“Didn’t she?” Cat asked without thinking.
And when his eyes lifted to hers, when their sea-green depths glowed with a wicked lick of heat, she wished she had thought. Wished she’d bitten her tongue and her curiosity.
“Oh, she liked it well enough,” he drawled, and Cat believed she knew why. He would be lethal in bed. As lazy and graceful as that shrug; as knowing and sinful as those eyes.
As hot as the wash of curiosity that streamed through Cat’s veins.
She struggled to contain both the heat and the curiosity. Struggled against the crazy itch to reach out and touch the silky strands of his hair, the extravagant fullness of his bottom lip, the stubbly regrowth of dark beard along the sharp line of his jaw.
Methodically, one by one, she folded the fingers that itched to touch into her palm, forming a loose fist, which she rubbed along her thigh. And she reminded herself what this exchange really meant about this man and his life and his lifestyle. Not for you, Catriona McConnell, not even in your wildest midnight imaginings.
“So you kept her cat,” she said.
“His choice.”
Cat was saved from remarking on Tolstoy’s taste when Sheba trotted back from her short spell of exercise and took immediate exception to Rafe’s presence. “It’s okay, baby,” she soothed while she quietly transferred the puppies to their kennel. “This is Rafe Carlisle and he’s not as big and scary as he looks. He has a cat.”
Rafe gave a half grunt of laughter. It didn’t surprise her that he felt no need to defend himself against the cat-ownership charge. As she’d already noted, his male ego was in excellent shape.
For an oddly comfortable moment they watched the pups jostle for prime positions at their mother’s belly. Odd because she’d thought this might have been awkward in its intimacy…and perhaps it could have been if he’d let the moment, silent but for the muffled sound of suckling, stretch.
Instead he smiled and said, “Hungry little beggars.”
“Lucky they’ve got a good mamma.”
But when she finished securing the gate on Sheba’s pen and turned, ready to get on with her chores, she found him watching her with unexpectedly serious eyes. It jolted her for a second, that expression, the stillness in his big body, the skip of her heart.
But she kept on moving, picking up the hose and turning on the tap, keen to push whatever that moment was about out of her consciousness. “Did you make your phone calls?” she asked.
“Unfortunately.”
His dry tone brought her gaze swinging back to his as she filled the water containers. “Alex wasn’t happy then?”
“Why do you suppose I rang my brother?” he asked slowly.
Cat shrugged. “You mentioned him enough times yesterday. I gathered he owns the plane in my paddock…although you kept calling it a jet.”
“I did?” Uncertainty clouded his expression, bringing his dark brows together in a confused frown.
“After I got you out of the plane,” she explained, “when we were driving back here, you kept repeating yourself. You’d tell me something, then forget and tell me again.”
“Did I embarrass myself?”
Oh, the temptation to tease him! It hovered in front of her, a great big shining orb of enticement, too bright to resist. “I crashed the jet.” She slurred the words, imitating his voice from the previous day. “Alecsh will be pished.”
Rafe winced, and she felt a tiny pang of remorse for teasing him over something so serious. But only a tiny one.
“I gather it is your brother’s plane?”
“No. I hired it in Bourke. Alex’s jet is safe and sound at the airport. I rang and checked.” Expression rueful, he rubbed a hand along his jaw. “If I had crashed the Citation, Alex definitely would have been pissed.”
“If you’d crashed a jet, you really wouldn’t have to worry about your brother!”
A sobering thought, and one Cat didn’t want to revisit. She had no business feeling fright or relief or anything on his behalf. No business feeling anything for the man. He flew a private jet, for heaven’s sake. He hired a light plane the way other mere mortals hired a car or hailed a cab. At the moment Cat would give her eyeteeth for enough cold hard cash to hire a bicycle!
“You hired the Cessna?” she began as she turned off the tap and coiled the hose. She didn’t need to know more about him, but she needed to talk, to consolidate who he was, to chase away the whispery traces of uneasiness that coiled through her gut. Straightening, she found him lounging against the mesh gate of Sheba’s pen looking askance. “After you flew Alex’s jet to Bourke?”
