by Diana Palmer
“Oh, don’t,” she pleaded dizzily, her slender hands making a halfhearted protest against the pleasure his were causing.
“Why not? You want it,” he whispered. His mouth brushed lazily over hers, open and moist and deliberately sensuous. “You want my hands and my eyes on every inch of this sweet young body, don’t you, Maggie? Answer me. Don’t you!”
Her voice broke on a sob. “Yes!” she wept. “Damn you, yes!”
“Ask me nice and sweet, Maggie,” he taunted. “Say, please Clint, say it, Irish. Whisper it…”
Her eyes opened slowly, bright with longing and love. “Please,” she breathed against his hard, torturing mouth. “Please, Clint…”
His hands contracted on her waist as he suddenly thrust her roughly away. A cold, merciless smile tugged at his mouth. “And that, Miss Kirk, evens the score. You wanted something to be ashamed of. You’ve got it!”
It took seconds for her to realize what he’d said, what he’d done. Her face went red, then white. Deathly white. Ashamed of…even the score…She gaped at him numbly, feeling as though she’d been slammed with all the strength in that tanned, lean hand.
He lit a cigarette calmly, his narrow eyes flicking her stunned expression as he snapped the lighter shut and pocketed it. “You’ve been following me around like a damned pet dog since you were about eight years old,” he remarked. “For future reference, I’m tired of it. I won’t be a stand-in for a jilting fiancé, or a balm for a broken heart. From now on, if you want to be made love to, look in some other direction. I’m tired of giving you lessons.”
Her face went, if possible, even whiter. Her mouth refused to form the words that would tell him how hateful she thought he was. Inside, she felt beaten, bruised. Tears misted on her long lashes, tears that she turned away to keep him from seeing. She went blindly toward the door.
“No comeback, Maggie?” he chided.
Her hand touched the doorknob.
“Would you like me to kiss you goodbye?” he persisted.
She opened the door and went out.
“Irish!”
She closed the door behind her and went blindly and quickly up the steps. Behind her she was vaguely aware of the door opening again, of eyes following her. But she didn’t slow down or look back. Not once.
Eight
Maggie sat in the chair by her bed in the dark for hours, aching with a hurt that went deeper than any pain. The deliberate cruelty was almost unbearable. He knew he’d hurt her. She’d seen the satisfaction in his jade eyes. And all because she’d stung his ego. For no other reason than that.
The tears hadn’t stopped since she closed the door behind her into this womb of security that was darkness. Hadn’t stopped, hadn’t eased. Not when the knock came hesitantly on the door and Emma’s voice called her name gently. Not when she heard two voices outside the locked room, one deep and slow and angry, the other soft and pleading.
When the first light of dawn filtered through the fluffy white curtains, she still hadn’t moved from the chair, or slept. Her eyes were red-rimmed and dark shadowed, her face as white as it had been last night.
Automatically, she began to pack, quietly and efficiently stuffing clean and dirty clothes together in the single suitcase, gathering cosmetics from the chest of drawers, her toiletries from the bathroom. She didn’t allow herself to think. Not about what she’d felt for Clint, not about what he’d done to her, not about the anguish of walking away from him for the rest of her life. She kept her mind on getting away and nothing else. Escape was the only important thing left in her life right now. She wanted to run.
Without pausing to drag a brush through her hair, she picked up the case and, without a backward glance, closed the door.
“Oh, there you are,” Emma said in a strange, hesitant tone as Maggie reached the bottom of the staircase. “Ready for breakfast, missie? Surely you’re not going to leave without breakfast?”
Maggie didn’t answer, making do with a short, wordless shake of her head. She picked up the phone and calmly called a taxi, aware as she put the receiver down that Clint had come into the hall.
Emma exchanged a quick glance with him and left the hallway, quietly closing the kitchen door behind her with a soft click.
Maggie picked up her case and started for the front porch just as Clint moved, standing quietly in front of her, his hands jammed deep into the pockets of his jeans. His own eyes were bloodshot, his face haggard. She only spared him a brief, cold glance before she averted her eyes.
