Books By Diana Palmer

by Palmer, Diana

  She stared up at him, curious but afraid to voice the question.

  "You know one of them," he whispered deeply, studying her mouth. "But I'm not going to offer you marriage, Maggie. Not now, not ever."

  She swallowed nervously. "I won't be your mistress," she said unsteadily. "I won't, Clint."

  "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 hav
en'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, hating 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.

  "Please," she murmured, "why are you here? Is everyone all right at home...?"

  "Everyone," he agreed wearily. "Except me."

  She studied his straight back. "What's wrong?" she asked gently.

  "I love you, Maggie."

  She felt the words. Actually felt them, like a blinding surge of electric current that made her tremble.

  He turned, and she saw the truth in his eyes, in the deep lines of his face.

  "Have I shocked you?" he asked harshly. "God knows, I've shocked myself. I didn't think I could feel that for a woman. I didn't think I was capable of it." He took a long draw from his cigarette, and his eyes gazed at every inch of her from head to toe. "Do you want to know what it felt like when you left? Do you want to know how many nights I've spent sitting in the chair by my bed staring out into the darkness, missing you? My God, I have hurt until it feels like I've been cut in two."

  Her lips parted tremulously, but she couldn't speak. It was too new, too incredible. Was she asleep and dreaming it all? He put out the cigarette and came toward her like a cat, all muscle and grace and vibrant masculinity. He reached down and swung her up into his arms.

  "You don't believe me, do you?" he asked quietly. "Let me prove it to you, Margaretta Leigh. Let me show you what I feel."

  His arms brought her sensuously close and his mouth burned down into hers, opening it, tasting it, devouring it with a hunger that was fierce and blistering.

  He dropped down onto the couch, holding her across his lap, touching every soft line of her face with his lips, tenderly smoothing away the tears that his gentleness brought from her closed eyes.

  “Clint...!" she whispered brokenly, clinging to him.

  "What do you feel, when I kiss you?" he asked against her soft mouth, his breath coming quick and heavy.

  "As if I'm...being burned...alive," she wept, and her fingers went trembling to his cheek, the silvery hair at his temples. "I love you so much," she breathed. "I love you so...!"

  "Show me," he challenged, bending his he
ad. "Sweet little enemy, show me how much!"

  She brought her mouth down onto his and kissed him slowly, hungrily, her nails digging into his back, her lips parting sensuously under his.

  He drew back a breath, his eyes almost black with what he was feeling, his heavy heartbeat shaking her. He studied her flushed face, her misty, yielding eyes, and with a tender deliberation, his lean hand slid up her body over the soft, young curves until he felt her tremble.

  "Do you like this?" he whispered gently.

  She nodded, choked with the force of her own emotions so that even a word was impossible.

  "So do I, little innocent," he said tenderly. He bent and kissed her gently, and his lips curved in a smile against the soft moan that broke from her throat as his hand moved again.

  Her head fell back into the crook of his arm and she looked up at him with eyes that held all of heaven.

  "I've fought this until I thought it was going to kill me," he said, and she could see the seriousness in his eyes. "Honey, I want more from you than a night in my bed. I want children with you. I want to be there when you hurt so I can hold you until the tears go away. I want to stand between you and the world and keep you safe. God, Maggie, I can't bear to live without you!" he whispered torturously. "Marry me, Irish. Live with me. Love me."

  Tears were flowing down her cheeks. "Yes," she whispered, and found herself drowning in his ardor almost before she could get the word out.

  Minutes later, he tore himself away from her and stood up, smoothing his ruffled hair, fastening the buttons of his shirt. "We'd better settle for a civil ceremony," he said huskily, "and soon."

  She nodded, straightening her clothes and her hair while her heart threatened to storm through her chest.

  "When did you know?" she asked, moving into the kitchen and starting a pot of coffee.

  He stood in the doorway watching her with a smoking cigarette in his hand, looking so attractive, it took all her willpower not to throw herself at him.

  "The summer you were seventeen," he said gently, smiling.

  She gaped at him.

  "I wanted you," he said. "I couldn't get you away from the ranch fast enough, I wanted you so. From that day on, it was a losing battle. I used every excuse I could think of to keep you away from the ranch, to avoid you when you were there. My God, I'd never felt like that about a woman, any woman. And you were little more than a child." He shook his head with a wistful sigh. "I thought it would eventually go away. Right up to the day you called and told Emma you were engaged." He laughed shortly. "I went into a black sulk for days. I got drunk out of my mind. Two of my men threatened to quit because I rode them so hard. And nobody knew why, except me. But even then I wouldn't admit it."