“That’s right. I’d been visiting with my mother.”
“She lives on a station, right? In the Northern Territory? I remember reading that somewhere.”
“Kameruka Downs,” he told her. “We grew up there, my brothers and me. Tomas still lives there and runs the cattle business.”
“I read an article about him in The Cattleman.”
“That’s the one,” Rafe said slowly as their gazes linked. “I guess you’ve read a bit about my family here and there.”
“A bit.”
The classic understatement, Rafe knew, especially when there’d been so much to read in the past couple of months. And when her hazel eyes clouded, when their expression softened with sympathy, he knew she’d been reading that press.
“You lost your father recently,” she said. “I’m sorry.”
Rafe inclined his head in the briefest acknowledgment. Charles Carlisle might not have been his birth father, but he was the only father he’d known.
“How is your mother coping?”
“Barely.” Little point in sugarcoating the truth, not when the gossip media had made a meal of Maura’s “increasingly hermitlike existence” in the month after her husband’s death. As if her choice to live out of the public eye and her decision not to attend his very public and photographed memorial service painted her eccentric. “Although she might have coped better without Dad’s interference.”
“Interference?”
Rafe hadn’t meant to bring this up yet, but since she’d introduced the topic…since she was studying him with such a cute look of befuddlement…why not answer her question? Why not see where it took him? “He had this notion that a grandchild would abbreviate the grieving process.”
Her cute puzzlement turned to a deep frown. “I don’t understand.”
Rafe could appreciate her confusion. Theirs—his and his brothers’—had been considerable. And heated. Their mother’s more so when she found out six weeks later. “When he got sick he added a clause to his will. We didn’t know anything about it until afterward.”
“When the will was read?”
He nodded. “So, we have twelve months to produce a grandchild for Mau.”
“Or you lose your inheritance?”
“Yup.”
Her face was a picture of astonishment as she digested this information, as she sifted through the pieces and put it all together as a whole. “You and your brothers,” she asked slowly, “do you all have to have a baby?”
“The clause specifies only one grandchild among us, but given the short time span and the fact we’re all starting from scratch, as it were…we’re playing the odds.”
They’d made a pact, one in, all in, the same way it had always been between them. No other way seemed fair. No other way gave them the best odds of succeeding.
“So.” She cleared her throat. “How’s that going?”
Rafe laughed dryly. Trust Catriona to cut straight to the chase. “Tomas has a willing lady but he’s being a stubborn fool over it. Alex and Susannah—” he shook his head “—are still trying to find a spare hour in their schedules to get married first.”
She raised her brows.
“He’s a traditionalist.”
“And you? Have you any, um, projects in the making?”
“Why? Are you offering to help me out?”
She laughed and shook her
head. “Funny.”
“Is that what you think?”
Their gazes locked, and the mocking laughter in her eyes darkened, deepened. “Yes, actually. I do think that’s pretty funny.”
“Which part?”
“The part where you can’t find a woman to have your baby. I rather thought they’d be queuing up at your bedroom door!”
“Maybe I’m particular.”
She snorted. “What about your cat lady?”
“A possibility…although her husband might object.”
“Can’t you pay someone?”
“There’s a thought,” he said slowly, consideringly, even though her throwaway line had dripped with sarcasm. “How much would it take, Catriona?”
She stared back at him, her eyes wide and starting to spark with indignation. “I was kidding, you know! Paying a woman to have your baby so you can inherit more money—that’s appalling. It’s just plain…wrong. What would the child—” She stopped cold. Gave a short, strangled laugh. “You weren’t serious, were you?”
“Do you think my mother would want a grandchild from that kind of a union?” he asked.
She wouldn’t. But his mother would want a woman who considered the idea appalling and just plain wrong. A woman who’d stand up with her eyes sparking and tell him so. A woman who managed everything from a concussed stranger to driving through a savage storm to copping an eyeful of naked man without missing a beat.
