When she didn't say anything, he nodded toward the low branches of a nearby coolabah tree where the trilling song of some unseen bird came in staccato bursts from out to the shadows. From the far side of the creek bed came an answer, loud and shrill.
"Hear that?" he asked.
"Yes," she answered slowly.
"The Aborigines call them deereerees. When they chatter like that, the blacks say they're hurling insults at each other, telling one another their grandmothers died in forks of trees."
A surprised gurgle of laughter bubbled up from within her. "Is that a great insult?"
"Well, wouldn't you think it was?"
She swung her head to look directly at him. "You're unusually friendly with the Aborigines, aren't you?"
He shrugged. "They interest me. And the more I learn about them, the more I find to admire. This is a hard land. Just surviving here is something anyone can be proud of."
She let her gaze run over him, over the worn blue work shirt pulled tight across his broad chest by the way he sat, down to his lean, knife-slung hips and the scuffed toes of his leather boots. She felt her need for him, her love for him, swell within her, hot and painful and sad.
"I don't understand what draws people to this place," she said. "It's too wild. Too raw. Too frightening."
"I don't think it's something anyone can explain. The Flinders either speaks to you—calls to the wildness that heats your blood and the loneliness that howls in your soul—or it doesn't."
They stared at each other. Brilliantly colored cockatoos chattered, and larks trilled their sweet songs from the upper boughs of the red gums and wattles. A dragonfly hovered over the pool, its wings fluttering as the warm wind blew softly around them. O'Reilly's eyes were a fierce, hungry blue. And she realized that they had focused on her mouth.
He shifted his weight, his hand coming up as he leaned forward. He laced his fingers through her free-flowing hair, cupping the back of her head in his palm. "Amanda," he said softly. "I want to kiss you."
Her chest suddenly felt unbearably tight and she sucked in a deep, painful breath, trying to ease it. She could see the want in his face, feel the tension in the fingers that curled around her neck. His head dipped, her lips parted. She waited, unable to move, her gaze caught by his.
She watched his mouth twist up into a funny smile. "Only problem is, I promised I wouldn't," he said. "Which means, you're going to have to kiss me."
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
O'Reilly watched Amanda's throat work as she swallowed, painfully. "I can't," she said.
He let his hand trail down her neck to the open jacket of her riding habit. "I watched you here, this afternoon. I watched you take down your hair and open this tight collar." He ran his finger down between the juncture of her clavicles, and felt her shudder.
"The woman you once were—the woman you still want to be—is awake, Amanda. She's in there, ready to burst out of this drab cocoon you've wrapped around her. But you're going to have to free her yourself."
He saw the torment in her eyes. Saw her head jerk sideways in denial.
And knew she couldn't do it.
He brought both hands up to cradle her face between his palms. "I think it's time we talked about him."
O'Reilly saw her eyes widen with alarm, then shift sideways so that she was no longer looking at him. "I don't know what you mean."
He let his gaze travel over the thin bridge of her nose, her high, pale cheeks, her trembling, vulnerable mouth. "I'm talking about the man who took your virginity."
She flung back her head, her face tight with strain, her fists coming up to slam against his chest. The attack caught him by surprise, knocking him backward. "No," she screamed, her hands blindly pounding his shoulders, his arms. "There was no one. Do you hear me? No one."
He caught her wrists, yanking her forward until her weight
fell against him and he could roll with her and pin her flat on the rock. She tried to rear up, so he covered her with the length of his body. She heaved against him, her breasts pressing into his chest, her belly thrusting against the ridge of his erection.
She went utterly still as the significance of their position dawned on them both.
"Did he force you?" O'Reilly asked, his breath coming in quick pants. She strained against his hold, refusing to look at him, so he raised her wrists high above her head and brought his face to within an inch of hers. "Is that why you're so afraid? Look at me, Mandy; listen to me. I won't hurt you. I promise I won't do anything you don't want me to. If you're afraid—"
"No." He watched her face crumple, her eyes squeeze shut against the tears that welled up anyway. "No, damn you. He didn't force me." She let out a hoarse, ragged laugh that clutched at his heart. "He didn't force me. But I wish to God he had. If he had, then I wouldn't have to live with the knowledge of what I did to myself."
