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  Rani!

  She looked at him, drawn by the husky sound of her name. “No, Gage. I’ll admit you took me by surprise but I’m not going to go to bed with you. You’re my enemy, remember?”

  “That’s what I want to set straight,” he said carefully. “Whatever else happens between us, this side of things isn’t involved. Do you understand?”

  She stared at him. “I don’t see how it can be separated from the rest You only want one thing from me, Gage: my agreement to go back to Dallas so that you can do your job and collect your payment I would be a fool to let you seduce me, wouldn’t I? Business and pleasure don’t mix.”

  STEPHANIE JAMES

  readily admits that the chief influence on her writing is her “lifelong addiction to romantic daydreaming.” She has spent the last nine years living and working with her engineer husband in a wide variety of places, including the Caribbean, the Southeast and the Pacific Northwest Ms. James currently resides in California.

  Dear Reader:

  SILHOUETTE DESIRE is an exciting new line of contemporary romances from Silhouette Books. During the past year, many Silhouette readers have written in telling us what other types of stories they’d like to read from Silhouette, and we’ve kept these comments and suggestions in mind in developing SILHOUETTE DESIRE.

  DESIREs feature all of the elements you like to see in a romance, plus a more sensual, provocative story. So if you want to experience all the excite­ment, passion and joy of falling in love, then SIL­HOUETTE DESIRE is for you.

  I hope you enjoy this book and all the wonderful stories to come from SILHOUETTE DESIRE. I’d appreciate any thoughts you’d like to share with us on new SILHOUETTE DESIRE, and I invite you to write to us at the address below:

  Karen Solem

  Editor-in-Chief

  Silhouette Books

  P.O. Box 769

  New York, N.Y. 10019

  Copyright © 1983 by Jayne Krentz, Inc.

  Distributed by Pocket Books

  All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever. For information address Silhouette Books, 1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, N.Y. 10020

  ISBN: 0-671-45990-2

  First Silhouette Books printing November, 1983 10 987654321

  All of the characters in this book are fictitious. Any resem­blance to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

  . SILHOUETTE, SILHOUETTE DESIRE and colophon are registered trademarks of Simon & Schuster, Inc.

  America’s Publisher of Contemporary Romance

  CLS 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

  Printed in the U.S.A.

  Other Silhouette Books by Stephanie James

  A Passionate Business

  Dangerous Magic

  Corporate Affair

  Stormy Challenge

  Velvet Touch

  Lover in Pursuit

  Renaissance Man

  Reckless Passion

  Price of Surrender

  Affair of Honor

  To Tame the Hunter

  Gamemaster

  Serpent in Paradise

  The Silver Snare

  Raven’s Prey

  For my agent Steve Axdrod who has more faith in me sometimes than I do in myself and who has explained to me on more man one occasion just how difficult an agent’s life can be

  1

  She first encountered him in the chilled dawn of an English morning. Rani Cameron looked up suddenly to find his gray eyes studying her intently from the high ground on the other side of the old road from Hastings to London. It was the fourteenth of October in the year 1066, and some feminine instinct warned Rani that the day was going to be as fateful for her, personally, as it was for England.

  “You haven’t a chance,” the man drawled in a dark voice of tempered steel as he surveyed the scene of impending battle. “Might as well surrender now.”

  Rani drew a steadying breath and gathered her strangely startled wits. Then she dragged her gaze back to where Harold’s brave Saxon army prepared to hold the ridge against William, Duke of Normandy. For a reason she could not explain, in that moment she decided the challenge from the man with the blue-gray eyes could not go unprotested.

  “I am in a strong defensive position,” she pointed out softly. “My men can stand behind this line of shields and let your cavalry and your archers exhaust themselves attacking uphill.”

  The man nodded once, a hint of a smile lifting the edges of his rather grim mouth. “Your Saxon infantry has courage but it lacks discipline. That lack will be a decisive factor today.”

