Sweet Enemy by Diana Palmer Page B

water on her bare feet, the damp smell of sand and silt
and sweet wildflowers along the banks.
    "I used to come here when I was a boy," he remarked lazily. "I
learned to swim just a few yards downstream where it widens
out."
    "And catch tadpoles and spring lizards, too, I'll bet."
    "Nope. Just water moccasins," he replied.
    She froze in her tracks. "In…here?" she asked.
    "Sure. It used to be full of them."
    Chills washed up her arms. She froze in the middle of the
stream, warily looking around her. Suddenly every thin stick she
saw was a hissing enemy.
    "C…Clint? What do I do if I see one?" she asked.
    "What did you used to do when you and Janna came here?"
    "We never saw any."
    "Pure luck," he remarked. He lifted the edge of his hat and
peeked at her before he let it down again. "Well, Maggie, if you do
see one, you'd better run like hell. It won't do a lot of good, of
course, they're fast snakes and they've been known to chase
people…"
    She was sitting beside him with her boots and socks in hand
before he finished the sentence.
    He burst out laughing. "My God, I was teasing," he chuckled.
    "You know how afraid I am of snakes," she muttered.
    "After last summer, I've got a pretty good idea," he agreed.
    She dried her feet with her socks, ignoring him.
    "What did you do for amusement in Columbus?" he asked.
    She wound one of the socks around her hand and stared at the
diamond-sparkle on the water. She shrugged. "I spent most of my
time digging up the backyard and planting things in the spring. In
the summer, I liked to fish on the Chattahoochee. In the fall
I'd go to the mountains with some of the other girls and watch the
leaves turn. In the winter, I'd drive up to Atlanta to hear the
symphony or watch the ballet." She studied the crumpled sock. "Dull
things like that. I'll bet you can't stand classical music."
    "In fact, I do," he said quietly. "Al-though my tastes run to the old masters- Dvorak, Debussy,
Beethoven. I don't care for many contemporary compositions."
    She stared at the hat over his face. "Sarah said you liked
country-western."
    "I do. And easy listening." His hand fished blindly in his shirt
pocket for a cigarette.
"I
like art, too, little girl.
I used to drive all the way in to Tallahassee for
exhibits."
    "When the King Tut exhibit was in…" she exclaimed.
    "I saw it," he broke in. He removed the hat and tossed it to one
side, while he lit a cigarette and looked up at her with eyes a
darker green than the leaves on the tree overhead. "Let your hair
down. I don't like it tied back like that."
    "You just want it to flop in my eyes so I can't see," she
pouted, but she loosened the ribbon all the same, and let the black
waves fall gently to frame her face.
    He reached out a long arm and his fingers caught a thick
strand of it, testing the softness. "Long and thick and silky," he murmured quietly.
"Black satin."
    She couldn't seem to get her breath. Her eyes drifted to the
tree trunk behind him. "Do…do you still like to hunt?" she asked
breathlessly.
    "Only venison," he murmured. "Your eyelashes are almost too long
to be real, did you know that?"
    She caught a shaky breath. "Clint, hadn't we ought to…"
    "Ought to what, sweetheart?" he asked softly.
    She met his quiet, searching gaze and lost the rest of her
breath as her eyes widened with something like shock.
    Without taking his eyes from her, he flipped his cigarette into
the stream and began to draw her closer to him.
    "Clint…!" she whispered fearfully, pressing her small hands
against his broad chest as he leaned over her, easing her back into
the dry leaves and pine straw that blanketed the hard ground.
    His lean fingers touched her face, gently exploring it in a
silence that throbbed with controlled emotion. "What are you afraid
of?" he asked softly.
    "You," she whispered shakily, trembling as his fingers
lightly traced her nose, her high cheekbones, her mouth.
    "Why, Maggie?" he asked, his gaze dropping intently to her mouth
as his thumb rubbed