by Diana Palmer
“I think so. I’ve never seen you drink before.” He jammed both hands in his pockets. “Was it what I said to you, Eleanor?” he asked, his eyes darkening. “God knows, I’ve got a hair trigger temper, but I never meant to say those things to you. Damn it,” he growled, running a hand through his dark hair, “I don’t want you to go! There’s no reason in the world why you can’t stay on, even after Mandy and I get married! The two of you like each other.”
Men, she thought, miserably, were the densest substance God ever created.
“I’d still rather go,” she said stubbornly. “Jim needs me more than you do, now.”
His eyes narrowed even more, dangerously glittering. “What for? To do his typing, or to…”
“Don’t you say it, Curry Matherson!” she dared, knowing what would have come if she hadn’t interrupted him.
“You little prude,” he taunted, his eyes studying her slender body outlined under the bedclothes. “Hasn’t the relationship progressed to that stage yet? My God, how has he been able to keep from dragging you off into the woods? The way you look with your hair down like that, and those ridiculous glasses off…” He frowned. “Or is all that sensuality just on the outside?”
She blushed at the look in his eyes. He made her feel threatened, uncomfortable.
“Why did you threaten to shoot him?” she asked.
He shook his head. “I don’t know,” he said honestly.
She dodged his piercing eyes and took her aspirins, swallowing them down with the sweet, rich hot chocolate.
“Stay, Eleanor,” he said quietly, his hands jammed into his pockets.
She looked up. “I can’t,” she said simply. “Not after what I heard you say. I’d never be able to forget it. Not when I know what you really think of me,” she added in a pained, husky young voice.
“Do you know?” he asked, and there was something dark and quiet and unfamiliar in his eyes. “Do I?”
She felt a kind of electricity burn between them as she noticed for the first time that the coverlet had slipped down to reveal the wealth of bare, silky skin where the thin spaghetti straps of her pink nightgown clung to the soft curves of her breasts. His eyes had traced those straps down, and he was looking at her in a way he never had before—a look so adult and masculine that it made her fingers tremble as they jerked the coverlet back up.
He met her shocked eyes levelly. A slow, sensuous smile tugged at his mouth and the glitter of his eyes made her feel vulnerable and weak. He laughed softly.
“You lovely little creature,” he mused.
She bristled. “I thought I was a chicken,” she said curtly, remembering.
He shouldered away from the bedpost nonchalantly and paused with his hand on the doorknob to look back at her. “Baby chicks are soft and downy and sweet to touch,” he observed, grinning at the quick, hot color that poured into her face as he went out and closed the door behind him.
She puzzled over the remark, over the look he’d given her for a long time before she finally slept. It was just as Jim had said, Curry wanted his own way and he wouldn’t stop at anything to get what he wanted. He might try flirting, or even something more to keep Eleanor from leaving. She shuddered, remembering that dark, strange flame in the eyes that had traced her body, and wondered if she could resist Curry, loving him as she did. If he ever touched her…She put the disturbing thought out of her mind and rolled over.
She overslept for the first time in three years, and ran downstairs to see if Bessie had kept anything out for her.
“Think I’d let you go hungry because you didn’t wake up?” Bessie teased. She took a covered plate out of the oven and put it in front of Eleanor where she sat sipping her hot coffee at the kitchen table. “Here. Saved you some sausage and eggs and grits. Want a hot biscuit to go with it?”
“Yes, please.” She looked up at the older woman sheepishly. “My head hurts.”
“No doubt. Tied one on, did you?” Bessie teased.
“Not exactly. I just wanted to see what a whiskey sour tasted like.”
“Found out, didn’t you?” she laughed.
“Boss gone out to the field?” she queried.
“No, he’s waiting for you to get yourself together enough to take some dictation,” came a disapproving voice from behind her.
She flinched visibly as Curry came into the kitchen, wearing his jeans with a blue checkered work shirt half unbuttoned. He poured himself a cup of black coffee and sat down next to Eleanor at the table.
