The Cattle King's Bride

“About what?” She reacted sharply.

“Don’t play the fool. You, of all people, it does not suit.”

“So what are you doing here?” The worst of it was he looked marvellous. Tall, rangy, wide shoulders that emphasized the narrow expanse of his waist, lean hips, long legs. A shock of blond, thickly waving hair curled up at the collar of his denim bomber jacket. Jewels for eyes, a dazzling shade of aquamarine that glittered against the dark golden tan of his skin.

Here was a man sexy enough to take any woman by storm. “I’m here to pick you up, dear heart. Your mother contacted me. I’ve got Uncle Noel’s Cessna. We leave first thing in the morning.”

She leant heavily into sarcasm as her form of defence. “Are you proud of the way you give orders?” She ran a backward hand over her tumbled mane.

“Not proud of it at all,” he said wryly. “It’s inherited, I suppose.”

“Not from your father.”

He spun to face her. His chiselled features with his strong cheekbones had grown taut. “Enough about my dad.”

“Let’s move on to my mother,” she countered. There were always shifts and starts, backing off, coming together, combustible electric currents, with her and Dev. Why not? They had serious unresolved issues between them.

“Try to keep focus, Mel,” he said briskly. “My grandfather is dying. He wants to see you and me.” He stood back so he could study her from head to toe. “You look beautiful, Mel,” he said in a dark, caressing voice. “More beautiful every time I lay eyes on you. Which isn’t often of late,” he tacked on in an entirely different tone.

“I thought we’d agreed on time-out?”

He contradicted flatly, “You’re the one who always insists on time-out. Just how much time-out do you want? You’re so into your intensive search for identity, it’s become an obsession. You’d better find yourself soon. Neither of us is getting any younger. Neither of us is able to jettison the other. I know you’ve tried.”

“What about you?” she retorted hotly, falling into the trap. “Isn’t Megan Kennedy still in the picture?” An image of that very glamorous brunette sprang to mind. “It’s certainly a match the clan would approve.”

“Except for a couple of strikes against it. One, I don’t give a damn what the clan thinks. Two, although I like Megan—she’s a fun girl and doesn’t pretend otherwise—no chance I’m in love with her.”

“But shouldn’t we treat love as absolutely foolish, Dev? What’s that saying? ‘There is always some madness in love’?”

“Nietzsche.” Dev came up with the name of the German philosopher. “He went on to say, ‘But there is also always some reason in madness.’“

“Madness either way. Love fades, Dev. Other attributes have to come into play—friendship, shared backgrounds and beliefs, eligibility. Sex isn’t the be-all and end-all.”

Dev gave a sardonic laugh, his dazzling eyes whipping over her face and beautiful body beneath its thin silky covering. “I wouldn’t marry a woman I didn’t want in my bed. My kind of woman would have sole possession of my body, my heart and my soul. The trouble with you, Amelia, is you’re not only at war with me, you’re at war with yourself.”

She didn’t reply. Her anger was warring with a terrible longing.

Dev threw up his elegant hands, callused on the fingertips. “Look, I don’t want to continue along these lines, Mel. I could do with a drink. I need to unravel.”

“What about a power nap, then take off?” she suggested, hardly trusting her own voice. Whatever the friction, there was the never-ending thrill of his presence. “Where are you staying, anyway?’

“Mel, darling, I’m staying right here.”

“Joke?”

“Can’t say I’m full of humour at the moment,” he confessed, stabbing a hand into his thick hair. It was one heck of an asset, that hair, Mel thought, bleached by a hot sun to a lighter gold than the last time she had seen him. “You can put me up, can’t you, Mel? I’m not expecting to share your bed.”

“Smart thinking, Dev. You won’t.” It was her classic defence mechanism.

Only he gave her a devastating grin. “Can’t you say, ‘I’ve missed you’? ‘It’s good to see you, Dev.’ Something with a bit of weight to it?”

“Sorry.” She shook her head. “You’ve taken me by surprise. And at this time of night! You could have rung.”

“And have you hang up? No way! Drink, Mel. Single malt Scotch if you’ve got it.”

