An Outback Affair/Runaway Wife/Outback Bridegroom/Outback Surrender/Home To Eden (28 page)

Mitch leaned back and stared at her as if at a distant horizon. “None of us saw what you saw, Shelley,” he said finally.

“Which is what?” Christine held out her hand for the map. “Come on, Mitch. We need to know and that's a fact.”

“This is top secret, I assure you, dearest Chrissy. I'd better keep it to myself.”

“I'll get it out of you,” she said, and signals like flashes of lightning were going from one to the other.

The others laughed and looked Shelley's way. “Right, now we're counting on you to tell us, Shel,” Rick Saunders, who was more than half in love with Shelley Logan, urged.

“I'm not going to say a word about it to anyone. Not anyone!” Shelley gave her wide entrancing smile. “When Mitch turns up the family fortune I'm the one who's going to get the spotter's fee, not you, Rick.”

It was a prediction to be played out in the fullness of time. For that evening, with its wonderful relaxed atmosphere, Christine only thought of it as a highly improbable but perfect solution. If she helped find the treasure, then maybe Shelley Logan wouldn't have to work quite so hard for her family.

“D
ANCE
with me,” Mitch said, determinedly waving off one of the Cooper brothers and drawing Christine into his arms.

This was the first time he'd been able to get to her since the dance music had started up well over an hour ago. All of the guys had wanted to dance with her, no doubt so they could boast about it later. If the truth were known he was starting to get fed up with all the clowning around, but it was obvious Christine was enjoying herself. That was what the party was all about after all. She couldn't help being so beautiful, so warm, so friendly.

He tipped his head back a little, to survey her. The world reduced to just one woman. “How's it going?”

A breathless girl stumbled as she almost backed into them. With a ripple of laughter and apology she and her partner moved off. Mitch seized the opportunity to catch Christine tightly around her slender waist and twirl her further down the floodlit terrace. He vividly remembered all the Outback
dances they had attended together. Music pouring out of bush bands, washing over them, the hot blood in their veins, the nimble feet. He and Chris had been so good at dancing together they'd given impromptu exhibitions.

“I'm loving every minute,” she responded, all her senses leaping from the fire that burned bright in her.

Just to be back in his arms was heaven. How she'd longed for him to come to her. Willed it. No minutes were more precious than those with Mitch. Why didn't she tell him that? Surely she could get through to him? Couldn't he read the expression in her eyes? He'd been wearing Amanda Logan on his arm all night like some sort of protective wing. But if he expected her to be jealous he was going to be disappointed.

“I've been dying to ask. What did Shelley see that we didn't?” Surprise had been written all over his face. It had intrigued her.

“No way I'm going to tell you.” His smile was slow and teasing.

She searched his face, his golden hair like a halo, his mouth curved in a half-smile. “I'll worry about it all night.”

“So will I. If I ever get the time I'll follow it up. I might even ask you along.”

“Are you serious?” She stared at him incredulously.
He shook his head. “Hell, it's the same old map. It's been circulating for more than one hundred and fifty years. Shelley saw one thing we might have missed, though there's very probably nothing in it.”

“Great—and you won't tell me? You simply have no idea how I'll fret.”

“Why don't you come and share my bed with me? We could talk about it there. For a while.”

Her heart literally shook. It moved halfway up her throat. “All right, I'll play this stupid game.”

“No game.”

“It's what you want?” she asked carefully.

“It could be a great idea.” He utilized the mocking tone he had developed like armour against her.

“You could be lying.”

He closed his fingers around her blue-veined wrist. “Lies complicate an already complicated existence.”

“Why do we do it then?”

“Why do I do it with you, you mean?” He smiled at her but the mockery didn't stop. “Self-protection, Christine. If you don't love, you don't lose. Losing can be horribly wounding.”

“Somehow we've got to work through this, Mitch.”

“Why?” Marshal your defences, he reminded himself. Line up your arguments before you an
swer. She can knock them down in less than a minute.

“Because it's important. For all that's happened, we still care about each other.”

“You mean I want you,” he corrected bluntly. “What I feel now is lust, not love. Wanting isn't always the right thing to do, but I'm afraid that's a matter beyond repair. The flesh has a life of its own.”

“Let's start with your head,” she challenged.

He hauled her closer, their bodies moving in the old way, rhythmically, in perfect unison. “My head rejects you.”

“That's terribly sad.”

