Required: Three Outback Brides: Cattle Rancher, Convenient Wife / In the Heart of the Outback... / Single Dad, Outback Wife

‘I was trying to exercise caution as it happens,’ she admonished him. ‘You gave me a fright, too.’

‘Then I’m sorry. There’s nothing dangerous about me.’

She laughed shakily. What were they doing here, absorbed in a crazy conversation conducted in the near dark? ‘I have news for you, Rory Compton.’

‘Better not to tell me. It was one of the French doors. I’ve closed the shutters. I should have done it before.’

A shiver of excitement came into her voice. ‘The wind is much stronger now.’

It couldn’t be stronger than her magnetic pull. Rory marvelled at his self-control. Maybe honour could explain it? ‘Why are you whispering?’ he asked.

‘I really don’t know and I don’t want to find out,’ she whispered back. ‘We should turn on a light.’

‘Damn, why didn’t I think of that?’

‘The creek will have broken its banks.’

‘Any chance of your speaking louder?’

‘Oh, shut up!’ The tension between then was electrifying. ‘I’m so glad you were here, Rory!’

‘Am here,’ he corrected. ‘Now, where the heck is the light switch for the stairs?’ He knew it was dangerously wrong to keep standing there. Another minute and he’d reach for her. There was only one answer after that.

‘I’ll get it.’ She slipped away like a shadow. Another second and lights bloomed over the stairs and along the upper hallway.

Behind him the tall grandfather clock chimed three.

‘Ah, just as I thought!’ he exclaimed. ‘The witching hour!’

She was standing beneath a glowing wall sconce. It gilded the dark rose of the long hair that framed her face. He saw she was wearing a magical silk robe, a golden-green, with pink and cerise flowers all over it. It had fallen open down the front so he could see her nightgown, the same cerise of the flowers. It gleamed satin. So did the curves of her breasts revealed by the plunging V of the neckline. For a minute his strong legs felt like twigs.

Allegra drew her robe around her, scorchingly aware of his intimate appraisal. She was so aroused she was nearly on fire.

So why aren’t you moving?

‘We’d better go back to bed,’ she said in another furious whisper. ‘You go up.’

‘Why not leave those two wall sconces on?’ he suggested, not wanting and wanting so much to delay her. No words could describe how he felt. There was something magical about her. ‘There’ll be enough light to see us up the stairs.’ He could only wonder at how composed he sounded when his body was flowing with sexual energy.

‘The rain seems to be slowing.’ She switched off the main lights, then padded on her slippered feet to the base of the stairs. ‘Coming?’

He was awed by the electric jolt to his heart. ‘Coming where?’ He had a sudden overpowering urge to tell her how much he wanted her.

Only she cut him off. ‘You can’t come with me!’ Her voice trembled. She didn’t confess she was terribly tempted.

‘I can’t help wishing I could.’ He stared back at her, hot with hunger. ‘Don’t be scared, Allegra. I would never offer you a moment’s worry.’

She almost burst into tears she was feeling so frustrated. ‘I’m not scared of you,’ she said. ‘I’m scared of me. Haven’t we progressed far enough for one night?’

‘Years have passed off in a matter of hours,’ he said wryly. ‘Even then you haven’t answered the burning question.’

There was a breathless pause. ‘Ask it quickly. I’m going up to bed.’ She fixed her jewelled eyes on him.

‘What was so wrong with your marriage you had to abandon it?’

She might have turned to marble. ‘Don’t go there, Rory,’ she said.

‘You have to get it out of your system.’

She shook her glowing head. ‘Believe me, tonight’s not the night. Good night, Rory!’

‘What’s left of it.’ He shrugged. ‘See you in the morning, Allegra. I’ll be up early to check everything’s okay.’

‘Thank you.’ She was already at the first landing, intent on getting to the safety of her bedroom and shutting temptation out. ‘If you knock on my door, I’ll join you.’

With that she fled.

CHAPTER SIX

THE rain stopped in the predawn. The air was so fresh it was like a liqueur to the lungs. The birds were calling ecstatically to one another secure in the knowledge there was plenty of water. In the orange-red flame of sunrise they drove around the property, Rory at the wheel of the Jeep, revelling in the miracles the rain could perform. Overnight the whole landscape had turned a verdant glowing green. Little purple wild-flowers appeared out of nowhere, skittering across the top of the grasses. Hundreds of white capped mushrooms had sprung up beneath the trees that were sprouting tight bunches of edible berries.

