The Ultimate Choice

by Emma Darcy

  His face relaxed its hard reserve during her passionate recital and his mouth actually curled into an ironic little smile. 'Consider me thanked. Now, if that is all, Miss Hanrahan…'

  'No, it's not all! In fact, I've hardly begun!' Her eyes flashed down to the walking-stick he was leaning on, then up again to challenge him. 'That leg is still giving you pain, isn't it? And don't say it's not my business. You called me in as a physiotherapist and…'

  'And I paid you off,' he cut in with smooth and deadly precision. 'That is my prerogative, Miss Hanrahan.' A ghost of a smile twitched across his face. 'I didn't like the way you… er… wanted to tear into me.'

  'Oh!' Kelly stamped her foot and turned away from him in disgust. She paced the floor in angry agitation, throwing him accusing looks. 'That was before. And you know it. And I didn't do it even when I had most reason to. You're being utterly unreasonable. You know you need treatment. What's wrong with me giving it to you?'

  His expression tightened up again. 'No fault lies with you,' he stated flatly. 'The choice was… is… mine.'

  She flapped her hands in helpless appeal against his intransigence. 'It makes no sense to refuse what I can do for you.'

  'It does to me,' he grated.

  She didn't know why she kept beating her head against what was obviously a brick wall, but a compelling urge to reach him drove her feet forward. 'Please… let me help you,' she implored softly.

  His whole body tensed at her approach. 'Why?' he barked at her.

  Kelly faltered to a standstill a few paces short of him, sensing a resistance so deep that it seemed foolhardy to go on. She actually felt a prickle of danger at the back of her neck. But she ignored the warning signals.

  'Because I want to,' she said with direct simplicity. 'And I don't believe you like suffering pain.'

  'No.' His eyes burned at her with a brief, turbulent glitter. 'No!' he repeated with more vehemence, then wrenched his gaze from hers, lifting it beyond her, fixing it with seemingly anguished obsession on the portrait of Noni.

  Kelly was left hanging in a vacuum, shut out by him but with nowhere to go. Positive action was the only answer her bewildered mind threw up, and she stepped forward and touched his arm in an attempt to force his attention back to her.

  'Why won't you let me help you?'

  His eyes stabbed down with glittering savagery. 'Because you're a child! A child who has cost me too much already!'

  His voice was shocking in its harsh brutality. There was almost hatred in his tone. Certainly bitterness… of a cup that had filled to the brim and overflowed.

  She stared up at him, transfixed by something she didn't understand. Intuitively she was aware that he knew something she didn't… and the knowledge was an old, old agony that washed through him as he stared blindly into her eyes, not seeing the woman she was, but something or someone else. And her heart twisted with an unfamiliar fear.

  He was virtually a stranger. How could he know something about her that she didn't know? Why did she feel tied to him by something she didn't understand? Yet the feeling was there, binding them together. And when he lifted his hand and touched her face…it did not feel like the hand of a stranger.

  A muscle in his jaw contracted. He removed his hand from her cheek and clenched it into a fist before slowly dropping it to his side. The tight, shuttered look came back to his face, closing in all vestige of emotion, and he turned away from her, leaning heavily on his walking-stick as he made his way to the closest armchair. He clutched the backrest as if he needed extra support.

  'Would you please leave? I don't wish to be unkind, but I really don't want you here, Kelly,' he said quietly, his voice very flat and controlled.

  'Somehow I frighten you, don't I?' she blurted out, speaking from instinct rather than any reason she could think of.

  'Yes, you frighten me.' He laughed harshly, and his voice broke into bitter mockery, mouthing words that lashed himself more than her. 'You frighten me very much. Think… if you wish… that I'm running away from you. It's close enough to the truth. The further you are from me, the better. So go away. Go home. Leave me to my own devices.'

  'I've never run from anything in my life,' Kelly said stubbornly. 'And I'm not starting now.'

  'Well…' He rolled the word out grimly as he turned back to her, and the barely controlled ferocity of his expression made Kelly's heart flutter with apprehension. '…let's see if this doesn't frighten you as much as it does me.'