His eyes traced what he could see above the table of her trim figure in a white knit shirt and matching slacks. Her hair was left loose because she didn’t have time to put it up, and her glasses were pushed casually on top of her head, giving her a sporty look.
“Looks young, doesn’t she?” Bessie smiled, nodding toward Eleanor as she set a plate of hot biscuits and some jam on the table.
“Like springtime,” Curry agreed. His eyes were warm on Eleanor’s slightly flushed face. “Jim’s influence, no doubt,” he added with a contempt he didn’t try to disguise.
“No doubt,” Eleanor agreed sweetly, reaching for a biscuit.
His eyes flashed at her. He leaned back in the chair, sipping his coffee, and she braced herself for a storm, because it was building in his eyes.
Bessie must have felt it, too, because she dried her hands on a dishcloth, muttered something about dusting the flowers, and made a dive for the back porch.
“I meant what I said,” Curry told her quietly. “I don’t want Black on this property again.”
“Or you’re going to shoot him?” she asked carelessly, darting a nonchalant glance at him.
“I don’t have to shoot him,” he said quietly. “If you’re determined to walk out on me, there’s a lot of work I need to get through before you pack, and that won’t leave much time for socializing.” His jaw set and locked. “You can save your plans for when you’re on his time. I’m not paying you to play.”
Her own eyes narrowed. She glanced back at him. “Since when,” she demanded, “have I ever shirked my responsibilities?”
“Since you got yourself tangled up with Jim Black!” he returned.
“I’m not tangled up with him!”
His eyes lanced over her contemptuously. “Aren’t you?” he asked insinuatingly.
Her face went dark with anger. She wadded up her napkin and threw it down next to the plate with her half-eaten breakfast, and stood up. “If you’d like to get started, Mr. Matherson?”
“Sit down,” he said quietly, “and finish your breakfast. I won’t have you passing out from hunger. You’re too damned thin as it is.”
She tossed back her long, waving hair. “From all my socializing, you know,” she shot back. “And I’ve lost my appetite, thanks to you.”
“Keep pushing,” he said softly, rising, “and you’re going to find out just how far I’ll let you go.”
“I’m not afraid of you,” she said defiantly, turning to leave the room.
“Yet,” he said as he followed her out, and the hard spoken word had an ominous sound.
They worked in a strained silence for the next hour. He leaned back in his chair at the desk and dictated letter after letter while Eleanor pretended a calm she didn’t feel and managed just barely to keep up with his ruthless, deliberate speed. Every once in a while, she’d feel his eyes studying her, watching to see if he was getting her rattled. It was new, fighting Curry like this. Exciting, but very unnerving. The old comradeship had disappeared forever. Overnight they were adversaries, it seemed.
“Got that?” he shot at her when he finished the last letter.
“Yes,” she replied sweetly. “Disappointed?”
His jaw clenched. His face hardened, and he started to rise with a hint of violence that made her heart leap when the door opened suddenly and Amanda breezed in wearing a jaunty gray pantsuit with a white silk blouse.
“Good morning, darling.” She smiled at Curry. “Hi, Eleanor!” she add
ed pleasantly.
“Good morning,” Eleanor replied, lowering her gaze as Amanda slid her thin arms around Curry’s towering neck and reached up to kiss him.
“Eleanor?” Amanda turned abruptly, her eyes wide and disbelieving as they fixed on the young girl who sat in the dowdy spinster’s place at the table beside Curry’s huge desk. “Is it you?” she whispered.
“It is,” Curry smiled maliciously. His eyes narrowed on his secretary’s face. “Jim’s handiwork,” he added.
Something in Amanda relaxed at the words. “Romance in the air?” she teased.
“Maybe,” Eleanor agreed cautiously.
Curry turned away. “Let me make a phone call and I’ll take you down to the corral with me and show you how we brand the cattle.”
Eleanor could have sworn Amanda’s complexion went two shades lighter.
