Sweet Enemy (6 page)

"You little minx…" He pulled her against his big, husky body
and kissed her, hard and slow and with an expertise that was
shattering. "Thank you, Maggie," he whispered, as he let her
go.

"Goodnight," she told him, sliding reluctantly out of the
car.

"Goodbye, honey," he replied softly. And in seconds, he was
gone.

She stood watching the car's taillights as it wound around the
driveway toward the highway, and for just an instant she wasn't in
Florida at all. She was standing on the rains of an ancient
civilization with the breeze stirring her hair and drams pounding
in her blood. And he was there, too, but his name wasn't Masterson.
She shivered. Another time, another place, those dark eyes had
looked into hers and today in a few hours out of time his soul had
reached out to touch hers. She felt ripples of emotion
tingling through her taut body. How strange to meet and instinctively know all about
him-as if in another life…

"Come inside, little one."

She turned to meet Clint. He was still wearing his suit pants
and his white shirt, but his tie and his jacket were gone. He
looked dangerously attractive.

"I…I was just watching the car," she murmured as they went up
the steps. The shiver went through her again and without thinking
she slid her cold hand into Clint's, like a child seeking comfort.
For just an instant his hand tensed. Then it curled, lean and hard,
around hers and squeezed it.

"What's wrong, honey?" he asked.

She shook her head. "I felt…as if I'd known him somewhere
before. And something was wrong, I felt it!"

"Deja vu?" he asked with a smile, leading her into the
house, and then into his den.

She shrugged, dropping wearily down onto the sofa. "I guess. I don't know. It frightened me." She
watched him pour a neat whiskey, drop ice into it, and toss it
back. "Tell me about him."

Clint moved across the room and went down on one knee beside
her, his darkening eyes almost on a level with her in the
position. His hands caught hers where they lay in her lap.

"He's got cancer, honey," he said very gently. "There's nothing
they can do for him, and from what he told me himself, he's got
less than two more months."

A sob broke from her and tears rolled down her cheeks. "I like
him," she murmured through a pale smile.

"So do I. A hell of a man, Masterson. I've known him most of my
life." He took his handkerchief and mopped her eyes. "You know, he
accomplished more in his forty-two years than most men do in a
lifetime. He didn't waste a second of it. It's hard to grieve
too much for a man like that."

She looked into his quiet eyes for a long time. "I…I can't
picture you grieving for anyone," she said softly.

^"
Can't you, honey?" He smiled at her, gently, his
hand smoothing the hair away from her damp cheeks. "Do you still
think I'm invulnerable?"

"I don't know." She studied his dark, quiet face for a long
time. "I don't know very much about you at all. I…I didn't even
know you liked country-western music."

"I like any kind of music. And storms, the wilder the better.
And sensitive young women with liquid jade for eyes," he whispered
deeply. "And if you weren't still cherishing that kiss Masterson
gave you out in the car, I'd take your mouth and make you beg for
mine, little girl."

She blushed to the roots of her hair, and tried to steady her
breathing so that he wouldn't notice the effect those soft words
had on her fragile emotions.

"I…I might not even…even like it."

she replied, struggling for even a small surge of indignation to
use against him.

"You've spent the past four years wondering how my mouth
would feel on yours," he said quietly, his eyes biting into hers.
"We both know that."

Shakily, she got to her feet and moved around him toward the
door.

"When are you going to stop running from me?'' he asked, as her
hand went to the doorknob.

"Goodnight, Clint," she replied, ignoring the
question.

"Don't trip on your way to the nursery," he growled.

She could taste the bitterness in those harsh words, and it
served him right to be thwarted. For pure conceit, he was
unbeatable.

"Margaretta."

The breathless sound of her name on his lips, so strange, so
unfamiliar, made her freeze. She turned to catch an expression on
his face that she couldn't understand.

"Go riding with me tomorrow," he said gently. "I'll take you
down to that little branch of the creek where you and Janna used to
go wading."

She hesitated. "Why?" she asked.

"Maybe I want to get to know you again," he said carelessly.

