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Desperately she cast about for a way out, but Wandarra stood between her and the narrow entrance. The other end of the gorge was blocked by collapsed rock and only a shaft of sunlight penetrated the gloom. The walls were too steep to climb.
Could she try to fight her way out using the basic self-defense skills she’d learned as a teenager? The answer was obvious. She might have been able to tackle one man successfully, but not both. She was trapped.
As a student of primitive art, she understood that she’d broken Wandarra’s law and she was prepared to make amends. But dear heaven, not like this.
Panic swirled through her but she resisted by focusing on how much she despised Tom for allowing his friend to act as judge and jury over her.
Her inner tension reached boiling point as Tom said something to Wandarra in an Aboriginal language. Probably deciding the finer points of her fate, she thought as a strange sense of disconnection settled over her, as if her mind was floating away from her body. Why didn’t they just get on with it, she wondered from this new vantage point? Wandarra argued furiously, but Tom held his ground. She saw Wandarra give a grudging nod and back away, hefting the spear.
Then a shadow fell across her, jerking her back to full awareness as Tom stepped between her and the other man.
Finally, she understood.
Tom intended to take the spear meant for her.
“I won’t let you do this,” she said.
“You’re not exactly in a position to stop me.”
A moment ago she’d thought him despicable. Now she could hardly believe he was prepared to endure the penalty that would have been hers. In her own country she had bodyguards whose job was to put themselves in harm’s way for her. But Tom didn’t know who she was. He wasn’t from her country. Yet she couldn’t mistake his intention. His demeanor showed that nothing would dissuade him from following his chosen course.
“Why?” she asked, needing to know this at least.
“The cave spirits must be placated,” he said.
She wondered if he’d deliberately misunderstood her question. “Is there no other way?”
“None,” he stated. “Trust me. This is for the best.”
For her, not for him. She couldn’t let him suffer for her mistake. But moving past him was like trying to shift solid rock. He’d planted himself so she had no space to maneuver. All she could do was hold her breath and wait.
Over her shoulder she saw Wandarra balance the spear lightly in his hand, sunlight glinting off the tip. Tom had told her to brace herself against the rock wall. She was pressing so hard the grit drove itself into her palms but she hardly noticed. Her rubbery legs felt as if they wouldn’t hold her up much longer but she refused to give her nemesis the satisfaction of fainting at his feet.
Everything in her screamed that this couldn’t be happening, but it was.
She closed her eyes and prayed.
Tom fixed his gaze on Wandarra as the other man backed away as far as the limited space allowed. Under traditional law a transgressor was speared in the fleshy part of the thigh, causing maximum pain with minimum physical damage. The punishment was rare now, replaced by modern remedies, but Tom still encountered the occasional incident. He had never dreamed he would face the wrong end of a spear himself, and his insides churned. He was well aware of the damage the weapon could inflict.
Better to him than to the woman behind him.
Wandarra began to chant in his language, telling the spirits of the cave what he was about to do and why, so they knew that a wrong was being righted and they wouldn’t take their wrath out on Wandarra’s people.
The chant ended and Tom braced himself.
He hadn’t counted on the woman’s stubbornness. Instead of staying safely sheltered by his body, she planted her palms in the small of his back and pushed with all her might, knocking him off balance for a crucial instant.
In the same instant, Wandarra let the spear fly.
Recovering his balance, Tom heard her let out the faintest whimper. Swearing profusely, he turned to see the spear jutting from her boot, the point having penetrated her calf. Her knees sagged but she stayed upright, staring in disbelief at the still quivering weapon. The blood had washed out of her face and he suspected her grip on the rock wall was all that held her up.
He whirled on Wandarra. “Enough. This is settled now.” He didn’t drop his gaze until the other man nodded and turned away.
Dropping to one knee beside her, Tom braced his hand on her thigh. Her sharp intake of breath told him she knew what he was about to do. He saw her close her eyes again and pull in a deep breath.
There was no easy way so he made it fast. In a fluid movement he pulled the spear out, hearing her choke back a cry of pain. Tossing the spear aside, he gathered her into his arms. “You stupid woman. Let’s get you out of here.”
Any moment now she would wake up in her curtained bed in Dashara with her personal servants fussing over her, Shara thought. She must have stayed up too late last night working. When she opened her eyes, the handsome stranger who had been willing to take a spear meant for her would be no more than a bizarre dream.
Experimentally she opened her eyes and almost closed them again at the sight of the man cradling her against his chest. Her imagination could never have conjured up such a breathtaking experience.
