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Darling Enemy
Diana Palmer
Teddi Whitehall longed to escape from her hectic life as a New York model, and a summer in the wilds of Canada with her best friend's family sounded perfect. But arrogant rancher Kingston Devereaux seemed intent on making her feel anything but welcome.Teddi knew King was convinced she was nothing but a glamorous playgirl. She also knew that the truth wasn't about to change his mind. So why did she feel so alive when he was near?Giving her heart to a man who despised her was bad enough. But why did she have to go and fall in love with her best friend's brother?
Teddi Whitehall longed to escape from her hectic life as a New York model, and a summer in the wilds of Canada with her best friend’s family sounded perfect. But arrogant rancher Kingston Devereaux seemed intent on making her feel anything but welcome.
Teddi knew King was convinced she was nothing but a glamorous playgirl. She also knew that the truth wasn’t about to change his mind. So why did she feel so alive when he was near?
Giving her heart to a man who despised her was bad enough. But why did she have to go and fall in love with her best friend’s brother?
Darling Enemy
Diana Palmer
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
Contents
Chapter One (#ub6da60d5-0ed4-524b-8cdd-7b478a63dfd6)
Chapter Two (#ud41e82c8-8879-5973-a20b-c51d526a021a)
Chapter Three (#u07020d67-499c-5cc4-9a13-f4860690cadd)
Chapter Four (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Five (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Six (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Seven (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Eight (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Nine (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter One
It was the most glorious kind of morning, and Teddi Whitehall leaned dreamily on the windowsill of the dormitory room overlooking the courtyard below, watching the pigeons waddle like old men over the cobblestones.
The buildings on college campus were romantically Gothic, like something out of another century. But its green and flowering grounds were what Teddi liked most. They were a welcome change from the sophisticated New York apartment where she had to spend her holidays.
She leaned her face on her crossed arms with a sigh and drank in the smells and sounds of the early morning. She dreaded the time when she’d have to board the plane back to New York, away from the exclusive Connecticut college and her friend and roommate Jenna. There was a chill in the June air, and the beige gown that complemented Teddi’s short dark hair and huge brown eyes was hardly proof against it. It was a good thing that Jenna had already gone downstairs, she thought, and couldn’t chide her about her impulsiveness in throwing open the window.
Jenna wasn’t impulsive. In that, she was like her older brother. Teddi shivered delicately. Just the thought of Kingston Devereaux was enough to cause that reaction. They’d clashed from the very beginning. The big rancher with his Australian drawl and cutting smile might have sent the other girls in the dormitory into swoons, but he only made Teddi want to turn away. He’d made his contempt for her more than evident during the years she’d been friends with his sister. And it was all because of a false impression he had, which nothing she said could change. His snap judgments were as unfair as his treatment of Teddi, and she dreaded visits to the Canadian ranch with Jenna. Teddi had an uncomfortable feeling that Jenna was getting ready to spring another invitation on her, since they were both free until fall quarter began. Kingston Devereaux would fly his plane over from Calgary to get Jenna, and Teddi would find excuses to avoid him...as usual.
She shook her head miserably. At least Jenna had a mother and brother to go home to. Teddi had no one. Her aunt, who was her only living relative, was somewhere on the Riviera with her latest lover. The New York apartment Teddi shared with her on holidays was going to be particularly empty now. At least there would be plenty of modeling offers forthcoming, she was assured of that. She’d been modeling since her fifteenth birthday. She was blessed with good bone structure and eyes so large and poignant that one of her boyfriends had likened them to a doe’s. The modeling agency that handled her was proud of its star client—if they had a complaint, it was that she was being wasted in the halls of academia.
She felt suddenly chilled to the bone and drew back into the room, closing the window with nervous hands. Modeling was the sore spot with Kingston, who had the immutable opinion that models and virtue didn’t mix. It hadn’t helped that Teddi’s aunt was notorious for her affairs. Kingston was an old-fashioned man with narrow-minded views on modern permissiveness. He might have an affair himself, but he had nothing but contempt for women who indulged. And he was certain Teddi did.
She’d never forgotten her introduction to him. She’d met Jenna at boarding school when she was just fifteen, and the two girls had become fast friends. She’d expected Jenna’s family to be equally friendly and caring, and had received the shock of her young life when Kingston Devereaux had shown up at Christmas to fly Jenna home to the ranch outside Calgary for the holidays.
His first reaction to Teddi had been strangely hostile, a long, lingering appraisal that had touched Teddi like a cold finger against her bare skin. Jenna’s gay announcement that she’d invited Teddi for the holidays had been met with a cold, gray glare and a reluctant acceptance that had spoiled the trip for her. She’d done everything but move outside to keep out of the big man’s way. Then, and since.
She shook off the memories along with her gown, and slipped into a silky beige pantsuit that her aunt had mailed to her for Easter—one of a number of presents that were supposed to take the place of love and affection. Teddi ran a comb through her short, thick hair and decided against makeup. Her complexion was naturally olive, her lips had a color all their own, and her long-lashed eyes never needed enhancing. She slipped into a pair of low-heeled shoes and went downstairs to find Jenna, idly wondering why her roommate had rushed out in the first place.
She started into the dormitory lounge and stopped, frozen, in the doorway. Jenna was sitting stiffly on the couch, facing a big, elegantly dressed man with gold-streaked blond hair.
“...And I said no,” Kingston Devereaux stated flatly, his back to the doorway, his Australian accent thick. “She’s not going to turn my damned cattle station upside down again the way she did at Easter. Can you see the men getting any work done? Hell, they do nothing but stare at her.”
“She won’t cause any trouble,” Jenna retorted in defense of her friend, venom in her normally sweet tone. Her gray eyes, so much like Kingston’s, were flashing with anger. “King, she’s nothing like her aunt, she’s not what you think...!”
“Too right, baby, she isn’t rich, and she’s never going to be, unless she can get her claws into some poor, trusting male.” He rammed his big hands into the pockets of his slacks, stretching the expensive gray fabric across his flat stomach, his powerful, broad thighs. “Well, she isn’t going to spend the summer making cow’s eyes at my men—or at me,” he added with a bitter laugh.
Teddi, listening, blushed. That Easter vacation had haunted her.
“King!” Jenna gasped. “You must know that Teddi’s frightened of you, you’ve made sure of it. She’d never...”
“Wouldn’t she?” he growled. “Surely you noticed the way she stared at me during Easter? An Easter I’d have preferred spending alone with my family,” he added with a cruel smile. “Mother should have had another daughter to keep you company, then maybe you wouldn’t spend your life picking up strays!”
Teddi’s face went white. She stood there like a wounded little animal, her huge eyes misty with the hurt, and Kingston turned at that moment and saw her. The expression on his broad, hard face was almost comical.
“Oh, Teddi,” Jenna wailed, grimacing as she, too, caught sight of her and realized that her friend had heard every harsh word of the conversation.
Teddi straightened proudly. “Hello, Jenna,” she said softly. “I—I just wondered if you wanted to have breakfast with me. I’ll be at the dining hall.”
“King came early,” Jenna said helplessly, with a shrug. “We were talking about vacation.”
“You’ll enjoy yours, I’m sure,” Teddi said, forcing a smile to her full, faintly pouting lips. “I’ll go ahead...”
“I want you to come to the ranch for the summer,” Jenna said with a defiant glance at Kingston.
“No, thanks,” Teddi said quietly.
“King won’t even be there part of the time,” the smaller girl said sharply, tossing her long, pale blond hair.
Teddi glanced at the taciturn rancher, whose jaw was clenched taut. “I’ve spent quite enough of my holidays being treated like an invading disease,” she said deliberately. “I’d rather spend this one alone, and I’m sure your brother will be delighted to have his family to himself,” she added venomously.
“Teddi—” Jenna began.
“I’ve got modeling assignments lined up, anyway,” Teddi added truthfully with a last, killing glare at Kingston as she turned. “Why spend my vacation on a ranch when I can seduce half the men in New York while I make my fortune?” Her lower lip was trembling, but no one could see it now. “Thanks anyway, Jenna, thanks a lot. You can’t help it that you’ve got an insufferable snob for a brother!”
And on that defiant note, she stormed out of the dormitory into the sunshine, her back rigid, the tears welling up in her smoldering eyes.
She walked over the cobblestones numbly, the tears coming in hot abundance, trickling down into her mouth. How could he be so cruel, how could he? The conceited ass! As if any woman would be stupid enough to get herself emotionally involved with that arrogant Australian...the gall of him to accuse her of making cow’s eyes at him! She flushed at the memory. He’d never let her live down her foolish behavior at Easter; if only she’d realized that he was teasing....
She fished in her pocket for a tissue. As usual, there wasn’t one. She brushed the back of her hand angrily across her cheeks, hating her own weakness. She’d write to Jenna, he couldn’t stop her from doing that, and they’d be together when the fall quarter started. Kingston couldn’t keep them from being friends, after all. He’d never had a chance once they’d enrolled at the same college.
She passed a couple of her classmates and tried to smile a greeting just as a lean, commanding hand caught her arm and jerked her around, marching her to the shade of a nearby oak.
“Running again?” Kingston Devereaux asked curtly, his glittering eyes biting into hers. “You’ve done a lot of that.”
“Self-preservation, Mr. Devereaux,” she replied coldly, brushing wildly at one stray tear. “You make me forget that I’m a lady.”
“A lady?” he drawled. “You?” His eyes ran down her slender body, over the high young breasts and down the tiny waist and sweetly curving hips to her long, graceful legs in their clinging cover.
“Oh, excuse me—in your exalted opinion, that’s a title I don’t deserve,” she replied coolly.
“Too right,” he ground out. He lifted his broad shoulders restlessly. “Jenna’s back at the dormitory crying her damned eyes out,” he added roughly. “I didn’t come all this way to upset her.”
“Upsetting people is one of your greatest talents,” Teddi told him, glaring back.
One eyebrow went up as he studied her face. “Careful, tiger,” he drawled. “I bite back.”
Teddi wrapped her arms around herself, turning her attention to passing students. “You’ve done nothing but attack me for the past five years,” she reminded him. “And for your information, Mr. Devereaux,” she added hotly, “if I stared, it was out of apprehension, wondering what minute you were going to start something!”
“You started it the last time, darling,” he reminded her, smiling coldly at the blush she couldn’t prevent. “Didn’t you?”
She didn’t like being reminded of that fiasco, and her eyes told him so. She turned away.
“How long did it take you to perfect that pose of innocence?” he asked.
“Oh, years,” she assured him. “I started while a baby.”
He looked down his arrogant nose at her. The sunlight made gold streaks in his dark blond hair. “You didn’t get to your particular rung on the modeling ladder without giving out a little, honey. You’ll never convince me otherwise.”
“Why bother to try?” she countered. “You’re so fond of the playgirl image you’ve foisted on me. And you’re never wrong, are you?”
“Not often,” he agreed. “And never about women,” he added, with just a trace of sensuality in his deep drawl.
She supposed that he’d had his share of women. Her own small experience of him had been devastating. He had an eye-catching physique and when he liked, he could be charming. Teddi, having seen him stripped to the waist more than once, couldn’t find a fault in him. A picture of his bronzed, hair-roughened muscles danced in front of her eyes, and she shook her head to get that disturbing memory out of her mind. Kingston disturbed her physically, he always had, and she disliked the sensations as much as she disliked him. He was the enemy, she mustn’t ever lose sight of that fact.
“You know very little about the type of modeling I do,” she said numbly.
“More than you think,” he corrected. “We have a mutual acquaintance.”
She let that enigmatic remark fly right over her head as she started walking.
“Going somewhere?” he challenged.
“To inflict myself on someone else over breakfast,” she agreed cheerfully. “Strangely enough, there are people who don’t think of me as a walking, talking 8 x 10 glossy photograph.”
“Fair dinkum?” he murmured, falling into step beside her.
She glared at him. “Believe what you like about me, I don’t care.” But of course she cared, she always had. She’d gone out of her way to try to make Kingston like her, to earn even the smallest word of praise from him. But she’d never accomplished that, and she never would.
“You can have breakfast with Jenna and me,” he said after a minute, as if the words choked him. They probably had, she thought miserably.
