Deadly Intent

In the three years since she’d shown up at a station where he was working, he’d returned to Diamond Downs only a handful of times, the last being four months ago, and he knew she was the reason. Around Judy he felt too much, wanted too much. On previous visits he’d managed to keep his feelings in check. This time, perhaps because Des’s health was declining and Diamond Downs faced such an uncertain future, Ryan had felt his resistance slipping.

The solution was as obvious as it was appealing. Have a fling with Judy and get her out of his system once and for all. He’d be doing them both a favor, he reasoned. She insisted she was more interested in flying planes than in serious relationships, so easing the tension between them with a no-strings affair should suit her, too. Afterward they’d be free to get on with their separate lives.

“I didn’t mean that the way it sounded. I am away a lot, but when I’m home I’ll gladly show you around,” he said.

“Deal,” she said, and smiled at him.

The change transformed her into the woman who’d filled his dreams since he was fourteen years old. Streaked with grease and dressed in slim-legged jeans, dusty elastic-sided boots and a high-cut T-shirt that revealed an inch of golden midriff with every move, she looked sensational.

He knew only too well why every other woman who’d crossed his path on his travels around the Kimberley had left him cold. However beautiful, pliant or eager for his company they’d been, they weren’t Judy Logan.

How many women would choose to spend an afternoon working on a car, as competently as Ryan himself? If she wanted him to join her hunting for a diamond mine he wasn’t convinced had ever existed, he’d be with her every step of the way.

He respected Des Logan enough to want to see him restored to health. And his intended fling with Judy would go more smoothly if she had the security the diamonds would provide, so it was what Ryan wanted, as well.

“You’re staring,” she said softly.

He felt as if molten metal were pouring along every vein, pooling in his groin. “If you had my vantage point, you’d stare, too.”

She shifted from one foot to the other as if the compliment made her uncomfortable. “Look, maybe this dinner date isn’t such a good idea.”

“It isn’t a dinner date—it’s a strategy meeting.” And he was Robinson Crusoe.

“And that’s all?”

He made the time-honored gesture. “Cross my heart.”

“Then perhaps Cade should come with us.”

Now there Ryan drew the line. “He ought to stay here in case your father needs anything.”

She caught her lower lip between slightly uneven white teeth. “You’re right, but—”

He couldn’t help it. His hand drifted to her cheek and he brushed away a streak of dust, eliciting a shiver that told him she wasn’t completely indifferent to him. “No buts. Be ready at seven.”

Chapter 2

“What’s going on?” Judy demanded as she followed Ryan into an old cottage a short drive from the main homestead. “I thought you wanted to come here to collect something.”

He gave her a wicked grin. “I did. You.”

She’d planned on spending the evening with him at a café in Halls Creek. Now she was confronted by a table set for two in the middle of what had been her grandparents’ home until the present homestead was built.

The old cottage, now used as guest quarters, was presently unoccupied. She found the scarred dining table disguised by a white cloth borrowed from the main house. A utilitarian candle jutted from a glass holder. A few wildflowers drooped in a jar, making her soften inwardly at Ryan’s attempt at creating an atmosphere. He had succeeded, but not in the way she suspected he’d intended. “You could have told me you planned on eating here,” she said to hide her discomfiture.

“Again, you could have asked.”

True. It had never occurred to her that he’d be this creative. Not wanting to give him the satisfaction of seeing how much he’d rattled her, she looped her bag over the back of a chair and sat down. “I hope you don’t expect me to do the cooking,” she said, her tone disabusing him of any such notion.

He went into the kitchen and she heard him moving around. “I have everything under control,” he said through the open door.

Too curious to sit still, she got up and went into the kitchen. The setting wasn’t the only thing he’d planned, because he pulled two thick steaks out of the refrigerator and carried them to the stove where a pan was heating. When he placed the meat in the pan, the steaks sizzled fiercely and sent up a heavenly spicy aroma. She sniffed appreciatively. The evening might not be going according to her plan—and Lord knew, she hated having her plans thwarted—but the reward might just be worth it.

“There’s a tomato salad and ice water in the refrigerator. Or wine if you prefer,” he said.

