by Diana Palmer
PRAISE FOR DIANA PALMER
“Nobody tops Diana Palmer when it comes to delivering pure, undiluted romance. I love her stories.”
—New York Times bestselling author Jayne Ann Krentz
“Diana Palmer is a mesmerizing storyteller who captures the essence of what a romance should be.”
—Affaire de Coeur
“Diana Palmer is a unique talent in the romance industry. Her writing combines wit, humor, and sensuality; and, as the song says, nobody does it better!”
—New York Times bestselling author Linda Howard
“No one beats this author for sensual anticipation.”
—Rave Reviews
“A love story that is pure and enjoyable.”
—Romantic Times on Lord of the Desert
“The dialogue is charming, the characters likable and the sex sizzling…”
—Publishers Weekly on Once in Paris
Diana Palmer has published over seventy category romances, as well as historical romances and longer contemporary works. With over forty million copies of her books in print, Diana Palmer is one of North America’s most beloved authors. Her accolades include two RomanticTimes Reviewer’s Choice Awards, a Maggie Award, five national Waldenbooks bestseller awards and two national B. Dalton bestseller awards. Diana resides in the north mountains of her home state of Georgia with her husband, James, and their son, Blayne Edward.
Sweet Enemy
DIANA PALMER
Contents
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
One
“I won’t go!” Maggie Kirk said stubbornly, and turned away from her friend’s cajoling pleas. “It’s like asking me to walk into a Bengal tiger’s cage with a sirloin roast tied around my neck!”
“But, Maggie,” Janna protested, her dark eyes pleading softly, “it’s just what you need. Remember how we used to escape to the ranch when we were in school, how we looked forward to riding and picnicking by the river?”
“My memories are a little different,” the slender brunette said with a grimace. She perched on the edge of the bed, studying the legs of her brown denim jeans. “I remember being put over Clint Raygen’s knee for riding that surly stallion of his, and being locked in my room for going on a picnic by the river with Gerry Broome.”
“Clint did warn you about High Tide,” her small friend reminded her, defending the brother she worshipped. “And you know what Gerry tried to do. Clint knew he was too old to trust you with.”
Maggie blushed with the memory of Clint finding her fighting her way out of Gerry’s furious embrace, and the sight of blood when his big fist connected with the younger man’s nose. The lecture that followed hadn’t been pleasant, either. She sighed. It had always been like that. She and Clint had been enemies from their first encounter, when she was eight and he was nineteen and she threw a baseball bat at him.
“It was a long time ago,” Janna reminded her. “You’re twenty now, and it was all right when we went down to spend a week with Clint and Mama last summer, wasn’t it?”
“Of course it was all right, he was in Europe!” Maggie erupted. “This time, your mother’s in Europe, and Clint’s home, and Lida’s just dumped him and he’s going to be an absolute pain in the neck!”
“That’s why I think you should go,” Janna said.
Maggie gaped at her. “Janna, old friend, have you been tippling the brandy bottle again?”
“Well, here you are just getting over that rat, Philip,” Janna explained, “and there he is just getting over that ratess, Lida…”
“Haven’t you ever noticed that although your brother and I are probably very nice people when we’re separated, we seem to turn rabid when we come face to face?” Maggie asked patiently. “The last time,” she reminded the wide-eyed girl, “he threw me, fully clothed, into the river, I hit my…my embarrassment on a rock,” she faltered.
“You kicked him,” Janna replied. “Hard. On the shin.”
“He called me an idiot!”
“Well, what would you call somebody who tried to stone a rattlesnake to death from four feet?” Janna threw up her hands. “Honestly, Maggie, when you get around my brother, you lose every ounce of sense you have.”
“There you go again…Oh, never mind.” She propped her chin on her elbows. “It’s no use talking about it, anyway. Clint won’t have me down to the ranch without you, and we both know it.”
“Yes, he will. I asked him.”
“What did you tell him?” Maggie asked suspiciously, her emerald eyes sparkling.
Janna shrugged. “That you and Phil had split, that’s all.”
“Just that…not how we broke up?” she asked quietly.
“I swear, Maggie. I’d never do that to you.”
She forced a wan smile. “I didn’t mean that. It…I guess it hit me a little harder than I expected.”
“Clint said you could fill in for his secretary while she’s on vacation,” Janna continued brightly, “and have a working holiday that you’ll get paid for. He said it would be the best medicine you’d ever swallowed.”
“And, knowing Clint, he’ll add a teaspoon of arsenic just to flavor it,” Maggie grumbled. “Arrogant, hard headed, bossy…”
“You are between jobs,” Janna reminded her.
Maggie sighed. “If I were drowning, you’d toss me an anchor, wouldn’t you, my bosom buddy?”
“Oh, Maggie, it’s a golden opportunity I’m giving you. Three weeks with the most eligible bachelor in the Sunshine State, good-looking, rich, desirable…”
“I think I’m going to be sick,” Maggie said, turning her gaze to the budding trees outside the window.
“Haven’t you ever had a romantic thought about Clint, in all these years?” Janna persisted.
“Sorry to disappoint you, but, no.”