“No, thanks,” she said politely. “I can’t eat wondering if you’ve had time to sprinkle arsenic over my bacon and eggs.”
A chuckle came out of his throat, a surprising sound. “You never stop fighting me, do you?”
She shifted her shoulders lightly. “I’ve spent most of my life fighting.”
“Poor little orphan,” he murmured coldly.
She glared at him. “I loved my parents,” she said curtly. “Shame on you for that.”
He had the grace to look uncomfortable, but only for an instant. “Hitting below the belt?” he asked with a lifted eyebrow.
“Just exactly that.”
“I’ll pull my punches next time,” he assured her.
“You make it sound like a game,” she grumbled.
“Oh, no, it’s stopped being that,” he replied, his eyes on the dining hall ahead. “It stopped being that at Easter.”
She colored delicately, her eyes closing for an instant to try to blot out the memory. She hated him for reminding her of what had almost happened.
“I should have taken you right there in that stall instead of pushing you away,” he said in a husky, deep whisper.
She moved jerkily away from him. “Please don’t remind me of the fool I was,” she said tightly, avoiding his glittering eyes. “I had you mixed up with someone else in my mind,” she added to salvage what she could of her pride.
His features seemed to harden even more. “And we both know who, don’t we, honey?”
She didn’t understand, but was too angry to ask questions. “If you’re quite through, I’m hungry.”
His darkening eyes traced her face, the slender lines of her body, as if the word triggered a hunger of his own.
He moved closer and she stiffened, catching the amused, curious glances of the other students on their way to and from the dining hall. “People are staring,” she murmured nervously.
“Afraid they’ll think we’re lovers, honey?” he asked with magnificent insolence.
She reacted without thinking, her fingers flashing up toward his hard, tanned cheek. But he caught her wrist just in time to avoid the blow, holding it firm in a steely, warm grip.
“Temper, temper,” he chided, as if the flash of fury amused him. “Think of the gossip it would cause.”
“As if you’d ever worry about what people thought of you,” she returned hotly. “It must be nice to have enough wealth and power to be above caring.”
He searched her dark, dark eyes for a long time. “Your parents were poor, weren’t they?” he asked in an uncommonly quiet tone.
She flushed violently. “I loved them,” she muttered. “It didn’t matter.”
“You push yourself way too hard for a girl your age,” he said. “Who are you trying to show, Teddi? What are you trying to prove? Jenna says you’re studying for a major in English—what good is that going to do you as a model?”
She tugged at his imprisoning hand. “None at all,” she admitted, grinding the words out, “but it’ll be great when I start teaching.”
“Teaching?” He stood very still, staring down at her as if he doubted the evidence of his own ears. “You?”
“Please let me go...” she asked curtly, giving up the unequal struggle.
His fingers abruptly entwined with hers, the simple action knocking every small protest, even speech, out of her mind as he drew her along the cobblestoned path beside him. She wondered at her own uncharacteristic meekness as the unfamiliar contact made music in her blood.
“You’ll come home with us,” he said quietly. “The last thing you need is to be alone in that damned apartment, while your dizzy aunt bed-hops across Europe, with no one about to look after you.”
She knew he disliked her aunt Dilly, he’d made no secret of the fact. She’d often thought that his dislike for her aunt had extended automatically to herself, even though she was nothing like her father’s sister.
“You don’t have to pretend that you care what happens to me,” she said coldly. “You’ve already made it quite clear that you don’t.”
His fingers tightened. “You weren’t meant to hear that,” he said. He glanced down at her. “I say a hell of a lot of things to Jenna to keep the issue clouded.”
She blinked up at him. “I don’t understand,” she murmured.
He returned her searching look with a smoldering fire deep in his gray eyes that made her feel trembly. His jaw tautened. “You never have,” he ground out. “You’re too damned afraid of me to try.”
“I’m not afraid of you!” she said, eyes flashing.
“You are,” he corrected. “Because I’d want it all, or nothing, and you know that, don’t you?”
She felt her knees going weak as she stared up at him, the words only half making sense in her whirling mind. One of Teddi’s friends walked past, grinning at the big, handsome man holding Teddi’s hand, and King grinned back. Women loved him, their eyes openly interested, covetous. But the looks they were attracting embarrassed Teddi, and she tried to pull loose.
“Don’t,” King murmured, tightening his warm fingers with a wicked smile. “Don’t read anything into it, it’s simple self-preservation. If I hold your little hand, you can’t slap me with it,” he added with a chuckle.
It was one of the few times she’d ever heard him laugh when they were together, and she studied his lofty face, fascinated. She was of above average height, but King towered over her. He wasn’t only tall, he was broad—like a football player.
“Like what you see?” he challenged.
“I was just thinking how big they grow them in Australia,” she hedged.
“I’m Australian born,” he agreed. “And you’re from Georgia, aren’t you? I love that accent...early plantation?”
She pouted. “I have a very nice accent. Nothing like that long, twanging drawl of yours,” she countered.
“A souvenir from Queensland,” he agreed without rancor.
She searched his eyes. “You spent a lot of your life there,” she recalled.
He nodded. “Mother was a Canadian. When she inherited the Calgary farm, we left Australia and moved to Canada. That was before Jenna was born. Dad and I spent a lot of time traveling between the two properties, so Mother and I were little more than strangers when I was younger.”
“You don’t let anyone get close, do you?”
He stopped at the door of the dining hall and looked down at her. “How close do you want to get, honey—within grabbing distance of my wallet?” he asked with a cold smile.
She glared up at him. “I’m not money crazy,” she said proudly. She jerked her hand out of his grasp, and this time he let it go. “I have everything I need.”
“Do you really?” he retorted. “Then why do you live with your aunt—why does she have to keep you?”
She wanted to tell him that she made quite enough modeling to pay her school fees and to support herself. But she hadn’t seen the sense in trying to maintain an apartment of her own when she was in school nine months out of the year. Besides, she thought bitterly, Dilly was rarely at the New York apartment these days. There was always a man....
“Think what you like,” she told him. “You will, anyway.”
He looked down at her quietly. “Does it bother you?”
She shrugged carelessly. “You don’t really know anything about me.”
His eyes dropped to her soft, full mouth. “I know that underneath that perfect bone structure and bristling pride, you burn with sweet fires when you want a man to kiss you....”
Her face flamed. She moved away as he opened the door for her, standing in such a way that she had to brush against his powerful body to enter the dining hall. She glanced up at him as she eased past, her eyes telling him reluctantly how much the contact disturbed her.
“Soft little thing, aren’t you?” he asked in a deep, lazy drawl, his eyes pointedly on the high thrust of her breasts as they flattened slightly against his broad chest in passing.
Teddi was grateful that Jenna was already at a table waiting for them, so that she didn’t witness the strange little scene. Jenna tended to carry teasing to an embarrassing degree.
Chapter Two
Breakfast was pleasant. It was one of the few times Teddi could remember sitting down to eat with King when he didn’t go out of his way to needle her. She had the strangest impression that their fiery relationship had undergone a change while they talked earlier. She looked into his eyes and blushed, and the reaction caused an amused glint in his own eyes.
“How soon can you girls get packed?” King asked over a final cup of coffee. At a nearby table, several female students were openly watching King with every bite, their eyes dreamy.
“I’m taking a flight to New York later this afternoon,” Teddi said quickly.
King watched her, reading accurately the panic in her young face. “You and I will iron out our differences this summer,” he said in a tone that made her tingle all over. “In the meantime, there’s no excuse for denying Jenna your company just to spite me.”
It was the truth, but part of her was afraid of what settling those differences might lead to. She was nervous of men in any physical sense, and especially of King—there were scars on her emotions that she didn’t want reopened.
“I’ve got modeling jobs—” she began.
“You can live without them for a few weeks, surely?” he taunted. “Twenty-four-hour days are only bearable for short terms,” he reminded her. “You’ve been holding down a night job, Jenna told me, in addition to your day courses. Quite a feat, if I remember curfew regulations.”
“The gates close at midnight here,” Teddi murmured. She glared at Jenna, who managed to look completely innocent.
“All the same, you could use a vacation. As long as you don’t spend it mooning over me,” he added.
Her eyes jerked up to find him smiling in a teasing way, his eyes kind and glittering with good humor. It surprised her into smiling back, accentuating her beauty to such a degree that King just sat and stared at her until she dropped her own gaze, embarrassed.
“Besides,” King added tautly, “where else have you got to go? With that nymphomaniac of an aunt, or to an apartment alone?”
“A half hour ago, you wouldn’t have cared if I’d had to shack up with a bear at the local zoo,” she reminded him hotly.
He cocked an eyebrow. “As I recall, Miss Cover Girl,” he murmured, “the subject of bears once got us into an interesting situation.”
She went fiery red, avoiding Jenna’s smiling, curious gaze. “An unbearable situation,” she murmured, laughing when King got the pun and threw back his own head.
“Please come,” Jenna added, pleading. “If you’re around to chaperone me, King will let me chase Blakely all over the ranch,” she laughed.
“Blakely?” King frowned. “You don’t, surely, mean my livestock foreman?”
Jenna peeked at him through her lashes. “I’m interested in ranching,” she murmured.
“Don’t get too interested in Blakely,” he warned. “I’ve got bigger plans for you.”
“Do you always try to run people’s lives?” Teddi challenged.
He looked deep into her eyes. “Look out, honey, I might fancy running yours if you aren’t careful.”
“I’m hardly worth notice,” she reminded him. “An orphan with no connections, a background of poverty, a sordid reputation...”
“Oh, hell, shut up,” he growled, getting to his feet. “I’ve got to have the plane serviced. You two get packed.”
He stormed off. Jenna giggled openly, her eyes speculative.
“Just what is going on?” she asked Teddi. “I’ve never seen him off balance like that.”
“I have been practicing sorcery,” Teddi said in a menacing whisper. “While he wasn’t looking, I slipped a potion in his coffee. Any second now, your tall, blond brother is going to turn into a short, fat frog.”
Jenna burst out laughing, tears rolling down her cheeks. “Oh, I can’t wait to see him,” she laughed. “King, with green warts!”
Teddi laughed, too, at the absurdity of fastidious King with such an affliction. He never seemed to have a hair out of place, even when he was working with the livestock.
Hours later, they were well on the way to Calgary in King’s private Piper Navajo.
“I can’t wait for you to meet Blakely,” Jenna told her friend. “King just hired him a couple of months ago and I got to know him when I was home for that long weekend in April.”
“He must be something special,” Teddi murmured.
Jenna sighed. “Oh, he is. Brown eyes and red hair and a build like a movie star. Teddi, you’ll love him...but not too much, please,” she added, only half teasing. “I couldn’t begin to compete with you, as far as looks go.”
“Don’t be silly,” Teddi chided. “You’re lovely.”
“You’re a liar, but I love you just the same,” came the laughing reply. Jenna leaned back in the plush seat. “King didn’t chew you up too badly, did he?” she asked after a minute. Her gray eyes met Teddi’s apologetically. “I could have gone through the floor when he made that nasty remark and I saw you standing in the doorway and knew you’d heard.”
“King and I have been enemies for years,” Teddi reminded her friend, her dark eyes wistful. “I don’t know what I did to make him dislike me so, but he always has.”
“It puzzles me,” Jenna murmured, “that King gets along so well with everyone else. He has that arrogant streak, of course, but he’s a pussycat most of the time. He’s worked twenty-two-hour days to keep us solvent since Dad died. Without him the whole property would have gone down the drain.” She eyed her friend. “None of which explains his hostility toward you. I couldn’t believe my eyes when he went out of the dormitory after you.”
“That makes two of us. I very nearly hit him.”
“How exciting! What did he do?”
Teddi reddened. She was not about to admit that King had held her hand all the way to the dormitory. “He ducked,” she lied.
Jenna laughed delightedly. “Just imagine, your trying to plant one on my brother. Do you know, you never used to stand up to him. When we were younger, he’d say something hurtful and you’d go off and cry, and King would go out and chew up one or two of his men.” She laughed. “It got to be almost funny. The men would start getting nervous the minute you walked onto the property.”
Teddi shifted restlessly. “I know. To be honest, I’ve been turning down your invitations lately to avoid him. I probably wouldn’t have gone home with you at Easter if I hadn’t been trying to shake off that friend of Dilly’s who’s been pursuing me.”
