The Ultimate Choice

by Emma Darcy

  Show-jumping was a rich man's sport. But it made no difference to Kelly's burning sense of injustice. Any fair-minded person would have offered her a deal. Something. Anything! But Justin St John's solicitor had left her no leeway to argue her case. She had not paid for anything: not the horses or saddles or horse-truck or vet fees or hay or any other tangibles. All the prize money she won had gone on entrance fees and travelling expenses.

  But it still wasn't fair!

  Kelly belatedly returned the waves of a few people as she passed through the village of Crooked Creek. She spotted Uncle Tom yarning to Judge Moffat outside the courthouse, and hoped the judge wouldn't notice her car going by. He might comment on it to her grandfather-although she hadn't really lied about working late!

  If it was a good chess game they wouldn't gossip much, she argued to herself, and dismissed the niggle from her mind.

  The last few kilometres sped by. Kelly slowed her old Toyota as the road entered the pine forest which enclosed and sheltered the gardens of Marian Park. The avenue was dark and shadowy, and it was like going through a tunnel to another world.

  The beauty and artistry of the grounds surrounding the grand old mansion were unique in Australia. When Kelly had been little it had seemed like a fairyland: the terraces of emerald lawns, magnificent specimens of imported trees-ash, elm, maple, beech, the fascinating topiary work, sunken gardens, statuary, hidden ponds, the wistaria walk, the banks of azaleas and rhododendrons. So much to delight the eye everywhere one turned.

  And nothing had changed over the years. Here it was as if time stayed still. Kelly half expected to spot Henry Lloyd chatting to one of the gardeners, but the timelessness was only an illusion. The Lloyd era was over at Marian Park.

  Sadness dragged at Kelly's heart as she drew the car to a halt under the ivy-covered portico which stretched over the driveway. Suddenly she didn't want to get out and go inside the house that was now occupied by a stranger. Even as she fought down the feeling, the front door opened and a man started down the steps towards her.

  Too young to be Justin St John, Kelly decided, and pushed herself out of the car.

  'Miss Hanrahan?' he greeted her, looking slightly surprised.

  She recognised the voice from the telephone. 'Mr Farley,' she replied with a nod of acknowledgement.

  He was thirtyish, sandy-haired, blue-eyed, his face too weatherbeaten to be that of a city man, and he was dressed in the khaki work-drill clothes that went with the outdoors. He gave her a slightly crooked smile which lent a softening friendliness to his rugged features. He was not unattractive, but Kelly was in no mood to appreciate the looks of any man connected to the enemy.

  'I was expecting someone older,' he said. 'But it's good of you to come.'

  'I expect Mr St John to make it worth my while,' Kelly reminded him with some asperity. She opened the back door of the Toyota. 'Perhaps you would carry that inside for me,' she directed, indicating the interferential which was heavy and cumbersome to handle. And, since Roy Farley was obviously Justin St John's lackey, he might as well earn his keep!

  'Of course,' he said, and treated the machine with conscientious care.

  Kelly picked up her handbag and the ultrasound and followed him. She steeled herself to walk through the home that would never again be a second home to her. But apparently the new broom hadn't swept through the house yet. No changes had been made to any of the furnishings that she could see. Everything was exactly the same. Kelly wasn't sure if she felt relief or resentment.

  It surprised her when she was led to the guest wing. A moment's consideration made her realise that Justin St John would not be using the stairs in his condition. She was ushered into a bedroom where two tables had been arranged for her: one for the equipment, the other draped with a large bath-towel.

  'I trust this is satisfactory?' Roy Farley asked anxiously as he set the interferential down and plugged it into a power-point.

  'It will serve,' Kelly replied.

  He threw her a relieved smile, then knocked on the door to the adjoining bathroom. 'The physiotherapist is here, Justin,' he called.

  'I'll be out in a minute.'

  The voice was deep, with the cultured tone that was undoubtedly the built-in product of a high-class Victorian boarding-school. Kelly might have conceded that it was pleasant, if it had not belonged to the person she had most reason to hate.

