by Diana Palmer
Three
Emma only set two places at the supper table, noting Maggie’s puzzled glance with a smile.
“Clint’s got a date,” she explained, leaving Maggie to put the silverware at the places while she went out to the kitchen to bring the food in.
A pain like being shot went through Maggie’s slender body, and she wondered at it. For all that her pride had been crushed by Philip, her heart had never been touched by any man—except one. She hated the rush of feeling, the green surge of jealousy that thinking about Clint and a woman, any woman, could cause. It had always been that way, always. And she managed to keep it hidden because of what he’d already done to her stubborn spirit. But it was still there, inside, glowing and sweetly burning like a candle no amount of wind could blow out. And she hated Clint for causing it.
He came in from the feedlot just as Emma and Maggie were finishing up the dishes, and to avoid him, Maggie retreated to the front porch and glued her lean body onto the porch swing. It was warm and sweet-fragranced, that long porch in the darkness. In her childhood, she had sat in it while the thunder shuddered around her, feeling the misty whip of rain in her face while she closed her eyes and heard the soothing squeak of the swing in motion.
The sudden blinding glare of the porch light brought a surprised gasp from her lips; she sat stark upright as Clint came into view.
It was always a shock to see him in a beige linen suit and coral silk tie, the white of his shirt bringing out his swarthy complexion, his dark hair. He could have passed for a very masculine model, sophistication clinging to his tall, muscular body like the spicy cologne he favored.
His eyes were a dark green as they swept over her blue-jeaned figure, rigid in the porch swing. He eyed her through a small gray cloud of cigarette smoke, moving closer like some big, graceful cat.
“Hiding, Irish?” he asked quietly.
She dragged her eyes down to his broad chest. “I felt like some air.”
One dark eyebrow went up. “You fell out of that swing on your head once,” he recalled. “You and Janna were using it for a rocking horse, and you went head over heels.”
Her fingers touched the dark green wooden frame and the cold metal chain gently. “You like to remind me of the unpleasant things, don’t you?” she asked carelessly.
“Would you rather be reminded of that day by the corral when you did everything but go down on your knees and beg me to make love to you?” he asked mockingly, a harsh note in his voice that cut as much as the humiliating words.
Her eyes closed at that memory, at the pain of it. There was a streak of cruelty in him, she thought miserably; there had to be or he wouldn’t enjoy taunting her like this. She got out of the swing, still avoiding his eyes, and started past him.
One lean, steely hand shot out like a bullet and caught her arm roughly, hauling her up against him as easily as if she’d been a child.
“No comeback, Irish?” he growled. “Where’s that hot temper now?”
She couldn’t find it. Her body trembled in his grasp, and she couldn’t even fight him.
With a gesture that was barely short of violence, he threw his unfinished cigarette off the porch and caught her by both shoulders, his fingers hurting, his green eyes blazing down into hers.
“Let me go!” she burst out, panic sweeping through her because of the new sensations he was causing her to feel as he bruised her body against him.
“Why?” he asked shortly.
Her full mouth trembled as she searched for the words that would free her. “You’re…hurting me,” she managed.
“Where?” he murmured, and his eyes began to sketch her small, flushed face like an artist’s brush.
“My…my shoulders,” she stammered.
His crushing hold loosened, became warm and sensuously caressing, his fingers burning her through the thin cotton blouse. “Does this hurt?” he asked gently.
She couldn’t get the words out. He was burning her alive with that slow, tenderly soothing touch, making her heart dance, making her lungs feel collapsed. Her small hands went to the silky shirt, pushing halfheartedly against the warm, unyielding muscles of his broad chest.
Soft, deep laughter brushed her ears. “Can’t you talk to me, little Maggie?” he whispered deeply. His hands left her shoulders to cup her face and hold it up to his eyes. The warm strength in them drained her of protest, the tang of his cologne was permeating her senses. Her fingers, where they pressed against him, were so cold they felt numb. And still she couldn’t move, couldn’t look away from the mocking gaze that had her hypnotized, trapped.
