The Cattle King's Mistress

“I’m not offering romance. I’ve been there, done that, and come out empty every time.”

The edge of contempt in Nathan’s voice startled Miranda into looking at him. “Look around you,” he directed. “My life is bound up in this land. It comes down to basic needs, and that is pervasive if you live here long enough. I have a great respect for basic needs. And sharing them makes sense to me.”

Miranda frowned, realizing he was talking of a stark reality he faced day after day.

“Now, I’d say there’s something very basic between us that we could answer for each other. I’m not interested in the games men and women play in the world you come from,” he said with an relentless beat that seemed to drum on her mind and heart. “I’ll say it how it is for me. I want you, Miranda. And you want me.”

Dear Reader,

Last year I chartered a plane to fly me from Broome, the pearling capital of the world, right across the Kimberly region of the great Australian outback. The vast plains are home to huge cattle stations, the earth holds rich minerals, and the outposts of civilization are few and far between. I wondered how people coped, living in such isolated communities.

“They breed them big up here,” my pilot said. “It’s no place for narrow minds, mean hearts or weak spirits. You take it on and make it work.” He grinned at me. “And you fly. Can’t do without a plane to cover the distances.”

Yes, I thought. Big men. KINGS OF THE OUTBACK. Making it work for them. And so the King family started to take shape in my mind—one brother mastering the land, running a legendary cattle station; one who mastered the outback with flight, providing an air charter service; and one who mined its riches—pearls, gold, diamonds—selling them to the world.

Such men needed special women. Who would be their queens? I wondered. They have come to me, one by one—women who match these men, women who bring love into their lives, soul mates in every sense.

I now invite you to share the journeys of the heart for these KINGS OF THE OUTBACK. This is Nathan and Miranda’s story. Tommy’s will follow. Then Jared’s. Three romances encompassing the timeless, primitive challenge of the Australian outback and a touch of what the Aboriginals call “The Dreamtime.”

With love,

The Cattle King’s Mistress

Emma Darcy

www.millsandboon.co.uk

MILLS & BOON

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CONTENTS

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

AUTHOR’S NOTE

CHAPTER ONE

MISTRESS to a married man…no way!

Miranda realised she was gritting her teeth again and consciously relaxed her jaw. She’d end up grinding her teeth right down if she kept thinking of Bobby Hewson and his blithe assumption they could continue as lovers, his forthcoming marriage being no barrier whatsoever to what they shared!

Well, he could find someone else to warm his bed next time he flew into Sydney. Adultery was not her scene. She might have been a fool to have let Bobby play her along with promises for three years, but she was not going to be used for his extra-marital pleasure. She’d seen what that second-string kind of relationship had done to her mother. Never, never, never would she go down the same demeaning and destructive path!

“Miss Wade, your gin and tonic.”

Miranda wrenched her mind off burning thoughts and looked up at the smiling airline hostess who proceeded to lay a serviette on the small metal drinks tray, which extended from the wide armrest of the first-class seat. A little bottle of gin, a can of tonic water and a glass with ice cubes were set down.

Nice to be treated to first-class service by her new employers, Miranda thought, and hoped the drink might help relax her. “Thank you,” she said, returning the smile.

The hostess’s eyes glowed with interest as she remarked, “I just noticed the book in your lap, King’s Eden. Are you heading there?”

It was the book Elizabeth King had given her for background information, once Miranda had signed the two-year contract that tied her to managing the wilderness resort. A history of the place and the family who owned it might be dry reading, but mandatory in the circumstances, and the best use of these hours in flight to Darwin. Miranda sternly told herself it was time she concentrated on her future course and put the past in the past.

“Yes, I am,” she answered, deciding to plumb the interest being displayed. “Do you know it?”

“I’ve been there,” came the obviously enthusiastic reply. “It’s what you might call a legendary place in the Kimberly, owned and run by the cattle Kings. Now that they’ve opened up the wilderness park for tourists and built a resort to cater for them, it’s a very popular outback destination.”

“Did you stay at the resort?”

“Not at the homestead.” An expressive eye-roll. “Too expensive. A group of us stayed three days in the tented cabins at Granny Gorge.”

Tented cabins, camping sites, bungalows and homestead suites—four levels of accommodation to be managed, Miranda reminded herself—a far cry from a five-star hotel. Was she mad to take it on…two years in the wilderness?

“Did you think it was worth the trip?” she asked the hostess.

“Oh, yes! Well worth it! I’ve never seen so many butterflies. The trees around there were filled with them. And we swam in a gorgeous turquoise water-hole fed by waterfalls off the cliffs. Great way to have a shower.”

“So you’d definitely recommend it.”

“To anyone,” the hostess confirmed. “Don’t miss the Aboriginal carvings in the caves if you go to the Gorge.”

