Once Upon a Time in Tarrula / To Wed a Rancher: Once Upon a Time in Tarrula / To Wed a Rancher

Sure, Stacie. A date that includes every other employee at the plant.

She mustn’t think of it in that light, anyway! Yet, as she walked at Troy’s side, she was very aware of him, of the breadth of strong shoulders as he moved at her side, of that uneven gait that he seemed to hate so much.

She’d seen the definition of muscles honed by years of attention to physical fitness. She’d held her breath and hoped he would kiss her, and pushed all those thoughts and reactions aside since. They threatened her equilibrium, the fragile truce she’d built with herself.

So this work hour was fine. She’d introduce Troy around again, if he wanted that. Enjoy the social outing for what it was. And she would not think about the appealing and intriguing aspects of him—case closed!

Stacie’s sigh was audible enough that it reached Troy’s ears, even in the pub’s noise-filled environment. He glanced her way, and then wondered if perhaps he shouldn’t have. She looked rather lovely in profile, as she had with her head bent over her desk. And when he’d nearly given in to the temptation to kiss her …

How had he missed the depth of her subtle loveliness at first? Yet even then he’d been aware of her.

Well, he would just have to stop being aware, before thoughts like that got both of them into trouble.

Troy looked around. The pub was a decent-sized place, with bistro dining in a room tucked away to the left and a separate room dedicated to poker machines. The bar was long with dark wood polished to a dull sheen and green hard-wearing carpet on the floor where it wasn’t bare, wooden planks.

The smell of beer and a low buzz of after-work humanity filled the place. For a moment Troy saw another bar, another bunch of people: army mates relaxing at their favourite haunt in a Melbourne suburb they frequented when they were off-duty.

His guys. Their pub. A whole other world that had been all of Troy’s world.

‘Stace, how about a game of pool?’

‘Getting a bit dry over here, Stace. How about a round of beers for us?’

A couple more calls accompanied Stacie’s entry into the pub.

Stacie gave a general smile. ‘Maybe a bit later. I’m busy just at present.’

As he and Stacie stepped further into the room, Troy heard one man say to another, ‘She’s a nice girl, but she always keeps her distance, doesn’t she?’

‘I reckon some bloke’s hurt her along the way.’

‘Nah. She seems happy enough.’

Stacie wouldn’t have heard the interchange, but Troy tended to agree with the first man. He, too, suspected Stacie had withdrawn from the game because she might have been hurt in it.

She was made to be in a relationship, to share all those soft and tender emotions with someone who would welcome and appreciate them. If she’d tried that and it hadn’t worked out …

Oh yes, and you’d be more suitable for that?

Of course not. Absolutely not. It would just be a shame for Stacie to go through life alone, in Troy’s opinion. Although, Troy himself couldn’t pursue such a path; he wouldn’t have enough to offer her on that emotional level.

‘Good to see you here.’ Gary Henderson stepped forward, clapped Troy on the back and nudged Stacie with his elbow. ‘Well done on bringing Troy along, Stace.’

‘It’s a nice way to end up the week, Gary.’ Stacie’s words were cheerful. Her glance dropped to the beer in Gary’s hand. ‘You’re set, so I’ll just get drinks for us. Troy—what would you like?’

She walked to the bar to order for both of them.

Troy spoke with Gary for a bit and then chose a table towards the back of the bar. Stacie joined him with their drinks. One and two at a time, men made their way over to speak to them. Stacie greeted each person and exchanged a few words, making Troy’s second-time around getting-to-know-you job easy for him.

It was teamwork, and Troy appreciated it. But in this social setting it felt too much like dating her. That wasn’t a good feeling to allow himself to drift into, yet at every moment he was utterly conscious of her.

‘Stacie, how about introducing us?’ The words came from a woman who approached their table.

The brunette had a load of inquisitiveness in her gaze that sharpened even more as she got a good look at Troy. ‘Oh, you know what? We can do it for ourselves.’

Her glance became coy. ‘I’m Aida Gregory, the sister of Dan Gregory from your plant. And you’re obviously the gorgeous new plant-owner.’