She moved away, anxious to break eye contact. “So Noel lent you the Cessna?” Noel was the Devereaux patriarch. Dev, his great-nephew and godson, was the apple of his eye. Noel Devereaux had two daughters, but no son to succeed him. He adored his girls, both married to the right people, but it was a son he had longed for. Now he had Dev, since Dev had packed up and stormed off Kooraki. There was no love lost between Gregory Langdon and Noel Devereaux, both rich, powerful men.

“I do most of the flying these days. Noel is a good guy.”

“It must be a big help having you around the place,” she pointed out dryly. “Word is, you virtually run Westhaven.”

“So?”

“So I thought congratulations might be in order?”

“I’m not an employee, sweetheart.” Dev’s tone was laconic. “I’m family. Uncle Noel actually wants to hand over control.”

“You mean retire?” she asked in genuine surprise.

He shrugged. “Not exactly, but Diane wants to travel. She wants them to spend much more time together—see more of their girls and their grandchildren. The time appears to be right for Noel to hand over the reins.”

“To you, obviously.”

“The girls aren’t interested, neither are the husbands, very successful city men. It’s control, anyway, not ownership.”

She didn’t risk another comment. “Can I get you something else?” He had come a long way. And for her. Though it was as if she had little say in the matter.

“A ham sandwich, maybe? Could I grab a cup of black coffee, as well? You doing okay, Mel?”

“Wonderfully well, thank you, Dev.” She maintained a cool control.

“So look at me. I always know when you’re telling big fat lies.”

“No lie. I’m highly regarded at Greshams.” Mel began to assemble the makings of a ham, cheese and wholegrain mustard sandwich. The coffee would take only a few moments. “I’ll feed you, then I wish you’d find yourself a hotel, Dev.”

He pressed his back into the plush leather sofa with an exaggerated sigh of comfort. “Sorry, Amelia. I’m staying here. I need some sleep. Speaking of sleep, it’s not too late for you to say you’ll sleep with me.”

“Get it straight, Dev. I won’t.” Mel’s answer was remarkably breezy considering how she felt. She walked back, handing him a good measure of Glenfiddich over a few ice cubes.

He raised his remarkable eyes to her. “Many thanks, dear heart.”

Knowing him so well, she observed, “You’re upset.”

He took a long gulp of whisky before replying. “Why wouldn’t I be? I owe him. You owe him. He cared about you. You were such a feisty little kid.”

“So what went wrong, Dev?” she asked with some bitterness.

They were back on well-trodden ground. “We all know that,” Dev gritted out.

“Your grandmother hated my mother and me.”

His expression darkened. “She feared your mother. I’d say she had a certain respect for you, you little terror!”

“Well, she’s gone now and soon your grandfather will join her. They’ll lie together in the family plot, if nothing else. You’re talking about running Westhaven. Surely you’ve considered your grandfather could have planned on handing Langdon Enterprises to you.”

“After our bust-up?” he said, draining the rest of the Scotch. “Many harsh words were spoken.”

“You’ve never told me what it was all about.” She tried to fix his gaze but did not succeed.

How could he? Dev thought, leaning forward to place his crystal tumbler on the table, with its small collection of art books. Mel had more than enough to handle. Better he never told her. It was all so sick and sad.

“Okay, so you won’t!” she said, her nerves frayed. “But, trust me on this, Dev. We both know your father has always found walking in your grandfather’s shadow very heavy going. It’s not in his nature or his area of expertise to step into Gregory’s shoes.”

Dev wasn’t having any of it. “Dad will inherit as a matter of course,” he said as though it were written in stone. “My father is the legitimate heir.”

“Maybe, in the normal way, but your grandfather isn’t going to allow his hard-won empire to fall apart. He needs someone to run it after he’s gone. That someone is you.”

Dev punched one fist into the other. “Dad has worked his butt off.”

“I know.”

Dev loved his mild-mannered father. He had always been very protective of him, even as a child. Erik Langdon was a long way from being incompetent, but it had proved impossible for him to emulate his dynamic father, a man with the Midas touch. Erik lacked the specific qualities it took to be the man at the very top of the chain. He had once gone on record as saying it was like trying to drive a vehicle uphill with the handbrake on. The Can-Do man had skipped a generation. It was Dev who had inherited all the skills necessary to succeed his tycoon grandfather.

“I’m sure your father will be justly rewarded,” she said, as gently as she could, “but your grandfather won’t cede him control. Want to bet I’m right?”