“Branding? But, Curry, darling,” she purred, following him to place a pleading slender hand on his hard muscled arm. “I had my heart set on driving into Houston today.”
“We’ll go later,” Curry told her inflexibly. “I can’t take the time this morning. You know what we go through with roundup.”
“No I don’t, actually, and I’m not at all sure I want to learn.” Amanda laughed nervously. “I don’t like all that dust, and, darling, cattle smell so.”
Curry’s jaw clenched hard. “You’ll get used to it.”
Amanda looked resigned. “Perhaps. At least, after we’re married, I can go to Houston and get away from it,” she teased. “I’ll keep my apartment and we can spend weekends there.”
Curry didn’t say anything, but his dark face was stormy. He dialed a number and waited. “Terry? I’m going to need you this afternoon if you can make it. I’ve got a new shipment of heifers and I want them all checked before I turn them in with the herd. You can? Thanks. See you about one.”
He hung up, and Eleanor knew immediately that he’d been talking to Terry Briant, the local vet. She smiled. Terry was a confirmed bachelor, a little crusty around the edges, but he knew his job and he was well liked in the community. He’d come for Curry, but this was one of the busiest times of the year for him, and he wouldn’t have made room for many people in his schedule.
“All right,” Curry told Amanda, grabbing up his battered wide-brimmed ranch hat and propelled her out the door. He didn’t bother to spare a glance for Eleanor, a deliberate omission that cut her. Curry could be the very devil when he wasn’t getting things the way he wanted them. And, Eleanor thought doggedly, this was one time he wasn’t going to win, no matter how hard he put on the pressure.
For the next two days, Eleanor did her job with robotlike precision, ignoring Curry’s temper and impatience with a stoic calm that she was far from feeling. It was on the third day that things seemed to come to a head.
It had been a long day, and Eleanor was sitting in the porch swing with the phone in her lap talking to Jim Black when Curry came in from the fields where he’d been checking on the haying.
“Jim, I’ve got to go now,” she said as Curry came up the steps.
“When am I going to see you?” Jim asked pointedly.
“Maybe this weekend. I’ll phone you. Good night.” She hung up before he could answer and got up long enough to put the phone back on the table by the settee before she curled back up in the porch swing.
Curry paused on the edge of the porch, leaning against one of the white columns to light a cigarette. He pushed the hat back away from his dark face and studied her through glittering eyes. The subdued light from the single fixture farther down the porch gave him a faintly satanic look. He looked as if it had been an unusually hard day. His shirt was completely unbuttoned and dark with sweat stains. His khakis were stained with grass and dirt. There was a cut on the back of one lean brown hand where blood had dried. And his face was heavily lined. He looked every year of his age.
“Talking to Jim?” he asked carelessly.
“I am allowed to do that, I suppose?’ she asked sweetly.
He glared at her. “When you’re on your own time,” he agreed. “Did you finish those letters I dictated?”
“Every last one,” she said cheerfully. “I did the production reports on the new additions, too.”
“So efficient, Miss Perrie,” he drawled with underlying sarcasm. “How will I live without you?”
“You could live without anybody,” she said quietly. “You’re as self-sufficient as a Marine.”
“I was a Marine, little girl,” he reminded her.
“Poor Amanda,” she murmured. “She’ll never really feel needed at all.”
“She’ll feel needed, all right,” he said in a caressing undertone, and with a smile full of meaning.
She flushed uncomfortably. “No doubt,” she said curtly, “but will it be enough?”
He laughed deeply. “Don’t you know the answer to that?”
It was a losing battle, and she knew it. She rocked the swing into motion, turning her attention to the dark silhouette of the trees in the yard, the insistent chirp of the crickets.
“Mr. King called today, by the way,” she said carelessly. “He said the plans for your new office complex had been completed by the architect and were ready for approval.”
“Has Magins signed the property transfer?” he asked.
“Of course,” she replied.
