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She should have called and let Tomas know she wasn’t pregnant. She should have allowed him—not his brother—a say in what transpired next. Backing a stubborn man into the proverbial corner was not the way to win his cooperation. Lord knows, she came from a household steeped in testosterone. She should have known better.
She should have left his bedroom with better grace and some dignity, too. She shouldn’t have let him light a match to her temper. And she definitely should not have kept pushing and provoking until he ground out that line about after-she’d-gone. Mostly she wasn’t one to dwell on should-haves and most of that list she’d put well behind her by Thursday—all except the leaving thing and that bothered her deeply.
If he wouldn’t let her stay, then how could she prove herself and her love? If he was never home and their paths crossed as rarely as they’d done in the past five days, then how could he see that she’d fitted happily back into station life?
She didn’t assume he was avoiding her. It was a hectic time with mustering and branding and weaning and trucking out stock for sale and fattening. Tomas was responsible for managing a hundred thousand head of cattle and fifty employees. He was a busy man. So busy that he’d neglected to tell her he was flying out on a three-day visit to the company’s eastern feed-lots.
She simmered and seethed inside for a good twenty-four hours, but what could she do? She could prepare for his return, that’s what. She could make sure he did notice her seamless integration into his home and station life, and she could do so without another sharp-worded confrontation.
A few casual questions to a head stockman and she had an estimated time for the boss’s return. She prepared dinner herself and chose the perfect wine accompaniment from Chas’s extensive cellar. She soaked for a good hour in the honey and cinnamon bath-milk she’d bought especially for the trip—the same one she’d used in the hotel that night. “For you, Tomas,” she stated with some defiance as she poured a liberal dose into the tub. “Same as all the pretty underwear.”
Oh, and she gave the housekeeping staff the night off.
Tonight was the first of her three nights with Tomas, and she intended on making the most of it.
Despite the good food, the wine and the satin she’d chosen to wear next to her bath-softened skin, Angie didn’t go for a full-out seduction scene. In the interests of subtlety—and not scaring him off—she scuttled the candles and flowers, and left the stereo turned off. That would help, too, with hearing his incoming plane.
Ready early, she couldn’t stand still. She fussed over the lasagna and greens and bread rolls she’d baked earlier. She applied a third coat of Nude Shimmy polish and wandered restlessly around the gardens while her nails dried and the sun clocked off for the day. She even considered straightening her hair, just to fill some time.
But when she looked into the mirror at the mass of curls, she remembered Tomas saying he didn’t like sleek. She set down the straightening tool and smiled slowly. “Oh, yeah. I rather like it wild, too.”
Except she wasn’t thinking about her hair.
She huffed out a breath, hot with memories and keen with anticipation, and eyed her reflection in the mirror. She looked like a woman thinking about sex. Heat traced the line of her cheekbones and glowed dark in her eyes. And when she stood up and braced her shoulders, she felt the sweet tug of arousal in her breasts and satin panties.
Perhaps she should really surprise him and take them off. Perhaps she would after she’d fortified her bravery with a glass of merlot.
Yes, she needed a glass of wine. And to check the meal one more time. She straightened the neckline of her white gypsy top, smoothed the sitting-down wrinkles from her jeans, and set off for the kitchen at the opposite end of the house. With every step she could feel the friction of her clothes against each sensitive peak and fold of her body. Perhaps she should take everything off and really surprise him…although that would take a lot more than one glass of bravado!
Smiling at herself, she pushed through the kitchen door and came to a stunned standstill.
Tomas was home.
Right there in the middle of the kitchen, actually, although he hadn’t yet noticed her arrival. He stood in profile, a tall, dark, dusty hunk with a long-neck bottle in his hand. She watched his head tilt back as he raised the beer to his lips. Watched the movement of his throat as he drank…and she drank in his almost sybaritic enjoyment of that first long, slow pull from the cold bottle.
In that moment he wasn’t Tomas Carlisle, heir apparent to Australia’s richest cattle empire. He wasn’t any “Prince of the Outback.” He was just an ordinary cowboy at the end of a hellishly long working day.
A quiver of pure desire slid through her body, from the tingling in her scalp all the way to the freshly painted tips of her toes. She wanted to walk right up and kiss him on his drink-cooled lips and breathe the commingled scents of horse and leather and Kameruka dust on his skin. But more even than the physical, she longed to share dinner without sniping and harsh words. She wanted to let the evening flow naturally all the way to the moment when they stood in unison and walked hand in hand to bed.
Was that too much to ask?
Suddenly the hand holding the bottle stilled halfway back down from his mouth, and Angie had enough time to answer her own question—yes, definitely too much— before his head turned slowly her way. She could feel the tension in her bones and knew it seeped into the innocent kitchen air. And all she could think to say was, “You’re home.”
