by Valerie Parv
She thought for a moment. ‘Yes, there was a sort of wooden fence contraption around it.’
‘That’s the place. Use the windmill as a landmark and drive towards it. You’ll cross a dry creek and come to a large open flat. After another small rise, you’ll be looking down on the windmill among a stand of melaleucas. You can camp at the well for the night, then rejoin the stock route a few kilometres south of there.’
Relief flooded through her. She would soon be on her way to his side. ‘What did you say?’ she asked as the message began to break up in static.
She thought she caught the word ‘darling’ before the message faded altogether. No amount of fiddling with the radio could get him back.
It wasn’t until she gave up on the radio and began to follow Bryan’s directions back to the main track that it occurred to her to wonder how he’d known where to find her. He hadn’t asked what she was doing here, either, she thought irritably. Maybe he didn’t care.
Had she totally misread the garbled word? She didn’t like to think so, but she must have done.
She followed his directions carefully until she was back at the main track. Night was falling rapidly by the time she stopped to make camp.
Too tired to think of cooking anything, she ate some sandwiches from the store Nick had provided and drank cool water from the well, then crawled into her sleeping-bag, stretched out on the back seat of the car. The loneliness closed around her and she fell asleep thinking of Bryan.
In her dreams he became confused with Lightning Man and tried to make her go away. He kept telling her she didn’t belong here. It was taboo.
Taboo. Taboo. Taboo.
The words resolved themselves into insistent tapping on the window of her car. Struggling to emerge from her sleeping-bag, she realised that Bryan was outside, tapping to waken her. It was daylight outside.
It was all she could not to fling herself at him as she emerged from the car. She knew she looked tousled and grubby, yesterday’s shower seemingly a long time ago. He didn’t seem to notice as he swept her into his arms.
‘Thank God I found you, Jill. I’ve been driving for most of the night, trying to locate you, after Nick radioed that you were on your way. I was about to turn back to Bowana when I finally spotted your car at the well.’
Blinking sleep from her eyes, she leaned into his embrace, revelling in the feel of his arms around her. ‘What are you talking about? You knew where I was. You told me to camp here.’
He gave her a patient smile. ‘Are you sure you’re fully awake? I haven’t spoken to you since I left Wildhaven. I wanted to call, but too much was happening.’
She shook her head as if to clear it. ‘Wait a minute. You called me on the radio last night when I was lost.’ Her voice faded to an uncertain whisper. ‘Didn’t you?’
‘Where were you when the call came?’
Her throat felt parched suddenly. ‘You told me…the call told me I was near a place called Lightning Man rock, a sacred Aboriginal site which is taboo to women.’ She gave him a look of appeal. ‘How would I know about it unless you told me?’
‘Lightning Man rock has tremendous spiritual significance to the local Aboriginal people. They believe it’s a place where dreams can be changed into reality.’
Goose-bumps sprang up on her skin and the hair lifted slightly on the back of her neck. Was there no limit to what love could do?
Had she dreamed Bryan’s presence so powerfully that she had conjured him up in her mind? His voice had sounded so real, so reassuring. Yet it was possible that she had noted the landmarks herself and found her own way back to the track. The Aboriginal lore could have come from her research.
What other explanation was there?
‘You are real this time, aren’t you?’ she asked, her voice thready with uncertainty.
His arms tightened around her. ‘Can’t you feel how real I am?’
Pressed close against him, she could feel every taut muscle outlined against her in graphic relief. Even to the extent of how much he wanted her. A matching desire flamed inside her, burning away the last of her doubts. ‘You’re real enough for me. Don’t ever leave me again, please.’
His lips grazed her hairline. ‘I won’t, I promise. I wouldn’t have left you this time if there’d been any choice.’
Yet he had gone back to Christa without a backward glance. ‘It isn’t enough,’ she said raggedly. ‘I need more from you.’
He held her at arm’s length, his glittering gaze taking in every detail of her anxious expression. ‘What more can I offer you?’
She understood, or thought she did. He wanted to make her his mistress. His name, his children, would be reserved for Christa.
‘What we shared is much too precious to be demeaned like this,’ she said in a barely audible tone.
‘Demeaned?’ He sounded furiously angry. ‘You mean to tell me that you regard being my wife as a come-down?’
It was her turn to wallow in confusion. ‘Being your wife? I don’t understand.’
He gave her a bleak look. ‘Bill Bernard died yesterday morning of a massive stroke.’
She was beginning to understand. She touched his cheek gently. ‘I’m so sorry, Bryan. I know how much he meant to you.’
‘He was like a second father to me. When I got the message at Wildhaven that he’d had another stroke, I got back to him as fast as I could. I couldn’t think about anyone or anything else. It wasn’t until much later that I realised how my departure might seem to you, but when I tried to call you you’d already left.
A lump rose in her throat. The message had come on behalf of Christa’s father, not Christa herself. ‘I thought you regretted making love to me and went back to make peace with Christa.’
‘How could I, after all we’d been to each other that night? I tried to tell myself I could, but even for Bill I couldn’t give you up, Jill. It was one of the things I wanted to tell him before he died. Somehow I knew he’d understand.’
