by Diana Palmer
Her legs were still sluggish, but by taking her time, she made it to the kitchen without stumbling. A cup of hot chocolate, she thought, just might put her to sleep. Failing that, she was ready to try a sledgehammer.
While the milk was heating, she got down a heavy mug and filled it sparingly with a tablespoon of sugar and one of cocoa. And all the while, she hated her own tongue for the words Clint had heard. After everything he’d done for her, and she had to throw it out like that, and he had to hear it. Her eyes closed on the pain. And she hadn’t really meant it at all.
She poured the hot milk into the mug on top of the sugar and cocoa. The sudden opening of the door startled her so that she almost dropped the pot. She whirled to find Clint standing just inside the doorway.
“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” he asked quietly. His dark hair was rumpled, his shirt half undone, his dark face heavily lined as if he’d tried to sleep and couldn’t.
“I…just wanted to have a cup of hot chocolate,” she murmured, as she placed the pot in the sink and ran water in it.
“Who told you to get out of bed and start climbing up and down stairs in the dark?” he persisted.
She flashed a glance at him. “The President, both houses of Congress and my senator,” she said with a hint of her old spirit.
“You left out your representative,” he mused, and for just an instant a smile touched his hard mouth. “You ought to be in bed, honey.”
Amazing what the soft endearment could do to her nerves, she thought, sitting quickly down at the table in front of her hot chocolate before her legs gave way. “I’ll go back up in just a minute.”
“Stubborn little mule,” he accused. “All right, I’ll have a glass of tea and wait for you. How about some cheese and bread?”
Her eyebrows went up. “Hoop cheese?” she asked hopefully.
“If I can find where Emma hides it. Aha!” He pulled it out of the refrigerator, sliced some of it, and put it on a saucer. “Would you rather have crackers or bread?”
“Crackers!”
He laughed softly as he poured himself a glass of tea and plopped ice cubes into it. “Same here.”
Seconds later, he put the cheese and crackers on the table between them and relaxed in the chair next to hers, drinking his tea thirstily.
“Couldn’t you sleep?” she asked, suddenly shy of him.
“No,” he replied quietly.
She shrugged. “Neither could I.” She munched on a piece of cheese.
He finished off his part of the cheese and crackers and leaned back in his chair to study her. “Look at me,” he said suddenly.
She met his level gaze, startled, and as quickly looked away from it.
“The robe matches your eyes,” he remarked.
She smiled. “That’s why Janna gave it to me, or so she said.”
“Legs hurt?” he asked.
She shook her head. “I took my time coming down the steps. After all,” she reminded him, “you were the one who said I needed more exercise.”
He drained his glass. “I said too damned much,” he replied. “Hurry up, honey, I’m not leaving you down here alone.”
She finished her hot chocolate and got up to put the cup in the sink. As she turned away from the sink, she found herself being lifted into a pair of steely, warm arms and carried out of the kitchen.
“Oh, don’t,” she protested gently, pushing at his shoulder. “Clint, I’m too heavy…!”
He flicked off the light switch in the kitchen as he carried her out into the hall and up the staircase. His eyes, dark and strange, looked deep into hers. “You don’t weigh anything, little girl. It’s like carrying an armload of soft, warm velvet.”
“If you’re going to make fun of me, just put me down and I’ll walk!” she said defensively, stirred by the sensations being this close to him was causing.
“Oh, hell no, you won’t,” he replied imperturbably, and tightened his hold on her.
“You awful bully!”
“You little shrew.”
She drew a deep, hard breath and glared up at him with her green eyes blazing. “It’s like arguing with a stone wall!” she growled.
He chuckled softly. “See how simple life is when you stop struggling, Irish?”
Her lips pursed in a sulking pout. “I won’t even dignify that remark with an answer.”
“You’d hate it if you could fight me and win, Irish,” he said gently.
She lowered her eyes to his open collar, where the bronzed flesh with its covering of dark hair was tantalizingly visible. She could feel the hardness of that broad chest where she was pressed against it, and she wanted suddenly to reach out and touch that warm rough skin. A tremor went lightly through her body.
He looked down when he felt it and caught her eyes, held them, and searched them with an intensity that made her heart race.
He drew a deep, harsh breath and kept walking. He carried her into her room and laid her on the bed as quickly as if she’d been an armload of burning straw.
“This time, stay put,” he growled, and his eyes were blazing as they looked down into hers.
She glared up at him. Her breath came in irregular gasps, from the proximity she’d endured, from the hunger of loving him. “Must you always growl at me?” she whispered.
“Do you have to be told what I’d rather do?” he asked flatly, and his eyes slid over her like a warm caress, from her lovely flushed face in its wild tangle of dark, wavy long hair down to her slender body. “I want you to the point where it’s like having an arm cut off, does that make you feel better, hellcat?” he asked harshly.
The admission stunned her. He’d said something like that before, but she always thought it was part of the humiliation he’d thrown at her. She lay there quietly, staring up at him like a curious young cat, her eyes asking questions as they met his.
“That’s all you know anything about—wanting,” she said quietly, her eyes accusing.
“What should I believe in?” he asked. “Love? It’s a myth, little girl. An illusion that doesn’t last past the marriage vows.”
“How do you know?”
He studied her mouth with a mocking smile. “How do you?” He bent forward, leaning on the arms that pinioned her on either side. “I’ve always been able to read you like a book,” he murmured, holding her eyes. “No, I’m not guilt-ridden, and don’t you believe that I am. There are a thousand reasons why I came to Miami after you, but guilt wasn’t one of them.”
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. “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.”
