Bargain With The Devil Part 5

"Telephone, Stacy! Can you take it now, or shall I tell him to call back?"

Him? Stacy wondered quickly, her forehead knitting together in a frown. The last person she wanted to talk to at the moment was Hunter Manning!

"Who is it, Julia?" If it was Hunter, she was going to be too busy to answer!

There was a pause. "It's your brother, Eric!"

Stacy groaned and wiped the traces of compost off her hands. "I'll be right there!" Slowly she started up the aisle of plants, won-dering how she was going to answer all her brother's questions.

"So you've finally gone and done it, Stacy," Eric noted with the easy familiarity of a brother who has long since accepted his sister's unpredictable ways. "To tell you the truth, Manning's the last person I would have envisioned you marrying, but you always have a way of going off on some unexpected tangent and surprising everyone!"

Stacy, who had never felt she was particularly strange or unpre-dictable, just different from the rest of the family, made some in-nocuous response while she absently pushed several straggling locks of hair back from her dirt-streaked face.

"I just got off the phone to Hunter a few minutes ago," Eric went on cheerfully. "He sounds like he's not wasting any time. I asked him if you two were going to. wait until Mom and Dad got home, but he said no. I figured you'd probably be pretty swamped," Eric went on with a touch of caution in his words now, and Stacy waited to see what was coming, "so I went ahead and telegrammed the folks for you "

"Eric!" Stacy quite suddenly panicked. "What did you tell them, for heaven's sake? I was going to wait until they got home to say anything...!"

"I figured you would." Eric sighed. "But they have a right to know, Stacy. You must see that. It would hardly be fair to spring it on them after all their friends and a.s.sociates already knew!"

"I I suppose you're right. Well, they'll probably shrug their shoulders and tell each other it's about time. Did you... did you tell them who I was marrying?" she asked delicately, worriedly.

"I mentioned Manning's name, but I doubt if they'll recognize it. He's new to the area, after all," Eric told her offhandedly, apparently relieved she wasn't going to be upset over the fact that he'd notified their parents. Eric was very fond of Stacy, but he didn't understand her and he would have been the first to admit it.

Stacy winced and told herself there was nothing to be done about it now. She could only hope her father didn't respond to the telegram before the wedding, or that if he did, she would be able to intercept the response. If Hunter were to find out before the marriage that her father, as she suspected, would probably laugh about the whole mat-ter, all her plans to rescue Eric would go down the drain. Her fingers tightened painfully on the telephone as she listened to her brother's comments and good wishes.

"I expect you know what you're doing," he rambled on affection-ately. "Although, as usual, no one else does. Frankly, Manning strikes me as being a rather hard man; not the kind you generally go for...." He waited invitingly for Stacy to explain herself.

"He's .: he's somewhat different from the other men I've been seeing lately," Stacy admitted carefully, wondering how to respond. For once her brother was absolutely right! Hunter Manning was definitely not her sort of male! "Maybe that's his appeal," she went on flippantly. "He's not like the others. I I have the feeling he's a good businessman, though," she added hopefully. Her brother re-spected good businessmen.

"Oh, he's that, all right," Eric agreed readily. "He's smart, and he's willing to take a few risks. He's also got a reputation for being a man of his word. People say he's tough but can be trusted. I know Leana certainly likes him."

Stacy bit her lip to keep from responding to that remark! But in some way it was almost rea.s.suring to hear about Hunter's reputation. She was, in the end, going to have to rely on him keeping his prom-ise about not bothering Eric and Leana. And she was going to have to pray he would stand by his word even when he discovered his scheme for revenge wasn't going to bring him the satisfaction he sought. What a risk she was taking, she thought dismally as she finished talking to her brother and hung up the phone. What a crazy, foolish risk! Her parents would probably say it was typical!

Stacy was helping a customer select a potted cactus and silently worrying about the telegram on its way to her father when the phone rang again and her name was called.

"It's Gary," Julia volunteered from behind the counter where several people were milling about, choosing bags of potting soil and small gardening tools.

"Tell him I'll call him back," Stacy replied, turning back to her customer.

"That's all right, go ahead and take the call," the lady she had been helping said quickly. "I've got the one I want. This barrel cac-tus will do nicely. Not much of a novelty out here in the desert, but I won't have to worry about constantly watering it the way I did that poor die-ffenbachia I killed off last week!"

Stacy smiled involuntarily and went to take her call. She was not looking forward to this one bit. How did you tell a man you had been seeing quite frequently and whom you liked that you were marrying another man at the end of the week?

