by Kris Pearson
“I thought you had, too,” she hiccupped between sobs. “I thought I was dead any second.”
“Unforgivable,” he said, with another soft kiss, “to find the woman I loved after all these years, and then nearly lose her again.”
xxx
Ellie’s ears heard the words, but it took time for them to register in her stressed and overloaded brain.
The woman he loved?
Fireworks sparked all through her, burning away the pain and fatigue, leaving just his simple confirmation. “The woman you love?”
Her myriad scrapes and bruises throbbed a little less. Even the ankle became bearable.
“The woman I loved from the moment I saw her,” he agreed hoarsely. “God, Ellie, you bowled me over all those years ago in Sydney. You have no idea how I tried to resist you. I really didn’t want to mess up our travelling by having you on my mind the whole time.” He heaved a huge sigh.
She nudged him in the ribs. “I’ve had you on mine ever since.”
He smiled, and stroked her hair back from her dusty face. “I felt the electricity between us the moment I set eyes on you. And you were giving me a good going over in return.”
“I was hidden behind my sunglasses,” she protested.
“Looking straight at me, all the same. I could tell by the angle of your head.”
“You were beautiful,” she said. “The most beautiful man I’d ever seen. I didn’t mean to stare, but I couldn’t stop.”
He dropped a kiss on her brow. “And I didn’t mean to ask you out. But some little devil made me do it anyway. And look where that got us...”
“I wanted you so much. I’d never felt that way about any other man.”
“As I discovered.” He grimaced, looking straight into her eyes. “When I found I was your first lover, I wanted to start the whole evening over. Seduce you gently. Make it wonderful for you.”
He ran his hand through her hair again, and she closed her eyes for a few seconds, absorbing his caress.
“I didn’t seem to need much seducing. And you did make it wonderful, Tony.”
“That was an incredible week. It ripped me apart when you went home.”
“But you had to keep travelling. I knew that.”
She raised her head and nipped his neck. “That’s for going away for so long.”
She kissed the same spot. “That’s for rescuing me just now.”
Then she bit him hard enough to make him jump and swear. “And that,” she said with satisfaction, “is for never mentioning you loved me.” She pushed herself away from his startled face and glared down at him. “Don’t you know that would have made all the difference, Tony? If I’d known you wanted me as much as Cal, I might...might have said yes.”
“You might have? You would have!” His eyes reflected the sudden joy her words brought.
She sniffed. “Only might. Don’t get too hopeful.”
He laughed as she tried to maintain her outraged expression. “Is your heart going as fast as mine?” he asked, slipping a hand under her T-shirt to cradle a lace-caged breast.
Ellie knew her pulse would be thundering under his fingers. “That’s just terror,” she said, smiling.
“Is the other one as scared?” His hand roamed further sideways, gentle and loving. “You’re shaking all over,” he whispered, pulling her against him again to comfort her and reinforce his fervent pledge of love.
She sighed and laid her face against his chest. “You’re still a bit shivery yourself.”
“Reaction to extreme physical effort,” he countered. “I’m not in the least affected by the fact you’ve agreed to marry me.”
“But—”
“Sorry—might have agreed to marry me.”
“Yes, I might. Possibly,” she said, snuggling closer.
“Give me a definite yes or I’ll throw you back over the edge.”
She grinned, and raised her gaze to his. “Dangerous idea, Tony. We’re still tied together.” Her eyes followed the rope back to the shining black dragonfly which sat a little distance away, rotors slowly turning.
“Where you go, I go...?” he suggested.
“Yes please,” she whispered, as the shock of her rescue hit home and tears started to wash pale furrows down her dusty face again. He pulled her even closer as she wept.
“Would it have held us both?” she asked, minutes later, looking sideways at the gleaming machine.
“It weighs well over half a tonne,” he said, relaxing his fierce grip on her. “It can lift a steer. I helped rescue some in the winter floods over on Miller’s Flat. God knows what they thought, poor beasts, slung up and flying through the air.” He smoothed a finger along her eyebrow. “I don’t think the two of us would weigh more than a steer, do you?”