A woman who held a tiny puppy cradled in her hand and who crooned soft words to the agitated mother.
And Rafe?
He liked that this same woman seemed unimpressed by who he was or how much he was worth. He liked the idea that she had never wanted to do anything but live in the outback and run her property. An independent woman who would let him do his own thing….
Slowly he closed the space between them. “We’re not doing this to inherit more money, Catriona. We want to keep the Carlisle companies in the family, true, but mostly we want to honor our father’s last wish by doing what we can to make our mother happy.”
“You said before she’d be happier without his interference.”
“I said she might have coped better.” He stopped in front of her, not close enough to crowd but close enough to see the responsive skip of pulse in her throat. “Instead she’s worried sick about us doing something harebrained.”
“Harebrained?”
Rafe smiled. “Her word.”
“Like having a baby with an unsuitable woman?”
“Precisely.” He cocked his head and pretended to inspect her intently. Eyes narrowed and wary, she looked right back. “Now you, Catriona, would be quite suitable.”
“Oh, yeah, sure. And will that be just the one baby with you, or one with each of your brothers, too?”
“You don’t want to have kids?”
“Eventually.” She shrugged but the effort looked tense, far from casual. “But not today, thanks for asking.”
“Pity” was all Rafe said, but he smiled at her answer, at her crisp no-nonsense delivery, at the fact that she’d just made up his mind without knowing it. Convincing her would be a challenge, but he loved nothing better than a worthy adversary.
When she tried to step sideways, he moved with her. First left, then right. She exhaled an exasperated breath, stood her ground, and when her eyes met his, they flashed green with annoyance. “What now?” she asked.
“That tree in your yard…”
It only took a second for her to catch up with his abrupt change in topic. “I assume you mean the one that’s not supposed to be in my yard?”
“That’s the one. If you point me in the direction of your chainsaw I’ll take care of it.”
She started shaking her head round about “chainsaw” and was speaking over the top before he finished. “You think I’ll let you loose with a dangerous power tool?”
“You let me loose with a dangerous dish mop.”
“Funny.”
“Come on, Catriona, you can’t shift that monster on your own. Your friend will be here soon to take me away. Why not put me to work while you can? Come on,” he cajoled, leaning closer, smiling into her eyes. Letting his voice drop a half, silky note. “You know you want to.…”
Cat refused to think about what she wanted to do with Rafe Carlisle and his wickedly unsettling suggestions. Since he insisted, she did put him to work, although not with the chainsaw and not without another confrontation. “You were concussed. You should be taking it easy, not doing physical work, let alone with a chainsaw screaming in your ears.”
“Don’t you have any of those Princess Leia ear muffs for protection?”
Yes, but… “You can’t work in those clothes. You’ll snag your pretty sweater.”
He obliged by taking it off. “Better?”
How much longer did she have to put up with him driving her crazy? Less than an hour, she told herself as he stood there before her, all fake innocence and bare-chested beauty.
“What if you scratch yourself on the branches?”
“I’m counting on it.” He grinned wolfishly. “So you can play nurse again.”
Exasperated, she stomped inside and fetched him an old work shirt and insisted he put it on. He did, except the buttons wouldn’t do up, and then he ripped both underarm seams hauling away one of the branches she’d lopped.
“Add it to my bill,” he said after he tore out the sleeves to give himself more room.
He fashioned one into a bandanna, which, combined with the too-small shirt and the ear-muffs, should have looked silly. Not on Rafe. He looked as if he’d walked right out of a diet cola ad. Cat sighed and went back to work with the chainsaw. At least the tree would soon be gone…and so would he. Gone with his smooth-skinned beauty and his nefarious grins and his way of making her laugh and talk and remember what it was to enjoy company.
Making her forget for hours at a time that she had little to smile about.