The woman pulled up a chair. She laid her fingers over his arm as she offered some confidence or other.

Troy leaned back in his chair, removing himself from her reach without making the action too obvious.

‘I should go mingle.’ Stacie started to get to her feet.

‘We both should.’

Troy would have joined her, but before either of them could move, another two people pulled up chairs. Conversation became general. Troy welcomed it; He didn’t like the pushiness of Aida’s type.

You’re only interested in one woman, and she has a much more refined presentation.

He wanted to deny that interest, but Troy forced himself to acknowledge it was true.

Under cover of conversation in the group, Stacie let her gaze wander again in Troy’s direction. He didn’t seem interested in the gorgeous Aida. Other men were clearly smitten by the brunette’s stunning looks, but not Troy.

Why hadn’t he succumbed when Aida poured on her particular brand of interest? Or was he secretly interested, but waiting for the right moment to reveal that interest? As Andrew had done with Gemma.

‘This was a good idea.’ Troy’s breath brushed her ear as he added, ‘People are different outside of the work environment, and they seem a good bunch. It’s halfway like off-duty time—’ He broke off to answer someone’s question about future plans for the plant.

Stacie was rather glad of the interruption. She needed a moment to regain her equilibrium after that feeling of his breath in her ear.

The conversation went on around them and Stacie told herself to just try to be on her guard. At least to keep her reaction to Troy from everyone else until she could get it under control for herself.

But guarded did not equate to unaware; Stacie acknowledged that when she and Troy left the pub an hour later. In the few short steps to their cars, Stacie felt Troy’s presence at her side, registered every movement of his body, every breath, his body heat, the scent of his cologne. She’d done so from the time he had stepped into the office at the plant this afternoon but, now that they were alone, all her reactions came to the surface much more strongly.

‘I hope you enjoyed—’

‘I think the evening without Carl there was probably a good chance for me to—’

They stopped and faced each other beside her car. In the semi-darkness beneath the street light, his face seemed to be all shadows, harshness and mystery rolled into one, and Stacie wanted to search out all of his secrets, to know him.

And she couldn’t, because she’d been hurt, and her reaction this evening as she’d braced herself for Troy to return Aida’s interest made it clear that she’d allowed herself to become too interested in him.

The smart thing seemed to be to get some distance from Troy. Right now!

‘Well, the dogs will be hungry.’ Stacie fumbled until she got her car-door open and slid into the seat, only to then look up into Troy’s face and not be able to shift her gaze away.

‘Yes. We should get home.’ He cleared his throat. ‘Each of us to our own homes, I mean.’

Not going home together, of course, although they would be driving at the same time and headed in the same direction.

Words wouldn’t come so she simply started the engine while he moved to his car, and they both got out on the open road.

His headlights followed from a distance. It was silly, but she felt oddly secure knowing he was there. There was something about Troy that simply made her feel that way. Stacie aspired to be strong, but she wasn’t managing very well when it came to overcoming her attraction to him.

She was starting to wonder whether she would get past it, and that was about the stupidest thought she’d had since she’d believed Andrew must love her.

A jerk in the speed of her car was the only warning Stacie got before the engine cut out and the car coasted to a stop. She only just managed to get it off the road.

‘What happened?’ Troy drew in behind her, got out of his car and strode straight to join her as she stepped out of the vehicle.

‘I don’t know. I had plenty of fuel. It just stopped.’ She popped the bonnet, took the torch she kept in the glove compartment and held it while they tried to look for any possible problem.

After a minute he turned to her. ‘It’s too dark. I think we might have to leave it until daylight.’

‘The mechanic’s shop won’t be open again until Monday. It’s probably not worth phoning roadside assistance at this hour. They’d potentially only tow it into town and leave it on the street anyway.’ Stacie locked the car. ‘It’s been serviced recently.’

‘Things happen with machinery sometimes. It’s not your fault. Let’s get home; it’s cold out here.’ Troy led the way to his car. It was a spacious vehicle, yet for Stacie it felt like no space at all as the darkness enveloped them in their own private world and he turned the heater up to warm her.

It was probably just as well that they arrived outside her home within minutes.