  He tossed his walking-stick aside as if it was no longer of any account. He took her wrist and pulled her into an embrace that crushed her body against his. Kelly was so stunned by the unexpected action that his fingers had thrust through her hair and dragged her head back before she could catch her breath, let alone begin to protest or even think to resist his formidable strength.

  As he bent his head purposefully towards hers, the look of startled vulnerability in her eyes gave Justin St John a moment's anguished pause, and he cursed himself for a fool. He had wanted to kiss her roughly, hurt and intimidate her, so that she would cease this mad confrontation and leave him alone in his world of pain. Give to her some of what she had made him feel.

  But she was innocent of any wrong to him. It had been his choice. His! She didn't know- couldn't know-what hell she wrought, simply with her presence. She had been too young. She would always be too young. Her lips were quivering.

  Just this once. Just this once, he promised himself. I'll give in to the temptation to kiss her just this once, and I swear I'll never touch her again. I'll send her away and make sure she stays away. But just this once…

  Kelly's heart was thumping chaotically. She was barely aware of his hold on her gentling. He was going to kiss her. She felt his lips seal lightly against her own. Surprise and relief swept away the fear that had gripped her stomach. It wasn't a hostile kiss. For some inexplicable reason his intention had changed, and Kelly sensed she had won a major victory.

  A warm pleasure rippled through her. The beguiling sensuality of his lips brushing over hers, the tantalising changes of pressure, the heightened awareness of the feel of his body against hers- Kelly surrendered without a moment's thought to what he was doing to her, and felt a heady glow of something wonderful, super-charged, an infinity of dazzling possibilities.

  He stirred slightly, as if to pull away. She felt the hardening of his body, knew she was exciting him, and revelled in it. She moved one of her hands up to curl around his head and hold him still so she could keep savouring the tingling sensuality of his kiss. But it changed with her willing encouragement, grew more demanding with her eager response, passionate, hungry for all she would give him.

  She pressed closer, excitingly aware of the growing sensitivity in her breasts as they softened against the unyielding wall of his chest. His arms tightened around her, pulling her even closer. She felt every muscle in his body tighten in need, and was deliciously relaxed herself, giving, melting into him.

  In sheer wanton bliss she opened her mouth to his, and exulted in the wildly erotic invasion of his tongue, her senses aflame with a desire she had never experienced before, a need for more and more sensation, intimacy, knowledge, power…all of him!

  His mouth wrenched away from hers with shocking abruptness. A guttural expression of repugnance was expelled on a long, ragged breath. He grasped her upper arms and pushed her from him, forcibly holding her away from any contact with his body. And, while she was still dazed and quivering from the needs that he had aroused, he shocked her even further with the cold, deliberate savagery of a verbal rejection.

  'That's where it ends! You've been taught a lesson. Now go home, little girl. You're out of your depth with me. And always will be.'

  He moved back to arm's length before he finally released her, and the look on his face was that of a condemned man who was seeing the world for the last time.

  As shaken as she was, Kelly defiantly stood her ground. No way was she going to turn tail and run at his command! Nor was he g
oing to frighten her with his assumed violence, or browbeat her in any way. He could not deny what had just passed between them. And it had been the same for him as it had for her. She knew it!

  A film of tears lent a piercing brilliance to her green eyes, stabbing him with wounded but unremitting pride. 'I've just proved I'm not a little girl. And I'm not a child. If you can't handle the fact that I'm a woman, that's OK with me. But let's not get the insults the wrong way around. Are you man enough for me?'

  She paused, taking the time to place her hands aggressively on her hips, stubbornly striking a pose that denied the churning distress that was making jelly of her insides. She could feel her lips trembling and bit them, fighting for more composure before she continued.

  'Why do you have to run away from me?' she taunted.

  His grimace was all bitter irony.

  'Let me make you whole again. Let me help you to walk properly,' she shot at him, desperately seeking to get under his skin. 'I'm not interested in your self-pity! It's the person inside that's important!'

