Princes of the Outback Bundle (12 page)

When she rocked hard against him and murmured “already?” he took her like that, in a long, lazy joining, and again in the predawn quiet when the pace was slow and
sensuous with enough time to recognize his earlier bout of fear for what it was.

Not performance anxiety or any sense of disloyalty to the wife he still loved, but fear that he would enjoy this—enjoy
her
—so much that he would never want it to end. That he’d want to twist his fingers into her chain and drag her mouth down to his, to swallow her cries of release whole and absorb them into his body.

That he would want this to go on and on and never end.

Angie woke to the glare of morning sun streaming through the window and the low sound of conversation. Frowning slightly, she pushed up on her elbows and strained her ears. Not the TV she realized, shoving her hair back from her face, but real voices in the adjoining room. Before she had a chance to identify words out of the indistinguishable drone, her attention diverted to the scent of food and her nose twitched and her stomach growled. Between no dinner and the…um…strenuous night, she was famished.

As she swung her legs out of bed she stretched her arms and back. And winced. Oh, yes, it had, indeed, been a most strenuous night. Satisfying in many ways, promising in many ways, even if she hated the many times he’d refused to meet her gaze, the times he’d chosen the darkness of closed eyes over the emotional connection of their joining.

Even if the notion that he’d needed to wash the scent of their lovemaking from his body still rubbed raw against her heart.

Slowly she started for the same bathroom. Vaguely she realized that the voices had stopped, and when she heard the thump of a door closing, she stopped dead. Surely he wouldn’t just leave? Surely. But her heart shifted with un
comfortable doubt as she resumed her trip toward the bathroom. Just shy of the door, a sixth sense made her swing her gaze back…and there he was, standing in the doorway between bedroom and sitting-room, watching her.

He, she noticed immediately, was dressed. Unlike her. Ridiculous, after all they’d done in the night, to feel so exposed. He’d seen pretty much everything, from much closer than the width of a hotel bedroom.

“I ordered breakfast,” he said evenly.

A good start, she thought. Excellent really, since she would have bet on much awkwardness this morning.

“I’m famished, but I just need a quick shower before I eat.” She smiled broadly, in appreciation of him ordering breakfast,
and
still being here to share it. “Will you save me something?”

“I’ve already eaten. With Rafe.”

Angie stiffened. That explained the other voice. Yet… “You invited your brother to breakfast?”

“He invited himself.”

Aah, now
that
made more sense. And explained the closing door.

“Does he know…?” She gestured between them, indicating the meaning she couldn’t put into words.
That I’m here, in your bedroom, naked?

“No, and that’s the way I’d prefer we kept it.” He shifted his weight from one booted foot to the other. “Look, I just rang the airport. My pilot’s ready to go. I have to get moving.”

“Well, I’ll have my shower and breakfast and go straight down to work, I expect.” She managed a carefree shrug, but since she was standing naked in the full morning light, she couldn’t quite bring herself to stroll over and casually kiss him goodbye. Which is the comeback she would have
liked, to prove that though her heart had just taken a plummeting nosedive, she could handle this. He’d told her not to expect too much. She knew this would be a long haul, this getting past his hurt and distance to the man inside.

Last night she’d taken the first step, and that was only the start.

Despite his gotta-go message, he still hadn’t moved from the doorway, however, and Angie discerned he had more to say. Ever helpful, she raised her eyebrows, inviting him to spit it out.

“Call me,” he said, “as soon as you know something.”

“You’ll be the first to know.”

He nodded stiffly.

And Angie couldn’t help herself, the words just kind of bubbled out. “Do you think I will have to call? Do you think last night was a success?”

Which, in retrospect, was a ridiculous thing to ask. She’d read the literature. Even at the right time of month, with all the planets in alignment and karma beaming down from the stars, a certain percentage of women didn’t conceive. It wasn’t as if she’d ever tried before. She didn’t know, for sure, that she was the perfect candidate she’d promoted herself as the night before.

And her ridiculous questions had obviously made Tomas as uncomfortable as a ringer with a burr in his swag, because now he couldn’t meet her eyes. He stared toward the window and beyond, his expression so tricky and unreadable that she longed to climb inside his head.

“If you are—” his gaze shifted back to her face “—will you want to keep working?”

“I told you. My job here is temporary.”

“You know Rafe will give you another job at the drop of a hat. Alex, too.”

“And what about you? Do you have a job for me on Kameruka Downs?”