  Rani hesitated, knowing he spoke the truth. “If my right wing does not break formation to chase down the hill in pursuit of your retreating left wing …”

  “Ah, but it will,” the stranger declared gently. “It will hold its position admirably and send my left wing fleeing in panic across swampy ground, and then it will be unable to resist charging down the hill after the retreating men in an effort to finish them off. Across the field William will see that the entire wing of Saxons is now out in the open and exposed. He will lead his cavalry against them, and in the space of only a couple of minutes he will cut a fifth of Harold’s entire force to pieces.” He lifted a strong, square-shaped hand in a brief, apologetic arc. “Legend has it the unplanned maneuver worked so well that William deliberately tried it again by having his other wing fake panic and draw the defending Saxons after them in undisciplined pursuit Again he cut them down when they broke formation and became vulnerable in the open. Discipline. It makes or breaks an army.”

  As Rani watched, the man reached down and moved several of the little military miniatures on the model battlefield, reconstructing the fateful Battle of Hastings, which had ultimately led to William the Conqueror’s becoming King of England.

  “My Saxons were probably weary,” she tried tenta­tively. “After all, they had just beaten off an invading Norwegian army less than a month earlier, and by the time they got back to London they must have been exhausted. Then they had to turn around and march to Sussex to confront William.”

  “That’s the thing about battle,” the stranger said as he finished laying waste to the Saxon army. “There aren’t any good excuses for losing. Winning is the only thing that counts.”

  Rani leaned back in her chair and closed the volume on the history of warfare that she had been using to set up the miniature soldiers. Across the display table she smiled ruefully at the man who had just walked into The Miniature World shop and proceeded to defeat her. “I appear to have been sitting on the wrong side of the table when you came in a few minutes ago. If I’d been working on the Norman forces, you would have been the losing commander.”

  “C’est la guerre.” He shrugged one massive shoulder and sank down onto the chair opposite her. Carefully he lifted one of the precisely molded little figures, a Saxon infantryman, and studied the fine detailing. “This is a beautifully made set of miniatures. You can even see the links in the chain mail shirts.”

  Rani smiled indulgently as he eyed the tiny helmet with its protective metal strip along the bridge of the nose. One large finger touched the small reproduction of the iron and wood shield with amazing sensitivity. Everything about the man was rather large, she decided. Large and bluntly carved from the wide shoulders to the muscular thighs, which had tautened the fabric of his dark slacks when he sat down. But the largeness was all sinew and bone. There was no hint of softness or fat anywhere on his solid frame. His broad chest tapered down to a lean waist and narrow hips.

  Conservatively cut dark hair framed features as rough­ly hewn as the rest of the man. There was strength and a steady, uncompromising quality in the hard line of his nose and jaw, and the gray of his eyes had a diam
ond-tough gleam to it. He wasn’t the least good-looking in any conventional sense, but men like this did not rely on anything as shallow as physical appearance to gain them what they sought in this world, be it a victory over a woman or an opposing battle commander. Power that was both physical and mental was a much more potent force, and this man, Rani knew, would wield it with innate skill. She put his age at around thirty-five but qualified it by telling herself that they had been thirty-five years of experience, not just casual, superficial living.

  “Are you a collector?” she finally inquired politely.

  He looked up from his study of the infantryman. “No. I have an interest in military history, but I’ve never gotten into the war-gaming end of it, nor have I ever made a hobby out of collecting miniatures.” He glanced appraisingly around the shop. “I see the store doesn’t limit itself to military enthusiasts.”

  Rani shook her head, smiling as she followed his gaze. “We try to cater to other interests in the miniature world as well.”

  “We?” he questioned at once.

  She arched one brow. “The shop belongs to my sister,” she explained obediently, wondering why he was so interested. “I’m giving her a hand with it today.” There was no reason to go into all the details, Rani thought, mildly annoyed at having to explain to this stranger. It was no business of his that she intended to buy the shop from her sister after Donna married Lou Selby and moved away from Albuquerque, New Mexico, for the wilds of Denver, Colorado.