‘I’ll see you to your door.’ Troy got out of his seat before she could argue.

‘Thank you.’ Stacie swallowed hard before she reached for the handle of her car-door and opened it.

Troy finished that task for her, tugging the door fully open and standing there with his hand extended to help her step out.

It was just that, a hand stretched out towards her. It could have been any courteous gesture between any two people. But it was Troy, and it was Stacie’s hand that fit into his as though it belonged there. It was Stacie’s heartbeat that thundered suddenly as his fingers wrapped around hers.

For a moment she felt ridiculously like Cinderella stepping down from the golden coach and into a moment of magic as their gazes locked in the dim light.

‘Troy?’ His name was a question, and a hope she shouldn’t have had. Maybe he understood that, or perhaps he simply reacted without understanding anything at all, but he did react.

His gaze linked with hers. Hooded shadows were in his eyes, yet welcome too. Oh, she saw that, and it melted her so that when she stepped right out of the car, his hands clasped her upper arms and his head lowered towards hers, Stacie lifted her face; her eyelids drooped and she waited with an anticipation that stripped away her barriers and self-protective mechanisms.

‘I don’t know why …’ He didn’t finish the sentence. Rather, his lips lowered to hers and brushed across them in a touch that was shocking in its delicacy, a delicious, sensitive caress of lips upon lips that washed through her, drove all thought away.

Her eyelids lifted because she needed to look into his eyes. Stacie found something within the dark orbs to which she could cling, and so she did. He kissed her truly then, covered her mouth with his, and she sighed within herself as she took that kiss and gave it back.

Firm lips on hers, giving with sensuality, sipping at her lips as though he couldn’t get enough of the taste of her. Her hands rose to his chest and lay flat against firm muscles as though, if she let her fingertips spread against him in this way, she could absorb more of him through that delicate touch.

Stacie didn’t know why, either. She didn’t know why they’d needed to do this, let themselves do this, but it had happened anyway. And, though she shouldn’t, she let her head tip further back, gave herself more into Troy’s hold and his kiss, and his mouth closed over hers once again.

CHAPTER FIVE

STACIE melted into Troy’s arms and his touch and his kiss with so much giving that Troy struggled not to sweep her up against his chest and …

What? Carry her to her bed inside her home and make love to her through the night? It was exactly what he wanted. To want was one thing, but it also felt like what he needed—and how could that be, when Troy had made his choices? When he controlled his life and his decisions and he’d already decided that showing any interest in Stacie could only end badly?

He didn’t want to hurt her, and if he had no desire to lock in to any kind of meaningful relationship he would hurt her. He had to stop this, now, before it went any further.

Troy was a man of discipline. That discipline had saved his life and kept his team in one piece more times than he could count. And yet right now, even as he warned himself to stop, he drew Stacie closer and wrapped his arms even more snugly around her as he kissed her again, tasted her again. He felt as thoughg he needed that taste, needed to know every nuance of kissing her.

She brought out odd, untapped feelings in him that he didn’t understand, that seemed to bypass all of his usual outlook and attitude. As he held her, he wanted to be reverent, to cherish what he held as a precious gift. New, intimidating and completely unanticipated, these concepts swelled inside him.

There’d been Linda. He’d cared for her as much as he was capable of doing. She had reciprocated those feelings to a similar degree. But theirs had been a tough, goals-focused relationship. Perfect to him, because she would not have welcomed the gentle things he couldn’t give—that his mother had lamented the lack of as she’d tried to place her emotional baggage, her dissatisfaction with her marriage and her life, onto Troy.

His mum was probably still dissatisfied while she and his father roved all over Australia, part of the grey army living the retirement ‘dream’.

Not your problem, Rushton. It never was.

As for all those tender feelings, was he saying he could give them now?

The question confronted him enough that he shoved it away, rejected it. He knew he couldn’t give those things. He didn’t have them inside him; he didn’t even have what he’d given to Linda any more. He had lost his career and had to rebuild, and lost a part of himself physically as well. Troy hated the limitations that put on him.

And, if he was honest, he hated the loss of relationship and identity that he’d found in the army, a place where his lack of soft side had been a trait of value.

