Australian Outback Kings / The Cattle King's Mistress / The Playboy King's Wife / The Pleasure King's Bride (34 page)

His little girl
… Tears welled into Sam's eyes. The love in those words was her total undoing. She turned her face into her father's strong shoulder and wept for the loss of her dream. Impossible to have faith in Tommy's word anymore. He just said and did whatever would get him what he wanted.

Overwhelmed by her inner misery, Sam wasn't aware of how her father got her outside or even where they were…only that he sat down and held her on his lap, patting her back as he had whenever she'd been hurt in the long-ago days of her childhood.

“Sorry, love,” he murmured, resting his cheek against her hair. “Had my mind on Greg. Wasn't seeing that you got hardest hit back there. Greg's going to be all right. But you…” His big chest rose and fell in a heavy sigh. “Tommy was always the one, wasn't he?”

“Yes,” she choked out, snuffling into the comforting curve of his neck and shoulder, mindlessly wanting to be a little girl again, secure in a love that was always there for her. Her father had never let her down. Never.

“Looked like you finally had him roped tonight. Your mother and I were happy for you. I guess this business with Janice…well, it's upsetting. Wouldn't be the first time a couple made a mistake, though. Maybe…”

He was trying to make it better for her and Sam couldn't bear it. “No, Dad,” she sobbed. “I was there when she told him she was pregnant and he was the father. He…he called her a liar. And I… I let myself believe him. I wanted to believe him.”

She burst into fresh tears, the anguish of her earlier uncertainties coming back in full force. Worse, because now she could feel it from Janice's side, the hell of being pregnant to a man who didn't want her anymore, who refused to even admit he could be the father…the wretched desolation of being faced with such an ungiving and unsympathetic attitude.

“There…there…” her father soothed. “No doubt about her having been pregnant, but Tommy might not be the father, you know. Bit of a party girl it seemed to me…the way she was carrying on with Greg.”

“Oh, Dad!” She shuddered as the fateful chain of cause and effect marched through her mind. “Tommy was so cold and cutting when she'd tried to talk to him earlier. I think Greg was…was a pride thing to Janice…hitting back at Tommy. And me, too, for taking his attention away from her.”

“Mmmh…hardly admirable behaviour. Maybe Tommy had cause to cut her dead if she'd played up like that with other men before. When he was going out with her. You shouldn't be too quick to judge him, Sam.”

She rolled her head in a painful negative. “I can't…I can't excuse him anymore, Dad. There were…other things.”

“Uh-huh. Want to tell me about them? Get them off your chest?”

“Won't help.”

“Then just give it a rest. It's been a long day. A very long day. Too much to deal with in one go. Though let me say, I'm very proud of you…the way you held up and saw everything through. Very proud. Couldn't have asked more of anyone.”

He kissed her forehead and ruffled her hair. “You're made of the right stuff, Sam. Your mother carries on about female frippery falderals but that doesn't count for much in my book. No…doesn't amount to much at all. It's what's in the heart that counts. You've got a heart as big as the Outback. And if Tommy King didn't recognise that tonight…”

Her body instinctively scrunched up, warding off the onset of more misery.

“But we won't talk about him,” her father soothed. “We'll talk about the good times…eh? Don't know if I've told you this, but from the day you were born, you've been a joy to me, Sam. The best daughter a man could have. Always eager to have a go at everything. A real little braveheart, right from the start…”

Tommy was churning with urgency. He had to rescue something from this disastrous night, if it was only a stay of judgment. He couldn't bear the thought of having completely lost Samantha's respect. It wasn't right. She had to understand this wasn't a black and white situation. Damn it! He did have integrity. Never in his life had he weaselled out of responsibility for anything he'd done.

It came as another severe jolt to his system when he found none of the Connellys with Greg in the recovery room. Where were they? How long had he been with the Findlays? Driven by the fear of not having the chance to clear anything with Samantha, he shot back to the corridor and headed for the exit to the car park. If she left here tonight, still thinking the worst of him…

No, his mind fiercely dictated.

