He’d woken the next morning to the anniversary he’d do anything not to have in his life—and he’d spent the night in another woman’s arms. Jenny, darlin’, I’m so sorry!
He’d betrayed her all over again because he didn’t have any self-control when it came to this sassy-mouthed redhead with insights that made him uncomfortable and yearn at once.
If there was one thing he knew, it was that Laila Robbins wasn’t the kind of girl to play around. If he hadn’t noticed the deep, emotional innocence beneath the woman’s ready body and her bubbly, teasing nature at first, he’d known it when he’d made love to her. Though she wasn’t a virgin, there was no way this girl knew the score, or how it went with guys like him.
Her adoring father and brothers’ nickname for her, “Princess,” had been broadcast to the world via the bush telegraph of jackaroos’ gossip. It suited her. She was fair and pretty, in a fresh-faced, outdoor-girl way, with a rich, unconscious femininity in her hip-swinging walk. Smart as a whip, she was studying veterinary science. She was small in stature, yet more than made up for it with her wilful ways, a bundle of repressed energy, irrepressible and outspoken. Why all that made her gorgeous he didn’t know, but all the local guys had the hots for her—
But since the disaster of a party night, he knew better than to think about her at all. So what if it had been the most—the only—beautiful thing to happen to him in five years? He was an angry, jaded thirty-eight to her fresh-and-shining twenty-five or-six. She had a future; he didn’t even want a past.
Laila’s fresh, freckled prettiness was nothing like Jenny’s exotic golden-brown beauty, yet she was like Jenny in her heart. Laila had talked to him, held him—loved him as if he’d mattered. She’d seen beneath the shell of ice he’d put around himself to find the isolated, despairing man within…
“Well?”
At the impudent word, he wheeled away from her tempting scent of sunshine and earth surrounding her like an aura. He hung the pitchfork back up on its safety rack. “I have to get back to work.”
“Didn’t your mother teach you better manners than that?” Her voice had a gentle, husky touch to it. “First you say ‘welcome home, Laila.’”
His mother? He could barely remember when she’d stopped fighting with Dad long enough to teach him anything—and she’d taken off before he’d hit his teens. “Welcome home, miss.” He brushed past without touching her. “Have a nice stay.”
“Jake.” She put a hand on his arm as he stalked out.
It stopped him midstride, like a road train jackknifed in half. The honesty inside that touch—the vulnerability she didn’t hide—hurt him somewhere deep down. A place he hadn’t allowed to be touched in five years.
A place only Jenny had ever touched before.
She lifted her face, her shining eyes searching his in the warm half-light of the barn. She looked so fresh and pretty that he wanted to snarl, to jerk his arm from her hold, but years of control held firm. “Yes, miss?”
“Just one thing,” she said softly. “Do you mean to avoid me for the rest of your life? Is that a message, Jake? Was I just a girl for the night…a way to ease the pain?”
Trust Princess Laila to get right to the heart of the matter—but he couldn’t tell her she was wrong, that he hadn’t even been able to look at another woman since that night. She’d brought warmth to his life, like a burst of summer sunshine reaching the deepest Antarctic, and he wanted, craved more—
Day and night, he craved to touch her, hold her—to betray Jenny’s memory yet again with this girl. Only this girl.
Jake shook her off before his will broke, aching to taint her luminous innocence with dark, destructive desire that could only hurt her, because he had nothing left to give. “I’m the wrong guy to play games with.”
She put her hands on her hips and smiled. “Who says I’m playing games?” Her voice held all the husky promise he’d tried like hell not to dream of since that night.
He turned on her, fire and churning fear in his gut. She’s here again. She keeps coming back, even though I avoid her to the point of rudeness. God help me if she has feelings for me!
Her starry blue eyes filled his vision. Her body’s warmth touched his skin, and temptation hit him with a hard wallop. Temptation to take everything he knew she was offering.