“I won’t. Thank you.”

Well, King’s Eden had appealed to at least one person, Miranda noted as the hostess moved off. Its only appeal to her at the present moment, was the chance it offered to live her life on her own terms.

If she’d stayed with the Regency hotel chain, she might have moved from assistant manager in Sydney to an overseas posting, an ambition she’d once nursed, but it would have only happened now if she’d also stayed sweet with Bobby. He’d made that clear, offering steps up the managerial ladder as a persuader to win her compliance with his marriage, which, he’d argued, was only for the purpose of cementing an alliance between two great international hotel chains.

Another lie!

The photograph of his French fiancée in the newspaper was more than enough proof to Miranda that Bobby would find his honeymoon no hardship at all.

He’d obviously been lying to her all along—three years of lies. The only thing she’d ended up believing was his threat to stop her getting a decent position anywhere else if she walked out on him. It was sickeningly clear he’d do and say anything to get his own way.

King’s Eden offered her the perfect escape from that kind of victimisation. It was a one-off resort complex, not linked to anything or anyone that Bobby Hewson could touch or influence.

She smiled grimly as she recalled one of the questions Elizabeth King had asked at the interview.

“You are…unattached?”

Detached, Miranda had almost answered, barely swallowing her bitterness over Bobby’s sleazy propositions and manipulations. “I am completely free, Mrs King,” she had stated. “My life is very much my own.”

And that was how it was going to be at King’s Eden, Miranda vowed. Her own life run by herself. She didn’t care how different the environment was, what problems she’d have to cope with. Her strong sense of self-worth demanded she make good on her own abilities…not by being a playboy’s mistress!

She opened the book on her lap, determined on focusing her mind on the future. A map on the first page showed the Kimberly region—three hundred and twenty thousand square kilometres, stretching from the seaport of Broome on the high west coast of Australia to the border of the Northern Territory. Blocked out in green was King’s Eden—a big chunk of outback country that would be the last place on earth Bobby Hewson would look for her.

It might not be the Garden of Eden, but at least it had no serpent in it. With that blessed assurance in her mind, Miranda turned the page and began reading, acutely aware of having turned a page in her life and there was only one way to go…forward.

CHAPTER TWO

“JUST tell me one thing, Mother. Why choose a woman?”

Because you need one.

And with Susan Butler finally out of your life, you might look for more than a convenient mistress.

Elizabeth King hid these thoughts as she assessed the depth of her eldest son’s annoyance at the decision she’d made. The irritable note in his voice and the V creased between his brows, plus the tense impatience of his actions since he’d entered the sitting-room, did not promise an encouraging start between Nathan and Miranda Wade, whom he was about to meet.

Running the resort was part of Tommy’s business. Running the cattle station was his, and he drew a firm line between the two enterprises. For the most part, Nathan kept his world to himself, but to Elizabeth’s mind, that had to change.

He was thirty-five years old. Time for him to get married. Time for him to have children. Passing that particular buck to his younger brothers wouldn’t wash. It was Nathan who had inherited the major share of Lachlan’s genes and Elizabeth didn’t want to see them wasted.

“I chose the person with the best qualifications to manage the resort,” she answered, raising a quizzical eyebrow at the man who was so very much his father’s son. “I wasn’t aware you held any prejudice against women taking on responsible positions, Nathan.”

He threw her a mocking look from the leather armchair he’d made his, since it was the only one big enough to accommodate his length and breadth comfortably. “Not even you could stick it out here all year around.”

That old argument wouldn’t wash, either. “I had other interests to look after, as you very well know.”

His eyes remained sceptical. “The point is, we all agreed a married couple was the best choice.”

“Fine, if the marriage is stable,” Elizabeth retorted, a pointed reminder that the last manager had left under threat of divorce by his wife. “And who is to judge how good a relationship is, on an interview where everyone puts their best foot forward? We’ve been down that track.”

“Then I would have thought a single man would cope with the location better than a single woman,” he argued.

Elizabeth shrugged. “I wasn’t impressed with the men who applied. A bit too soft for my liking.”

“So what have we got? A woman of steel?” His mouth thinned. “She’d better be, because I will not be at her beck and call to clean up any mess she makes of it. If she needs someone to hold her hand, Tommy can do it.”

“I’m sure you can make that clear to her, Nathan.” Elizabeth could not repress a satisfied little smile as she added, “If you wish to.”

Nathan’s black eyebrows beetled down. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“I doubt Miranda Wade would be inclined to cling to any man’s hand.” And that, my son, may well set a sexual challenge you’ll find hard to resist.

“Just what we need—a raging feminist to play charming hostess to the resort guests who expect to be pampered,” he commented derisively.

