Cattle Rancher, Secret Son

by Margaret Way

  Just as she thought, he was fast asleep, clutching his favourite teddy bear. Her face softened into an expression of the utmost maternal tenderness. Robbie wouldn’t go anywhere without that bear. His father had promised him the room would be redecorated in any way he liked. Maybe a few lighter touches here and there, but it was a beautiful big airy room with French doors leading out onto a broad verandah. It was a full moon outside; the big copper moon of the tropics. She had to say it affected her.

  She wanted Cal. She wanted him to come to her. She wanted to hear his voice.

  How could you love a man so passionately when he had broken your heart?

  Gently, she closed Robbie’s door. His room had a different view from hers, overlooking the extensive gardens that led to the large stables complex at the rear of the house. Coronation Hill’s homestead was very impressive, she thought. A huge substantial house, it had evolved, so Cal had told her, from the original single-storey stone colonial cottage. One would never have known it. Today it was a lofty two-storey structure with the central section linking two long wings. Obviously the generations of McKendricks had spared no expense developing a homestead that befitted their station.

  She returned to her own room, feeling bruised, emotionally and spiritually. How could this possibly work out? Even Meredith’s developing relationship with the extremely attractive Steven Lockhart seemed heading for a shipwreck.

  “Damn!” she said out loud, giving one of the pillows several good thumps.

  “Bad as that, is it?”

  She looked up to see Cal standing in the open doorway. His handsome face wore a brooding expression. It was obvious he, too, was deeply disturbed.

  “Need you ask?” Another minute and she would have shut her door. Would he have knocked?

  He sighed in a way that told her the events of the evening had well and truly taken their toll. “May I come in?”

  She shrugged. “Shut the door after you. Robbie’s asleep. So tell me what’s happening about Steve? Did you manage to persuade your father to change his mind about sacking him?”

  “I can handle my father,” said Cal, thrusting a hand through his thick mahogany hair. “It’s Steve I’m worried about. Meredith has come back to the house in a hell of a state. Sometimes I think there’s not a guy in the world who would pass first base with Dad.”

  “Meredith can’t live her whole life being dictated to.”

  Cal shrugged. “Of course she can’t. But I don’t think there’s been anyone who really mattered to her up to this date. No one to really push for. Steve would seem to be different. She said he told her he was leaving in the morning.”

  “Oh, no!” Gina looked back at him in dismay. “Have you spoken to him?”

  “I’m giving him some space. Hoping he’ll cool off. He can’t get anywhere until the freight plane gets in around noon.”

  “And Meredith?’

  “What about her?” His jewel-like eyes moved over her, studying her hungrily. The muscles of his thighs tensed as his body stirred. No make-up, long hair tied back at the nape, a shell-pink satin robe sashed tightly at the waist, slippers on her feet. She still looked glorious, he thought with a hot burn of desire that was exposed in his eyes.

  “Is she going to give in without a fight?” Gina’s breathing started to come rather fast. Labour as she might, she still couldn’t keep her physical yearning for him under control. Just to look at him triggered a response.

  “We did, didn’t we?” He suddenly flung himself down on the end of her huge four poster bed, falling backwards with a groan.

  Ohhh! Gina didn’t feel she was any way near strong enough for such temptations. “Why was your father so horrible to Steve?” Autocrat or not Ewan McKendrick’s reaction had seemed excessive.

  “Because Dad can be bloody horrible sometimes.” Cal addressed the ornately plastered ceiling. “For a man like my father, a family liaison with a staff member is verboten.”

  Gina moved well away from the bed. Hadn’t her liaison with him been forbidden? “Mein Gott, German!” she said with a flash of sarcasm. “And the bastard bit? That was appalling. I was shocked.”

  Cal remained lying where he was, as though it would cost him too much of a physical effort to get up. “Steve is the natural son of one of our biggest beef producers,” he explained. “A man called Gavin Lancaster. Lancaster took a fancy to Steve’s mother many long years ago and Steve is the result. He’s so much a Lancaster everyone in the Outback knows.”

  “And Lancaster knows presumably?”

  “Of course.”

  “But he chooses not to recognise his own son?” There was a throb of outrage in her voice.

  “I’m very sorry to say the answer’s yes.”

  Gina felt a great rush of pity for Steve Lockhart. “This Lancaster can’t be a man of character and heart. That’s terrible, Cal. And Steve’s mother?”

  “She was married at the time. Somehow managed to patch the marriage up. The family—he has two half brothers and a half sister—moved to New Zealand when Steve was fourteen. He’s been on his own since. Surprisingly, however, they did put him in a very good boarding school before they left.”

  “Oh, that was nice of them!” Gina scoffed.

  “Wasn’t it? He was with other boys from landed families. That’s how he remained on the land. Love for the land is something that runs deep in the blood. Steve has it.”

  “Poor Steve!” Gina looked towards the moonlit verandah and beyond that the night under stars. “The bar-b-que must have folded. The music has stopped.”

  “I think Dad’s performance put paid to the evening,” Cal groaned. “But they got a good few hours in.”

  “Steve’s in love with Meredith,” Gina said, a poignant expression on her beautiful face.

