Darling Enemy (8 page)

“Please, King,” she whispered brokenly, her nails biting into his back, her eyes riveted to his mouth. “Please, please...!”

“No holding back this time,” he growled as his mouth took hers fully. “Kiss me.”

And she kissed him back as hungrily as a new wife, as passionately as a woman who’d just found the love of her life. With a sense of awe, she felt the full weight of his body settling over hers until they were locked together, breast to breast, thigh to thigh, hip to hip, and she clung as the unfamiliar contact burned the most exquisite sensations into her reeling mind.

“King,” she whispered into his devouring mouth.

“Darling,” he whispered back on a hard groan, shifting as he felt the soft, involuntary movement of her young body, surprising a sweet little cry from her throat.

She felt herself trembling. Incredibly, so was he, and even as she felt her body yielding everything he was demanding, he suddenly stiffened and, with a muffled curse, rolled away from her. He lay breathing roughly on his back, one knee drawn up between them, his forearms over his face.

“King...?” she asked, concerned at the rigidity of his big body.

“Go walk around for a minute, love,” he said in a taut, aching tone, “and give me a little while to lie here and curse my own stupidity. Go on,” he added when she hesitated.

She got up shakily and walked over to the bank of the river, watching it run lazily between the banks while her heartbeat slowly calmed. Her back against a tree at the edge, she tore off a bit of bark and sailed it down into the water, her eyes drifting from the majestic pines to the mountains beyond.

She felt rather than saw him behind her a little bit later, and she dropped her eyes to the ground.

“Embarrassed?” he asked gently as he lit a cigarette.

“A little,” she admitted quietly. “I...didn’t know, you see.”

He laughed softly, drawing her close beside him with a protective arm around her shoulders. “We’re both human,” he murmured. “And together, we’re volatile. I should have expected it.”

She looked up at him shyly. “I wasn’t teasing...”

“Don’t you think I know that?” His eyes searched hers quietly. “It was beautiful. Not some sordid roll in the hay, not lust. I’ve never been that gentle with a woman in my life—or that intent on pleasing one. You’re...very special, little one,” he added, frowning. “You make me vulnerable in ways I couldn’t have imagined.”

She dropped her eyes to his chest, drinking in the sound of his deep, tender voice, the words that revealed he had some kind of feeling for her, after all.

“I thought it was the other way around,” she whispered.

His mouth brushed against her forehead. “You can’t imagine what it did to me,” he breathed, “touching you that way, knowing that no other man ever had.” He caught his breath and hugged her close for an instant before he let her go and moved away to retrieve his hat from the ground, where it had fallen an eternity ago.

“As much as I hate the thought,” he said, “I’m a working man. And to make it all worse, I’ve got that bloody accountant coming this afternoon.” His eyes darted to catch hers and he looked faintly irritated. “There’s something you need to know about him before he gets here.”

“What?” she asked, smiling.

He stared at her, captivated by the radiance of her face. “No,” he said. “Not yet. I’ll tell you later. Come on, tiger, let’s go home.”

The ride back was quiet, and Teddi didn’t admit to herself how much she was hoping that when he helped her down in the stables, he’d kiss her just once more. But when they reached the huge barn where the horses were quartered, Blakely and Jenna were just coming from the house, and Teddi felt her heart sink.

“There you are,” Jenna said, clinging to Blakely’s hand and laughing as if she had the sun captured inside her. “Some man is here to see you, King. Mother drove into Calgary to pick him up, and they’ve just come back.”

King nodded. “The accountant,” he said with a strangely secretive glance at Teddi. “Well, let’s go in. You might as well all be introduced at once. He’s going to be here for a few days.”

Teddi dismounted by herself and fell into step with Jenna and Blakely while one of the ranch hands took the horses away. None of them could keep up with King’s long strides; he was walking like a man with a distasteful goal ahead.

“Here’s King, now,” Mary was saying as they walked into the living room.

The visitor stood up, lean and dark and brown-haired, smiling crookedly when he saw Teddi. She got a good look at him at the same time, and all the bad luck in the world seemed to descend on her at once. This wasn’t just any accountant. This was Bruce Billingsly, who’d hounded her so single-mindedly at the beginning of the year that she’d even risked King’s contempt and accepted an invitation from Jenna at Easter. Bruce, who wouldn’t take no for an answer.

So now she knew who King’s secret informant was, who’d been telling him lies about her life, her work. She knew who’d helped to poison his mind against her. And here was the culprit in person, with a gleam in his eye telling her clearly that he had more mischief in mind.