  A bleak weariness dragged over Justin St John's face. He was as unshiftable as granite. 'No more, Kelly. Please go. I trust you don't need me to show you to the door,' he said with tired finality.

  Kelly's chin lifted in determined defiance. 'There is one last piece of unfinished business left between us.'

  The weariness cracked back into ferocity. 'What, for pete's sake? What more can there be between us?' He seemed at the end of his tether and he glowered at her with furious impatience.

  The situation couldn't have been worse, Kelly thought despairingly. But he left her no option. This was the bottom line. No loopholes for bargaining. No room to manoeuvre. Not the slightest chance of any softening-up process, or sliding amicably into the subject.

  She heaved a resigned sigh and spelled it out. 'The horses that you stopped me from riding are more mine than yours. I can't deny that Henry Lloyd bought them, but he bought them especially for me. I chose them, and worked them, and trained…’

  'It was you? You taking the black stallion over the jumps?' His voice sounded half strangled, and all colour drained from his face, leaving it stark with shock.

  Kelly hesitated, uncertain what his reaction meant and hopelessly unsettled by it. 'If you saw anyone riding Rasputin over the practice jumps, it would have been me,' she replied tentatively. 'He doesn't respond to anyone else. But that was before you cut me off from having any more to do with the horses. And that was totally unfair. I tried to see you, to talk to you. But then you were trying to get Grandpa off his land and we had to fight that first…'

  Justin St John's eyes had closed tight and he was shaking his head as though punch-drunk. 'No,' he groaned. 'I can't… I won't…'

  'If you'll please just listen to me…' Kelly begged,

  'No!'

  The harsh negative rattled in her ears, but Kelly couldn't accept it. 'I promise you I won't get in your way. You won't even see me if you don't want to. I'll take--'

  'No! Never!' he yelled at her, angry colour rushing back into his face. His eyes were glazed, fixed with maniacal determination.

  'It's not fair on me. Or the horses,' she cried frantically. 'You can't keep them penned up in the stables. They need…'

  He banged his hands together in violent rejection. 'They can rot there forever for all I care. If I don't shoot them first!'

  The venomous hatred in his voice was like a fist- blow to Kelly's heart. 'You couldn't!' she gasped. 'You wouldn't do that! Those horses are beautiful…truly beautiful!'

  Her stricken look seemed to touch him. He appeared totally distracted for a moment. Then he jerked his body into action and started limping towards the doors that led into the foyer.

  'Go home, Kelly Hanrahan!' he ordered harshly, and the back that was turned to her was rigid and unyielding. 'There is nothing you can say-no words, no sentiments, no pleading that you can think of-that can persuade me to change my mind. As long as those horses are in my keeping, you will never ride them again!'

  Desperation drove Kelly after him. She grabbed his arm, halting his progress. He tried to tear it out of her grasp, but she clung on, forcing him to listen to her. 'You can't mean that!' she begged. 'I've been jumping them for years. It's my life…'

  'It was Noni Lloyd's death!' he retorted, his eyes blazing at her in wild, impassioned accusation. 'Doesn't that mean anything to you?'

  'It was an accident!' Kelly blazed back at him. 'If Noni had been given a second chance, she would have gone on and…'

  He grabbed her upper arms and shook her. 'There was no second chance for Noni! You have your life! Be content with that,' he hissed at her through clenched teeth. 'And there's more to life than show-jumping!'

  Tears welled into Kelly's eyes and she was helpless to stop them from trickling down her cheeks. 'It's all I want to do,' she sobbed. 'All I ever wanted…'

  'Kelly, I'm sorry.' It was an anguished sigh, and without another word he gathered her into a gentle embrace and softly pressed her head on to his shoulder.

  Kelly's heart raced with exultant triumph. He was going to give in. He really liked her. And wanted her. She would talk him around to a sympathetic understanding. They could be together. Learn everything about each other.

  She savoured the wonderful thoughts as he rubbed his cheek across her hair and relished the warmth and strength of him as he heaved another deep sigh.

