They’d been close for years, but suddenly Madeline hungered for John in a new way. When they finally touched, passion set their souls on fire…but their friendship turned to ashes. Now Madeline feared she was no more than a mistress to him. And John was tormented by desire for—and doubts about—Madeline’s love. Yes, Madeline loved John. But would love sustain her as they made the sensual journey from friends to lovers?

Friends and Lovers

New York Times and USA TODAY Bestselling Author

Diana Palmer

www.millsandboon.co.uk

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Dear Reader,

I really can’t express how flattered I am and also how grateful I am to Mills & Boon Books for releasing this collection of my published works. It came as a great surprise. I never think of myself as writing books that are collectible. In fact, there are days when I forget that writing is work at all. What I do for a living is so much fun that it never seems like a job. And since I reside in a small community, and my daily life is confined to such mundane things as feeding the wild birds and looking after my herb patch in the backyard, I feel rather unconnected from what many would think of as a glamorous profession.

But when I read my email, or when I get letters from readers, or when I go on signing trips to bookstores to meet all of you, I feel truly blessed. Over the past thirty years, I have made lasting friendships with many of you. And quite frankly, most of you are like part of my family. You can’t imagine how much you enrich my life. Thank you so much.

I also need to extend thanks to my family (my husband, James, son, Blayne, daughter-in-law, Christina, and granddaughter, Selena Marie), to my best friend, Ann, to my readers, booksellers and the wonderful people at Mills & Boon Books—from my editor of many years, Tara, to all the other fine and talented people who make up our publishing house. Thanks to all of you for making this job and my private life so worth living.

Thank you for this tribute, Mills & Boon, and for putting up with me for thirty long years! Love to all of you.

Diana Palmer

New York Times and USA TODAY Bestselling Author

Diana Palmer

The Essential Collection

Long, Tall Texans…and More!

AVAILABLE FEBRUARY 2011

Calhoun Tyler Ethan Connal Harden Evan

AVAILABLE MARCH 2011

Donavan Emmett Regan’s Pride That Burke Man Circle of Gold Cattleman’s Pride

AVAILABLE APRIL 2011

The Princess Bride Coltrain’s Proposal A Man of Means Lionhearted Maggie’s Dad Rage of Passion

AVAILABLE MAY 2011

Lacy Beloved Love with a Long, Tall Texan (containing “Guy,” “Luke” and “Christopher”) Heart of Ice Noelle Fit for a King The Rawhide Man

AVAILABLE JUNE 2011

A Long, Tall Texan Summer (containing “Tom,” “Drew” and “Jobe”) Nora Dream’s End Champagne Girl Friends and Lovers The Wedding in White

AVAILABLE JULY 2011

Heather’s Song Snow Kisses To Love and Cherish Long, Tall and Tempted (containing “Redbird,” “Paper Husband” and “Christmas Cowboy”) The Australian Darling Enemy Trilby

AVAILABLE AUGUST 2011

Sweet Enemy Soldier of Fortune The Tender Stranger Enamored After the Music The Patient Nurse

AVAILABLE SEPTEMBER 2011

The Case of the Mesmerizing Boss The Case of the Confirmed Bachelor The Case of the Missing Secretary September Morning Diamond Girl Eye of the Tiger

Table of Contents

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter One

The clink of the cocktail glasses seemed unusually loud to Madeline Vigny’s ears, and the expensive perfume of the other women was smothering. She’d been nursing a headache all day, and she would have liked nothing better than to give in to the exhaustion and go home to bed. But it wouldn’t do to leave her own party. Not when she was the guest of honor.

She turned away from the bar and wandered back through the crowd, smiling politely at the elite members of Houston’s literary community while her head throbbed like a bass drum. At twenty-seven, Madeline was gaining a national reputation as a mystery writer, and the party was in celebration of the release of her latest novel—The Grinding Tower. She’d just come back from an autograph tour, only to find that her editor would need an additional thirty pages of revisions on the book she’d mailed to her publisher the previous week. She’d managed the revisions in one day, by pushing much too hard, and now she was exhausted. All she wanted out of life at the moment was an aspirin and a soft bed.

Her pale green eyes swept around the crowded room, bright with the effort of being kept forcibly open. They were the exact shade of her seductive sheath, a strappy creation with narrow pleats down the front and sides split up to her tanned thighs. The color also offset her reddish gold hair, pulled up into a loose topknot that emphasized her graceful carriage. When loosened, that fiery hair tumbled in waves down to her waist. She’d toyed with the idea of cutting it, but John had given her an affronted glare and proceeded to talk her out of it. He was a past master at convincing people to do things his way—most people, she amended silently—which probably explained the extent of his oil empire. He’d won two proxy fights in the past five years, retained control of Durango Oil with an expertise that dumbfounded even old-timers in the business. What Big John wanted, he got. From everyone except Madeline.

She caught a glimpse of him across the room, already in the steely clutches of a petite little blonde with eyes like cash registers. Madeline thought, as she had often before, that nobody could hold a candle to Big John Durango. He was six foot four with a big, muscular frame to match, and despite his thirty-nine years, there wasn’t an ounce of fat on him. He had straight, dark hair swept neatly back over a broad forehead—so neatly that Madeline’s fingers often itched to muss it. His eyes seemed dark at a distance, but were actually a slate gray at close range. His nose had been broken at least once, and it showed. He had a mouth that was utterly sensuous under a thick, neatly trimmed mustache as black as his hair. A square jaw that hinted at determination and a strong will completed the portrait. Although she and John had been friends, just good friends, for over two years, she couldn’t help being aware that he was a man. The sight of him in his dark evening clothes would draw any woman’s eyes, and Madeline, feeling a chill go down her spine, was no exception. Probably, her mind insisted, a survival mechanism. God knew she needed one around John.

She lifted the brandy snifter to her lips and took a long sip. Her eyes idly studied John and the blonde. It looked as though he was making quite an impression and she felt an unpleasant twinge of annoyance. Perhaps it was the strong friendship she shared with the oil tycoon that made her feel so possessive about him.

John certainly hadn’t given her any other reason to feel possessive. He knew what her disastrous affair with Allen had cost her. She and Allen had been engaged—or so she thought. But the morning after he’d seduced her, she’d learned that the would-be writer already had a wife and child.