"Did you ever know me?" she asked him.

He shook his head. "I'm beginning to think I didn't. Will you
come?"

She chewed on her lower lip. "If…if Brent isn't home, I
will."

His eyes narrowed, a muscle in his jaw working. "Brent isn't
coming back," he said tautly. "He called while you were out and
asked me to ship his bull to Mississippi. He's on his way to
Hong Kong."

"Oh." She turned away.

"Don't look so damned lost! My God, Irish, how many men does it
take for you lately?" he growled hotly.

"What does it matter to you?" she shot back.

He still hadn't answered her when she went upstairs.

He was waiting for her at the breakfast table, a red knit shirt
stretched across the broad expanse of his chest with bronzed flesh
and curling dark hair just visible in the V-neck. His pale eyes
searched hers for an instant before they dropped to the eggshell
blue blouse over her blue jeans. They narrowed on the thin ribbon
that bound her hair at the nape of her neck.

"Why did you drag your hair back like that?" he asked
quietly.

"It gets in my eyes when I ride," she replied, taking her seat
at the table.

"How do you want your eggs, sweet?" Emma called from the
kitchen.

"None for me, Emma! Just coffee this morning," she called
back.

"No appetite?" Clint chided.

She looked up into his eyes. "No," she said in a voice that
sounded breathless even to her own ears.

Smiling, he studied her over the rim of his coffee cup. "No
makeup?" he asked gently.

She watched the light catch the silver threads in his hair and
make them burn. "I…I haven't put it on yet."

He held her eyes across the table, his face solemn. "Don't. I
don't like the taste of it."

Her lips parted on a protest, but Emma came in with a steaming cup of coffee and

Maggie gave it her wholehearted attention.

It was a perfect morning for a lazy horseback ride. Even the sweltering heat was unnoticeable under the shade of the mammoth pecan trees in
the sprawling orchard. Maggie never failed to be impressed
with the orderly lines they'd been planted in so many years
before.

"I wonder how old they are," she murmured absently.

"The trees?" Clint smiled. "Older than either one of us, that's
a fact."

"Speak for yourself, Grandpa," she returned impishly.

He slanted a vengeful glance her way and pulled his hat low over
his brow. "Dangerous ground, Maggie."

"I'm not afraid of you," she teased. "Your poor old bones are so
brittle they'd probably break if you chased me."

He reined in his stallion and glared at her. "I think Brent had
a point," he told her. "How about guns at fifty paces
tomorrow morning?"

"Are you sure your hand's steady enough to hold a
gun…?"

"Damn you!" he laughed.

She laughed back, and the years nearly fell away. "Race you to
the meadow!" she called, and put her heels to Melody's flanks.

She thought she had him beat as they rode across the green
pasture with its scattering of wildflowers and headed toward
the woods. But before she could reach them, Clint passed her as if
the small mare she rode was backing up. No one, she thought
miserably, could beat him at this. He was a superb horseman, almost
part of the horse he rode, and a study in masculine grace and
power.

" Where've you been?" he asked as she reined up beside him. He
paused in the act of lighting a cigarette to grin at her flushed,
angry face. "Sore loser!"

She made a face at him. "Why do you always have to win?"

"It's my land," he replied nonchalantly.

Her eyes swung over the lush, grassy pasture to the fences far
away in the distance, to the herds of cattle that looked
like red and white dots. "It's beautiful," she murmured softly.

"You didn't always think so," he reminded her. "And you
were right. Ranch life has its drawbacks, Maggie. There isn't much
night life around here, much excitement. It can get pretty
lonely."

"Is that how I strike you?" she asked with a wistful smile. "A
city girl with a passion for nightclubs?"

He studied her narrowly over his cigarette. "Definitely a
city girl. You always were."

She let her eyes follow the flight of a vivid yellow and black
butterfly nearby. "I'm glad you know me so well."

There was an explosive silence. "If you hate the city so damned
much, why do you live there?"