He grunted—possibly an acknowledgment, possibly a commentary on the intelligence of her opening remark.
“I didn’t hear your plane,” she continued, with a sweeping gesture toward the roof.
“I’m not surprised.”
Angie frowned. She’d turned off the music so she wouldn’t miss his arrival. “What do you mean?”
“You were in the bath.”
What? That was hours ago. And how did he know she—
“You wouldn’t have heard me above the music.”
Holy Henry, he must have been in the house earlier. How could she not have known? Angie blanched, remembering how she’d belted out whatever lyrics she knew and improvised the rest. “Why didn’t you say something?” she asked on a note of dismay.
“I only came in to change.”
And since he wasn’t laughing or looking horrified, perhaps he hadn’t heard her singing. Relaxing a smidge, she now realized the significance of her first impression. He wasn’t dressed for a business trip but for get-down-and-dirty cattle work, because he’d returned early and come to the house to change. Her gaze slid over his dusty blue Western shirt and lingered on the Wranglers he wore so well.
“What’s going on, Angie?” he asked with a hint of suspicion. And when her gaze flew back to his face she caught him giving her a similar once-over. “Where is everyone?”
“I gave Manny—” who’d been rostered for kitchen duty “—the night off.”
“Why?”
“I thought it would be easier, given you want to keep this just between us.”
He’d started to lift his beer again, but hesitated as the knowledge of what that meant arced between them, hot and sultry and heavy as a summer’s night. At least that’s how Angie’s body felt. Without breaking eye contact he took another long drink, another long swallow. “Is that why you’re all dressed up?”
She almost laughed out loud, remembering how many times she’d changed her clothes in an attempt to dress down. But, still, she liked that he knew she’d made an effort. She wasn’t afraid of letting him know she wanted him.
Slowly she crossed the kitchen floor, closing down the space between them, never losing that hot eye-to-eye connection. She ached to kiss him, to hold him, to have him right here and now. But beyond the surface of his blue-heat eyes she detected a flicker of wariness that held her back. Instead of reaching for the man, she reached for his beer and lifted it to her lips.
As she drank she watched him swallow, and desire beat so hard in her veins she swore she could feel its echo in every cell of her body.
“You’re why I gave Manny the night off and you’re why I’m wearing satin underwear,” she said huskily. “But first you’re having a shower, and then we’re having dinner. I don’t know about you, but I’m starving.”
While he showered Tomas tried to work up a decent sense of outrage. Without asking she’d used his bathroom again. She’d given his staff the night off. He’d let her know, in plain language, how this would happen and she’d gone ahead and set up a seduction scene.
But it was hard to maintain rage in a body tight and hot with anticipation. She’s waiting out there alone, it throbbed, for you. She’s wearing satin underwear, it pulsed, for you. She’s starving, it thundered, for you.
Despite the insistent ache of arousal he forced himself to dress unhurriedly, to arrive slowly, to sit and eat and talk. The wine helped. After one glass he realized he wasn’t going to ignite every time their eyes met in an awkward conversational lapse, or each time his gaze was drawn to the erotic caress of her thumb over the rim of her wineglass.
It only felt that way.
He shifted in his chair, surreptitiously rearranging that insistent ache of arousal. He was a sad case. There she was, chatting away about the innocuous and everyday, oblivious to the effect of her unconscious glassware fondling. Lucky he’d worn roomy chinos because sitting down in jeans, in his condition, would have been murder.
“Hello?”
He looked up to find her waving her hands to attract his attention.
“You didn’t hear a word of that, did you?”
“I was—” Tomas frowned “—thinking.”
“Looks serious.”
Yeah, deadly.
She eyed him a second. “About the trip you made to Queensland? Is there a problem?”
His pulse kicked up a notch as he met her eyes across the table and imagined telling her his real problem. I’ve been at least half-hard ever since I hauled your naked backside into your bedroom five nights ago. The waiting’s killing me, Angie. Let’s skip the pretense and—
“Because I’m all ears. If you need to talk it through.”
Abruptly she put down her cutlery and pushed her plate away, and the decisiveness of her action startled the hor-
mone haze from his mind. She thought he was distracted by cattle problems. He was dying for action, and she wanted to talk.
Shaking his head in disbelief, he pushed his plate away, too. “There’s no problem with the business.”
“Good.” She smiled, and damn her, started to play with her glass again. “Yesterday I read that feature article in The Cattleman, about how you’re now considered the innovator, the market leader. It seems you’ve made a lot of changes since you took over managing the northern stations.”
“Necessary changes.”
“And production has increased fifteen percent.”
“We’ve had some good seasons.”
“And good management.”
Half distracted by the play of her pale-tipped fingers on her wineglass, he didn’t answer. Idly he wondered where she was going with this, but mostly he didn’t feel any need to answer. She was right. Good management had increased Carlisle’s productivity.