“Would you mind very much telling me what happened at Easter?”
“I threw a feed bucket at him,” Teddi blurted out.
Jenna’s eyes opened wide. “You’re kidding!”
Teddi’s gaze dropped to her lap. “It was just a mild disagreement,” she lied. “Oh, look!” she exclaimed as she looked out the window. “We must be over Alberta, look at the plains!”
Jenna peeked over her friend’s shoulder and looked down through the thick cloud cover. “Could be,” she murmured, checking her watch, “but we haven’t been in the air quite long enough. I bet it was Saskatchewan.” She got up. “I’ll ask King.”
Teddi’s eyes followed the smaller girl while her mind went lazily back to the spring day when King had chided her about her private life just one time too many....
Jenna had slept late that morning, but the bright sun and the sounds of activity out at the stables had roused Teddi from a sound sleep. She’d put on her riding outfit and hurried down to get Happy to saddle a horse for her. Happy, one of the older hands on the huge Canadian ranch, had been one of her staunchest allies. He’d taught her to ride when King had refused to.
But Happy hadn’t been in the neat stables that morning. King had. And the minute she saw him, she knew there was going to be trouble. He had a way of cocking his head to one side when he was angry that warned of storms brewing in his big body, a narrowing of one eye that meant he was holding himself on a tight rein. Teddi had been too angry herself to notice the warning signs.
“I know how to ride,” she argued. “Happy taught me.”
“I don’t give a damn,” he growled back. “The men have seen bear tracks around this spring. You don’t ride alone on the ranch, is that clear?”
She felt an unreasonable hatred of him, raw because he hadn’t even noticed her painfully shy flirting, her extra attention to her appearance. She had been trying to catch his eye for the first time in their turbulent acquaintance and it hadn’t worked. Her temper had exploded.
“I’m not afraid of bears!” she all but screamed.
“Well, you should be,” he replied tightly, his eyes roaming over her. “You don’t know what a bear could do to that perfect young body.”
The words had shocked her. Amazingly, now that she had his attention, she was frightened.
She backed away from him, and that had caused a quaking kind of anger to charge up in his big body. “Afraid?” he chided. “You probably know more about sex than I do, so why pretend? Just how many men have had you?”
That had been the final straw. There was a feed bucket at her elbow, and she grabbed it without thinking, intending to fling it directly at him.
He hadn’t kept his hard-muscled body in shape by being careless. He stepped out of the way gracefully and before she had time to be shocked at her own behavior, he stepped forward and caught her by the wrists, roughly putting her hands behind her and pinning her against him.
“That,” he growled, “was stupid. What were you trying to prove, that you don’t like what you are?”
“You don’t know what I am!” she cried, wounded. Her huge brown eyes had looked up at him with apprehension.
“No?” His big hands had propelled her forward until her soft, high breasts were crushed against the front of his blue-patterned cotton shirt. She smelled the fresh, laundered scent of it mingling with his cologne. It was the closest she’d ever been to him.
“You’ve behaved like a homeless kitten around me lately,” he said in a deep, sensuous tone that aroused new sensations in Teddi’s taut body. “Low-cut blouses, clinging dresses, making eyes at me every time I turn around....” He released her wrists then, and his calloused hands eased under the hem of her blouse, finding her bare back. They lingered on her silky skin, faintly abrasive, surprisingly gentle. “Come closer, little one,” he murmured, watching her with calculating eyes, although she’d been too lost in his darkening gaze to notice that.
Her legs had trembled against the unfamiliar hardness of his, her breasts had tingled from a contact that burned even through the layers of fabric that separated her from his broad, hair-covered chest.
His hands were causing wild tremors all over her body as he savored the satin flesh of her back and urged her slender hips against his.
“I want your mouth, Teddi,” he whispered huskily, bending, so that his smoky breath caressed her trembling lips. “And you want mine, don’t you, love? You’ve wanted it for days, years...you’ve been aware of me since the day we met.” His mouth had hovered over hers tantalizingly while his hands caressed her back, made mincemeat of her pride, her self-control. “You want to feel my hands touching you, don’t you, Teddi?” he taunted, moving his head close, so that his mouth brushed tormentingly against hers when he spoke.
“King,” she moaned, going on tiptoe to try to catch his poised, teasing mouth with her own.
He’d drawn back enough to deny her the kiss, while his hands slid insolently down over her buttocks and back up again. “Do you want me to kiss you, Teddi?” he’d asked with a mocking smile.
“Yes,” she whispered achingly, “yes, please...!” Anything, she would have agreed to anything to make him kiss her, to bring the dream of years to reality, to let her know the touch and taste and aching pleasure of his hard, beautiful mouth.
“How much do you want it?” he persisted, bending to bite softly, tenderly at her mouth, catching her upper lip delicately between both of his in a caress that was blatantly arousing. “Do you ache, baby?”
“Yes,” she moaned, her eyes slitted, her body liquid under his as her knees threatened to fold under her. “King, please,” she half sobbed, “oh, please!”
He lifted his head, then, to study her hungry face and a look of pain had come over his features. He turned away so that she never saw whether he had to struggle to bring himself under control. She doubted it. Certainly there was no sign of emotion on his face when he turned back to her.
“Maybe for your birthday,” he said with magnificent arrogance. “Or Christmas. But not now, honey, I’m a busy man.”
He gave a curt laugh and she stood there like the ruins of a house—empty and alone. Her eyes had accused, hated, in the seconds that they held his.
“You’re not human,” she choked. “You’re as cold as...”
“Only with women who leave me that way,” he interrupted. “My God, you’d even give in to a man you profess to hate, you need it so much!”
She watched him walk away with her pride around her knees. She’d sworn to herself that day that she would toss herself over a cliff before she gave him the chance to humble her again. She avoided him successfully for the rest of the Easter vacation, and when she boarded the plane for Connecticut with Jenna, she hadn’t even looked at him.
She sighed, watching the clouds drift by outside the window. In her mind she relived that humiliation over and over again. She wondered sometimes if she’d ever be able to forget. The incident had revived other, older memories that had been the original cause of her frigid reaction to most men. Ironically, King had been the only one to ever get so close to her, to arouse such a damning response. And he didn’t even know that to Teddi, most men were poison.
“Saskatchewan,” Jenna said smugly, returning to reseat herself beside her friend. “But western Saskatchewan, so it won’t be too much longer before we get home.” She gave Teddi a searching appraisal.
“Looking for hidden beauty?” Teddi teased.
“Actually, I asked King about that bucket you threw at him,” she replied hesitantly.
Teddi’s heart dipped wildly. “And?” she prompted, trying desperately for normalcy.
“I guess I should have kept my mouth shut,” Jenna said with a sigh, turning toward the window. “Honestly, sometimes I think he lies awake nights thinking up new words to shock me with.”
Teddi felt a shiver as she folded her hands in her lap and closed her eyes. Apparently King didn’t want to be reminded any more than she did. It was just as well, King had made it perfectly clear that he despised her.
The Devereaux livestock farm, Gray Stag, was located in a green valley in the foothills of the Rocky Mountains, not far from Calgary. It had its own private landing strip and all the creature comforts any family would ever want.
The house itself was a copy of a French château, big and sprawling with a long, winding driveway and tall firs all around it. Fields of wildflowers bloomed profusely against the majestic background of the snow-capped Rockies. There was a tennis court, a heated swimming pool, and formal gardens which were the pride of the family’s aging gardener. It always reminded Teddi of pictures she’d seen of rural France.
King taxied the plane toward the hangar, where a white Mercedes was parked. A petite, white-haired woman in a fashionable gray suit waved as they climbed out of the plane and onto the apron.
“Mama!” Jenna cried. She ran into the woman’s outstretched arms, leaving King and Teddi to follow.
“My God, you’d think she’d been away for two years instead of two months,” King growled.
Teddi glanced up at his set face, so deeply tanned and masculine that her fingers itched to touch it. She averted her eyes.
“It would be nice to have a mother to run to,” she said in a tone that ached with memories.
She felt a lean, rough hand at the nape of her neck, grasping it gently in a gesture that was strangely compassionate.
“You haven’t had a lot of love in your young life, have you?” he asked quietly. “It’s something Jenna never lacked, we made sure of that.”
“It shows,” she agreed, watching her friend’s warm, open smile. “She’s very much an extrovert.”
“My exact opposite.” His eyes narrowed on the vista beyond the airport. “I don’t care for most people.”
“Especially me,” she murmured.
His dark gray eyes pinned her. “Don’t put words into my mouth. You know very little about me. You’ve never come close enough to find out anything.”
She couldn’t hold that dark gaze. “I did once,” she reminded him bitterly.
“Yes, I know,” he replied. His eyes sketched her profile narrowly. “I left scars, didn’t I?”
She shifted her thin shoulders uncomfortably, wishing she’d never said anything in the first place. “Everyone’s entitled to be foolish once or twice.”
“I’ve wondered a lot since then what might have happened if I’d laid down with you in that soft hay,” he said quietly, deliberately slowing his pace as they approached the rest of his family.
Her heart pounded erratically. “I’d have fought you,” she said, her tone soft and challenging.
He looked down at her and a strange smile turned up his chiseled mouth at one corner. “Would you?” he asked in a deep, silky voice. “Do you have enough experience to know what it does to a man when a desirable woman fights him?”
“You seem to think I’ve slept with half the men in New York, so you tell me,” she shot back.
He cocked an eyebrow. “I don’t know what to think about you,” he admitted. “Just when I’m sure I’ve got you figured out, you throw me another curve. I’m beginning to think I need to take a much closer look at you, Teddi bear.”
She glared up at him. “Don’t call me that.”
“Don’t you like it?” he taunted. “You’re small and soft and cuddly.”
She blushed like a teenager, and hated her helpless reaction to his teasing. It was just like before. All he wanted was to make her crawl. Well, he wasn’t going to do it this trip.
“Don’t think you’ll ever get to cuddle me,” she said shortly.
“And I wouldn’t bet on that, if I were you.” He pulled a cigarette from his shirt pocket and lit it while he watched her. “You were begging me for it in the barn that morning.”
She shivered at the memory of her weakness and her eyes closed briefly. “You know a lot,” she countered.
“What did you expect, that I spent all my time with the cattle?” he taunted. “I know what to do with a woman, young Teddi, as you damned near found out. I can lose my head, if I’m tempted enough. You brought that about, and we both know it. Those eye-catching little glances, those low-cut dresses, those come-and-kiss-me looks you were giving me—”
“I can’t possibly tell you how sorry I am about the whole thing,” she ground out. “Could we please just forget it? You’re safe from me this trip, I wouldn’t flirt with you if my life depended on it.”
“That might be better,” he murmured dryly. “I live in constant fear of being seduced by one of you wild city girls.”
Now that did sound like flirting, but before she could be sure, they were within earshot of the others.
“The end of the world must be near,” Mary Devereaux laughed. “Are my eyes going bad, or are you two actually not arguing for once?” She eyed her son closely. “And did I actually see you smile at her?”
King cocked an eyebrow at her. “Muscle spasm,” he replied without cracking a smile.
“Sure,” Mary laughed. She reached out and hugged Teddi affectionately. “It’s so good to have you here, Teddi. What with King away most of the time, and Jenna’s sudden interest in ranch management,” she added with a pointed glance at her daughter, “I’ve been looking forward to a very lonely summer.” She stared at the young girl. “Teddi, you aren’t suddenly going to develop an interest in ranch management, are you?”
Teddi burst out laughing. “Oh, no, I don’t think so.”
“Thank goodness,” Mary sighed. “Shall we go? I could use a cup of coffee. King, I suppose you’ll drive?”
“When was the last time I let you drive me anywhere?” he mused, leading the way to the car.
“Let me think.” His parent frowned. “You were six and I had to take you to the dentist when you got into it with little Sammy Blain...”
Teddi hid a smile. She linked her arm with Jenna’s and brought up the rear. It was nice to be part of a family, even for a little while.
Chapter Three
Teddi’s room overlooked the Rockies. It was done in blue and white, with lacy eyelet curtains at the windows and a canopied bed. This was where she always slept when she came to Gray Stag—her own little corner of the old château.