John had understood her horrified reaction to that incident from the start. He’d respected her fear of physical involvement, and he hadn’t approached her sexually, not ever. Madeline, on the other hand, wasn’t interested in his money, which meant he could trust her in a very special way. Madeline guessed he hadn’t been able to trust anyone that way since Ellen’s death. He knew that she liked him for himself, not for what he could give her.

She sighed, sipping at her brandy. But now things seemed to be changing. John was usually the easiest man in the world to get along with, her best friend. Yet for the past few weeks he’d been alternately impatient and downright unpleasant with her. Last week things had gotten completely out of hand when one of John’s cowboys had been drinking on the job and had made a blatant pass at Madeline.

Madeline had always been friendly with Jed—not flirtatious, just friendly. But while she was waiting for John at the stables, Jed had suddenly grabbed her and tried to kiss her. John had come out of nowhere and sent the man flying onto the hard ground with one powerful blow.

“Get out,” John had growled at the downed cowboy. “Draw your pay and don’t ever set foot on Big Sabine again!”

Madeline, standing shocked and tongue-tied a little distance away, had stared at John as if she’d never seen him before. With his gray eyes blazing like silver, his face granite hard, he was suddenly a stranger. The easygoing, pleasant companion she’d known for the past two years had vanished.

John hadn’t said a word while the bruised cowboy picked his husky figure up off the ground, glared at Madeline and went ambling off toward the ranch office.

“I…thank you,” Madeline had stammered. Her hands had brushed idly at the smudges on her blouse while she fought for composure. The incident had shaken her terribly. She hadn’t realized Jed had been drinking until he’d come close, and then it had been too late. If John hadn’t come along when he had, it might have been much worse than a little rough handling and a kiss that hadn’t landed anywhere near her mouth.

John had turned then, with a freshly lit cigarette in his bruised hand, and his eyes had been frightening, with a silver glitter that intimidated as much as his size.

“When will you learn,” he’d demanded harshly, “that there’s a difference between friendly and being provocative?”

“I wasn’t!” she protested. “Jed’s always been nice to me. I thought…”

“He was a good man—sober,” he’d shot back. “I hate to lose him.”

The unfamiliar harshness in his deep, slow voice, the censure in his gaze, had hurt. “Don’t be mad at me,” she’d murmured gently, putting out a tentative hand to touch his bronzed forearm in a conciliatory gesture.

The muscles in his arm had contracted as if he’d been subjected to a barrage of bullets. She’d felt them tense individually until he was as steely as drawn rope beneath her hand. Increasingly he hadn’t liked for her to touch him, but she hadn’t expected what he’d done next.

With a muffled curse, he’d caught her by the wrist, his fingers hurting, and forcibly removed her hand.

“Don’t think you’ll wrap me around your finger, Satin,” he’d said harshly, giving her the nickname he’d coined because she “moved like satin when she walked.” “And from now on, keep your distance from my men. If you’re looking for a little excitement, look for it off my ranch!”

That had pricked her temper. His harsh words had hurt, but being accused of enticing his ranch hands was more than she could stand.

“It’ll be a pleasure to stay off your ranch, John Cameron Durango,” she’d flung at him, her green eyes spitting sparks. “You’ve been the very devil to get along with lately, anyhow. And I wasn’t trying to wrap you around my finger, I was trying to thank you!”

Without another word, she’d stomped off toward her car. And they hadn’t spoken since.

Now she was feeling repentant and she wanted to make up. But that money-hungry little blonde made it impossible to approach him, and John wasn’t even trying to ward her off.

The worst of it all was that she recognized the blonde, now that she’d gotten a good look at her. Her name was Melody something-or-other, and she was well-known in Houston circles for her habit of stalking wealthy older men. Her name had been linked with two Houston businessmen in the past year, and not in a nice way. For heaven’s sake, didn’t John know what kind of company he was keeping? Couldn’t he see through that facade of kittenlike sweetness? Madeline scowled at the sight of the dark head bent so close to the blond one, aware of an ache deep inside her that she couldn’t quite identify.

“Don’t look now, sweetheart, but you’re glaring,” came the sound of a familiar voice at her shoulder.

She half turned, smiling at Donald Durango, whose boyish face was wearing a look of pure mischief.

“Is that what it’s called?” she asked in mock amazement.

“You wouldn’t be jealous of her?” he murmured dryly.

She felt herself bristling. “John and I are friends—nothing more,” she said curtly.

“So you keep telling me,” he agreed pleasantly. “And a gorgeous creature like you wouldn’t lie.”

“My, but you’re good for my ego,” she murmured with a forgiving smile. She couldn’t help thinking how little he resembled his cousin. Where John was tall and big and powerfully built, Donald was slight and bordering on thin. John was darkly tanned and had those piercing silver eyes and hair that was almost black. Donald’s hair was blond and his eyes were a pure blue.

The two cousins didn’t bear the slightest physical resemblance, but both were good businessmen and both could be ruthless when the occasion called for it. There were never two fiercer rivals. Some deeply personal conflict had kept them at each other’s throats for years. Donald could be faintly malicious with the tricks he pulled on John; yet surprisingly, John’s attitude was more defensive than offensive. After his father’s death, Donald had led a vicious proxy fight against his cousin when John inherited a large block of preferred stock in Durango Oil. Donald’s father—John’s uncle, who helped raise him—had surprised a good many people with that move. But John had been the stronger of the two and had the better business sense. He’d won that proxy fight by a staggering majority, and the sword had been drawn between the two cousins ever since. Donald never missed the smallest opportunity to needle John, right down to cultivating Madeline’s friendship.

“Care to hang around with me for the rest of the evening?” Donald asked with a grin. “I’ll save you from the lecherous advances and false praise.”

“And who’ll save me from you?” she countered with a meaningful smile. Her eyes had drifted back to John and Melody and she was scowling again. “If that girl gets any closer, she’s going to melt all over his suit,” she murmured.

“Rich bachelors aren’t that thick on the ground these days,” he offered. “And she is an eyeful.”

Madeline barely heard him. She wanted to take the punch bowl and dump its red contents right on top of that bleached blond head.

“I’ve got to save him,” she murmured. “It’s my duty as a former Girl Scout to rescue your cousin from the lecherous clutches of that money-hungry blonde.”