“Darling Mel, you always are,” Dev drawled. “Let’s get off the subject. Life is just one long series of hurdles for us.”

“It happens when one gets caught up with wealthy, dysfunctional families.” Mel matched him for sarcasm. “I’ll get your sandwich. The coffee will only take a moment.”

“You never intended to go, did you?”

She could have shown him her packing. Instead, she said, “I don’t like letting my mother down.”

“You’ve let me down, haven’t you?” he flashed back. “How many times exactly have you told me you loved me?”

She took a deep breath. “I couldn’t begin to count the number, Dev. But we live on two different levels. We have separate lives. You have an escape valve, being who you are. Soon you’ll be the CEO of Langdon Enterprises, with huge responsibilities, always busy, always travelling thither and yon.”

“Gimme a break, Mel!” His voice held a rasp. “You’re a clever woman. You’d fit in supremely well.”

Her laugh was raw. “Not with the clan, I wouldn’t. They do have a hold on you, Dev. A few of them are major shareholders.”

“So what? I can’t solve your problems, Mel. Problems are keeping this God-awful distance between us,” he said with intense frustration. “This damned love torment. The never-ending family stuff is the prime cause of our alienation.”

“It’s your family, Dev. Not mine. Such as it is. We’ve talked and we’ve walked all around our feelings. We’re on a merry-go-round and we can’t jump off. Any thought of marriage has turned into an impossible dream.”

Dev leapt to his feet, his aquamarine eyes blazing with anger and outrage. “You know why? Because you’re always applying the brakes. Think I don’t know you fear being dominated? As though it could happen! What you really want is to bend my will to yours. It’s the war of the sexes, with you the man-hater. You said you wanted to stand on your own two feet. I’ve gone along with that.”

“Standing on my own two feet is central to everything.” Mel tried to defend herself.

“But I applaud it, Mel,” he cried in utter exasperation. “That’s what you can’t seem to grasp. I’m proud of you and how clever you are. You’d be a big asset to Langdon Enterprises, if you ever left Greshams. Anyone would think we were in competition, the way you behave. I don’t understand what it is you want me to be. I can’t grapple with all your expectations of the perfect man. I’m me. Far from perfect. Sometimes I think you’re actually frightened of me. Not in a physical sense. You know I would never hurt you. But you do have this huge problem with male domination.”

God knew it was true. “I grew up with it, didn’t I, this little satellite orbiting a giant tyrannical figure. Your grandfather carried domination to the extreme. Always the iron fist.”

“For goodness’ sake, Mel,” Dev protested, “he was himself. Stronger, cleverer, tougher than anyone else.”

“You might be describing yourself.” Mel shook her head bleakly.

Dev showed his fast-rising temper. “Now you’re making me really angry. What is it you want me to be, Mel? Do you even know? I can’t figure it out and I’ve come at it from every angle. As far as I can see, your biggest problem is you. Your exaggerated need for independence, self-reliance, like you don’t need a man, as though a man could break you. I’m telling you it’s paranoia!”

“Okay, maybe it is!” Pressure was expanding inside her, building up a huge head of steam. There were always bottled-up forces ready to explode when they came together, a consequence of their shared troubled history and her mother’s illicit position in Gregory Langdon’s life. “Let’s stop now, Dev,” she said more quietly. “I don’t want to argue with you.”

He sat down again, bending his blond head almost to his knees. “And I don’t want to argue with you. But you are one strange woman, Mel.”

“I expect I am,” she said in a haunted voice. “You know your place in the world, Dev. All I know is I grew up without a father and a father’s love and wisdom. What I know about my mother wouldn’t fill half a page in a child’s exercise book. She’s the only child of Italian parents, Francis and Adriana Cavallaro, who migrated to Australia and settled in Sydney. It has a large Italian and Italian-descent population. There was no other family. My mother left home, a bit like Ava, to escape her father’s very strict control. I never got to know any of my family. God knows why she decided to shift as far away as North Queensland. That’s a long haul.”

“Do we even know if that’s true?” Dev muttered. “I wouldn’t put it past your mother to have been wearing an impenetrable disguise all these years. When she came to Kooraki no one would have questioned her background. Where she came from would have been considered irrelevant. She was simply Mike Norton’s young wife.”

“Terrible to think my mother’s past could be an invention, a construct of lies. I hate blacked out spaces, secrets.”