His eyes dropped to her soft young mouth, and one thumb came up to brush across it like a whisper. “I could break your mouth open under mine like a ripe melon right now,” he murmured sensuously, “and you wouldn’t lift a finger to stop me, would you, Irish? You’re still mine to take, any damned time I want you!”
With a sob of exquisite shame, she broke free of him, catching him off guard, and she ran every step of the way back into the house, ignoring Emma’s stunned queries as she took the steps two at a time.
All the long night she lay awake, staring at the dark ceiling, planning a way, any way, out of this nightmare. Even going back to her old job, seeing Philip again, didn’t hold the terror that staying here did. She had to get away. She had to!
She climbed out of bed and into her clothes numbly as the sun began to climb out of the early morning clouds. She packed before she went downstairs, her mind made up, her eyes red and dark-shadowed from lack of sleep. She’d have breakfast and explain to Emma, then she’d get a cab to the bus station, and Clint would never…
He was still at the breakfast table, where he normally wouldn’t have been at this hour of the morning. His own eyes looked as if he hadn’t slept, and she wondered bitterly what time he’d come home, reasoning she must have dozed off eventually because she never heard him come in.
“I’ll get you some coffee, honey,” Emma said quietly, patting her on the shoulder as she passed toward the kitchen.
She made a big production of unfolding her linen napkin and smoothing it on her lap, of studying the tablecloth, of doing everything but meeting the watchful gaze across from her.
“Did you sleep at all?” he asked finally, his voice deep and slow and bitter.
“Oh, I…I slept fine, thanks,” she managed.
“Like hell,” he scoffed.
“Shouldn’t you be out with the cattle?” she asked.
“Not until you convince me that you’re not going to be on the first northbound bus,” he said flatly.
That brought her eyes jerking up to meet the question in his, and he had all the answer he needed.
“I thought so,” he said, leaning back in his chair to study her through narrowed eyes. “Running never solved anything, Maggie.”
She glared at him, feeling something break inside her. “I need your advice like a hole in the head,” she snapped, her face wounded. “What are you trying to do to me, Clint? Wasn’t what Philip did to me enough without you trying to shatter the few pieces of me he left intact? Why do you enjoy hurting me?”
“Don’t you know, honey?” he asked in a dangerously quiet tone.
It was the stranger’s face again, not Clint’s, and she stared at him curiously. “I…I don’t think I know you at all sometimes,” she said involuntarily.
“You don’t.” He gulped down the remainder of his coffee and lit a cigarette. “You’re wallowing in self-pity, Irish, or didn’t you realize it? Poor little girl, betrayed by her fiancé, left alone at the altar…well, I’m fresh out of sympathy. He was a damned two-timing cheat, and you’re well rid of him. All he hurt was your pride, little icicle,” he said ruthlessly. “You wouldn’t recognize love if it came up and sat on your foot.”
“I suppose you would, being such an expert!” she flashed.
His eyes glinted at her over a mocking smile. “That’s more like it,” he chuckled.
She frowned. “Wh
at?”
He rose, pausing by her chair on his way out, one long arm sliding in front of her as he leaned down. “I told you before, baby,” he murmured at her ear, “I like it when you fight me. That’s the easiest way to tell that you aren’t trying to bury your head in the past.”
She flushed, suddenly understanding—or, almost understanding—his behavior last night.
“I don’t want to spend the whole two weeks fighting you,” she grumbled.
His fingers caught her chin and raised her eyes to his. All the levity was gone from his hard, dark face now. “Why don’t you get Emma to pack us a picnic lunch?” he asked softly, “and bring it down to the feedlot around noon. We’ll go down by the river and eat.”
“B…but, the sale; all those invitations, and the…the publicity…?” she stammered.
One long finger traced the soft curve of her mouth in a silence that made her unsteady breathing audible. “I’ll lay you down under that gnarled old oak,” he whispered deeply, holding her eyes, “and teach you all the things Philip should have had the patience to teach you.”