She wondered who had occupied the matching room in the original home in Burgundy. One of King’s ancestors had copied the design of his wife’s family home to keep that grieving lady from getting attacks of homesickness when they’d settled in Calgary. The original château dated to the eighteenth century. This one was barely a hundred years old, but it had a charm all its own.
She opened the window and breathed the flower-scented air. Everything seemed so much cleaner in Canada, so much bigger. Despite King’s hostility, it was nice to be here again. Mary and Jenna more than made up for King.
Her eyes went to the soft bed. King. She remembered a night she’d spent at Gray Stag when she was seventeen, during summer vacation.
She’d been fairly terrified of King back then, nervous and uncertain when he came near with his cruel taunts. She’d never understood his dislike—she’d done nothing to him to provoke it.
But that night there was a thunderstorm, violent as only mountain thunderstorms can be. Teddi’s parents had gone down in a commercial airliner on a night like this, and in her young mind she still connected disaster with violent storms. She was crying, soft little whimpers that shouldn’t have been audible above the raging thunder.
But King had suddenly opened the door and come in, still fully dressed from helping work cattle in the flash flooding. His shirt was damp, carelessly unbuttoned to reveal a mat of hair and bronzed muscle that had drawn Teddi’s eyes like a magnet.
He eased down onto the bed and took the frightened, weeping girl into his big arms. He murmured soft, comforting words that she didn’t understand while he cradled her against his warm, damp body, his heart beating heavily under the cheek that lay on his broad chest. He held her until the tears and the thunder passed, and then he laid her back down on the pillows with a strangely tender smile.
“Okay, now?” he asked softly.
“Yes, thank you,” she replied uneasily.
He stood there, looking down at her with strange dark eyes while she stared back, her eyes fixed on the sight he made, his shirt unbuttoned to the waist...it was the first time she’d been alone with a man in her bedroom at that hour of the night, and her fear must have shown. Because he suddenly turned away with a muffled curse and was gone. After that night, he was even colder, and she worked even harder at avoiding him. Something had happened while they stared at each other so intensely. She still wasn’t sure what it had been, but she remembered vividly the sensations she felt when his eyes had dropped to the uncovered bodice of her gown and traced deliberately every soft line of her young breasts under the half-transparent material. The memory was like a drawn sword between them, along with all King’s imagined grievances against her.
There was a sharp knock at the door and Jenna peeked her head around it. “Come down and have something to eat,” she said. “Mother’s carving up a ham.”
“Isn’t Miss Peake here anymore?” Teddi asked as she joined her friend, remembering warmly Miss Peake’s little kindnesses over the years.
“Our saintly housekeeper is visiting her sister for a few days.” Jenna grinned. “She’d just die if she was here to see the size of the slices mother’s getting off that ham. Mother eats like a bird, you know. Poor King!”
Teddi smiled involuntarily. “There’s a lot of him to feed,” she agreed.
“He gets even,” Jenna assured her. “When mother’s back is turned, he’ll go in the kitchen and make himself a sandwich or two. He doesn’t starve.”
“Miss Peake was forever carrying him trays of food when he worked in the study,” Teddi recalled, remembering how she’d strained for glimpses of him through that door at night.
“And he was forever complaining that there wasn’t enough of it,” Jenna added. “My brother has a tremendous appetite. For food, at least. Mother wants to see him married so badly, but he hardly ever takes anyone out. You’d think he doesn’t know what to do with a woman, the way he avoids them.”
Oh, Jenna, if you only knew, Teddi thought silently, as she remembered her own voice pleading for the touch of King’s poised, taunting mouth. He knew far too much about women for a monk. Even Teddi, as inexperienced as she was, realized that.
But she didn’t try to tell Jenna. It might lead to some embarrassing questions.
Teddi felt her pulse jump as they started into the spacious dining room, but if she’d hoped to find King there, she was doomed to disappointment. Only Mary was at the table, with cups of steaming coffee already poured and three places set.
“There you are.” She smiled as the two girls joined her. “Isn’t it a delightfully lazy day? I hope you’re hungry, I’ve put on ham and bread and a nice salad for us.”
Teddi had to muffle a giggle. There were enough pieces of bread for one sandwich apiece, and hardly enough ham to go around. And the nice salad would provide each of them with about two tablespoons. From her earliest acquaintance with Jenna, Teddi had been amused by Mary’s eating habits. The fragile little woman had an appetite to match her stature, much to the chagrin of the rest of the family, and there was a good deal of moaning out of Mary’s earshot. None of them would ever have said anything to hurt her feelings, but they couldn’t resist a little good-natured joking among themselves.
“Don’t tell me King’s gone again?” Jenna asked as she and Teddi sat down, one on either side of Mary.
“Yes,” Mary sighed. “To see about some kind of audit on that corporation of his in Montana. The board of directors retained an auditing firm from New York to do it.”
Teddi didn’t like to hear auditors mentioned. Some of her most unpleasant memories were due to one of her aunt’s lovers, who was a very well-paid member of an illustrious New York firm.
“Is he going to be gone long?” Jenna wondered.
Mary shrugged. “A day or so, he said. But it’s just the beginning. He may have to bring the dreadful man here as well—you know, to check the rest of the books.” She caught the look on Jenna’s face and laughed. “Yes, I know, this is Canada, but King reinvests some of the profits from the Montana operation into the livestock operation here, and...” She shook her head. “It’s all very confusing. Ask King to explain it to you someday, I have no head for business management.”
“Blakely does,” Jenna murmured with a wry glance at her mother. “I could ask him.”
Mary smiled at her. “I like Blakely very much. If you need an ally, my darling, you have one in me.”
“Thanks, Mom,” the young blonde said with a beaming smile. “It will take two of us to get around King.”
“Get around King?” Mary paused with her fork in midair and stared at her daughter. “Now, Jenna...”
“Everything will be all right, I promise,” came the smug reply. “Let’s hurry and eat, Teddi, I want to introduce you to Blakely. You’ll adore him!”
* * *
Blakely would have been adorable only to a girl who was in love with him, but he was personable and seemed to know his business. Teddi had to smother a grin at the worshipful look in Jenna’s normally sensible eyes as they followed the thin, dark-eyed man around the property while the two young women were briefed on its operation. Blakely had red hair, so bright that it seemed coppery in the sun, and Teddi couldn’t help but wonder what kind of children Jenna and the livestock foreman would have—blond ones or redheads. It wasn’t going to be an easy thing if they were serious about each other. Jenna would never make King believe that it was she Blakely was interested in, not the millions she stood to inherit.
King. If only she could stop thinking about him! In view of his contempt for her, she should have detested him in return. But she didn’t. She couldn’t stop her eyes from following him whenever he was near. She felt an attraction toward him that nothing ever daunted, and she was helpless to prevent it.
She shook herself out of her troubled thoughts as Blakely mumbled something about the growth of the livestock farm.
“Originally,” he informed the girls, “farms in western Canada were laid out in 65-hectare parcels. And most of the farms are scattered within a 320-kilometer strip along Canada’s southern border. But these days only about 5 percent of the work force is employed in agriculture,” he added sadly. “Although productivity is increasing among those who remain, and mechanization has aided us quite a lot. Did you know,” he continued, blossoming as he elaborated on his favorite subject, “that the average output of one farm worker today provides food for over fifty people?”
“I’d give that man a raise,” Teddi murmured.
Blakely stared at her until the words penetrated, then he threw back his head and laughed, delighted at the little joke.
“Forgive me,” he told her, “I do tend to get carried away about farming. I love it, you see. Not just the land, or working it and working with cattle on it; but the history and heritage behind it all. This was once part of the Northwest Territories,” he said, sweeping his arms around to indicate the lush green valley in its summer splendor, with the tall, sharp peaks of the Rockies in the distance. “Alberta and Saskatchewan were organized out of it in 1905, but French fur traders were here long before then settling the wilderness. It’s an exciting history, the settling of this territory, one I never tire of reading about. Or,” he added sheepishly, “talking about.”
“I like to talk about my part of the world, too,” Teddi told him, “and I like learning about yours just as much. Please don’t apologize. Think of it as cultural exchange,” she added impishly.
“Thank you, Teddi,” he replied with a smile.
“And now that we’ve got that settled,” Jenna added, linking arms with the tall man, “let’s see the rest of it.”
Teddi followed along behind them, her eyes sweeping over the well-kept barn and stables, the white fences that kept the animals in, the huge fields of grain growing to feed the animals through the winter. It was an imposing sight. No wonder King loved it so. The scenery alone was lovely.
The next morning, Teddi went riding with Jenna and Blakely, keeping to herself, and eventually riding back alone to the ranch. It wasn’t kind to tag along after them when they were so obviously falling in love and wanted to be alone.
She gave the horse to the ranch hand at the stables and walked aimlessly toward the house. Mary had driven into Calgary to shop, and there was no one to talk to. She didn’t mind being alone here, though. It wasn’t like being alone in that spotless New York high-rise apartment with the doors bolted and chained for safety. Here, there was help within earshot all the time. She’d never felt afraid at Gray Stag—mainly because it was King’s domain, and she was afraid of nothing when King was around.
She walked into the house, idly wondering how much longer he’d be away. She was about to start up the stairs when King suddenly came down them, startling her.
He was wearing work clothes; a blue-patterned shirt open at the throat over worn jeans and dusty boots, and a straw Western hat jammed down over his blond hair at an arrogant angle.
“Where are they?” he asked without preamble.
“Your mother’s gone shopping,” she said uneasily.
“And Jenna?” he prodded, narrow-eyed.
She averted her gaze. “She’s, uh, out riding.”
“With Blakely?”
She glared at him. “What’s wrong with Blakely?”
Both eyebrows went up. “Did I say anything was?”
She shifted, running her hand along the highly polished banister. “Well, no,” she admitted reluctantly.
“You’re always ready to expect the worst of me, aren’t you?” he asked as he reached her, his eyes darkening as they slid over her face. She couldn’t have imagined the picture she made, with her short, dark hair framing her face, her brown eyes like crystal, her cheeks just faintly flushed. “Your mouth is as red as a cardinal’s breast.”
She searched his quiet eyes, stunned at the compliment, something she’d never expected from King. King—her enemy.
He moved down another step, easing her back against the bannister with the threat of his big body. He reached down and cupped her chin with a lean, strong hand. His thumb stroked her lower lip lightly.
“How old are you now?” he asked in a deep, taut voice.
She swallowed. He was too close, too disturbing, far too masculine. He smelled of the outdoors, of a woodsy cologne and cigarettes. “I’m twenty,” she said unsteadily. “I’ll be twenty-one in four months.”
“Too young,” he murmured. “Still years too young. Do you know how old I am, Teddi?”
“You...you’re thirty-three,” she whispered.
“Thirty-four,” he corrected. His eyes fell to her mouth and studied it for a long time. “God, what a sweet mouth!” he ground out. Then, as if the admission had annoyed him, he let her go abruptly and moved away toward the front door.
She stood staring helplessly after him, her eyes glued to the blue-patterned shirt stretched across his broad shoulders, the blond head that seemed to throw off golden lights as he passed under the chandelier. She loved the way he walked, so tall and bronzed and regal. She loved everything about him.
He turned with the doorknob in hand and looked back at her suddenly, reading with pinpoint accuracy the aching hunger she was too young to disguise.
His face hardened. His hand tightened on the doorknob. He uttered a soft curse and whirled, slamming the door shut with a booted foot as he headed straight for her.
She watched him with eyes so filled with confusion they seemed black, her face lifting as he came closer.
She didn’t even protest when he reached for her, crushing her soft breasts against his chest as he bent to find her mouth in one smooth, expert motion.
She felt his hard lips burrow into hers with a sense of awe, her eyes closing so that she could savor their warmth and sensuality. She stiffened involuntarily as he tried to deepen the kiss, his tongue probing at her lips.
“Let me...” he ground out, grasping the hair at the nape of her neck to tug gently, surprising a gasp from her lips. As they parted, his tongue shot past them into the soft, dark warmth of her mouth, exploring, tasting, teasing, fencing with her own tongue in an intimacy she’d never liked with other men. But King made of it a pleasure beyond bearing, a caress so sensuous that her hands reached up to grasp his hard face between them and urge him even closer.