“I say you’re playing,” he growled. “And I say you’re stupid to even think about me.”
Her smile slipped a little. A flash came and went in her eyes; and for all that she was small and fair, he saw Jenny’s face that final day, so valiantly hiding her fear and need for him to stay home while he’d had his mind on muster. We’ll go away when I get back, okay, darlin’? I’ll call you three times a day, I promise.
By the second call Jenny was bleeding, a wild storm had broken, and the Flying Doctors couldn’t land the plane—and he was a two-hour drive from her. When he’d found her, she was unconscious, and it was too late for both mother and daughter.
“Go away, little girl,” he grated, harsh with the emotional and sensual roller coaster he’d been on this morning. “Find a nice boy to flirt with, a kid who’ll let you take your time in becoming a woman.”
“I am a woman, Jake. You know that.” She was soft and provocative, her smile so sweet, his white-hot reaction to her almost sickened him. “I’m old enough to decide whom I want to spend time with. I’ve lived away from home for seven years.”
“You’re a baby,” he shot back. God help him, he had to get her away from him, now. “You’re a protected little princess who likes touching her fingers to the fire. But I’m your worst bushfire. I won’t give you flowers and nice words, promises and a diamond ring. I’ll take you for an hour, maybe a day or two, and then I’ll forget you existed. And when you go crying to Daddy, you’ll know just how much of a kid you still are.” He stood over her, facing her down, and waited for the inevitable reaction.
She gasped and whirled away, her cheeks burning, and the regret at hurting her so badly seared him right through—but he steeled himself against the apology he ached to make. Run away, Laila Robbins. Go and find a nice, safe life without me anywhere in it.
“Fine,” she muttered, her sweet voice strangled. “But don’t tell me to run, because it’s you who’s running. You’re the coward! I’m sorry I ever thought you needed a friend, or—or hoped we could…and I’m sorry I’m—”
She sounded all ripped up inside. Yeah, he’d torn her ego into pieces like he’d shredded Sandy’s letter minutes before.
He ached to put the smile back on her face, take her in his arms, and kiss her like he had that night. But he couldn’t. Hurting her pride now was better than giving in to this madness, and tossing another sweet, hope-filled life on the emotional scrap heap.
“Don’t be sorry, just go,” he said, fighting with his own throat to stop the words coming out with any gentleness or apology. Please, just go…
She dashed at her eyes with the back of her hand. “Have you been alone, hiding from the real life so long that the thought of a woman reaching out to you terrifies you?”
Her unwanted insight made the lump in Jake’s chest expand until it felt like he’d explode. But when she wheeled back, her eyes tear-bright with the humiliation he’d put her through, he knew she hadn’t finished. He had to grit his teeth to stop the apology from escaping his lips.
“I just wanted to know you,” she said, her voice unnaturally calm considering the lingering shadows of pain in her starbright eyes. “I wanted to see the man beneath the ice, to know if—” Her cheeks flushed again, and her eyes blazed. “But you push me away like you push everyone else, never talking to anyone, living in the shadows like a criminal on the run. You’ve got what you wanted…but don’t kid yourself that you’re safer this way. You’ll live the rest of your life alone, you’ll live alone and you’ll die alone!”
She stumbled out of the enormous double doors, back to the sunlight where she belonged. Back to Bathurst and her studies, to a life with a
future.
If she was smart, she’d never come within fifty feet of him ever again.
From the shadows of a barn grown suddenly dark and cold, Jake watched her go, trying to believe he’d done the right thing, for her sake.
But it didn’t feel right. He’d just had another brief glimpse of the sweet sunshine warmth Laila took with her wherever she went—and she’d snatched it from him because he’d forced her to. Because he was too old and scarred and angry and scared for a woman like Laila.
One night with her was far more than he’d deserved. All he’d given her was this. Pain and humiliation. He was all wrong for her, and he always would be.
Now he had no choice but to melt back into the cold, dark shadows he’d walked in the past five years, and he’d stay there until the day he died.