She could hardly speak for the hope which welled inside her. ‘Were you in time?’
‘By a miracle, I was. He told me anyone who wrote all those things about me must feel something for me, so he wasn’t too surprised. He was sorry about Christa, of course, but he understood. I’ve already told Christa.’
‘How did she take it?’
He caressed her hair over and over. ‘Don’t worry on her account. When I told her, she couldn’t wait to throw at me how she’d sent that letter to the investors. I’m sorry for doubting you, my love, but I didn’t think even Christa would do anything so underhand.’
‘What will she do now?’
He hesitated, as if trying to decide how to tell her. ‘She’s already making plans to go back to Perth with David Hockey.’
A wry smile curved Jill’s mouth. ‘What happened to Suzie Mitchelmore?’
Bryan’s hand came under her chin and he tilted her face up to his. ‘You mean you don’t mind about Christa and David?’
She shook her head. ‘Not any more. David will never be a one-woman man as long as there are more than two of the sex in the world.’
‘It sounds as if Christa has finally met her match,’ he mused. ‘I wondered how you’d feel about him once you knew he was finally free.’
‘By the time I knew that, I wasn’t,’ she said simply.
His breathing quickened. ‘Neither of us was, were we, Jill? We haven’t been from the moment we met.’
‘Was I so transparent?’
He smiled tenderly down at her. ‘You fought me like a she-devil. I was convinced you wouldn’t fight so hard if you didn’t feel as strongly about me as I did about you.’
Her smile faltered. ‘It all seemed so hopeless. You were all but engaged to Christa…’
‘And I had a score to settle with an upstart writer,’ he finished for her.
A frown of concern creased her brow. ‘Why did you come looking for me, Bryan?’
He slid a hand inside his shirt and pulled out a
long envelope. ‘To give you this.’
She made no move to take it. It looked frighteningly like a legal document. Had Bryan decided to press his case against the magazine in court after all? ‘What is it?’
‘Open it,’ he insisted.
With fingers which trembled, she did so, then her eyes flared brightly as she saw what was inside. ‘It’s the title deed to Wildhaven.’
‘I thought you might like to give it to Nick and Denise as a christening present.’
She could hardly take it in. ‘But why?’
‘I couldn’t keep on holding the mortgage over a member of my own family,’ he said softly.
‘Your family? But they aren’t—’
He kissed her lightly to silence her. ‘But they will be after we’re married.’
It was real, all of it. She wasn’t dreaming after all. Bryan had come looking for her to take her home with him as his wife. Faint traces of moisture beaded her lashes, but they were tears of pure happiness as she nodded shyly. ‘Then I’d better marry you, hadn’t I?’
‘For your brother’s sake?’
‘For mine. I love you so much.’
‘And I love you, Jill Richter. More than I ever dreamed it was possible to love a woman. You’re a fire in my blood.’
In a daze of happiness, she traced the outline of his mouth with her finger, drawing a deep breath as his lips closed over it. ‘I thought you said you’re good at putting out fires.’
His hands slid around her shoulders and he drew her tightly against him as if he never intended to let her go. ‘This is one fire which will blaze for all eternity, because I intend to bank it so high that it will never, ever go out,’ he promised her.
Just how he intended to bank the fires of their love, he showed her in loving detail, until whimpers of pure joy rose in her throat. No lover was more tender, more passionate, more inventive or more demanding than Bryan McKinley.
It was just as well they were getting married, she thought in the few moments of lucid thought he permitted her between each passionate assault on her senses. This sort of thing could become habitforming.
On the carpet of desert oak needles which cushioned them, he levered himself up on one elbow. ‘Do you still think I have delusions of sainthood?’
Her dreamy smile bathed him in its warmth. ‘It’s no delusion, my darling. To me, you are a saint.’
‘Make sure you go on thinking so,’ he said in mock-reproof.
‘I don’t think so; I know it. How else could you guide me through the desert in my dreams?’
He gave a throaty murmur of approval. ‘It goes to show you what the power of love can do.’
The power of Bryan’s love, she thought as she surrendered to it with all her heart. It had kept her safe last night and would keep her safe at his side for all time. How could anyone ask for more?
eISBN 978-14592-7708-3
OUTBACK TEMPTATION
First North American Publication 1996.
Copyright © 1994 by Valerie Parv.
All rights reserved. Except for use in any review, the reproduction or utilization of this work in whole or in part In any form by any electronic, mechanical or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including xerography, photocopying and recording, or in any Information storage or retrieval system, is forbidden without the written permission of the publisher, Harlequin Enterprises Limited, 225 Duncan Mill Road, Don Mills. Ontario, Canada M3B 3K9.
All characters in this book have no existence outside the imagination of the author and have no relation whatsoever to anyone bearing the same name or names. They are not even distantly Inspired by any Individual known or unknown to the author, and all incidents are pure invention.
This edition published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.
® and TM are trademarks of the publisher. Trademarks Indicated with ® are registered in the United States Patent and Trademark Office, the Canadian Trade Marks Office and in other countries.
Printed In U.S.A.
Table of Contents
Cover Page
Excerpt
About the Author
Books by Valerie Parv
Title Page
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Copyright