Without another word, she started toward the two of them. As luck would have it, Melody must have asked for something to drink because at that moment, with a smile and a wink, John left her and headed for the punch bowl. Madeline, seeing her chance, waylaid him there.

“Are we speaking?” Madeline asked, peering up at him deadpan. “If not, just nod your head and I’ll slink away into a corner and pretend I don’t know you.”

Once that would have made him laugh. But his face didn’t soften at all, and his eyes were cold, like iced silver.

“I’m amazed that you could tear yourself away from my cousin,” he said in a deep, cool drawl.

“His name is Donald,” she reminded him, looking up. Despite her above average height and spiked heels, he still towered over her. “I’ve never heard you call him by name, but that’s what it is. And I don’t make a habit of ignoring people when they speak to me. You didn’t even bother,” she added venomously.

He looked down his straight, arrogant nose at her; the thick black mustache made him look mature and virile. Which he was, of course.

“That works both ways,” he reminded her. “I don’t run after women. I don’t have to,” he added with faint malice and a glance toward Melody.

That made her furious, but Madeline clenched the brandy snifter and tried not to show it. “She has quite a reputation, you know,” she told him. “She’s just been jilted by her latest conquest, and I hear she’s looking for a greener wallet.”

He was watching her intently, a slight frown creasing the forehead over his deep-set eyes. “I don’t mind paying for what I want,” he said quietly. “I can afford it.”

The cynicism in that statement made her want to cry. He’d never believed that a woman could want him for himself; he seemed completely unaware of his own attractions. But Madeline, watching him, wasn’t. She studied his face as if she’d never seen it before: the thick, dark eyebrows, the silver eyes, the craggy contours, the hard yet sensuous mouth under its neat, bushy mustache…his mouth…Her lips parted involuntarily as she stared up at it unconsciously, and she wondered with a curiosity that shocked her how it would feel if she let him kiss her….

“You’re looking hard, Satin,” he said quietly. “Searching for chinks in my armor? You won’t find any.”

“Are you sure?” She deliberately moved closer, toying with a pearly shirt button. Under the thin, white silk, she could see the dark shadow of the mat of black hair that covered his massive chest and flat stomach, feel the warmth of his flesh. The sheer masculinity of him made her knees weak, and her own new reactions to him were staggering. Lately she’d wanted to touch him with a hunger that was totally unexpected. And it was increasingly obvious that he didn’t want her touching him in any way.

Even now, he caught her fingers and moved them gently away from his body. “Flirting with me?” he murmured shortly.

“Who, me?” She wrapped both hands around the snifter. “I don’t have a suicidal bone in my body.”

“Don’t worry, I won’t take you up on it,” he said in a deep, angry tone. “I’ve had two years of practice of keeping my distance.”

She met his cold eyes and felt the words go through her like needles. “You know how I feel….”

He drew an impatient breath. “My God, one bad experience isn’t any excuse for becoming a nun,” he growled.

She stiffened. Her full lower lip pouted at him. “You’re like a bear with a sore head lately, John Durango,” she glowered. “If you’re hungry, take a bit of the hors d’oeuvres; I don’t feel like being nibbled on tonight.”

She turned and started to walk away, but he caught her arm. As usual, the touch of his warm, strong fingers on her bare skin caused her heart to race, her breath to catch. It was a faintly alarming reaction, but she’d never dared wonder why he could cause it when no other man ever had.

“Don’t run from me,” he said at her ear. He was so close that she could feel the heat and power of his big body against the length of her back.

“I don’t know what else to do,” she said miserably. “You’re ice cold with me, you act as if you can’t bear to be around me and draw back every time I touch you….” Her troubled eyes met his. “I thought we were friends.”

His eyes wandered over her face. “We are. Bear with me.”

She saw the rigid lines in his face, the turbulence in his silver eyes, and she relented.

“I care about you,” she said gently. “Something’s wrong, isn’t it? Something’s bothering you. Can’t you tell me what it is?”

“You, least of all, my dear,” he said curtly. He reached out a careless hand and touched a wispy strand of reddish gold hair that had escaped her high coiffure. “Why do you twist your hair up like that? I hate it.”

“I’m not a gypsy,” she reminded him. “Long hair goes with bare feet, and our hostess would be shocked.”

“Shock her,” he murmured, and the mustache curled for the first time that night. “I dare you.”

“The last time you dared me to do anything, I jumped in the river fully clothed and astounded a carload of tourists,” she reminded him. She laughed softly. “Besides,” she added with a sigh, touching her temple, “I don’t feel like doing shocking things tonight. My head hurts; I’m so tired I can hardly stand, and all I want is to go home and go to sleep.”

“Then why don’t you?” he asked.

“Walk out on my own party when I’ve been here for less than an hour?” she asked. “Now wouldn’t that be polite, and after Elise has gone to so much trouble, too.”

“To hell with diplomacy,” he murmured curtly. His eyes searched her wan face. “I’ll drive you home.”

“And leave your conquest smoldering?” she asked with a pointed glance toward Melody, who was openly glaring at both of them while a man twenty years John’s junior was trying to get her attention. “No thanks. I’ll get Donald to take me.”

It was the wrong thing to say—she saw that at once. His eyes went from silver to slate in seconds. “Like sweet hell you will,” he growled.

Suddenly he bent and swung her easily up into his hard arms, a move so unexpected that she gasped.

“Close your eyes and moan,” he said curtly. His tone was so commanding that she forgot her independence for once and did as he told her. She felt his big arms around her, smelled the soap and cologne that clung to him, felt the warmth and strength of his magnificent body and wondered at the tiny little tremor that worked its way down to her toes.

“Why, John, what’s wrong with Madeline!” she heard Elise exclaim.

“Overwork,” he replied flatly, barely breaking stride. “I’m going to drive her home. I’ll send Josito over in the morning to get her car. Thanks, Elise, enjoyed it. Good night.”

“Uh, good night,” came the stammered reply. “I’ll call her tomorrow and check on her!”

John went straight out the door and Madeline heard him murmur something as someone opened and closed it for him. Then they were outside in the cool night air, and she was grateful for the warmth of his arms in the spring chill. Her wrap was back in the house, but fortunately she’d kept her dangling little purse on her arm.

