Eye of the Tiger (17 page)

His eyes closed. “I remember.”

“You did try to be kind, I realize that,” she acknowledged. “But you were in love with Lorraine, and you couldn’t disguise it. If I’d been a little less infatuated…”

Keegan let her go and turned away to light a cigarette, his back to her. Then he looked up toward the ceiling. “Are you trying to get back at me, Ellie? Is that what this evasion is all about?”

“No, it isn’t,” she replied. “I’m trying to tell you that what I want now is a stable relationship with a man, some security and a future that doesn’t involve stolen moments in the backseat of a car or a deserted house.”

“Oh, God,” he cried, bowing his head. “Oh, God, why won’t you listen to me?” He turned, his blue eyes dark with pain, and something like defeat. “I’m not offering you some clandestine affair!”

“I don’t care,” she forced herself to say calmly. “Wade’s asked me to marry him.” She watched that register, and nodded. “And after today, I’ll say yes, Keegan. Because I can’t risk letting what happened today repeat itself. I can’t seem to say no to you. So I’ll settle for a permanent relationship instead.”

“You won’t be able to give him what you gave me,” he said, his voice harsh.

“Of course I won’t. But I’ll take care of him, and be there when he needs me. I’ll have everything I want, and I’ll give him children.”

He looked as if she’d cut him with a knife. Abruptly he turned away, his eyes blank and unseeing, his soul in agony. So he’d been wrong. She didn’t love him. She only wanted him, after all, and she was so afraid of giving in again that she’d even rush into marriage with a man she didn’t love to keep him out of her life. What a horrible, bitter irony: he’d pushed her away when she’d offered him her love, and now that he wanted it, he couldn’t get it back. Irony.

“Then I guess that’s all there is,” he said, his voice dull, lifeless.

“That’s all there is,” she agreed. She turned away from the stall and walked outside into the sunlight.

Keegan followed her with eyes as cold as death. She was like quicksilver, he thought blankly, impossible to catch and hold. If only he hadn’t rushed her, if only he’d held back this afternoon. But he’d wanted her so desperately. He’d thought it would solve everything, show her how he felt about her. All it had done was to push her into a loveless marriage.

“I’d rather not stay for supper,” she said when he joined her at the front porch.

“If you leave now, they’ll wonder why you left.”

She grimaced. “Yes, I suppose so.”

He searched her pale face quietly, the smoking cigarette in his hand all but forgotten. “I’m sorry,” he said. “Sorry for it all. For the past, for the present. Even for
the future. All I seem to do is hurt you, when that’s the last thing I’ve ever wanted to do.”

“You haven’t hurt me,” she said, folding her arms across her breasts. “I was hardly a victim, either time.”

“I seduced you,” he said, staring down at the cigarette.

“No!” She touched his arm hesitantly, searching his tormented face. “Oh, no, it wasn’t seduction. Not ever. I wanted you.”

“What will we do if you get pregnant?” he asked softly. “Will you tell Granger the truth?”

“If I get pregnant, I…” She couldn’t go on with the lie. “I don’t know what I’ll do, except that I’ll have it,” she finished lamely.

He started to touch her face, his fingers slightly unsteady. “I can’t lose you twice,” he whispered.

She frowned. “I don’t understand.”

“I…” he began.

“It’s on the table!” Mary June called out the front door. “Hurry up before I throw it out!”

“Damn,” Keegan muttered with a sigh. He ground out his cigarette under his heel. “Oh, well, maybe it’s for the best,” he said gruffly. “Come on.” He guided her up the steps, leaving her to ponder what he’d said.

“Thank God we can sit down to table in peace, with the O’Clancys gone,” Gene Taber declared jovially as Mary June began serving dinner. “There were nights when I was almost certain that Maureen was going to drag Keegan under the table and rape him between courses.”

Keegan glanced at his father with a faint smile.
“I felt that way myself a time or two,” he murmured. “She was a bit forward for my taste.”

“I had the same fears for Eleanor when Wade came to dinner,” Barnett Whitman announced, glancing at her with a broad grin. “He was practically drooling the first time.”

Keegan banged his cup on the table, looking grim, as Eleanor flushed and Gene and Barnett exchanged discreet smiles.

“Here it is,” Mary June interrupted, her black eyes flashing as she put a platter of ham on the table. “No more chicken around this here house,” she added with a glare at Keegan. “I never seen the like. Folks trying to kill themselves with chicken poison….”

