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Authors: Heather Graham

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BOOK: Tender Taming
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“How is the lamb, Miss Latham?” Eagle inquired politely.

“Quite tender, thank you.”

Cutting a morsel of his own food, Eagle chewed thoughtfully. “Tender and delectable,” he mused. “However, I—like you—have recently discovered how the most tender and delectable … ah … tastes … can become quite sour. One is enticed to feast and then
voilà!
The banquet disappears!”

Banquet! He had made his statement innocently, innocuously, but still his voice rang with caustic insinuation. She had never been anything more than a diversion, like a meal, pleasingly gourmet as it may have been. Her face was no longer ashen; it flooded scarlet. The man had no scruples whatsoever. Neither would she. Her temper was rising, but she had to keep cool. They were on her territory now, and a verbal battle was one she could win.

“Banquet, sir? Rather a fish hooked and dangled on a line, deceived by the lie of a lure. But even fish that look like easy prey can sense deception and slip hooks.”

“I see. Now we’re talking about wolves in sheep’s clothing.”

“You flatter yourself, Stewart,” Whitney flared. “We’re talking about liars, con men, despicable cheats—” she choked off her own words. What was she saying, she wondered sinkingly. He was goading her into comments that were childishly imperious. Even while wishing she could take back her remark, she knew she couldn’t. Her name-calling was below the belt, but she couldn’t afford the weakness of an apology. Whatever he thought of her snobbishness, he would just have to think.

Eagle’s eyes narrowed to slits of ice blue. “You intend to make two tribes of Indians suffer because you imagine you’ve been done a wrong by one man?”

Whitney pushed at her lamb toyingly with her fork. She had lost her appetite. “Suffer? I don’t intend to make anyone suffer. You took me out to meet the Indians so that I could have a good understanding of what I was doing. Well, I do. I’m convinced that they need all the help I can give them. Grinding corn all day may be your idea of amusement, but it isn’t mine. There is no need for anyone to spend every waking moment in grueling labor these days. There is no need for anyone to live in a thatched hut. The community we’re offering will provide well-paying jobs for men and women alike. Surely you can’t resent that, Mr. Stewart.”

“I don’t resent your community. Build it, by all means. The economic advantages will most certainly be enjoyed by some; the interaction between the white and Indian societies will no doubt be beneficial. I’m simply afraid that you’ll have to build elsewhere. I will be happy to help you find another suitable spot.”

“Mr. Stewart, we had men in the field for months trying to find the perfect location,” Whitney said stubbornly, positive that she held the edge. That Eagle had pushed aside his own plate and now stared at her calmly, his arms crossed confidently over his chest as he leaned back in his chair, merely served to strengthen her determination.

“The land is not perfect if it belongs to someone else.”

Whitney expelled a condescending sigh of exasperation. “We are willing to buy the land for more than it is actually worth! Honestly,
White Eagle,
there are times when I feel they definitely misnamed you! Balking Mule would have been much more apt!”

“How clever!” Eagle arched a black brow high. “Coffee, Miss Latham?” Without her consent, he motioned to the waiter, who set steaming cups before them. When they were again alone, he moved like a coiled snake and leaned across the table. His voice was a smooth, silky hiss that left Whitney struggling with her willpower simply not to jump back from his advance.

“Since we’re being clever here, Whitney, I’ll let you in on an astute observation. Someone should take you over a knee, plant a few good whacks on your behind and send you back to Virginia to be grounded until you grow up! I’m sure you have brains and a mind, but I’m equally sure that you must be sitting on them! You won’t be winning this one. If you persist in this cause—still not understanding a thing that’s going on even though it all sits directly beneath your haughty little nose—you’re likely to propel yourself right out of a job.”

Blood spewed into Whitney’s head and her temples began to pound furiously as she gasped in outrage. “How dare you!” she grated, unable to keep a cool tone in her voice any longer. “Of all the audacious, arrogant and egotistical statements! I can guarantee you that I will not be out of a job! It is you, Mr. Stewart, who will find yourself on the defensive!
You
who will lose—a fool through and through to both communities by the time I finish with you! You may have an advantage in the backwoods of the Everglades, Eagle, and you certainly did manage a few tricks! But we are far from there now. Nor can you keep me from discovering real truths!” Gritting her teeth, Whitney spoke her last words between them, very slowly. “I—will—bring—you—down!”

