September Moon

by Candice Proctor

  "Stay," he said, his eyes intent and serious. He slid his hand down to take hers and tug her toward him, wrapping his arm around her in such a way that his hand rested on the small of her back, his fingers still entwined with hers.

  They were so close, his thighs brushed hers and her breasts would have pressed against his chest if she hadn't retained enough sense to flatten the palm of her free hand against the muscled wall of his abdomen and keep some distance between them.

  Her head fell back as she stared up into his hard, shadowed face. They were so close, his energy seemed to flow over her, entrap her, arouse her at some primitive, subconscious level she could not even begin to understand. Simply being this near to him was enough to make her feel warm and tingly, to set her heart to beating faster, to start those treacherous, hungry tremors, way down low in her belly.

  "Stay," he said again, dropping his voice to a whisper.

  Her heart careened wildly. She found she could no longer bear the intensity of his brilliant, glittering stare and dropped her gaze to the buttons of the blue work shirt covering his broad chest. "You promised you wouldn't kiss me again," she choked out.

  "I won't try to kiss you," he said, even as his thumb rubbed sensuously across the backs of her captive fingers.

  It was a simple movement, but dangerously arousing. She knew she should not be letting him do it, but the sensation was too wonderful. And so she hovered, confused, wanting to be right where she was, wishing desperately she had the strength to run away from him and what he made her feel.

  "I promise I won't try to kiss you," he repeated, his voice low and husky, his lips dangerously close to her ear. "Only... stay."

  Keeping his fingers clasped with hers, he began to move his hand in slow, easy circles, his knuckles ranging sinuously up her back, down over her hips. She felt as if she were being swirled away in a moist pool of heat. She forgot to breathe. She forgot everything except for the sensation of his casual caress. In its own way, it was even more seductive than if he had kissed her.

  Her eyes drifted half-closed as she lost herself in the wonder of his touch. Who would have believed that such a strong, rough man could be capable of such gentleness, such tempting tenderness. She ached, she trembled, she burned with the need to press herself to him, to join herself to him. She was practically shuddering with the effort required to stay upright and rigid in the circle of his arm. "I shouldn't have come out here."

  "It's human contact, Mandy. We all need it. You need it." He paused. "I need it."

  "But I don't want this," she said hoarsely. Although what she meant was, I don't want what is happening between us.

  And it was as if he heard what she meant rather than what she said, because he answered, "Neither do I."

  "Then why..."

  "I don't know why." He brought his free hand up to touch her face, his fingers spreading gently over her cheek. She saw the hunger in his eyes. Hunger and anger and a shadow of confusion that matched her own. "But it's happening. I want you, Amanda. And you want me. Only there's something inside you that's stopping you."

  He ran his thumb along her lower lip. "What is it, Mandy? What happened to you in the past that's got you so afraid of letting go again that you charge through life with this beautiful, sensuous mouth of yours crimped down to a thin, sour line? What's made you so bloody afraid to feel anything, except maybe anger and contempt and disdain?"

  For a moment, she couldn't answer him. They stared at each other, his brows drawn together as if in genuine concern, her chest lifting and falling as she fought to control herself.

  "It..." She swallowed. "It has nothing whatsoever to do with anything that happened to me in the past," she lied. "What is stopping me is my maidenly modesty. Common sense. What the French call pudeur."

  One corner of his mouth quirked up in a smile. "At least you recognize that something is stopping you from doing what you want to do."

  Her eyes widened in dismay as she realized he was cleverer than shed given him credit for. She seemed to make it a habit of underestimating him.

  At the sight of her discomfiture, his smile broadened. "You bring this down to a battle of logic, Mandy, and you're gonna lose. Because what I'm arguing for is a fundamental law of nature that keeps the human race going. Whereas what you're advocating is a mere cultural embellishment, by no means universal and probably more observed in the breach than in the practice."

  "That does not mean it is wrong."

  "Maybe." He ran his fingertips slowly, agonizingly, down the tender flesh of her neck in a way that made her suck in an audible hiss of delight. "But what does this tell you? What does your body tell you now?"

  "Please," she whispered. "You must stop."

  But even as she spoke, her free hand stole up his hard chest to clutch at his neck, as if she would hold him to her, as if she could not bear the thought of letting him go.

  "Shhh. Don't fight it, Amanda. Just let it happen." She felt the moist, warm rush of his words caress her ear, and a deli- ciously needy heat clenched deep in her being. Before she could stop herself, she arched against him, pressing the center of that need against him.

  "But this is wrong," she murmured.

  "No." His fingertips did unimaginably wonderful things as they danced down her throat, flicked open the top buttons of her high-necked dress so that he could trace the line of her collarbone. She shuddered, lost in a heated vortex of desire and pleasure.

  Then his lean, strong hand slipped downward to close over her breast.

  She gasped at a sensation so overwhelming she almost cried out. She bucked against him, but he kept his other hand entwined with hers at the small of her back, holding her pressed tight against him. "Tell me what you feel," he said softly, his lips temptingly near to hers. He rasped his thumb across her nipple, and even through the cloth of her dress and chemise, that traitorous nub immediately peaked with want.