She managed a weak chuckle at the thought of it.
“Frankly I didn’t care, Ellie. It was both of us or neither of us. If we’d dragged the chopper over the edge, at least we’d have gone together.”
He ran a tender hand along her cheek, wiping at the occasional huge tears that still welled from her eyes. “Can you move yet? Can you move at all? We need to get you to hospital.”
“I don’t think I need hospital, Tony. If you wash me off a bit and clean up these scrapes with antiseptic I’ll be fine.” She cast a doubtful glance downward. “I’m sure I can move if I lean on you. I’d better get your local doctor to look at my ankle, I suppose.”
He drew a deep breath. “We’ll see about that. I’m just about steady enough to fly you home now, but I think we should get the air ambulance out for you.”
“Home,” she murmured. “Wharemoana?”
“Of course Wharemoana. Home for all of us. Speaking of which, we need to tell our son...” He let the words hang in the air.
Ellie bit her lip. “How on earth do we do that? He’ll hate me so much. Producing such a wonderful dad for him after all this time. Depriving him of you for so long.”
Tony shook his head. “Don’t look back, Ellie. Let’s go forward. Children are remarkably forgiving. I could tell you stories about the twins,” he added, trailing off and sighing. “Julia and I put them through hell—tried not to of course, but still...”
She reached up and kissed his chin. “Sshhhh. All in the past now.”
A brief flicker of amusement transformed his face. “I’ve got some photos we could show him. You and me together. Looking indecently fond of each other. Found them again the other day when...”
“When you were searching for a Cal lookalike photo to drive me crazy with?”
He nodded. The corners of his mouth twitched again. “Shots that Darren took in Sydney. You and me. That white bikini.” He rolled his eyes at her and she giggled.
“He had some photos printed at a kiosk when we reached London, and there you were again. Magic to have you. To see you really were that lovely.”
“Your tarty redhead,” she teased.
“This,” he said, pulling the tie from her collapsing pony tail, “is a much truer indication of your temperament. Dark and witchy. Full of evil intentions.”
“I am not,” she protested.
“Not any longer,” he agreed, running his hands through her hair, massaging her scalp and aching neck. “Let’s go home, my darling. Our home. I’ve no intention of passing Wharemoana on to Cal for a very long time yet.” He sent her a surprisingly shy grin. “We’ll get Doc Langton to look at your ankle right away. Then tomorrow I’ll collect my son and my mother-in-law-to-be and we’ll all have Christmas here together—unless you’ve anything better arranged, of course?”
“What could possibly be better?” she murmured, attempting to get to her feet. When that proved impossible, she let him gather her up and carry her.
Once he’d settled into her seat and attended to her harness, she watched him unhitching the rope. “Good thing you had that with you.”
“I rescue frisky young heifers from gullies all the time.”
Ellie had no idea whether to b
elieve him. She sat, still trembling, as he coiled it up. “There’s something I haven’t told you. He’s Callum Anthony.”
xxx
Tony swallowed and bowed his head. “I know. He said. It blew me away, Ellie, that you’d do it for me.” His gaze held hers.
“I did it for him as well, Tony. So he’d have something of his dad’s. I didn’t reckon on him ever getting anything else. I tried to find you soon after he was born. From the Electoral Rolls I mentioned. That was really why I wrote the letter. So I could tell you about your amazing new son. About his eyes that were yours, and that he was so beautiful, so healthy. To ask if you wanted to meet him.”
Tony nodded, unable to speak for the moment. Then he managed a lopsided grin and stowed the rope away before seating himself at the controls. “I’m sorry it never reached me, Ellie. Thanks for trying, anyway. It makes things easier, knowing...”
“A pretty feeble effort. But I didn’t have the money for a private investigator. And you weren’t an official missing person, so I didn’t expect the Police would spring into action.”
“You should have done a Google search.”
