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“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.
