Argentinian in the Outback & Cattle Rancher, Secret Son: Argentinian in the OutbackCattle Rancher, Secret Son

by Margaret Way

  She was astounded at the wild abandon with which she had responded to Varo’s lovemaking. It couldn’t have been wrong because it had felt so right.

  “As you want me,” he rejoined. “Forgive me if I was a little too rough.”

  She gave him a soft look. “I was as caught up as you, Varo. Just give me a minute and we’ll go. I have the feeling we could get a heavy shower of rain. Maybe even hail.”

  “Let’s hope so,” he said tautly. He kept one arm around her waist, absorbing her body heat. “I for one need cooling down.”

  We were so happy!

  Ava drew back her hair, fastening it once more with the gold clasp. Finally she looked up, regarded him with the glitter of tears in her eyes. “It’s all so sad.”

  The greatest part of him wanted to tell her he loved her, adored her. She was his woman. He would never let her go. His fears were too dominant at that moment. Difficult to accept Ava might fear having children. But that could be handled with lots of tender loving care and support. And the rest? He couldn’t bring himself to reveal anything more Selwyn had said. In fact he believed in his heart it was a lie.

  “You ought to talk to me, Ava,” he said, pinning her sparkling gaze. “Not now. But later.” Varo was striving for a detached calmness he did not feel. His desire for her would never abate. Nevertheless he said, “Both of us need a little time to cool down and reflect.”

  Ava turned away sharply. Her body was still throbbing. Her nipples, her breasts, her sex. She would simmer for hours. It was a new Ava Varo had set loose. A new woman he had called forth. She had lost too much time dissociating herself from her painful past. Her defeats were many. Her triumphs were to come. Nothing was going to stop her having it out with Luke. She would even holler at him if she had to. She—ever so peaceful, confrontation-hating Ava. She felt shame for how biddable she had been. A great deal of it had to do with her childhood. She was a woman now.

  * * *

  They both got splashed with rain and light hail as they ran from the Jeep to the short flight of front steps. Ava paused, shaking the quickly melting hail from her hair. The strong smell of ozone was in the air. Both of them had remained quiet on the journey back from the lagoon. Both knew much had to be said.

  * * *

  Luke watched them return. He stood at the French doors of his guestroom—not as large or as handsomely furnished at the spacious room he and Ava had always occupied, he thought with fierce resentment. He would get square. He would go back and have more of a rest before he showered, dressed and went down to dinner. He was actually looking forward to it. Knowing Ava as he did, she would have reacted to any accusations de Montalvo might have made with her usual pained silence. Ava was all politeness. She couldn’t assert herself for love or money.

  He didn’t have to do a damned thing. All he had to do was bide his time. The Argentine wouldn’t waste a moment getting himself organised to leave Kooraki and the beautiful Ava behind. Before the separation time was up he was convinced he would have his wife back. With more revenge to come. Ava had let him down very badly. How could she avoid punishment? Subtle, of course. He had learned exactly how to manipulate her. Not that he hadn’t had his affairs, but there was no question his wife could have one and get away with it. Punishment had to fit the crime.

  Some time later, when Ava burst in on him, he looked up with genuine astonishment. “You could knock,” he said, displaying his annoyance.

  At the sight of him lounging on the bed Ava’s fury increased. “You were not invited to this house, Luke,” she said. “You are not a guest. We are separated. I am filing for a divorce. All this is known to you, yet you came here. Now I know why. To cause me as much pain as you possibly could.”

  “Don’t imagine you don’t deserve it,” he said in his coldest voice, rising slowly from the bed. He would never forgive her for what she had done, but he now felt a driving sexual hunger. Ava had never really given herself to him. He knew that. He knew he had never truly aroused her. Something inexplicable to him. He had no such trouble with other women. She looked fantastically beautiful, as though she had suddenly stepped down from her white marble pedestal to become woman.

  “I never deserved you,” she said, her remarkable eyes flashing. “I’ve arranged for you to fly out with the freight plane tomorrow, Luke, so you might as well do your packing tonight. The plane arrives at midday. It doesn’t take long for the station supplies to be unloaded. Be ready.”