  “Your sister.” He nodded, as if having answered some internal question that had been nagging him. “Then you must be Rani Cameron.”

  Rani stared at him, slightly disconcerted at being recognized by a complete stranger. “I am.”

  “I’m Gage Fletcher.”

  Rani’s brow inched higher. “I’m afraid the name means nothing to me.”

  “It will.” Gage set down the figure he had been holding and leaned back in his chair. His mouth crooked wryly. “Aaron Prescott sent me.”

  She blinked at the mention of her ex-boss, but that was the only outward sign of reaction that Rani allowed herself. Inwardly, however, the first faint flicker of alarm tantalized her nerve endings. Prescott had sent someone after her? That didn’t make any sense at all. “Then I’ll just have to send you right back to him, won’t I?”

  “Not empty-handed, I’m afraid, Miss Cameron,” Gage Fletcher said with quiet emphasis.

  “What is it you wish to take back with you, Mr. Fletcher?”

  “You.”

  Rani eyed him narrowly, trying to fathom the meaning behind his words. “You want to run that by me once more, Mr. Fletcher? A little more slowly this time, if you don’t mind. I seem to have missed something the first time around.”

  “It’s a long story, Miss Cameron. Perhaps you would like to hear the whole of it over lunch. It’s almost twelve-thirty,” he added, flicking a glance at the stainless steel quartz watch on his left wrist. Steel, Rani thought idly. The color of polished armor.

  “No, I don’t think I would, thank you.” Coolly, Rani got to her feet, dismissal written in every line of her slender figure. Her tawny-colored eyes were gilded al­most gold with the force of her determination. “I have no interest in Aaron Prescott, and since I am no longer in his employ, he can have no further interest in me. If you’ll excuse me, I have work to do.”

  Only his head turned slightly to follow her progress across the room. Otherwise, Gage Fletcher didn’t move from the chair in front of the battlefield. It was going to be awkward ignoring him since they were, at present, the only two people in the shop. Rani hid a rueful grimace and went to work on the pantry of a Victorian-style dollhouse that she was setting up for display. Donna would be back soon, and if this oversized male was still in the vicinity, Rani decided she would leave. Unless he chose to pursue her through the streets of Albuquerque, there wouldn’t be much he could do.

  “Prescott told me you were a temperamental little prima donna who didn’t have sense enough to appreci­ate when you were well off,” Gage noted dryly from across the room.

  Rani prodded a tiny platter full of almost infinitesimal fruit into position on a small shelf. “Did he also tell you I was an oversensitive female totally lacking in a sense of humor?” she asked half-curiously, her head bent over her task. She was crouched in front of the intricately designed little house.

  “I think there were words to that effect, yes.”

  “Knowing exactly what he thinks of me must make you wonder why he would want to see me again,” she murmured.

  “Oh, I’m well aware of why he wants you back in Dallas, Miss Cameron.” The deep, tempered voice was heavy with hidden knowledge.

  “You’re one up on me, then,” she admitted almost cheerfully. “I can’t even begin to imagine why Prescott would want me anywhere near him again.”

  “Have lunch with me and I’ll explain in detail.”

  Rani sat back on her heels and glanced at him over her shoulder. The dollhouse on the low bench in front of her waited unfinished as she examined Gage Fletcher more closely. What did Aaron Prescott think he was doing, sending a man like this to fetch her back to Dallas? In spite of her resolve Rani found curiosity beginning to grow quickly.

  “Did Prescott tell you I was his runaway mistress or something?” she inquired very blandly. Behind her lashes the gold in her gaze gleamed with amusement.

  “Are you?” he countered silkily, eyes running interest­edly over her crouched figure.

  “No, but I can’t imagine any other reason he could have given you for making you think he wants me back. We didn’t part as friends!”

