He was a long way from home and he couldn’t feel happier.
A few moments later, he opened the handsome glass-panelled door to the bistro, inhaling the fragrant fug of good coffee, strong and fresh. There was a small curved foyer, and beyond that two steps leading down to a seating area. The area was barred by a young woman wielding a broom.
Casual, seeking nothing but a meal, he was now jolted into full alertness. In its way it was like being slammed up against a wall. He had grown cynical about a woman’s beauty. But this! He had to drag in a breath as a force more powerful than he reached for him and held him in place.
The very air trembled!
The impact this young woman was having on him seemed to be dictating his every move, or lack thereof. He found it thrilling and disquieting at one and the same time. He knew he was staring—but then weren’t beautiful women used to stares? This woman was his idea of physical perfection. Even his lungs were scrambling for a breath. Damned if it wasn’t like a mystical experience. The thought amused and awed him.
Just as he was deciding how best to proceed, the Dream turned, enabling him to study her full-on.
Sensation rushed through him with the speed of light.
She didn’t speak. Neither did he. He couldn’t think of anything to say anyway. Neither of them made a move. Instead they looked across the span of brightness, staring at each other for what seemed an awfully long time. It was one of those moments that go on for ever, locking a man in. For all his reputation as a ladies’ man, he had always held a pretty effective shield against woman magic. In no way was he guaranteed protection now. He didn’t relish the thought. There was nothing wrong with being fascinated. Unless it reached the point where it upset his emotional balance. At the moment that was pretty precarious. He had sworn off women while he got his life on track. Yet here he was, caught like a moth in this creature’s golden glow.
How had she arrived in this country town anyway? She looked more as if she had stepped out of a medieval painting. Her beautiful classical features were absolutely symmetrical. Wasn’t that rare?
He canted a black brow, unaware his silvery green eyes held a mocking challenge. ‘I hope you’re not going to take that to me?’
If he was expecting an answering smile—a lightening of the fraught atmosphere—he got none. There was more than a touch of dismissiveness in her great dark eyes. It sent the silent message that she had met his like before.
‘Don’t worry, you’re safe.’ She spoke for the first time.
Daniela had, in fact, taken swift note of the stranger in town even before he entered the bistro. What she decided now was to disregard the dimpled smile, however sexy, and the languid, yet highly athletic set of the stranger’s tall, rangy body. Six-footer-plus. Copper-skinned. Jet curls. Startling contrasting eyes.
Linc, for his part, had no difficulty registering that he had been summed up and found wanting. It didn’t, however, temper the shock of sexual excitement. It was like a hot wire in the blood. He felt the sizzle, the palpable thrill that stroked the hairs on his nape, causing him to shiver. The thrill moved to his scalp. Hell, what a reaction—and with such speed and power! He liked pretty women, sure, but not one of them had ever affected him like this. He was even having difficulty not reaching out just to touch her.
She had only the faintest suggestion of an accent, but he had spotted it right off.
‘Buon guiorno!’ he said. His Italian was fairly fluent and he had kept it up. Italian-speaking communities were all over Australia. He held her gaze—indeed he couldn’t look away—plotting how he could get her to smile. He was used to smiles. He began to picture her smile in his mind. ‘Like me out of the way?’ He gestured beyond, to the main room.
‘If you would.’ Daniela inclined her head. ‘A customer accidentally knocked an ornament off the counter here.’
‘I’m relieved to hear it. You look the type that throws things.’
‘Me?’ She eyed him, letting him know she was questioning his impertinence. He was probably well-used to women fawning on him. She wasn’t about to join the ranks. Daniela was far less trusting of men than she had once been.
‘Just a joke, ma’am. I see you don’t like jokes,’ he said, with a touch of self-derision.
‘I have to get the joke first.’ She put a little more distance between them. ‘Unusual—a cowboy who drives a sports car?’
She spoke as though the vehicle might be a serious rite of passage for a guy like him. Cowboys obviously weren’t high on her wow scale. ‘I’m a sheep man, actually.’
