by Valerie Parv
The instinctive way she felt her stomach clench suggested he was right. Yet she’d never felt fearful when she was with Nigel. Perhaps because he’d meant less to her than she suspected could be the case with Blake. With him, there would be no half measures. No easy friendship-and-see-where-it-leads, such as she’d known with other men. He would give her the world, but he would want everything she had to give in return. Now all she had to do was figure out why the notion scared her witless.
She’d scooped up a handful of knives and forks when a prickling sensation on the back of her neck warned her she was being watched. She turned slowly, a cry forming on her lips. She stifled it, seeing Blake standing at the edge of the clearing.
Her heart slammed against her ribs. Not in fear this time. More like excitement. She covered it with a light tone. “I hope you’ve caught dinner because the alternative is freeze-dried Irish stew.”
He held up the glistening fish. “Will this do?”
She whistled softly. “Nice fish. Barramundi, isn’t it?”
He carried it closer. “One of the best eating fish in the Kimberley. Or anywhere.”
She was glad of the mundane conversation giving her time to recover her emotional balance. Finding him watching her when he’d haunted her thoughts only moments before had shaken her more than she wanted him to see. “I’ve eaten it in restaurants.”
“Not the way I intend to cook it,” he assured her.
“I thought that’s my job.”
He stripped a palm leaf from a bush and placed it on the table, setting the fish down on top. “This is a job for an expert.”
She felt laughter dance in her eyes. “That sounds suspiciously like, ‘Me Tarzan, you Jo.’ I’m not sure I like it.”
“Then it’s time you learned your place, woman. Step aside and let the hunter-gatherer…ah…hunt and gather.”
She laughed, relegating the fear to a far corner of her mind. Tonight, she was going to enjoy Blake’s company without complications. “I think you already did that.” She lifted her hands, palms up. “But if you want to slave over a hot campfire, be my guest.”
His gaze narrowed. “Why do I get the feeling I’ve been outmaneuvered?”
“No such thing. You volunteered to cook. I’ll do the cleaning up afterward. Isn’t teamwork important to survival in the bush?”
“It’s important to everything,” he agreed. He lifted a hand and brushed a few strands of hair away from her face. Her heart quickened pace. But he let the hand drop and stepped away. “I’ll start dinner.”
By the time Judy arrived, the sun was low in the sky. Blake had banked up a roaring fire and then allowed the flames to die down before making a pit in the center of the glowing embers. He’d seasoned the fish with butter, black pepper and some bush herbs he’d collected on the way back. Now their meal was wrapped in layers of aluminum foil and nestled on a bed of hot coals with more coals piled on top. At the appetizing aromas, her mouth had already begun to water.
“Hope I haven’t held you up,” Judy said when she joined them. “The problem with the alternator relay was more stubborn than I anticipated, but it’s all fixed now. I brought cold beer.”
Blake straightened from supervising the fire. “You’re a candidate for sainthood.”
Judy rolled her eyes. “You’re only saying that because Jo’s here. He had other names for me when we were kids,” she told Jo.
“I have two brothers. I can imagine,” she replied. “Mine used to baby me, too. It was okay for them to jump off the garage roof and pretend they were superheroes, but I was only allowed to be the wide-eyed girl sidekick.”
“I used to wait until the boys weren’t around before I jumped off the stockyard shed,” Judy confided.
Blake looked up. “So that’s how you twisted your ankle. You told us you’d jumped away from a snake.”
“Well, there could have been a snake waiting below when I jumped off the shed,” his foster sister defended herself.
To Jo, the exchange sounded so much like those she’d had with her own brothers when they were growing up that she felt a flash of homesickness. “When we get together for holidays, we still carry on much the same,” she said.
Judy popped the tops off three cans of beer and handed one each to Blake and Jo. “And we probably always will. Just as long as we agree that everything is their fault.”
“Now wait a minute,” Blake protested.