CHAPTER TWO
Almost three months later
THIS was ridiculous, spending hours hiding out in the barn, grooming the horses.
She shouldn’t even be at Wallaby. Wasn’t this what she’d been running from since the time she’d graduated high school? From her teen years, she’d fought the loving smothering of Dar and the boys, who saw her as fragile and in need of their constant care, instead of the tough Outback woman she was. She loved her family dearly, but she wished they could see how much they held her down by rescuing her from every one of life’s emotional bumps and falls.
If she’d had anywhere else to go, she’d have gone. Bathurst was no longer an option: throwing up day and night hadn’t left much room for final-year studies. And since that stage ended, her constant tiredness and unpredictable emotional state didn’t gel with hours spent on her feet waitressing and dealing with the cheerful or obnoxious drunks that came to the steakhouse next to the university.
Faced with inevitability, she’d ached for home, for her family—but they hadn’t stopped invading her space from the day she’d arrived with all her bags. Even Marcie was crowding her, asking day and night what was wrong, and if she could help.
Well, they’re worried because they don’t know why I came home just before my semester exams. Any family would be!
Wallaby didn’t seem like home anymore: it had become the place where he was.
The father of my child…a man I don’t even know.
Laila couldn’t bear to see him. She knew if she were as smart and strong as she pretended to be, she’d get out of here, leave his memory behind her, find another man, and wash this one right out of her hair.
She’d tried to do that, oh, how she’d tried…but even if she’d met a man who fascinated her the way Jake Connors did, she had a daily reminder of their unwilling connection, his humiliating rejection of her. The baby was currently giving her butterfly kisses from inside her womb; and despite her downright terror at the inevitable changes to her life plan, she couldn’t help smiling, and caressing the tiny mound.
My baby.
After months of struggling to keep her pregnancy quiet, she’d lost her job by taking too many days off or coming late to work because she’d fallen asleep again. Then, needing somewhere to belong when Bathurst was no longer a viable option, she’d come home like some hurt creature, hiding out in darkened corners, licking her wounds.
Yet deep inside, with all her stupid, hopeful heart, she knew she’d been praying that sooner or later he would notice her—that he’d care enough to notice her body’s change, since she’d begun to show, and connect the dots.
What happened to all her pride in herself, all her independence?
Jake Connors happened.
Yeah, that…or rather, he was the crux of the matter. All these years she’d thought she’d been experiencing life; now she knew she’d only floated. Oh, it hadn’t been easy. She’d studied hard, worked long hours, and got what she wanted without the backup of the loving, protective father whose enormous shadow she’d fought so hard to escape, especially with men. Men who’d connected her surname to her father, and hoped to get a ride on the gravy train through her.
People look at you because you’re a Robbins. Guys want to date you because you’re a Robbins. You can’t expect a guy to just ignore that, unless he’s as filthy rich as you are.
That day, her life changed forever. She couldn’t even remember the guy’s name, but his words were unforgettable. It was the day her illusions—or rather, delusions—shattered. People, not just men, did look at her as a Robbins, not as a person. Every good exam grade she made had to have been a bought mark; every mistake she made, she was playing the Princess—or soon would, to remain consequence-free. It didn’t matter that she’d never once done any of it. She wasn’t normal, had never been normal, and that was a part of life she had to accept.
Since then, she hadn’t even dared to do the normal university student things, like getting plastered at parties—or getting plastered anywhere. She had enough trouble being taken seriously without letting a single spot ruin what reputation for intelligence she had.
But taking the high ground felt so lonely at times. Oh, she had friends—all three of them. Danni, Jodie and Jimmy. They knew her, loved and accepted her for the person they knew. But with everyone else she felt different, set apart, watched by others, not for who she was, but what she was. She didn’t dare believe she’d ever meet the kind of man she’d dreamed of since childhood—a country boy who shared her love of the Outback and its wild creatures, and would want her without caring what her last name was.