“Can I ask you something…about the will clause?”
The idle part of his brain clicked to full alert, driving the lingering heat of arousal from his synapses. Not because of the question, but the hint of non-Angie guardedness in her delivery. Tension straightened his spine as he made a go-ahead gesture.
“Here’s the way I understand it—correct me if I’m wrong. If you fail to produce this baby between the three of you, you won’t inherit ownership of Kameruka Downs or any of the other cattle stations. The company would keep ownership and the board overall control?”
Tomas nodded. Correct so far.
“So, I can’t see the board replacing you as manager or kicking you out of your home, not when you’re making the company money hand over fist.”
“It’s not the same as ownership. That’s what I’ve worked toward, always.” He met her eyes across the table. “More than ever the past couple of years.”
“Because of Brooke?”
Yes, because he no longer had Brooke. What else did he have to work toward, to strive for, if not this place?
“Do you want to talk about it?” she asked, and the husky catch to her voice brought his gaze rocketing back to hers. To the undisguised light of emotion in her eyes. “Do you want to talk about—”
“No, I don’t,” he said curtly.
“Fair enough. That’s your prerogative. But any time you change your mind…”
He didn’t bother responding. He didn’t want to talk about Brooke and he didn’t want to debate why. And he sure as hell didn’t need her watching him with those serious, solemn eyes that made him want to run a mile…and made him want to lash out at everything wrong about what happened with Brooke. Everything he wouldn’t let happen again.
The silence stretched between them another tense minute before he saw her start to stack their plates and set them aside. Her hands with their pale glossy nails spread on the table, providing leverage as she stood. And he looked up to find her watching him, those serious, solemn eyes filled with all kinds of promises of temptation and salvation as she extended her hand toward him.
“Let’s go to bed.”
Five minutes ago he would have taken that hand and invitation and they probably wouldn’t have made it to any bedroom. But now…No, he couldn’t touch her. Not in this mood, not with so much emotion and despair and desperate need roiling in his gut.
He couldn’t need her like that—he wouldn’t allow himself.
“I have to work on the books,” he said.
“Okay. I’ll pack the dishwasher then I’ll come help you.”
“No, Angie. You can’t help me.”
She’d started to gather up the dishes, but paused, her eyes rising slowly to lock on his. “I thought I already was.”
“In one way. That’s all.”
The message hummed between them and for several taut, electric seconds he didn’t know that she would accept it. “I don’t want to fight about this,” he said softly. “I don’t want to fight with you, Angie.”
“Oh, me, either,” she said in a breathy rush. “Those things we said to each other the night I got here—I don’t want it to be like that between us. Let me help you, Tomas.”
He set his jaw, his resolve, the steel in his heart and his eyes. “Don’t ask for what I can’t give.”
Emotion shimmered in the fathomless depths of her eyes, but she nodded and mouthed one word. Okay. With careful hands she gathered up the pile of dishes, and as she walked from the room he heard one tiny clatter of crockery, as if her hands trembled and then regrouped. At the door, she hesitated and turned. “Will I see you later?”
Tomas nodded. Later when this maelstrom of emotions stopped whipping through his body, when he’d controlled the persistent pounding need to stop her leaving and yell, yes, I want to talk. I want to talk if it eases the pain and the guilt and this bitter knowledge that I could have done better. That I failed my wife.
“Later,” he said hoarsely. “Yes.”
Nine
Two hours, Tomas told himself, and to prove he was in control of mind and body and emotions he stretched it to two hours twenty. Then he came to her room and quietly closed the door behind him. Head raised and nostrils flared, he waited for his eyes to adjust to the midnight dark.
It wasn’t like night in the city. This was outback dark, an intense blackness that amplified the other senses to an acute pitch. He could smell the warm female scent of her body. Could hear the quick in-out whisper of her breathing.
Was she awake? Lying in the dark waiting? Craving the intense pleasure of that first skin to skin contact?
He shed his clothes quickly, felt the night air stroke him like a lover’s warm sigh. His skin was as hot and tight as a steer hide stretched to dry in the summer sun. As he stripped off his underwear the fleeting brush of his hand caused his erection to jerk with need.
He sucked in a tense breath, half afraid of the edginess to this lust. Half afraid that the edges were keened with loneliness and need and yearning for more than hot bodies meeting in the darkness. The distant call of a night bird echoed in the dark, a high haunting two-note summons to its mate. Closer he heard the soft stirring of sheets, and his sex quickened in instant response. Its call to mate.
He started toward the bed, and despite the darkness he could make out the slow stretch of her arms above her head. As he stopped by the bed she made a throaty sound of welcome. “You’re here.”
“I thought you’d be asleep.”
She shifted again, rolling onto her side and pushing aside the bedclothes. “I was waiting for you.”