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Diana Palmer
Teddi Whitehall longed to escape from her hectic life as a New York model, and a summer in the wilds of Canada with her best friend's family sounded perfect. But arrogant rancher Kingston Devereaux seemed intent on making her feel anything but welcome.Teddi knew King was convinced she was nothing but a glamorous playgirl. She also knew that the truth wasn't about to change his mind. So why did she feel so alive when he was near?Giving her heart to a man who despised her was bad enough. But why did she have to go and fall in love with her best friend's brother?
Teddi Whitehall longed to escape from her hectic life as a New York model, and a summer in the wilds of Canada with her best friend’s family sounded perfect. But arrogant rancher Kingston Devereaux seemed intent on making her feel anything but welcome.
Teddi knew King was convinced she was nothing but a glamorous playgirl. She also knew that the truth wasn’t about to change his mind. So why did she feel so alive when he was near?
Giving her heart to a man who despised her was bad enough. But why did she have to go and fall in love with her best friend’s brother?
Darling Enemy
Diana Palmer
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
Contents
Chapter One (#ub6da60d5-0ed4-524b-8cdd-7b478a63dfd6)
Chapter Two (#ud41e82c8-8879-5973-a20b-c51d526a021a)
Chapter Three (#u07020d67-499c-5cc4-9a13-f4860690cadd)
Chapter Four (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Five (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Six (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Seven (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Eight (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Nine (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter One
It was the most glorious kind of morning, and Teddi Whitehall leaned dreamily on the windowsill of the dormitory room overlooking the courtyard below, watching the pigeons waddle like old men over the cobblestones.
The buildings on college campus were romantically Gothic, like something out of another century. But its green and flowering grounds were what Teddi liked most. They were a welcome change from the sophisticated New York apartment where she had to spend her holidays.
She leaned her face on her crossed arms with a sigh and drank in the smells and sounds of the early morning. She dreaded the time when she’d have to board the plane back to New York, away from the exclusive Connecticut college and her friend and roommate Jenna. There was a chill in the June air, and the beige gown that complemented Teddi’s short dark hair and huge brown eyes was hardly proof against it. It was a good thing that Jenna had already gone downstairs, she thought, and couldn’t chide her about her impulsiveness in throwing open the window.
Jenna wasn’t impulsive. In that, she was like her older brother. Teddi shivered delicately. Just the thought of Kingston Devereaux was enough to cause that reaction. They’d clashed from the very beginning. The big rancher with his Australian drawl and cutting smile might have sent the other girls in the dormitory into swoons, but he only made Teddi want to turn away. He’d made his contempt for her more than evident during the years she’d been friends with his sister. And it was all because of a false impression he had, which nothing she said could change. His snap judgments were as unfair as his treatment of Teddi, and she dreaded visits to the Canadian ranch with Jenna. Teddi had an uncomfortable feeling that Jenna was getting ready to spring another invitation on her, since they were both free until fall quarter began. Kingston Devereaux would fly his plane over from Calgary to get Jenna, and Teddi would find excuses to avoid him...as usual.
She shook her head miserably. At least Jenna had a mother and brother to go home to. Teddi had no one. Her aunt, who was her only living relative, was somewhere on the Riviera with her latest lover. The New York apartment Teddi shared with her on holidays was going to be particularly empty now. At least there would be plenty of modeling offers forthcoming, she was assured of that. She’d been modeling since her fifteenth birthday. She was blessed with good bone structure and eyes so large and poignant that one of her boyfriends had likened them to a doe’s. The modeling agency that handled her was proud of its star client—if they had a complaint, it was that she was being wasted in the halls of academia.
She felt suddenly chilled to the bone and drew back into the room, closing the window with nervous hands. Modeling was the sore spot with Kingston, who had the immutable opinion that models and virtue didn’t mix. It hadn’t helped that Teddi’s aunt was notorious for her affairs. Kingston was an old-fashioned man with narrow-minded views on modern permissiveness. He might have an affair himself, but he had nothing but contempt for women who indulged. And he was certain Teddi did.
She’d never forgotten her introduction to him. She’d met Jenna at boarding school when she was just fifteen, and the two girls had become fast friends. She’d expected Jenna’s family to be equally friendly and caring, and had received the shock of her young life when Kingston Devereaux had shown up at Christmas to fly Jenna home to the ranch outside Calgary for the holidays.
His first reaction to Teddi had been strangely hostile, a long, lingering appraisal that had touched Teddi like a cold finger against her bare skin. Jenna’s gay announcement that she’d invited Teddi for the holidays had been met with a cold, gray glare and a reluctant acceptance that had spoiled the trip for her. She’d done everything but move outside to keep out of the big man’s way. Then, and since.
She shook off the memories along with her gown, and slipped into a silky beige pantsuit that her aunt had mailed to her for Easter—one of a number of presents that were supposed to take the place of love and affection. Teddi ran a comb through her short, thick hair and decided against makeup. Her complexion was naturally olive, her lips had a color all their own, and her long-lashed eyes never needed enhancing. She slipped into a pair of low-heeled shoes and went downstairs to find Jenna, idly wondering why her roommate had rushed out in the first place.
She started into the dormitory lounge and stopped, frozen, in the doorway. Jenna was sitting stiffly on the couch, facing a big, elegantly dressed man with gold-streaked blond hair.
“...And I said no,” Kingston Devereaux stated flatly, his back to the doorway, his Australian accent thick. “She’s not going to turn my damned cattle station upside down again the way she did at Easter. Can you see the men getting any work done? Hell, they do nothing but stare at her.”
“She won’t cause any trouble,” Jenna retorted in defense of her friend, venom in her normally sweet tone. Her gray eyes, so much like Kingston’s, were flashing with anger. “King, she’s nothing like her aunt, she’s not what you think...!”
“Too right, baby, she isn’t rich, and she’s never going to be, unless she can get her claws into some poor, trusting male.” He rammed his big hands into the pockets of his slacks, stretching the expensive gray fabric across his flat stomach, his powerful, broad thighs. “Well, she isn’t going to spend the summer making cow’s eyes at my men—or at me,” he added with a bitter laugh.
Teddi, listening, blushed. That Easter vacation had haunted her.
“King!” Jenna gasped. “You must know that Teddi’s frightened of you, you’ve made sure of it. She’d never...”
“Wouldn’t she?” he growled. “Surely you noticed the way she stared at me during Easter? An Easter I’d have preferred spending alone with my family,” he added with a cruel smile. “Mother should have had another daughter to keep you company, then maybe you wouldn’t spend your life picking up strays!”
Teddi’s face went white. She stood there like a wounded little animal, her huge eyes misty with the hurt, and Kingston turned at that moment and saw her. The expression on his broad, hard face was almost comical.
“Oh, Teddi,” Jenna wailed, grimacing as she, too, caught sight of her and realized that her friend had heard every harsh word of the conversation.
Teddi straightened proudly. “Hello, Jenna,” she said softly. “I—I just wondered if you wanted to have breakfast with me. I’ll be at the dining hall.”
“King came early,” Jenna said helplessly, with a shrug. “We were talking about vacation.”
“You’ll enjoy yours, I’m sure,” Teddi said, forcing a smile to her full, faintly pouting lips. “I’ll go ahead...”
“I want you to come to the ranch for the summer,” Jenna said with a defiant glance at Kingston.
“No, thanks,” Teddi said quietly.
“King won’t even be there part of the time,” the smaller girl said sharply, tossing her long, pale blond hair.
Teddi glanced at the taciturn rancher, whose jaw was clenched taut. “I’ve spent quite enough of my holidays being treated like an invading disease,” she said deliberately. “I’d rather spend this one alone, and I’m sure your brother will be delighted to have his family to himself,” she added venomously.
“Teddi—” Jenna began.
“I’ve got modeling assignments lined up, anyway,” Teddi added truthfully with a last, killing glare at Kingston as she turned. “Why spend my vacation on a ranch when I can seduce half the men in New York while I make my fortune?” Her lower lip was trembling, but no one could see it now. “Thanks anyway, Jenna, thanks a lot. You can’t help it that you’ve got an insufferable snob for a brother!”
And on that defiant note, she stormed out of the dormitory into the sunshine, her back rigid, the tears welling up in her smoldering eyes.
She walked over the cobblestones numbly, the tears coming in hot abundance, trickling down into her mouth. How could he be so cruel, how could he? The conceited ass! As if any woman would be stupid enough to get herself emotionally involved with that arrogant Australian...the gall of him to accuse her of making cow’s eyes at him! She flushed at the memory. He’d never let her live down her foolish behavior at Easter; if only she’d realized that he was teasing....
She fished in her pocket for a tissue. As usual, there wasn’t one. She brushed the back of her hand angrily across her cheeks, hating her own weakness. She’d write to Jenna, he couldn’t stop her from doing that, and they’d be together when the fall quarter started. Kingston couldn’t keep them from being friends, after all. He’d never had a chance once they’d enrolled at the same college.
She passed a couple of her classmates and tried to smile a greeting just as a lean, commanding hand caught her arm and jerked her around, marching her to the shade of a nearby oak.
“Running again?” Kingston Devereaux asked curtly, his glittering eyes biting into hers. “You’ve done a lot of that.”
“Self-preservation, Mr. Devereaux,” she replied coldly, brushing wildly at one stray tear. “You make me forget that I’m a lady.”
“A lady?” he drawled. “You?” His eyes ran down her slender body, over the high young breasts and down the tiny waist and sweetly curving hips to her long, graceful legs in their clinging cover.
“Oh, excuse me—in your exalted opinion, that’s a title I don’t deserve,” she replied coolly.
“Too right,” he ground out. He lifted his broad shoulders restlessly. “Jenna’s back at the dormitory crying her damned eyes out,” he added roughly. “I didn’t come all this way to upset her.”
“Upsetting people is one of your greatest talents,” Teddi told him, glaring back.
One eyebrow went up as he studied her face. “Careful, tiger,” he drawled. “I bite back.”
Teddi wrapped her arms around herself, turning her attention to passing students. “You’ve done nothing but attack me for the past five years,” she reminded him. “And for your information, Mr. Devereaux,” she added hotly, “if I stared, it was out of apprehension, wondering what minute you were going to start something!”
“You started it the last time, darling,” he reminded her, smiling coldly at the blush she couldn’t prevent. “Didn’t you?”
She didn’t like being reminded of that fiasco, and her eyes told him so. She turned away.
“How long did it take you to perfect that pose of innocence?” he asked.
“Oh, years,” she assured him. “I started while a baby.”
He looked down his arrogant nose at her. The sunlight made gold streaks in his dark blond hair. “You didn’t get to your particular rung on the modeling ladder without giving out a little, honey. You’ll never convince me otherwise.”
“Why bother to try?” she countered. “You’re so fond of the playgirl image you’ve foisted on me. And you’re never wrong, are you?”
“Not often,” he agreed. “And never about women,” he added, with just a trace of sensuality in his deep drawl.
She supposed that he’d had his share of women. Her own small experience of him had been devastating. He had an eye-catching physique and when he liked, he could be charming. Teddi, having seen him stripped to the waist more than once, couldn’t find a fault in him. A picture of his bronzed, hair-roughened muscles danced in front of her eyes, and she shook her head to get that disturbing memory out of her mind. Kingston disturbed her physically, he always had, and she disliked the sensations as much as she disliked him. He was the enemy, she mustn’t ever lose sight of that fact.
“You know very little about the type of modeling I do,” she said numbly.
“More than you think,” he corrected. “We have a mutual acquaintance.”
She let that enigmatic remark fly right over her head as she started walking.
“Going somewhere?” he challenged.
“To inflict myself on someone else over breakfast,” she agreed cheerfully. “Strangely enough, there are people who don’t think of me as a walking, talking 8 x 10 glossy photograph.”
“Fair dinkum?” he murmured, falling into step beside her.
She glared at him. “Believe what you like about me, I don’t care.” But of course she cared, she always had. She’d gone out of her way to try to make Kingston like her, to earn even the smallest word of praise from him. But she’d never accomplished that, and she never would.
“You can have breakfast with Jenna and me,” he said after a minute, as if the words choked him. They probably had, she thought miserably.