She blushed furiously and tore her eyes away. “I…I really don’t need any lessons, thank you,” she said shortly. She jerked away from his lean hand. “Once burned, twice shy, Clint. You won’t bring me to my knees again, not ever!”
He didn’t seem to be fazed by her passionate outburst. He only smiled. “Won’t I? Don’t underestimate me, honey.”
“I learned early not to underestimate the enemy,” she replied.
He went out laughing just as Emma returned with the coffee and a plate of eggs, bacon, and fresh biscuits. “Now, what’s got into him?” she asked curiously.
“The devil,” Maggie said tightly.
Maggie was just finishing an advertisement on the sale for the local weekly paper when she heard a sudden loud pounding at the front door, and Emma’s quick footsteps going to answer it. There was the snap as the door opened, and a sudden jubilant cry from Emma, and then two voices mingling, Emma’s excited one and a laughing, pleasant male one.
“Maggie! Come here!” Emma called.
Puzzled at the commotion, Maggie stuck her head around the door and found her eyes held by a pair of dark blue ones in a deeply tanned face outlined by thick blond hair.
“Well, hush my mouth, if it isn’t the girl I swore undying love to on the stage in our sixth-grade play!” Brent Halmon grinned, his eyes sparkling at her from the hall.
“Hi, Sir Got-A-Lott, where’s your hawse?!” she laughed back.
He threw open the door and swung her up in his lean arms, planting a smacking kiss on her cheek. “By gosh, you’ve grown, Maggie!” he teased, giving her a lengthy appraisal as he set her back on her feet. “Did you really get this pretty in just four years?”
“This isn’t my real face, you know,” she whispered sotto voce. “It’s the mask I wear so my green warts won’t show!”
“Still got ’em, huh?” he said in mock resignation, shaking his head. “I warned you about kissing those frogs, didn’t I?”
“You two!” Emma laughed, eyeing them. “Always into mischief of some sort or other. You gave Clint gray hairs when you were kids.”
“Speaking of old Heavy Hand, where is he?” Brent grinned.
“Out putting diapers on his baby cows,” Maggie told him. “And ribbons on their mamas, and evening jackets on their daddies. There’s a sale day coming up next week.”
“I know,” Brent told her, “that’s why I came. I’ve got my eye on that prize Hereford bull of Cousin Clint’s.”
“Speaking of mammoth ranches,” Maggie said, “how is Mississippi?”
“Green and beautiful. Why don’t you ever come to visit me?”
She shrugged. “Work. As a matter of fact, I’m Clint’s temporary secretary for the next couple of weeks. That’s why I’m here.”
He nodded. “I heard about Lida taking a powder on him,” Brent said with a harsh sigh. “It was no less than I expected. I thought Clint of all people would have more sense…”
“And I think everyone’s got the wrong idea,” Emma said quietly. “Clint wasn’t in love with Lida. He wasn’t thinking of marriage, either. He’s a normal, healthy man, and she was a sophisticated woman who knew the score. And that’s enough about it. Come on, Brent, I’ll show you up. Clint will be so surprised…!”
“See you in a few minutes, Mag,” Brent called over Emma’s bright conversation.
Brent was changing for supper when Clint came in, dusty and tired and in a gruff temper. His eyes narrowed as they settled on Maggie, finishing one last letter at her desk.
“Weren’t you hungry?” he asked without preamble.
She stared at him blankly. “Hungry?”
“At dinner,” he said flatly.
She remembered what he’d told her at breakfast and began to bloom with color. “You were joking…” she said weakly.
“The hell I was,” he shot back, his eyes narrow, threatening.
She opened her mouth to speak just as Brent came in the door and clapped Clint on the back.
“Hi, Cousin!” he said cheerfully as Clint wheeled, stunned, to face him. “Surprise, surprise!”
“My God, what are you doing here?” Clint asked irritably.
“I came for the sale,” was the imperturbable reply. “You did invite me,” he reminded the older man.
“For the sale, not the summer!”
Brent’s eyebrows went up, but he cheerfully ignored Clint’s ill humor. “Bull gore you or something?” he asked pleasantly, studying the taller man’s dusty clothes for sign of blood.