“You can open your eyes now,” John murmured, a soft, teasing note in his voice.

She did, staring up at him. “You’re terribly strong.” The words slipped out involuntarily and embarrassed her.

He chuckled, an increasingly rare sound these days. “I’m not over the hill, honey,” he reminded her, “and nobody could call me a desk executive.”

That was the truth. He still worked around the ranch to keep fit, and he could outlast most of his cowboys.

She shifted her arms around his neck, feeling him stiffen as her breast brushed closer. “That was a novel idea you had,” she said with a smile. “Nobody could say anything about a woman fainting….” The smile vanished and she gaped up at him. “Oh, my God!”

“What’s the matter?”

“Everyone will think I’m pregnant!” she groaned.

Chapter Two

His shadowy eyes swept down her slender body as he paused by his black Ferrari and opened the door, propping her on a lifted thigh before lowering her inside.

“So?” he asked nonchalantly. “Writers are supposed to be unconventional.”

She glared at him as he went around the front of the sports car and got in beside her. “Who do I spend most of my spare time with?” she asked archly. “They’ll think it’s yours!”

He laughed softly as he started the car. “You can name it after me, too.”

The thought of having John’s child made her feel strange. She gazed at his profile with curiosity, trying to reconcile the way she was feeling with the old comradeship that seemed to be slipping away. What was happening to her?

He drove in silence to the 610 Loop that circled the city, and smoked his cigarette without moving his eyes from the traffic until he turned off at Montrose and wound down the street where Madeline’s small Victorian house was located.

It was an older section of the city, and a number of the houses had been beautifully renovated. Madeline had inherited hers from a great-aunt who’d preserved the little house with the protective instincts of a mother hen. It might be old, but it was well cared for, and Madeline had kept up the tradition; frugally at first, and then lavishly when she began to show a profit with her writing.

“How’s the new book going?” he asked as he pulled into her driveway.

“Slowly,” she murmured. “Did I tell you there’s actually talk of a movie contract on The Grinding Tower if it continues to pick up readers and critical acclaim?” she added with a flash of sweet triumph in her eyes. “I was so excited I could hardly believe it. And I wanted to call and tell you—but we weren’t speaking.”

He cut the Ferrari’s powerful engine and half turned in the bucket seat to study her in the glare of the porch light from Miss Rose’s house next door. Madeline knew Miss Rose kept an eye out for her when she was late getting home at night. “I lost my temper,” he said quietly. “I didn’t mean to cut you up that way.”

It was the closest he’d ever come to any apology, and she knew it. He wouldn’t have made the effort for most people.

She shrugged gently. “I really wasn’t leading him on, you know,” she murmured. She glanced at him. “Do I have to remind you how I feel about men?”

He searched her flushed face. “It might help if you go over it every fifteen minutes,” he said enigmatically. “Especially if you’re going to wear dresses like that.”

“This old thing?” she teased, fingering the pleats of the dress. “Why it only cost the better part of one little chapter.”

He laughed softly, his face visible in the glow of his cigarette tip. “Everything is in terms of books with you,” he murmured amusedly. “A car is one book, a dress is a chapter….”

“My car is certainly not worth one book,” she reminded him. “I got it secondhand, it’s great on gas, and I love it.”

“I don’t have any quarrel with making full use of a piece of machinery,” he reminded her, and she suppressed a giggle, thinking of the limits to which he’d push a tractor or a combine.

“Yes, I know,” she mumbled.

His eyes went toward the side of the house where her little yellow Volkswagen was usually parked, and stopped on the huge oak tree beside it. “You need to have that tree taken down,” he said for the tenth time in as many months. “It’s dangerous. One good storm wind will land it right in your living room,” he said, “and I’ll remind you that it’s storm season and we’ve had our share of tornadoes in past years.”

“I will not have Great-Aunt Jessie’s oak tree cut down. Her grandfather planted it, you know,” she said huffily.

“Her grandfather, hell,” he shot back. “She was an orphan!”

She tossed her hair, threatening the elaborate coiffure. “Lies!” she retorted. “I have it on the best authority that she was the illegitimate daughter of a Yankee sea captain and my great-grandmother Surrey!”

He chuckled softly. “How scandalous. Does hot blood run in your family, Miss Vigny?”

She peeked at him through her lashes. “Why, sir, what a scandalous question! Miss Rose would be shocked. She was the one who told me, and she heard it straight from my great-aunt, who was her neighbor for twenty years!”

He finished the cigarette and stubbed it out in the ashtray. “I’ll have Josito bring your car home in the morning,” he said. He turned. “Or I can have him fetch you and you can drive it home later.”

“Is that an invitation?” she asked.

He nodded. “We could go riding. We haven’t done that lately.”

She averted her eyes. “I don’t know that I want to go near your stables again. You seem to have the idea that all I want out of life is to seduce your ranch hands one by one.”

“Stop that!” His hand caught her chin and jerked her face around to his blazing eyes. “I don’t want to see men pawing you,” he said curtly. “Especially not my men when they’re drunk!” His eyes ranged over every inch of her soft body, touching it in a way they never had before. His fingers closed on her chin and his eyes were dark and full of secrets. “I don’t want any man…touching you,” he breathed roughly.

She stared up into his eyes helplessly, tracing the craggy face, the straight nose, the bushy mustache over that hard, sensuous mouth. She could feel the sigh of his breath on her face, and she felt tingly all the way to her toes at the feel of his fingers on her soft cheek and chin.

Involuntarily, her own fingers reached out to touch the mustache over that chiseled mouth.

He seemed to flinch just before his hand went up to catch her wrist in a steely grasp, holding it away.

“Don’t do that,” he said harshly. “Can’t you get it into your head that I don’t want you to touch me?”

Her lower lip trembled, but she managed a nervous laugh. “I’ve got the message, Mr. Durango,” she assured him. “Now if you’ll give me back my arm, I’ll gladly go away and let you rush back to your conquest at Elise’s party.”

But he didn’t let go, and his eyes were watchful. “You’ve been flirting hard with me tonight,” he said quietly. “Trying to make my cousin jealous, Satin?”

She felt shocked, and showed it. “I don’t have that kind of relationship with Donald. It’s the same as it is with you—we’re just friends.”