“Please get out of my way,” she said in an uncommonly quiet tone.
“I want to talk to you, Maggie.”
“Write me a letter,” she said to her shoes. “If you try, you can probably come up with a few more insults by the time you mail it.”
“Maggie!” he groaned, reaching out to touch her shoulder.
She flinched away from him as if he’d cut her to the bone, backing away with wide, burning eyes. “Don’t ever do that again,” she whispered unsteadily. “Don’t ever touch me. I’m getting out of your life just as quickly as I can, Clint, isn’t that enough?” Tears misted in her eyes. “What more do you want from me, blood?” she cried.
He drew a deep, slow breath. “My God, I never meant to hurt you…” he breathed huskily, something dark and somber in his eyes as they searched her face.
“No, you didn’t, did you?” she asked bitterly. “You wanted to take the hide off Lida, but she wasn’t here and I was. Maybe things will look up now, since she’s coming back.”
“Maggie, not like this, for God’s sake!” he growled as she started for the door. “I want to tell you…!”
“The score’s even, Clint, you said so,” she told him from the porch, her eyes accusing. “There’s nothing more you can say that I want to hear. You said it all last night.”
His eyes narrowed as if in pain, his gaze searching, quiet, as if he’d never seen her before and couldn’t get enough of her face. “No, honey,” he said gently. “I didn’t say enough. Maggie…”
A loud blare from a car horn coming up the driveway interrupted him, and she turned and started down the steps with a burst of relief that made her slender shoulders slump. “Tell Emma goodbye,” she called over her shoulder, “and tell Janna I’ll write!”
He didn’t answer her, his face dark and still, his eyes riveted to the slender form as it crawled into the cab and the door closed. He watched her go, his eyes haunted and tortured as the cab slowly faded to a yellow speck in the distance.
Emma came out onto the porch behind him, drying her hands on the white apron.
“I’ve got breakfast,” she said gently.
He didn’t answer her, his eyes blank, his face drawn.
“You wanted her to go,” Emma reminded him. “That’s what you told me last night.”
He turned and went into the house, into his den, closing the door behind him firmly. With a sigh, Emma went back to the kitchen, idly wondering how she was going to explain any of this to Janna.
Later, sitting wearily on the bus to Miami, Maggie read Duke Masterson’s letter for the third time and said a silent thank you to the big dark man for this way out. She couldn’t have borne going back to the apartment just yet, facing Janna and the inevitable questions. The wound was too raw, too new to be probed just now. In a few days, a few weeks…she gazed lovingly at the ticket that promised escape. It was a reprieve from too much hurting, too much pain. Philip, then Clint…especially Clint. She closed her eyes against the bitter memory. Would she ever forget how he’d humbled her; would she ever heal from the crippling blow her pride had suffered?
Her eyes turned to the window, to the palmettos and pines on the horizon, the occasional home tucked away in a nest of trees. Things were going to be awkward from now on. She wouldn’t be able to spend holidays with Janna ever again if they meant the ranch and Clint. It would be worse when he flew into town on business and came to see his sister. She sighed wearily. Perhaps it would be better if she loo
ked for a job in Atlanta and moved away from her childhood friend. That would be painful, too. But maybe, in the long run, it would be for the best.
She leaned her head back against the seat and closed her tired eyes. It seemed so long since she’d slept, since she’d felt any peace at all. Her mind was full of Clint, of the old days.
It seemed so long ago that she and Clint had sat on the porch swing together and talked about horses. Or went for long rides in the forest as she listened to his tales about the early days of Florida’s exploration when canoes sailed down the Suwannee River on scouting trips.
He made the Sunshine State come alive for her. She could see the proud Spanish conquistadores tramping through the underbrush by the river. She could hear the drums of the proud, fierce Seminoles, who were never conquered by the United States government despite a series of three wars they fought between 1817 and 1858. She could picture the tall sailing ships that departed Florida’s sandy coast, bound for the Indies or South America.