One of her shoulders rose in an eloquent shrug. “It was a long time ago, Tony. Were you well known enough then? I was scared and poor, and I’d wrecked my mother’s life as well as mine. I was exhausted with the baby and probably not thinking too straight.”
“But you’re thinking straight now? You will marry me? You and Cal?”
She laughed, and reached over to touch his nearest hand. Their fingers curled together. “Yes, I’m thinking straight now for sure. Yes, we’ll marry you, me and Cal.”
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Tomorrow was April the fifth. Ellie’s birthday.
And her wedding day.
Her mother Rebecca now lived in the new house in town—planting up the garden, keeping the bedrooms ready for her daughter and grandson’s visits. And sometimes providing dinner, and possibly more, for a rather nice Mr Plummer who had time on his hands for building trellis arches and garden edgings.
Tony had paid off the mortgage as part of his wedding present to Ellie. She’d expected to be in debt to the Bank for many years, but now the huge worrying weight had been lifted and she was the owner of a freehold property. However much she protested to Tony about his generosity, he simply smiled and said, “I’ve decided the way to make you fly in my direction is to set you free, so that’s what I’m doing.”
The elegant dove-grey suit with the Paris label had been hanging ready in Rebecca’s wardrobe, with the matching shoes sitting neatly below. Ellie looked forward to seeing her trim little mother beautifully dressed for the wedding. She was confident she’d look every bit as smart as Tony’s mother, Louise, who had the money and the opportunity to visit Europe’s top fashion houses.
Mr Plummer had driven Rebecca out to Wharemoana for the pre-wedding party. Tony had assigned them the Blue Room, figuring they were old enough to decide for themselves whether to share the big bed or to make up the folding single as well. Ellie had not dared mention that little detail to her mother.
The grand old house was bursting at the seams with friends and relatives, champagne and happiness.
“Watch me, Dad!” Callum yelled, jack-knifing off the diving board with more splash than panache. Tasha the old spaniel moved out of the way, grumbling. Tony grinned. “Good boy Cal, go higher next time.” He left his parents on pool duty while he went in search of Ellie.
xxx
A fond granny rehearsed two nervous flower girls in their bedroom. “You hold her bouquet, Antonia,” Ginny said. “And you carry her bible, Carolyn—so Daddy can put her wedding ring on. Ellie will turn around and smile at you so you’ll know when it’s the right time.”
Antonia sighed theatrically.
Carolyn picked at a scab on her knee.
“And we’ll wash your hair tonight at bath time so it’s lovely and shiny for tomorrow.”
“You’ve got to fix my wreath on really tight, Grandma,” Caro said. “Libby Halstead’s fell off when she was a flower girl.”
“Do leave that wobbly tooth alone for just a little longer, darling. You don’t want to make a gap for the wedding photos, do you?”
xxx
Ellie looked up from her book as Tony walked into the newly decorated master suite. “Tired?” he asked, bending to kiss her.
She raised a hand and clasped his. The band of antique diamonds flashed and flickered as it caught the light. “Just fancied a few minutes’ peace and quiet,” she replied. “It’s bedlam out there. Are people coping?”
“There are so many of them all trying to help each other that I’ve decided to stay clear, too.” He smoothed her fingers out over his big palm. “Something old,” he said. “Grandma Robinson’s diamonds. She was very proud of those.”
Ellie smiled. One touch of his hand and she wanted his whole body. It was always the same.
“They’re quite something, aren’t they?” she said, voice not entirely steady. “So a pretty dress for my ‘something new’.”
“And your wedding ring. Totally new. Only for you.”
“Something borrowed?”
“I think Ginny has plans there.”
“So that just leaves something blue.”
“I was hoping you might like this,” he said, retrieving a plush jeweller’s box from the top drawer of his tallboy. “Something to match your eyes.”
She eased it open, and gasped at the deep cornflower blue sapphire pendant sparkling on its velvet bed.