But Jo nodded full agreement. “Exactly what I tell my brothers. I’ve tried to teach their wives the same rule.”
“Wives are different. They have built-in rose-colored glasses where their menfolk are concerned.”
Blake gestured with his can of beer. “If you two have finished amusing yourself at my expense, the fish is almost cooked.”
Judy changed tracks seamlessly. “Good. I brought a bowl of coleslaw. And the batteries you left with Cade,” she added.
Jo nodded her thanks. “I’m not sure how honestly this can be called a survival exercise when we have modems and cell phones, but they’re a comfort all the same.”
“No sense taking greater risks than you have to,” Blake agreed.
He opened the blackened, foil-wrapped parcel and lifted portions of the fish onto a plate to bring to the table, while Judy retrieved a covered container and a basket of fresh bread rolls from her car.
Blake gallantly pulled a log up to the small table, leaving the folding chairs for Jo and Judy. With the evening chorus of bush sounds around them, Jo couldn’t imagine a finer restaurant anywhere. In the way of the outback, day had tumbled into velvet night with no perceptible twilight in between. Now the stars blazed overhead, their numbers dizzying. Blake had hung a lantern from a tree, and a citronella-scented candle flickered on the table.
Jo lifted her can of beer in a toast. “To the Logan family.”
Blake touched cans with her and Judy. “I’ll drink to that.”
“And to a future for Diamond Downs,” Judy added.
Jo saw Blake’s features tighten but he let them enjoy their meal in peace. Then he said quietly, “Diamond Downs will have a future. You don’t have to sacrifice yourself.”
Judy licked traces of fish off her fingers before answering. “I’m not sacrificing myself. I don’t actually intend to marry Max.”
“What about the wedding night?”
Judy looked angry. “In the first place, that’s none of your business. In the second, Max is the last man I’d sleep with.”
“Does he know that?”
“Of course not. The whole point of the exercise is to let him think he has a chance with me so he’ll reveal how much he knows about the whereabouts of Great-grandpa Logan’s diamond hoard.”
Jo began to stack the plates and cutlery. “Do you think he knows where the mine is?”
Judy passed her plate along. “Thanks to Eddy Gilgai, he knows more than we do.”
“But if Max finds the mine on Logan land, it still belongs to you, doesn’t it?” Jo asked.
Judy inclined her head in agreement. “Unless he forecloses on Dad’s mortgage.” She shot her foster brother a look of appeal. “You must see why I can’t let that happen.”
Blake’s glance included Jo. “We’re doing everything we can to prevent Max taking ownership of this place. I’ve been looking into refinancing the crocodile farm.”
Judy covered his hand with hers. “Oh, Blake, you were so close to having it paid off. This is the shed roof all over again, isn’t it?”
“What?”
“You’d rather hock your home and business than let me play my part.”
“Getting involved with Max Horvath isn’t the answer.”
“Because I thought of it,” Judy said with an exasperated look at Jo. “I don’t plan on marrying the man, only of gaining his confidence and finding out what he knows.”
“Is he likely to turn violent?” Jo asked.
Blake frowned. “That worries me, too. If he finds out what you’re up to, you could be i
n real danger.”
“I can handle Max,” Judy said with what Jo thought might be a touch of overconfidence.
“That’s what Tom and Shara thought, and she almost got herself kidnapped back to Q’aresh and forced into an arranged marriage,” Blake pointed out.
“I’m not taking this lightly,” Judy insisted. “I know Max is desperate for money, and he hasn’t always acted above the law, but I’ll take care, I promise.”
“Like you took care wandering around the creek yesterday morning?” Blake demanded.
Jo saw Judy’s eyebrows go up. “What do you mean?”
“We set up my video camera to film movement around the creek, hoping to catch Eddy or Max up to their tricks with the crocodile.”
Judy traced a pattern on the tabletop with her finger. “Oh.”
“And you can guess who we caught on camera, can’t you?”
