her bed.
Blinking, her lips raw, she looked up into a pale, haggard face with emerald green eyes and disheveled dark hair.
She frowned, numb from painkillers and sleep. "Hospital?" she managed weakly.
Clint drew a deep, heavy breath. "Hospital," he agreed. "Still hurt?"
She swallowed. "Could I...water?"
He got up from his chair and poured water and ice into a glass from the plastic pitcher by the bedside. He sat on the edge of the bed to lift her head so that she could sip the ice water.
"Oh, that's so good," she almost wept, "so good!"
"Your throat feels like sawdust, I imagine."
"Like...desert sand," she corrected, wincing as he laid her back on the pillows. “Am...am I broken somewhere?”
"A few ribs," he said.
The tone in his voice disturbed her. "What else?"
He ran a lean hand through his thick, dark hair. "You took a hell of a blow, Maggie," he said quietly.
"Clint, what else?" she cried.
"Your back, honey," he said gently.
With a feeling of horror she tried to move her legs...and couldn't.
"Oh, my God..." she whispered.
"Don't panic," Clint cautioned, brushing the damp hair away from her temples. "Don't panic. It isn't broken, just bruised. Your doctors say you'll be walking again in weeks."
Her eyes opened wide, searching his desperately. "You wouldn't...lie to me?"
His fingers brushed her cheek gently. "I'll never lie to you. It won't be easy, but you'll walk. All right?"
She relaxed. "All right."
"How did they...find you?" she asked.
A ghost of a smile touched his chiseled mouth. "Masterson's letter, in your purse. It had your name and the ranch's address on it, remember?"
She nodded, toying with the sheet. "I was...thinking about the cruise, when the car..."
"You might have told me where you were going," he remarked.
She flushed, turning her eyes away.
He drew a harsh breath. "On second thought," he said gruffly, "why the hell should you? God knows I didn't give you any reason to think I'd give a damn, did I, Maggie?"
She still couldn't answer him, the memories coming back full force now, hurting, hurting...!
"Don't," he said gently. "Maggie, don't look back. It's going to take every ounce of strength you've got to get back on your feet. Don't waste it on me."
She breathed unsteadily. "You're right about that," she murmured tightly. "It would be a waste."
"I'm glad you agree," he replied, without a trace of emotion in his deep, slow voice.
She studied her pale hands. "Why did you come?"
"Because Emma and Janna wouldn't rest until I did," he growled. "Why else?"
"Well, I'll live," she said bitterly. "And I'll walk. And I don't need any help from you, so why don't you go home?"
"Not without you."
She gaped at him, but there was no hint of expression on his dark face.
"The minute I leave," he mused, "you'd be up to your ears in self-pity."
"I wouldn't either!"
He reached out and caught her cold, nervous fingers in his. "I'll let you go the day you can walk away from me under your own power," he said. "That ought to give you some incentive, hellcat."
Hellcat. She remembered, without wanting to, the last time he'd called her that, pinning her down, holding her, hurting her, his hard mouth creating sensations that washed over her like fire.
“You're blushing, Maggie," he teased gently.
She jerked her hand away and her eyes with it. "I can go home...to the apartment," she faltered.
"Not on your life, honey," he said, and she recognized the willful, stubborn note in his voice. "Not if I have to tie you. Janna's home on vacation for the next three weeks, and I'll be damned if I'll leave you in an apartment alone and helpless."
"I'm not helpless!"
"No?" he taunted, his eyes sliding down her body.
She hit the covers with an impotent little fist. "I hate you!"
"As long as you're not indifferent," he chuckled. "Hatred can be exciting, little
girl." Her narrow, flashing pale eyes burned into his. "Just you wait until I get back on my feet!"
He only smiled, leaning back in the chair, the tautness, the age draining out of him with the action. "I'll try, baby."
Something in the way he said it made her blush.
Time passed quickly after that. The pain lingered on for a few days, especially when they cut down on the painkillers, but Clint was always there, daring her to whimper about it. They gave her over to the physical therapists, and he was there too, watching, waiting, taunting. She worked twice as hard, focusing her weak muscles to do what she wanted them to, using the violent emotion she felt like a whip. She'd walk again. She would, if for no other reason than to prove to that jade-eyed devil she could!