“No, thanks,” she said politely. “I can’t eat wondering if you’ve had time to sprinkle arsenic over my bacon and eggs.”
A chuckle came out of his throat, a surprising sound. “You never stop fighting me, do you?”
She shifted her shoulders lightly. “I’ve spent most of my life fighting.”
“Poor little orphan,” he murmured coldly.
She glared at him. “I loved my parents,” she said curtly. “Shame on you for that.”
He had the grace to look uncomfortable, but only for an instant. “Hitting below the belt?” he asked with a lifted eyebrow.
“Just exactly that.”
“I’ll pull my punches next time,” he assured her.
“You make it sound like a game,” she grumbled.
“Oh, no, it’s stopped being that,” he replied, his eyes on the dining hall ahead. “It stopped being that at Easter.”
She colored delicately, her eyes closing for an instant to try to blot out the memory. She hated him for reminding her of what had almost happened.
“I should have taken you right there in that stall instead of pushing you away,” he said in a husky, deep whisper.
She moved jerkily away from him. “Please don’t remind me of the fool I was,” she said tightly, avoiding his glittering eyes. “I had you mixed up with someone else in my mind,” she added to salvage what she could of her pride.
His features seemed to harden even more. “And we both know who, don’t we, honey?”
She didn’t understand, but was too angry to ask questions. “If you’re quite through, I’m hungry.”
His darkening eyes traced her face, the slender lines of her body, as if the word triggered a hunger of his own.
He moved closer and she stiffened, catching the amused, curious glances of the other students on their way to and from the dining hall. “People are staring,” she murmured nervously.
“Afraid they’ll think we’re lovers, honey?” he asked with magnificent insolence.
She reacted without thinking, her fingers flashing up toward his hard, tanned cheek. But he caught her wrist just in time to avoid the blow, holding it firm in a steely, warm grip.
“Temper, temper,” he chided, as if the flash of fury amused him. “Think of the gossip it would cause.”
“As if you’d ever worry about what people thought of you,” she returned hotly. “It must be nice to have enough wealth and power to be above caring.”
He searched her dark, dark eyes for a long time. “Your parents were poor, weren’t they?” he asked in an uncommonly quiet tone.
She flushed violently. “I loved them,” she muttered. “It didn’t matter.”
“You push yourself way too hard for a girl your age,” he said. “Who are you trying to show, Teddi? What are you trying to prove? Jenna says you’re studying for a major in English—what good is that going to do you as a model?”
She tugged at his imprisoning hand. “None at all,” she admitted, grinding the words out, “but it’ll be great when I start teaching.”
“Teaching?” He stood very still, staring down at her as if he doubted the evidence of his own ears. “You?”
“Please let me go...” she asked curtly, giving up the unequal struggle.
His fingers abruptly entwined with hers, the simple action knocking every small protest, even speech, out of her mind as he drew her along the cobblestoned path beside him. She wondered at her own uncharacteristic meekness as the unfamiliar contact made music in her blood.
“You’ll come home with us,” he said quietly. “The last thing you need is to be alone in that damned apartment, while your dizzy aunt bed-hops across Europe, with no one about to look after you.”
She knew he disliked her aunt Dilly, he’d made no secret of the fact. She’d often thought that his dislike for her aunt had extended automatically to herself, even though she was nothing like her father’s sister.
“You don’t have to pretend that you care what happens to me,” she said coldly. “You’ve already made it quite clear that you don’t.”
His fingers tightened. “You weren’t meant to hear that,” he said. He glanced down at her. “I say a hell of a lot of things to Jenna to keep the issue clouded.”
She blinked up at him. “I don’t understand,” she murmured.
He returned her searching look with a smoldering fire deep in his gray eyes that made her feel trembly. His jaw tautened. “You never have,” he ground out. “You’re too damned afraid of me to try.”
“I’m not afraid of you!” she said, eyes flashing.
“You are,” he corrected. “Because I’d want it all, or nothing, and you know that, don’t you?”
She felt her knees going weak as she stared up at him, the words only half making sense in her whirling mind. One of Teddi’s friends walked past, grinning at the big, handsome man holding Teddi’s hand, and King grinned back. Women loved him, their eyes openly interested, covetous. But the looks they were attracting embarrassed Teddi, and she tried to pull loose.
“Don’t,” King murmured, tightening his warm fingers with a wicked smile. “Don’t read anything into it, it’s simple self-preservation. If I hold your little hand, you can’t slap me with it,” he added with a chuckle.
It was one of the few times she’d ever heard him laugh when they were together, and she studied his lofty face, fascinated. She was of above average height, but King towered over her. He wasn’t only tall, he was broad—like a football player.
“Like what you see?” he challenged.
“I was just thinking how big they grow them in Australia,” she hedged.
“I’m Australian born,” he agreed. “And you’re from Georgia, aren’t you? I love that accent...early plantation?”
She pouted. “I have a very nice accent. Nothing like that long, twanging drawl of yours,” she countered.
“A souvenir from Queensland,” he agreed without rancor.
She searched his eyes. “You spent a lot of your life there,” she recalled.
He nodded. “Mother was a Canadian. When she inherited the Calgary farm, we left Australia and moved to Canada. That was before Jenna was born. Dad and I spent a lot of time traveling between the two properties, so Mother and I were little more than strangers when I was younger.”
“You don’t let anyone get close, do you?”
He stopped at the door of the dining hall and looked down at her. “How close do you want to get, honey—within grabbing distance of my wallet?” he asked with a cold smile.
She glared up at him. “I’m not money crazy,” she said proudly. She jerked her hand out of his grasp, and this time he let it go. “I have everything I need.”
“Do you really?” he retorted. “Then why do you live with your aunt—why does she have to keep you?”
She wanted to tell him that she made quite enough modeling to pay her school fees and to support herself. But she hadn’t seen the sense in trying to maintain an apartment of her own when she was in school nine months out of the year. Besides, she thought bitterly, Dilly was rarely at the New York apartment these days. There was always a man....
“Think what you like,” she told him. “You will, anyway.”
He looked down at her quietly. “Does it bother you?”
She shrugged carelessly. “You don’t really know anything about me.”
His eyes dropped to her soft, full mouth. “I know that underneath that perfect bone structure and bristling pride, you burn with sweet fires when you want a man to kiss you....”
Her face flamed. She moved away as he opened the door for her, standing in such a way that she had to brush against his powerful body to enter the dining hall. She glanced up at him as she eased past, her eyes telling him reluctantly how much the contact disturbed her.
“Soft little thing, aren’t you?” he asked in a deep, lazy drawl, his eyes pointedly on the high thrust of her breasts as they flattened slightly against his broad chest in passing.
Teddi was grateful that Jenna was already at a table waiting for them, so that she didn’t witness the strange little scene. Jenna tended to carry teasing to an embarrassing degree.
Chapter Two
Breakfast was pleasant. It was one of the few times Teddi could remember sitting down to eat with King when he didn’t go out of his way to needle her. She had the strangest impression that their fiery relationship had undergone a change while they talked earlier. She looked into his eyes and blushed, and the reaction caused an amused glint in his own eyes.
“How soon can you girls get packed?” King asked over a final cup of coffee. At a nearby table, several female students were openly watching King with every bite, their eyes dreamy.
“I’m taking a flight to New York later this afternoon,” Teddi said quickly.
King watched her, reading accurately the panic in her young face. “You and I will iron out our differences this summer,” he said in a tone that made her tingle all over. “In the meantime, there’s no excuse for denying Jenna your company just to spite me.”
It was the truth, but part of her was afraid of what settling those differences might lead to. She was nervous of men in any physical sense, and especially of King—there were scars on her emotions that she didn’t want reopened.
“I’ve got modeling jobs—” she began.
“You can live without them for a few weeks, surely?” he taunted. “Twenty-four-hour days are only bearable for short terms,” he reminded her. “You’ve been holding down a night job, Jenna told me, in addition to your day courses. Quite a feat, if I remember curfew regulations.”
“The gates close at midnight here,” Teddi murmured. She glared at Jenna, who managed to look completely innocent.
“All the same, you could use a vacation. As long as you don’t spend it mooning over me,” he added.
Her eyes jerked up to find him smiling in a teasing way, his eyes kind and glittering with good humor. It surprised her into smiling back, accentuating her beauty to such a degree that King just sat and stared at her until she dropped her own gaze, embarrassed.
“Besides,” King added tautly, “where else have you got to go? With that nymphomaniac of an aunt, or to an apartment alone?”
“A half hour ago, you wouldn’t have cared if I’d had to shack up with a bear at the local zoo,” she reminded him hotly.
He cocked an eyebrow. “As I recall, Miss Cover Girl,” he murmured, “the subject of bears once got us into an interesting situation.”
She went fiery red, avoiding Jenna’s smiling, curious gaze. “An unbearable situation,” she murmured, laughing when King got the pun and threw back his own head.
“Please come,” Jenna added, pleading. “If you’re around to chaperone me, King will let me chase Blakely all over the ranch,” she laughed.
“Blakely?” King frowned. “You don’t, surely, mean my livestock foreman?”
Jenna peeked at him through her lashes. “I’m interested in ranching,” she murmured.
“Don’t get too interested in Blakely,” he warned. “I’ve got bigger plans for you.”
“Do you always try to run people’s lives?” Teddi challenged.
He looked deep into her eyes. “Look out, honey, I might fancy running yours if you aren’t careful.”
“I’m hardly worth notice,” she reminded him. “An orphan with no connections, a background of poverty, a sordid reputation...”
“Oh, hell, shut up,” he growled, getting to his feet. “I’ve got to have the plane serviced. You two get packed.”
He stormed off. Jenna giggled openly, her eyes speculative.
“Just what is going on?” she asked Teddi. “I’ve never seen him off balance like that.”
“I have been practicing sorcery,” Teddi said in a menacing whisper. “While he wasn’t looking, I slipped a potion in his coffee. Any second now, your tall, blond brother is going to turn into a short, fat frog.”
Jenna burst out laughing, tears rolling down her cheeks. “Oh, I can’t wait to see him,” she laughed. “King, with green warts!”
Teddi laughed, too, at the absurdity of fastidious King with such an affliction. He never seemed to have a hair out of place, even when he was working with the livestock.
Hours later, they were well on the way to Calgary in King’s private Piper Navajo.
“I can’t wait for you to meet Blakely,” Jenna told her friend. “King just hired him a couple of months ago and I got to know him when I was home for that long weekend in April.”
“He must be something special,” Teddi murmured.
Jenna sighed. “Oh, he is. Brown eyes and red hair and a build like a movie star. Teddi, you’ll love him...but not too much, please,” she added, only half teasing. “I couldn’t begin to compete with you, as far as looks go.”
“Don’t be silly,” Teddi chided. “You’re lovely.”
“You’re a liar, but I love you just the same,” came the laughing reply. Jenna leaned back in the plush seat. “King didn’t chew you up too badly, did he?” she asked after a minute. Her gray eyes met Teddi’s apologetically. “I could have gone through the floor when he made that nasty remark and I saw you standing in the doorway and knew you’d heard.”
“King and I have been enemies for years,” Teddi reminded her friend, her dark eyes wistful. “I don’t know what I did to make him dislike me so, but he always has.”
“It puzzles me,” Jenna murmured, “that King gets along so well with everyone else. He has that arrogant streak, of course, but he’s a pussycat most of the time. He’s worked twenty-two-hour days to keep us solvent since Dad died. Without him the whole property would have gone down the drain.” She eyed her friend. “None of which explains his hostility toward you. I couldn’t believe my eyes when he went out of the dormitory after you.”
“That makes two of us. I very nearly hit him.”
“How exciting! What did he do?”
Teddi reddened. She was not about to admit that King had held her hand all the way to the dormitory. “He ducked,” she lied.
Jenna laughed delightedly. “Just imagine, your trying to plant one on my brother. Do you know, you never used to stand up to him. When we were younger, he’d say something hurtful and you’d go off and cry, and King would go out and chew up one or two of his men.” She laughed. “It got to be almost funny. The men would start getting nervous the minute you walked onto the property.”
Teddi shifted restlessly. “I know. To be honest, I’ve been turning down your invitations lately to avoid him. I probably wouldn’t have gone home with you at Easter if I hadn’t been trying to shake off that friend of Dilly’s who’s been pursuing me.”
