by Margaret Way
“I don’t want to back out. That’s great!” said Leah, nearly leaping out of her skin with excitement.
“Brilliant!” Angelica added for good measure, pleased at Leah’s reaction. “My own idea of the ceiling in the hall is a featureless plain. You can shape it any way you like but let it reflect the station.”
“I reckon we might get many flowers after the storm. I reckon last night was magic. It shoulda come to nothin’. I’d nearly forgotten what the rain tastes like, all clean and wet. Anyway I can draw flowers easy, the blue, blue sky, big rain bubbles like balloons. Maybe a couple of little kids sittin’ under a tree. Doesn’t have to be real?”
“Put your own stamp on it, Leah,” Angelica said.
By six o’clock the following morning Angelica was down at the stables for her first riding lesson. If it was any help, she thought she was fairly brave, but she knew horses were temperamental as well as majestic creatures. If it came to a battle between her and any horse the horse would easily win. She guessed the secret had to be gentleness and sensitivity. She hoped she might be good at that.
When she arrived, right on time, Jake was already waiting for her. “Sleep in?” The amber eyes swept over her, taking in her appearance. She wore a short-sleeved blue cotton shirt tucked into tight-fitting designer jeans and a fancy silver and turquoise belt. On her head she wore a navy and white baseball cap turned the wrong way, and her thick hair was tied back in a plait.
She glanced at her watch. “Right on time, McCord.”
“You’re very cheeky, aren’t you, for someone just about to have her first riding lesson?”
“I trust you with my life.” She smiled, wondering how it was possible she had developed an enormous attachment to him virtually overnight. Maybe it was all the time she had dreamed of him. The years she had waited to see his unforgettable face in a crowd. An unforgettable face.
“I love the way you say that,” he said, making a move toward her that caused a mad rush of pleasure. But then an aboriginal boy around sixteen emerged from one of the buildings in the huge stable complex, leading a bright chestnut horse.
“Here I am, boss.” The boy laughed as though he and the horse had to be flagged down.
“Thanks, Benny.” Jake, too, laughed as though at some private joke, then turned to give Angelica a faintly mocking look. “Say hello to your mount for the day. Her name’s Ariel. And this grinning character is Benny. I only keep him on because he’s very good with the horses.”
“And I’m great muckin’ out.” Benny squinted up at Jake through the golden sunlight.
“Hello, Benny.” Angelica smiled.
“Pleased to meet yuh, ma’am.” Benny bobbed his curly dark head. “Yuh doin’ pretty good to get the boss to teach yuh,” he offered cheekily.
“The question is why?” Angelica asked.
“I’m curious to know if you’re going to be your usual confident self or you’re going to get jittery.”
Benny smothered a laugh. “Thank you, Benny,” Jake said.
“I’ll be back when you need me. Good luck, ma’am.”
There was so much devilment in those black eyes Angel began to examine the mare more thoroughly, wondering if its real name mightn’t be Psycho. “This couldn’t possibly be a set-up?” she asked thoughtlessly.
He glanced at her, narrow-eyed, as well he might. “I wouldn’t dream of doing anything foolish, let alone potentially dangerous.”
“God no! I’m so sorry. I spoke without thinking. Just tell me what I’m supposed to do.”
“You might look and listen.” He eased off. “As you can imagine the ideal is to be put on a horse before you can even walk.”
“Which, of course, happened to you.”
He turned to gaze at her, looking every inch the imperious male, determined not to surrender to her charm. “I don’t know that I’ve actually met a woman who so enjoyed taking the mickey out of me.”
She shrugged, trying not to laugh. “I’m not going to apologise. Especially when you can be very, very lordly. Anyway, you know what I mean.”
“Yes, I do know what you mean, Miss De Campo, but then, you’re outrageous.”
“So you keep saying, but it feels good with you. For the rest of the lesson I promise to be on my best behaviour.”
“Thank you for that. I’d hate to see you when you’re behaving badly.”