They checked on the herd together. It had been little affected by the torrential downpour. The stock had come through the night unscathed and without event. The hail Allegra had feared had not eventuated. Cattle were spread out all over the sunlit ridges to the rear of the homestead. It was great to see them so healthy, their liver-red hides washed clean by the downpour.

The creek as expected had burst its banks. They stood at the top of the highest slope looking down at the racing torrent. It was running strongly, and noisily, carrying a lot of debris, fallen branches from the trees and vast clumps of water reeds torn up by the flow. When the water hit the big pearl-grey boulders the height reached by the flying spray was something to see. The area around the big rocks churned with swirling eddies of foaming water.

For a time neither of them spoke, simply enjoying the scene and the freshness and fragrance of the early morning. Both of them knew what this life-giving rain meant; how important it was to the entire region. A flight of galahs undulated overhead in a pink and magenta wave. Exquisite little finches were on the wing, brilliantly plumaged lorikeets chasing them out of their territory with weird squawks. Waterfowl, too, were in flight. They came in to the creek to investigate, fanning out over the stream. Allegra and Rory watched as the birds skimmed a few feet above the racing water, then collectively decided it was way too rough to land. They took off as a squadron, soaring steeply back into the sky again. Water was a magnet to birds. They would be back, from all points of the compass just waiting for the raging of the waters to slow and the creek to turn to a splendid landing field.

‘Rain, the divine blessing!’ Rory breathed as he watched the torrent downstream leap over a rock. ‘No rain our way as yet.’

Our way! His beloved Channel Country. They had listened to the radio for news. The late cyclone that had been developing in the Coral Sea was now threatening the far North. Drought continued to reign in the great South-West.

‘When it comes, the creeks, the gullies, the waterholes, the long curving billabongs will all fill up,’ he continued in a quiet but compelling voice. ‘The billabongs cover over with water lilies. None of your home garden stuff. Huge magnificent blooms. Pink, in one place, the sacred blue lotus in another, lovely creams, a deep pinkish red not unlike the colour of your hair. When the rains come the landscape just doesn’t get a drenching, the vast flood plains go under.

‘We’ve been totally isolated on Turrawin before today, surrounded on all sides by a marshy sea. When the storms come they come with a vengeance. It’s all on a Wagnerian scale—massive thunderheads back lit by plunging spears of lightning. Getting struck and killed isn’t uncommon. We had a neighbour killed in a violent electrical storm a few years back.’

Allegra turned to him, registering the homesickness on his handsome face. ‘How are you going to be able to settle here, Rory, when your heart is clearly somewhere else?’

He adjusted his hat to further shade his eyes from a brilliant chink of sunlight that fell through the green canopy. ‘I told you, Allegra, I can’t go back. My home is lost to me.’

‘You couldn’t find a suitable property in your own region?’

He gave a humourless laugh. ‘I could find one, maybe, but I couldn’t pay for one. No way! We’re talking two entirely different levels here. Our cattle stations—kingdoms are what they’re called and it’s not so fanciful—dwarf the runs in this area. I have to start more or less around the middle and work my way up.’

Her brows were a question mark. ‘But are you going to be happy doing it?’

‘Okay, I understand you.’ He shrugged. ‘The Channel Country is the place of my dreaming. It speaks to my soul like Naroom speaks to yours. This is beautiful country, don’t get me wrong. Maybe it hasn’t got the haunting quality of the desert, or its incredible charisma, but I’ll settle here. I have to.’

‘I don’t think I’d count on it,’ Allegra said, shrugging wryly. ‘Your love for your desert home won’t be shaken off any more than my father’s love for my dead mother. Some loves go so deep nothing and no one can approach them.’

‘Thinking twice about selling then?’ he asked, filling his eyes with her. Her lissom body was clad in a navy and white top and close fitting jeans No makeup again, save for a pink gloss on her mouth. Her thick hair was woven into a rope like plait. He’d never seen a woman look better.

‘Valerie and Chloe, when they return, will demand Naroom be sold,’ she answered. ‘I don’t think we could ask for anyone better than you to take it on. You’re an astute, ambitious man. I haven’t the slightest doubt you’ll make a big success of Naroom. And then you’ll move on.’ She spoke with a lowered head and saddened eyes.