“Ice water’s fine.” She took them out and carried them to the table, then went back to enjoy the sight of the family black sheep working in a kitchen. “You never let on you could cook,” she said.

He turned the steaks expertly. “If you’d known, you’d have had me pulling my weight long before this.”

Thinking of the times she’d cooked for him on his visits, assuming he didn’t know one end of a grill plate from another, she twisted her mouth into a sneer. “What other surprises do you have up your sleeve?”

His eyes sparkled. “If I told you, they wouldn’t be surprises.”

“Stop being so damned mysterious and talk. You have a house in Broome. You know your way around a kitchen. Did you win the lottery or something?”

“Or something.”

He would tell her when he was good and ready and not before, she heard in his tone. Happy to watch his fluid movements, she perched on a stool. “Did you know Dad had mortgaged the land to Clive Horvath?” she asked after a while.

Without turning back, Ryan shook his head. “We only talk on birthdays and Christmas, so I’m the last to hear anything.”

“He didn’t tell any of us until it was almost too late. Maybe it still is. You never met Max Horvath, did you?”

Ryan slid the steaks out of the pan onto plates. “His father and mother split up and he moved with her to Perth before I was sent here.”

Sent here, she noted. As if he’d been under a prison sentence. Not came to Diamond Downs, or joined the family. Typical of Ryan not to forget that the choice had been forced upon him. “Of course, you had to learn to cook while you were living alone for all those months,” she said with sudden understanding. “Looks like you’ve added a few frills since then as well.”

He picked up a plate in each hand, and nodded to indicate she was to return to the table. “Took you long enough to work it out.”

She sat down at the table and he placed a plate in front of her. The aroma made her mouth water. “You’re a crafty one. But when you came to us, you were so angry and introverted. And you took off before I got the chance to ask how you’d been managing your life.”

He took his seat and offered her the salad bowl so she could help herself. “I probably would have told you to mind your own business.”

“In words of four letters,” she said, smiling to soften the reminder.

“Yeah, I knew a few of those. Still do.”

But he rarely used them these days.

She sliced into the steak and took a bite, closing her eyes in appreciation. “Who do I have to bribe to get the recipe for this marinade?”

“Just me. Do you want to know my price?”

She opened her eyes and almost recoiled at the sight of her own reflection in his dark gaze. His expression told her more surely than words that she wouldn’t like his price, so she didn’t ask. “There’s garlic and oregano,” she said, trying to keep her voice steady.

His mouth turned up at the corners as if he could read her inner turmoil and was amused by it. “What else?”

She took another bite and let it linger on her tongue. “Red wine?” He nodded. “And something spicy. Not chili. Damn it, why don’t you just tell me?”

He rested an arm on the table. “Because it’s fun to watch your eyes go off like firecrackers when you take my bait.”

“That’s exactly the sort of remark we could have avoided if we’d eaten in a public place.”

“Why do you think I chose this one?”

She stared at him. “So you could provoke me?”

“Not provoke, challenge you into admitting you want me as much as I want you.”

She almost choked on the mouthful of steak she was just swallowing. Suspecting how he felt and having it spelled out were very different experiences. “Now I know you’ve gone crazy.”

“It isn’t crazy for a man to be attracted to a woman, especially when she feels the same way.”

“I do not.”

“Do, too.”

The childish exchange reminded her of all the reasons this conversation was totally inappropriate. “You can’t be attracted to your foster sister.”

His knife and fork clattered onto his plate and he indulged in a couple of the words they’d just discussed. “You are not and never have been my sister.”

“You were fostered by my father.”

“Not by choice. I lived in your house for less than a year, and I left before the relationship was made official.”

She took a hasty gulp of water. “Surely Dad became your legal guardian as he did for the others?”

“He wanted to, but I didn’t give him the chance. So my statement stands.”

His feelings were hardly news to her, but she’d always assumed nothing could come of them as long as he was family. Or had she hidden behind the belief rather than acknowledge the power of her response to him? She’d spent most of her adult years keeping men at a distance, determined not to have a life like her mother’s.

Or a death.