"Hi, Stacy," Gary's friendly voice came across the wire, and she could picture him at the counter of his bookshop, leaning on the gla.s.s while he talked. His light brown hair, which he wore rather long, would be slightly unkempt, and his cheerful brown eyes would be idly watching the customers in the shop. "Thought I'd call and see what you were doing this evening."

Stacy took a deep breath. She would have to get the worst over with as quickly as possible, but she couldn't bring herself to do it on the phone!

"Gary," she began slowly, painfully, "is there any way you could meet me for lunch instead? There's something I need to discuss with you. Something important."

"Sure, I can arrange it. That little natural-food restaurant we found last week?" He sounded curious but not overly concerned.

"That would be fine. I'll meet you there at twelve," Stacy said quietly.

It was, Stacy thought sadly an hour later when she returned from the restaurant, a luncheon engagement she would have given a great deal to have avoided. She would remember for a long time the star-tled look on Gary's pleasant features as she faced him across a whole-grain sandwich piled high with sprouts and told him she was to be married.

He had been hurt at first and then angry, and Stacy couldn't blame him.

"Look, I know it's not as if we were involved in a grand, torrid love affair," Gary had snapped at one point. "But you could have at least mentioned there was someone else in the picture! I thought we "

"Gary, until very, very recently there was no one else," Stacy said as gently as possible, her hand reaching across the table in a placating gesture that he shrugged off in irritation. "It's all happened very quickly. I've... I've told you as soon as I could, please believe me," she begged, green eyes beseeching. "It's a complicated story and one I really can't go into. You have every right to be upset."

And so it had gone on until Gary had cooled down, begrudgingly wished her luck, and walked out of the restaurant, leaving her with the bill and a growing, festering anger of her own with which to deal. That anger, aimed at Hunter Manning and her own inability to think of a better way of handling the situation that he had created, in-creased with every block of flat, sprawling Tucson cityscape as she drove back to work after lunch.

The sight of Hunter's sleek, powerful sports car in the parking lot of her nursery did nothing to improve on Stacy's temper. With grit-ted teeth she slammed out of her own car and stalked into the shop.

He was there, talking to Julia over the counter. The attractive young brunette was laughing at something Hunter had just said, and Stacy realized he was smiling at the clerk in a pleasant, relaxed, quite charming manner. It was the sort of smile she never expected to seen turned toward herself. Not that she would have wanted him to smile at her like that, she thought belligerently as she made her way pur-posefully past a display of rakes and hoes to confront her visitor. The main thing on Stacy's mind at that moment was the unhappy scene she had just been forced to go through with Gary Bowen. Hunter Manning was completely responsible for that unpleasantness, she told herself grimly.

"What are you doing here?" she inquired with such an unex-pected note of rudeness in her voice as she approached the pair at the counter that Julia blinked in astonishment. But Stacy's narrowed eyes were on Hunter, who had turned to glance at her the moment she spoke. The smile with which he had been favoring the clerk faded immediately as he took in the set expression of Stacy's fea-tures. The fog-colored gaze swept over her stained jeans and tulip-patterned shirt, coolly noted the uncertainly pinned knot of red-brown hair, which was in its usual midday disarray, and then came back to rest on her frowning features.

"I came to see you, naturally," Hunter told her in a dangerously soft voice, a voice that warned her that he didn't appreciate the rude-ness or the frown. "I was going to take you to lunch, but Julia was just telling me you'd already gone."

Stacy glanced at her plain, functional little watch and shrugged. "It's after one o'clock. I usually eat at twelve."

"I'll remember that," he told her gently, too gently. He turned back to Julia, said something briefly in farewell, and then put a hard hand on Stacy's arm, guiding her firmly away from the counter and back into the large greenhouse that was attached to the shop. They had the place to themselves.

"Do you normally come back from lunch looking as if you would like to murder the nearest available person, or am I the only one lucky enough to be on the receiving end of all that fierceness?" he inquired laconically, drawing to a halt behind several stages of bril-liant green philodendron and monstera plants. There was a hardness in his eyes and in his rugged face that he had not allowed Julia to see.

"Consider yourself favored," Stacy snapped, in no mood to hu-mor him at that moment. "I've had a rough day."

"Who is he, Stacy?" The question was cold and full of the threat that she had so often glimpsed in his eyes. "Julia said you were meet-ing someone."

"A friend," she retorted, not pretending to misunderstand. "A very close friend."