Her wary eyes turned to King, who was watching the silent exchange with a cold scrutiny.

“Small world, Teddi,” Bruce laughed, moving close to bend and kiss her on the cheek, to her amazed indignation. “How do you do, Miss Devereaux, Blakely? Good to see you again, King, but,” he added, with a raised eyebrow as he drew a rigid Teddi to his side, “what’s my girl doing here?”

Chapter Seven

There was a small flash of emotion in King’s gray eyes that no one seemed to catch except Teddi. When he turned to Bruce Billingsly, there was nothing in his expression except a trace of mockery.

“As I told you before,” he told Teddi over Bruce’s shoulder, “we have a mutual acquaintance.”

“Sure. Me,” Bruce said with a grin. “Oh, I’ve been singing your praises for the past several months, honey. King didn’t know much about your modeling career, but I filled him in.”

I’ll just bet you did, Teddi thought miserably, remembering how she’d tried to elude her aunt’s boyfriend. He was like so many of Dilly’s other pickups, arrogant, a little conceited, and money-hungry as well. Since he couldn’t land Dilly, he’d set his sights on Teddi, with a lot of enthusiasm and no success at all. And apparently when he realized that King had a passing acquaintance with her, he decided to make sure that nothing could develop in that quarter while he was pursuing her. He’d even shown up at college once or twice, and she’d had a time trying to shoo him away.

Teddi’s apprehensive eyes looked up into King’s and read the disgust and contempt there. Bruce’s arrival had killed the trust that had been growing so delicately between them. The beautiful morning would become a memory, there would never be a repeat of it. She saw that in King’s hard face. It was as if he’d been looking for an excuse, a weapon. And now he had it.

“Aren’t you glad to see me, Teddi?” Bruce, grinning, hugged her.

King stabbed his hands into his jean pockets. “You didn’t tell me about your budding romance, darling,” he said, and it didn’t sound like an endearment anymore. “But now that Billingsly is here, perhaps you’ll have time to pursue it. When,” he added with a cold smile for Bruce, “he’s through getting my books in order. And there’s no time like the present. Shall we get to it?”

“But, King, he’s only just arrived,” Mary protested, her sense of hospitality outraged.

“He didn’t come here for a social gathering, Mother,” he reminded her. “Billingsly?”

Bruce knew the whip in that deep voice, apparently. “I’m ready,” he lied, letting go of Teddi reluctantly. “I’ll see you later, honey, we’ve got a lot to talk about.”

“Indeed we have,” Teddi said with a venomous smile, her dark eyes flashing.

King didn’t even look her way, and his back was arrow-straight as he led the shorter man out of the room.

“What was that all about?” Jenna asked, while Blakely and her mother discussed ranch business.

“I told you about him,” Teddi moaned. “The one who chased me until I couldn’t stay in New York at all for being hounded?”

“That’s him?” Jenna gasped. “Here?”

“Here, though heaven only knows how. He works for the firm that does King’s accounting, I suppose,” she said miserably. “Now that I think of it, he told me he knew King when he was running after me, but I never asked how. I should have realized...”

“That’s the man who came up to college looking for you,” Jenna burst out, remembering. “Holy mackerel!”

“He just wouldn’t take no for an answer. I thought that when I came up here at Easter I’d finally gotten rid of him,” she said with a wan smile. “Oh, Jenna, what am I going to do? King believes him, he really believes there’s something between us. I couldn’t even push the silly man away, I was too shocked at seeing him here, and heaven only knows what lies he’s been telling King about me! And King will believe every word,” she added miserably.

Jenna was beginning to add things up. The look on Teddi’s face when she and King had ridden in, the very tender light in her brother’s eyes, the slight swell of Teddi’s lower lip, the pine straw in her hair—it all began to make sense.

“Just what were you and King doing in the woods besides discussing international economics and the future of democracy?” Jenna asked, tongue in cheek.

Teddi blushed, and Jenna had the answer she wanted. She laughed delightedly.

“Now I know why King’s been so hard to live with,” she murmured. “Mother said he’d been horrible since Easter. Something happened then, too, didn’t it, after you threw that feed bucket at him? Oh, my friend—” her gray eyes lit up “—if you knew how I’ve dreamed of having you for a sister-in-law....”

“It isn’t like that,” Teddi protested, embarrassed. “And you mustn’t say anything. Oh, please, Jenna, you can’t!”