  “I know why he wants you back. The reasons he gave me have nothing to do with any personal relationship the two of you may have.”

  Rani flashed him a sudden, mischievous grin. “Is that a polite way of saying I really don’t look like some man’s exotic runaway mistress?”

  Dressed in snug jeans and a plaid, western-style shirt, Rani was forced to admit the truth in her own words. Her bronzed brown hair was tucked into a loose knot at the back of her head from which several tendrils had already escaped. Her figure was slender and lacked any hint of the overblown voluptuousness one associates with exotic mistresses of important men. Instead, her small breasts gave way to a narrow waist and gently curved hips.

  No, the look wasn’t exotic, but at thirty-two she was attractive in a fresh, open way that suited and reflected her southwestern life-style. Her tawny eyes were filled with the promise of intelligence and humor, and her well-shaped mouth smiled easily, although there was a suggestion of stubbornness about her gently upturned nose and the firm line of her rounded chin. She could have passed as a rancher’s daughter with her breezy, slightly windblown looks and easy charm.

  The truth was, however, that although she had been born in New Mexico and had lived all of her life in the Southwest, Rani had never left its cities for more than a day or two at a time. A rancher’s daughter she was not The tight-fitting jeans she wore carried a designer’s label, and the western shirt had been created as part of a New York couturier’s spring collection. She loved the look and the style of the Southwest, and it suited her perfectly. Which probably explained why men such as Kingston Tanner, whom she was currently daring, sometimes made the mistake of thinking she not only looked like a rancher’s daughter but would also make a charming rancher’s wife.

  In actual fact, Rani had no interest in being any man’s wife. That realization had slowly crystalized in her mind during the past couple of years, and with the perversity of human nature, men now seemed more intrigued by her than ever. Rani didn’t mind. She liked men. In their proper place.

  Even as that last thought went through her mind, Rani realized that her visitor was still considering her question. She tossed him a mocking glare. “Look, if you have to dwell on the issue this long, it can only mean you’re trying to find a way not to insult me. Don’t worry about it I don’t particularly want to be told I could be mistaken for
one of Prescott’s fluff-headed women!” She turned back to the dollhouse, peering intently into the front parlor.

  “I wasn’t thinking you looked like one of Prescott’s women,” Gage Fletcher finally declared slowly. “Primar­ily, I suppose, because the few I’ve had the occasion to meet didn’t seem inclined to run in the first place. He appears to be quite generous toward his female friends.”

  Rani lifted one shoulder indifferently. “I wouldn’t know. I only worked for the man; I didn’t sleep with him.” She was studying the parlor as she said the words and therefore missed the cool assessment of Gage’s expression, but she did hear the barely masked impa­tience in his next words.

  “I’d rather not finish this conversation here, where someone might walk in at any moment. Would you please make arrangements to go to lunch with me?”

  “No.”

  “Miss Cameron, I was told you were headstrong and impertinent, but I was also given to understand that you had a good head for business. I assure you that what I have to say concerns business.”

  “Prescott business?” She still wasn’t looking at him, but her curiosity was mounting. What the devil could Aaron want with her?

  “Yes.”

  “Prescott business no longer concerns me, Mr. Fletch­er. Thank God.”

  “Believe me, this does!” he told her with soft certainty.

  “Give me a hint,” she challenged, flicking a quick glance at him.

  “Over lunch I will give you the full details,” he promised with a shuttered look that she couldn’t translate for the life of her.

  Rani knew her interest was piqued. She had no intention of doing Aaron Prescott any favors, nor did she intend to go back to Dallas with this unusual man, but she was definitely intrigued now about the reasons behind Gage Fletcher’s appearance in The Miniature World. “He really sent you all this way just to track me down?” she asked with a wondering frown.

  “I live in Albuquerque,” Gage informed her with a trace of a smile. “I expect it was more a matter of convenience than anything else that made him choose me for the job. Would you rather he had come after you himself?”