“Would you mind very much telling me what happened at Easter?”
“I threw a feed bucket at him,” Teddi blurted out.
Jenna’s eyes opened wide. “You’re kidding!”
Teddi’s gaze dropped to her lap. “It was just a mild disagreement,” she lied. “Oh, look!” she exclaimed as she looked out the window. “We must be over Alberta, look at the plains!”
Jenna peeked over her friend’s shoulder and looked down through the thick cloud cover. “Could be,” she murmured, checking her watch, “but we haven’t been in the air quite long enough. I bet it was Saskatchewan.” She got up. “I’ll ask King.”
Teddi’s eyes followed the smaller girl while her mind went lazily back to the spring day when King had chided her about her private life just one time too many....
Jenna had slept late that morning, but the bright sun and the sounds of activity out at the stables had roused Teddi from a sound sleep. She’d put on her riding outfit and hurried down to get Happy to saddle a horse for her. Happy, one of the older hands on the huge Canadian ranch, had been one of her staunchest allies. He’d taught her to ride when King had refused to.
But Happy hadn’t been in the neat stables that morning. King had. And the minute she saw him, she knew there was going to be trouble. He had a way of cocking his head to one side when he was angry that warned of storms brewing in his big body, a narrowing of one eye that meant he was holding himself on a tight rein. Teddi had been too angry herself to notice the warning signs.
“I know how to ride,” she argued. “Happy taught me.”
“I don’t give a damn,” he growled back. “The men have seen bear tracks around this spring. You don’t ride alone on the ranch, is that clear?”
She felt an unreasonable hatred of him, raw because he hadn’t even noticed her painfully shy flirting, her extra attention to her appearance. She had been trying to catch his eye for the first time in their turbulent acquaintance and it hadn’t worked. Her temper had exploded.
“I’m not afraid of bears!” she all but screamed.
“Well, you should be,” he replied tightly, his eyes roaming over her. “You don’t know what a bear could do to that perfect young body.”
The words had shocked her. Amazingly, now that she had his attention, she was frightened.
She backed away from him, and that had caused a quaking kind of anger to charge up in his big body. “Afraid?” he chided. “You probably know more about sex than I do, so why pretend? Just how many men have had you?”
That had been the final straw. There was a feed bucket at her elbow, and she grabbed it without thinking, intending to fling it directly at him.
He hadn’t kept his hard-muscled body in shape by being careless. He stepped out of the way gracefully and before she had time to be shocked at her own behavior, he stepped forward and caught her by the wrists, roughly putting her hands behind her and pinning her against him.
“That,” he growled, “was stupid. What were you trying to prove, that you don’t like what you are?”
“You don’t know what I am!” she cried, wounded. Her huge brown eyes had looked up at him with apprehension.
“No?” His big hands had propelled her forward until her soft, high breasts were crushed against the front of his blue-patterned cotton shirt. She smelled the fresh, laundered scent of it mingling with his cologne. It was the closest she’d ever been to him.
“You’ve behaved like a homeless kitten around me lately,” he said in a deep, sensuous tone that aroused new sensations in Teddi’s taut body. “Low-cut blouses, clinging dresses, making eyes at me every time I turn around....” He released her wrists then, and his calloused hands eased under the hem of her blouse, finding her bare back. They lingered on her silky skin, faintly abrasive, surprisingly gentle. “Come closer, little one,” he murmured, watching her with calculating eyes, although she’d been too lost in his darkening gaze to notice that.
Her legs had trembled against the unfamiliar hardness of his, her breasts had tingled from a contact that burned even through the layers of fabric that separated her from his broad, hair-covered chest.
His hands were causing wild tremors all over her body as he savored the satin flesh of her back and urged her slender hips against his.
“I want your mouth, Teddi,” he whispered huskily, bending, so that his smoky breath caressed her trembling lips. “And you want mine, don’t you, love? You’ve wanted it for days, years...you’ve been aware of me since the day we met.” His mouth had hovered over hers tantalizingly while his hands caressed her back, made mincemeat of her pride, her self-control. “You want to feel my hands touching you, don’t you, Teddi?” he taunted, moving his head close, so that his mouth brushed tormentingly against hers when he spoke.
“King,” she moaned, going on tiptoe to try to catch his poised, teasing mouth with her own.
He’d drawn back enough to deny her the kiss, while his hands slid insolently down over her buttocks and back up again. “Do you want me to kiss you, Teddi?” he’d asked with a mocking smile.
“Yes,” she whispered achingly, “yes, please...!” Anything, she would have agreed to anything to make him kiss her, to bring the dream of years to reality, to let her know the touch and taste and aching pleasure of his hard, beautiful mouth.
“How much do you want it?” he persisted, bending to bite softly, tenderly at her mouth, catching her upper lip delicately between both of his in a caress that was blatantly arousing. “Do you ache, baby?”
“Yes,” she moaned, her eyes slitted, her body liquid under his as her knees threatened to fold under her. “King, please,” she half sobbed, “oh, please!”
He lifted his head, then, to study her hungry face and a look of pain had come over his features. He turned away so that she never saw whether he had to struggle to bring himself under control. She doubted it. Certainly there was no sign of emotion on his face when he turned back to her.
“Maybe for your birthday,” he said with magnificent arrogance. “Or Christmas. But not now, honey, I’m a busy man.”
He gave a curt laugh and she stood there like the ruins of a house—empty and alone. Her eyes had accused, hated, in the seconds that they held his.
“You’re not human,” she choked. “You’re as cold as...”
“Only with women who leave me that way,” he interrupted. “My God, you’d even give in to a man you profess to hate, you need it so much!”
She watched him walk away with her pride around her knees. She’d sworn to herself that day that she would toss herself over a cliff before she gave him the chance to humble her again. She avoided him successfully for the rest of the Easter vacation, and when she boarded the plane for Connecticut with Jenna, she hadn’t even looked at him.
She sighed, watching the clouds drift by outside the window. In her mind she relived that humiliation over and over again. She wondered sometimes if she’d ever be able to forget. The incident had revived other, older memories that had been the original cause of her frigid reaction to most men. Ironically, King had been the only one to ever get so close to her, to arouse such a damning response. And he didn’t even know that to Teddi, most men were poison.
“Saskatchewan,” Jenna said smugly, returning to reseat herself beside her friend. “But western Saskatchewan, so it won’t be too much longer before we get home.” She gave Teddi a searching appraisal.
“Looking for hidden beauty?” Teddi teased.
“Actually, I asked King about that bucket you threw at him,” she replied hesitantly.
Teddi’s heart dipped wildly. “And?” she prompted, trying desperately for normalcy.
“I guess I should have kept my mouth shut,” Jenna said with a sigh, turning toward the window. “Honestly, sometimes I think he lies awake nights thinking up new words to shock me with.”
Teddi felt a shiver as she folded her hands in her lap and closed her eyes. Apparently King didn’t want to be reminded any more than she did. It was just as well, King had made it perfectly clear that he despised her.
The Devereaux livestock farm, Gray Stag, was located in a green valley in the foothills of the Rocky Mountains, not far from Calgary. It had its own private landing strip and all the creature comforts any family would ever want.
The house itself was a copy of a French château, big and sprawling with a long, winding driveway and tall firs all around it. Fields of wildflowers bloomed profusely against the majestic background of the snow-capped Rockies. There was a tennis court, a heated swimming pool, and formal gardens which were the pride of the family’s aging gardener. It always reminded Teddi of pictures she’d seen of rural France.
King taxied the plane toward the hangar, where a white Mercedes was parked. A petite, white-haired woman in a fashionable gray suit waved as they climbed out of the plane and onto the apron.
“Mama!” Jenna cried. She ran into the woman’s outstretched arms, leaving King and Teddi to follow.
“My God, you’d think she’d been away for two years instead of two months,” King growled.
Teddi glanced up at his set face, so deeply tanned and masculine that her fingers itched to touch it. She averted her eyes.
“It would be nice to have a mother to run to,” she said in a tone that ached with memories.
She felt a lean, rough hand at the nape of her neck, grasping it gently in a gesture that was strangely compassionate.
“You haven’t had a lot of love in your young life, have you?” he asked quietly. “It’s something Jenna never lacked, we made sure of that.”
“It shows,” she agreed, watching her friend’s warm, open smile. “She’s very much an extrovert.”
“My exact opposite.” His eyes narrowed on the vista beyond the airport. “I don’t care for most people.”
“Especially me,” she murmured.
His dark gray eyes pinned her. “Don’t put words into my mouth. You know very little about me. You’ve never come close enough to find out anything.”
She couldn’t hold that dark gaze. “I did once,” she reminded him bitterly.
“Yes, I know,” he replied. His eyes sketched her profile narrowly. “I left scars, didn’t I?”
She shifted her thin shoulders uncomfortably, wishing she’d never said anything in the first place. “Everyone’s entitled to be foolish once or twice.”
“I’ve wondered a lot since then what might have happened if I’d laid down with you in that soft hay,” he said quietly, deliberately slowing his pace as they approached the rest of his family.
Her heart pounded erratically. “I’d have fought you,” she said, her tone soft and challenging.
He looked down at her and a strange smile turned up his chiseled mouth at one corner. “Would you?” he asked in a deep, silky voice. “Do you have enough experience to know what it does to a man when a desirable woman fights him?”
“You seem to think I’ve slept with half the men in New York, so you tell me,” she shot back.
He cocked an eyebrow. “I don’t know what to think about you,” he admitted. “Just when I’m sure I’ve got you figured out, you throw me another curve. I’m beginning to think I need to take a much closer look at you, Teddi bear.”
She glared up at him. “Don’t call me that.”
“Don’t you like it?” he taunted. “You’re small and soft and cuddly.”
She blushed like a teenager, and hated her helpless reaction to his teasing. It was just like before. All he wanted was to make her crawl. Well, he wasn’t going to do it this trip.
“Don’t think you’ll ever get to cuddle me,” she said shortly.
“And I wouldn’t bet on that, if I were you.” He pulled a cigarette from his shirt pocket and lit it while he watched her. “You were begging me for it in the barn that morning.”
She shivered at the memory of her weakness and her eyes closed briefly. “You know a lot,” she countered.
“What did you expect, that I spent all my time with the cattle?” he taunted. “I know what to do with a woman, young Teddi, as you damned near found out. I can lose my head, if I’m tempted enough. You brought that about, and we both know it. Those eye-catching little glances, those low-cut dresses, those come-and-kiss-me looks you were giving me—”
“I can’t possibly tell you how sorry I am about the whole thing,” she ground out. “Could we please just forget it? You’re safe from me this trip, I wouldn’t flirt with you if my life depended on it.”
“That might be better,” he murmured dryly. “I live in constant fear of being seduced by one of you wild city girls.”
Now that did sound like flirting, but before she could be sure, they were within earshot of the others.
“The end of the world must be near,” Mary Devereaux laughed. “Are my eyes going bad, or are you two actually not arguing for once?” She eyed her son closely. “And did I actually see you smile at her?”
King cocked an eyebrow at her. “Muscle spasm,” he replied without cracking a smile.
“Sure,” Mary laughed. She reached out and hugged Teddi affectionately. “It’s so good to have you here, Teddi. What with King away most of the time, and Jenna’s sudden interest in ranch management,” she added with a pointed glance at her daughter, “I’ve been looking forward to a very lonely summer.” She stared at the young girl. “Teddi, you aren’t suddenly going to develop an interest in ranch management, are you?”
Teddi burst out laughing. “Oh, no, I don’t think so.”
“Thank goodness,” Mary sighed. “Shall we go? I could use a cup of coffee. King, I suppose you’ll drive?”
“When was the last time I let you drive me anywhere?” he mused, leading the way to the car.
“Let me think.” His parent frowned. “You were six and I had to take you to the dentist when you got into it with little Sammy Blain...”
Teddi hid a smile. She linked her arm with Jenna’s and brought up the rear. It was nice to be part of a family, even for a little while.
Chapter Three
Teddi’s room overlooked the Rockies. It was done in blue and white, with lacy eyelet curtains at the windows and a canopied bed. This was where she always slept when she came to Gray Stag—her own little corner of the old château.