  She wrenched her head away from the seductive nearness of his lips and forced herself to stare unblinkingly out over the empty, moonlit plains. She heard an owl hoot in the distance, heard the dry leaves of the gum trees down by the creek whisper in the wind. Yet every fiber of her being remained agonizingly aware of the warmth of his hand on her breast, the power of his body so close to hers.

  "Disgust," she said at last, her breath coming in hard, fast pants. "I feel disgust."

  She heard his low chuckle as he moved his hand in a slow, gentle caress that sent waves of shivering, needy delight coursing through her. "Look at me and say it. If you can."

  Her head swung around, his gaze riveted hers. "I feel... I feel .. ." Her tongue slipped out to moisten her dry lips. He gently worked his fingers, kneading the fullness of her breast, flooding her with fire. "I feel ..." Her breath caught in her throat and she couldn't say it. If she said it, he might stop what he was doing, and she didn't think she could bear that.

  He dipped his head and nuzzled her neck. "Pleasure," he said hoarsely. "What you feel is pleasure, Amanda. And desire. Feel it. Enjoy it. Admit you like it."

  "No."

  "Why not?"

  She clenched at his broad shoulders with both hands, her fingers digging into the work-hardened muscles of his back. She realized dimly that at some point he had released her hand and was no longer holding her to him. But it didn't matter. She was hopelessly, helplessly held captive by her own wanton desire and the exquisite pleasure of what he was doing to her hungry body.

  "Ah, Christ." His voice was a ragged groan. "I didn't mean— But I can't—"

  She squeezed her eyes shut, lost, adrift in the sensation of his hands as they enflamed her tender belly, slid with deli- cious slowness beneath her skirt to run fire up her inner thigh to her—

  With a cry of dismay, she flattened her palms against his chest and pushed, wrenching herself away from him. "Don't touch me there."

  She backed away from him, one hand clenching the open collar of her dress. She realized that at some point he must have loosened her hair, so that
it tumbled wantonly, betrayingly about her shoulders.

  He stood quite still, his hips braced against the garden wall, his legs spread wide, his chest heaving as he drew in air. His eyes were fastened on hers, his face taut with arousal and frustration. "All right," he said. "Not there."

  "Don't touch me anywhere." Her fingers fumbled with her buttons. "You promised you wouldn't."

  He shook his head, his lips slanting into a smile that clutched treacherously at her heart. "I promised I wouldn't kiss you. I don't remember saying anything about touching."

  "If you were a gentleman—" She tried to coil her hair back up, only she seemed to have lost most of her pins.

  "But I'm not, remember?" He pushed away from the wall with a forceful heave that had her skittering backward. "I'm a bloody Australian. And that's exactly why you like me. Because I break all the rules so you don't have to. Which means you can kiss me and let me touch you, and you can get all excited and enjoy yourself, and then afterward you can blame it all on me and tell yourself it only happened because I'm so bloody uncouth and uncivilized and un-English."

  She stared at him. At his work-broadened shoulders and tanned cheeks and sun-narrowed eyes. And she knew he was right. But only up to a point.

  She prayed to God that he never guessed the rest of it.

  Twisting sideways, he snapped a sprig of flowers from one of the plumbagos rioting over the top of the wall, its white blossoms glowing pale and beautiful in the moonlight. Holding the twig, he raised his gaze to hers, his eyes glinting with a teasing challenge. "You can't deny the fact you liked what happened here tonight as much as I did."

  She couldn't, of course. She could only stare at him, wide- eyed and silent.

  He stretched out his hand and she made to jerk back. He said, "No. Hold still." So she stood, trembling, breathless, while he tucked the spray into the loose hair above her ear, then trailed his fingers down her cheek.

  "Ah, Mandy." He sighed. "I don't see the end of this. I wish I did, but I don't."

  "We shall resist our desires, of course." Her voice quavered, but she held her chin determinedly high. "We are both mature enough and strong enough, surely, not to be overwhelmed by our physical inclinations."

  A dimple appeared in one of his cheeks. "Problem is," he said, his hand falling back to his side, "it's not just physical and you know it. If it was, it wouldn't be a problem. For either of us."

  She sucked in a quick, startled breath, although she couldn't have said what shocked her more—the discovery that he knew the dangerous tendency of her wayward affections. Or the implication that his own feelings were more involved than she'd ever imagined.

  He held her gaze for a long, heart-pounding moment, then swung to face the moon-drenched valley below. "You'd better go inside now."

  Tearing her gaze from him, she spun about to walk quickly back to the house. But when she reached the veranda, she couldn't keep herself from pausing, couldn't stop her eyes from darting back for one last look at where he still stood, tall and beautiful, at the edge of the garden.

  She told herself she would make certain nothing like this ever happened again. She told herself she was morally strong enough to resist the obvious weakness of her flesh.

  She had to be. Because there could be no future for them together. Because he was tied to this land, and she was determined to return to England.

  And because somewhere out there lived a woman named Katherine O'Reilly, who was still legally his wife.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  The ghostly sound returned the next evening, then not again until a week later, and then the week after that.