She flinched at the quiet fury in his voice. "What else could I
do? All I know how to be is a secretary." She glared at him. "There
aren't many jobs available for women cowhands, in case you've
forgot-ten. Or is it," she added coldly, "that you just never noticed I
wasn't a boy?"

His eyes twinkled with humor. "To tell the truth, honey, I never
gave it much thought."

She touched the mare's flanks gently and urged her into a walk.
"Thanks."

The path through the woods was wide enough for both horses to
walk abreast- more a fire road than a trail. The peace was
hypnotic, only broken by the soft swish of the pines in the breeze,
the near-far sound of bubbling, soft-running water.

"This way," Clint said, turning his mount down a smaller, less
clear path.

She followed him to what seemed to be a wall of underbrush. He
stepped down out of the saddle and tied the stallion,
motioning Maggie to tie the mare several yards beyond.

He held the branches back for her, and as she strode forward
into the small clearing, it was suddenly like stepping back
through time. The tiny stream where she and Janna once spent lazy summer afternoons wading and
sharing dreams over a picnic lunch was there. As clear and sweet
and sandy as ever.

"Watch where you walk," he cautioned her as he settled his tall
form under a low-hanging oak. "I've had cattle mire down in that
soft sand."

She glared at him as she sat down to pull off her socks and
boots. "If I moo politely, will you haul me out?"

He grinned under the concealing brim of his hat, as he lay back
with his hands under his head. "I might."

She waded into the clear stream, delighting at the feel of
the cold water on her bare feet, the damp smell of sand and silt
and sweet wildflowers along the banks.

"I used to come here when I was a boy," he remarked lazily. "I
learned to swim just a few yards downstream where it widens
out."

"And catch tadpoles and spring lizards, too, I'll bet."

"Nope. Just water moccasins," he replied.

She froze in her tracks. "In…here?" she asked.

"Sure. It used to be full of them."

Chills washed up her arms. She froze in the middle of the
stream, warily looking around her. Suddenly every thin stick she
saw was a hissing enemy.

"C…Clint? What do I do if I see one?" she asked.

"What did you used to do when you and Janna came here?"

"We never saw any."

"Pure luck," he remarked. He lifted the edge of his hat and
peeked at her before he let it down again. "Well, Maggie, if you do
see one, you'd better run like hell. It won't do a lot of good, of
course, they're fast snakes and they've been known to chase
people…"

She was sitting beside him with her boots and socks in hand
before he finished the sentence.

He burst out laughing. "My God, I was teasing," he chuckled.

"You know how afraid I am of snakes," she muttered.

"After last summer, I've got a pretty good idea," he agreed.

She dried her feet with her socks, ignoring him.

"What did you do for amusement in Columbus?" he asked.

She wound one of the socks around her hand and stared at the
diamond-sparkle on the water. She shrugged. "I spent most of my
time digging up the backyard and planting things in the spring. In
the summer, I liked to fish on the Chattahoochee. In the fall
I'd go to the mountains with some of the other girls and watch the
leaves turn. In the winter, I'd drive up to Atlanta to hear the
symphony or watch the ballet." She studied the crumpled sock. "Dull
things like that. I'll bet you can't stand classical music."

"In fact, I do," he said quietly. "Al-though my tastes run to the old masters- Dvorak, Debussy,
Beethoven. I don't care for many contemporary compositions."

She stared at the hat over his face. "Sarah said you liked
country-western."

"I do. And easy listening." His hand fished blindly in his shirt
pocket for a cigarette.
"I
like art, too, little girl.
I used to drive all the way in to Tallahassee for
exhibits."

"When the King Tut exhibit was in…" she exclaimed.

"I saw it," he broke in. He removed the hat and tossed it to one
side, while he lit a cigarette and looked up at her with eyes a
darker green than the leaves on the tree overhead. "Let your hair
down. I don't like it tied back like that."

"You just want it to flop in my eyes so I can't see," she
pouted, but she loosened the ribbon all the same, and let the black
waves fall gently to frame her face.

He reached out a long arm and his fingers caught a thick
strand of it, testing the softness. "Long and thick and silky," he murmured quietly.
"Black satin."