  Her fierce ultimatum only served to increase his rage. “You’re not serious, are you, my darling?” he asked with a disbelieving sneer. “You’re my wife, Ava, and don’t you forget it.”

  “Don’t dare to threaten me,” Ava warned, keeping her sparkling gaze on him. “I want you out. If you don’t choose to go quietly, I assure you I’ll have you thrown out.”

  “By your lover?” He moved threateningly towards her.

  “There will be no need to involve Varo,” she said with disgust, not falling back a step as he’d expected, but holding her ground. “Any man on the station would be happy to do it. No one has any time for you, Luke. They never did. I blinded myself to your faults. You kept your true form well hidden until after the wedding ceremony. I’ve paid for my mistake.”

  “No, you haven’t!” he exploded, feeling a rush of hate and hunger. “You seem to forget I could easily raise objections to your filing for divorce. Why, the separation time isn’t even up and you’re having it off with another man. Shame on you, Ava.”

  She laughed at the hypocrisy of it. “The shame is all yours, Luke. You told Varo I had a pregnancy that ended in miscarriage. That was a lie.”

  He came to a halt, like a statue. “And how exactly are you going to prove that?” he asked, wondering what had possessed her all of a sudden. The change in her seemed profound.

  “I would think a medical check-up might do it,” she retorted. “I have never been pregnant, Luke. I didn’t want a child with you.”

  “But, my darling wife, you confided in Karen,” he pointed out, his voice dripping acid. “Don’t you remember? Karen surely will. She was as shocked as I was. Angelic old you! You have well and truly blotted your copybook. Karen knows the story.”

  Ava visibly paled. So he had drawn her cousin into his web. “Even Karen would stop short of telling such a lie for you,” she said hardily, praying it would be true.

  “Only it is no lie.” Selwyn kept his eyes on her. “Karen suspected. You simply confirmed it. I was thrilled you were carrying our baby. But you aborted it, didn’t you?”

  Ava was seized by a pain so bad it was agony. “You told Varo I aborted my baby?” she cried, blazing with anger. “I don’t believe it.”

  “Didn’t he mention it?” Luke asked silkily, shaking his fair floppy head. “I suppose not. I think he was much too shocked to bring up that sad fact. He’d be Catholic, wouldn’t he? Practising, no doubt—and his entire family, with their Spanish background. But you did it, didn’t you? At some time we all have to take responsibility for our actions, Ava.”

  “Who would do this kind of thing?” Ava implored. “You disgust me, Luke. You’re a truly bad man.” Her voice fell away to a whisper.

  Heartened, he went to her, grasped her strongly by the shoulders.

  She broke away, stepping back sharply. “Keep your hands off me,” she warned, very deliberately.

  This was too much to tolerate. His meek, vulnerable Ava, blazing like a firebrand. “Ava, I love you,” he said, injecting high emotion into his tone. “I understand your shame, your sense of guilt. You did a terrible thing. And the worst part is there was no great pressure on you, Ava—no extenuating circumstances. You weren’t single, on your own with little or no money, no support. You had me and my family. You had a choice and you chose very badly. You know you should be punished. What goes around comes around. You nee
d de Montalvo to believe you. Swallow your story. But he won’t. He’s no fool. Okay, you let him seduce you. You’ve had your little bit of illicit excitement. Frankly, I didn’t think you had it in you. You’re such a frigid little thing.”

  “Not with Varo,” she pointed out with pride. “And it hasn’t been a case of illicit excitement, Luke. I’m deeply in love with him.”

  “Rubbish!” Luke exploded, seeing a red mist before his eyes. “Mark my words, you pathetic creature, de Montalvo will very soon be on his way. You’re damaged goods, as the saying goes.”

  Ava was silent a moment longer. “Men have caused damage in my life,” she admitted in a low voice. “My grandfather…even my father separating from the mother I loved. We weren’t able to go to her. Grandfather stopped that. And you have done me damage, Luke. You have very dark places in you. You’re a narcissist. Your needs are the most important thing in the world to you. You don’t love me. You don’t know anything about love. I entered into a precipitate marriage against all good advice. You enjoyed controlling me. You enjoyed marrying a Langdon—such cachet!”