She sighed. Clint had liked her as a child. They’d been friends. But now he was an enemy, and all her tears wouldn’t change that. Not after what he’d done to her. Her eyes closed with pain at the memory. Had that really been necessary, she wondered, the humiliation he’d caused? Why should it have upset him so, what she said while they were out riding, about being ashamed of what he could make her feel?
She shook her head idly. If he’d wanted to shame her, he’d accomplished that. But what puzzled her was the look on his face the next morning, the dark, hungry look in the green eyes that watched her leave the ranch. Had it been guilt in his eyes—or pain?
Her brows came together. She wondered what Janna would think when she got there; or would Clint even tell his sister the whole story? She hadn’t mentioned that she was going to Miami. Nobody knew she had the cruise ticket. Clint and Emma had simply assumed that she was going home to Columbus.
Well, what difference did it make, she wondered, her eyes on the cloudy landscape outside the tinted bus window as the sunset made lovely flames in the sky. How quickly the day had passed, and soon the Miami skyline would come into view on the horizon. She shifted restlessly on the comfortable seat. Miami. Would any of them worry besides Emma and Janna? Well, she would mail Janna a postcard from Greece or Crete or wherever she landed. Janna and Emma, she corrected.
She got off the bus in Miami and took a cab to Miami Beach where Collins Avenue boasted almost wall to wall hotels. She gaped like a country girl at the sights and sounds of Miami Beach at night, drinking in the salt sea smell, the glorious fairyland colors of the night lights. There was no parking space available at the hotel she chose, so the driver let her out across the busy street and lifted out her suitcase.
“Watch the traffic, lady,” he cautioned as he handed her the change from her fare.
She nodded and smiled. “Awesome, isn’t it?” she laughed.
“Not after you’ve been here a while.” He grinned as he drove away.
She lifted the suitcase, still smiling as she surveyed the bigness and richness of this man-made Mecca. In just hours, she’d be on that cruise ship heading out into the Atlantic. Leaving behind her worries, her heartaches, her obligations, just for a little while. She took a deep breath of warm sea air. Thank you, Duke Masterson, she said silently, feeling a twinge of sadness that the big, dark man wouldn’t be somewhere in those ancient ruins waiting for her.
She started toward the hotel across the street, her mind far away, her eyes unseeing. She didn’t notice the powerful car pulling away from the curb with a squealing of tires just a few meters away. Not until she felt the sudden impact and everything whirled down into a painful sickening blackness….
Sound came and went in vague snatches, from a great distance.
“…Several ribs broken, internal injuries. She’s not responding.”
“She’s got to! My God, do something, anything! I don’t give a damn what it costs!”
“We’re going to do all we can, of course. But…she’s not trying, you see. To live, I mean. The will to live can make the difference in cases like these.”
The voices faded away, and then one of them came back, deep and slow, and she was dimly aware of fingers curling around hers, holding them, caressing them.
“Running out on me?” the voice growled. “Is that what you’re trying to do, Maggie, run some more?”
Her eyes fluttered, her brows contracted. Her head moved restlessly on the cool pillow.
“I…don’t want…to,” she whispered half-consciously.
“Don’t want to what?”
“Live,” she managed. “Hurts…too much.”
“Dying’s going to hurt more,” came the short reply. “Because if you go, I’m coming, too. You won’t escape me that way. So help me, God, I’ll follow you! Do you hear me, Maggie?”
Her head tossed. “Leave me…alone!” she whispered painfully.
“Why the hell should I? You won’t leave me alone.”
The fingers tightened, and she felt or thought she felt a surge of emotion flowing through them, warming her, touching her, gently holding her to life.
She licked her dry, cracked lips. “Don’t…let go,” she murmured, clenching her hand around those strong fingers.
“I’ll never let go, little girl. Hang on, sweetheart. Just hang on.”
“Hang…on,” she breathed, and the darkness came again.