  'I'm sorry,' he repeated heavily. 'But I can't let you have it, Kelly. Anything, but not that. Not that! If I have to destroy the horses to keep you from them, I will.'

  The sense of betrayal was so sharp, so hurtful, that she whirled away from him and lashed out with all the pulsating torment of her lacerated feelings. 'The trouble with you, Mr Justin St John, is that you've had your own way for far too long! You don't know what it's like to have to struggle in order to succeed.' She shook her fist at him, so overwrought that she barely knew what she was doing or saying. 'Well, I do! And I've worked hard at it. And I'm not going to let you take it away from me.'

  'Kelly, please…

  She saw his strained face through a blur as the idea formed, took hold. However reckless it was didn't matter. 'You've had your say. Now I'm having mine! If you're going to shoot Rasputin, then you're going to have to shoot me as well. I'm taking him away from you.'

  And, before he could reach out a hand to stop her, she turned and ran.

  'Kelly, please- ' He lunged after her but she was too quick for him. 'Stop, Kelly! Come back…'

  The front door was opened and slammed shut, punctuating her headstrong defiance.

  Justin tried to ignore the pain in his leg, but he knew he couldn't make it to the stables without the support of the walking-stick. He almost fell in his haste to scoop it up from the floor. Cursing with the frustration of his disability, he made it to the front door as fast as he could and hobbled down the steps to the driveway.

  She had abandoned her car. He just caught a glimpse of her running figure before she disappeared behind the hedge that lined the right-hand fork of the driveway. Justin had no doubt about her destination. It didn't occur to him to call out for assistance. He wouldn't allow any other man to touch her. Kelly was his responsibility.

  That big black rogue of a horse was just like the one Noni had ridden to her death. How Henry Lloyd had ever allowed Kelly to have him, Justin couldn't comprehend. Blind indulgence! Madness! He had to stop her.

  He should have sold the damned stallion the moment he had started giving the stable-hand trouble. Then Kelly could never have got near him again.

  But he hadn't known it was her!

  His hip was on fire with agony, but he pushed himself on, frantic to prevent the child… no, the girl-the woman… from endangering her life with such foolhardy recklessness. He couldn't let her do it to herself!

  She had left the gate to the stable-yard open.

  Justin quickened his pace, uncaring of what damage he was doing to his leg. A sense of triumph gripped him as he clutche
d the top railing, dragged the gate shut, and shot the bolt home.

  He heard the clatter of hooves on the cement floor of the stable-block, but Kelly was too late now. He leaned against the gate, exhausted, but able to relax, knowing she couldn't go on with this madness.

  Pain swamped over him. But that didn't matter. He had stopped her. She couldn't get out of the yard.

  He heaved himself around to face her, and experienced another wave of shock. She sat on the big black stallion bareback. No saddle. No stirrups for control. Only a halter and the thin strap of reins to hold a horse that measured nearly seventeen hands. The huge, lethal power of the animal was heart-jokingly evident as it pranced with excitable impatience. Sheer horror drained the blood from Justin's face.

  Kelly called out to him before he could recover himself. 'You shouldn't have followed me. That hip is going to need working on. Come and see me tomorrow.' 'Get off that horse!' he shouted with all the force he could gather. 'Be sensible, Kelly! You can't get away now.'

  'Tomorrow. In my office,' she yelled back.

  The horse reared slightly as she gathered in the reins. Justin couldn't bring himself to believe she'd do it. But she was setting the horse for the jump.

  'No!' he screamed at her. 'Kelly, no!'

  But the black stallion was already in stride, heading straight for the gate, picking up speed, urged on by a woman who had lost touch with all reality. She wasn't even wearing a riding-helmet!

  Justin's heart was in his mouth as the horse lifted, but the mighty stallion cleared the gate with space to spare. He landed smoothly, and without the slightest hesitation in his stride raced on down the road, imbued with the heady spirit of freedom.

  Its bareback rider never looked back, never shifted in her seat.