The gray gaze slitted but otherwise Hunter's expression didn't change as he stood calmly taking in Stacy's barely muted defiance. He wore a lightweight, expensive-lookingi gray suit, and the almost-black hair with its eye-catching silver brand was neatly combed. Very much the successful young businessman, Stacy thought sul-lenly. What a fool he was to tie himself to her merely for the sake of revenge. He needed someone fashionable and socially active like... like Leana.

"This 'close friend.' You were telling him good-bye? Is that why you're back early and in a bad mood?" he prodded.

"It's none of your business!" she grumbled, annoyed.

"If you really believe that, you're in for a rude awakening," he retorted quietly. "You're not to see him alone again, Stacy, and that's final. Fortunately you had the sense to give him the news in a public restaurant, but all the same "

"What do you mean by that?" she interrupted, furious with his calm a.s.sumption that he could order her life. "There was nothing 'fortunate' about it, I can a.s.sure you! I have the distinct feeling I'm in the process of ruining my whole life!"

"Don't be melodramatic," he cut in swiftly, frowning down at her. "I only meant I'm glad you were smart enough to meet him publicly and not in some private, isolated spot, such as his place or yours!"

"What's the difference? It wasn't any easier telling him at the restaurant than it would have been at his apartment!" she bit out, thinking of the trace of anger that had been in Gary's usually cheer-ful brown eyes.

"The difference is that you were far safer, of course, you little fool," Hunter growled, his temper showing signs of fraying. "But it's over now. You've done your duty and told him "

"Safer!" Stacy blazed. "What are you talking about? Gary would never have hurt me!" She looked up at him in a mixture of anger and exasperation. "What sort of people do you think I hang around with, anyway?"

The line of his mouth thinned, and she could see he was keeping a close check on his impatience. "Perhaps," he said evenly, "I'm making the mistake of attributing my own reactions to another man in the same position!"

"Hunter!" she gasped, astounded by .the smoldering threat that seemed to radiate from him. "Are you implying you would would " She broke off, floundering for words.

"I'm saying, Stacy Rylan," he told her roughly, "that if you ever meet me casually for lunch someday and announce you're going oif with another man, I'll use whatever force is necessary to change your mind!" He caught her by the shoulders and hauled her close. "You're going to belong to me, Rylan witch, and the devil never gives up his own!"

Stunned by the intensity of his words, Stacy was swept against him before she could protest, and his mouth came down on hers, marking her with a fiery brand of possession. Helpless to free her-self, she submitted to the demanding, claiming embrace, knowing that Hunter Manning had set his seal on her. The devil's seal of own-ership. And even as she wondered at the strange, cold fire in him, a part of her was stirring, questioning whether or not the chilling, po-tent flames in this man could be made to blaze with human heat.

CHAPTER FIVE.

On the day of her marriage Stacy left for work at the usual time, stubbornly clinging to the familiar routine, although her state of nerves did not allow her to accomplish much, if anything, useful. And her nervousness, heightened as it was, could not be attributed solely to the wedding scheduled for that afternoon, although that prospect was awesome enough.

No, a portion of her tremulousness was the result of the night let-ter that had arrived the day before and that had been burning a hole in the back pocket of her jeans all day. She didn't even have to take it out to reread it; she'd memorized her father's brief message by heart. "Congratulations, Stacy," it read.

"You always did insist on doing things your way. I wonder how long it will be before you realize what you've landed in this time. Look in the mirror, girl. He's not marrying you for your looks or your social polish, and I can guarantee he'll never be able to love a Rylan. But there's no point trying to argue you out of it, so I won't make the effort. You'll come to your senses in your own good time. Who knows? Manning may have taken on more than he realizes."

There had been no added note from her mother. Following a tra-dition that seemed to have been established in the early years of her parents' marriage, Paul J. spoke for both of them. Stacy sat back on her heels, studying some plants in a propagating case and bit her lip. The letter was not totally unexpected after being told by Eric that he'd sent the telegram. What was making Stacy so very nervous was wondering if Hunter had received one, too.

But if he had, she told herself rea.s.suringly, she would have heard from him. He would have called off the marriage and raised h.e.l.l with her for having tried to trick him. The whole point of the wedding was to enact a subtle revenge on her father, and once Hunter learned her father wasn't overly concerned with Stacy's erratic behavior, he would realize the pointlessness of attacking the older man through her. He might go back to his original plans.