“Is that what you and I are?” he asked in a strange, deep tone.

“Of course,” she managed. He was making her feel strange. Wary. Excited. Her wrist tingled where he gripped it.

“Then it won’t bother you if I take Melody into my bed, will it?” he asked, his eyes intent on her face.

She felt her breath catch in her throat. John and that mercenary little blonde in bed together, her blond tresses tangling in the dark hair over his bronzed, bare chest as he brushed his mouth over her smooth young body….

With a faint cry, she drew away from him, her face strangely pale, her eyes wide and shocked.

“You may be off sex, but I’m not,” he said deliberately, and he was watching her like a hawk. “Just because I’ve never touched you, that doesn’t mean I’m a eunuch.”

She couldn’t meet his eyes. “I never thought you were,” she said quietly.

He drew a sharp, impatient breath and she heard the click of his lighter as he lit another cigarette.

“You smoke too much,” she chided gently.

“I do a lot of things too much,” he growled, and his eyes seemed to hate her for an instant.

“Like seducing blondes?” she asked, and could have bitten her tongue for the slip.

“It would take a blowtorch to seduce you.”

She glared at him, her eyes flashing with green sparks. “He hurt me!” she threw at him. “You’re a man. What could you possibly know about a woman’s feelings…?”

“He hurt you because you were a virgin,” he growled. His voice, like his eyes, was bitter. “And because he wanted a body, not the emotions, personality and spirit that went with it. No man who cared about a woman would damage her that way. He left scars that haven’t healed in two years. He crippled you.” He drew on the cigarette roughly. “By God, I should have killed him!”

She blinked at him, at the unfamiliar violence in his deep, lazy drawl. “You didn’t even know his last name,” she reminded him.

“Didn’t I?” One corner of the mustache curled faintly, and there was glittering triumph in his eyes. “It wasn’t hard to find out, honey. All I had to do was call the writer’s club where you met him.”

She froze in her seat, staring at him uncomprehendingly. “You…went to see him?”

He nodded.

“And?” she prompted.

He blinked, smoking his cigarette quietly.

“John!” she said, exasperation in her voice.

He blew out a thick cloud of smoke. “When you fall off a horse,” he said, ignoring her, “the quickest way to get over it is to get right back on again.”

She’d had enough. Her fingers gripped her purse as she reached for the door handle. “I’ve had all the physical involvement I want just now,” she ground out. “Good night!”

“Satin!”

She started at the authority in his deep voice and turned to look at him.

“If I’d planned to proposition you, I would have done it over two years ago,” he said shortly. “Will you stop taking offense at everything I say?”

“I thought it was the other way around,” she muttered. Her wide, hurt eyes sought his and she crushed the little purse in her hands. “Oh, John, what’s happening to us?” she asked miserably. “We’ve been so close, such good friends, and all of a sudden it’s falling apart.” She reached out a hand and drew it back when she realized what she was doing—he couldn’t even bear to let her touch him anymore. “I…I don’t get along with most people,” she said with uncommon solemnity. “I’ve always been a misfit, a little odd. But I…I’ve always been able to talk to you, and you understand me. I don’t want to lose that.”

“You’ll always be my friend, Satin,” he said quietly. “That hasn’t changed. It never will.” He laughed mirthlessly. “Hasn’t it occurred to you that I don’t have a hell of a lot of friends myself, male or female? That blonde tonight is a case in point. She likes expensive baubles and I’m rich. She’ll climb into my bed at the drop of a hat, as long as she can expect something tangible in return.”

“They why encourage her?” she grumbled, surprising herself.

The cigarette, forgotten, smoldered while he looked at her impatiently. “Why does the subject of Melody bother you so much? Does it hurt to realize that most women aren’t frozen from the neck down?”

Her face went bloodred. That was the second time he’d made such a remark about her, and she’d had enough. For a split second, she considered slapping him. Her green eyes glittered, her hand lifted.

“Try it,” he encouraged softly, something new and faintly dangerous in his silver eyes as they caught the movement of her hand. “Come on, honey, try it.”

She almost did. It was the first and only time she’d wanted to strike him, and she was tempted. But he had the look of a man who was anticipating retaliation, and she was uncertain about the form it might take.

Her tense body relaxed. “No, thanks,” she said stiffly. “You’re entitled to your opinion of me. I’m aware that it’s gone down a few notches lately.”

He took a draw from the cigarette and studied her flushed face quietly. “For just a minute, that cool little mask you always wear slipped. You wanted to hit me, didn’t you?”

“Yes,” she said curtly, averting her eyes.

“Why didn’t you?”

She shifted restlessly. “Because I’ve never imagined that you were the kind of man to turn the other cheek.”

“I wouldn’t have hit you back, if that’s what you mean.” He leaned across to open the door, and she felt the brief, hard pressure of his arm across her soft breasts. She sat like a statue until he moved away, and only then did she realize that she’d stopped breathing for an instant.

“What would you have done?” she asked in a strangely breathless tone.

He studied her through a wisp of smoke, his lips pursed thoughtfully. “What do you think?” he asked in a blatantly sensuous tone.

“I think it’s late,” she said.

“Later than you think, honey. I’ll send Josito for you about seven, okay?”

She searched his eyes, finding questions instead of answers. He made her nervous, he frightened her.

“We’ll take it slow and easy,” he said softly, his eyes giving the words a different, exciting meaning.

Incredibly, she blushed, while he searched her eyes until she thought her frantically beating heart would burst.

“Maybe it would be better if I didn’t,” she said in a whisper, thinking out loud.

“Don’t be afraid of me,” he said. “We’ve always trusted one another, Satin.”

She laughed self-consciously. “I must be more exhausted than I imagined,” she said, staring at him. “I don’t know what’s wrong with me tonight.”

“Don’t you, honey?”

She swung her long legs to the ground and got out of the low-slung car. “Thanks for bringing me home,” she said in a strained tone.

“Will you be all right?” he asked, and there was genuine concern in his voice.

“Of course I will,” she said firmly. “I don’t need taking care of, you know. I’m very independent.”

“So am I, but who sat up with me for two nights when I had the flu?” he asked, his mustache curling.