“Tell me about it,” Dev said. “Most families have them. You are letting them plague you to death. You have to make a leap of faith. Faith in me. Your mother has her story but it’s obvious she doesn’t want you to know it, even if it would offer you comfort.”

She gave him a despairing look. “Was her home life so bad she simply had to run away? Did she cast off her past like a snake sloughs off its skin? My dad would have known. But he’s not around to tell me,” she said with the deepest regret.

“One day your mother might confide in you, Mel.” Dev tried to offer comfort, but he had no faith whatsoever in Sarina Norton, whom he knew as a devious woman and most likely an accomplished spinner of lies. “She’s a secretive woman without your strengths. But she had no difficulty conning men into thinking they needed to protect her.” He hadn’t intended saying that. It just sprang out. His own view was that men needed protection from Sarina Norton.

“Con? Did you say con?” Mel asked, midway between wrath and shock.

“I did and that’s my theory,” Dev shot back unapologetically.

Mel was severely taken aback. Dev had never spoken harshly of her mother.

“Give it a bit of thought, Mel. Your mother is a born actress. If she’d made it to the big screen she would have won an award.”

“What, playing the role of conning men?”

“I can’t think of anyone better,” Dev said bluntly. “Didn’t you ever watch her with the male staff? In fact any man that moved across her path.”

Mel looked back at him, stunned. “What is this, Dev? Payback time? I didn’t realize you so disliked my mother.”

His expression hardened. “On the subject of your mother it pays to keep my mouth shut. I’ve never been out to hurt you, Mel.”

Disturbing thoughts were sweeping into her mind. “But she thinks the world of you, Dev. How could you attack her, unless she tried to con you?” It didn’t seem possible.

Dev picked a non-existent thread from his shirt. “Cons don’t go down well with me, Mel.”

“What sort of an answer is that?”

“Are we going to have a problem with it?” he asked in a decidedly edgy voice.

Not, she realized, unless she was prepared to launch into an all-out fight. “Did it help or harm her, do you suppose, the fact that she was so beautiful?” Mel asked, always looking for some way to unravel the mystery that was her mother.

“Hell, she still is.” There was a harsh note in Dev’s voice. “Beautiful women have a lot of power. You know that. You have to accept your mother’s nature, Mel. I know you wanted her to come live with you, but the reality was she wanted to stay on Kooraki.”

Mel responded with real grief. “She chose Kooraki over me. She chose your grandfather over me, a man old enough to be her father, but what the hell? He was anything but your average bloke.” With a defeated sigh, she picked up the laden tray. Dev stood up to take it from her, setting it down on the coffee table.

She let him eat in peace. She had poured two coffees. Now she sat opposite him, sipping at hers, the rich aroma tantalizing her nostrils and soothing her.

“That was good!” he exclaimed in satisfaction when he was finished. “I haven’t had anything since around ten this morning.”

“Why is Mum so set on my attending?’

“Why are you so set against it?”

“All your grandfather thinks he has to do is give the order and we all fall into line. Well, most of us do,” she said wryly. “Not you, of course, even when you were told you were being cut out of his will.”

“Big deal!” Dev exclaimed. “I was prepared to risk it. I never felt good about telling my grandfather to go to hell, Mel. It was just something that had to be said. And there’s another thing. Whether he meant it or not, he broke Dad’s spirit.”

“I can’t understand why your father never stood up to him.”

Dev’s brief laugh was without humour. “Not everyone is a born fire-eater, Mel. Besides, he had to contend with a double whammy. Between my grandfather and my grandmother, Dad had a rough ride. My mother tolerated the situation as long as she could before she had to take off. Self-preservation. I used to dream of her coming back. Poor Ava was the worst affected. But at least we see our mother now. The truly amazing thing is they’re still married. Neither of them filed for divorce. Both could have found new partners in record time.”

“I expect your grandfather forbade it.”

“Maybe he did.” Dev shrugged. “He might have stopped Dad, but not Mum. She broke free. My parents should have moved away from Kooraki after they were married. They should have had a home of their own. I remember they were happy once. I believe they still have strong feelings for one another.”

Mel thought so, too. “Will your mother come?”

Dev nodded. “If Gregory dies, there’ll be the funeral.”