He let go of her wrists, easing his hands down her arms to smooth the tangle of hair away from her face, his fingers gently freeing the fiery strands that stuck to her wet cheeks. He realized his hands were shaking. "So you gave yourself to a man you loved. Is that so wrong?"
She opened her eyes and looked up at him, the gray of her irises dark and luminescent with pain. "Yes. Because he didn't love me, you see." Her beautiful lips curled up into a bitter smile. "Oh, he said he did, of course. He said he loved me and was going to marry me. Only we had to wait. Until he finished university. Until he was of age. Until he could talk to his father."
O'Reilly watched the sad smile fade. "I was so much in love. And I wanted him so badly. So when he said the words I wanted to hear I... gave myself to him. It never occurred to me to doubt him."
She paused, her nostrils flaring as she sucked in a breath. "He didn't even have the courage to tell me the truth himself. I read about his engagement in the paper. It said the arrange- ment was of long standing; the announcement was only delayed because the bride-to-be had been in mourning."
"Amanda. You don't need to tell—"
She jerked her head. "It was all a lie, you see. Everything he told me, everything he promised me, from the very beginning. He knew I wouldn't give myself to him any other way, so he told me what I wanted to hear. And I believed him. Because 1 wanted to. I was such a gullible fool."
"How old were you?"
"Seventeen."
Christ, he thought. So young. So vulnerable. He slid his thumbs across her pale cheeks, gently wiping her tears. "And you've been punishing yourself ever since, haven't you?"
She didn't say anything, just swallowed hard. He felt his jaw tighten in anger at the thought of how she'd been hurt, but he kept his voice gentle. "What do you think, Amanda? That because some lying bastard seduced the loving, trusting child you once were, you have to spend the rest of your life hiding your beautiful body beneath ugly dresses? And covering this wonderful hair as if it were something to be ashamed of?"
He fingered a curl that lay against her breast and heard her suck in her breath in an audible hiss. "Because of that man," said O'Reilly, "you've spent the last ten years doing everything you possibly could to convince the world you're no longer the vibrant, sensual woman you once were." He lowered his head until his lips hovered just above hers. "And pretending to yourself that you don't ever want to feel desire or know pleasure again."
He felt her hands clutch at his upper arms, her fingers digging into the flesh beneath his shirt. "Please don't do this to me," she said, her pupils dilating until her eyes looked black.
"Kiss me, Amanda."
"No. Please ..." But against his chest, her breasts shuddered with her uneven breaths. He heard her moan. Felt her hands slide up his shoulders to tangle in his hair. He watched her lashes flutter. His mouth was only a sigh away from hers.
And she lifted her head and kissed him.
Her lips were soft and sweet and yielding, and the desire he had been fighting to hold in check surged through him hot and demanding and damned near unstoppable. He groaned, grinding the length of his
hard, wanting body against hers, covering her mouth with his. Her lips opened beneath his insistent pressure, and he captured her face between his hands, holding her head steady as he deepened the kiss, sliding his tongue past her lips and teeth, filling her, stroking her, letting his tongue tell her mouth what his body wanted to do to hers.
She whimpered and arched against him, tore at the back of his shirt to jerk it free of his trousers and slide her hands over the bare skin beneath it. Her touch seared like fire, igniting him almost to the breaking point. "Ah, Christ, Amanda," he said on a heavy expulsion of breath.
Her head fell back when his mouth left hers, and he dropped his kisses to the bare arch of her neck. Her skin was soft as petals, her scent as sweet as hyacinths and as arousing as musk. He rubbed his open lips against her wildly throbbing pulse point. Ran his tongue down to where the swell of her breasts showed at the open neck of her riding habit. He swore impatiently and tore at the remaining buttons. Shoving the green cloth aside, he pushed her corset out of his way and opened her chemise to bare her breasts to his hands and his mouth and his hot gaze.