“Oh, I think someone who’s been in the hospitality trade for twelve years knows how to manage guests,” Elizabeth drawled. “But judge for yourself, Nathan. That sounds like Tommy’s vehicle arriving now. I trust you’ll make an effort to be welcoming.”

He rolled his eyes and muttered, “I’m sure Tommy will be in good form. He’ll undoubtedly cover any lapse on my part.”

True, Elizabeth thought. Her highly extroverted middle son was probably flirting his head off with Miranda Wade right now. It was second nature to Tommy to spark a response in women. He liked to be liked. But the cool blonde she’d interviewed would let his charm wash over her like water off a duck’s back. Those green eyes of hers had burned with a need to prove something to herself. They were focused inwardly, not outwardly.

It would be interesting to see if Nathan drew a flicker of awareness from her, Nathan who was what he was and you could like him or not as you pleased. He was a challenge, too. A challenge most women gave up on. Elizabeth didn’t think Miranda Wade was the giving-up type. Even so, the equation still needed the right chemistry, and no one could make that happen.

Such a capricious element—sexual chemistry—but vital. She could only hope…

Miranda had seen it from the air this morning—the area comprising the resort and the layout of the cattle station. She hadn’t realised the buildings relating to each business would be entirely separate, the “homestead” at the resort having no connection whatsoever to the family homestead. The former was of very modern design and construction. The latter, as it was approached at ground level, gathered an allure that touched an empty place in her life.

Deep roots had been put down here, the kind of roots she had never known. Nothing had been fixed or solid in her mother’s life and Miranda had been glad to get out of it, knowing she was an unwelcome reminder of her mother’s mistake, a reminder of her age, too, as well as a resented distraction to the men who’d kept her.

As soon as she was sixteen, she’d left and had been in live-in hotel positions ever since, not really letting her surroundings touch her. They were simply places that put a roof over her head. She had no sense of home, no sense of family tradition, no sense of belonging to anything except herself.

It felt strange, coming face-to-face with something so different to her own experience. No modern landscaping here. The trees that had been planted for both shade and ornament were old, the girth of their trunks and the breadth of their branches proclaiming the growth of more years than any one person’s lifetime. The intense entanglement of the multicoloured bougainvillea hedge surrounding the house indicated longevity, as well.

Like all the buildings on the cattle station, the homestead was white, set off by an expanse of green lawns. However, it sat alone, on a rise above the river, and the verandahs with their ornamentation of cast-iron balustrading and frieze panels, topped by the symmetrical peaks of its roof gave it the appearance of a shining crown on top of all the land it overlooked.

As Tommy King drove his Jeep up to the front steps, she was prompted by the sheer scale of the house to ask, “When was this built?”

“Oh, coming up ninety years ago,” he answered with one of his sparkling grins. “One of the first King brothers here—Gerald it was—saw some government official’s home in Queensland and was so impressed with it, he copied the design and had all the materials shipped to Wyndham.”

Cost no object, Miranda thought, recalling from the book she’d read that the first pioneering King brothers had mined a fortune in gold at Kalgoorlie before taking up this land.

“It’s very impressive,” she murmured, thinking houses simply weren’t built to such huge proportions any more. Certainly not in suburbia, she amended, smiling ruefully at her limited knowledge.

“It used to serve many purposes in the old days,” Tommy cheerfully explained. “Everyone lived in and travellers passing through stopped by for days to rest up. Hospitality has always been big in the outback.”

“I guess it broke the sense of isolation,” Miranda remarked.

“Well, taking to the air fixes that now,” he answered, his handsome face beaming pleasure in the accessibility he provided.

She’d learnt he owned and ran an airline company from Kununurra, small plane and helicopter charters making up the bulk of his business, much of which was connected to the resort. Tommy King was a go-getter entrepreneur, with the confidence, likeable personality and gift of the gab that could sell anything. Most of all himself.

Miranda wasn’t about to buy. The charm came too easily, and while he might be a shrewd businessman and definitely no lightweight for a man only in his early thirties, he had playboy looks; a riot of black curly hair that bobbed endearingly over his forehead, dark dancing eyes inviting flirtatious fun, a face as handsome as sin, and a lean, athletic body exuding charismatic energy and sex appeal.

She’d been in his company since he’d collected her from Kununurra airport this morning and as an informative guide he was excellent, but she was determined on keeping a very firm personal distance between them. The likes of Tommy King could not tempt her into mixing business with pleasure. She hoped he was getting that message because she certainly didn’t want an awkward situation developing between them.

“This place is getting to be like a white elephant now,” he commented as he brought the Jeep to a halt. “Wasted…” He shook his head over the wicked shame of it. “Guests would probably give their eye-teeth to stay here, but Nathan just won’t hear of it.” He grimaced, though his dark eyes twinkled cheerfully at her as he added, “Like a brick wall, my brother.”