Eagle didn’t quirk a muscle. The only sign of his own anger was a pulse that worked furiously in twin veins along the sides of his taut neck. Motioning again to the waiter, he silently signed the check. With silent menace he assisted Whitney from her chair and firmly escorted her from the restaurant. Wincing with protest at the iron grip propelling her, Whitney tried to wrench her arm away. “Stop it!” Eagle hissed in her ear. “This is one of your ‘civilized’ restaurants, and I refuse to brawl in public!”

A moment later they were standing in the parking lot by the BMW. “Give me your keys!” Eagle growled.

“I hardly think—”

“You’re right. You don’t think. Give me the damn keys.” Eagle curtly grasped them from her fumbling fingers and none too politely ushered her into the car. “Don’t worry,” he advised acidly as he joined her, “I won’t be with you long. I only have one or two things to say, but you are going to listen to them without a pack of snotty remarks in return.”

“I don’t have to—”

“The hell you don’t!” Eagle’s grip was now around her wrist, and she could barely twist her fingers, much less escape him. His handsome face, tense and rigid with anger, was inches from her own. A quivering of fear began to dance over her spine and she stared motionlessly into the flaring, hypnotizing blue of his eyes.

“Now, Miss Latham, since I seem to have your attention, I shall try to be very diplomatic. The land you have chosen has special tribal value to the Indians. Sentiment—not dollars and cents. No matter what you offer, they will not sell. And they can prove in a court of law that the land is theirs. Keep your vendetta against me personal and wise up about the land. You’ll hurt a lot of people by trying to spite me.”

“I’m not making a business decision out of spite!” Whitney sputtered. “I know they can use what I want to give them!”

“Then handle this with the PR with which you are supposedly so proficient!”

“Shut up for a minute!” Eagle commanded harshly. “Take some time and think. What you are doing is because of me, and I’m not even sure quite why. Just exactly what did I do to you? I couldn’t tell you who I was that night—you would have put on your little professional act immediately, and I wouldn’t have been able to make you understand a thing. I never lied to you. I am White Eagle and I did bring you to my family and they do live that way! Yes, some of our people have electricity and modern conveniences and some even live in your whitewashed houses! It’s your anger against me that is keeping you from seeing anything! I gave you a culture, Whitney, and it doesn’t seem to mean a damned thing to you! All you see is dollar signs and grocery stores and washing machines.”

“You gave me a culture!” Whitney blurted furiously. “You did a hell of a lot more than that. You—you—”

“I what? I made love to you? I let you know that you were very much alive? That you were a warm, sensuous woman? You want to destroy me because of that?”

“Don’t be ridiculous!” Whitney seethed. “You keep flattering yourself. You’re are not so incredibly special! I—I loathe your touch, I—”

“You,” Eagle interrupted scathingly, encircling her other wrist, “have turned into more than a self-righteous, misinformed do-gooder. You’ve become a liar.”

“A liar!” Her voice was rising to a shrill shriek. “Get out of my car!”

“I intend to—in just a minute.” He had twisted over her now, and his breath was a warm, moist breeze against her cheeks. “I’m giving you fair warning, Whitney. I can take you, and if you force my hand, I will. I can take you in any game you want to play.”

“You’ll have to prove that!” she hissed.

“I will.”

The lips that had been hovering over hers were suddenly upon them, bruising and demanding. The assault was so swift that Whitney was momentarily in shock, unable to protest. By the time she gathered her wits back together, he had taken total advantage of the situation, prying into the cavern of her mouth with an insistent tongue. And in her stupor she was responding. Her senses had taken over, and after the days of deprivation, there was nothing more natural than the sweet, addictive ambrosia of his masculine lips invading hers, or the delicious eroticism of his commanding hands seeking the swells of her breasts, which rose automatically to curve for his pleasure as she arched to him …

“No!”
Logic, reason and fury finally tamed the wanton, instinctive physical response. Pushing the slender fingers that had risen to entangle in his black hair against him, Whitney echoed the choked scream. Eagle acquiesced—at his own speed, releasing her slowly. Whitney met the sardonic amusement in his eyes with desperate venom. She was dangerously close to tears she would never allow him to see her shed.

“Get out of my car—now!”