His eyes narrowed as he took a long draw from his cigarette. “You never cared for my tactics, did you, honey? But they work. No man ever got anywhere in big business without being just a little ruthless.”
“I can’t picture Jim being that way,” she said quietly. And it was true, she couldn’t. He was a gentleman, a caring man. Worlds away from Curry.
“He’ll never amount to a damn, either,” he said harshly. “That spread will never be any bigger than it is right now because he doesn’t have the ambition to grow. He’ll live comfortably, but he won’t have much to show for his investments.”
“Good for Jim,” she flashed, defending him. “It’s nice to find a man now and again who’s satisfied with what he’s got!”
“Just what has he got, Eleanor?” he asked quietly. “Charm? Sophistication? Personality? Or is he just good in bed?”
She’d never felt such rage in her life. She trembled with it as she got out of the swing and walked past Curry toward the screen door.
“I won’t take that kind of insult from you or anyone else,” she said icily. “You aren’t going to grind your heel into me.”
His lean hand shot out suddenly, grasping her upper arm so hard that she could feel it bruising, and jerked her around. She felt the heat of his body at his nearness, smelled the fragrance of tobacco mingled with the masculine odor of sweat as he held her there under his glittering eyes.
“You’re getting damned sassy, little girl, and I don’t like it,” he said in a voice that cut. “You may stab Black with that sharp little tongue, but don’t think you can get away with it here. Nobody backtalks me, not on my land.”
“Oh, no, they wouldn’t dare,” she returned, even though the effort to talk was choking her. “Mr. God Almighty Matherson doesn’t take anything from anybody!”
“As you’re about to find out,” he said ominously. The half-smoked cigarette went flying out into the yard, and both lean, steely arms went around her slender body, crushing her softness against the length of him.
Five
The sudden, unexpected contact made her panic, and she fought him, struggling to put distance between them, to escape those arms that felt like steel bands, the crush of his chest hurting her.
“Let me go!” she cried wildly.
“Make me,” he said in a voice she couldn’t recognize.
She threw her head back and looked up at him defiantly, her pale eyes throwing off sparks as she panted with the unsuccessful effort to free herself. Her body felt like metal, stiff and icy, in the first brutal embrace she’d ever endured.
“Did you expect to win?” he demanded, and his
eyes burned with suppressed fury. “I could break your young body like a matchstick.”
“All right, I’ll admit that you’re physically superior,” she panted angrily, “now will you let go of me?”
“Not until I give you what you’ve been begging for ever since I came up those steps,” he said in a low, dangerous voice.
Before she could ask him what he meant, his head lowered and she felt the crush of a man’s lips against her mouth for the first time in her young life.
She stiffened at the hard, moist contact, at the urgent way he was trying to force her lips apart under the warmth of his, at the brutal way he was holding her so that she felt powerless against anything he might do.
He was making no allowances at all for her innocence, her inexperience. He was kissing her with a violent passion, his tongue running along the edge of her trembling mouth, his teeth nipping sensuously at her lower lip as his hands slid down her back to her hips and arched her against him.
A frightened moan broke from her throat. She pushed against his massive chest with all her might, feeling with a sense of terror the cool bare flesh with its light covering of curling hair against her fingers.
He tore his mouth away suddenly and looked straight into her wide, shocked eyes, dark with the fear she was feeling. Her face had gone white and even as he looked at her he felt the shudder race down the length of her body pressed so intimately against his.
The truth registered with a flash in his silvery eyes. “My God, you’ve never been kissed before!” he exclaimed, as if he couldn’t believe what he was saying.
Her lips trembled as she tried to speak. “No, I haven’t,” she whispered shakenly, “and if…if that’s how it feels, I never want to again!”
His arms loosened and she took advantage of the momentary reprieve to tear loose and run. She didn’t stop until she reached the safety of her room.
All through the long night, she lived that kiss over and over again. The first time should have had something of tenderness in it, consideration. She’d dreamed of kissing Curry, of being kissed by him, but that brutal assault was more of a nightmare than a dream.