‘Hey, that’s quite a few years down the line!’ He tried to reassure her. ‘But isn’t that the way of it, Allegra? One expands, not stands still. Which doesn’t mean to say Naroom couldn’t and wouldn’t remain a valuable link in a chain.’

‘How good a cattleman is your brother?’ she asked abruptly, moving a step nearer the top of the grassy slope to check it was a log that had smashed into one of the creek boulders and not a lost little calf.

‘Jay got pushed into it,’ he answered. ‘He works as hard as any man. Harder, but—’

‘He wasn’t born to the job,’ she cut in gently.

‘I told you he wanted to be a doctor. It’s a bit late but he could still be. I wouldn’t know but he was a straight A student. Jay has a more sensitive side to him than I have.’

She gazed at him out of her black fringed eyes. ‘I don’t know if that’s exactly right. I haven’t had the pleasure of meeting Jay, but I would describe you as pretty deep, Rory Compton. You display your sensitivities in many ways.’

‘As when?’ he asked the question, then broke off abruptly, seized by a mild panic. ‘Don’t move,’ he ordered. ‘You could take a tumble.’

Even as he spoke the ground shifted beneath Allegra’s feet. ‘Oh … hell!’ She threw out an arm. He grabbed it strongly, but the soles of her riding boots were slick with grass and mud. She slipped further down the bank with Rory straining to hold her. Allegra almost righted herself, about to thank him for his help, but in the next second a section of rain impacted earth gave way and the two of them began to roll over and over down the wet grassy slope, gathering momentum as they went. Their bodies crushed the multitude of unidentifiable little flowers that grew there in abundance, releasing a sweet musky smell.

Allegra, though powerfully shocked by their tumble, was experiencing a rush of emotions that included exhilaration and a blazing excitement. They were going to go into the stream. She knew that even if she couldn’t look. It wouldn’t be the first time she’d found herself in deep, fast running water. She was a strong swimmer. He would be, too. She didn’t even have to consider it. His powerful arms were around her. What did she care if they had to fight the torrent? They were together. She felt like a woman is supposed to feel when she was with one particular man. A man who walked like he owned the earth.

Rory was taking the brunt of it, trying to protect her body from any hurt along the way. They were to an extent cushioned by the thick grasses that gave up a wonderfully pure, herbal aroma. As they careened towards the rushing creek he crushed her to him. He couldn’t risk flinging out an arm. That meant taking one from her, but he was straining to gain purchase with his boots. Finally he hooked into something—a tight web of vines—that slowed their mad descent.

Another four feet and he was able to slam a brake on their rough tumble. They rolled in slow motion to a complete stop, finding they were almost at the bottom with the roar of the creek in their ears and the near overwhelming scent of crushed vegetation in their nostrils.

‘Bloody hell, woman!’ It was an eternity of seconds before Rory could speak. Then his words came out explosively. He was poised over her, staring down into her beautiful face vivid with exhilaration. ‘Just hold it right there!’ He held her captive, as if he believed her capable of jumping up and taking a header into the creek just for the hell of it!

She laughed with absolute delight. The sound was crystal clear. Transparent like an excited child’s.

‘Why did you stop us?’ she wailed. ‘I wanted to take a swim.’

‘More likely bash your head against a rock,’ he told her sternly.’ The current is too strong.’

‘Still I enjoyed it, didn’t you?’ She stared into his glittering eyes. ‘I’ll remember it for always.’ The great thing was, she meant it. She raised her hand and very slowly caressed his bronze cheek, taking exquisite pleasure in the fine rasp of his beard on her skin. She fancied she saw little rays of light around his head. An energy that held her within his magnetic field?

‘So what are you trying to do to me?’ Rory stared down at her, equally bedazzled. ‘What a repertoire of alluring little spells you have!’

‘All called up with you in mind.’

‘Then there’s only one thing left to do.’ The last tight coils of his self-control broke free. He was so hungry for her he didn’t know how he was going to assuage it. He lowered his head, intent on capturing her mouth, only to see with a flame of wonder her lovely mouth ready itself to receive his.

What would he do to her if she let him?

He kissed her very slowly and gently at first until he had her whimpering and moving her head from side to side in agitation. Then his kisses strengthened in pressure and intensity as his passion for her surged. What a fool he was thinking he had schooled himself to restraint. The reality was he was so powerfully attracted to her he had lost the capacity for rational thought.