“Surely you don’t want this to lead to an argument?” she coaxed, aware even at this hour of the morning the chemical attraction between them was highly explosive.
“The truth is I want to kiss you madly,” he said with a touch of self-derision, “but we’ll run overtime. Are you going to pay attention?”
She groaned with wry humour. “That’s what I want to do because when you get to know me better you’ll find I’m a very sweet woman.”
He laughed shortly. “I’d prefer if you were—”
“What?” She threw up her dimpled chin. “Go on, Jonathon. I challenge you to tell me what you want me to be?”
“Try being this!” With one arm he reached for her, pulling her to him.
His skin was gold, his eyes were gold and his gaze intense. Heart pounding, she waited for his kiss, the world around them reduced to the power of two. His handsome face taut with emotional pressure, he lowered his head, kissing her so passionately, so possessively, her whole body gave one long rapturous convulsive shudder.
“Jonathon,” she murmured when the world slowly stopped spinning, “don’t do this to me if you don’t mean it.”
“Mean it?” He steadied his voice with an effort. “You want it. I want it. It’s almost as though we have no say in the matter. At least it keeps you quiet for a time.” He allowed himself the luxury of holding her beautiful body close.
He stopped her with one brief hard kiss, and then he looked around as though he’d just remembered where they were. The mare stood quietly, well schooled around humans. “My mother taught me to ride,” he volunteered.
“You don’t hate horses because of what happened to her?” Angelica asked very gently.
“That happened to my father. Not to me. For me riding and horsemanship has been one of life’s greatest pleasures. My mother was a wonderful rider. Before she married—for years when she was a girl—she won many competitions for show jumping. That’s why it was such a terrible irony she was killed in a riding accident.”
“Were you there?”
He stared off across the cobbled courtyard. “I was there afterwards when they brought her in.”
“I’m sorry.” Sympathy gripped her. “This must still upset you.”
“God, yes!” He sighed deeply. “I’ll never forget it to my dying day. Her horse was a glorious animal. Habibah. My father shot it right in front of me. My mother would never have wanted that. It was a terrible accident. It could happen to any one of us.”
“He was out of his mind with grief.” Her beautiful eyes reflected his grief.
“Yes, but I always thought it was cruel and it made him cruel. It was as if another being took him over. There was no life for Stacy. Little enough for Gillian. It’s obvious I look like my mother, but that was no comfort to him.”
“But your father didn’t crush you or your spirit.”
He shook his head, his expression grim. “No matter how hard he tried. Why are we discussing this, Angelica?” He stared into her eyes. “We shouldn’t be when I’m supposed to be giving you your first riding lesson. It’s all about being calm around horses. Not tense.”
“I’m a fatalist,” Angelica said. “I believe what’s to be will be.”
He took hold of her shoulders firmly. “Then it appears to be destiny we were fated to meet again. You’re a woman who can cause extreme emotions. The agony and the ecstasy.”
“I’m afraid that’s what love is,” she pointed out quietly.
“Who’s talking love?” he questioned, looking deeply into her eyes.
“A man can’t grieve over what he doesn’t love.”<
br />
“No.”
“Are you afraid loving might test you too much?”
“Surely it invites terrible vulnerability? A loss of autonomy. Losing the woman one loves can shatter a man’s life forever. I’m not afraid of making a commitment, Angelica. I am afraid of falling in love with the wrong woman. A career-oriented woman, maybe, who’ll go off and leave me. I’m pretty much stuck here. Coori is my life.”
“Hey, tell me something I don’t know,” she tried to tease, though her heart contracted.
“Do you want to hear now or save it for after the lesson?” he asked laconically. “Poor old Ariel is being very patient.”
“Of course she is!” Chastened, Angelica reached out an impulsive hand to stroke the mare’s neck just as he’d been doing for much of the time they’d been talking, but the horse tossed its head and took a few steps back. “Already I’ve done something wrong,” she said in dismay.
