Sweet Enemy (12 page)

"Could you feel with another man what you feel with me?" he
challenged roughly.

She shifted restlessly on the pillow. "There are other
things."

"Name one."

"Children!" she shot at him, feeling vulnerable under those
cutting green eyes.

Something came and went in his face. He studied her for a long
time before he spoke, weighing what she'd said with the soft light
in her eyes.

"You want children?" he said.

"Of course."

"There's not any 'of course' about it, little girl," he said
solemnly. "Lida couldn't bear the thought of them. I can't remember
another woman I've been around who even considered them as part of a relationship."

"That doesn't come as any surprise to me," she said flatly.

He ignored the sarcasm. "Do you know, Maggie," he told her
gently, "I've never thought about children?"

She toyed with the pillowcase. "Why should you?" she murmured.
"You don't need anybody. You never have."

His fingers tugged hers away from the pillowcase to swallow them
gently, firmly. "I'm human," he said, his face solemn. "We all need
someone from time to time, Maggie."

"I can't picture you being lonely," she murmured. "What with all
the women following you around like…" She was going to say
pet dogs, but with the memory came pain and her face went
white.

"Don't, for God's sake!" he growled huskily. He slid his hands
under her and lifted her up against his hard, warm chest, rocking
her gently, his face buried in her dark hair, his hand tangling in the smoky tresses so hard it
hurt.

"Clint, I want to go home," she whispered shakily, her
eyes closing as she yielded against him, glorying in the feel of
him, the tangy scent of his cologne mingling with the spicy
soap he used.

"Why?" he asked at her ear.

"Because I've got to find a job," she said weakly. "I can't stay
here…" It was hard to think this close to him. She
remembered too well the feel of his hard mouth against her
own, and she wanted it so… Her nails bit into his shoulders
involuntarily as she fought to keep that hunger from
being betrayed by her own body.

"Stay with me," he whispered softly, and she felt his lips
moving in her hair, against her cheek, the corner of her mouth. His
hands came up to cup her face and hold it up to his narrow,
glittering eyes. "Be my woman, Maggie."

Her lips trembled as they formed an answer, but his mouth
whispered across them, his tongue tracing gently the soft curve of her upper lip.
"I like the way you taste, Margaretta Leigh," he murmured
sensuously.

"You…you just like women," she whispered unsteadily, and tried
to draw back.

"Honey, I don't want anybody else," he said matter-of-factly. "I
haven't for a long time."

She couldn't find a way to answer him, and that seemed to amuse
him. He watched her with eyes that were as patient as they were
calculating.

"Caught in my own web," he mused, and mischief danced in his
dark green eyes. "Doomed to a lifetime of frustrated desire for the
one woman I can't have. My God, I wonder if I'm too old for the
French Foreign Legion?"

Her eyes lit up. She laughed, her eyes glowing like liquid
emeralds, her face flushed and soft and radiant with laughter, her
hair like a dark halo framing her face.

Clint caught his breath at the picture she made, at the color
and animation in that sad little face.

"Think it's funny, do you?" he growled in mock anger, roughly
cradling her against him. He bent and kissed her savagely,
his mouth demanding and getting a response from her lips. He drew
back just far enough to see the eagerness in her eyes. "Now laugh,
hellcat," he murmured deeply.

She reached up and touched his mouth with slender, cool fingers.
"Barbarian," she whispered.

He smiled. "Did you like it?" he taunted.

She dragged her eyes down to his brown neck. "A lady never
admits such things."

"Lady, hell." He brought her mouth up to his and cherished it
softly, slowly, with such tender ardor that she gasped. "You're a
woman," he whispered huskily. "All woman. My woman. You belong to
me, little cat."

She pushed against his chest and sank down on the pillows with a
wistful sigh. "No," she told him quietly, and tears brightened her
sad eyes. "Not that way."

He drew a deep, short breath and stood up, moving away from the
bed to light a cigarette. He took a long draw before he spoke. "Is
that final, Maggie?" he asked.

"Yes," she whispered. "I'm sorry."

"The world's full of women, Maggie." He laughed shortly, and
threw a mocking glance at her just before he left the room.