“Isn't it? Come here.” He said it as though she was about to break away. “It doesn't stop either of us functioning. I carry much of the responsibility for the station now. You've made a big success of yourself. So we're both performing more than adequately, despite our little estrangement.”

“I don't feel estranged.” She felt inflamed. Madly, hotly yearning, desirous. Heart slumbrous, body light as thistledown in his arms.

“How do you feel?” he asked.

“Awfully in love with you. It's as though my heart's set in concrete.”

For a moment he almost lost it. “Ah, stop it,”
he chided, grinding her beautiful, slender body against him in ecstasy and a kind of rage.

“You asked the question. I answered.”

“You're trying to re-establish yourself in my life?”

She could have recoiled from his blazing eyes. Instead she let her breath surge, then subside. “If you'll let me in.”

He swallowed hard on a stifled groan, feeling inadequate to the task of pushing this woman away. This woman who made all his senses run riot.

“What then?” he demanded. “We get back to the same situation. You'll decide again you really shouldn't have made any commitment. We have to let go, Chris. You no longer fit in here.”

That hurt terribly. “You didn't used to be cruel,” she whispered, swaying in his arms.

“You can take the blame for that. Cruelty is a way of maintaining distance.”

“So you're never going to forgive me?”

It was all he could do not to pick her up and carry her off with violence and passion. “It's not a question of forgiveness,” he said bluntly. “I fear being in love with you, Chrissy. There. I've admitted it. I fear all the rage, the loneliness and frustration. Losing you was too painful an experience to want to chance it again.”

“Yet you want to go to bed with me?”

He relaxed his firm hold on her. “Should that be a surprise? You're a very beautiful, experienced woman. Sex doesn't always end in disaster. Love can—and does.”

“So you're prepared to forfeit love for the likes of Amanda Logan? I couldn't help seeing her wrapped around your arm.”

He didn't respond immediately, aware he was guilty of allowing Amanda to cling. “Surely you're not jealous? There's no need to be.”

“You're giving Amanda encouragement. I'm not jealous, as it so happens. I just don't think it's a good idea.”

“You're absolutely right about that. Amanda's too ready to leap into my arms.”

“She should play harder to get.”

“Chrissy, darling, don't interfere. You're out of my life, remember?”

“How could I forget, when you keep telling me? There's no hope I could get back?” Her sapphire eyes implored; she was breathless with the effort.

“Why are you doing this?” He bent his head over hers, such a terrible rending sensation inside him. “In no time at all you'll be out of here. The vacation will be over. You'll have to move on. Make yet another escape. It can't have been all that easy to move to the top of your profession anyway.”

“Strangely enough, it was. That's the irony of it. My agency called my rise ‘meteoric'. I was lucky. I had the right look at the right time.”

“And the celebrities of the fashion world are your friends. You've spent your time winging around the great capitals of the world. Even your family couldn't keep track of you. You're used to million-dollar contracts, nightclubs, dinner parties, gala functions—the high life. Hell, you must have brushed up against some wild people—the drug scene, even. Modelling must expose you to all sorts.”

She drew back in surprise. Somehow she'd thought he would never touch on that subject. He knew her, the sort of person she was. “Sure I have,” she freely admitted, “but that scene scares me to death. I hate it mostly for the ones who seem powerless to stop themselves from entering it. I don't do drugs, Mitch. Never have, never will. It's outside my code. I'm not promiscuous either.”

“God, did I say you were?” The very thought of her in nameless men's arms shocked him to the core. This was the woman who had once been everything to him. Who still made him come sensually alive.

“I think in your head you've exaggerated my way of life,” Christine said quietly. “You've probably heard too much about fashion identities
hooked on alcohol or drugs. I keep my feet on the ground. I may have changed on the surface, but I'm the same person underneath.”

“I'm supposed to believe that, Chrissy?” he asked. “You're surely not trying to tell me you're ready to give it all up? Come home?”

She looked across the brightly lit terrace and saw Amanda staring their way, her pretty face pinched in envy. “I'll have to eventually. I'd say I have a couple more years at the outside. Youth is the name of the modelling game. Adorable little twelve-year-olds all made up to achieve the look. Starving themselves into the bargain. It's a serious problem. Still, they're making the pages.”

“So there's life after modelling?” He sounded highly sceptical.