  'He's in the spa bath,' Roy Farley explained as he turned back to her. 'If there's nothing else you require, I'll leave you to it.'

  'Thank you,' Kelly said dismissively.

  She glanced at her watch as he left the room, sourly wondering how long Justin St John's minute would be. Not that it really mattered. She would have him just where she wanted him soon enough.

  Conscious that her nerves were tightening now that the confrontation she had planned was imminent, Kelly busied herself plugging in the ultrasound and taking out the bottle of oil and box of tissues from her bag. When she heard the bathroom door click open, she carefully composed an expression of professional detachment and slowly swung around.

  Kelly did not know if her look of detachment remained intact. For some immeasurable length of time her.brain didn't register anything but the image of the man who stood in the bathroom doorway. He was tall and tanned and impressively male; all the more so since he wore only a brief pair of underpants. There was nothing soft about him, and his utter stillness seemed to intensify the power of his presence.

  His hair was straight and black, thick and slightly spiky from the bath steam. The harsh planes of his face converged to give him a strikingly individual look that was compelling rather than handsome, feral rather than civilised. The dimple in his chin was almost incongruous, yet it added an intriguing spice to his strong animal-like quality. His eyes were deeply set and slate-grey: hard and uncompromising and intensely concentrated on her.

  Kelly felt a nerve-tingling sense of familiarity, as if she had seen him somewhere before. But that wasn't possible. There had been no photograph with the fulsome biography which had been printed in the local newspaper. He had been a business leader in Sydney for the last fourteen years. Prior to that, he had lived on the vast and prosperous St John sheep property in Victoria. In his youth he had been a polo player of international standard-one of the very few with a top ten-goal handicap-until an accident had disabled him. Kelly had never moved in polo-playing circles.

  However, one question was now answered. She understood why his orders were obeyed to the letter. Few men would have the nerve to stand up to him. He exuded a raw power that challenged anything and anyone, asserting by nature that victory would be his. Other people's lives might be determined by forces outside themselves, but Kelly felt certain that this man would always determine his own fate.

  For one weak moment she quailed at the prospect of taking him to task for what he had done, but a fiery sense of righteousness burned up her spine, stiffening her backbone and tilting her chin with stubborn pride. No way was she going to bend her head to his might! He might beat her, but she was not going to be cowed by him. Never!

  Kelly wasn't aware of the signals emanating from her-the aggressive lift of her chin, the perceptible tightening of her full, sensual lips, the slight flush that marked her delicate cheekbones, the sudden glitter of battle-readiness in the darkly fringed green eyes-but every nerve in her body bristled as Justin St John's mouth took on a sardonic twist.

  'I wasn't expecting a girl. I've never had one before.'

  Kelly burned at the condescension, and fiercely resented the strong sexuality he exuded. He was not young. She judged him to be in his mid-thirties. But that only made him appear more dangerous. He was too knowing and experienced, and far too self-assured to be attackable from any angle. Nevertheless, she couldn't resist one gibe.

  'You're lucky to get anyone, Mr St John. You're too much of a newcomer for your name to carry any weight around here. And your money isn't the answer to everything,' she said acidly.

  K
elly rued the rash words the moment they were out. They seemed to hang in the air between them for endless seconds, and her pulse did a panicky jig at the sharpened glint of speculation in his eyes. With slow deliberation he shook his head, as if he was mocking her or himself.

  'You are very young,' he said flatly. 'But you're obviously qualified or you wouldn't be here.'

  'Don't worry!' she shot back. 'You'll get the treatment you need.' And deserve, Kelly added privately. 'Can you manage to get up on the table by yourself?'

  His face stiffened at her taunt. 'I'll manage,' he asserted grimly.

  But it obviously pained him to walk. He moved his left leg stiffly, cautiously, and when he finally settled himself on the table he breathed a sigh of relief. Quite clearly he had favoured one leg for years. It was not so powerfully muscled as the other.

  'You'd better tell me the whole story, so I don't get anything wrong,' Kelly said matter-of-factly.

