Wildcat Wife

by Lindsay Armstrong

  She surfaced, gasping a little, then started to swim strongly for the nearest bank. She didn't see him dive in or surface—didn't hear anything—so couldn't believe how soon it was that she felt a pair of hands grab her feet then haul her into his arms. Once there, although gasping again and fighting furiously, she couldn't doubt that Fraser Ross was in the grip of a towering rage.

  'You blasted, bloody fool—stop it!' he yelled at her. 'You'll get us both drowned.' And, when she still fought, he cursed her again and warned her that he'd give her a clip on the jaw if he had to.

  What stopped her was in fact exhaustion, and he swam back to the yacht with her in the classic life-saver grip. 'Up,' he said grimly, holding onto the stainless-steel ladder that ran down the transom.

  'Fraser...' she panted. 'I...'

  'Up,' he repeated murderously, and gave her a less than gentle shove in an upward direction.

  She crawled up the ladder to collapse on the deck when she got there. But she didn't get much respite because he jerked her to her feet, slung her over his shoulder and took her down the companionway like a rag doll.

  'Don't you ever—' he set her on her feet '—do anything like that again. I never thought you were a fool, Saffron Shaw, but I'm beginning to wonder!'

  He shook her.

  Water streamed off both of them. His dark hair was plastered to his head, his yellow T-shirt was mud-stained.

  Saffron plucked a slimy reed off the front of her blouse and her teeth chattered, although not so much from cold. 'We're m-making a mess on the c-carpet.'

  'To hell with the carpet.' He shook her again.

  'That's...that's very pirate-like, Fraser, but would you mind not doing it again? You're giving me a headache.'

  'No pirate in his right mind would want to be saddled with you.''

  'I could have told you that.' She wiped her face with her hands, brushing her hair back at the same time, then grimacing at the shower of drips she created. 'What...what are you doing?''

  'Ripping your blouse off,' he said through his teeth as buttons sprayed everywhere. 'You've just reactivated my buccaneer tendencies, Saffron—and don't look like that. You surely didn't think I'd let you swim away to heaven knows what fate in the Coomera river? Here.' He pulled the blouse off her, opened a cupboard and handed her a towel from it. 'Take your trousers off.'

  'If you're suggesting I asked for this—' She stopped abruptly, but only because he was taking her trousers off for her. 'I can do it,' she panted as their hands tangled. 'I'd have been quite safe—'

  'Then do it—like hell you would have,' he said shortly, and turned away to get a towel for himself, pulling his T-shirt off at the same time. It required some contortions to get out of the slim, sopping trousers then she wrapped the towel around her sarong-style and raised her hands to squeeze out her hair.

  'Stay there,' he ordered, and disappeared down into the aft cabin. Saffron took a distraught breath but he was back before she could make any decisions. Back wearing dry shorts and rubbing his hair. 'Now,' he said, looming over her.

  'Fraser, I'm sorry about that.' She rushed into speech. 'But I'm not built to be mistress material either. Please; I thought you understood that,' she said barely audibly as their gazes clashed.

  'Who said anything about mistresses?'

  'That's what I assumed you had in mind...' Her lips trembled. 'I couldn't do it.'

  He dropped his towel and put his hands on her shoulders. 'Would you like to tell me why?'

  Her heart sank like a stone and she looked away, but he slid one hand up her neck and tilted her chin towards him with his thumb. 'Saffron?'

  Her battered heart started to beat heavily because of the intensity of his dark gaze, the gentle pressure of his thumb on her chin, the proximity of his big body which had been such a haven to her once and had taken her to such a star-shot heaven...

  She took a quick little breath and closed her eyes. The truth? Perhaps only the truth would save her any more heartache. Once he knew the truth he would have to let her go, wouldn't he?

  Her wet lashes lifted and, although she didn't know it, her green eyes were heartbroken. 'I didn't tell you I was crying as well, did I?'

  'Crying?'

  'When I bumped into your car. So it wasn't really the rain; I don't think it had much to do with the rain actually. I was crying because there wasn't to be a baby. I don't know why, but I couldn't stop thinking about it. It really came as quite a shock, the way it—' she swallowed '—occupied my thoughts. I...I mean, me, Saffron Shaw, career girl extraordinaire, who had never really stopped to think about children before...'