  Ava stepped forward, adrenaline coursing through her. Without another moment of hesitation she hit her husband spontaneously across the mouth. She had known in her bones Luke would provoke her into some sort of action.

  Luke was genuinely shocked. He had not been expecting any such action from her. Their life together had been free of physical confrontation. He had played the psychological game. The cat and the mouse. Only the mouse had at long last found its roar.

  The blow wasn’t heavy, but the antique ring Ava frequently wore had managed to split his lip. He reared back from her, as astonished as if she had morphed into a virago. “Are you mad?” he exploded, unable to believe meek and mild Ava had done this.

  “Far from it. I’ve never had this sense of power. It’s great. You tried so hard to rob me of all confidence, Luke. That’s the ugly side of you.” She picked up a handtowel he had left on the bed and threw it at him. “Don’t bleed on the carpet. And don’t attempt to come down to dinner. I’ll have a tray sent up. I mean what I say, Luke. I want you off Kooraki midday tomorrow. I never want to lay eyes on you again.”

  She went to sweep past him—only in a burst of overwhelming rage he grabbed her.

  “I’m the only man you’ve got,” he gritted, close to screaming. There was a wild look in his eyes. “I’m your husband—get it?”

  That wild look should have made her very nervous indeed, but it didn’t. “Let me go,” she said, ice-cold.

  Luke’s good-looking face went white with fury. He shook her hard, much the stronger of the two. “Do you really think I’m going to let you make a fool of me?” he shouted. Then an odd smile spread over his face. “I’m a lot more dangerous than you think, my darling.” He began to rock Ava in his arms. “No way can you leave me, Ava. Till death do us part, remember?” One of his hands closed painfully over her breast. “I won’t be going tomorrow. But the Argentine will. You must take your punishment. Then we can get on with life.”

  * * *

  Varo had had no intention of allowing Ava to confront her husband with no back-up from him. She had been adamant about his not accompanying her, which was fair enough, and he had made it appear he acquiesced when his true intention was to hold himself in readiness some place nearby. He knew the layout of the house well by now. He would take the rear staircase to the gallery. He knew which room Selwyn was in.

  Selwyn had deliberately tried to sabotage the relationship between Ava and himself. He had divulged Ava’s secret, determining the relationship would quickly burn out. Selwyn wanted his wife back. No one could blame a man for that. But Selwyn wasn’t a man. No one who had come close to him would think that. Malyah Man had meted out what could be taken as a genuine warning. Selwyn was trouble.

  He’d given Ava a good five minutes to mount the main staircase and walk the short distance to Selwyn’s guestroom, which was at the far end of the west wing, then made his move. His whole being had felt electric with tension. Even his scalp had prickled. He’d had only one purpose. That was to keep Ava from danger.

  At the top of the staircase he’d heard voices. He had seen with gratitude that the door of Selwyn’s room was very slightly ajar. Ava had evidently thought it wiser to leave it that way. In his mind he had Selwyn ripping into Ava with his accusations.

  Silently he’d moved the short distance to stand just to the side of the heavy mahogany door with its ornate brass knob. Selwyn had been speaking. He’d heard him very clearly.

  “Karen suspected. You simply confirmed it,” he was saying. “I was thrilled you were carrying our baby. But you aborted it, didn’t you?”

  Selwyn had laughed suddenly with what Varo thought was venom and violence.

  My God, was it true then? Was he about to learn the stark facts?

  Ava hadn’t responded. Perhaps overcome by her feelings, the trauma she had suffered. Then all of a sudden she had exploded. “You told Varo I aborted my baby?”

  There had been rage in it, but to his ears it had sounded like righteous rage. She’d been utterly incredulous. Was this the most terrible revelation of her whole life brought out into the open, or was it Selwyn’s monstrous lie?

  Ava had gone on the attack. The attack of the innocent, not the guilty. He had wanted to cry out in triumph. He’d wanted to applaud. An enormous burden had been lifted from his shoulders. Instead he’d stood there, awaiting the right moment when he would thump on the door, then enter without permission.