He was as tall and self-assured as the men of her country, carrying her down the boulder-strewn hillside as if he owned it. He held her effortlessly, her weight no more than an inconvenience. When he’d swung her into his arms, she’d automatically linked her hands around his neck and hung on. Under her fingers, the corded muscles of his neck felt as solid as a tree trunk.
Shadowed by his bushman’s hat, Tom’s eyes and hair were a matching shade of sable. Beneath thick sooty lashes, fine lines framed a hooded gaze, from years spent scanning these far horizons, she assumed. The grim line of his mouth hinted at a disturbing sensuousness.
Close up, the tribal markings on his chest looked even more awesome. What must he have endured to acquire them?
Heat radiated through her, not all of it traceable to her throbbing calf. She knew she was focusing on details to avoid facing the truth. This man she didn’t know had tried to put himself on the line to protect her. By interfering, she’d offended his code of honor, she assumed. But she had her own code, and it precluded letting someone else pay for her mistake.
His hold on her stopped barely short of crushing. She dragged in a deep breath, regretting it almost at once as she was assailed by his musky man scent. This had gone far enough. “You can put me down. I can walk,” she insisted.
His hold didn’t loosen. “No need. We’re almost there.”
She strained to see anything around his daunting bulk, then stopped as the movement brought her into closer contact with his hard body. “Where is there?”
“My vehicle.”
Shifting her weight to one arm, he opened the door of a four-wheel-drive Jeep with the other and eased her onto the front seat, leaving the door open. She closed her eyes for a moment as the stored heat inside the car stole what remained of her breath.
“Are you all right?”
She forced her eyes open. “For someone who was speared, I’m fine. What do you think?”
He retrieved a compact first-aid kit from the back of the vehicle and opened it on the floor at her feet. “If you’d stayed put, you wouldn’t be injured.”
“I couldn’t let you suffer on my account.”
He shrugged this off. “You don’t take orders easily, do you?”
Did he sense that she was more accustomed to giving them? “Your friend Wandarra has his system of justice. I have mine.”
“Well, next time, try not to let it lead you into trouble.” He reached for her damaged boot.
She steeled herself, surprised to see him wince in sympathy when she was unable to suppress a cry. “You wouldn’t have been any better off,” she snapped, angry at herself for feeling so weak. Or was it because of the unwelcome feelings Tom’s touch stirred up? “I suppose you’re so tough that you would have walked away from the experience?”
“The spearing is meant to teach a lesson, not cause undue harm. By moving, you could have been killed.”
His anger suddenly made sense. Something tightened in her stomach, beyond the pain of the injury which she saw was mercifully slight when he pushed back the leg of her jeans.
Slowly her own fury ebbed. “I haven’t thanked you yet for what you tried to do.”
Tom kept his head down. “No thanks needed. You didn’t know what you were getting into.”
She still didn’t, she thought, trying not to flinch when he used a razor blade to slice the leg of her jeans open to just above her knee. She wouldn’t be wearing them again. It came to her that this could be a problem. For the first time in her life, she didn’t have a dozen more pairs where they came from.
As Tom cleaned her injury and wrapped a piece of gauze bandage around it, the touch of his fingers against her heated skin was deft, almost a caress. “Are you a doctor?” she asked.
“In the outback you have to be a bit of everything.” He lifted his head. “That’s the best I can do for now. I’ll take you to Diamond Downs homestead where they’ll do a more thorough job. I have some painkillers on me if you need them.”
“The antiseptic stings a bit, that’s all. I prefer not to cloud my thinking with painkillers.”
He repacked the first-aid kit efficiently. “Pity you didn’t think of that before you blundered into the gorge.”
“You think I don’t know that now? I may be many things, but stupid isn’t usually one of them.”
He rested an arm against the open door of the vehicle, trapping her within the angle of his body. His speculative gaze raked her, sending fresh waves of heat coursing through her.
“You don’t strike me as stupid. Naive, but not stupid.”
“You’re too kind.” She laced her tone with regal sarcasm more reminiscent of her life in Q’aresh than her present situation.
Instead of quailing, as her subjects would have done when she took that tone, Tom gave a sharp laugh. “Why do I get the feeling you expect me to fall at your feet and beg your forgiveness?”
Because part of her did expect it. As the only daughter of the King of Q’aresh, she was accustomed to having her slightest wish obeyed. Here, she had to get used to being treated like everyone else. “You’re imagining things,” she said.
“I don’t think so. You don’t exactly fit in here, do you?”
“Not like Barrak, the white dingo.” She couldn’t help sounding bitter, knowing she was jealous because he so obviously belonged here, while she was the interloper.
“The name was given to me when I was initiated into Wandarra’s clan. To everyone else, I’m Tom, the shire ranger,” he informed her.