She'd promised she'd always be here for him.

The ghosts couldn't win now.

He wouldn't let them.

The exit door halted his rush for a moment. Then he was past it, breaking into a run. He saw Robert Connelly stepping up into the minibus, movement inside it.

“Wait!”

The big man stopped, stepped back onto the ground, and turned to face him. Relieved at having at least delayed the family's departure, Tommy dropped his pace to a purposeful walk, his mind racing over what to say to Samantha. However, instead of waiting by the minibus, Robert Connelly came to meet him, intent on intercepting whatever message Tommy was bringing.

“It's all right,” he hastily assured Greg's father. “I just want to speak to Samantha.”

“It's not all right, Tommy,” he bruskly retorted, taking a blocking stance. “You leave her be for now.”

The hard-spoken command pulled him up. The look on Robert Connelly's face brooked no opposition. Tommy instinctively gestured an appeal. “You don't understand…”

“Yes, I do. You want my daughter… you clean up your act.”

It rocked him. He scooped in a quick breath, frantically searching for a line of argument. “I swear to you it's not how it looks,” he declared vehemently.

“I hope for both your sake and Sam's, it isn't, Tommy,” came the level reply. “Your father was my greatest friend, and I can't believe that the kind of person Lachlan was didn't rub off on you…his bone-deep decency, his sense of honour…”

“You can add absolutely fair justice to that,” Tommy whipped back, fiercely resenting the impugning of his character.

“Yes.” Robert Connelly agreed, ploughing on with pointed intent. “And fair justice seen to be done. That was Lachlan's law. Don't tell me you've forgotten it.”

Seen to be done
. Even as the words were spoken, they hit home. He'd failed that test in front of Samantha.

“Whatever the rights and wrongs of tonight…” her father went on, “…they're yours to deal with. Don't drag my little girl through a mess she had nothing to do with. You understand me?”

“Yes. But will Samantha give me the benefit of the doubt in the meantime?” he argued, desperate for some foothold on the future he could see slipping away from him.

“Maybe time will help put things in perspective. I'll be taking her home with me tomorrow and I'm asking you to sort yourself out before taking up with her again. My Sam isn't one for you to trifle with, Tommy. I'll be coming after you with a gun if you play her false. Understand me?”

“I was
not
trifling with her. Nor would I,” Tommy shot back at him.

“Just making sure you know what you're walking into if you walk back into Sam's life.” He nodded to mark the end of the conversation. “We'll be going now. I'm hoping you can sort things out as well as your father used to. Needs doing, Tommy.”

Having delivered that last piece of inarguable advice, Robert Connelly returned to his family and took them away, seeking respite from the traumas that had been inflicted upon them.

Tommy watched the tail-lights of the minibus disappear into the darkness with a heavy sense of fateful resignation. No sense in chasing after it. Robert Connelly was right. One couldn't force a future. One had to build it, and a shaky foundation didn't build a strong future.

Lachlan's law…the irony was he had recently cited it himself when he'd helped Nathan sort out a nasty situation that was hurting Miranda. He hadn't really thought about his father for a long time, probably because it was Nathan following in his legendary footsteps.

Still, he was one of Lachlan King's sons, and proud of it, proud to have the legacy of his father's blood in his veins. He might not be a cattleman but in his own way, he'd pioneered a new industry in the Outback and he had no doubt his father would have applauded both his drive and enterprise.

But his more personal affairs…would they have won Lachlan King's approval?

Tommy took a good, hard look at himself.

The Playboy King.

What had that title won him?

Nothing of any real value. Nothing that would stick by him. Nothing but grief for the woman he really wanted.

The more critical question was…what had it cost him…and could he recover the loss he'd brought upon himself tonight?

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

C
HRISTMAS DAY
.…

Sam felt none of the excited anticipation that waking up to this day would have once brought. She had no urge to leap out of bed to see if the rest of the family were up yet, and no wish to stir them into activity if they weren't. Putting on a happy face took considerable effort and it was easier to delay having to do it.