Judy still nursed a deep well of hurt whenever she thought of Fran Logan ignoring the pain of appendicitis and continuing to minister to her family’s needs until she collapsed. By the time medical help had been obtained for her, it had been too late.

Outback women like Fran lived and breathed the belief that their families came first. No sacrifice was too much. More often then not they hid their own feelings, needs and wants, never letting on to their families and those closest to them that they might be suffering. When food was scarce, they served themselves the smallest portions or none at all. If children were sick, they were nursed day and night, sometimes through their own sickness. They set bones and mended fences with equal stoicism. Educated their children at home. Endured isolation and deprivation beyond most people’s comprehension.

Satellites and cell phones might have eased the solitude, but not the need for sacrifice. Judy still encountered plenty of it on her flights to deliver supplies, medicine, news and visitors to outlying properties. The women were the ones who suffered in silence. Judy didn’t intend to become one of them. She didn’t have their qualifications for sainthood.

These days, there was no requirement for a woman to marry. Judy saw herself as living proof you could have a satisfying career and a social life without tying yourself down forever.

“Lots of men tell me they’re attracted to me,” she stated, wishing for another glass of water to ease her parched throat. “I’m not interested in anything long-term.”

He reached over and poured water from his own glass into hers. “Maybe you just haven’t been told by the right man.”

She sipped slowly. “The right man being you, I suppose?”

He helped himself to tomato salad, but didn’t eat. “We’ve always known what was between us. Ignoring it hasn’t helped. So the logical solution is to have an affair and be done with it.”

Her hands, usually so capable on the controls of her Cessna 182, fluttered helplessly. “Dad is seriously ill. We may not be able to hang on to Diamond Downs. And you want us to have an affair?”

“Blake and Tom have the same worries, but I don’t see Blake living without Jo, or Tom holding off on marrying his princess. If we wait for everything to be perfect before dealing with what’s between us, we can’t move on.”

“Blake and Tom are not…” Barely in time, she stopped herself from uttering the words long forbidden by her father. “Blood.” As Des saw it, his foster sons were as much family as his biological daughter.

Ryan’s expression stayed impassive, but his eyes had hardened. “You can say it. Des isn’t here to jump on you. Blake, Tom, Cade and I are grace-and-favor Logans. I can’t speak for them, but the situation suits me fine.”

Appalled at herself, she looked down at the plate. “I guess I don’t like thinking you actually prefer being an outsider.”

He smiled wryly. “If I wasn’t, we wouldn’t be having this discussion. I know Des means well but he can’t change history. All of us were born into other lives. He gave us a second chance and we respect him for it. But it doesn’t make us Logans. We can’t feel the same toward him and Diamond Downs as you who were born here of his flesh and blood.”

“Are you sure?”

A long pause preceded his reply. “Honest answer? I don’t know. When I was a teenager, I envied the other boys for belonging here when I felt as if I never would. Maybe they do feel more kinship with Des and the land than I want to think. One day, I may even ask them if we get drunk enough.”

She gave a shaky smile and resumed eating. “Their answers may surprise you.”

He attacked his steak as if it were his beliefs. “Wouldn’t be the first time. When I got here, I was so full of my own bull, thinking nobody knew the troubles I’d seen. Then I found out Tom’s dad was in jail for killing his mother in a fit of jealous rage, and Blake had been left on a doorstep when he was a baby. My problems seemed feeble by comparison.”

“They were real enough to you. It wasn’t fun having to fend for yourself at fourteen.”

“But I’d had my mother until then, and some happy memories of my father before he vanished without trace. It’s more than Blake ever had. And my dad may have run out on us, but while we lived as a family he never raised a hand to his wife.”

She masked a smile, recognizing—as Ryan evidently failed to do—Des Logan’s words to the boy soon after he arrived. Reminding him to count what he had, rather than what he lacked. Her father had been more of an influence over Ryan than he knew.

Finishing the steak, she pushed the plate away. “I’d like the marinade recipe one day, if the price comes down.”

His expression said it wouldn’t where she was concerned. Then he said, surprising her, “You can have the secret for free. It’s wasabi, Japanese mustard. Just a touch makes all the difference.”