Was he having an identity crisis now? Was that responsible for these strange thoughts and things that seemed a lot like soft feelings as he held Stacie in his arms?

‘What are we doing, Troy?’ Stacie whispered the words against his lips.

What indeed? His hands were in her hair, sifting the soft tresses through his fingers.

‘We’re stealing a moment, and that moment is more than we should have taken.’ He’d meant the words to be practical, to help back the situation off and give them both the chance to walk away without needing to make too much of it. For all he knew, Stacie hadn’t and wasn’t making too much of it.

But his voice was too deep. He released those straight brown tresses too slowly. His hands came to rest too gently, caressing the curves where her arms and shoulders met.

Stacie drew back at the same time he did. Her lips left his and her hands slid from his chest and down his forearms. Also slowly. Also … reluctantly.

Did she find it as difficult to let go as he did? To let her hands fully drop away, as Troy struggled to make his hands release her?

‘I’m sorry, Stacie.’ He didn’t want to apologise for a kiss that had been an unexpected intimacy but he had to.

‘Troy, you’re right. We shouldn’t have done that.’ She took a step back, away from him, away from what they’d just shared. A confusion of thought clouded her gaze as she, too, said what she felt had to be said. ‘I can’t—I made the choice to be alone. I’m not looking for a relationship. Not now. Not ever.’

‘Why not? Who hurt you?’

‘It’s not like that.’ Swift words, spoken in denial as she’d done once before.

She went on. ‘My single future is important to me. The last thing—’

‘The last thing we should be doing is kissing each other when neither of us is prepared to pursue where that might lead us.’ Troy’s tone should have been stronger, more believable. When he spoke again, he made sure that it was. ‘You’re right. I’ve made the same choice you have when it comes to relationships.’

Perhaps if he said it aloud it would help him to cement that thought inside him where it should stay. ‘I don’t want a relationship. I don’t have the emotional …’

How could he explain the reasons? He didn’t want to expose his lack to her. Why did that bother him so much with Stacie? ‘I shouldn’t have let that kiss happen when I knew where I stood with … romance and so on.’ Troy settled for those words.

‘Then we’ll just forget it, Troy.’ She drew a breath and schooled her expression into an outward appearance of calm. ‘I’m sure that’ll be best for both of us.’

‘What made you choose to be …?’ Alone? What had made her decide that she didn’t want to invest in a relationship?

‘It was a broken relationship.’ The words were tight. ‘Thanks for driving me home.’ She rushed on. ‘I’ll contact roadside assistance tomorrow morning and get things sorted out with my car.’

In her back yard, her dog let out a woof of sound. A higher-pitched yip accompanied it. Stacie turned her head in that direction before she met Troy’s glance again. ‘I need to go in, feed Fang and Houdini and do some things. Time’s getting on, and I have a lot of work planned for this weekend.’

Work, not play. Troy had the same kind of weekend planned. It was what he should have stuck to in his thinking tonight, too. ‘Good night, Stacie. I appreciated the work outing as a chance to get to know people a bit better. I’ve got enough of a grip on all of them now.’

The subtext was that they would both draw a line beneath what had happened here. If they both knew it, then that was how it would be.

Troy turned to go back to his car and make the small drive to his house. Distance physically, and distance mentally; if he started with that the rest would surely follow because it wasn’t as though he were emotionally invested in Stacie or anything.

He might have experienced a couple of odd thoughts while he was kissing her, but whatever they’d been he had them more than under control now. Of course he did. Troy put the car in gear and drove towards his home.

Stacie watched Troy get into his car and drive to his house. Once he cut the lights she went inside, took food from the fridge and outside to the dogs. Then she went about all the normal tasks she did on a Friday night.

Except Stacie kept losing track of the cleaning and sorting of laundry and other things. Her mind kept returning to a kiss that had been like no other. To a man she should not have kissed at all, but had.

Troy had made it clear he didn’t want to pursue that path with her, though he’d seemed shaken by the kiss, as Stacie had been. He’d asked about her history, and she’d admitted it, but she’d wished he hadn’t asked.