He waited for her to volunteer information about herself. When she remained silent, he shrugged. “Suit yourself. I’ll find out who you are one way or another. You’re obviously foreign, but you must have someone I should notify that you’re all right.”
Panic welled inside her. “No, you mustn’t. I mean, there’s no need. I can look after myself.”
His gaze swept her slitted jeans and bandaged calf. “So I see.” He gestured toward the car slewed at an angle a few yards behind his. “I assume you got here in that. Care to tell me what you’re doing with Des Logan’s car? Or is that classified information, too?”
“I’m a guest of Mr. Logan’s.”
Tom’s dark eyebrows swept upward. “Des is my foster father.”
Suddenly she remembered where they’d crossed paths before. Tom’s familiarity had nagged at her. She had met him in the nearby township of Halls Creek when her father brought her with him on a cattle-buying expedition several years before.
Chagrin gripped her. Tom obviously didn’t remember her. Not that she wanted him to. The fewer people who knew her identity, or where she was hiding out, the better. “I simply wanted a safe—that is, a place I could have some time to myself,” she improvised. “Mr. Logan was kind enough to let me stay in the old cottage.”
Tom didn’t miss the hasty correction. Safe from what? “Des told me he had a guest staying out here, but that’s all.”
“Surely he doesn’t have to tell you everything? I understand you don’t live at Diamond Downs now.”
He nodded. “I have my own place outside Halls Creek.”
“What were you doing here?”
His mouth thinned. Then to her dismay, he said, “I’m not answering any more questions until you answer a few of mine, princess.”
Chapter 2
Feeling the color drain from her face, she let her head drop against the leather headrest. What had he called her?
“That does it, I’m getting you back to the homestead.”
She forced her head up. “I don’t feel faint, just…” What? Alone in a strange land? Terrified that she would be caught by her fiancé, Jamal, before she could get evidence of his true nature to her father? If she hadn’t been so distracted with these worries, she would have braked more quickly when the kangaroo leaped across her path. Then she wouldn’t have needed to follow the animal to ensure it wasn’t hurt, and come across the forbidden site.
A lot of ifs, she thought. She bit down hard on her lower lip to control the threatening tears, recognizing them as a product of mild shock. Tom didn’t know who she was. He’d called her princess as a nickname.
“Have you had your tetanus shots?” he asked.
“I’ve had every immunization possible.”
His eyes narrowed. “How long since you’ve eaten something?”
“I—I’m not sure. Breakfast, I think.” She had eaten some crackers and an apple, too unsettled to face anything more.
“That was hours ago. Des should have warned you against setting off alone without water, at the very least.”
“I have food and a water bottle in the car.”
He unscrewed the top of a canteen and handed it to her. As soon as the water spilled down her throat she realized how thirsty she’d been. How hungry she was.
He watched her grimly. “You really are a babe in the woods, aren’t you, princess?”
She lowered the canteen warily. “Why do you call me that?”
“Because of your haughty manner, as if everyone else is a rung or two beneath you on the social ladder.”
It was truer than he knew, at least in Q’aresh. “I’ll try to appear more sociable,” she said as much to herself as to him.
“I recommend it if you want to last long in the outback. And speaking of lasting long, if you run into any more trouble, the first rule of survival is to stay with your vehicle.”
His warning sent a stab of alarm through her. She’d never intended to last long in the outback, as Tom put it, only to eavesdrop on a meeting between Jamal Sayed and some of his cronies aboard the private plane Jamal would take to Australia on an assignment for her father.
She’d planned to leave the plane when it dropped the other men off at a coastal airstrip, but Jamal had caught her taping his conversation, and forced her to accompany him to Australia, telling her father she couldn’t bear being separated from her fiancé for so long.
Before he’d searched her bag, she’d managed to push her taped record of his treasonous meeting into a secret compartment under a seat. With luck, the tape was still on the plane. Her only hope of convincing her father that the man he expected her to marry was a traitor.
When the king had brought Shara with him to the Kimberley eight years before, she had never imagined she would return under such circumstances. Or that she’d find her life depending on the Logan family whom she’d met on that visit.
She was sure that the Logans, and by extension Tom, weren’t involved with Jamal. Shara had remained in touch with Judy Logan after meeting her at Diamond Downs on that first visit. Drawn together as the only teenage girls in the party, they’d discovered a mutual passion for rock art. Shara had been fascinated by the ancient sites in Q’aresh, deciding to set up an exchange program between the traditional artists in Australia and her country as soon as she came of age. Judy had become the scheme’s contact in Australia. Judy had been the logical person for Shara to turn to, although getting away from Jamal at the airport hadn’t been easy.