There was a long, heartfelt sigh. “All right,” came the grudging promise, “I’ll keep quiet. But you do care for him, don’t you?”

The dark eyes fell. “Yes,” she admitted quietly. If caring could be described as a passionate obsession that hadn’t waned in almost six years, then, yes, it was definitely caring.

“And King?” Jenna prodded.

She shrugged. “Who knows what he thinks? It doesn’t matter now, anyway. He’s always believed the worst of me, and now here’s Bruce to feed him some of the most delicious lies he’s ever tasted. He’ll be overjoyed.”

“Stop that,” Jenna said sternly. “If King feels something for you himself, what makes you think he’s going to believe Bruce? He’s intelligent enough to know pique and hurt masculine pride when he sees them. If Bruce is just out for revenge, he’ll see that, too.”

“Will he?” Teddi said and shrugged. “Let’s go and make some sandwiches. I imagine we’ll have hungry mouths to feed any minute.”

“Might as well, I suppose.” Jenna looked worriedly toward Blakely and her mother. “Oh, Mother, we’re going to make lunch!”

“Can I help?” Mary offered.

“No, dear, you talk to Blakely,” Jenna encouraged, with a pointed look at Blakely, who reddened slightly. “It will only take a few minutes.”

“What’s going on back there?” Teddi whispered when they were out of earshot.

Jenna took a deep breath. “Blakely’s going to ask her advice about how to deal with King. He...he wants to marry me,” she added, faltering. Her eyes closed blissfully. “Teddi, he wants to marry me!” She looked as if she had every single blessing in the world as she said it.

If Teddi had any doubts about her friend’s emotional involvement with Blakely, that settled them.

“Can I help?” she asked her friend.

“I may have to call on every single friend I have in the world and all my acquaintances to get around King,” Jenna said miserably. “He’ll say I’m too young, that Blakely won’t be able to give me what I want, that I won’t settle...”

All of which was just what King had told Teddi, and she had to look away to keep her best friend from reading it in her expressive face.

“I love him,” Jenna said stubbornly. “If I have to draw water from a well and make my own clothes, I’ll do it, as long as I can live with him. That’s all I want in the world. And I’ll get it,” she added with a stubborn set to her jaw. “You just watch me!”

“I believe you,” Teddi assured her with a laugh. She was a lot like King, and if anybody had a chance of holding out against him, it was Jenna.

* * *

The men ate their sandwiches in the study, so Teddi was spared a confrontation. But when they sat down to dinner that night, it was as close to civilized warfare as Teddi had ever come.

Bruce sat across from her, his eyes resting appreciatively on the soft white shirtwaist dress she’d donned. King glared at her from the head of the table, his eyes as cold as winter. She felt like a human sacrifice, and Jenna’s evident amusement didn’t help a bit. Mary, blissfully oblivious of the undercurrents around her, chatted enthusiastically about an upcoming art exhibit in Calgary.

“I thought you’d be working this summer, Teddi,” Bruce murmured when there was a pause in the conversation. “I asked for a local assignment in New York for that reason.”

Teddi met his eyes coolly. “Did you?” she muttered, hating him for what he’d done to her fragile relationship with King. “I thought I’d made it quite clear that I didn’t have time for a lot of nightlife.”

“Pull the other one, honey,” he laughed, his eyes calculating as he measured King’s interest. “I’ve seen you in nightclubs all over New York.”

Teddi’s eyes dilated. “You most certainly have not!” she cried.

“Sure, if that’s the way you want it,” he agreed, making it sound as if he was covering up for her. “It doesn’t matter, you know,” he added in a demoralized tone. “I know I couldn’t compete with the kind of money your escorts had. I’m just a working man.”

Teddi’s fingers clenched on her fork, and just for one wild second, she contemplated the effect of throwing her plate across the table at him. His eyes were laughing at her. He knew what he was doing, and she realized all at once that her first impression had been right. He was going to crucify her for the blow she’d dealt his masculine pride. If he couldn’t have her, no other man was going to, especially not King.

“I don’t need to date rich men,” she bit off.

“You don’t?” Bruce asked innocently. “But, sweet, Dilly doesn’t give you a penny toward your education. You’ve got to get money somewhere.”

He was planting deadly seeds and finding fertile ground in King’s already suspicious mind.

“I make enough to support myself,” Teddi said.