“Don’t worry.” His voice couldn’t have been more gentle. “You moved a bit too quickly, that’s all. Put your hand out and let her get your scent.”
This time Angelica took her time and was rewarded when the mare lowered her muzzle into her palm, tickling it with its whiskers and snuffling contentedly. “Isn’t she pretty?”
“Aren’t you pretty,” he said dryly. “You remind me of a high-stepping filly, as Ariel was not all that long ago. I take it you’ve never sat on a horse?”
She shook her head. “Never. I didn’t even have a rocking horse when I was a child. Probably even as a four-year-old my legs would have touched the ground.”
“Well they won’t now. There’s an art to all this, Angel. If you really want to ride and enjoy it you’ll have to make an intelligent attempt to master the correct techniques. I’m going to tell you all about what we call the aids, the means of communicating with the horse. Legs, seat, hands, voice. It’s all about learning to feel what the horse is doing beneath you and influencing those movements. You’ll appreciate it’s the legs that create the power—I assume you’ve been to the races?”
“Not only that, I’ve won Fashions on the Field twice. Though I was runner up first time.”
“What else? You regularly back outsiders that come in at a hundred to one?”
“I’d love to tell you that. The fact is I always lose. So the legs move the horse. The rider’s hands guide it hopefully in the right direction?”
“Is there anything I can tell you?”
“Yes. Are you going to allow me to get into the saddle?”
“If you think you can keep your balance. You have to sit securely and centrally.”
“I can do that,” she stated confidently. “This is going to be exciting.”
“Not on poor old Ariel it isn’t. She’s a quiet, sweet-tempered, well-schooled horse. You’re such a tearaway I’d hate to put you on anything else. Your voice will be a big asset. It’s a voice even a horse would stop and listen to. Your voice tells the horse whether you’re pleased with it or not. An extrovert person such as yourself—”
“Thank you—”
“—can coax a little more out of a quiet horse. I wouldn’t put an excitable person, for instance, on an equally excitable horse.”
Challenge glowed in her dark eyes. “You’re saying I’m excitable?”
“You are when you and I get together.”
She couldn’t dispute that. “It sounds fine—doesn’t it?—fatal attraction, but it’s scary.”
“Especially when my dreams throw up all sorts of scenarios,” he admitted, releasing his breath slowly.
“You dream about me?” She was thrilled and astonished.
It would be so simple to deny it, but he didn’t. It was a step forward for him. “When a man slaves all day, his dreams tend to take off. I’ve dreamt about you, Angel. I’ve even gone so far as to—”
“Don’t tell me.” She flushed.
He stood there in the streaming sunlight looking very handsome, male and mocking. “All right, I’ll let you find out. Now do you want to mount this horse or don’t you?”
She gave her long thick plait an absent flick. “Of course I do. You’re the one doing the flirting.”
“Flirting?” He raised a bronze brow.
“Haven’t you heard the word before? I’m not complaining, mind you. I like it.”
“Then you think you know what you’re doing?”
“Not really,” she confessed, “but I’m no wimp.”
“Hell no! You’re full of spirit. If I gave you a leg up do you think you could swing the other over Ariel’s back? Alternatively we could mount from the fence.”
“Listen, I’m an athlete. One fit, long-legged lady.” She was ready to rise to the challenge.
Moments later she was sitting triumphantly in the saddle, back straight, shoulders square, no suspicion of a slump.
“That was damned good!” he exclaimed in admiration, looking up at her with approval. She was seated comfortably and balanced. It seemed she was a natural.
“Why sound so surprised?” She looked down into his remarkable eyes.
His gaze narrowed and darkened. “I know so little about you, but that, I guess, is all part of the excitement. Teaching you, Angel, is going to be a breeze.”
Which was exactly how it turned out.