She wondered who had occupied the matching room in the original home in Burgundy. One of King’s ancestors had copied the design of his wife’s family home to keep that grieving lady from getting attacks of homesickness when they’d settled in Calgary. The original château dated to the eighteenth century. This one was barely a hundred years old, but it had a charm all its own.
She opened the window and breathed the flower-scented air. Everything seemed so much cleaner in Canada, so much bigger. Despite King’s hostility, it was nice to be here again. Mary and Jenna more than made up for King.
Her eyes went to the soft bed. King. She remembered a night she’d spent at Gray Stag when she was seventeen, during summer vacation.
She’d been fairly terrified of King back then, nervous and uncertain when he came near with his cruel taunts. She’d never understood his dislike—she’d done nothing to him to provoke it.
But that night there was a thunderstorm, violent as only mountain thunderstorms can be. Teddi’s parents had gone down in a commercial airliner on a night like this, and in her young mind she still connected disaster with violent storms. She was crying, soft little whimpers that shouldn’t have been audible above the raging thunder.
But King had suddenly opened the door and come in, still fully dressed from helping work cattle in the flash flooding. His shirt was damp, carelessly unbuttoned to reveal a mat of hair and bronzed muscle that had drawn Teddi’s eyes like a magnet.
He eased down onto the bed and took the frightened, weeping girl into his big arms. He murmured soft, comforting words that she didn’t understand while he cradled her against his warm, damp body, his heart beating heavily under the cheek that lay on his broad chest. He held her until the tears and the thunder passed, and then he laid her back down on the pillows with a strangely tender smile.
“Okay, now?” he asked softly.
“Yes, thank you,” she replied uneasily.
He stood there, looking down at her with strange dark eyes while she stared back, her eyes fixed on the sight he made, his shirt unbuttoned to the waist...it was the first time she’d been alone with a man in her bedroom at that hour of the night, and her fear must have shown. Because he suddenly turned away with a muffled curse and was gone. After that night, he was even colder, and she worked even harder at avoiding him. Something had happened while they stared at each other so intensely. She still wasn’t sure what it had been, but she remembered vividly the sensations she felt when his eyes had dropped to the uncovered bodice of her gown and traced deliberately every soft line of her young breasts under the half-transparent material. The memory was like a drawn sword between them, along with all King’s imagined grievances against her.
There was a sharp knock at the door and Jenna peeked her head around it. “Come down and have something to eat,” she said. “Mother’s carving up a ham.”
“Isn’t Miss Peake here anymore?” Teddi asked as she joined her friend, remembering warmly Miss Peake’s little kindnesses over the years.
“Our saintly housekeeper is visiting her sister for a few days.” Jenna grinned. “She’d just die if she was here to see the size of the slices mother’s getting off that ham. Mother eats like a bird, you know. Poor King!”
Teddi smiled involuntarily. “There’s a lot of him to feed,” she agreed.
“He gets even,” Jenna assured her. “When mother’s back is turned, he’ll go in the kitchen and make himself a sandwich or two. He doesn’t starve.”
“Miss Peake was forever carrying him trays of food when he worked in the study,” Teddi recalled, remembering how she’d strained for glimpses of him through that door at night.
“And he was forever complaining that there wasn’t enough of it,” Jenna added. “My brother has a tremendous appetite. For food, at least. Mother wants to see him married so badly, but he hardly ever takes anyone out. You’d think he doesn’t know what to do with a woman, the way he avoids them.”
Oh, Jenna, if you only knew, Teddi thought silently, as she remembered her own voice pleading for the touch of King’s poised, taunting mouth. He knew far too much about women for a monk. Even Teddi, as inexperienced as she was, realized that.
But she didn’t try to tell Jenna. It might lead to some embarrassing questions.
Teddi felt her pulse jump as they started into the spacious dining room, but if she’d hoped to find King there, she was doomed to disappointment. Only Mary was at the table, with cups of steaming coffee already poured and three places set.
“There you are.” She smiled as the two girls joined her. “Isn’t it a delightfully lazy day? I hope you’re hungry, I’ve put on ham and bread and a nice salad for us.”
Teddi had to muffle a giggle. There were enough pieces of bread for one sandwich apiece, and hardly enough ham to go around. And the nice salad would provide each of them with about two tablespoons. From her earliest acquaintance with Jenna, Teddi had been amused by Mary’s eating habits. The fragile little woman had an appetite to match her stature, much to the chagrin of the rest of the family, and there was a good deal of moaning out of Mary’s earshot. None of them would ever have said anything to hurt her feelings, but they couldn’t resist a little good-natured joking among themselves.
“Don’t tell me King’s gone again?” Jenna asked as she and Teddi sat down, one on either side of Mary.
“Yes,” Mary sighed. “To see about some kind of audit on that corporation of his in Montana. The board of directors retained an auditing firm from New York to do it.”
Teddi didn’t like to hear auditors mentioned. Some of her most unpleasant memories were due to one of her aunt’s lovers, who was a very well-paid member of an illustrious New York firm.
“Is he going to be gone long?” Jenna wondered.
Mary shrugged. “A day or so, he said. But it’s just the beginning. He may have to bring the dreadful man here as well—you know, to check the rest of the books.” She caught the look on Jenna’s face and laughed. “Yes, I know, this is Canada, but King reinvests some of the profits from the Montana operation into the livestock operation here, and...” She shook her head. “It’s all very confusing. Ask King to explain it to you someday, I have no head for business management.”
“Blakely does,” Jenna murmured with a wry glance at her mother. “I could ask him.”
Mary smiled at her. “I like Blakely very much. If you need an ally, my darling, you have one in me.”
“Thanks, Mom,” the young blonde said with a beaming smile. “It will take two of us to get around King.”
“Get around King?” Mary paused with her fork in midair and stared at her daughter. “Now, Jenna...”
“Everything will be all right, I promise,” came the smug reply. “Let’s hurry and eat, Teddi, I want to introduce you to Blakely. You’ll adore him!”
* * *
Blakely would have been adorable only to a girl who was in love with him, but he was personable and seemed to know his business. Teddi had to smother a grin at the worshipful look in Jenna’s normally sensible eyes as they followed the thin, dark-eyed man around the property while the two young women were briefed on its operation. Blakely had red hair, so bright that it seemed coppery in the sun, and Teddi couldn’t help but wonder what kind of children Jenna and the livestock foreman would have—blond ones or redheads. It wasn’t going to be an easy thing if they were serious about each other. Jenna would never make King believe that it was she Blakely was interested in, not the millions she stood to inherit.
King. If only she could stop thinking about him! In view of his contempt for her, she should have detested him in return. But she didn’t. She couldn’t stop her eyes from following him whenever he was near. She felt an attraction toward him that nothing ever daunted, and she was helpless to prevent it.
She shook herself out of her troubled thoughts as Blakely mumbled something about the growth of the livestock farm.
“Originally,” he informed the girls, “farms in western Canada were laid out in 65-hectare parcels. And most of the farms are scattered within a 320-kilometer strip along Canada’s southern border. But these days only about 5 percent of the work force is employed in agriculture,” he added sadly. “Although productivity is increasing among those who remain, and mechanization has aided us quite a lot. Did you know,” he continued, blossoming as he elaborated on his favorite subject, “that the average output of one farm worker today provides food for over fifty people?”
“I’d give that man a raise,” Teddi murmured.
Blakely stared at her until the words penetrated, then he threw back his head and laughed, delighted at the little joke.
“Forgive me,” he told her, “I do tend to get carried away about farming. I love it, you see. Not just the land, or working it and working with cattle on it; but the history and heritage behind it all. This was once part of the Northwest Territories,” he said, sweeping his arms around to indicate the lush green valley in its summer splendor, with the tall, sharp peaks of the Rockies in the distance. “Alberta and Saskatchewan were organized out of it in 1905, but French fur traders were here long before then settling the wilderness. It’s an exciting history, the settling of this territory, one I never tire of reading about. Or,” he added sheepishly, “talking about.”
“I like to talk about my part of the world, too,” Teddi told him, “and I like learning about yours just as much. Please don’t apologize. Think of it as cultural exchange,” she added impishly.
“Thank you, Teddi,” he replied with a smile.
“And now that we’ve got that settled,” Jenna added, linking arms with the tall man, “let’s see the rest of it.”
Teddi followed along behind them, her eyes sweeping over the well-kept barn and stables, the white fences that kept the animals in, the huge fields of grain growing to feed the animals through the winter. It was an imposing sight. No wonder King loved it so. The scenery alone was lovely.
The next morning, Teddi went riding with Jenna and Blakely, keeping to herself, and eventually riding back alone to the ranch. It wasn’t kind to tag along after them when they were so obviously falling in love and wanted to be alone.
She gave the horse to the ranch hand at the stables and walked aimlessly toward the house. Mary had driven into Calgary to shop, and there was no one to talk to. She didn’t mind being alone here, though. It wasn’t like being alone in that spotless New York high-rise apartment with the doors bolted and chained for safety. Here, there was help within earshot all the time. She’d never felt afraid at Gray Stag—mainly because it was King’s domain, and she was afraid of nothing when King was around.
She walked into the house, idly wondering how much longer he’d be away. She was about to start up the stairs when King suddenly came down them, startling her.
He was wearing work clothes; a blue-patterned shirt open at the throat over worn jeans and dusty boots, and a straw Western hat jammed down over his blond hair at an arrogant angle.
“Where are they?” he asked without preamble.
“Your mother’s gone shopping,” she said uneasily.
“And Jenna?” he prodded, narrow-eyed.
She averted her gaze. “She’s, uh, out riding.”
“With Blakely?”
She glared at him. “What’s wrong with Blakely?”
Both eyebrows went up. “Did I say anything was?”
She shifted, running her hand along the highly polished banister. “Well, no,” she admitted reluctantly.
“You’re always ready to expect the worst of me, aren’t you?” he asked as he reached her, his eyes darkening as they slid over her face. She couldn’t have imagined the picture she made, with her short, dark hair framing her face, her brown eyes like crystal, her cheeks just faintly flushed. “Your mouth is as red as a cardinal’s breast.”
She searched his quiet eyes, stunned at the compliment, something she’d never expected from King. King—her enemy.
He moved down another step, easing her back against the bannister with the threat of his big body. He reached down and cupped her chin with a lean, strong hand. His thumb stroked her lower lip lightly.
“How old are you now?” he asked in a deep, taut voice.
She swallowed. He was too close, too disturbing, far too masculine. He smelled of the outdoors, of a woodsy cologne and cigarettes. “I’m twenty,” she said unsteadily. “I’ll be twenty-one in four months.”
“Too young,” he murmured. “Still years too young. Do you know how old I am, Teddi?”
“You...you’re thirty-three,” she whispered.
“Thirty-four,” he corrected. His eyes fell to her mouth and studied it for a long time. “God, what a sweet mouth!” he ground out. Then, as if the admission had annoyed him, he let her go abruptly and moved away toward the front door.
She stood staring helplessly after him, her eyes glued to the blue-patterned shirt stretched across his broad shoulders, the blond head that seemed to throw off golden lights as he passed under the chandelier. She loved the way he walked, so tall and bronzed and regal. She loved everything about him.
He turned with the doorknob in hand and looked back at her suddenly, reading with pinpoint accuracy the aching hunger she was too young to disguise.
His face hardened. His hand tightened on the doorknob. He uttered a soft curse and whirled, slamming the door shut with a booted foot as he headed straight for her.
She watched him with eyes so filled with confusion they seemed black, her face lifting as he came closer.
She didn’t even protest when he reached for her, crushing her soft breasts against his chest as he bent to find her mouth in one smooth, expert motion.
She felt his hard lips burrow into hers with a sense of awe, her eyes closing so that she could savor their warmth and sensuality. She stiffened involuntarily as he tried to deepen the kiss, his tongue probing at her lips.
“Let me...” he ground out, grasping the hair at the nape of her neck to tug gently, surprising a gasp from her lips. As they parted, his tongue shot past them into the soft, dark warmth of her mouth, exploring, tasting, teasing, fencing with her own tongue in an intimacy she’d never liked with other men. But King made of it a pleasure beyond bearing, a caress so sensuous that her hands reached up to grasp his hard face between them and urge him even closer.
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