Judy lifted her head. “I was hoping to find more information. I should probably have told you what I was doing.”
“Probably?” Blake sounded as if he was about to explode. “If the croc had been hungry, you could have been dragged into the water.”
“But I wasn’t.”
Feeling the need to defuse the situation, Jo stood up with her hands full of dishes. “Can we agree that you won’t sneak around the camp again without letting us know?” she said to Judy.
“The next time I sneak around, you’ll be the first to know,” the other woman promised with a wry smile.
“I’d rather you agreed to keep out of this,” Blake groused at his foster sister.
Judy began to help clear the table. “How can I when my home and family are at stake?”
Blake’s eyes blazed. “Are you suggesting they’re not my home and family, too?”
Judy’s hands stilled. “Oh, Blake, of course I’m not. I didn’t think you had any doubts left.”
A fist clenched around Jo’s heart as she watched the interaction between the siblings. Did Blake want to solve Des Logan’s problems all by himself to prove himself worthy of his position in the Logan family? Did such deep-seated doubts ever fully go away? He’d accused Jo of having hidden fears. It sounded as if he had a few of his own to resolve. Maybe everybody did.
“Judy’s a grown woman. She has to make her own decisions,” she said, speaking from the experience of having brothers of her own.
“This one doesn’t feel right,” he snapped. “I don’t trust Max Horvath any more than I’d trust the crocodile in that creek.”
Judy snapped the lid back on the salad container. “Neither do I. But I don’t have to trust him, just use him.”
“As long as you’re not the one who ends up being used,” he said.
Judy shot Jo a look of triumph. Jo wasn’t sure that Judy had actually won any victories, but her tactic had gained his acceptance if not his approval. In leading Max Horvath on, Jo wasn’t convinced that Judy was taking a safe route, but she understood the frustration driving the other woman to act. Sometimes any action was better than inaction.
“Has Max told you anything useful yet?” she asked.
Judy shook her head. “He showed me a few tiny diamonds he took out of the creek near the hideout cave. Where the Uru artwork is located,” she added for Jo’s benefit.
“We’re going to hike to the cave tomorrow,” Jo informed her. “Should I keep my eye open for diamonds lying around?”
“You have to know what to look for and where. But if Max found the diamonds where he said he did, there’s a good chance the mine itself is somewhere in that region.”
“He first showed the stones to Shara at the foot of the escarpment near the hideout cave,” Blake said. To Jo, he explained, “He and Jamal thought they had Shara cornered so they probably felt they had nothing to lose by letting her see the diamonds.”
Judy smiled at the reminder. “Then the cavalry arrived and we snatched her off Jamal’s plane as it was taking off. It was like a scene out of a movie.”
“Except that this isn’t a movie,” Blake growled. “Max showing you the diamonds as well doesn’t exactly reassure me.”
“He thinks his secret is safe because we’re going to be lovers,” Judy said. When Blake frowned, she touched his cheek. “It’s all right, big brother, I’ll be careful. You never know, you and Jo might find the mine yourselves and give me the satisfaction of telling Max what he can do with his proposal of marriage.”
“Do you think we stand any chance of locating the mine?” Jo asked Blake a short time later as Judy’s car headlights were swallowed up by the darkness.
His face was too deep in shadow for her to see his expression, but his tone left her in no doubt. “I think we have as much chance as Max Horvath has of marrying my foster sister.”
Chapter 9
Awakened from a pleasant dream of being waited on hand and foot in a five-star hotel, Jo groaned as she opened her eyes to predawn grayness. She could just make out Blake standing at the entrance of the shelter. “What time is it?” she asked groggily.
“It’s almost sunrise,” Blake informed her cheerfully. He was dressed in khaki shirt and pants. Outside the shelter, the crackle and pop of flames told her he already had the campfire going.
She levered herself up on her elbows. “This isn’t civilized.”