Time stopped. The whole world stopped. Pain and old grief were forgotten. His weight pinioned her body into the thick, verdant grasses.

‘Am I hurting you?’

‘Don’t go way.’ She loved the weight of him. Her eyelids fluttered shut and she caught the back of his neck with her hand.

He kissed her until both of them were gasping and out of breath. His hands were sliding slowly, sensuously, over her body as though learning it. Sometimes she led his touch, the delicate contours of her breasts swelling at his caress. Her heart felt like it was going to break out from behind her rib cage. Never before in her life had she felt such sensual excitement. Being with him had increased her every perception one hundredfold.

The breeze shook leaves from the trees. They flew down to them, golden-green, purple backed, landing gently in the glowing garnet coils of her hair. If ever a man could take a woman with his eyes he was guilty of taking her now Rory thought. In a minute she would lay her hand on his cheek again and tell him to stop.

Only she didn’t.

For a woman who had lived three years in a bad marriage, Allegra felt unbelievably ecstatic. She wasn’t unafraid of anything that was in him, because it was in her.

‘Allegra, do you trust me?’ His lips pressed against her throat.

‘Do you trust me?’

Did he trust her siren song? The monumental shift in his line of defence couldn’t have been more apparent. ‘Do I trust life itself,’ he murmured, continuing to trail passionate kisses across her face and throat. ‘You must know I want you badly.’ How could she not when she had been moving her hand over him as he moved his over her?

Allegra’s breathing came fast and shallow. She had to tell him before his body took total control of his mind. ‘It’s not a safe time for me right now, Rory.’ She tried to laugh, but couldn’t bring it off.

‘Oh my God!’ He stopped kissing her, his sigh deep and tortured. ‘Oh God, Allegra!’ Frustration whirled through him with the force of a tornado. ‘I’d better let go of you,’ he groaned.

‘Maybe you’d better.’ Her own burning desire was at war with all ideas of caution and common sense. She was panicked by the thought that desire for him could very well win if they didn’t move. ‘I didn’t know all this was going to happen so soon.’

‘Hell, don’t apologise,’ he said, his body racked by painful little stabs. ‘So you could fall pregnant?’ He helped her to sit up.

‘It’s a strong possibility.’ She held a hand over her heart, trying to quiet her breathing.

‘I wish to God I’d brought some protection.’ His handsome face was taut with frustration.

‘So do I.’ She laughed without humour, her creamy skin covered in a fine dew of heat.

‘I’m so desperate to get close to you,’ he admitted, teetering on the edge of saying a whole lot more.

‘Are you?’ She turned to stare into his eyes, conscious of a sudden joy.

‘You know I am. Damn, damn, damn,’ he groaned. ‘So what do we do? Let the flames die?’

‘It might be a good idea.’ She didn’t bother to hide her regret.

‘Would you want to have my baby?’ he asked very quietly.

‘Are you speaking seriously?’ It wouldn’t be the end of the world if she fell pregnant to him. It would be thrilling.

‘Yes,’ he said.

‘What’s going on in your mind, Rory?’ She was trying to read it from his expression.

‘You haven’t answered the question.’

‘I want children,’ she said. ‘I’ve told you that before.’

He took her hand, looking intently into her eyes. ‘Do you think we have enough going for us to consider marriage?’ He knew he was being carried to extremes, but maybe extremism was his natural bent? Either that or he had finally found his life’s focus.

‘Rory!’ Allegra began to laugh a little wildly. For a minute she felt like she was flying; caught up by a great wind. She who had come through a catastrophic relationship was being asked to consider marriage again. What was even more astounding was she knew right away what her decision would be. Something extraordinary had happened to her. She had to seize the day.

‘Well?’ He took her chin, sparkles of light in his eyes.

‘You don’t have to propose to me to get me into bed,’ she said, pierced by the look in his eyes. She was long used to men regarding her but this was something entirely different.

‘You think I don’t know that?’ he said gently. ‘I know this has come at an odd time, but can’t you see the beauty of it? I want a family. So do you. We’re much the same age. Neither of us is content to let things go on much longer. If I’ve shocked you with my audacity, perhaps you can think of it as a contract that could work extremely well for both of us as we both have the same aims. You wouldn’t have to leave the home you love. You’d gain a half share as my wife and partner. You’d be able to hold onto your own money. It’s important for a woman to feel financially independent.’