  With everyone, even Chow and Ching, busy with the shearing much of the time, the homestead compound often stood deserted except for Missy and Amanda. During the day Amanda didn't mind the solitude. Sometimes, she and Missy saddled Calypso and Ivory and went for a ride, always being careful to keep to the trail that ran along the creek bed, so that they wouldn't get lost. Other times, they took Missy's lessons out onto the veranda and worked on the little girl's reading and numbers in the fresh air.

  But when the light began to leach from the sky and shadows lengthened across the hills, Amanda found herself growing nervous, waiting to see if that eerie thrumming would begin to vibrate through the air again.

  She was standing on the edge of the veranda, her hand wrapped around a post as she watched faint wisps of clouds gather over the now silent, brooding hills, when something scraped against stone behind her.

  She whipped around. "Oh... Hannah. You startled me."

  The girl pulled out one of the veranda chairs and straddled it backward the way a man might do. "Somethin' wrong?"

  Amanda leaned back against the post and gave Hannah a long, steady look. "As a matter of fact, yes. That is a decidedly improper posture for a lady."

  Hannah's eyes narrowed. "I am not a lady."

  "I won't argue with that," snapped Amanda, her temper worn thin by the intermittent menacing sound and too many nights made sleepless by unsated sexual tension. "But you are, whether you like to admit it or not, a female, and you are growing up. It's past time you learned to at least act like a lady."

  "I told you, I don't want to act like a lady. Why should I? All they ever do is lie around feeling faint because their stays are laced too tight." She tossed her head, sending her loose hair rippling in thick waves around her shoulders. Amanda thought the girl must have washed it since she came up from the woolshed because it shone soft and clean and dark as polished jet. She was already a striking girl, with big brown eyes and a perfectly formed, heart-shaped face. It occurred to Amanda, studying her, that she would grow into a stunning woman.

  "I want to be a stockman or a bullocky when I grow up," she announced. "And I don't see why I shouldn't be able to. I can ride better than Liam and I can crack a whip better, too."

  Amanda stared down at the proud, defiant, miserably unhappy girl, and felt as if something were tearing within her, exposing an old wound. A wound that had scarred over, perhaps, but never entirely healed.

  "My dear Hannah," she said, her voice breaking with barely suppressed emotion as she walked forward to sink into the chair beside the taut girl. "I'm sure you can. I'm sure you've worked very hard to be able to do everything better than any boy your age. I know I did."

  Hannah's head snapped around, her eyes widening as she stared at Amanda in shocked silence.

  "Oh, I don't mean chasing cows and cracking whips. The boys I grew up around didn't do those things. But they did study Greek and Latin, and read philosophy and history and other things considered inappropriate for young girls. Girls in families like mine were supposed to spend their time learning to be agreeable and practicing the piano."

  "You don't play the piano very well," said Hannah, her lips twitching into a reluctant smile. Amanda had continued giving Missy and Hannah instruction at the piano whenever she thought about it. But she didn't think about it very often, and the lessons were usually short and decidedly lacking in enthusiasm on her part.

  She ventured to place her white lady's hand over Hannah's slim brown one, where it rested on the back of the chair. Hannah's hand jerked, but she didn't try to remove it. "I wasn't as brave as you, I'm afraid," Amanda admitted, returning the girl's smile. "I never tried to wear trousers or act like a boy in that way. But I did study all the things I wasn't supposed to. I studied very hard. And I rarely ever practiced my piano."

  "You wanted to be a boy, too?"

  "I thought I did. It took me a long time to realize that what I really wanted was my father's love and approval. He barely seemed to notice my existence, you see. I thought, if only I'd been born a boy who could some day grow up to become a scholar like my father, then he'd have shown more interest in me. He'd have loved me."

  Her voice threatened to break again, but she forced herself to go on. "Except, of course, it didn't work. No matter how hard I studied, I couldn't turn myself into a boy. And I couldn't make my father love me more than
he loved his books and the cold stone buildings of his college."

  "What about your mother? Did he love her?"

  "I don't know," Amanda answered honestly. "She died when I was born. But I don't think he had any great passion for her. I've gradually realized that some men are simply incapable of loving anyone very deeply, and my father was one of them. It didn't have anything to do with who or what I was at all."

  Even as she said it, Amanda knew it had been a mistake. For Patrick O'Reilly, surely, was a man of deep loves and great passions.

  "My father loves Missy. He says he treats her different from me because she's younger and needs more attention. But it isn't true. He never treated me the way he treats her."

  The pain of wanting in the young girl's velvet brown eyes was so naked that Amanda had to turn away from it to watch the shifting wisps of white clouds riding high in the sky. She didn't know what to say. She knew O'Reilly loved his firstborn daughter. But there was no doubt that their relationship was a troubled one.

  "It's because I look like her," Hannah said bitterly. "My mother. Whenever he sees me, he remembers her, and so he hates me."

  "Oh, no, Hannah. Surely..."

  A sad, too-wise smile thinned Hannah's lips. "It's true. Here, I'll show you."

  She pushed off her chair and disappeared inside, only to return a moment later, something clutched tightly in her fist. "Look." She laid an exquisite miniature on the table beside them.