Sighing with wonder, he felt her palms cupping his head, guiding his mouth to her plump, dusky nipples. He flicked his tongue over one and watched it harden, then lifted his gaze to her face as he sucked the aroused tip into his mouth.
She jerked and gasped, her head coming up so she could watch him. He bathed her nipple with his hot tongue while gently kneading her other breast with his hand. Her neck arched, her eyes closed. She squirmed beneath him, thrust her pelvis against him and rubbed, rubbed...
He felt the convulsive tremors begin deep within her, felt them sweep her body, felt her fingers spasm in his hair. And knew that she had found her release.
He had never known a woman to respond so quickly and easily to a man's touch. He watched with awed wonder as ecstatic rapture flooded her face. Watched her closed eyes spasm, her features contort, then still. Slowly, her eyes fluttered open and met his. For a long moment, they stared at each other, each breathing heavily, each trying to come to terms with the unexpected intimacy of what had just happened between them.
Still holding her gaze with his own, he slid back up her body to take her mouth in a long, wet, trembling kiss that went on and on. He released her mouth slowly, reluctantly, coming back to brush her lips with his own one more time before he raised himself on his elbows and looked down at her.
"I want you to come to my bed tonight," he said, his voice husky with arousal.
Her eyes widened and her lips parted, but she didn't say anything.
He tangled his fingers in her loose hair and stole another hot, deep kiss. "I want you," he said, his lips moving against hers. "I want to make love to you."
"I know," she said, her gray eyes calm and solemn. "I want you, too."
He felt a surge of hope. "Then you'll come?"
"I can't."
He didn't realize he'd been holding his breath until he let it out in a painful sigh. He rolled off her to come to a sitting position a few feet away, his head bowed, his chest heaving as he sucked in air. His body was heavy with want, shaking with desire. He knew if he'd kept touching her, kept kissing her, he probably could have brought her to the point that she'd have given herself to him, right here, right now, because the passion had been that strong for both of them. But he didn't want her that way, even if he couldn't exactly say why.
He swung his head to look at her. She had sat up, too. She had already buttoned her habit, and now she was busy winding up her hair. Except that her hands were shaking so badly, half of it had fallen down already.
"Is it because of Katherine?" he asked quietly. "Is that why you won't come? Because I've never divorced?"
Her hands stilled, but she kept her head bent. "No." She reached for one of the pins she'd assembled in a small pile on
the rock beside her. "I suppose it should matter, but for some reason, it does not. She has been gone from your life for so long. And while divorce may be legal, the consequences are always ... unpleasant, particularly when children are involved. I can understand why you have never done it."
She raised her head then and looked at him. Her cheeks were flushed, her eyes overbright, her lips red and swollen from his kisses, her breasts rising round and full. She looked lush, ripe. Ready. At the sight of her, he felt his desire roar through him again. It was all he could do to keep from pressing her back down on that bloody rock and shoving up her riding habit to take her here, now, with the sun hot on her white naked thighs and the air fresh and free around them. The urge to do it was so intense, he almost shuddered with the need for self-control.
He forced himself to look away from her. "Is it because of Mary, then? Because if it is, you should know that I haven't been to town to visit her since you arrived." He stretched out his leg and winced. "Although it might have been better for both of us if I had."
She surprised him by laughing, then sobered almost at once. "No. It has nothing to do with Mrs. McCarthy. It's because ..." She stared out over the pale, sun-seared hills, and he thought he heard her sigh. "It's because you are a part of this land. And I am not."
He went quite still. "What are you afraid of? That if you share my bed, and let your life become tangled up with mine, you might be tempted to stay?"
"Yes."
He reached out and took her hand, entwining his fingers with hers. "Our lives are already tangled. You realize that, don't you?"
Her hand spasmed in his. "Yes," she said softly. "But if I come to your bed, and what we do there should happen to make a baby ..." She eased her hand from his hold. "Well, that's an entanglement we won't be able to break."