You’re not dealing with what happened with Andrew, and you need to.

Yes, she was dealing with it. She needed to keep focusing on looking forward, not over her shoulder. Stacie did what had to be done about her place, and went to bed.

When Stacie woke the next morning, her car was parked outside her house waiting for her. There was a note explaining some technical bits of car engineering that she didn’t fully understand. The bottom line was Troy had fixed the problem.

He must have got up at dawn to do that for her, and all without asking her for a car key.

In special-ops, skills like fixing cars, unlocking them and starting them without a key would have perhaps seemed every-day. To Stacie, they represented a whole other world of resilience, determination and way of doing things. One that Troy had lost.

Was that loss his reason for avoiding relationships? He’d said he didn’t have the emotion; had that been drained from him as the result of his loss of career path, and of the injury that had caused that loss? Or did he believe it had never been there?

The weekend passed in separate acts of busyness at each of their homes. She saw Troy out working in his orchard. There was a lot of ladder-work involved. When he seemed to lose his footing and almost fell while Stacie was outside trimming the hedge in her front yard—which she’d been meaning to do for ages!—she almost ran to him but he regained his footing, glaring so darkly over the slip that she could sense his frustration from way over here.

Stacie went studiously back to her work. Later, when he’d gone into his gym, she left a container of home-baked cookies and a note thanking him for fixing her car.

She painted her nails lime-green, stuck fruit stickers on them and dared the dogs to say they were a silly choice. The stickers made her happy while she was sewing, so there.

Monday arrived and Carl told her they would be getting Troy in to participate in Carl’s scheduled top-to-toe examination of the plant. When Troy arrived, Stacie tried to greet him normally. Had Troy spared any thought for those shared kisses since they happened?

Stacie had thought about them plenty, though she probably shouldn’t have.

Troy and Carl disappeared downstairs, and Stacie tried to concentrate on her work.

‘Only as I berate myself for allowing those kisses to happen in the first place.’ She fanned the blank sheets of printer paper in her hands before she placed them in the empty tray.

The phone rang as Troy and Carl returned.

Stacie allowed herself one glance in Troy’s direction before she picked it up. ‘Tarrula almond processing plant, Stacie speaking.’

The call was for her boss; Stacie transferred it to Carl’s desk.

Within moments Carl had put the call on hold.

He caught Troy’s gaze and explained about the man coming through that evening, how his business could offer a substantial opportunity to the plant. ‘I can’t make a meeting tonight. My wife has had a minor surgery today; I’ll be collecting her from hospital after work and looking after her.’

‘If you need to take more time off work …’ Troy began.

Carl shook his head. ‘Thanks, but our daughter’s arriving from Sydney first thing tomorrow morning to spend a week with her.’

‘I’m glad to hear things are working out. Stacie and I will handle tonight’s dinner.’ Troy made the decision and announced it firmly. Then he added, ‘If you’re available, Stacie? It’s better to attend this kind of meeting with a strong presence for the plant, I think.’

‘If it’s necessary, of course I’ll go.’ Her heart skipped at the thought of an evening out in Troy’s company but it would be all right. They had indulged in their one moment of exploration. They knew not to repeat it. Stacie certainly didn’t want to repeat it—of course not. She took a breath and tried to ignore her thoughts.

‘Thanks.’ Troy got to his feet. ‘It’s not until seven-thirty, so there’ll be time to go home, take care of the dogs and anything else. I’ll collect you from your place.’

‘I have to go, Mum. The new owner’s pulling up outside in his car.’ Stacie spoke the words into the phone.

‘That’s lovely, dear.’ Mum’s voice bubbled across the airwaves. ‘I’m so pleased you’re going on a date.’

‘It’s not a date, Mum. It’s a work event.’ Stacie bit back a stronger retort, and ignored the relief in her mother’s voice at the same time.

Until Mum said, ‘Before you end the call, Stacie, don’t you think it’s time you visited while Gemma and Andrew are here? They’ve news—’

‘Sorry, Mum, but I really have to go.’ Stacie cut her mother off. She didn’t want to hear about Andrew and Gemma. Mum was asking too much, too soon.