She had seen very little of her intended groom during the past few days. After the first night, she had been prepared for him to lay siege to her physically in spite of his promise. The way he had kissed her the next day in the greenhouse had suggested he had no intention of letting her maintain any distance between them on that level. But Hunter had kept his word about not taking her to bed, and somehow that angered her further. He had been busy the short time since then. He had taken her out to dinner at a steak house and scoffed when she'd ordered a meatless pasta dish, insisted on her accompanying him to lunch another day, but there had been no move on his part to completely close the trap he was setting.

The sensation of a closing trap was an accurate description of how Stacy's senses perceived the impending marriage. She didn't like the poorly masked impatience with which Hunter awaited his wedding day. She knew he saw it as the beginning of the main thrust of his revenge. He made no secret of his antic.i.p.ation, but he was content to let those around them think that his eagerness was for Stacy. He had kept his word thus far and not even hinted to Eric or Leana that there was something else behind his plans.

His kisses during the past few evenings had been hungry, de-manding embraces, but he had not stayed long or pushed for her to come home with him. In fact, she had only been to the elegant Span-ish-style house in the desert foothills overlooking the city on one occasion and that was to supervise the unloading of her belongings. She had taken a quick, nervous walk around the house with its floor-to-ceiling windows, curving arches, and decorative tiles and then fled. He hadn't pressed her to stay.

One of the things Stacy had delayed moving was the backyard greenhouse with its two hundred exotic orchid plants inside. The disa.s.sembly and rea.s.sembly of the small building would be a major project, and she thought she would handle it after the wedding. Later, when she was certain the marriage was going to go through. She wondered how Hunter would view the new addition to his cactus and rock landscape. There had been an unreadable expression on his face as he'd watched her hurry out of his house, and she still hadn't de-cided exactly what he'd been thinking. Then there were all her houseplants, which she hadn't yet talked herself into moving, either.

Stacy stood up, dusting off her hands, and glanced at her watch. The wedding was scheduled to take place in about an hour, and so far Hunter hadn't arrived in a fury to call it off. She could only as-sume her father hadn't called or sent a telegram to him, which meant her own poor plans were going to come off as arranged. Once mar-ried, Hunter was stuck with his bargain. He'd given his word. And strangely enough, even in a fit of his all too uncertain temper, she didn't see him going back on his agreement.

The roar of the normally well-mannered exotic car Hunter drove was the first indication of his mood when he braked to a loud halt in the nursery's parking lot half an hour later. Stacy was busy in the greenhouse, but she heard the threatening engine and her heart sank. It was almost time for the wedding. Had Hunter discovered the truth at this late juncture?

"Where is she?" she heard him demand of Julia, and the tone of his voice made Stacy swallow nervously. He was furious! Well, she couldn't very well run off and leave poor Julia to deal with him. Grimly Stacy wiped her palms on her jeans and started for the front shop.

He met her before she could get halfway down the long line of plants, his face full of the thunder of a desert storm, fiercely swirling clouds in the depths of his eyes. He was wearing a dark, beautifully tailored suit with the stark white of a silk shirt at collar and cuffs. The Italian leather of his shoes shone with the elegant gleam of lengthy polishing, and there was a flash of genuine gold from his cuff links. The heavy, dark mane of his hair, slashed with the silver streak, had been trimmed recently and carefully combed. He looked like the magnificent male animal he was, and Stacy wanted to run as fast and as far as possible in the opposite direction.

It was, she told herself as he slammed to a halt in front of her, only the perverse stubbornness that her family found incomprehensi-ble that kept her from fleeing before the wrath in Hunter Manning's eyes. In that moment she was certain he must have heard from her father.

"What in h.e.l.l," Hunter ground out in a voice of tempered steel, "do you think you're playing at, Stacy Ry-lan?"

Had she really expected to be able to put one over on the devil? Stacy stood very still, her slender body drawn up to her full five feet five inches, her knotted hair sitting like a slightly lopsided crown on top of her head. Only the green eyes gave any indication of her feel-ings, and they mirrored a strange combination of fear, anger, and defiance.

"You know, don't you?" she stated in a cool little voice that sur-prised her with its steadiness.

"Oh, yes," he growled, taking a step closer but still not touching her. Stacy had the feeling he was almost afraid to take hold of her for fear of losing his temper altogether. "I know! I should have known all along that a Rylan couldn't be trusted to go through with a bar-gain, any bargain, that wasn't one hundred percent in her favor! But it's not going to work, Stacy. You're one Rylan who's going to learn not to play games with a Manning! You're going to marry me today, and you're going to become a Manning tonight! You made the deal of your own free will, and I'm not letting you out of it!"

Stacy frowned. This wasn't the direction she had expected his at-tack to take when he discovered the truth. "I... I never had any inten-tion of refusing to go through with the wedding," she said carefully.