Keegan glared back at her. “I was not trying to commit suicide.”

“Any fool who’d put cooked chicken back on the same plate with uncooked chicken pieces deserves just what he gets!” Mary June retorted.

“Miss Perfection,” Keegan returned, “haven’t you ever made a mistake?”

“Yes, sir,” she agreed. “Saying yes when Mr. Gene asked if I wanted to work for him!”

“Stop it, you two,” Gene roared, banging the table with his fist. “Can’t we have just one peaceful meal in this house without the two of you coming to blows?”

Mary June sniffed. “I don’t start it. He does.”

“Ha!” Keegan shot back.

“I’ll just go and put that chocolate cake I just baked in the trash can,” the cook threatened, lips pursed mutinously.

Keegan sighed. He picked his white napkin up out of his lap and waved it back and forth.

Mary June nodded curtly. “Good enough for you,” she said. “And see you stay out of my kitchen from now on, if you please. I don’t want folks trying to kill themselves in there. Spoils my pantry, it does.”

Keegan glared at her retreating back as she hobbled away. “Someday,” he threatened. “Someday!”

“Shhhh!” Gene hissed at him. “She’ll quit!”

Keegan grinned. “Is there hope?”

“Well, we’d die if we had to depend on your culinary skills, and that’s a fact,” he told his son.

“Just because I put the damned chicken in the wrong place…” he muttered.

“You should have married Maureen, while you had the chance,” Eleanor said with a forced smile. “She’d have baked you cakes.”

“She couldn’t even buy a decent cake, much less make one from scratch,” Keegan said venomously, his eyes narrowed. “And I can pick my own wife, thank you.”

Of course he could—some society woman with a family tree as monied as his own. Eleanor smiled faintly at her plate as she tried to eat.

“I wish you’d marry somebody,” Gene told his son. “I’m getting old enough to crave grandchildren.”

“Adopt,” Keegan advised him. He glanced quickly at Eleanor, then looked away again. “I like my freedom.”

Eleanor didn’t look up, but her heart felt as if it had been cut in two. It was the truth, of course: he didn’t want to marry anybody. But why throw it in her face now, of all times, after she’d given in to him?

“He’s baiting you, girl,” Gene said.

She looked up to find Keegan grinning at her.

“I don’t care if he dies an old maid,” she said bluntly.

“Heartless woman,” Keegan muttered. He finished his meal and sat back in his chair with a long sigh. Why not bring it out into the open? he mused. He could gain an ally or two, and he needed them.

“Why don’t you marry me and make an honest man out of me?” he asked her bluntly.

Her fork clattered wildly as it hit the china plate. She retrieved it clumsily, red-faced and breathless as all eyes suddenly focused on her.

“Beast!” she exclaimed.

He pursed his lips and studied her with that possessive smile she hated. “Why not marry me? I’m sexy and filthy rich, I can kiss you stupid without half trying, and you’d get half of the colt to boot.”

Gene and Barnett stared at her as she searched for some graceful way out.

“You can’t cook,” she declared.

“You could teach me,” he returned.

“I’m going to marry Wade,” she announced defiantly.

“Over my dead body,” he replied fiercely. “You’re not getting yourself tied to that playboy!”

“Look who’s calling Wade a playboy!” she cried. “And you’re one to talk about him doing it hanging from tree limbs, when you tried it in a hospital room with nurses coming and going all around us!”

“Eleanor,” he chided, nodding toward their fascinated audience, which now included Mary June, “how could you embarrass me like this?”

“I couldn’t embarrass you by taking off your clothes in Central Park!”

He smiled slowly. “I’m game if you are. I’ll rush right out and buy two plane tickets to New York.”

She threw up her hands and got out of the chair. “I give up.”

“Marry me, Eleanor, or I’ll hound you day and night,” he threatened.

She flushed and turned away. “I’m going home.”

“I’ll drive you.”

“No, you won’t!” she raged, close to tears. How could he humiliate her like this? She loved him, and he was making some horrible joke out of it.

He saw the tears and wondered if there could be some deep, lingering passion there, if she still cared for him. She was upset, but she wasn’t unreceptive. He had her on the run. If he played his hand carefully, he might yet wrench her out of Wade’s arms and get her to a minister.