‘Really?’
He watched her press her beautifully cut lips together—fine, sensitive upper lip; full, sensuous lower lip—as though she feared she would burst out laughing. He was only surprised she didn’t say, How absurd!
‘Don’t you like sheep men?’ he challenged, hardly giving a thought to lunch now. Conversation was way better.
‘I have to confess you struck me more as a cowboy.’ She didn’t mention her first impression had been that of a rock star. He had that same air of glamour, wearing his vibrant masculinity like a second skin. He would fit neatly into the Outback as well. Not as your average stockman. Dear me, no! Boss Man was more like it. Young as he was—and he couldn’t yet be thirty—he had the command presence, the easy male authority. It was written all over him. Then there was the educated accent, the self-assurance he wore like a cloak, the pulsating energy. A bit of a dynamo, she thought; the kind that loved women but didn’t really need them.
Linc thought he was holding up well under the judgmental waves that were coming full at him, but he was a little baffled by her attitude. He wasn’t that bad, surely? He glanced down at himself wryly. He was wearing black designer jeans, an upmarket bush shirt, elastic-sided boots. Maybe his hair was too long. He never paid a lot of attention to his jet-black curly hair. It sort of looked after itself. And he hadn’t missed the little flashes of antagonism either. This was a woman who could erupt! And, hell, she was the rarest of creatures: a woman who had taken an instant dislike to him. He liked that. It put him on his mettle.
If the trace of accent hadn’t alerted him, her looks did: Northern Italian colouring, wonderful thick, swirling blond hair, side parted, curving in to just below her chin. The colour could have come out of a bottle but he didn’t think so. There wasn’t a dark root in sight. Her complexion was perfect—honeyed Mediterranean. The lovely features were classical, her aura passionate but restrained—as if she deliberately held herself in check. Her eyes were really beautiful beneath arched black brows—so dark the iris rivalled the pupil. She wasn’t tall—maybe five-five in her high wedged heels—but her body was beautiful. Slender, but with shape.
The glory of women, he thought, slowly releasing his breath. ‘You’re beautiful!’ he said, unconsciously investing it with real meaning. He hadn’t meant to say it. It just came out as a simple statement of fact.
‘Thank you,’ Daniela answered him gravely.
She had been called beautiful many times in her life. Unfortunately beauty often came with a high price tag. It didn’t always draw the right people. She had left London and a great job because she was being hounded by a man obsessively attracted to her and her looks. Sometimes, back in London, she had thought she would go mad thinking and worrying about it.
Linc had intuitively tuned in to her wavelength. How men’s eyes must cling to her, he thought. Maybe that was a reason for her being so wary. And she was. No mistaking it. He could actually hear the defences going up. So what was a Renaissance beauty doing in a small country town wielding a broomstick? She obviously worked here. A cute little white apron was tied around a waist he thought he could span with his hands. Her dress, sleeveless with a short skirt—showing off great legs—was navy. A sort of uniform, he thought. She made it look chic. But the aura she gave off was downright patrician, even a touch forbidding, as befitting someone who had stepped out of a medieval masterpiece.
Maybe she owned the place? May
be she owned a whole chain of bistros? Though she barely looked old enough to be a big success. Twenty-four? Twenty-five? As well as being beautiful, she looked highly intelligent. That had conveyed itself to him. A confident, competent young woman who knew how to keep mere mortals like him in his place.
His gaze came back irresistibly to centre on her face. ‘Do you believe in love at first sight?’ he asked, as though it was the easiest question in the world to answer.
‘Doesn’t everyone?’ Daniela answered, calmly enough, transferring her midnight-dark gaze over his shoulder. ‘Ah, here is my grandfather to take care of you.’ She sounded relieved.
‘You work for your grandfather?’ It really wasn’t like him to hit on a girl in this blatant fashion.
‘In this case I am helping out.’ Clearly she was making an effort to be polite. Far more the principessa than the waitress.
‘So who am I talking to?’ he persisted, watching a big, handsome grandfatherly figure with a crown of tight snow-white curls hurrying towards them.