  “He may well be but he’s a proud man. Come here a moment.” He raised his dark head slightly off the bed.

  “You can’t stay.” She didn’t move.

  “Shall I get out now?” he asked, and gave a low laugh.

  “No, you don’t have to go right now.”

  “Many thanks, principessa!” he mocked. “Bear with me for a little while. That’s all I ask.”

  All? She was near mad for him to touch her. Their sexual attraction was so strong she did right to fear it. Excitement was growing at a great pace inside her. She tried, but failed to keep it down. He knew exactly how to press her every last button. To move nearer the bed, would be akin to going in at the deep end.

  When she was little more than a tentative foot away, he suddenly made a grab for her. “Gotcha!” He pulled her to him with a fierceness that still held an element of cherishing.

  They were both on the bed in one swift motion, he half on top of her, running his hand down her shoulder to her waist to the top of her long slender leg, stopping while he looked deep into her eyes.

  “I finally get you home and it’s all bad news. Well, not entirely. Robbie has the magic key to everyone’s heart. I’m sorry for the way my mother behaved at dinner. I apologise for her. I get mad just thinking about it, but it wasn’t the time to bring on a big family argument. That might have to wait, but you can bet your life she got an earful from Dad.”

  Gina felt like she was about to cry but decided she could not. He lowered his face into her neck, his mouth moving against her skin. “Oh, you smell wonderful! Like a million wildflowers!”

  She could feel the weight of his head on her shoulder. He had his eyes closed, just lying there breathing her in. “Things have got to change, Gina,” he muttered against her skin. “Just hang in there. I’m going to make them change. I know how.” I can’t lose her, Cal thought. Not all over again.

  The ache of tears was in Gina’s throat. She couldn’t help herself. She placed her palm very tenderly against his cheek. When she surrendered, she surrendered. It was part of her nature. What was the point of all this alternating between love and hate? They were tied to one another, weren’t they? They shared their son.

  “G
ina?” He opened his eyes to stare at her. She had never seen eyes like his before she had met him. That amazing jewel-like green. Now she had a child with those same eyes.

  Cal lifted his torso supporting his body with his strong arms. “Would you let me love you?”

  Heat grew to flame. She knew he would be true to his word, giving her the opportunity to say yes, or decline his advances. If she said no would she always look back at this moment and regret it? Or should she open herself up to him? She had kept maintaining the past was best forgotten. She even acted on it, in not implicating his aunt in her banishment from the island. Shouldn’t she look to the future? Shouldn’t she take the first step?

  As if to goad her the voice inside her head said: Because you want it…want it…want it! Sexual needs had their own sovereignty. Her need for him was urgent.

  Cal saw the change come over her. He saw the powerful feelings that drove her. Feelings that left little place for pride or any other consideration. Nothing could stand up against the raw passion they had for each other.

  Gina’s hand came up compulsively and found the buttons of his shirt. She slid them free from their buttonholes. She could smell the special male fragrance of his skin, as intoxicating to her as her fragrance was to him. She could feel his warmth, the texture of the whorls of dark hair on his chest, spearing through it with her fingers while his whole body tensed. She must have been taking too long because abruptly he helped her, stripping his shirt roughly from him and flinging it away.

  His shadow fell over her. He held her hands away as he bent to kiss her open mouth, pouring such passion into and over her she was drenched. Then he was removing her clothes, folding his face into them, and when she was naked his hands began to move over her commanding her body to obey. It was a primitive kind of mastery; dominant male over female, but it was made all the more fantastic because it seemed to Gina to be overlaid with a ravishing tenderness. He wasn’t so much intent on his own pleasure. He was intent on hers.

  “Tell me you can find it within yourself to love me?” His hands enclosed the golden globes of her breasts, the darkening rose-coloured nipples swollen and erect.

  “I did love you.” Her eyes were closed to him, as though open they would reveal too much of herself to him.

  “Or so you said.” His hand began to trace a line from her navel down to the quivering apex of her body with its delicate cleft. He dipped his head and kissed her there.

  Sensations shot through her as keen as a blade.

  She shuddered, her voice barely audible. “I believed all you said to me then.” Her back began to arch and flex. The impact of his mouth on her sex was enormous.

  “But you can’t believe me now?” He took his time over his ministrations, all the while watching her face, a clear barometer for the raging emotions he was arousing in her.

  “All I want is for our son…to…be happy.” She could only gasp out the words, her body was in such a throbbing state of arousal.

  “I don’t matter?” Now his fingers found their way inside her.

  “Of course you matter,” she gasped, her back arching off the bed as he explored deeper. “I can’t talk. I can’t talk.” Sensation was eclipsing everything else, requiring her most intense concentration.

  “You’re going to marry me.”

  His voice sounded deep in her ear.

  “Yes!” she moaned hoarsely.

  He levered himself over her, a lean powerful man yet she couldn’t seem to feel his weight. She adored his body on top of hers. Worshipped it. Now her own hand began to move, certain of what he wanted. She heard with a certain triumph, the harsh catch of his breath.

  “Gina!” He groaned as if he were in the most exquisitely excruciating pain.