Nathan…oldest son of Elizabeth and Lachlan. Just as well she had studied the family tree in the book on King’s Eden. The people she’d met so far assumed she knew these details about the Kings as well as they did.

“It’s understandable that he prefers privacy for his family,” Miranda said, thinking some things came ahead of turning everything into dollars.

“If he ever got himself married and had a family, I’d agree,” Tommy shot back at her. “As it is, he’s here by himself most of the time, and that doesn’t look like changing.”

He alighted from the Jeep, quickly striding around it to open Miranda’s door for her. She had little time to digest this new information. The invitation to dine with the family at the old homestead tonight had seemed to encompass more than the actual reality of one man. Two, counting Tommy.

“I thought Mrs King lived here, too,” she said as she stepped out of the Jeep.

“Not on any regular basis. Mum’s fairly tied up in Broome, managing the pearl farm…”

Pearls…

He grinned. “…but she flew in yesterday to be on hand to greet you and make sure everything is to your satisfaction.”

Her inner tension eased. She wouldn’t be the only woman at the dinner table. Elizabeth King would undoubtedly direct the conversation tonight and provide a comfort zone. Miranda smiled. “How kind of her!”

Tommy laughed. “Mum is a diplomat from way back.”

They proceeded up the steps, Miranda wondering just how different the two brothers were and how much their mother had to work at welding their separate interests into a reasonably harmonious unit. “Isn’t there a third son?” she asked tentatively, her mind seeing three names listed in print—Nathan, Thomas, Jared.

But the book on King’s Eden had been written some years ago. She had assumed marriages would have taken place since then. Having been wrong on that score with Tommy and Nathan, and with no mention being made of a younger brother from Tommy, she wondered if something had happened to the third son.

“Oh, Jared flits around the mining operations and oversees what’s done with the pearls. He’s hardly ever here,” came the offhand reply. “You’ll probably meet him some time or other but not tonight. I think he’s in Hong Kong at the moment.”

Mining operations…

Miranda did a very quick mental readjustment about the King family. What she was meeting here was very serious wealth, on a similar scale, if not higher, than the Hewson family. All three of the King brothers would be used to getting what they wanted, just as Bobby was. When they married, it would undoubtedly be into a family who had connections to their business interests and could probably broaden and enhance them. That was the way their kind of world worked.

She was an outsider, an employee who had her uses. Miranda resolved to keep those uses strictly defined. No blurred lines. However attractive any of the King men were, they were out of bounds in any personal sense.

She would never allow herself to be flattered by Tommy’s show of interest. If Nathan had a brick wall around him, it could stay totally intact, as far as she was concerned. Jared was more or less out of the picture so she didn’t have the problem of proximity with him.

Best to concentrate completely on Elizabeth King tonight.

With this decision firmly settled in her mind, Miranda’s attention turned to observing features of the house she was entering. Leadlight windows surrounded the solid cedar door Tommy opened for her. As she stepped into the main entrance hall, she realised it ran right through to the back of the house and actually formed a gallery of framed photographs. A collection of King’s Eden history, she wondered, but didn’t have the opportunity to look.

Tommy walked straight to the first door off the hallway and ushered her into a sitting room so full of riches, she was momentarily dazed by all there was to see. Much of the decor had an Asian influence, yet there seemed be an eclectic range of styles that somehow melded together into a fascinating collection.

Her skating gaze was halted—joltingly—by the man rising from a large leather armchair, a man whose length seemed to climb up like a mountain, blocking everything else out. He had to be well over six foot, broad-shouldered, broad-chested, one of the biggest men Miranda had ever met, and all of him emitting hard muscular strength that gave way to nothing.

Unaccountably a convulsive little shiver ran down her spine. His sheer physical presence had an impact that seemed to hit her whole nervous system, leaving her with an odd tremulous feeling that was deeply disturbing. He wasn’t threatening her. He stood out of courtesy. She had no cause to feel…vulnerable.

With a sense of self-determination, Miranda made eye contact with him and plastered a polite little smile on her face. His face could have been carved out of brown granite—all hard, sharp planes. Even the curves of his mouth seemed carved, defined emphatically, as though to deny any softness. Absolutely nothing “pretty-playboy” about Nathan King.

His thick black hair was straight. His black brows were straight. And cutting straight across the room at her were laser-sharp blue eyes, the vivid intensity of their colour made all the more stunning by his darkly tanned skin. Miranda felt utterly pinned by them, unable to break their captivating power…until Elizabeth King spoke.

“Welcome to King’s Eden…”

Miranda jerked her head towards the distinctive, familiar voice. The woman who had hired her sat on an ornately carved armchair, its rich scarlet and gold silk upholstery forming a striking frame for her white hair and white pantsuit. And the beautiful pearls around her neck.