  'You wanted there to be a baby? Ours?'

  She nodded and sniffed. 'Strange, isn't it?'

  'Not if you love me, no.'

  'Yes, well.' She twisted her hands suddenly. 'That's why I'd be no good as your mistress, Fraser, so—'

  'Say it, Saffron.'

  Her eyes widened. 'You want me to say...I love you?'

  'Why do you think I did this?' he asked roughly. 'Because I love you, Saffron. I can't live without you, and not as a mistress. I need you far more than that. Do you think I wasn't pinning my hopes on an unplanned pregnancy to resolve this...this impasse? This crazy situation of whose career was the more important?'

  'You...want to marry me?' Saffron whispered, absolutely stunned.

  'You little fool,' he said, gathering her into his arms and holding her so close that she could feel the way his heart was beating. 'I've never been the same since you danced past in your lovely gown. I never will be the same again—'

  his voice softened '—my beautiful, tormenting, wildcat wife-to-be.'

  'Oh, Fraser,' she gasped, 'when did this happen?'

  He stared down at her and his lips twisted. Then he kissed her, picked her up and took her over to one of the maroon settees. 'I told you, when I first saw you.' He sat down and cradled her to him.

  For a moment, Saffron thought she might die of joy. Then sanity prevailed and, although she had her hands cupped around his face as she did so, she said, 'But I was sure, right up until the last time we met, that...that you were sure it couldn't work.'

  'In my ignorance, my stupidity and arrogance,' he said dryly, 'yes. I couldn't see how it could work right up until then. When it dawned on me that I'd cut the last tie, it was an entirely different matter. That's when it also dawned on me that your comment on wiping the slate clean had infuriated me because if there'd been one sign that you were going through the kind of hell I was I'd have asked you to marry me there and then.'

  'You told me I looked pale and washed out...'

  'And you had a legitimate reason for it,' he countered.

  'If only you knew...' She shuddered suddenly and tears spilled over as all sorts of emotions churned up within her, including the memory of that unspoken challenge in the air that last day—which suddenly made sense of this. 'I so nearly told you I'd be anything you wanted me to be because I could only ever love you, but, you see, I just knew I couldn't be a mistress.'

  'Hush,' he said, so gently, she smiled through her tears.

  'You often say that to me,' she murmured.

  'Because you're such an all-or-nothing person. Do you believe me now, Saffron? I can tell you more if you like. I can tell you, for example, how right you were about me.' He paused and laid his head back. 'How I had decided—clinically, I guess—that it might be time to start looking for the right kind of wife.'

  Saffron winced a little. 'I may not make a very conventional kind of wife.'

  He lifted his head and looked down at her with such wicked amusement as well as so much love in his eyes, she could barely breathe, she found.

  'Who wants a conventional wife when they can have all this?' he said softly.

  'Someone I adore, someone who never bores me, someone who—unless I'm around to make love to her and look after her—is on my mind so that I can't concentrate on anything else.'

  'Really?'

  'Cross my heart. You accused
me once of being a buccaneer, Saffron, but do you honestly believe I make a habit of this?'

  'Kidnapping girls?' she suggested gravely.

  'Precisely,' he agreed. 'Pirating them away—because I was deathly afraid you might not agree to anything else.'

  'S-so—' her voice shook a little '—what do you have in mind for me now, Fraser?'

  'Sailing you up to the Whitsundays—quite an adventure, I think. Making love to you whenever we feel like it—I know this isn't a galleon but it is well-named.'

  She blushed.

  He kissed her hair, and went on, 'Living like gypsies for a while, not bothering much about clothes, eating when we feel like it, catching our own fish and lobsters, enjoying the sea and the sun and the moon and the stars. There's music on board, quite a little library. And, when we get there, instead of Delia putting our house in order, we could do it ourselves. Dad and Delia can be our first guests.'

  'That's fantastic...'

  'One thing I didn't mention is getting married along the way. How about Mooloolaba? It's our next stop anyway.'

  'I don't know what to say...'

  'That has to be a first.' He looked down at her wryly.