She flushed, remembering how she’d helped Josito sponge him down during that unusual illness. John never got sick, but he’d been far from well that night. It had taken both of them to hold him down until the fever broke. And she remembered vividly the feel of his hair-roughened skin under her hands as she’d bathed him to bring down the fever….

“Who else was there?” she muttered self-consciously. “Josito couldn’t manage alone.”

He smiled at her, a quiet, tender smile that made her want to fling herself into his arms. “I’d have done the same for you,” he said. One eye narrowed and the mustache twitched wickedly. “In fact, I’d have enjoyed it tremendously.”

The thought of his big, rough hands touching her the way she’d touched him made her go weak in the knees. It was an odd reaction, a frightening one.

“Go home,” she grumbled, slamming the door.

She started toward the house, digging for her key.

“Seven a.m. sharp!” he called out the window.

She turned and gave him her best fairy-princess curtsy before he reversed the Ferrari and roared away into the night with a chuckle.

Chapter Three

John’s ranch was small by Texas standards, but then it wasn’t his main source of income. Oil was, and the ranch was more of a hobby than a business. He raised thoroughbred Santa Gertrudis cattle, and his champion bulls brought high prices at market. The older ones, the ribbon winners whose photographs lined the walls of his office and his den, were worth up to a half-million dollars apiece. Even the young bulls brought good prices, though, for their superior bloodlines.

Riding along beside John, between the neat white fences that separated the pastures stretching to the flat horizon, she was struck by the difference in him. He was in denims and boots and that battered black Stetson he wore around the ranch—this was a far cry from the elegantly dressed man who’d driven her home the night before.

“You’re staring again,” he observed with a wry glance, the habitual cigarette in his long, brown fingers.

“I was just thinking how different you are here,” she admitted.

His eyes ran over her slender body in jodhpurs and a short-sleeved green print blouse. The morning was cloudy and a little chilly, but she hated the idea of a sweater. John must have, too, because his denim shirt was rolled up to his elbows.

“I like you in green,” he said thoughtfully.

She smiled, shaking back her loosened hair, and then wondered at the way his eyes followed the movement. “They say it’s a restful color,” she murmured.

“Just what I need,” he replied dryly. “I didn’t get much sleep.”

She stared at him, the smile fading. She tugged on the reins and increased the pressure of her knees, forcing the little Appaloosa mare she was riding into a canter. She could have ridden the horse right over John Durango. Damned arrogant man, flinging his one-night stand in her face!

He effortlessly caught up with her on his big Appaloosa gelding.

“What the hell’s the matter with you?” he growled.

She wouldn’t look at him. “Nothing,” she said tersely. “Are those cows new?” she asked, changing the subject.

“No, they’re not new. Answer me.”

She flashed him a glance before she urged the mare into a gallop, leaning over her mane. The wind lashed her face, tore through her hair. She needed the burst of excitement that the speed gave her. She needed the element of danger.

She raced wildly down the wide dirt road between the pastures, laughing, her hair trailing behind her. He’d never catch her now!

But he was right alongside, his eyes biting into hers, and all at once he leaned over and caught the reins in a big, strong hand, easing her mare to a canter, a trot, and then reining her in completely. They were beyond the road now, in the meadow, in a grove of tall pecan trees near the highway.

Madeline glared at him. “I was having fun…!”

“You were about to break your damned neck!” he countered, faintly pale beneath his dark tan, his craggy face unusually hard. “What’s gotten into you, you little fool?”

“Don’t shout at me!” she defended.

“I’m not shouting!” His eyes narrowed and he drew in an annoyed breath. “I could beat the breath out of you when you do crazy things like this, Madeline, I swear to God….” He dismounted, almost jerking her off the horse. He glared down at her, his mouth making a thin line, his eyes blazing. His big hands were gripping her shoulders painfully, and he shook her once, roughly.

“John!” she burst out, shocked. “I was just riding. I’ve done it before!”

His eyes bored into hers and suddenly the world spun crazily around her and the universe dissolved into a pair of steely gray eyes. Her hands were pressing unconsciously against the front of his denim shirt, where it was casually unbuttoned over his massive chest. She moved slightly, and her fingers came into sudden, staggering contact with hair and warm, damp flesh.

He flinched at the light contact, his eyes dilated, his heavy brows drew together.

Sensing something new, something vulnerable in him, she moved her hands deliberately, sensuously, under the edges of the shirt and ran them tentatively across his chest, her lips parting as she felt the tensing, the sudden thunder of his heart under them.

His eyes seemed to blaze down at her. His fingers tightened painfully on her shoulders, his body tensed. She’d never seen John out of control, she’d never seen him anything but in perfect command of himself. But he looked as if he were about to explode, and the dangerous game she was playing only excited her.

She moved closer, her eyes studying the contours of his mouth as her fingers grew bolder and her palms flattened against his powerful chest.

All at once he caught her wrists and jerked them away. “That’s enough,” he growled harshly. “What the hell’s gotten into you?”

While she was trying to figure that out, the sound of an approaching car diverted his scorching eyes from her face.

“Oh, hell, tourists,” he said curtly, glaring toward a big touring car with two women in the front seat.

He let Madeline go as the car stopped nearby and the elderly blonde at the wheel leaned out the window, smiling pleasantly.

“Howdy!” she called.

John’s mustache twitched. “Howdy,” he drawled back.

“Is this the way to Houston?” came the reply.

“Only if you plan to cut the road as you go,” John said pleasantly. “This is the Durango ranch.”

“It is?” The woman’s huge blue eyes got wider, matching the cornflowers on her printed blouse. She murmured something to the thinner woman beside her and leaned farther out the window. “This is Big John Durango’s ranch?” she persisted.

John grinned slyly. “Heard of him?”

“My goodness, yes! I retired from business this year, and I never miss my financial magazines. Why, when oil was making headlines, John Durango was a cover story! Imagine, a man that handsome being a tycoon as well!”

John looked sickeningly modest. He tilted his hat back on his head. “What kind of business were you in, ma’am?” he asked with characteristic curiosity.

“Corporate law,” the woman said, smiling.

“Tough profession,” he said.

“Not really. It just takes some study and a lot of practice.”

Catching her breath, Madeline wondered at his charm. The blond woman was staring at him intently. “Do you suppose we might actually get a glimpse of Mr. Durango as we head back toward the highway?” she asked, wide-eyed.