“It's about time I lived it.” Trembling in his embrace, she allowed her hand to caress the back of his neck, compulsively smoothing it.

“Stop that!” He spoke with deceptive gentleness. What a rare gift she had for raising passion's ecstasy.

“Scaredy-cat!” she whispered beneath her breath, just like when they were children. His hair was like thick silk, his skin beneath the hair velvet.

“Turns out I am,” he answered with a kind of deep self-disgust. “Some part of me will always be mad about you, Chrissy, but not mad enough.
So stop all the little tricks. Where exactly would you live? It wouldn't be all that easy falling off centre stage. The glory and the adulation over.”

“None of it was in demand from me. I don't need adulation. As I said, my feet are on the ground. I don't have stars in my eyes, Mitch. Being a well-known model isn't the sole object of my life. It was an avenue that gave me worldly success and a lot of pleasure, but I think I can survive the loss.”

“And what if you're mistaken?” His gaze was searching.

“You'll never trust me again, so why answer? That terrible thought nags at me.”

“As well it might,” he confirmed dryly. “I can only tell you this, Chrissy. I'm not about to have my heart ripped out twice.” Even as he said it, perversely he pulled her closer, roused and arousing. Electric currents passed from his body to hers, spreading through every fibre, every nerve. It was a fever that would endure.

That was his brain talking, of course. The only problem was his body wasn't listening. The pleasure of holding Christine so intimately in his arms was rapture. It was damned nearly killing him. He wanted her…craved her…from the depths of his clamouring heart. He wanted to cover her with kisses, let his hand shape her breasts, move down over her body. He did let one hand slip to her
hip-bone, moving his knee between her long lovely legs in a contrived movement of the dance. Hunger was sweeping over him like veils of sand in a dust storm. Not another woman in the world could deliver him such pleasure. Christine as a lover had never been surpassed.

In the shelter of a lush springing palm, desire peaked. He abandoned all pretence, scooping her beautiful face into his hands, placing his mouth where it most urgently wanted to be.

Was there a split second's resistance or sizzling shock? Whatever, he couldn't control the pressure, increasing it, wanting more and more, while her lips opened like a flower, so perfect for his loving, her tongue the stamen, circling his with tiny little darting flickers. It flooded him with passion, urging him on.

Her eyes were closed. He could feel the tickle of her long eyelashes. Somehow she had melted into him in the most ravishing fusion, her body hot beneath the flimsy silk-chiffon. He wanted to say, Come away with me. He wanted to take her hand, guide her back through the house to his sanctuary of the west wing. He wanted the unparallelled sensation of undressing her.

The very thought filled his blood with sparks. He thought his strong hands must be crushing her satiny cheeks, but she didn't complain. Not a whimper. If anything she was letting his mouth
devour her in an effort to drive away the anguish. He'd told himself over and over he couldn't put himself through any more, yet here he was, control gone, mortified by desire.

Kissing wasn't enough. It had never been enough. He had to know that body, so perfectly constructed for his loving. He wanted her naked in his bed, between his sheets. He wanted to stretch the length of his hard sinewy body beside her. He wanted to drive his manhood deep, deep into her.

Ecstasy!

He loved her. It was a force of habit. Though that love was full of desperation. Once they had been the most likely couple in the world. That they were going to get married a foregone conclusion. Now they were the most unlikely pair. She was expelled from his life. The cattleman and the fashion model. Her career, her dramatic rise to the heights, had wrecked all his dreams. There had to be more for him than memories.

With a muffled, feeling-charged exclamation he released her, inhaling the scent of her on him, breathing it in like oxygen, staring down into her beautiful impassioned face, the desperate wide eyes.

“That was stupid.” His voice turned sober, cracked with tension. “In fact madness.”

She confronted him with rising agitation. With
love and longing for this hot-hearted, hard-headed man. “What's wrong with you, Mitch? Do you like it this way? Loving me, hating me?”

To admit to it was unthinkable. “What I'd love is to take you in a way you'd never forget. I wouldn't let you out of my room for days, maybe weeks.”

“Only you lack the courage to try it. You cherish your old grief, Mitch. You nurse it along. I betrayed you. You don't let me ever forget it. Everything or nothing.” She held a hand over her racing heart. It didn't beat like this even after a strenuous workout. “You're wallowing in self-pity,” she accused him. “Is it so utterly impossible to pity me? Yes, and I'll tell you why. You let your pride choke you.”