Clint was already gone when she got downstairs the next morning.
Janna was waiting for her at the table.

"It's about time," she teased. "I thought you were going to
sleep all day."

"I thought about it," Maggie replied with a wan smile. She
pushed away the plate at her place, ignored the bacon and scrambled
eggs and toast on the table, and settled for a cup of black
coffee.

"Okay, you might as well tell me what happened," Janna grumbled. "Clint did the same thing. He
wouldn't eat in spite of all Emma's coaxing, and he looked like a
thundercloud when he went out the door. Was it another
argument?"

Maggie lowered her eyes to the reflection of the light in
her coffee. "You might say that."

"It's like trying to coax a clam open. Maggie…!"

"He wants me to be his mistress," she replied impatiently,
meeting Janna's gaping stare calmly. "And I said no. That's
all."

"That's all, she says!" Janna gasped. "You mean you finally
stopped fighting long enough to get involved with each other!"

''We're not…involved. At least, not that way." Maggie sipped
her coffee. Tears formed in her eyes and she bit at her lip to keep
them from falling, but she felt the betraying trickle down her
face. "Oh,

Janna, what am I going to do?" she whispered brokenly. "I
love him so!"

Janna got to her feet and wrapped her thin arms around the older
girl, hugging her quietly until the flood of tears showed signs of
slowing.

"I'm sorry," Janna murmured. "I feel responsible, sending you
down here when you didn't want to come. Oh, Maggie, why didn't you
tell me?" she wailed. "I'd never have insisted…!"

"It's all right, it's not your fault," she replied soothingly.
"You can't help it that you've got a hardheaded, half-savage beast
for a brother. I just don't understand why… One day he'd tease
me, the next he'd kiss me, the next he'd act as if he hated me…
Oh, Janna, I'm so confused."

"He wants you," Janna said, with an ear-to-ear grin.

"Of course he wants me, for all that he spent the first week I
was here denying it," she sighed, wiping at her red eyes. "But
that's all there is. He told me that he didn't even believe in love, Janna, and that he'd never marry. He wants
me, but I can't settle for that kind of relationship. As much
as I love him, I can't."

"He wanted Lida, you know," the younger girl reminded her
gently. "But he wouldn't have rushed to her bedside, or spent weeks
helping her to walk again."

"Wouldn't he?" Maggie asked wistfully. "How do you know
that? No," she shook her head. "It's only a physical kind of caring
that he feels for me. And it's not enough."

Janna nodded miserably. "What will you do?"

"What can I do? I'll go home." She finished her coffee.
"Temporarily, at least. Janna, don't look like that," she pleaded
when she saw the crestfallen expression on her friend's face. "You
know I wouldn't be able to bear it. He'd call you, like he always
has. When he comes to town, he'll come to see you. Do you think I
could bear that?"

"How will I bear being without you?" Janna murmured unsteadily.
"All these years, and growing up together, and sharing the
apartment… Oh, Maggie, I'll go with you!"

"You haven't heard a word I've said," Maggie groaned.

Janna sighed. "Yes, I have. Oh, darn Clint, anyway! Why did he
have to bring things to a head? You could have gone on hating each
other for years!"

That brought a smile to the pale green eyes. "Oh, Janna, you're
so comforting!" she laughed weakly. "Come on up and help me pack. I
want to be long gone when Clint gets back."

"I'll go with you!"

"You will not. You're on vacation, and he is your brother," she
said firmly. "Besides, isn't your mother due home soon?"

"Yes," came the grudging reply.

"Then that's settled. Everything will work out," she added
gently. "I promise you, everything will work out. Now stop pouting and come help me
pack."

Atlanta was exciting and new, and Maggie's job with a firm
of corporation lawyers kept her energies focussed on coping
with a different routine.

Day by day it was getting easier to let the past rest. Janna had
argued, when she returned from vacation, that if Maggie would just
give it a little time, everything would be different. But Maggie
was adamant. She'd already found a job, and an apartment
downtown, and was in the process of moving when Janna walked
in the door.