‘Daniela Adami,’ she informed him, turning to pick up a dustpan filled with pieces of broken china.
‘Carl Mastermann. My friends call me Linc. I’ve come to look over a valley property.’
‘Ah, yes? Which one would that be, Mr Mastermann?’ She spoke as if there were hundreds on the market.
Couldn’t she risk a smile? It was important to him to see her smile. ‘Briar’s Ridge. It’s owned by the Callaghans—brother and sister. Do you know them?’
‘I have that pleasure.’ She dipped her head formally, then made a move to walk by him, a determined action that managed to be enormously seductive at the same time.
He eased back, resisting the strong impulse to swing an arm around her and no doubt receive a painful electric shock for his trouble.
‘Nice to have met you, Mr Mastermann.’
It sounded as if she didn’t want to lay eyes on him again.
But that, Principessa, isn’t about to happen.
CHAPTER TWO
WEDDINGS had a knack of working their magic on everyone. Linc had lost count of the number of weddings he had attended over the years, but the wedding of his old friend Guy, and his beautiful Alana, a luminous creature, with happiness shining out of her eyes, was turning out tops.
Wangaree was one of the nation’s finest historic sheep stations, a splendid estate and one that fitted the courtly Guy right down to a tee. The wedding ceremony had been held in the station’s private chapel—a marvellous place to hold it, Linc thought. Flower-decked for the great occasion, the old stone building was wonderfully appealing within its surrounding rose gardens, all coaxed into full bloom. The chapel had been built way back in the early days and was the perfect place for bride and groom to take their vows. In fact, his own throat had tightened during the moments when the bridal vows had been exchanged. The utter seriousness with which those vows had been exchanged he had found intensely moving.
The good thing was he felt he had absorbed a lot of the happiness that shone out of bride and groom. It had happened without his working at it. The best man was the bride’s brother, Kieran, a terrific-looking guy; the chief bridesmaid was Guy’s beautiful, elegantly refined sister, Alexandra. Guy had told him early on Alex and Kieran would soon be tying the knot themselves. He just hoped Kieran, whom he had only just met, would agree with his sister to sell Briar’s Ridge to him.
He was sure Guy was going to put in a good word. Nevertheless he was feeling a bit nervous the deal might fall through. The property had been allowed to run down—he understood their late father had been ailing for some time before he died—but he knew it could be rescued and brought back to its former high standing. He couldn’t say yet if he would stop at Briar’s Ridge as he had big plans, but it would be an excellent start.
It was as they were coming out of the chapel to the joyous strains of the organ and the peal of the chapel bells that he saw her—with extraordinarily sharp focus.
She was looking exquisite. She stood out from the beautifully dressed crowd around her, as one would expect such a woman to do. Even the glorious multi-coloured lights that were now spilling through a stack of tall stained glass windows sought her out, suffusing her face, her glowing hair and her bare shoulders in radiance.
If his eyes had found her, her eyes had found him.
There was an expression that seemed to fit how he felt: being struck by a lightning bolt from heaven. He couldn’t say if that was a good thing or not, but it sure as hell raised big questions. He didn’t for a moment doubt it.
She looked away, as though she had seen his thoughts on his face, her thick blond page boy falling against her slanted cheekbones. If he were smitten, she was making sure he knew she wasn’t. He had to change that. He didn’t know if it was a wise decision or not. He didn’t care. Despite all his plans he had been shot down in flames. Remarkable it should happen when he least wanted or expected it. He even had an idea he couldn’t return to the man he was. Maybe the right woman might be able to save him, make all the pain go away?
A big might, was the cynical whisper in his head. She had said she knew the Callaghans. What she hadn’t said was she had been invited to Alana Callaghan’s wedding to his friend Guy Radcliffe. Now, why keep that a secret? Why act as though she was never likely to see him again? Perhaps she was as troubled in her way as he was in his?
He found he wanted those maybes resolved. It might shock and amaze him, but he wanted to know all there was to know about this woman. All of it. Even if he wasn’t ready.