A pleasant diversion, she told herself. Extremely pleasant to look at and to talk to…up until he started on the baby thing. That whole exchange had left her feeling weird, unsettled, as if she’d stepped off a roller coaster and hadn’t regained her balance. She sneaked a look at him over the decimated remains of the gum tree and felt the same swamping wave churn through her body.
This had nothing to do with muscles that flexed and curved and gleamed with the makings of sweat. This was about the love in his eyes when he talked about his mother, the way he wanted to satisfy his father’s last wish, the obvious bond with his brothers. This was about the dreams for her future that had slipped away with Drew—dreams of the babies she would have to make her own family. This was about all she didn’t have and all she’d thought she’d got past missing and wanting.
Blast.
She turned off the saw and sat back on her haunches to take a breath. To gather herself because she realized she was shaking. Not tremors on the outside, but that same shivery feeling deep inside she’d felt earlier, only more so. Not good with a chainsaw in one’s hands! She pulled her ear protection down around her neck and swiped the back of one hand across her sweaty forehead.
Then she sat up straight, eyes fixed on the vehicle thundering up her drive. Behind her she sensed Rafe’s stillness, as if he, too, had stopped work to watch the four-wheel-drive as it bounced across the last cattle grid and disappeared behind the house.
“That must be Jen,” she said, even though the Porters drove a crew-cab and Jen hadn’t called to say she was on her way. Even though she and her sinking stomach both knew who drove that exact model of Landcruiser. It reappeared, swinging around the back of the house, and she and her sinking stomach both recognized the big bullheaded shape in the driver’s seat.
And so did Bach. He appeared out of nowhere in a rush of snarling outrage, intent on chasing the vehicle to a standstill. Carefully Cat stood, chainsaw in her hands. The idea of greeting her visitor, thus armed, held huge appeal.
“Is his name really Jen?” Raf
e asked at her side.
“No, his name is Gordon Samuels. He’s Jen’s boss and my neighbor.”
“The cowboy’s father,” Rafe muttered, obviously clued in by the sight of Bach, teeth bared, three inches from the driver’s door. Which explained why that door hadn’t yet opened. “I gather you weren’t expecting him.”
“No,” she said with a tight smile. “But if I were a betting woman, I’d lay my last dollar on why he’s graced us with his company.”
“Us?”
Cat’s laugh was short and caustic and had nothing to do with mirth. “You’re right. This isn’t about us. This is about you.”
“I’ve never met the man.”
“I dare say he found out you were here from Bob Porter. And now he’s here to drive you into Bourke because, well, you are a Carlisle.”
Side by side they watched Samuels’s motionless silhouette inside the truck for another crawling minute. “Are you going to call your dog off?” Rafe asked.
“I haven’t decided.”
“I guess it’s a pickle of a choice for you.”
“How’s that?”
“You let your neighbor out and get rid of me. Or you leave him to fester in his own juices and you get to keep me.” Eyes glittering with a dangerous light swung slowly to meet hers. “What’s it going to be, Catriona? Do I go or do I get to stay?”
Five
Catriona met his gaze with steady directness while she appeared to give that choice due consideration. “Tempting,” she murmured, “But…”
Rafe sighed. “There’s always a but, isn’t there?”
“Sadly…yes.”
She called her dog off, and after a couple of minutes in her neighbor’s company, Rafe wished she hadn’t. He’d met a thousand patronizing, self-important, butt-kissing Gordon Samuelses in his time and that was about a thousand too many.
Only too happy to help out a neighbor in need. Would have been here earlier if I’d known Catriona was going to put you to work. Good grief, girl, don’t you know who the Carlisles are? Etc, etc, etc.
Apparently, getting one’s hands dirty and riding with the hired help was beneath a Carlisle’s station in life. Who knew? Still, Rafe accepted his offer of a lift into Bourke in Jennifer Porter’s stead, but only so he could put the man’s toadying to good use. He had questions to ask; he expected to find Samuels bursting with ready answers.
Princes of the Outback Bundle Page 24