Finally the day came when she was released from the hospital, when medical science had done all it could. She gazed over the back of the cab seat toward the fading skyline of Miami as they reached the airport. And she'd never even gotten to see the cruise ship.
The flight home seemed to take no time at all. Clint relaxed as he flew the small single-engine plane, his eyes intent on the controls and landmarks of small towns and parks and farms and forests and herds of cattle as they flew above the misty landscape.
She glanced at Clint. Did he really want her to hate him, she wondered, or had he only said it to irritate her? She remembered her own forwardness in her teens, when she'd put him on a pedestal and done everything but worship him. That must have been unbearable for a man like Clint, being followed around like a pet dog, as he'd put it before she left the ranch.
Her eyes went back to the window, glancing out at the wispy clouds. If only she could live down that idiotic behavior, if only she could wipe the slate clean between them and start over and be...friends.
The word almost choked her, but she realized belatedly that it was the only thing possible now. All the bridges were burned behind them. She'd done that all by herself.
Anyway, she thought with a chill, Lida would be back at the ranch waiting for him this time. She'd only seen the woman once, but that had been more than enough. It was going to make living at the ranch unbearable. It was why she'd fought so hard to go back to the apartment. But Clint, as usual, was going to have his way in spite of all her efforts to thwart him. Just like old times.
She stared down at her useless legs in the slacks she'd worn from Columbus on the bus. It seemed so long ago that Clint had swung her up behind him on the stallion.
It was the shock, the doctors had told her, that caused this temporary paralysis— the shock to her body, to her system, to her mind, and a good deal of bruising as well. At least she had the feeling back in them. But walking was going to be another matter altogether, and she shuddered mentally at what lay ahead. It was going to take a kind of determination she wasn't sure she possessed to make those muscles move again. What if she didn't have it? What if the doctors were wrong, and her spine had been damaged? What if...
"We're home!" Clint said above the engine noise, and nosed the small plane down toward the landing strip.
Janna met them with tears in her eyes, leapin
g from the big town car just as the propeller stopped spinning.
"Oh, Maggie, I'm so glad to see you," she wept, hugging her friend as though she'd come back from the dead instead of Miami.
Maggie forced herself to laugh as she patted Janna's shoulder. "I'm all right. I'm going to be fine. Ask Clint if you don't believe me. He insists!" she mumbled, glaring at him over Janna's shoulder.
He only grinned. "Move over, Janna, and let me get this load of potatoes in the car."
"I'm not a load of potatoes," Maggie protested as he slid his arms under and around her and carried her like a feather to the front seat of the car.
"You do have eyes," Janna remarked, tongue-in-cheek, as she opened the car door for Clint.
"And you do look fried," Clint seconded as he put her down gently on the seat. "Careful, Maggie, you'll singe yourself."
"You devil," she grumbled at him.
His eyes dropped deliberately to the soft curve of her mouth. "Daring me, honey?" he asked in a low voice as Janna went around the front of the car to get in.
"No!" she whispered back.
He smiled and closed the door. He went around the car, too, and opened the door on Janna. "Out," he said.
"But I can drive...!" she protested.
"Not my car, not with me in it. Out."
She gave a disgusted sigh and slid over next to Maggie. "I hate brothers," she muttered.
"That isn't what you always used to tell me," Maggie observed.
"Oh, do shut up," the younger girl moaned.
By night, Maggie was comfortably installed in the same guest bedroom she'd left, propped up with pillows, surrounded by books and magazines, pumped full of soup and sandwiches and hot coffee.
"But, Emma," she'd protested, "you'll spoil me."
"I'm just glad you're still around to be spoiled," came the reply as the housekeeper went out the door.
Janna sat down in the chair by the bed, laughing. "You might as well give up. You know that, don't you?"
Maggie smiled in surrender. "I ought to, I guess. Janna..."
"What?"
She looked down at her hands. "Is Lida here yet?"
Books By Diana Palmer Page 52