Then in the last place she’d thought to look, she’d seen a man on a horse: a quiet Outback cowboy with the remote, beautiful face, and her deep, long-hidden dreams of womanhood came to the fore. She couldn’t get Jake Connors out of her mind, or stop her body aching for what she’d never known. Cold as ice, mystery trailing behind him, a loner existing in silence—how she’d dreamed that, if he’d only give her a chance, she could heal him of what haunted him.
But with a few words, her delusions exploded in her face for a second time, and with a much higher price than the first time.
Stop thinking about it.
How much chance did she have of that? She was beginning to show. She had to tell someone…everyone.
No—she had to tell him. But until she had the right words to say, until she could think of anything but blurting out I’m pregnant, she stayed out here with the horses.
Ironic, that the one person she wanted to avoid, the person she had to talk to, the one person she wanted to care enough to ask what was wrong, was the only one at Wallaby Station giving her any peace and space…
Stupid! He was never going to ask, never going to care. Why did she still want him to? Why did some crazy part of her keep hoping that she’d been right last time and it was fear of his feelings for her that made him so harsh, rather than the cold indifference she knew it to be?
It was the quietness of her sobbing that got to him.
When he’d heard the Princess was back from college, it was easy enough to avoid her. He wondered why she was home when her exams must be about to begin—but she wasn’t talking to anyone—or so he’d heard.
When he’d heard the gossip—not even he could avoid all of it—that she’d become quiet and withdrawn, he stayed right away. He had enough to do, worrying about fifteen head of Brian Robbins’s valuable Merino sheep that had been lost somewhere on the hundred-thousand-hectare property for the past week. Riding fences every day in the blazing cloudless sky under an early summer sun was no one’s idea of joy, even for a man who preferred being alone. All that space gave a man no choice but to think, to remember.
When she started hiding out for hours each day in the barn, taking over young Colin’s job of grooming the horses instead of riding them as she usually did, he let her invade his sanctum. He had his coffee in the shade under the eaves of the roof outside and ignored her, or rode fences when she did her thing.
It became a daily ritual: let’s see who could avoid each other better.
If she wanted to prove she could go where she wanted, tossing him off his turf,
that was fine. She wouldn’t be here at Wallaby long enough for it to be a problem. And no one else needed to know that at night, he went over the spots she’d missed, or cleaned up the tack. The Princess had a problem and needed space—that was okay. He respected other people’s need for solitude, and he didn’t need much sleep, anyway. He could do the work at night after she’d sat in the stalls all afternoon, trying to sort herself out.
After their last meeting, he’d be the last person she’d suspect was covering for her.
The half-muffled sounds coming from inside the stifling warmth of the barn weakened his resolution—then destroyed it. In her attempts to remain quiet, she sounded so sad—so utterly lonely. It was as if something, or someone, had ripped apart that amazing, bright-as-the-sun spirit of hers, and left, not just her ego, but her whole heart, broken.
Laila Robbins, broken? The girl with the smile like living sunshine and a soul of a wild brumby, was sobbing as if her heart was torn into shreds?
Before he could think it through, Jake strode into the stall where Laila had taken to hiding, determined to sort this out—but at the sight of her, he all but tripped over his booted feet. Her bright hair, loose and tangled, spilled into the mane of the horse she was clutching on to as if her life depended on it. The currycomb was clenched in a hand whose knuckles strained white. Her lithe body was spasming with the sobs she was trying so hard to muffle.
So typically Laila that, even crying her heart out, she remained standing, keeping her pride and strength intact.
“Laila,” he said quietly, keeping a careful distance. “If I could hear you from outside, others will, too.”
With a gasping hiccup, the sobs stopped. Her face, pretty even while it was blotched and swollen, lifted from the mane—but she wouldn’t look at him. “Sorry I bothered you.”
Harlequin Romance Bundle: Crowns and Cowboys Page 16