"He's changed, you know," Janna told her quietly during a lull
in packing. "When he isn't working himself into a coma, he just…sits. Mama came home and even
she
couldn't get through to
him. It's like he's…grieving."

"For me?" Maggie scoffed. "That'll be the day. If anything, he
was glad to see the last of me. All I ever did was irritate
him.''

"Are you really over him, already?" Janna asked quietly.

Maggie turned away and went back to the mountain of clothes
she'd stacked on her bed. "Sit down and let me tell you all about
my new job!" she said brightly.

One of her new bosses was young and single, and he reminded her
vaguely of Brent. They seemed to gravitate together, and it was no
time before she was going out with him. But with the understanding
that it was going to be strictly a friendship on her part.

"That suits me." Jack Kasey grinned from his superior height.
"Even though she can't marry me, Sophia Loren gets so
jealous!"

"Are you sane?" Maggie teased.

He tossed his blond head arrogantly. "Madam, how dare you?" he
demanded.

"Well, excuse me!"

"I should think so!" he replied, unruffled. He reached in
his pocket and held out his hand, palm up. There was nothing in it. "Want one?" he
asked.

"One what?" She blinked.

"Funny, that's just what my psychiatrist always asks."

"Oh, good heavens," she laughed. "You're the living end!"

"But of course! And I'm loaded, too," he said in a stage
whisper. "How about a steak tomorrow night?"

"I'd love it!"

"Great. I know this little restaurant…"

After the little restaurant, there was another little
disco place, and then an all-night bar. It was after two o'clock in
the morning when she got back to her apartment.

"Sorry to keep you up so late," Jack apologized as he walked
with her from the elevator to her apartment door. "Next time, I'll
try to remember that we're both working stiffs."

"I enjoyed it, though," she said, laughing.

"So did I." He grinned. "Well, goodnight, fair lady, my
dragon awaits without."

"Don't ride him too hard, now," she cautioned. "You know how
nasty dragons can get when they're overworked!"

"I'll remember!" he called as the elevator door shut.

With a sigh, she fit her key into the lock and walked in. There
was a light on in the living room, and she hadn't remembered
leaving it on. The carpet muffled her footsteps as she moved
cautiously forward. The lock was strong, surely no thief had been
able to…

She came silently to the doorway and froze there. Clint was
sitting in an armchair facing the hall, his eyes quiet and
dark in the distance, his face solemn.

"Wha…how…how did you get in here?" she asked hoarsely.

"Never mind how," he said in a voice tight with anger. "Who the
hell were you with, and where have you been half the night?"

She threw her evening bag down on the coffee table and glared at
him, the color of her emerald green dress making her eyes even more
vivid.

"None of your business, Clint," she replied with a calm
she was far from feeling. "I don't owe you any answers."

He lit a cigarette, his eyes never leaving hers. "I asked you a
question. I can get an answer in any number of ways. One," he
remarked quietly, "would be to lay you out on that sofa."

She flushed at the insinuation. "I thought you were tired of
giving me lessons," she said tightly.

He started to get up.

"All right!" she said quickly. "I…I was out with one of the
lawyers in the firm I work for. Just…just a friendly date,
Clint. He's very much like Brent."

He sank back against the cushion, with a heavy sigh. "Maggie, is
that the kind of man who really appeals to you?" he asked wearily.

She studied her evening shoes. "What kind of man are you talking
about?"

"Clowns. Boys."

"They don't make demands," she said on a sigh.

"No," he agreed. "They don't. Why are you afraid of a man who
would? Do you feel that inadequate, little girl?"

"Yes," she said, in what was little more than a whisper.

"Why?"

She shook her head and perched on the arm of the sofa, her eyes
avoiding his.

She heard him get up, heard the muffled thud of his footsteps as
he came to her. His lean hands caught her shoulders and forced her
to look up at him.

"Because of what that excuse for a fiance said to you?" he
asked quietly. "Or because of what I did to you?"

"A little of…both,'' she murmured, hat-ing the weakness he could cause with only an impersonal touch
like this.

He let her go and moved away, smoking his cigarette quietly,
standing in front of the window to watch with blank eyes the
colorful glow of the city stretching to the horizon.