He shrugged. “It was your idea to hike to the Uru cave.”
“Not mine. My editor’s. Wouldn’t it help to be able to see something when we get there?”
“It will be full daylight in half an hour. The best time to walk through the bush is before the heat of the day builds up.”
She could hardly disagree, and she hadn’t argued when Karen had suggested they walk to the cave when they were planning this assignment. Of course, Jo had been safe in the magazine’s offices in Perth, imagining an easy walk through lush tropical greenery, with an occasional stop at a water hole to cool off.
Arising before dawn to walk through some of the most inhospitable terrain on Earth, with no chance of a swim that didn’t involve the risk of being eaten alive, painted a far less attractive picture.
Still, she had gotten herself into this. And she appreciated having Blake as her guide. She hated to think how she and Nigel would have coped on their own.
She sniffed the air. “Do I smell coffee?”
“Coffee, rolls and the rest of last night’s barramundi,” he informed her.
Since the camp had no refrigeration, Judy had taken most of the big fish home with her and still there had been enough left for breakfast, Jo recalled. She remembered her dream. “No chance of room service?”
“Then I’d never get you out of bed,” he said.
Sometime during the night, she had pushed aside the sleeping bag. Suddenly, she became aware of how much of her long, bare legs her skimpy T-shirt nightgown exposed to his view. Defiantly, she tossed her head. “Some men would consider that a good thing.”
His face was in shadow, but there was no mistaking the appreciation in his voice when he said, “They’d be crazy if they didn’t.”
Desire as hot and fierce as an out-of-control bushfire leapt inside her. She tamped it down by remembering that they’d been in this situation before, and he hadn’t taken advantage of it. Of her. The fear of commitment he’d recognized might stop her from planning anything long term, but it didn’t have to get in the way of healthy, mutually satisfying sex.
At the same time, she knew it wouldn’t work. Blake wasn’t the type to settle for a one- or even several-night stand, however incredible. And she had a gnawing certainty that it wouldn’t be enough for her, either. In fact, the more incredible the experience, the more she would want it to go on and on. Better not start something she wasn’t up to finishing yet.
Damn him for being right, she thought again, and swung her legs over the side of the camp bed. “Give me ten minutes to wash and dress.”
She was ready in less and Blake had a mug of steaming coffee waiting for her. She took it and sniffed appreciatively, savoring the ri
ch aroma. “Why does food smell and taste so much better in the outdoors?”
“Fewer distractions for the senses. And you’re usually more physically active, so your appetite is sharper.”
She took a drink. “My parents used to take my brothers and me camping and fishing when we were kids. Food always tasted wonderful then, too.”
He nodded as if she’d confirmed a theory. “I guessed this wasn’t your first experience camping out.”
She gestured with the mug. “A campground at the beach or in the hills hardly compares with building your own shelter and navigating through unmarked country without getting lost. I gather you had lots of practice at camping after you joined the Logan family. But what about before you came to the Kimberley?”
“Once, although it was more like a forced march with full pack than a camping trip. The caregiver I had at the time was in the army reserve and thought the experience would toughen me up.”
She cursed herself for bringing up what was obviously an unhappy memory. “I’m sorry, I…”
“It’s all right. As the saying goes, what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger.”
“You make it sound as if he was right to treat you like that.”
His shoulders lifted. “Who’s to say? They all did the best they could. I wasn’t the easiest kid to manage.”
“With good reason. No child should be passed around from one home to another.”
From the hot coals he removed two foil-wrapped packages. From one, he took a roll heaped with succulent barbecued fish and handed it to her. “The world is full of injustice. All we can do is work on our corner of it and hope others do the same thing in theirs. Like you’re doing with Lauren.”
Another wave of indignation surged through her. “Lauren isn’t a good cause. She’s my friend.”
He unwrapped a second roll and bit into it before answering. “The best kind of good cause is the one you choose because it benefits you as much as the person you’re helping.”