She should have known. His home was in Broome, where the Japanese influence had been strong for a couple of centuries. The town even held a Japanese pearl festival each year, the Shinju Matsuri. “Wasabi, I’ll remember,” she said.

“I’ll bring you some next time I visit,” he promised.

She placed her knife and fork side by side on the plate. “Maybe you shouldn’t.”

Steel settled in his gaze. “Shouldn’t bring wasabi, or shouldn’t come?”

“Both. Having an affair might work for you, but it isn’t what I want. I only wanted you to come back because you’re part of the family.”

He leaned closer. “What are you afraid of? If it’s my prospects, I’m a better catch than I’ve let you believe.”

She stood up and started to pace, her movements constrained by the small room. “Your prospects aren’t the problem.” It was his overwhelming effect on her.

“You can’t say you don’t feel anything for me.”

She swung around, wrapping her arms around herself. She couldn’t lie. But she didn’t have to tell the whole truth. “There’s a complication.”

His mouth thinned. “As in another man?”

“I’m seeing Max Horvath.”

Ryan looked thunderstruck. “You can’t be serious. I know he had a thing for you a few years back, but I thought you’d made it clear you weren’t interested in this or any other lifetime.”

“I did. Then I—changed my mind. I shouldn’t even be here with you tonight. I broke a date with Max because I wanted this chance for us to talk privately.”

Looking as if he’d rather shatter them to bits, Ryan gathered the plates and glasses with exaggerated care, but stayed standing at the table. “I can’t believe I’m hearing this. Max is the one with designs on your land and your legendary diamonds. Is this some kind of crazy self-sacrifice thing? Marrying him so he’ll let your father keep the land? Is that your bride price, Judy?”

“No.” In fact, she had started seeing Max again against her family’s better judgment so she could keep an eye on his activities. They were all convinced Max was behind a string of suspicious incidents on Diamond Downs, but the police couldn’t pin anything on him without proof. She was hoping if he let his guard down with her, she could obtain the proof.

The list of grievances was long and getting longer. No sooner had Tom and Shara discovered a cave of valuable rock art on the land than a crocodile attack had attracted negative publicity, threatening the income from tourism Des had hoped to bring in.

Journalist Jo Francis had arrived to write a series of stories about surviving in the outback, her editor paying well for the access. Then Blake, an expert on crocodile behavior, had caught Max’s henchman Eddy Gilgai luring the crocodile dangerously close to Jo’s camp.

The scheme had backfired when Eddy himself had been taken by a crocodile, but the resulting media coverage hadn’t done Diamond Downs’s fledgling tourism venture much good. With the wet season approaching, fewer tourists were visiting the Kimberley anyway. By the time the dry season came around again—assuming they could hang on that long—Judy hoped the fuss over the crocodile attacks would have subsided, and they could focus attention on the rock art caves again.

She couldn’t tell Ryan what she hoped to achieve by dating Max, without letting him think she was available for a romantic fling with him. The very thought sent needs she didn’t want to acknowledge coiling through her. Right now he looked angry enough to break something, but the fire in his expression ignited an answering one inside her. What would it be like to feel his strong arms around her and his mouth hungry on hers?

Since she couldn’t find out and keep faith with herself, she tore her gaze away. “I didn’t want to talk about this, Ryan. You don’t control me.”

“I’m not going to stand back and let you barter yourself for a creep like Max Horvarth,” he said. “If finding that mine will keep you away from him, I’ll find it for you.”

She had hoped to convince him to help, but not like this. “Are you offering to help so I’ll have an affair with you? If so, the price is too high.”

“The price is the same as it’s always been—your body and soul. And the chance to get this…thing…between us worked out once and for all.”

“Damn you, Ryan. Don’t do this to me.”

“It’s done. All I did was up the ante. Unless you want me to go back to Broome and forget about helping you look for the mine.”

Careful to avoid touching him, she took the plates from him and carried them to the kitchen, where she started to run hot water into the sink. Mechanically, she began to wash the plates.

He came up beside her and picked up a dish towel, drying the plates as if the two of them were a couple doing their nightly chores. The image had more appeal than she wanted it to.