"Why not?" he asked harshly, standing up. "Katherine broke it easily enough. As did my mother."
"I'm not like them."
"How do you know?" He stared down at her. Hating her. Wanting her. "You've only been here less than three months."
"I'm not like them," she repeated.
"We'll see."
Missy peeked her head over the edge of the long trestle table spread with her mother's second-best damask cloth and weighted down with plates of cold chicken and turkey, wine truffles and custards, and dozens of other wonders, all carefully covered with net tents to keep out the flies.
Ching had been cooking for three days now, getting ready for the scores of people coming to Penyaka for the after- shearing races and dance. They'd been arriving all morning—- miners from Blinman and Brinkman, station families from as far away as Wilpena Pound and Arkaba. Some of them had come from so far away they'd traveled all of yesterday, just to get here. And none of them had come empty-handed: baskets of apples and fresh bread and jars of quandong jam and barrels of cider and jugs of syrup and cordials were steadily added to the overflowing tables on the veranda, or loaded into carts to be taken down to the shearing shed for the races.
"Why do I have to do it?" Missy whispered to Liam, who crouched just out of sight around the corner of the house.
"Because if you get caught, Ching will just shake his head at you and laugh. But he said if he caught me messin' with any of the food for the party again, he'd come after me with his cleaver."
Ordinarily, threats like that wouldn't have carried much weight with Liam. Except that just that morning, Ching had caught him stealing one of the apple turnovers cooling on the kitchen windowsill, and the Chinese cook had been so put out he'd actually thrown the cleaver at Liam. The heavy, sharp blade had sunk into one of the posts of the kitchen stoop, right above Liam's head, with a lethal thwunk. Liam had been walking timid around the cook ever since.
Missy made a face at her brother, but she knew if she didn't do what he wanted her to, he'd get that mean, hard look on his face that scared her, and he'd call her a chicken and a baby and all kinds of other names that made her want to cry. She figured she could probably take that—at least, Miss Davenport had said she needed to learn not to let it bother her when Liam and Hannah called her names, so she'd been trying. Only Missy had
a feeling Liam wouldn't just call her names; he had a nasty way of twisting her arm that left it red and sore for hours.
She threw a quick glance at the kitchen, then grabbed a whole plateful of jam tarts and ducked between the open French doors behind her. She was halfway across the dining room when Liam passed her, lifted the plate from her hands, and sprinted toward his room. "Liam!" she cried, chasing after him as fast as her short legs would carry her. "At least let me have one!"
Liam didn't break stride. But one of the tarts came sailing through the air. Missy just managed to catch it as Liam's door slammed shut.
She was dawdling on the front veranda, finishing the last of the jam tart, when Mary McCarthy and her son, Tad, drove up in a rattly old-fashioned spring cart with cracked, faded black upholstery and a tired old buckskin mare between the shafts.
Licking her telltale sticky fingers, Missy retreated back through the open front doorway, but she stuck her head around the opening so she could still watch. She liked Mrs. McCarthy. Whenever Missy went into Brinkman with Papa, Mrs. McCarthy always gave her a big, shiny peppermint stick. But Missy hated Tad. He'd punched her in the nose once and made it bleed, and she hadn't even done anything to him. He'd hit her simply because he couldn't get his hands on Liam, and he wanted to pay Liam back for saying Mary McCarthy would spread her legs for any man in the Flinders, as long as he had a charming smile and a big prick.
Missy squirmed at the memory. She hadn't known what it all meant, of course. So as soon as her nose stopped bleeding, she'd asked Papa. Papa had threatened to wash her mouth out with soap if he ever heard her say anything like that again, and he'd taken his razor strop to Liam for saying it in the first place. And then Liam had caught Tad behind the Brinkman Inn, and even though Tad was three years older than Liam, Liam had still managed to twist his arm so hard, it'd broken. That had been six months ago. Liam figured the score was even. But Missy suspected Tad didn't think so.
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