the eye of the tiger Read online

"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 trutii?"

  "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 ringers 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 in 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.

  Eleven

  If 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 on 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 life-style very well."

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

  She laughed. "Not me," she returned, toying with the cup. "I don't know about horses, and i'm certainly not debutante material."

  "You're real, though," he said, forcing her to meet his gaze. "That's right. You're honest and stubborn, and you don't back away from things. You have qualities I admire, Elbe. The economics don't matter a damn. They never have."

  "They matter to me," she replied shortly. "Look around you, Keegan. This is a nice house, thanks to you and your father, but it's not a patch on Flintlock. I've never worn fancy clothes until recently, and I didn't even know that a champagne buffet meant hors d'oeuvres and drinks. When I first walked onto Wade's property, his mother and sister came at me like spears...."

  "Just as I thought," he said darkly. "I've known them for years."

  "I gave as good as I got, thank you," she told him, "but the fact is, I don't fit in that kind of society. You were right in the first place when you were warning me off Wade. I'm just a country girl who might someday make a small mark in the nursing profession. But as a—" she searched for a discreet term "—companion for a rich man, I'd be a dead loss."

  "I'm not in the market for a mistress," he said. his voice like velvet.

  Her eyebrows arched. "Excuse me, but isn't that the position you're offering me? Or do you make a habit of seducing anyone who happens to be handy?"

  He sighed wearily as he lifted the cigarette to his mouth. "Eleanor," he said, "what am I going to do about you?"

  "You might just leave me alone," she replied, although the thought hurt dreadfully. Still, it was the most sensible course.

  "I can't." He held out his hand. "Come walking, Ellie. I want to talk."

  She hesitated, but he nodded curtly and she yielded. This would be the last time she obeyed, she promised herself. The very last time.

  She took his outstretched hand and followed him out into the sunshine. He locked her fingers with his and went off down a path beside the fence that led to the stream cutting through his property.

  "Four years ago," he said without looking at her, ' 'I came by your house on your birthday and asked you out. That night, when I picked you up, you were wearing a blue print dress with puffy sleeves and a low neckline. Your hair was down around your shoulders and smelled of gardenias. I gave you supper at an exclusive restaurant and then I drove you out to the river and parked on a deserted stretch of dirt road."

  "Keegan..."

  "Shhh," he said gently. He turned her as they reached the shade of a towering oak tree and held her by the arms, studying her face. "And then I started kissing you. And you kissed me back. I put my hand under your bodice and you held it there. We started kissing feverishly then, and somehow I got you into the back seat of that big Lincoln and eased you down, and you let me take your clothes off. It was a warm, clear night, and we made love to the sound of crickets and rushing water, and afterward you told me that you loved me."

  She lowered her eyes to his chest. "It isn't kind, reminding me," she whispered miserably.

  "I'm not doing it to torment you, Eleanor," he said. ' 'I want to make you understand how I felt. You were barely eighteen, not even a full-grown woman, and a virgin to boot. I was considerably older, practically engaged to Lorraine, and I was torn apart with conflicting emotions. I never meant it to happen at all, but once you let me touch you, I couldn't stop."

  "I realize I was as much to blame as you were, Keegan," she replied. "I was crazy about you. I thought, since you were asking me out, that you'd stopped caring about Lorraine and I had a chance with you." She laughed hollowly. "I should have realized that a man like you wouldn't want a shy little country mouse when he could have a fairy princess like Lorraine, but then, I wasn't ttiinking.

  He ground his cigarette out under his heel and took her face in his lean, warm hands. "I never slept with Lorraine," he said, his voice deep and soft. "Part of what I felt for her was sexual. Probably most of it was. Once I had you, though, I wasn't able to want her. That was why I drove her away. I had nothing left to give."

  She looked deeply into his blue eyes and was shaken by what she saw. "When you told me why you'd asked me out, I wanted to die," she confessed finally. "I'd practically thrown myself at you.... It was humiliating."

  "Not to me," he murmured. "All my life, women had chased me because I was rich. You were the first, and the last, to want me just for myself."

  She smiled softly. "You were very special."

  "So were you." He bent and kissed her, tenderly, warmly. His mouth opened and poised there; she could taste the smoke on his breath. "Your body haunted me after you left Lexington. Your face. Your voice. I couldn't sleep for feeling your body under mine, those sweet little cries that pulsed out of you. Do you know even now how it excites me to hear you
moan when I make love to you?"

  "You make it so...so wild," she faltered.

  "So do you, honey," he replied curtly. His hands tangled in her thick, soft hair, and he tugged at it. "You make it so much more than a merging

  DIANA PALMER of bodies. I think about babies when I take you, Eleanor, did you know?" he whispered, and his mouth found hers even as the words registered in her whirling mind.

  She gripped his forearms, trembling as he deepened the kiss; then his eyes opened and stared straight into hers.

  "Come close," he said against her mouth. "I'll hurt you," she whispered hesitantly. "Yes." He reached down and moved her legs

  until they touched his, then his eyes closed and his mouth crushed hers in a silence blazing with promise.

  He bent, holding the kiss, and lifted her into his arms. "Just once more," he whispered, his voice deep and husky as he carried her into the shade of the tree and placed her gently on the ground. "Just one more time, Eleanor...."

  He stretched out against her, and the kiss grew urgent, passionate. His hands caressed her pliant body, molding her breasts, her rib cage, her waist and stomach, her long legs.

  "No," she moaned. Her hands pushed halfheartedly at his chest, until they found an opening and pressed into warm, hard muscle and thick hair. His tongue searched inside her mouth, and she felt his heart shaking her with its feverish beat, felt the crush of his body over hers, twisting her against the hard ground as he gave up his control to the passion driving him.

  "You want me," he whispered huskily. "I want you. What else matters?"

  "I won't...be used," she whimpered. "I won't!"

  "Here," he said under his breath, moving her hand against his chest. "Touch me like this."

  "Oh, Keegan, this won't...solve anything." She panted, twisting her face away from his.

  "Yes, it will," he said. He slid down against her, feverishly pushing up the hem of her shirt, revealing her bare, taut breasts. "God, Ellie, you've got the prettiest breasts," he whispered huskily, then bent his head.

  She was lost from the first touch of his open mouth, taking her inside that warm, moist darkness, letting her feel the roughness of his tongue, uie soft nip of his teeth. He whispered something she didn't hear, and his lean hands smoothed warmly up and down her rib cage while his mouth made her tremble.