“The best cure for a broken heart is to get it broken again.”
“Golly, gee, Janna, look at the pretty bird on the limb here,” Maggie said enthusiastically. “Isn’t he just too gorgeous?”
“Okay, okay. Will you at least go to the ranch?”
“Next to hell, it’s my very favorite place when Clint’s there.”
“It’s pretty on the ranch right now—all the wildflowers are in bloom.” Janna sighed. “Clint’s always out on the range somewhere, with the cattle or the field hands, and you know he almost never gets to the house before dark.”
“And there’s always hope that he’ll get captured by rustlers and held for ransom until my vacation’s over, right?” Maggie grinned.
“Right!” Janna laughed.
Maggie was never really certain why she decided to take the bus. Perhaps it was because so many pleasant memories of her childhood were connected with it, when she had ridden from her parents’ home in Atlanta to her grandparents’ home in South Georgia on the big, comfortable bus. And from there, it was just a pleasant drive to Janna and Clint’s family’s ranch in Florida.
Maggie’s eyes were drawn to that long, level landscape, where pine trees, pecan orchards, and spacious farm houses stood sheltering under the towering oaks and chinaberry trees. Her childhood had been spent here, riding over these fields on horseback with Janna. Usually Clint was in hot pursuit while she bent low over the horse’s neck. The wind would cut into her face as she urged her mount on, after flinging back a challenge to Clint. The tall man’s eyes always had a pale green glint to them when she challenged him, and he always gave her just enough rope to hang herself.
She smiled involuntarily at the memory. She and Clint had never a
ctually decided on the boundaries of their relationship. The banter between them was usually friendly, although it could get hot. But it had never been really malicious or cruel. They were the eternal odd couple, always rubbing each other wrong, always wary around each other as if they held an uneasy truce and were afraid it might fall and break.
Clint was too rugged to ever be called handsome, but he drew women. He always had them hanging on his arm, and Maggie was determined from the beginning never to be one of those poor moths drawn to his flame. She resisted his charm effortlessly, because he never wasted it on her, and she was glad. She’d never been completely sure how she’d react to Clint in that kind of relationship. Because she was afraid of it, she worked minor miracles to prevent it from ever happening.
A buzz of conversation caught her attention, and she drew herself back to the present just in time to see the people across the aisle staring fixedly out the window. The bus slowly ground to a halt as a rider came straight toward it on a black stallion that gleamed like silk in the sun.
Maggie didn’t have to be told who was riding the horse. The man’s tall, easy arrogance was a dead giveaway, even without the cocky angle of his range hat and the khaki work clothes that seemed to be a part of him.
He reined up at the door as the bus driver opened it with a grin.
“Man, can you ride,” he laughed, shaking his curly dark head appreciatively.
“I’ve had my share of practice,” Clint Raygen said with a lopsided smile. His dancing green eyes found Maggie moving up to the front of the bus in her powder blue pantsuit and he raised a lazy eyebrow at her.
“Thank God you’re still tomboy enough to wear pants, Irish,” he said, throwing down the gauntlet effortlessly with that hated nickname from her childhood. “I don’t have time to meet the bus. We’re tagging some new cattle. Hop on.”
“Hop…on?” she echoed weakly. “But…my luggage?”
“The driver can drop it off in town, can’t you?” he asked the man. “We’ll get it later.”
“I’ll do it,” the driver said, “on condition if I ever get two days in a row, you’ll teach me to ride a horse like that.”
“I own the C bar R,” Clint told him. “You’re welcome anytime. Maggie, hop aboard.”
There was a muffled giggle from behind her, and she didn’t have to turn to know it was a couple of teenagers who were in the seat behind hers. She straightened her shoulders. There was no way out of this, for sure, not without becoming the object of everybody’s conversation for the rest of the way into town.
“I haven’t been on a horse in a year,” she told him, as she took the lean, brown hand he held out.
“Step up on my boot and swing your leg over,” he said in his best you-Jane-me-Tarzan voice, and she could almost see the teenagers swooning.
She managed to get herself up behind him without too much effort, but it was a disturbing new contact, and she had to hold on tight to his hard waist to keep from sliding off the big horse. It was like digging her fingers into solid steel, those whipcord muscles were so powerful.
“All set, Maggie?” he asked over his shoulder.
“All set,” she murmured in a low voice that wouldn’t carry farther than his ear. “Ready to gallop away in a cloud of dust and leave your adoring public gasping in the wake of your dramatic exit!”
She felt his chest shake under her hand as he urged the stallion into a slow canter and headed out across the field.
“If this isn’t dramatic enough for you, Irish,” he said arrogantly, “I’ll put Whirlwind into a gallop.”
Both slender arms went around him and she held on for all she was worth. “Oh, please don’t, Clint, I’ll be good,” she said quickly.
He chuckled deeply. “I thought you would. I’ll drop you by the house on my way to the feedlot.”
“You sure picked an unusual way to meet me,” she remarked, watching the high grass wave along the path the horse was making.
“I didn’t plan it,” he said casually. “I just happened to see the bus, and I figured you’d be on it.”
She wondered at that. Clint always seemed to know when she was coming. He always had. It was as if he had a built-in radar where she was concerned.
