Sweet Enemy (2 page)

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.

A sob shook her. "Four, five; I lost count," she whispered. "We
were going to be married just two days after…he said I wouldn't
melt in a…in a blast furnace," her voice broke again. Her small
hand curled against the warm muscles of his arm. "And he…he was
right. I didn't feel that way with him, I couldn't…!" She drew a long, sobbing
breath.

His fingers tightened on her slender neck. "How old was he?" he
asked gently.

She swallowed down another sob. "Twenty-seven."

"Experienced?"

"Very."

"Was he patient, Maggie?" he asked.

She drew a soft breath, her eyes closing tightly. "He…took it
for granted that I knew…well, that I…"

His chest rose deeply against her, and fell with a sound like
impatience. "It's just as well, Irish," he said at her ear. "Better
to find him out now than after the wedding."

"Clint, I'm sorry I jumped…" she began.

His cheek moved against hers, rough and warm. "Dry up, little
watering pot. I've got cattle to tend, and Emma's going to be standing on her head wondering what happened to us. Okay
now?"

"Yes." She managed a wan smile for him. "Clint, I'm sorry about
Lida…"

His face was shuttered, but not angry. He flicked a careless
forefinger against her nose. "Let's go home."

He turned back to the saddle horn and coaxed the stallion into a
canter. He didn't say another word until they got to the sprawling
white frame ranch house in its nest of oaks and pecan trees. He let
her down at the white fence beside the front porch.

Sitting astride the black stallion, he was an impressive figure,
tall in the saddle and ramrod straight. He lit a cigarette, his
eyes studying her quietly for a long moment.

"Must you stare at me like that?" she asked uneasily, shifting
under the bold thoroughness of his scrutiny. "I feel like a heifer
on market day."

Something cruel flashed in his pale eyes. "I'm not putting in
any bids," he replied innocently. "I'll have one of the boys fetch your luggage.
Emma'll get you something to eat. I'll explain what I need done
when I get in tonight."

The coldness in him, so sudden and unexpected, made chills
run down her spine. For years they'd been make-believe
enemies. But this felt like the real thing. He looked at her
as if…as if he hated her!

"I still think it might be better if I went home," she said.

"You'll stick it out," he countered sharply. "I can't get a
replacement at this short notice, and I've got correspondence
backed up to the eaves, with a sale day coming up."

"Orders, Mr. Raygen?" she fumed.

A wisp of a smile touched that hard, stern face that was so much
a stranger's, emphasizing the nose that had been broken at least
twice and showed it. "Orders, Irish."

"Will you stop calling me that? You know I hate it!"

"By all means, hate it. Hate me, too, if it helps. I don't give
a damn, and you know that, too, don't you, little girl?" he asked
with a hellish grin.

She whirled on her heels and stalked through the gate onto the
long white porch, with its rocking chairs and wide porch swing and
pots filled with blooming flowers.

Emma was rolling out dough in the spacious, homey kitchen
when Maggie walked in and, unmindful of the flour up to her elbows,
she grabbed the younger woman in a bearish hug.

Maggie laughed, smothered in the ample girth of Emma's
huge embrace, feeling really at home for the first time.

"It's so good to have another woman here, I could jump for joy,"
Emma grinned, running one floury hand through her short, silver hair.
"Clint Raygen's been like a wild man for the past month. I'll
swear, I never thought a hussy like that Lida Palmes could affect
him in such a way. If you ask me, it's just hurt pride that's
eating him, but it doesn't make any difference to his temper."

"So I've noticed," Maggie sighed, and sat down at the long
kitchen table where Emma was making bread. "What did she do to
him?"

"Walked out on him without a word. Not even a day's notice." She
shrugged. "Found herself a rich Florida millionaire, they
said."

"He couldn't have been that much richer than Clint," Maggie
remarked.

"He wasn't," Emma smiled. "And he had twenty years on him, to
boot. Nobody understood what got into her. One day she was queening
it over me and the ranch hands, the next she was gone."

"Was it very long ago?" she asked idly.

"Let's see-hard to remember things at my age, you know.
But…oh, yes, it was the day Janna called to tell us we were
invited to your wedding." She laughed. "We didn't even know you
were engaged, you secretive little thing."

Maggie's eyes fell. "I guess you knew we called off the
wedding."

Emma's floured hand touched hers gently. "It's for the best. We
both know that, don't we?"

She nodded with a misty smile. "I wasn't desperately in love
with him, but I did like him a lot. I guess my pride's hurt,
too."

"You'll get over it. When one door closes, another opens,
Maggie, my dear."

"You're right, of course," she managed cheerfully. "Janna sends
her love. She said she'll try to get her vacation early and come on
down in a few weeks."

"That would be nice, to have both of you home for a while.
Well," she said, kneading dough rhythmically, "tell me all the latest news."

It was well after dark, and Emma and Maggie were just getting
everything on the dining room table when Clint came striding
in the front door. His jeans were red with mud, his shirt wet with
sweat, his jaw showing a shadow of a beard. He barely spared them a
glance before he went down the long hall that led to his room.