John pursed his lips. “Well, ma’am, he’s a hard man to hold still, if you know what I mean. Most likely he’s carousing in the pool with his women right now. He makes me do all the work while he lives up to his playboy reputation.”

Madeline had to clap a hand over her mouth to keep from giggling out loud. John’s face was deadpan, wearing a look of pure disgust.

“You work here?” the blonde asked.

“Yes, ma’am, like a mule, and that man won’t even pay me the back wages he owes me.”

“You oughtn’t let him get away with it,” the woman told him. “I’d sue him.”

“Well, if I didn’t owe him so much money, I might do that,” John agreed.

“Owe…him money?” The tourist’s eyes widened. “For what?”

“Oh, little ticky things. Like rent on this here horse.”

The blonde looked horrified, and Madeline was digging her nails into her palms to keep from howling.

“He makes his men pay rent on their horses—’his’ horses—to work ‘his’ cattle?” the tourist burst out.

“Well, he don’t take in much money on the cattle, so he had to make it up somehow, I reckon,” John said with a shrug. “Of course, it’s not hard to see how he got so rich when you consider how much money we all owe him in gambling debts.”

“You all owe him gambling debts?”

“Well, yes, ma’am,” John continued in his slowest drawl. “You see, he gets us drunk every Friday night and suckers us into playing poker with him. I reckon I owe him less than the others, though. I’ve paid my bill down to where I only got twenty thousand dollars more to pay off.”

“Oh, my God,” the tourist gasped.

John shook his head good-naturedly. “Could be worse,” he assured her.

“I don’t see how!”

John was more than willing to tell her. “He could make me sleep in the bunkhouse with the boys. Got rattlers in there ten feet long, big around as my leg.” He slapped his broad, denim-encased thigh. “Never could find a gun powerful enough to kill them things, so what you have to do is make pets of them. But snakes just don’t take to me like they do to some of them other boys, so Big John lets me sleep in the big house.”

The blonde was beginning to look suspicious. “Snakes ten feet long? Is that what they call a Texas tall tale?”

“Oh, no, ma’am,” John assured her. “I only lie when Big John tells me to, like when the income tax people ask questions about his trips to Europe and the thirty dependents that he swears are his illegitimate children—youngest girl’s twenty, you know….”

The blond woman started to laugh. She kept on until tears were rolling down her cheeks, and her companion was giggling audibly. Madeline let go of her own self-control at last, doubling over with laughter.

“Thank you for the profile, Mr. Durango,” the tourist laughed at John, her eyes twinkling. “Next time I read a story about you in some magazine, I’ll be one of the privileged few who know what a scalawag you really are. Making your men rent their horses…!”

He chuckled. “I’ve thought about it sometimes,” he swore. He pulled out his wallet and handed her a card. “I can always use a good attorney,” he told her. “If retirement gets too tough, give me a call.” He winked at her. “You’re too damned young to retire, honey.”

Madeline could have kissed him when she saw the older woman’s face begin to glow.

“Thank you,” came the heartfelt reply. “Now which way do I go to get to Houston?”

After the tourists had driven away, John mounted his gelding, waiting for Madeline to follow suit. He lit a cigarette with steady fingers and led the way toward the barn where his prize bulls were quartered like royalty. They had their own air-conditioning as well as a heating system for winter.

“You scalawag, you,” Madeline muttered, trying to tease him out of his black mood.

He didn’t even spare her a glance. He was still furious, and she didn’t know how she was going to explain her own actions. How could she, when she didn’t understand them herself?

“John, what was your father like?” she asked suddenly.

He glanced at her as they rode along. “What brought that on?”

She shrugged. “I don’t know. You’ve never talked about him. I just…wondered.”

He took a draw on the cigarette and stared at the horizon. “He was rigid. Hard. Very disciplined and single-minded. He had nothing as a child, and he was determined to show the whole damned world that he was as capable of getting rich as anybody else. He was a career man in the Marines before he bought Big Sabine and started drilling for oil.” He laughed mirthlessly. “What he found didn’t amount to much at first, but we invested carefully, bought more land, and got lucky.”

“Your mother?” she asked carefully.

“She died when I was born.”

“Oh.” Madeline stared at the red coats of the bulls as they neared the barn. “The ranch was named for a battle, wasn’t it?” she murmured.

“The battle of Sabine Pass,” he agreed, “where my father was born. In 1863, Union troops tried to invade Texas through the pass. Two lieutenants named Richard Dowling and N.H. Smith defended the fort there with six cannon and forty-two men. That defense was so successful that Union troops never tried to invade through the pass again.”

“I’ll bet your father liked the odds when he heard the story, didn’t he?” she asked with a tiny smile.

“Impossible odds?” he mused. “Yes. That appealed to him, all right. The only thing that didn’t was fatherhood. He spent the first twenty years of my life blaming me for my mother’s death. It was just as well that he left me with my uncle while he was in the service.”

She studied his rigid profile wonderingly. She was curious about him in new ways; she wanted to know what forces had shaped him into the man he was.

He dismounted at the fence and hooked his boot on the lowest rung, leaning his arms over it to watch a huge Santa Gertrudis bull lumber along in his solitary pasture.

Madeline joined him by the fence, drawn by his strength and size, as she thought about the lonely young boy he must have been. She liked the closeness—perhaps, she told herself, because of the faint chill in the air. John radiated warmth at this range. Her eyes swept over him—from the long, powerful legs up to the broad leather belt around his lean waist, the massive chest and muscular arms. His forearms were dark with the same sprinkling of hair that covered the rest of his body, and there was a thin gold watch strapped over his wrist. He wore no rings at all and had beautiful hands—broad, tanned, with long fingers and a feathering of hair over their backs. The nails were flat, neatly trimmed and immaculate, despite the manual labor he did when at the ranch.

“Are you considering taking up art?” he asked with a lash in his voice. “You must have me memorized by now.”

She dragged her eyes back to the bull. “I was thinking,” she said shortly. “You just sort of got in the way.”

“Thinking about what?” he prodded. “Your next murder victim?”

It was the first sign of melting in the glacier he’d drawn around himself, and she met his look with a shy smile.

“Not quite,” she assured him. “Only the vile tools I’m going to need and the grisly details.”