  'My left side was smashed from the waist down. The bones didn't knit properly. There's a lot of pain in the joints. The problem area just now is between hip and thigh.'

  Kelly grimaced to herself. She didn't like feeling any sympathy for the enemy, but she could not bring herself to completely ignore his suffering. She had to do something about it.

  'I'll start with the ultrasound,' she decided.

  He nodded.

  Delicately she moved his underwear away from the joint and spread oil over his taut flesh. The touch of him was oddly disturbing. Repugnant, she told herself, but knew she was shading the truth. His body was that of a superb athlete and, despite his disablement, he was in sleek condition. Her touch seemed to disturb him, too. She could feel his flesh flinching under her hand.

  'Is that hurting?'

  'No,' he growled.

  'How did you get smashed up?' she asked, covering her unease with ordinary curiosity.

  'That's irrelevant,' he answered curtly.

  Kelly tried to repress her irritation over his rudeness. She turned away, using unnecessary vigour in wiping the oil from her hand with tissues before plugging in the ultrasound and switching it on. The small machine was shaped much like a Philips electric razor and about the same size. She began to move it over the joint and muscles.

  'If you feel any heat, tell me,' she instructed.

  'Get on with it,' he growled impatiently.

  Kelly threw him a venomous look. Fortunately his eyes were closed. His whole face had a closed, tight look. Kelly decided to give him ten minutes with the ultrasound.

  She couldn't remember ever seeing a more… interesting male body.

  He made no sound.

  She worked on in silence until the automatic timer clicked off. Then, having wiped the oil from his skin with a few tissues, she fixed the suction cups on to his body: two red, two blue. 'I'm going to switch the interferential on now. Tell me when the pins and needles start.'

  'Give it to me full blast.'

  You'll get it full blast, Kelly silently promised him… after she had finished the job. She turned the dials.

  He made no sound.

  She saw the muscles around his hip joint start to contract. 'That's far enough,' she said.

  He grunted.

  Ten minutes would be long enough for the first treatment, she thought. It would probably also be the last… from her!

  It seemed to be only justice that some defect had been inflicted on him. Something to cut his superiority down!

  Kelly took grim satisfaction in imagining him as the self-centred type who would never give enough of himself to make a relationship work. A sexy body was all he would ever offer. And he'd consider that the woman who shared a bed with him for a while was positively privileged to have the honour.

  Kelly had experienced that before. When she had been at Cumberland College she had been naive enough to fall for a handsome face. But once bitten, twice shy. The sexiest guys were always egotistic and self-centred and didn't care how they hurt you. The nice guys were totally unexciting. How on earth was a girl to find someone just right?

  She stared resentfully at the body stretched out in front of her. It certainly wasn't fair for Justin St John to have everything: looks and wealth and Marian Park and her horses and Grandpa's land!

  Kelly's rage boiled up again. She switched off the interferential and removed the suction cups. She didn't feel like going on with the treatment, but she had principles to live up to even if Justin St John didn't!

  'I'm going to do mobilisations on the hip-joint,' she informed him. 'Tell me when the pain gets bad.'

  'How do you measure pain?' he rumbled.

  'Imagine a scale from one to ten. How does this feel?' She pushed into the warm flesh of his left buttock, finding the top of the femur.

  He grunted. 'One!'

  She pushed down harder.

  'You've just zoomed up to five,' he gasped.

  She eased back a little. The inclination to throw her whole weight on to him was almost irresistible. 'How's that?' she bit out, thinking of her grandfather's misery and her bitter frustration over the horses.

  'Better!' he croaked.

  But the temptation to push on was a malevolent cloud on her mind. She pressed down a bit harder. He groaned. It was then that Kelly knew she couldn't go on. She really did want to hurt him. Horrified at her own driven urge to cruelty, she snatched her hands away from him.

  He looked back at her in surprise.

  'I can't! I just can't!' she cried, appalled and distressed that she could be tempted into taking such a dreadful advantage of anyone, no matter how vengeful she felt. 'That's the end of it!' she snapped, all the more angry with him because she was so upset with herself. 'If it wasn't against my own personal ethics, I'd give you every measure of pain there was, Justin St John! You deserve every bit you get. But I'm not as callous as you, so you can just go on suffering by yourself.'