CHAPTER SEVEN
DUSK was drawing near. Jake halted in the shade of one of the coolabahs lining a shallow gully to sweep off his akubra. God, that felt good! The cooling breeze ruffled through his sweat-soaked head, bringing some relief. He couldn’t wait to have a long relaxing shower and wash his red-sand-grimed hair. It had been another day of stifling heat yet the sloping grasslands had sprouted tiny purple flowers that rode the tips of the soft cane grass in wave after wave. That was the result of one good downpour courtesy Angel’s exotic rain dance. The inflammatory flamenco encore had been entirely for him and that had brought equally tumultuous results!
The air around him was deliciously scented with wild passion fruit flower. He breathed in deeply, worshipful of this great ancient land. Though the heavy purple passion fruit looked inviting and tasted good, aboriginals on the station refused to touch it. The fruit belonged to one of their spirit beings who didn’t take kindly to having it stolen. Though such an idea half amused him, he rarely ate the fruit himself even when his throat was parched.
It was another remarkable sunset. Fiery-red clouds billowing on the horizon reminded him of atomic mushrooms. Now the sky was turning the colour of smoke shot through with lavender. Galahs above him chewed away contentedly on blossom and leaves, making quite a racket. His black gelding suddenly chose that moment to loudly neigh and the birds took off in a flock of pearl-grey and deep pink, shrieking in protest as they sped further down the quiet lagoon.
Everywhere in this land he loved was colour and movement. Life and death. Coori was a haven for wildlife. Even as he gazed up at the darkening vault of the sky a falcon with its claws spread casually selected a bird from the flock. It curved away with its prey to its nest in the low eroded hills. Falcons never missed. Their speed of attack was amazing. He replaced his wide-brimmed hat and rode on, aware these days there was an urgency in getting home, a feeling of pleasure and heart-lifting excitement.
It was all due to the woman he now thought of as Angel, which just showed how much she was getting to him. She certainly had power. It was extraordinary how having her in the house had made everyone, not just him, come alive. He’d almost forgotten what happiness was like; all but forgotten how beautiful life could be. Sometimes it seemed it was all backbreaking work. Even when he was near exhausted there was the business side of the operation that demanded a lot of his time.
So that was his life. A lot of work. Little time for play and even less time to find himself a wife. This was the common plight of the man on the land, especially when the situation was exacerbated by the remoteness of a cattle station. His womenfolk, Stacy and Gillian, were fragile, he knew. That was the result of the hard loveless years und
er his father when life had almost been reduced to a daily battle. He would be very very different with his own children. That he vowed, even as he feared some terrible tragedy could unleash a latent ruthlessness in him. He was his father’s son after all. He could hear his father’s voice in his own tones. It was true, as Angel had intuited, he feared his own genes.
At twenty-eight he now felt a profound need for a family of his own. He supposed he might be in search of his lost childhood through the eyes of a little son. To have a child, he needed a woman. The right woman. A woman who was capable of being the stabilising centre of family life. In so many, many ways Angel was that woman. She had strength, she had humour and a sunny, positive nature. Combined with all the rest, God knows, all he could think of these days was getting her into his bed, though he knew it wasn’t going to happen without the all important development of trust.
He wanted her and from her passionate responses he couldn’t fail to know she wanted him, but they both knew he had called into question her dignity. Everything really depended on him. He’d known so much uncertainty in his life, his wariness, especially with profound attachments, wasn’t going to disappear overnight. Most likely he was wrong about what he thought he had seen at Carly’s party. Wasn’t he the man endlessly pursuing perfection? In thrall to the unattainable? From a lonely small child the portrait of his mother had kept her alive for him. She remained perfect, a princess. In reality she was a stumbling block when he sought the one special woman to measure up.
Then his eyes fell on Angel, resulting in his having to turn a spotlight on himself and his own emotional difficulties.
At least she was working wonders for Stacy and Gillian. Both were opening out like daisies after a shower of rain. It was Angel who filled the house with laughter and sunshine. She took such joy in everything it had rubbed off on his family. Even Clary, who had given him the impression she was tired of it all and wanted to retire, had found a new lease on life. She’d told him she was having a ball being Angel’s “right hand.”