“If you’re determined, we’ll all go,” Gene said, grinning. “Come on, Barnett.”

“I won’t ride with him,” Eleanor said, pointing at Keegan.

Keegan sighed theatrically. “Shoved aside by the woman of my dreams. I’ll perish to death for love of you, Eleanor.”

“The only thing you’ll perish of is your own cooking,” she said curtly. “I’m going home. Good night.”

She didn’t say another word to him. She crawled into the back of Gene’s car, and the two older men talked farm business all the way back.

Once home, Eleanor went straight to bed. And that
was the worst thing she could have done. The bed still smelled of Keegan, and it always would. She’d been able to strip off and change the bed linen, but she’d never be able to erase the memories… and they haunted her dreams.

I
f Eleanor thought she’d seen the last of Keegan for a while, she was in for a surprise. When she went down to fix breakfast the next morning, he was sitting in the living room with her father, as relaxed as if he belonged there.

He looked up as she entered the room and grinned at her. “Good morning, glory,” he teased. “You look pretty in that.”

“That” referred to her faded blue jeans and a green pullover knit shirt. Eleanor was off duty today and hadn’t expected to find Keegan piled up in the living room like a redheaded snake, just waiting for her.

Now she felt her face going red as she looked at him, remembering yesterday and how easily she’d succumbed. Keegan saw her flush and smiled even wider.

“I wasn’t expecting you,” she said helplessly.

“I figured that,” he replied. “What are we having for breakfast?”

“Did Mary June’s ankle get worse?” she asked sarcastically.

“Nope. I just like your biscuits.” He chuckled. “And your sweet company, pretty girl.”

“She is pretty,” Barnett agreed solemnly. “I never could understand why she stayed single so long.”

“She was waiting for me, of course,” Keegan declared, leaning back in his chair like a conquering general. “Weren’t you, Ellie?”

“Don’t call me Ellie,” she grumbled.

“Okay, honey.”

She started to protest, then threw up her hands and went to make breakfast.

Keegan watched her through bacon and eggs and buttered biscuits and homemade apple butter, and she fidgeted helplessly in her chair. After all that had happened between them, she couldn’t be casual about their relationship. She just didn’t understand what he wanted of her.

“Want to go watch a harness race with me?” he asked Eleanor as she sipped coffee. “Or we could go to the yearling sale at Gainesmore Farm—I saw an Arabian over there that I’d like to bid on.”

She cocked her head, puzzled. “You know I’m not that smart about horses, although I’m sure you think that’s unspeakable for someone born in Lexington.”

“Okay,” he relented, “how about a walk in the woods? Or you could get your father’s fishing pole and we’ll go drown some worms.”

“I…I have to work in the garden today,” she faltered. “The weeds are killing my tomatoes.”

He pursed his lips and shrugged. “So we’ll hoe out the tomatoes,” he said quietly. “I’m not all that particular about what we do, as long as we do it together.”

Barnett Whitman was grinning from ear to ear. He finished his coffee and got up. “I have to go over some blueprints with Gene,” he said, beaming at them. “I’m back on the job as of today. My doctor said it was all right, before you start screaming, Eleanor,” he added.

She lifted an eyebrow. “Did I say anything?”

“No, and see that you don’t.” He chuckled. “See you later, kids.”

“I’ll bet it’s been years since anyone called you a kid,” Eleanor said after her father had driven away.

“Years since I’ve felt like one, surely,” he agreed. He folded his forearms on the table and searched her face. “Do you really want to spend the day hoeing weeds?”

She glared at him. “No, I won’t go to bed with you, if that was the next and very obvious question.”

“It wasn’t, actually, although I’d rather sleep with you than eat,” he said softly, his blue eyes smiling into hers. “You and I do something incredible together when we make love.”

Eleanor stared at the coffee cup she was holding. Her heart was going wild, all because he was using that slow, sexy tone she remembered so well.

“I keep wondering what would have happened if I hadn’t given in to temptation that night four years ago,” he said absently.

“You’d probably have married Lorraine and lived happily ever after,” she said dully.

“Do you think so? I don’t.” He got up, dragged a cigarette from the pocket of his blue-plaid shirt and lit it. “The only thing Lorraine and I had in common was that we both thought she was a knockout.”

“All the same, she fit into your lifestyle very well.”

He turned, leaning back against the sink. “So do you,” he said quietly.