"Whiskey," Emma remarked with a nod, and poured a glass two
inches deep of the amber liquid before adding a touch of water and
two ice cubes to it. "I can tell by his walk."

"Tell what?" Maggie asked.

"What kind of day it's been. The cattle must have given him
fits."

"Not the cattle," Maggie replied wearily. "Me. We got into
it on the way home. I should never have come, Emma. It's just like
old times."

"Is it, now?" the older woman asked curiously. "Maybe. And maybe not. We'll see."

Clint came back looking cooler, his dark hair damp from a
shower, his face shaven, the work khakis exchanged for a pair of
sand-colored slacks and a beige patterned shirt that clung to his
muscular arms and chest like a second skin.

His green eyes slid down Maggie's slender figure in pale
yellow slacks and a tank top, moving back up to rest narrowly on
the familiar bun.

"Welcome back, tomboy," he said with thinly veiled sarcasm.

"Thanks," she replied sweetly. "Emma poured you a drink."

He turned away, found it on the table and threw down a large
swallow of it. "Well, sit down," he growled at her, "or do you plan
to eat standing up?"

She dragged out a chair and plopped down in it, pointedly
avoiding his gaze as Emma brought the rest of the food and
finally sat down herself across from Maggie.

"Do I get combat pay?" Emma asked Clint when she caught the icy
glares that were being exchanged.

"Put on your armour and shut up," Clint replied, but there was a
glint of humor in his tone, and in his pale eyes.

Emma glanced at Maggie with a grin. "Welcome home, honey."

Dinner was pleasant enough after that, but when the last of the
coffee was gone, Clint motioned Maggie to follow him, and led her
into the darkly masculine den with its gun cabinet and oak desk and
deer head mounted over the mantel.

"Get a pencil," he told Maggie. "You'll find one on the
desk."

She picked one up out of a pen holder, and borrowed one of the
empty legal pads as well before she sat down in the chair beside
his big desk.

He turned, his eyes studying her quietly, angrily, for a long
moment before he spoke. "How old are you now?" he asked
unexpectedly.

"Twenty," she replied quietly.

'Twenty." He lit a cigarette, but his eyes never left her.
'Twenty, and still un-awakened."

She felt the color rush into her face, and hated it, hated
him.

"You're sure about that?" she asked hotly.

He held her eyes for a long time. "I'm very sure, honey," he
said softly.

Unable to hold the penetrating gaze for another instant, she
dragged her eyes down to the blank sheet of yellow paper and
concentrated on the bluish lines that ruled it.

"I thought you wanted to dictate some letters," she said in a
tight voice.

"You don't know what I want, little girl," he replied. "And if
you did, it would probably scare the hell out of you. Got your
pencil ready? Here goes…"

He was dictating before she had time to puzzle out that cryptic
remark.

The first few days went by in a rush, and Maggie fell into an
easy routine. Clint left the correspondence on her desk every morning, all outlined,
so that she could work at her own pace. At night, he signed the
letters and checked the records she typed for him, and they both
worked at holding their tempers.

She finished early the fifth day and couldn't resist the
temptation to go for a ride. Clint had given her a gentle little
bay mare for her seventeenth birthday and it was still her favorite
mount. Melody was the name she gave it, because of the horse's easy
rocking motion as she walked; like a blues melody.

It stirred her emotions to revisit the haunts of her childhood
on the large, sprawling farm. Near the tall line of pine trees was
the aging, majestic pecan tree that she and Janna climbed long ago-
their dreaming tree. Then a little farther along was the thicket
where dogwoods grew virgin white in the spring and little girls could gather armloads of them to dream over.

Then, too, there was the river. Maggie reined in the mare and
leaned over the saddle horn to watch it flowing lazily like a
silver and white ribbon through the trees. The river, where they
waded and swam, and where Clint had hurled her-fully clothed-the
day she kicked him.

She couldn't resist that cool, inviting water in the heat that
was thick and smothering even in the shade of the hardwoods
on the bank. She tied Melody to a sapling and tugged off her boots
and thick socks.

The water was icy to her bare feet, the river rocks smooth and
slippery. She wobbled cautiously near the bank, grabbing onto
a low-hanging limb of the bulky oak tree to keep her balance.

With a sigh, she closed her eyes and listened to the
watery whisper of the river, the sound of birds calling and moving
the leaves over her head as they jumped from bough to bough. The
peace she felt was indescribable. It was as if she'd come home. Home.

She remembered Clint's mother baking biscuits in the oven,
laughing as she teased Maggie about her pigtails. And Clint,
maddening even that long ago, swinging her off the floor in
his hard arms to welcome her when she got off the bus at the
station. Twelve years ago. A lifetime ago.