He laughed softly, bending his head to light a cigarette. “Who’s going to get the ax this time?” he asked.

She peeked up at him. “I thought I’d kill off the detective-hero.”

“Your fans would hang you from the nearest tree,” he commented. He glanced down at her, his eyes taking in the long, waving disarray of her red gold hair in the early-morning light, the flush of her cheeks, the sparkle in her green eyes. They narrowed. “A more unlikely murderess…” he murmured.

She smiled pertly. “I’ve always loved detective fiction,” she said with a sigh. “Solving crimes. I wanted to be a policewoman, but I was too busy covering news.”

“Ever miss it?” he asked with genuine curiosity.

“Reporting, you mean?” She thought back to those days. It seemed so long ago, when she was sole reporter and photographer for a small-town weekly newspaper. “I’m not sure. Sometimes I think I’d give anything to go back to it. It was so uncomplicated, compared to what I do now, so cut and dried. I didn’t have to create the news, only report it.”

“I shouldn’t think it was so hard finding new ways to kill people,” he said with a teasing glance.

She laughed. “You’d be surprised. Competition is fierce, you know, and I’m the new kid on the block. I’ve got to be the best I can be, or I’ll go on unemployment in no time.”

“I liked The Grinding Tower,” he remarked.

“Thank you.”

He grinned. “The hero had some…familiar characteristics.”

She felt herself flushing as she recalled her detective: tall, broad-shouldered, with a mustache, a taste for Scotch whiskey and a habit of forcing his equipment to go more than the last mile. Yes, she’d patterned him after John, but she hadn’t expected…

“Want to sue me?” she asked with a shy glance.

“I’m too flattered to sue you.” He tilted his hat lower across his eyes. They narrowed, running down the length of her body and back up again. “The heroine sounded a little like you,” he remarked.

She met his eyes and felt her pulse leap wildly. She hadn’t realized that. “Did she?” she murmured.

The dark, intent look on his face made her nervous. “Why did you run away from me, just before those tourists showed up? Was it what I said about being without sleep? Did you think I’d spent the night with Melody?”

Her breath caught in her throat. How well he read her! She swallowed. “I…I just wanted to ride a little faster, that’s all.”

“Was it?” He reached out, tucking a careless finger into the V-neck of her blouse to tug her gently toward him. But he didn’t release his hold on her. That long, maddening finger slowly traced the beginning slope of her breasts under the thin fabric. She was suddenly and shyly aware that she wasn’t wearing a bra. And judging by the look on his dark, taut face, he’d just discovered that as well.

The effect of the light, disturbing caress was beginning to be very visible, especially to the silver eyes that dropped pointedly to the thrust of her high, small breasts against the thin cotton.

His eyes moved back up to capture hers, to watch the nervous excitement sparkle in them. She tried to back away from that tantalizing finger, but he slid a rough hand around to her back and caught her, forcing her slender body against the long, powerful lines of his own.

“Oh, no, you don’t, honey,” he murmured, and his hand spread out at her throat, so big that it almost covered the tops of her breasts in a contact that wasn’t really intimate but had the full effect of intimacy.

“John, what are you doing?” she squeaked, her fingers clutching at his big arms to push him away.

“What do you think I’m doing?” he growled. “I’m making a pass at you. What does it feel like?”

She gaped up at him, fascinated, frightened, her body trembling as if he’d stripped her and was stroking her naked skin. “You’ve never touched me…” she whispered.

“You’ve never wanted me to,” he reminded her. His hands slid down her body to her buttocks, pressing her hips into his in an intimacy that she should have protested, but didn’t—couldn’t. “Until last night.”

“I didn’t,” she protested weakly.

“You were so jealous of Melody, you could hardly see straight,” he accused tautly. His hands pressed her closer to his blatant masculinity. “As if you had a damned thing to be jealous of…come here!”

Even as he spoke he bent his head and for the first time she felt the hard, warm crush of his mouth over hers. The mustache tickled and his lips were roughly insistent, forcing her mouth to open, to admit the sharp, deep penetration of his tongue. She felt it teasing hers as his hands moved up, sliding under the blouse to caress the softness of her bare back.

She gasped and a long, shuddering moan slipped from her throat as her fingernails involuntarily dug into his big arms. He smelled of smoke and saddle leather and expensive cologne, and his big body was damp where she was riveted to it. It was incredible, to be making love in broad daylight, to be kissed so passionately, held so intimately, by John….

“Kiss me back,” he ground out against her trembling lips. “You wanted to touch me earlier, do it now. Stop holding back, damn it!”

The words were like a dash of cold water, penetrating the fiery mist of passion. She looked up into a face hard with passion, into silvery eyes that glittered with new, barely leashed hunger.

She shook her head as if to clear it. “No,” she whispered, disbelieving. Her mouth hurt from the hungry pressure of his, her knees felt like rubber. “No, we’re…just friends….”

He took her hand and pressed it, palm flat against the furious shudder of his heart, breathing heavily as he watched her face. “Feel what you do to me,” he growled, “what you’ve always done to me. Just friends? Like sweet hell, we are!”

“No!” She dragged herself out of his arms, her eyes as wild as her hair as she moved out of his reach and stood trying to catch her breath. “I won’t let it happen, I won’t!”

“It already has,” he said curtly. His eyes slid over her rigid body, up over the pointed tautness of her breasts, taking in the accelerated breathing that caused her chest to rise and fall unevenly.

With a cry of mingled shock and outrage, she turned and ran for her horse. This wasn’t happening, it couldn’t be, not with John; not with the only man she trusted. What he was offering was too sudden, too unexpected.

“Madeline!” he shot at her.

She was already astride the little mare, her eyes wild as she looked at him.

“It’s too late to run from it,” he said quietly, his gaze dark and steady.

“Oh, no, it isn’t,” she said in a choked voice. “I won’t see you again, John.”

“You will,” he said softly. “Because what we just had wasn’t enough—for either of us.”

With a muffled curse, she whirled the mare and urged her quickly into a gallop, the wind tearing through her hair. Never, she thought wildly, never, John Durango! She closed her eyes against the memory of his hard, expert mouth, against remembered pleasure. The horrible thing was that he was right, it hadn’t been enough….

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