“I’m going.” He sounded infuriatingly unperturbed, as well he should. He had controlled the kiss from the beginning. Had he chosen, Whitney thought with horror, he could have easily overridden her feeble objection. “I think,” he said concisely, exiting the BMW with his fluid motion, “that I have proved my point.”

Whitney watched in stunned immobility as he walked across the parking lot, tall, sinewed and exceedingly masculine in the perfectly tailored jacket that accentuated the breadth of his shoulders and the trimness of his hips and long legs. Then a white-hot flash of heat invaded her with renewed fury. She stormed from the BMW after him, catching up with him just as he entered the driver’s seat of his own car, a quiet gray Mercedes.

Clutching the windowsill with white-knuckled hands, Whitney rushed into scathing speech. “You haven’t proved a thing, Mr. Stewart,” she declared vehemently. “You play tricks and take people unaware. That is all. I happen to know that I am right. That land is right where it should be—accessible! To your people. I intend to show them the benefits, and I intend to bring you into a court of law, where your devious ways will be ripped to shreds. I, Mr. Stewart, am giving you fair warning. Take some time yourself and go out and find yourself a good lawyer!”

A deadly grin stretched Eagle’s grim lips.

“My dear Miss Latham, I am a lawyer. You just don’t ever seem to have the pertinent facts, do you? I’m even considered to be a good lawyer. That’s why I—an outsider—am representing the Indians.”

The volcano was about to spew forth. Whitney spun on her heels just as the Mercedes roared into action.

CHAPTER EIGHT

I
T WAS A TERRIBLE
thing to suspect you might be wrong, Whitney thought as she shifted in her lawn chair before the pool and tossed her towel over her burning face. Terrible, when you wanted so desperately to be right!

Almost a week had passed since her luncheon encounter with Eagle. Hate and anger had sustained her through the first few days; then uncertainty had set in. Was she so bent on vengeance that she had become blind? T and C had supported her ultimatum that they take the matter to court, but now she was doubting her own single-minded vision. A woman scorned, she thought bitterly. Well, her tantrums with Eagle could hardly be called mature.

“Aha! I’ve found you! Believe it or not, old man that I am, I would recognize that body anywhere!”

Whitney ripped the towel from her face and stared incredulously at the crinkling blue eyes of a smiling Jonathan L. Stewart. He was clad today in tan leisure slacks and a beige tennis shirt, and as he stood above her, his hands idly in his pockets, Whitney was again struck by the resemblance between father and son. Unwittingly she smiled. There was little else to do when met with the dazzling, genteel gaze of the senior Stewart.

“I hear you’re on the outs with my son,” Stewart said cheerfully, drawing another lawn chair next to Whitney’s. “I hope you won’t hold that against the father.”

Whitney grinned sheepishly. “No, sir.”

“Call me Jon,” he suggested. “All my friends do.”

“No, Jon,” Whitney said. “I hold nothing against you.” She frowned and grimaced suddenly and reached for her dark sunglasses in a pretense of blinking from the heat of the sun. He must know everything now! she thought in a rash of embarrassment. Well, not
everything,
but enough to allow his imagination to do the rest.

“Did your son send you here?” she asked suspiciously.

Jon chuckled. “You must be kidding, Miss Latham. My son is as stubborn—if not more so—as you are. I think he would stand his ground until the next Ice Age overtook it.”

“Oh.” She didn’t voice the question, but it was in the air:
Then why are you here?

“I’d like to see if you’d be willing to humor a senior citizen and spend an afternoon with me. I’ll promise the reward of a excellent dinner in exchange for any boredom you have to endure,” Jon said solemnly.

“Is this an appeal to my better nature?”

“Yes, frankly it is. If I know my son, if he became irritated, he never would get around to explaining things fully.”

He didn’t, Whitney thought silently. I didn’t give him much of a chance.

“I shall be delighted to spend the afternoon with you, Jon.”

“Good! Oh … uh … we won’t mention this to anyone, if that’s agreeable.”

Whitney rose and stretched, chuckling. “I certainly won’t say anything! Where are we going and what should I wear?”

Thirty minutes later they were back along a lonely stretch of Alligator Alley. A natural, comfortable friendship had grown between them, and they had discussed everything from world politics to the atrocious cost of meat in the supermarkets. Jon hadn’t brought up his son’s name. Neither had Whitney.

BOOK: Tender Taming
7.22Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

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