Maggie stifled a giggle, but not before Clint shot a narrow glance her way and saw her face.
“Oh, you’re home!” Emma smiled at Clint from the doorway. “Just look who’s here. Isn’t it nice to have Brent back again?”
“Enchanting,” Clint agreed. “Pardon me while I go upstairs and put a gun to my temple in honor of the occasion.”
Three pairs of puzzled eyes followed his tall figure as he thudded up the stairs.
“He doesn’t look drunk,” Brent remarked casually.
Clint’s temper seemed to have improved when he came back downstairs, his dark hair still damp from a shower, in a pair of dark slacks and a green patterned silk shirt open at the neck, in a shade that matched his eyes. He seemed to go out of his way to be pleasant to Brent, dwelling on the subject of cattle and land management to such an extent that Emma and Maggie ignored them and talked clothes all through the meal.
“I haven’t been around back yet,” Brent said as they relaxed over coffee in the living room. “Is the pool still there, and filled?”
“It is,” Clint said pleasantly. “Feel like a swim? Maggie?” he added, glancing at her.
“If you’ll let me wear a bathing suit, instead of pushing me in fully clothed,” she said sweetly.
“Honey, it’ll be a pleasure,” he said in a voice that made chills run down her spine.
“Did I miss something?” Brent blinked.
“Last summer,” Maggie explained, “he threw me in the river with my clothes on.”
“You kicked the hell out of me first,” Clint replied imperturbably.
“What was I supposed to do, stand there and let the stupid snake have first bite?!”
“Did you think you could stone the damned thing to death with a handful of pebbles?”
“They were stones, and I…!”
Brent stood up. “If you two want to do this thing properly, why don’t you appoint seconds and meet in the lower pasture at sunup?”
Clint gave him a look that sent him toward the stairs. “I’m going after my trunks. Coming, Maggie?”
She glared at Clint. “Why not?”
Four
The pool was Olympic-sized, and the water was pleasantly cool. Maggie floated quietly, her slender body scantily covered in an aqua two-piece bathing suit, her long hair floating behind her. She and Brent had done two laps paralleling each other when
Clint joined them. Swimming was something he rarely did in company, and never among strangers. A long, jagged white scar ran from the center of his broad, hair-laden chest along the bronzed skin of his flat stomach. Another was visible on his muscular thigh. Souvenirs, he called them, of a long-ago conflict when he hadn’t quite dived away in time to miss a shower of shrapnel. To Maggie, they weren’t in the least unsightly—the only thing about him that shook her was the sight of that powerful, dark body without the veneer of clothing to make it less sensuous. But Clint was touchy about his scars nevertheless, so she never mentioned them, nor did Brent.
They relaxed in the soothing water without talking for lazy minutes, until Emma shattered the peace by calling Brent to the phone.
“They find you wherever you go,” Brent groaned as he pulled his slender body out of the water. “Carry on without me, Maggie. Clint’ll save you if you go down for the third time.”
“Want to bet?” she murmured, but he hadn’t heard her.
Clint surfaced beside her, shaking his dark head to throw his hair out of his eyes, and his lean hands caught her bare midriff, sending a wild shudder of pleasure through her slim body as he righted her in the water and pulled her body against him roughly.
“What was that crack supposed to mean?” he asked, his eyes burning into hers, his muscular legs entwining with hers under the water.
“That you’d probably enjoy drowning me,” she said unsteadily. Chills began to run over her. “Please let me go. I’m cold.”
“Cold or excited?” he asked, his face solemn, his gaze level and questioning. “You always had a soft spot for Brent, didn’t you, Irish?”
“We get along very well.”
“And you and I don’t,” he said flatly.
“That goes without saying. Clint…” Her hands pushed against him, touching the thick scar at his breastbone. Her eyes drifted down to it lying under the thick tangle of wet hair that felt strange and new to her touch. Her fingers traced it gently, then they moved over the broad, hard chest that was cool from the water. A shock went through her as she realized what she was doing and she jerked her hand away as though his flesh had scorched her.