  “I’m here!” She carried on tormenting him, until he could scarcely bear it. Then in a galvanic surge he reversed their positions. She was on top of him, her legs locked around him, muscles taut, her long hair tumbling forwards as she bent to kiss his marvellous mouth.

  “Will this pass for love?” she softly taunted, armed with the knowledge in her lovemaking he found her faultless.

  His voice was a near-satiated growl in his throat. “If it isn’t, don’t let it ever end.”

  From long habit Cal awoke in the predawn. The sky outside was a luminous pearl-grey, the horizon shot through with filmy layers of pink, gold and mauve. They were lying spooned together, front to back, her beautiful body curved into his, his arm lying over the top of her, the tips of his fingers resting on her breast. He felt his body instantly react, but first he just wanted to look at her sleeping face, to savour the miracle of her presence beside him. He no longer had just memories to live with. He had the woman. Whatever the difficulties of the past, the difficulties that lay ahead, this part of their relationship was perfect. He couldn’t imagine lovemaking more ravishing. He swore he could hear the beat of her heart. Surely it matched his own?

  She sighed deeply and began to turn, eyelids flickering, a frown shadowing her face, her lips murmuring, “No!”

  His hand tightened over the satin slope of her shoulder. “Gina, you’re dreaming.” He shook her. “Gina?” There was real anguish in that moan.

  A handful of seconds later and she opened her eyes, huge and velvety dark. “Cal!” She looked as if she were still lost in a wilderness of emotions.

  “Are you okay? You were having a bad dream.”

  She shivered though the room was pleasantly warm. “I was back on the island.”

  “So why did it make you want to cry?”

  She stared up into his eyes. “What did you really feel for me then, Cal, what? Please tell me.”

  He pushed her back gently into the pillows. He couldn’t bear to tarnish the memory of what they had.

  She closed her eyes against that telling expression on his face. “I’m sorry.”

  “You should be sorry.” He bent and kissed her. A kiss that seemed to go on and on for ever. “I’m crazy about you,” he muttered as he withdrew his mouth from hers. “Crazed.”

  This time when they made love it couldn’t have been more different from the night before. This time their coming together was more a clash. It was almost as though each was still out for revenge. Unresolved revenge for four long years of pain and grief. Were they damned by all their complex issues? A man could be crazy about a woman without wanting it, without even loving her. Gina had believed herself abandoned at the most crucial turning point in her life. She had had to bring a child into the world without the love and support of its father; Cal felt himself betrayed by the girl, who in the shortest space of time, barely six weeks, had become everything in the world to him. The girl who had the power to destroy his ordered life. The girl who had denied him all knowledge of his son. There were, without question, powerful issues yet to be worked through.

  But physically, they thrashed in the bed together, in an orgy of desire, playing out their past torments while their demons were let loose. Cal thrust into her powerfully, one hand behind her high arching back, her hoarse little cries serving only to drive him on.

  When it was over they lay back utterly shaken by the primitive forces that had taken them over.

  “Did I hurt you?” God, had he intended to, even for a moment? he castigated himself.

  “No, though I seem to have left my mark on you.” She could see her nail marks on his shoulders and on the small of his hard muscled back. “Let’s take a shower,” she suggested, aware her voice sounded as fragile as she felt. “That’s when I can get my breath back.”

  “Here, let me help you.” He rose from his side of the bed and came round to her, the splendid male, lifting her naked body high in his arms.

  Under the warm silver stream of water, she let him cover her with a soft lather of sandalwood-scented soap: over her face, the long stem of her throat, down over her breasts, the smoothness of her stomach, between her legs, right down to her toes. She had thought herself satiated, yet she was trembling all over again, her stomach
sucked in. She realised she couldn’t get enough of him. Quite simply he filled her with passion in every pore of her skin. He was holding her strongly beneath the arms as the torrent of water washed over them; virtually holding her up. Her back was pressed up against the cold, slick tiles. He was moving into her body, moving rhythmically, driving slow and deep until he found her very core. The expression on his downbent dark face glistening with water was heart poundingly rapt.

  Gina had the strangest sensation they were becoming one person. Then all thought was lost in a rush of violent desire.

  Cal had been sitting outside the overseer’s bungalow for maybe ten minutes before Steve drove up. He got out of the station ute, mopping the sweat from his face with the red bandana he had worn around his neck. He walked up the couple of steps with no sign of surprise.

  “I’ve sent Mike and a couple of the boys to bring in the clean-skins at the ravine.”

  “Good.” Cal nodded. “Have you decided what you’re going to do?”

  “I reckon your dad decided that,” Steve said. “Look, would you like a cup of coffee?”

  “I won’t say no.” Cal stood up, both men going inside the comfortable bungalow furnished in a simple palette of white with a turquoise-blue feature wall in the living area to offset the polished timber floor, the big Thai coffee table and the brown leather sofa and matching armchairs. The station had provided all the furnishings. Steve had added a few pleasing touches.

  “Take a seat. This won’t take a minute.” Steve walked into the small kitchen and set to making the coffee with excellent freshly ground arabica coffee beans brought in from New Guinea.

  While the coffee was perking he rejoined Cal, taking a seat opposite him in one of the armchairs.