Outside in the brilliant sunshine—the sun was blazing out of a cloudless opal-blue sky—the rest of the guests, those not able to fit inside the chapel, were milling all over the manicured green lawn. It was as big a wedding as he had ever attended. There were quite a few children, all dressed up for the occasion—especially the little girls, in their pretty party frocks—laughing and bobbing in and out of the crowds, playing games as children had always done and always would. Massive cream-and-gold marquees had been erected in the extensive home grounds. In the shimmering heat they seemed to float above the emerald grass.
She had to be deliberately holding back, because he didn’t see her again until they were all seated in the bridal marquee.
It didn’t take him long to locate her. She was at a table for eight flanked by two men, one around forty-five, the other his age. Both were dancing attendance on her. The food was superb, as were the wines—lashings of both. He was seated between two cousins of the bride, Violette and Lilli. Both of them were extremely good-looking. Perhaps Violette had the edge, but even she couldn’t hold a candle to her cousin Alana, Guy’s beautiful bride. Linc yielded to their harmless flirtations, effortlessly doing his bit. This kind of thing he was long used to. Both sisters appeared to find him worthy of their attentions, but in reality his antennae was constantly twitching, almost completely given over to tracking her. By some magic means he was now a woman-watcher. And that was just plain dumb. He was a guy who liked to hold the whip hand.
The speeches were over—all of them excellent, hitting just the right note. Guy had very movingly opened his heart to his bride and all the guests were applauding, everyone was so touched. Looking down the bridal table, decked with what looked like thousands of exquisite white orchids flown in from Thailand, Linc could see a little tear run down Alana’s cheek. He knew it for what it was—a tear of overwhelming happiness. Weddings were times of high emotion. What he hadn’t expected was to get all emotional himself. He tried to stand back from that kind of thing. Much better to keep all the emotions locked up inside. Grief, abandonment…As a boy he had been so crazy he had even blamed his mother for dying, for going away and leaving him. And his highly confrontational relationship with his father he had to paste over. He couldn’t bear to think about that poor silly creature Cheryl.
At last the formalities were over, and everyone was free to roam from table to table, meeting up with old friends, making new ones, joining in the dancing.
A great five-piece group was playing. The guy on the sax was so good—the sound, the form, the phrasing—he would have been happy just to sit there, listening, champagne glass topped up regularly. Only Lilli caught hold of his shoulder, urging him to his feet. Someone with a professional-looking video camera started to film them. He guessed the Radcliffe-Callaghan wedding would make it into the glossy magazines. He might even make it himself. He didn’t look too bad in his classy suit, with a pink rose with a bluish tint in his buttonhole to match Lilli’s sexy satin gown. All four bridesmaids were wearing drop earrings of large Tahitian pearls with a fair-sized diamond above—a very generous gift from Guy.
‘This is wonderful, isn’t it?’ Lilli gushed. ‘Alana is my favourite cousin!’
He wondered about that.
After a while he felt as if he had danced with every girl inside the marquee except her. Every time he made a move towards her some other guy beat him to it, or one of the sisters clamoured for another dance. The elder one, Violette, was being rather forceful about it. Lilli had confided in him that Violette had been a long-time girlfriend of Guy’s.
‘He nearly married her, you know.’
He took that with another cup of salt. He had a feeling Guy was a one-woman man, and that woman was now his wife.
She must have moved outdoors.
Pleasant as it was, he was continually trapped by pretty girls, eyes shining, cheeks flushed. He couldn’t be rude and turn them down. He needed to keep up his role as groomsman.
‘Don’t disappear on me,’ Lilli begged, her bright blue eyes locking on his. ‘I promised Mike here another dance.’
It was his moment to make a move. His decline into sheer neediness was so dramatic, it was mind-blowing. He actually needed to see the woman. He actually wanted to see her smile.
A lovely gentle breeze was blowing, carrying the mingled scents of Wangaree’s spectacular gardens. A lot of other guests had drifted outside, most still hugging their champagne glasses.
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