  'That doesn't mean to say I don't know what to do.' She sat up and unwound the towel, revealing her drenched bra and briefs. 'I know I claimed I didn't make a habit of this, but...' She stopped and sighed, and suddenly buried her head against his shoulder. 'I've missed you so much, Fraser.'

  'My darling Saffron,' he said in a different voice, 'so have I. Were you planning to seduce me?'

  'Yes,' she whispered. 'But I'd much rather you did the honours this time.'

  Their lovemaking in the aft cabin was like no other. It was like the tide around them, a tide of passion, rising to a crescendo and a fulfilment that saw Saffron dewy with sweat afterwards, and languorous with absolute love.

  'All right?' he said gently as he smoothed her heavy, damp hair back. She hid her face for a moment as her body trembled finely. But he made her look at him. 'You don't have to hide anything any more, sweetheart.'

  'I'm afraid I...go a bit overboard for you,' she confessed shakenly. He glanced along the twisted grace of her delicate body and said not quite evenly, 'If you think I mind, it's one of the things I love about you. If you think I'm not overboard, sunk, lost over you, you're mistaken.' He took her in his arms.

  'I love you so much, Fraser,' she murmured tearfully.

  'Hush... You're home, Saffron. I love you.'

  'We've missed the tide,' he said later. 'We'll have to spend the night here.'

  They were up, it was growing dark and they were side by side on the maroon settee, wearing matching towelling robes and sipping chilled white wine. They were holding hands. It was as if they couldn't stand not to be touching each other, couldn't stand to break the physical contact.

  'It doesn't matter, does it?' she said dreamily.

  He grinned and kissed the top of her head. 'There's something I wanted to show you.'

  'Oh? I don't know if I could stand any more surprises.''This one I know you'll love.'

  'I could never love anything more than what's just happened to me.'

  'Come and see all the same,' he said, but with a certain amount of satisfaction in his voice.

  She glanced up at him and he looked rueful. They laughed together. 'All right, lead me to it,' she said a little later.

  'It' turned out to be the forward cabin.

  'This is incredible,' Saffron said slowly, looking around. It was set up as an office complete with a plain paper fax machine.

  'My side, your side.' He gestured.

  Saffron advanced to her side. There was a desktop with an angled lamp poised over it, and a padded stool in front of it. There was cartridge paper, pads, pens, coloured felt pens—in fact everything she would need to design interiors. There was also a folder on the desk neatly marked 'Guest house'.

  'How...?' She turned to stare at Fraser.

  'Delia copied it for me. So, if inspiration does happen to strike when we're in a calm anchorage, it's all there for you. For my part, I've had a satellite telephone installed as well as the fax so I'm instantly available if need be.'

  'And you don't mind—?' She stopped abruptly and picked up his wrist to kiss the inside of it as tears of joy trickled onto it.

  'How could I mind? I'm as compulsive as you are, my darling.'

  'But...'

  'Saffron, that's where we went wrong earlier, don't

  you see?' he said gently, and put his arms around her. 'We thought one of us would have to change. More specifically, career-wise, that it would have to be you. But it doesn't have to be like that if we can both make certain modifications and take full advantage of modern technology; that's all. And now we have each other we might just find that'll be surprisingly easy.'

  'I believe you,' she said huskily. 'So you really don't mind if I do some work?'

  'I really don't mind. By the way, I'm moving.'

  She blinked. 'Where? Why?'

  'I'm tempted to say it's a case of Mohammed coming to the mountain, but you're so unmountainlike except in spirit,' he said gravely, 'that it's not exactly fitting. I'm buying Dad's house from him—he wants something smaller, anyway.'

  'You're coming to Sanctuary Cove?'

  'Uh-huh. I hope you approve.'

  'You've done all this for me?'

  He sat down on the stool and drew her between his legs. 'No, I've done it for me. I told you, I just can't live without you, Saffron. But the last thing I want to do is change you, so—well, I had to do something to improve my credibility, didn't I?' His dark eyes were wry but full of something else too. Saffron trembled in his arms and said very quietly, 'I have no words to tell you how deeply I feel. Only this.' She undid the sash of her robe so that it fell open.

  He gazed at her rose-tipped breasts then buried his face between them, and she clasped her hands around his head and bent to kiss it.