The words were business-like, but the warmth of real emotion was in the sound. ‘I should say you’re crazy!’ Allegra was still flying high. To share a dream! Isn’t that what she had always wanted?

‘You know I’m not.’

‘So what are you leading us into?’ she asked as calmly as she could.

‘Why a marriage of convenience for two people who just so happen to suit one another right down to the ground.’

‘We can’t have love, too?’

For answer, he turned her face to him and dropped a brief, ravishing kiss on her mouth. ‘Wouldn’t you say we’re more than halfway there?’

So there was one secret between them. She was already there. ‘Maybe we should slow down instead of full steam ahead?’ she suggested before binding him to her.

‘I’m going to leave that up to you, Allegra,’ he said. ‘I won’t change my mind. You’re the woman I want.’

She kept her eyes lowered. ‘You can’t have forgotten both of us have a lot of old issues to work through?’

‘We can work through them together.’ His response was swift and sure. ‘Have I dared too much too soon?’ He searched her eyes for any hint of misgiving. ‘I hadn’t planned any of it. It took a tumble down the hill to shake it out of me. Love is a big word. Maybe the biggest in the dictionary. I don’t think we’re going to have a problem getting into bed together, do you?’ he asked dryly.

No problem at all but she had to remind him. ‘There’s a bit more to marriage than sex, Rory.’

He nearly said what was flooding his mind. I love you. But the last thing he wanted was to frighten her off. ‘Do you think I don’t know that? We really like each other, though, don’t we? Not that I’m about to knock great sex. Marriage would be very sad without it. But we have a lot in common. All the things we talked about last night. Our love of the land. Don’t let any bad experience you may have had with your husband warp you.’

She felt a frisson of shock. She had never said a word to him about Mark. What then had he assumed? ‘So much depends on our mutual love of the land, doesn’t it?’ she said, ignoring the reference to Mark.

‘I’d be lying if I didn’t say it was a crucial factor.’ He didn’t drop his gaze. ‘I couldn’t consider marrying a woman—no matter how much I wanted her—if I knew she might go off and leave me when the going got rough. Worse, leave our kids. You were being entirely truthful when you said the land is where you belong?’

‘Of course! How could you doubt me?’ She shook her head vigorously. ‘I have my own dreaming.’

‘Well then, it’s a brilliant idea,’ he said as though that clinched it.

‘More like explosive!’ Allegra knew she ought to be filled with doubts but incredibly she wasn’t. She felt more like a woman who had been blind all her life then finally opened her eyes. In fact, she had never felt so good. ‘You’ve got to give me a little time to think,’ she said, paying a moment’s homage to caution. Impossible to think when he was holding her hand and making love to her with his eyes. ‘This is scary. Or it darn well ought to be. I didn’t do too brilliantly the last time.’

‘And you won’t let me hear the problem. He didn’t abuse you, did he?’ Rory couldn’t abide the thought. ‘I’d go find him and horse whip him if he did.’

‘And wind up inside a jail? I wouldn’t like that. Mark isn’t a violent man. In many respects he’s the perfect gentleman. Everyone thought so anyway. People can act perfectly civilised but one barely has to scratch the surface to discover they’re something quite different underneath. My dad didn’t take to Mark. I knew that although Dad never put his concerns into words.’

‘I’m listening,’ he prompted, feeling an iron determination to protect her.

She bent her head, unsure how much to say. ‘Mark was into a fantasy life. A sexual fantasy life.’

‘One that bothered you?’ he frowned.

‘Once I found out he’d been unfaithful the marriage was as good as over. I hate to talk about it, actually. I forgave him the first time. I thought it was a one-off aberration and I felt badly about calling it quits so early in the marriage. But it wasn’t. Mark continued his brief encounters with married women in our own circle. They made an absolute fool out of me. Opportunity is always present if one is looking for it.’

‘Good God!’ Rory made a deep, growling sound in his throat. ‘He sounds like an oversexed adolescent.’

Allegra’s shrug was cynical. ‘A lot of men of all ages fit that description. Men and woman have affairs. Married or not. I saw a lot of it. One can’t help attraction. The possibility is always there. If one is married the right decision is to consciously turn away from temptation. Some don’t.’