His eyes narrowed. “You’re joking.”

“Why would you think that?”

“Because I wouldn’t—” He stopped abruptly, lips a tight line.

“Because you don’t want me around?”

“Because there’s no job for you there.”

The pain she felt was, no doubt, her heart bottoming out of that slow-fall plummet with a sickening crash. “I’ll let you know the result, once I know,” she said, painfully aware that she was still standing here, having this momentous conversation, stark naked.

Tomas started to turn, paused. “Angie…thank you.”

For being such a sport? For not pushing the job issue? For not making this morning-after a train wreck?

It was her turn to nod tightly. “You’re welcome.”

And then he was gone, probably bolting as fast as his boots would take him, to the airport and the company plane that would transport him back to his territory.

Kameruka Downs, where she was no longer welcome.

F
or two weeks Angie hummed through life in a cheerful glow of hopefulness. When she closed the door on that hotel suite—after an indulgently long shower and an extravagantly big breakfast—she closed the door on all doubts and despondency. She left them there in the dark, shut away from the shining light of her optimism.

Only sex? Bull! She’d felt the connection, the special-ness, the rightness of their lovemaking.

As for Tomas…well, she could make allowances. He’d been even more nervous than Angie, and he didn’t have the crutch of a lifetime of fantasies for support. She’d seriously unsettled him with that revelation, and she’d unnerved him more with the emotion she couldn’t completely contain when they’d finally come together.

Plus, in his own words, it had been a while.

Her mind had drifted back to that comment with vex
ing regularity. A while, as in, not since Brooke? Could he have been celibate that long?

Knowing Tomas…yes. Because that’s how he would honor his vows, yet that thought caused a churning storm of conflict in Angie. The very qualities that drew her to this man—his steadfastness, his loyalty, his constancy and conviction—could also be the downfall of any hope of a future with him.

He loved Brooke. He probably believed he would never love again. Yet Angie knew deep in her heart that she was his woman, and she used that confidence to staunch the rebellious doubts as she worked through two weeks without any calls from or contact with Kameruka Downs. He was busy, she reminded herself. This was his busiest time of year with the cattle business. Besides,
she
was to call
him,
she reassured herself, whenever her hungry gaze drifted to the phone late at night.

Then her hand would cradle her belly and her heart would skitter with a mix of nerves and excitement as she contemplated the prospect of Tomas’s baby growing there. And she would fall asleep with a smile on her lips and optimism warm in her heart.

This morning, when she visited the bathroom, fate and the female cycle rudely snuffed out that light.

Naturally it was Monday and she couldn’t slink back to bed. Predictably it was a stinking grey Monday, the kind that decides to dump its wet load of misery on a woman’s shoulders when she’s running to catch the bus. And because she was in no mood for company, Rafe came to wander aimlessly around her workspace as soon as he arrived at the office.

That happened to be about five minutes after she’d tossed her rose-colored glasses in the bin beside her desk,
along with the pregnancy-test kit she’d bought ahead of time and stored in the back of her filing cabinet. She knew the second Rafe’s miss-nothing eyes settled on the discarded box.

Why had she given in to that silly fit of hormonal pique? Why hadn’t she just left the kit where it was? She hadn’t needed to trash the damn thing!

A small frown lined her boss’s forehead. “Is that what I think it is?”

“That’s none of your business.”

His gaze lifted at her sharp tone. “It appears to be unopened.”

“How observant.” It was hard not to sound snarky when Rafe—dammit—was pushing aside papers to perch on the edge of her desk.

“Do I take it this is bad news?”

She clicked her mouse and stared hard at the computer screen.

“Because I always thought it was bad news when the lines turned pink.”

Eyes narrowed in irritation, she swung back to face him. “In your situation, that would be good news…or have you forgotten the baby you’re supposed—”

“So, you did do it.”

“What?”

“You and Tomas. That night in the suite. I wondered.”

Yet he hadn’t said a word.
She
wondered—

“I didn’t say anything in case nothing came of it,” he said, finishing her thought. He glanced back at her bin. “Is that what the unopened test means?”

“I’m not pregnant, if that’s what you’re asking.”

And because she couldn’t stand the sharp perceptiveness of his gaze—or the flicker of sympathy in his eyes—
she turned back to her computer. Tapped at a couple of keys before she realized she hadn’t opened a document. The computer beeped back at her, something that sounded like
you dolt.
And she was the stupid, idiotic queen of dolts for imagining she could do this, for thinking that one night would instantly provide a baby, and for wanting it so much. Dammit, and now she had to put up with her boss sitting there looking at her with pity and—

“What are you going to do about it?” he asked, and she whirled on him in a flash of fury.