She lay quietly in the old brass bed that had always been hers, her gaze idly roving over the mementos of her childhood and adolescence. All the things she'd kept remained precisely where she had placed them. In a way, coming back here was like stepping into a previous life, though she herself hadn't really changed.

On top of the chest of drawers sat the beautiful doll her mother had given her when she was four. She'd never played with it, hadn't seen what use it was. Its long auburn ringlets were still tied with green satin bows, and the matching green satin dress with its frills and coffee-lace trim was in the same pristine state as it had been when the doll was given, twenty-four Christmases ago.

Hanging on the wall facing her were the ribbons she'd won at rodeos, riding Lightning in the barrel races. He'd been a great horse, the fastest sprinter she'd ever had and so quick at turning around the barrels, it was magic the way he responded when they were competing to win. She'd wept buckets when he died from an infection the vet couldn't fix.

But life moved on. Tragedies slid into the past and other things became more important. On the dresser was a photograph of herself holding her pilot's license, one of the proudest moments of her life. Flying a plane was more exhilarating than riding a horse; taking to the air, owning the sky…like Tommy.

She sighed to ease the tension in her chest. How long had it been now…six, seven weeks? A bit over seven. The wedding had been on the sixth of November. Tommy had made no attempt at contact with her since then. Though she did know from her mother that he'd visited Janice in hospital several times, dropping in on Greg, as well.

It had actually been easier for her when her mother and brother were away, the reminders of that dreadful night at a distance. Her father let her be and Pete minded his own business. With Greg back home and having to nurse his leg, he was more or less underfoot and wanting company. Both he and her mother kept bringing up Tommy, and as much as she tried to block any conversation about him, they still dropped loaded little comments, referring to their
togetherness
at the wedding.

They also pointedly informed her that the Findlays had taken Janice home with them to Cairns, a long way from Kununurra, right across the country to the east coast. Away from Tommy was the apparent implication, not that it mattered. Tommy had made it all too brutally clear he didn't want Janice in his life, and it was that callous brutality that stuck in Sam's mind. Greg didn't seem perturbed by the loss, either. Which clearly demonstrated what casual sex was worth. Nothing that lasted beyond the moment. Unless it resulted in an unwanted pregnancy.

It didn't really help that the pregnancy was no more.

All it did was put an end to that chapter in Tommy's life. A convenient end, she thought bitterly, given his attitude towards it.

As for the rest of his life…the rest of hers…despite everything, the torment continued to linger. Had she done the right thing, walking away from that night and all it had entailed? In sheer self-survival mode, she'd wrapped herself in a mental and emotional fog, automatically taking over the running of the Connelly homestead while her mother stayed on in Kununurra to be by Greg. She'd filled the days with chores, keeping so busy she fell into bed at night, too exhausted to think.

She didn't want to think about Tommy now, either. After Christmas would be soon enough. In the new year. When she'd have to make decisions about continuing to work for him or…her mind shied away from
or
. Best to get moving—out of bed, into a shower, clothes on. She would wear a dress for Christmas. It would please her mother.

It should have been a happy Christmas day, Elizabeth King thought, but it wasn't…quite…despite Miranda's and Nathan's announcement this morning that they were expecting a baby. It was wonderful news—Lachlan's first grandchild—and Tommy had carried on exuberantly about becoming an uncle. But she'd seen the shadow of pain on his face before he'd switched on the positive energy expected of him.

He was very good at putting on a show.

And he'd kept it up during their festive lunch, with Jared supporting him, their witty banter keeping laughter rolling around the table. Both brothers were genuinely happy for Nathan and Miranda. Elizabeth wished they could be happy for themselves, but knew they were not.

Jared had asked her if he could invite Christabel Valdez and her daughter to King's Eden for Christmas. She'd readily given her assent, hoping he had not sensed her own misgivings about the relationship he obviously wanted. In fact, it was a curious move from him. There had never been any embargo on inviting friends to the homestead for Christmas festivities. Had he been subtly probing her reaction to the idea of having Christabel in the family circle on an intimate level?