She stared at that broad, unyielding back. “Thank you for letting me come,” she said quietly.
“Janna said you needed a job,” he replied matter-of-factly. “And I happen to be between secretaries,” he added in a taut voice. It went without saying that Lida had been the last one.
She turned her attention to the long horizon, dotted with pine trees and scrub palmettos and red-coated Herefords with their faces tiny dots of white in the distance. Involuntarily, a smile came to her face.
“Janna and I used to play cowboys and Indians in those fields,” she murmured. “I always had to be the Indian.”
He glanced down at her leg in the loose slacks. “You still dress like one,” he said. “I’ve hardly ever seen you in a dress, Irish.”
She shifted restlessly. “They’re a little out of place on a farm, don’t you think?” she grumbled. It was the old argument again, he never tired of chiding her about her preference for slacks.
“I hadn’t planned on using you to tag cattle and bale hay,” he growled.
She drew a sharp, angry breath. “How I dress is my business,” she replied. “All you have to worry about is if I can type and take dictation.”
He reined in abruptly and half-turned in the saddle, twisting his tall body so that he could look back at her. His narrowed eyes were a menacing pale green.
“I’ll remind you once that there’s a line you don’t cross with me, little girl,” he said in a soft tone that cut more surely than shouting would have. “Your whipped pup of a boyfriend may have taken backtalk with a grin, but don’t expect the same consideration from me. I still say a woman’s got only one use to a man, and I think you know what I’m talking about.”
She did, and nothing could have prevented the blush that colored her high cheekbones. She looked away quickly.
He studied her quietly, his eyes tracing the delicate profile turned toward him. “Why do you screw your hair up like that?” he asked suddenly.
She gritted her teeth. “It keeps it out of my eyes,” she replied tightly.
“And keeps a man’s eyes turned the other way,” he added. “How did that city dude ever get through the layer of ice around you, Irish? With a blowtorch?”
That brought her emerald eyes flashing around to burn into his. “Would you rather I’d have come in a slinky, skin-tight dress with my face plastered in makeup, batting my eyelashes at you?” she asked hotly.
His bold, slow eyes ran over her face, down to her soft mouth, further down to the full, young curves of her body. “You did that once,” he recalled gently, meeting her shocked, uncertain gaze. “When you were seventeen, and I suddenly became the star in your young sky after Gerry Broome threw you over.”
The memory was like an open wound. He’d never let her forget it. She couldn’t forget, either, how she’d run after him shamelessly, finding excuse after excuse to follow him around the ranch that unforgettable summer. Until finally he’d gotten tired of it and shattered her pride into a thousand aching pieces by confronting her with the crush, a confrontation that had shamed her into hiding. She’d never quite recovered from the rejection, keeping it buried in her subconscious. It was one reason she fought him so hard, keeping anger like a safe, high fence between them.
She dropped her eyes to the broad chest in front of her. “That was three years ago,” she said quietly.
“And now there’s Philip,” he added. There was a note in his deep, slow voice that defied analysis. “Isn’t there?”
She clenched her jaw. “No,” she whispered achingly, “there isn’t. Didn’t Janna tell you that we’d split?”
His eyes narrowed. “My sister doesn’t tell me a damned thing. So you threw him over, Irish?”
She met that taunting gaze levelly. “
I caught him with one of my bridesmaids after the rehearsal,” she told him, “going into a motel room together.”
He studied her thoughtfully. “Were you that cold, that he had to find another woman to warm him?”
She flinched. “Damn you!” she breathed. “I might have expected that you’d see anybody’s side of it except mine. It’s always been that way with us.”
“It’s always going to be that way,” he said quietly, something deep and strange in the eyes that searched hers, “because you don’t want me on your side. You want a damned wall between us for some reason. What the hell are you afraid of?”
“You can ask me that, with your reputation?” she scoffed.
A slow, mocking smile touched his cruel mouth. “Little girl, you flatter yourself. Even forgetting the fact that I could give you eleven years, you don’t stir me in a physical sense, Maggie. You never have.” His eyes swept along her boyish figure. “It would be like making love to a snow sculpture.”
She kept her face cool. It would never do to let him know how much he could hurt her. “I thought I came here to be your secretary, not your whipping boy,” she said coolly. “Or do you expect me to pay for Lida’s sins, along with my own?”
She saw his eyes narrow, the muscles in his jaw moving ominously. “My God, you’re asking for it,” he warned softly.
She straightened, moving as far away from him as it was possible to move on horseback. “You started it!”
“I can finish it, too,” he said curtly.
She looked away. “I told Janna it wouldn’t work,” she bit off. “If you’ll kindly take me to the house, I’ll get a cab back to the bus station.”
“Running away, Irish?” he growled. “You’re good at that.”
Her lower lip trembled. “I won’t be crucified by you!” she burst out on a sob. “Oh, God, I hate men, I hate men,” she whispered. “Cheats and liars, all of you!”
His lean hand caught the nape of her neck and drew her forehead against his broad shoulder, as he twisted further in the saddle. “How many women were there before you found out?” he asked at her ear.