She opened her eyes and followed the path of the river
downstream with an unseeing blankness in her stare. It was
hard to say just when she and Clint had lost that rapport. When she
was fourteen-fifteen? There had always been pretend arguments, but
as she reached the middle of her teens they had suddenly become
real. Clint seemed to provoke them deliberately, as if sparking her
hot temper were important, to keep her at a distance. It had been
even worse in her seventeenth summer…

She blotted out the thought. As long as she lived, she'd never
get over that humiliation. To an already withdrawn
teenager, the effect had been devastating. Not until Philip came along had
she even tried to open her heart again. Only to have him shatter
her pride to tiny bits.

A strand of her hair tumbled into her eyes and rather than try
to put it up again, she removed all the pins from her hair and
stuck them in her pocket, letting the rich black waves fall gently
around her shoulders. It had been a long time since she'd
worn her hair down like this outside the privacy of her bedroom.
That, too, dated back to Clint's cruelty.

He made no secret of his fondness for long hair, and Maggie had
let hers grow to her waist in the months before that summer
vacation. She'd even shed her favorite slacks outfits for some
frilly sundresses and dainty sandals, all in the hopes of catching
Clint's eye. But all she'd caught was Gerry Broome's, and Clint had
come to the rescue just in time. Gerry couldn't get away from her
fast enough, and Clint always thought that was the reason for
her one-woman campaign to reel in his heart. But none of it had
worked.

"Save your schemes for a boy your own age, little girl," he'd
warned her venomously after a lecture that her cheeks still
reddened from three years later. "I want more than long hair and
doe eyes when I take a woman in my arms. The only thing about me
that you arouse is my temper. I don't want you, Maggie."

The words echoed in her mind for days afterwards, even when she
got back home and was caught up in her father's lingering illness
and her mother's grief. She'd cut her hair then, and even when it
grew again, she kept it tightly capped in the bun. It hadn't come
down even for Philip, who loved long hair himself, but wasn't
persuasive enough.

With a sigh she sank down on a big boulder at the river's edge,
trailing her bare toes through the cold, rippling water, her hair
hiding her face from view as she relived the memories.

"Sunning yourself, mermaid?" a taunting voice asked from
close behind her.

She whirled with a gasp, almost unseating herself into the
stream as she faced Clint. He was leaning carelessly against the
trunk of the tree, one dusty boot propped on a chunky root, his
forearms crossed over his knee-just watching her. His stallion
nibbled at leaves on the oak tree nearby.

"You move…like wind," she accused breathlessly, smoothing the
hair away from her face.

"An old hunter's trick. Your mind was far away, little one," he
said gently, his eyes sketching her face in its frame of waving
black hair.

"I guess it was." She turned back, automatically winding
her hair into a braid so that she could pin it up.

"Leave it!" he said, in a tone like a whiplash.

She stiffened with her hands up against her nape. "It…gets in my way," she said tightly.

"We both know that isn't why."

"You flatter yourself if you think you're the cause of it," she
said with practiced calm, reaching into her pocket for some bobby
pins. "I'm not seventeen any more, Clint. I'm not vulnerable
anymore."

He was behind her before she realized it, arrogantly sweeping
the pins from her hand. He jerked her up by the elbows and held her
on her tiptoes in the cool, rushing water.

His green eyes narrowed, darkened, as he looked down into her
frightened face. It wasn't Clint's familiar, taunting eyes that
looked down into hers. He was a stranger-unsmiling, somber,
studying her with an intensity that rippled along her nerves.

"Was that a dig, Maggie?" he asked gruffly. "Or did you think
I'd forgotten what happened?"

She averted her face and tried not to feel the steely excitement his fingers were causing. "It was a long
time ago," she said as calmly as she could with her heart beating
wildly.

"And you're all grown up now, is that it?" He pulled her close
against his tall, lean body. "How grown up are you, little girl?"
he whispered, and she felt his breath, smoky and warm, whipping
across her face.

She pulled furiously against his merciless grip, fighting
him for all she was worth. "Let go of me!" she flashed, her
loosened hair flying as she twisted against his hands.

"Irish," he taunted softly, holding her easily in spite of her
flailing efforts to resist him. "As Irish as a shamrock. Calm
down, little tigress, I'm not going to force anything on you."

She did calm down, but more because of her own fatigue than the
soothing words. "You beast," she muttered, glaring up at him out of
eyes like an angry cat's.

His hands slid up her arms to her throat, holding her flushed
young face up to his, and all expression seemed to go out of his
own face, leaving his eyes narrow and dark as they looked deep into
hers.

"Fire in you," he said gently. "Soft flames, Irish, that could
burn a man alive. Did Philip ever see that white-hot
temper?"

The intensity of his gaze confused her, shook her. "He didn't
know I had a temper," she said unsteadily. Her eyes
narrowed, temper coming to her rescue. "You wouldn't know I
had one, either, if you'd stop picking on me!"

"I like it when you fight me," he said softly.

She looked up in time to see the light in his leaf-green eyes
flare up with the words, and a ghost of a smile touched his hard,
chiseled mouth. It was like no look he'd ever given her
before-appraising, calculating-almost sensuous. It made her
heart tremble, because the way he said it con-jured up a picture of a woman fighting the crush of a man's hard
arms, the sting of his mouth…