The voices came and went again, now droning, now arguing. A feminine one joined in, pleading, soft. It was like a strange symphony of sound, mingled with the clanging of metallic objects, the coolness of sheets, the feel of warm water and cool hands. And that one voice…
“Don’t give up now,” it commanded, and she felt the strong fingers gripping hers. “You can do it if you try. Just hang on!”
She took short, sharp breaths and they hurt terribly. She grimaced with the effort. “Oh, it…hurts!” she moaned.
“I know. Oh, God, I know. But keep trying, Maggie. It’ll get better. I promise.”
So she kept trying, fading in and out of life until the sounds became familiar, until one day she opened her eyes and saw the white sheets and smelled the medicinal smell and saw sunlight filtered through the blinds across her bed.
Blinking, her lips raw, she looked up into a pale, haggard face with emerald green eyes and disheveled dark hair.
She frowned, numb from painkillers and sleep. “Hospital?” she managed weakly.
Clint drew a deep, heavy breath. “Hospital,” he agreed. “Still hurt?”
She swallowed. “Could I…water?”
He got up from his chair and poured water and ice into a glass from the plastic pitcher by the bedside. He sat on the edge of the bed to lift her head so that she could sip the ice water.
“Oh, that’s so good,” she almost wept, “so good!”
“Your throat feels like sawdust, I imagine.”
“Like…desert sand,” she corrected, wincing as he laid her back on the pillows. “Am…am I broken somewhere?”
“A few ribs,” he said.
The tone in his voice disturbed her. “What else?”
He ran a lean hand through his thick, dark hair. “You took a hell of a blow, Maggie,” he said quietly.
“Clint, what else?” she cried.
“Your back, honey,” he said gently.
With a feeling of horror she tried to move her legs…and couldn’t.
“Oh, my God…” she whispered.
“Don’t panic,” Clint cautioned, brushing the damp hair away from her temples. “Don’t panic. It isn’t broken, just bruised. Your doctors say you’ll be walking again in weeks.”
Her eyes opened wide, searching his desperately. “You wouldn’t…lie to me?”
His fingers brushed her cheek gently. “I’ll never lie to you. It won’t be easy, but you’ll walk. All right?”
She relaxed. “All right.”
“How did they…find you?” she asked.
A ghost of a smil
e touched his chiseled mouth. “Masterson’s letter, in your purse. It had your name and the ranch’s address on it, remember?”
She nodded, toying with the sheet. “I was…thinking about the cruise, when the car…”
“You might have told me where you were going,” he remarked.
She flushed, turning her eyes away.
He drew a harsh breath. “On second thought,” he said gruffly, “why the hell should you? God knows I didn’t give you any reason to think I’d give a damn, did I, Maggie?”
She still couldn’t answer him, the memories coming back full force now, hurting, hurting…!
“Don’t,” he said gently. “Maggie, don’t look back. It’s going to take every ounce of strength you’ve got to get back on your feet. Don’t waste it on me.”
She breathed unsteadily. “You’re right about that,” she murmured tightly. “It would be a waste.”
“I’m glad you agree,” he replied, without a trace of emotion in his deep, slow voice.
She studied her pale hands. “Why did you come?”
“Because Emma and Janna wouldn’t rest until I did,” he growled. “Why else?”
“Well, I’ll live,” she said bitterly. “And I’ll walk. And I don’t need any help from you, so why don’t you go home?”
“Not without you.”
She gaped at him, but there was no hint of expression on his dark face.
“The minute I leave,” he mused, “you’d be up to your ears in self-pity.”
“I wouldn’t either!”
He reached out and caught her cold, nervous fingers in his. “I’ll let you go the day you can walk away from me under your own power,” he said. “That ought to give you some incentive, hellcat.”
Hellcat. She remembered, without wanting to, the last time he’d called her that, pinning her down, holding her, hurting her, his hard mouth creating sensations that washed over her like fire.
“You’re blushing, Maggie,” he teased gently.
She jerked her hand away and her eyes with it. “I can go home…to the apartment,” she faltered.