  His eyes were wide open now, sharply alert and diamond-hard. His arm shot out and a vice-like hand fastened around Kelly's wrist. 'You'd better explain yourself,' he said in a low, dangerous tone.

  It shocked her for a moment, the electric contact of his touch… the frightening sense of being captured by him… the impact of his sudden closeness. Kelly's reaction was all the more intense because of it.

  'Let go of me!' she blazed, then plunged on recklessly, desperate to repel him and his confusing effect on her. 'It's not exactly hard to work it out, is it? I can't trust myself to touch you any longer. I want to rip you apart for what you've done.'

  'What I've done?' His eyes narrowed. He released her wrist and rolled on to his right side, propping himself up on his elbow with an air of suffering patience. 'I see you're bursting to enlighten me, so go ahead,' he invited, his mouth taking on a grim curve. 'This is your chance. Maybe it's the last you'll ever have.'

  CHAPTER THREE

  Kelly folded her arms, needing to wipe away the feeling his hand had branded on her wrist, but not wanting to be conspicuous about it. She fixed Justin St John with a baleful glare and chose her words with bitter precision.

  'The name Hanrahan apparently means nothing to you, Mr St John. You either don't know, or you don't care. But my grandfather and I are the so-called tenants that you wish to evict from our home. A home, I might add, that was built by my grandfather and his father almost seventy years ago. And which has been occupied continuously by our family ever since.'

  She paused for that information to sink in, but there was not even a flicker of reaction on Justin St John's face. His expression might have been carved from granite. His gaze returned hers with the steadiness of a rock.

  'It was presented to me that there were tenants on property that belonged to Marian Park. That they were freeloaders who were not paying any rent,' he stated flatly.

  Blind fury overwhelmed her. She would have hit him if she had been a man. 'How dare you talk of my family like that?' Outrage almost choked her. 'Rent?' she spat out. 'Freeloaders?' she shrieked.

  Her hands flew out in v
ehement dismissal of his argument, and the blazing green daggers of her eyes sliced viciously at Justin St John. 'My family has always paid its way! Always! Of course there wasn't any rent-Henry Lloyd would have scorned to take Grandpa's money. Henry Lloyd was a gentleman…'

  'You are not making any sense,' he cut in impatiently.

  'You want sense?' she shouted at him. 'I bet you had baked lamb for dinner last night. Or grilled lamb. Or lamb stew. Or something lamb!'

  'Yes, but…' He sighed in resignation. 'What has that got to do with anything?'

  'Where do you think it came from?' she yelled at him triumphantly.

  'I have no idea.'

  'From Grandpa! You eat his food. You don't mind taking our best fat lambs, do you? But then you break every agreement ever made. You threaten Grandpa with eviction. What are you trying to do? Kill him?'

  He frowned. 'What is this agreement? What are you talking about?'

  'The agreement between us and Marian Park, that's what! And you haven't heard of it because you wouldn't listen. But you'll listen now, by heaven! The agreement was never put on paper, but my great-grandfather and Henry Lloyd's father shook hands on it. That was all that was necessary. They were men. Men's men! Not like you!'

  Her chin lifted with stormy pride. 'They fought side by side in the trenches of the Somme during the First World War. And helped each other survive the terrible conditions and hardships. They forged a friendship that crossed all barriers of wealth and class. And the word "gentleman" did mean something in those days!'

  The vivid green eyes flashed her scorn at him. 'You might have the wealth to buy Marian Park. And you certainly have the arrogance to think you have class! But you'll never belong here. Not in a hundred years! You're not gentleman enough to clean Henry Lloyd's boots! You set yourself up as lord of the manor, and don't even bother to find out whom you're trampling over.'

  'What was the gentleman's agreement you refer to?' he demanded to know. His voice was even, but there was now a glitter in his eyes that suggested she had struck a nerve.