  Selwyn’s accusations had continued to stream out. Ava had called him “a bad man”. Her voice had been barely audible but the tones were heartfelt. In the next breath she’d switched to a shout.

  “Keep your hands off me.”

  Time to move in on them, Varo had thought grimly. Selwyn was in full flow. He’d called Ava—beautiful, passionate Ava—frigid. Anger had welled up in him until he’d heard Ava’s impassioned statement like a momentous declaration.

  “I’m deeply in love with him.”

  In love with me! That’s brilliant!

  Selwyn had put up his worst, and Ava had had her chance to respond. Varo had found himself hanging on her every word. She’d sounded strong, independent. He had felt the fierce pleasure of pride in her. That was what Selwyn would hate—a strong, independent woman. He wanted a woman to control. Ava had broken free of her chains.

  Perhaps he should not intervene, but walk quietly away. She was handling the situation on her own.

  He was almost at the top of the staircase when he’d heard Selwyn roar, “Are you mad?”

  It was followed by Ava’s ice-cold retort, “Let me go!”

  In a flash he turned back, understanding Ava was in need of him. He threw open the door so violently it crashed against the wall, rattling a valuable famille noir Chinese porcelain vase that miraculously didn’t fall over and break. Only who would have cared? Ava was grappling with the brute of a man she had married for all the wrong reasons. He had his hands clamped around her white neck. God, was he trying to strangle her?

  Varo swooped, his black eyes glittering, his powerful shoulders hunched forward like a heavyweight boxer waiting his moment to unleash his strength. Selwyn was howling now, knowing he was trapped—moreover by a man who looked as if he was about to kill him.

  “She had it coming!” he panted. “Everything I told you is the truth.”

  He got no further. A heavy fist slammed into his ribs, knocking the breath out of him and slamming him back against the French doors.

  “Get up.” De Montalvo’s voice was deadly quiet.

  Blood was oozing from Selwyn’s lip after Ava’s unprecedented attack. Now he faced possible cracked ribs. He threw up his hands as if in defeat.

  Concern over what might happen lent Ava strength. She clamped
her two hands around Varo’s hard-muscled arm. “Leave him, Varo. Please do what I say. He’s not worth it. He’ll be out of here by tomorrow. I’ll lock him in.”

  She meant it. She wasn’t going to have Luke free to wander the house. He wouldn’t get out through this door. He wouldn’t dream of trying to scale the front façade. He was no mountaineer.

  A hard edge was in Varo’s voice. “Why don’t you let me teach him a lesson?” he rasped.

  “I’ll have you up on an assault charge,” Luke the lawyer suddenly yelled, his expression ugly.

  A voice at the back of his mind was telling him Ava would always come to his rescue. Though no woman would ever measure up to him. Few men either.

  “Don’t make me laugh!” Varo bit off. “What do you suppose the law would make of a man who attempted to strangle his wife? Can you see the red marks on Ava’s neck, you brute? I am witness. I will call the staff to testify. You don’t deserve Ava. You never did. Haven’t you learned that by now?” He took several steps closer to Luke, who recoiled.

  “Don’t come any nearer.”

  “Varo, we don’t want more trouble. Leave him.” Ava felt her anxiety growing. She knew in her bones she couldn’t find a way to Varo. He was tremendously upset.

  “This poor excuse for a man doesn’t deserve pity,” he said with utter scorn. “What if I hadn’t been there, outside the door? It doesn’t take long for a man to strangle a woman. Particularly a mad man.” The tension in his body was like a tightly coiled steel spring. “Get up, you gutless worm.”

  Luke Selwyn didn’t do guts. He remained where he was, holding a hand to his ribs and making weird whimpering sounds.

  Varo apparently couldn’t care less. He stepped forward and gave Luke a clip across the head. “Count yourself lucky!” he exclaimed. “I believe Ava is the one who should press charges. It would and should end your career.”

  Luke looked past the menacing Argentine to Ava. “You wouldn’t do that?” he asked, like a man amazed. “I’m your husband. I wouldn’t have hurt you. I was only trying to shake sense into you.”