“Is Ava happy?” Mel asked. Lovely, graceful Ava, the granddaughter shoved into the background.

Dev gave a brotherly howl of anguish. “We both know Ava chose marriage as a way out. She had no real idea of what she was letting herself in for. She always claims she’s happy, but I don’t accept that. If I ever found out that husband of hers was ill-treating her in any way—not physically. He wouldn’t dare—but trying to browbeat her, he’d better look out. And that’s a promise.”

Mel had no doubts about that. She stood up. “For your information, I did intend to go, Dev. I’m as good as packed. I’ll have to cancel my morning flight.”

“Better do it now,” he said, rising to his feet and carrying the tray back into the kitchen. “I’m not exactly sure where I’m to sleep. Obviously the master bedroom is verboten. No need to lock the door, by the way. I don’t bother women.”

“No. It’s generally the other way around.”

“I’m a man like any other, Mel.” He gave her a sweeping glance out of his aquamarine eyes. “Even for you I can’t swear off sex entirely.” There was a sardonic twist to his handsome mouth.

“No need to tell me,” she said with an acid edge. “Someone always manages to give me the latest gossip. I knew all about your little fling with Megan Kennedy.”

“Megan knew what she was getting into,” he said, unperturbed. “We’re still friends.”

She rounded on him, temper flashing. “Isn’t that lovely!” She hadn’t forgotten how fearfully upset she had been, how hard it had been to hide it. The “Megan” affair had been her worst case of jealousy yet. She had to remind herself she’d had her own little flings that were predestined to fail.

“Might I remind you the pot can’t call the kettle black?” he said suavely. “Now, where do I sleep?”

She waved an imperious arm. “There’s the second bedroom, as you well know. The bed is made up.”

“You only have to call out if you get lonely, Mel.”

“My head only has to touch the pillow and it’s lights out,” she assured him.

CHAPTER THREE

DESPITE her claim, Mel lay awake with the full moon casting its light across her bedroom. Maybe it was the coffee that was keeping her awake? That was the easy answer. The real answer? How could she sleep with Dev just down the hall? She knew what her problem was. She was sexually frustrated, assailed by desires she couldn’t control with him around. She had to ask herself—could there possibly be another man in the world for her but James Devereaux Langdon?

Restlessly, she kicked at the top sheet, freeing her feet. She punched the pillows yet again, then turned on her left side, only she wasn’t comfortable with the steady thud of her heart. Over to the right side, she checked the time. Twelve forty-five. She would be exhausted in the morning if she didn’t succeed in putting Dev and her body’s needs out of her mind. Ten minutes went by. Was there no way out of this? It was as though a tribal sorcerer had put a spell on her. There were one or two old sorcerers left on Kooraki. Magic and ritual with the Aboriginal people would never die out. Only she knew as well as anybody you couldn’t get everything you wanted in this world. She had wanted a career. She had one. She had gained the respect of her peers and notice from the hierarchy. She was earning really good money.

You made a big mistake letting Dev stay.

He knew exactly how to push her buttons.

In the guest bedroom Dev was having an even worse time of it, the area below his navel aflame. He was unbearably aroused. He wanted to get up and go down the hall to her. He gave a short frustrated laugh that he muffled against the pillow. The last thing he should do was put Mel under even more pressure, even if it was killing him keeping his hands off her. Why was it he never had a problem with other women, yet he had one big problem with Mel? He threw the top sheet off, trying to rein in emotions so driving they threatened to sweep away any misgivings. This constant pitch of desire he had for Amelia could be classed as a type of lunacy.

His poor embattled grandmother had tried hard to convince him that Mel could have been Gregory’s daughter. It had upset him enormously at the time, but he had never really believed it. His gut told him not. And his gut was right. It was a pathetic and cruel attempt on his grandmother’s part to separate him from Mel. Yet he had understood his grandmother’s raging jealousy. His grandfather had lost his heart. But not to his lawfully wedded wife. It was there in his grandfather’s eyes every time he looked at Sarina.

He had no idea when that love had been consummated. Perhaps after the tragic death of Mel’s father. Mike Norton had been a leading hand on Maru Downs, a North Queensland station in the Langdon chain. His grandfather’s normal practice was to visit all the stations and the outstations checking on operations. There he had met Sarina, Mike Norton’s beautiful young wife.