“What’s it to be?” he asked as he put the plates away.

She lifted dripping hands out of the water to gesture futilely. “You ask the impossible. I need your help if I’m to have any chance of finding the mine before the wet season cuts off access, but I can’t agree to…your terms.”

He flicked the kettle on and lifted two coffee mugs down from a shelf. “What can you agree to?”

Her voice struggled to rise above a whisper. “To think about your offer?”

“Not good enough. Thinking’s too intangible.”

Ryan knew he’d done enough thinking about her to drive a man crazy. Already he was regretting tonight. Arranging dinner in the isolated cottage had seemed like a good idea when he’d devised it. He hadn’t allowed for her effect on him. Seated across the table, knowing how easily he could carry her to the bedroom, had made this the most uncomfortable meal of his life. Before he’d known it, he’d suggested an affair in exchange for his help. Judy’s presence made him forget all gentlemanly behavior—forget everything but how badly he wanted her.

“I’m sure Dad would agree to give you a share of the mine.”

He slammed the coffee mugs onto the timber counter hard enough to startle them both. “I don’t want a share of the bloody mine.”

“Then I’ll go looking alone.”

“Am I so offensive to you that you’d risk your life, rather than consider a relationship with me?” he demanded.

“Oh, Ryan, no. I could make love to you far too easily if I let myself.” Or fall in love with you.

His hopes, almost throttled, began to rise. “Then if I’m not the problem, what is? You can’t tell me you’re in love with Max Horvath.”

“I have my own reasons. If you really care about me, you’ll respect them and leave me alone.”

He ran his hands up and down her arms, feeling the shivers of response. “What do you think I’ve been doing the last few years?”

Caught by surprise, she turned, right into his embrace. “Is that why you come back so seldom?”

He smoothed out the furrow in her brow with his lips. Her skin tasted of sun and heat. She rarely used perfume, but her natural scent swirled through his brain, dazzling him. He took her mouth much harder than he’d meant to, as a starving man might attack his first offering of food. The impact wound all the way to his gut and stayed there, urging him not to stop at a kiss but to plunder and take. Now. Now.

Her arms wound around his neck and she pressed against him as if she also had trouble controlling her actions. When he’d claimed her mouth, her lips had parted instinctively and he flicked his tongue against the soft corners, gratified by her small indrawn gasps of pleasure.

With his knee, he nuzzled her legs apart and pressed closer. Thinking they’d be dining in town, she’d exchanged her jeans for a long, batik-printed skirt, more like a length of cloth wound around her slender hips. The cloth parted at his probing, revealing long legs strengthened by years of outdoor work and handling heavy cargo on her own.

As his body collided with hers, she opened her mouth as if to protest, but any objection she might have made was swallowed when he deepened the kiss. He’d found her core with his thigh and now he moved gently, seductively between her legs until she released a moan against his mouth. Through her skimpy white cotton top, he felt her nipples harden and almost moaned himself. Wanting her set his belly aflame and his blood roaring. It came to him that he could take her now and end this pointless argument once and for all. She would be his, end of story.

But until he knew what kept her from giving herself to him of her own accord, he couldn’t in good conscience take what was within his grasp, although, heaven knew, he wanted to. He had never wanted anything—or anyone—more.

Cursing Des Logan for instilling at least a few principles into him, he trailed kisses down her throat and stiffly, painfully lifted his head. Her eyes were cloudy with desire, her limbs shaky. He held her until he was sure she could stand on her own, then stepped back.

“Now you know why I don’t return more often.”

Her breathing became shallow. “I never guessed.”

“You must have known I was attracted to you.”

“But not—like this.”

To give them both time, he finished making the coffee and carried the mugs to the living room. He was surprised nothing spilled, considering how unsteady his hands felt. She followed more slowly and sat across the table from him, her face pale.

He disliked cornering her, but he’d had to show her what was at stake. Words could never have convinced her. He realized he’d taken a risk by showing her how strongly she affected him. Sharing his feelings wasn’t something he did easily, and he doubted he did it well. She might still reject him, but if she agreed to his proposition, they’d both have a chance of moving on.