“You must, if you can take the whole summer off for a vacation,” Bruce said with an insinuating look toward King. “Or are you up here on a ‘fishing’ trip?”

King’s expression was one of pure fury.

With a mighty effort, Teddi lifted her coffee cup to her lips and managed not to burst into tears. It was like having an invisible knife take the skin off an inch at a time, and nobody could see the wounds. Especially not King, who got to his feet and tossed his napkin down.

“If you’re through, Billingsly?” he asked with maddening carelessness, leading the way out of the dining room.

Teddi watched him go, aware of Bruce’s triumphant smile as he followed. The light went out of her eyes, her soul, at that moment, because she knew King had believed Bruce. All that she had kept from him was suddenly out in the open. Now King knew that she was responsible for her own educational expenses, her living expenses, that Dilly didn’t help out—and he believed one more thing, that she needed money. He would inevitably come to the conclusion that she had been trying to trap him, especially since she’d come to Gray Stag instead of going back to New York during summer vacation. He would fit those puzzle pieces together, along with what Bruce had let drop about her so-called “dates” with wealthy men—a lie if there ever was one—and her indifference to working men. And when he put all that together, he was going to have a false picture of a penniless young woman out to catch a wealthy man any way she could. The fact that she flirted with him at Easter would take on new meaning. And there was nothing, absolutely nothing she could do to convince him that he was wrong, because now he’d think she was a liar. Chances were good that he’d also doubt her innocence, think it was part of the act, part of her plan to trap him into marriage. She felt tears welling up in her eyes.

“Coffee’s hot!” she said as she put her cup down with a laugh, hoping to explain her sudden tears.

“Suppose we take the pot in there,” Jenna suggested icily, “and pour it over Mr. Billingsly’s head? What a bunch of rot! And my big, dumb brother sitting there looking as if he believed every word! Men are the stupidest...!”

“What an excellent suggestion,” Mary said, her usually kind face drawn into taut lines. “And I’ll have the daily maid put him in the green guest room. It has the lumpy mattress, remember?” she added with a malicious smile.

“Mother, you’re a jewel.” Jenna grinned.

“I think I’ll go look for a few rocks to tuck in among the lumps,” Teddi said with a wan smile. “See you later.”

She walked out, a slim, dejected figure, and two pairs of pained, sympathetic eyes followed her.

She was expecting King to confront her, and minutes later he found her in the moonlit garden behind the house and paused just in front of her.

“Bruce told me what good friends you two were,” he mocked. His darkening gray eyes cut at her as he spoke. “I never knew until today whether to believe him.”

“But this evening’s performance convinced you,” she replied.

“I beg your pardon?”

“Never mind,” she said, turning dejectedly away. “Naturally you believed every word he said, it only confirmed your own sterling opinion of me.”

“Aren’t you going to deny it?” he challenged.

“No,” she replied stiffly. “I can’t see that it makes that much difference.”

He stared at her small, stiff back, his eyes doubtful, uncertain. But she didn’t turn, and she missed the expression that crossed his hard face.

“Think how fortunate you were to have been saved from me in the nick of time,” she said over her shoulder as she started toward the house. “Good old Bruce, he’s a knight, he is.”

“How much of that innocence was an act?” he asked coldly.

She’d known that question would come, and she was ready for it. If he wanted to believe lies, she’d give him some more, the beast! “All of it, darling,” she taunted, batting her eyelashes at him, while her heart splintered in her chest. “That’s what you believe, isn’t it, and Kingston Devereaux never makes mistakes about women,” she reminded him, using his own words.

She walked away and left him standing there. What good would it have done to contradict Bruce, anyway? She consoled herself. The morning had only been a dream.

* * *

In the days that followed, Bruce dogged her every step. The only good thing about it was that King kept his nose to the grindstone, with a single-mindedness that raised Jenna’s pale eyebrows.

The time inevitably came when she and Bruce confronted each other, unexpectedly one morning when Jenna and Blakely had invited Teddi to go for a swim. She’d rushed to get away from Bruce’s hot eyes and King’s cold ones, hurriedly donning her pale yellow two-piece suit and throwing a sundress over it.

A long whistle met her as she came down the staircase to find Bruce lounging against the study door, watching her.

“You get lovelier by the day,” he told her. “Teddi, when are you going to stop avoiding me?”

“Never,” she told him bluntly. “Look, I don’t want to hurt your feelings, but I’ve told you until I’m blue in the face that I don’t feel that way about you! Why can’t you just leave me alone?”