“Will it be good with your dress?” he asked, winding tendrils of her hair around the fingers of his other hand, and rubbing his knuckles up and down her neck.
“More than good, Tony. Way more than good. It’ll be fantastic. I can’t give you anything like this in return...” Her voice faltered. This was so one sided. Could he really not see that?
“You’ve brought me everything I could possibly want, Ellie. The woman I loved and very carelessly lost track of. The child I never knew I had.” He produced another much smaller box and placed it on her lap.
“Tony—not more...”
“I thought you’d need some earrings to match?” His eyes danced as she compressed her lips and tried to look exasperated. “Don’t go all prim on me. I enjoy finding you little treats.” He squatted and unhooked one of the silver hoops she wore, and set it aside with her book.
“Now, let’s see...” he murmured, inserting the post of the first sapphire earring into the tiny hole in her earlobe. “It’s such a turn-on, pushing things into your body.” His voice was a husky caress, and she smiled as he secured the butterfly clip to hold the glowing stone in place.
He stroked along the sensitive edge of her other ear before he unhooked the second hoop free. “In fact,” he whispered, “this is giving me ideas. Hold still—you’re shaking. I don’t want to hurt you.”
“I am not shaking, Tony Robinson. It would take more than a little thing like this to make me shake. And you wouldn’t dare hurt me. Not with so many people in the house who might hear.”
“What did you have in mind?” he teased, lining up the second post and sliding it home.
Ellie clenched her thighs together, hoping he wouldn’t notice. She despaired at how easily he made her want to crawl all over him.
“You’re definitely trembling, Ellie, and this is nothing at all.” He slid the catch home on the second earring. “I’ve got something so much bigger as your next treat.”
She glanced sideways at the front of his trousers. The fabric jutted out in a most impressive way. She reached for the zipper.
“Naughty girl—what are you thinking of?” He stepped back out of reach.
Ellie sat rigidly in the chair as he moved behind her and reached down to undo the buttons at the front of her blouse.
He eased it off her shoulders and touched a finger to the strong pulse beating at the base of her neck. “You’re all worked up, Ellie. We’ll have to try and relax you. It’s not
good for a bride to be so stressed the day before her wedding...”
Xxx
He slid her bra straps aside. It was taking all his self control not to rip the clothes right off her. He pushed the lacy bra cups down just far enough to see her nipples. Tight. Pouting out like little sugar-jellies, and just as sweet to suck.
He had only to look at her to want her. Only to want her to take her. And only to take her to want her all over again. She was a never ending temptation. Intoxicating, bewitching. He loved her beyond belief, and tried to remember to tell her so at least once every day.
Raising the pendant from its velvet bed, he laid it over her collarbones, smiling when she caught her breath as the cold platinum mount made contact with her heated skin. He secured the clasp and ran his fingers along her neck. She was as hot as he’d ever felt her. Once again it would be fantastic.
He walked across the beautiful old room and locked the door, then drew the curtains closed so only a little of the late afternoon sun gilded her skin. The sapphires gleamed with blue fire in the subdued light.
She crossed to her mirrored dressing table, and he stood behind her as she pulled the blouse from the waistband of her skirt and laid it on the nearby stool. Then he peeled his shirt off and tossed it over her blouse.
Xxx
Ellie was sure the air vibrated around her as she watched him in the mirror. His broad shoulders and tanned chest made a powerful contrast with her slighter figure. He was utterly, intoxicatingly male...and she was as enthralled by his body today as she had been eleven years ago.
She unhooked her bra, and watched as her pale breasts slipped free into his waiting hands. He rubbed a gentle thumb over each distended nipple and she sucked in a sharp breath.
“Want me, do you?” he asked.
“Only if you’re desperate.” She tried to keep her expression neutral.
One corner of his mouth quirked. He toed off his shoes and pushed them aside.
Ellie stepped out of her skirt and laid it on the growing pile of clothes, knowing he was still watching her reflection, and that all his considerable energies were now concentrated only on pleasing her.