“What are
you
doing about it? You, also being part of this pact. Why should it be up to me? And how about Alex—has he set a date yet?”

“Last I heard, he and Susannah are still in negotiation.”

Which meant no date, no marriage, no baby, since Alex had decided that marriage had to come first. “And you?”

“I’m still considering my options.”

“Too much choice?”

Instead of grinning or winking or chipping in with the usual Rafe-line, he looked at her steadily. “Or maybe I can’t find the right woman to make a baby with.”

The right woman, the right mother, the perfect candidate.
Angie’s heartbeat sounded thick and loud in the sudden quiet. “Do you think Tomas found the right woman?”

“Do you?”

Yeesh, but she hated questions tossed back in her face. Twelve hours ago she knew the answer, unequivocally, but now? Had so much changed? Or was this only a wet-day hormone funk? She stared at the blankness of her computer screen a moment, and the only answer she found was the truth. “I want to make more than a baby with him. I want to make him live and laugh and love again.”

Rafe grinned. And winked. “Attagirl.”

Angie scowled back at him, but somewhere inside she felt the tiny flicker of hope. “Fat lot of good it will do me.”

“My brother needs someone like you. Someone with the balls—”

“Thank you very much!”

“—to keep pushing and prodding so he doesn’t hole up in his shell like a hermit crab. He needs someone who loves him enough to not give up.”

“You think?”

“He needs you more than he needs this baby, Ange.”

Holy Henry, she hoped so. Yet, if Rafe believed it—if he could sit there and recite with such conviction the belief engraved deep in her heart… “Do you suppose your father thought the same thing?” she asked slowly. “That he was using the will clause to push Tomas to find someone else?”

“Maybe.” In silence, they both considered this a minute. Then Rafe shook his head. “Nah, there’s too many things that could have gone wrong, the way he worded the clause.”

“I guess.”

“What matters is making sure everything goes right from here on in. You need to be in his face, Ange, showing him what he’s missing.”

“What do you suggest? That I turn up on his doorstep and chirp, ‘Honey, I’m home’?”

Rafe grinned. “You’re reading my mind.”

It took Angie a moment to realize he wasn’t joking. She wet her lips nervously. “What, exactly, are you thinking?”

“Two weeks, right? Until you can next make babies?”

Angie nodded.

“What if I fly you out there a bit earlier…?” Not really a question, since he didn’t wait for an answer. He picked up her desk calendar and studied it. When he looked up his eyes held a wicked glitter. “You know what this Saturday is?”

“Um…the twentieth?”

“The Ruby Creek Races.”

Angie frowned. The Ruby Creek weekend was an outback institution, more about socializing than horse-racing, but what did it have to do with her situation? “You want to go? You think I should go? Do you think Tomas will be going?”

“Unlikely. He doesn’t get out much these days. No, what I’m thinking is all the staff will be going and he’ll be home alone.”

Until she arrived.
Angie’s pulse fluttered. “He won’t like it.”

“Does that matter?”

She smiled slowly and the glow of hope spread strong and rosy through her whole body. “No. I don’t suppose that it does.”

Tomas recognized the sound of the Carlisle Company plane coming in low over the Barakoolie ridge without lifting his gaze from the weaners he was tailing. He figured it was Alex or Rafe dropping in to visit with their mother. A wasted trip, since Maura had flown down to another of their stations to supervise the muster after the manager broke his leg. Tomas would have gone himself except…

His chest tightened as he recalled the plea in his mother’s pained eyes—a look that had cow-kicked him right where he lived. He knew what she couldn’t say.
I’m lost and I’m hurting. I need to be busy, occupied, working as hard as my body can take. It’s the only way to live through this grief.

Oh, yeah, he knew better than anyone the benefits of physical exhaustion. Not a cure, but a salve to deaden the acute pain and a bandage dressing for the soul-deep lone
liness. A means to fill the days and a way to find the salvation of sleep in a marriage bed suddenly left half-empty. So, yeah, he’d let Mau go with his blessing, and if either of his brothers gave him grief over it… After several weeks of fourteen-and fifteen-hour days he felt brutal enough to knock them both on their Armani-clad asses.

