Darling Enemy

“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.

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