"Then what are you doing in those d.a.m.n jeans?" he roared. "And what are you doing covered in potting soil twenty minutes before you're supposed to be taking your vows?"

He didn't know! Stacy could hardly believe it. He was only upset because he thought she was trying to back out of the bargain!

"Hunter, I'm fully prepared to marry you," she a.s.sured him quickly, relief temporarily chasing out her fear and anger. "Ask Julia. She's been waiting all morning to take over. It's the first time she's gotten to run the place by herself!"

He stared at her and then at her clothes. "I don't believe it," he muttered furiously.

"Didn't you get the note I left on my door?" she asked with con-cern. "It told you to come here. You must have seen it or you wouldn't be here."

"I saw it and I realized that you thought you'd be safer here when you tried to tell me you weren't going through with the marriage!" He was still accusing, but there was a new hint of uncertainty.

Stacy shook her head, not sure now whether to be relieved that he didn't yet know the truth or frightened that he still intended to marry her. She turned away to rinse her hands in a nearby faucet and wiped them on a towel as he watched in growing irritation.

"There," she said, tossing the towel aside. "I'm ready." Without waiting for any further comment from him, Stacy started toward the front of the shop. "We're off now, Julia. Are you sure you'll be all right? Don't forget to lock that back door in the greenhouse, will you?"

Julia, her eyes resting with deep feminine approval on Hunter as he slowly stalked behind Stacy, smiled rea.s.suringly.

"Don't worry, Stacy, I'll take care of everything...." She hesi-tated and then blurted, "I told you to buy a nice dress! I knew he wouldn't get married in his jeans! Oh, Stacy, this is your wedding day, for goodness' sake!"

Stacy blinked, startled at the younger girl's obvious distress. She glanced automatically down at her jeans and then, flushing slightly, tucked in her bright daisy-patterned shirt. She was abruptly aware of Hunter standing behind her in all his sleek male finery.

"You, uh, knew Stacy intended to dress like this for her own wedding?" Hunter rasped softly to Julia, coming up behind his bride-to-be and putting a firm hand on her shoulder. A wave of embar-ra.s.sment washed over Stacy as the other two flicked disapproving glances at her garments.

"Don't think I didn't try and talk her out of it, Mr. Manning." Julia smiled fondly at her red-faced boss. "But you know Stacy. She just doesn't care one bit about clothes, as long as she's got flowers on somewhere!"

"It would appear," Hunter drawled meaningfully, exerting pres-sure on Stacy's shoulder to aim her in the direction of the front door, "that I do not yet know Stacy as well as I should. But I plan to rem-edy that. Good-bye, Julia."

"Good-bye, you two, and and good luck!" There was a small break in Julia's voice, and Stacy realized with disgust that the clerk was crying.

"I hope," Hunter grated beside his captured bride, "that the color flying in your cheeks right now is from pure, unadulterated shame and embarra.s.sment!" He walked her briskly out to the waiting jungle cat of a car and, wrenching open the door, tossed her inside. "I can-not conceive of another woman on the face of this earth showing up for her wedding in her work clothes!" He slammed the door and rounded the front of the vehicle to slide into the driver's seat. He was still angry, Stacy realized nervously, but it was compounded mostly of annoyance. The blazing fury of a few moments ago was gone. His prize hadn't escaped him, after all.

"It's it's not as if this were a a regular sort of wedding," Stacy mumbled in a weak attempt at defending herself. "I saw no reason to make a production out of what is, essentially, a legal contract you're entering into for the sake of revenge!"

He threw a cold, foggy glance at her as he started the car with a small, violent motion. "This marriage is going to be very real, Stacy," he told her with poorly suppressed menace. "For your own sake, you'd better treat it that way!"

She sighed, sinking deeply into the leather seat and staring out the window at the Santa Catalina Mountains in the distance as he guided the car skillfully through Tucson traffic. A distant part of her mind insisted on noting that even when he was angry his driving remained cool and efficient. For some reason, that reminded her of the night he had swept her to a point of sensuous frenzy and then abruptly called everything to a halt. How could he exercise such self-control? When she lost her temper, things tended to get totally out of hand!

Stacy remained silent, and Hunter offered no further conversation until he pulled into the parking lot of a small church a few minutes later. That brought Stacy upright in her seat.

"I thought we were being married in an office downtown," she complained, green eyes narrowing as she noted a familiar car parked ahead of them. "You didn't tell me my brother and Leana were com-ing!"