Thinking about that outcome gave him a grim satisfaction as he watched the King Air bank and turn before coming in low on its final approach to the airstrip. The young colt he was training jigged and danced beneath him. And if his pulse skipped in time with his fractious mount, that wasn’t because some rogue part of him remembered the last time one of company planes had sat on the Kameruka airstrip.

The way she’d tried to kiss him. The day she’d sowed the idea of only-sex in his brain.

“Easy boy,” he soothed. “It’s just a big old noisy bird.”
With a big old noisy pilot.

He identified Rafe as the pilot by the way he approached his landing. Not sure and steady like Alex, but in a flamboyant rush.

The colt tossed his head, and with knees and thighs Tomas directed his attention back to the cattle. “We have a job to do, Ace,” he murmured. “Keep your eye on the prize.”

He didn’t turn back toward the strip. He would see his brother soon enough, whether he wanted to or not. And even though this was officially a holiday weekend on Kameruka, with all his staff away at the races or visiting friends or simply sitting it out at the local bar, his time off was this: training a young colt to tail cattle. Later he’d fly a bore check in the station Cessna. And there was a gate hinge to weld on the Boolah round-yard. All the stock horses and dogs to be fed.

Only when he was good and ready, would he return home to his visitor.

The sun had started its descent behind the rugged western cliffs of Killarney Gorge before Tomas returned to the homestead. His narrowed gaze scanned the deepening shadows of the veranda and, sure enough, found Rafe. He didn’t care. He was resigned to enduring his brother’s smart-ass company this evening. In fact, he was looking forward to crossing words if not swords—either would suit his mood. But first, he was looking forward to a long cold beer and a longer hot shower.

“Rafe,” he said in greeting, as he hit the veranda and kept moving.

“Pleased to see you, too. I was getting bored with my own company.”

“No kidding.” He paused with the door half-open. “I’d have saved you the tedium if you’d rung first.”

“You’d have laid on hot and cold running housemaids?”

“I’d have told you Ruby Creek was on.”

Rafe chuckled softly. “I knew that. I’m heading out there in the morning, but I thought I’d spend the night with Mau first. I’m surprised she’s not home yet.”

“She’s over at Killarney, mustering.”

“Better that she’s keeping busy.” No surprise, no censure, barely a pause to digest the news. “I’ll fly down tomorrow and see her.”

“Only if you’ve got a couple of days free. She’ll be out in the back country by now.” And they both knew that no one—not even Rafe—could land a twin-engine there.

“How’s she doing?”

Tomas let the door swing shut and tipped his hat back. “She’s coping.”

For a quiet minute they were in accord, everything else forgotten in shared concern for their mother. Worry that she
may sink back into the same depression as after she lost her baby daughter—their sister—so many years ago. Rafe made a scoffing noise and shook his head. “Why didn’t he just leave her one of the stations to run? That would have made more sense than this grandchild thing.”

“Is that why you think he did it? For Mau?”

“Don’t you?”

Tomas let his breath go in a long sigh. “Yup, I do.”

“Do you reckon it’ll make any difference? That she’ll buy we’re doing this because we want to?”

“Does it matter in the end? If she gets the grandchild to dote on?”

“Point.” Rafe expelled a long, audible breath. “I’ll fly out next weekend to see her.”

Tomas nodded, but he could see there was more going on in Rafe’s head than the fact he’d wasted a trip. He looked almost…pained.

“What are you doing about the baby?” Tomas asked, taking a stab at what bothered his brother’s usual carefree attitude. “Have you decided on a mother yet?”

“There’s someone I’m hoping to bump into at Ruby Creek tomorrow.”

Hence the look of a man headed for the gallows. If he didn’t feel a barrowload of empathy, Tomas would have found his brother’s situation funny—the last of the great playboys forced to choose one woman. He didn’t ask for the lucky lady’s name because the look on his brother’s face reminded him of his own circumstances. Of Angie, who Rafe would have seen as recently as yesterday. It had been over two weeks. She’d said she’d call as soon as she knew. She should have called.

He scowled down at his boots, tried to find the words he needed down there.
How’s Angie? Two simple words,
one question. How hard was that?
Instead he found himself asking, “How’s the hotel business?”

“Booming.” Rafe stared at him a moment. “Can’t say you’ve ever expressed an interest before. Is there a reason? Anything specific you wanted to know?”

Tomas gritted his teeth. Okay, all he had to do was ask. He took off his hat, slapped it against his thigh. “How’s Angie?”