Australian Outback Kings / The Cattle King's Mistress / The Playboy King's Wife / The Pleasure King's Bride (38 page)

“Six-thirty would suit us better,” she said, wanting time to dry her hair, time to feel all a woman's anticipation in the indulgence of getting ready for an evening with a man who truly wanted only
her
, not her connection to obscene wealth.

“Fine by me.” He smiled the words, a smile that curled Christabel's toes.

“Thank you.” Her voice came out husky, furred by emotions rushing free from the strictures of years of discipline.

“My pleasure,” he replied, then transferred his smile to Alicia. “Chocolate chip?”

Her hands flew up into a fervent wish grasp. “Please?”

“I'll get some on my way home.”

“Oh, thank you!”

He lifted his hand in a farewell salute to both of them, then strolled away with the air of a man who had come and conquered and the world was now his oyster.

Except it wasn't, Christabel thought ruefully. Only this little bit of the world belonged to Jared King. She remembered her visit to the great outback cattle station owned by his family, a vast land holding on the other side of the Kimberly from Broome. King's Eden, it was called. She'd been amongst the contingent of the family's employees in the pearl industry, invited to Nathan King's wedding, which had been an eerily soul-stirring ceremony, initiated by Aborigines playing didgeridoos.

She was glad she'd gone, glad she'd experienced such a unique insight into the traditions of the outback and the feeling of an ancient, timeless heritage that was tied to the land. Not the wealth made from it. The land itself. King's Eden.

Would she prove to be a serpent in Jared's Eden? The carrier of evil that would poison his piece of paradise?

Sooner or later they would come—the powerful men in suits—and they'd destroy the normality of the life she'd established here, destroy whatever natural connections she'd made with people.

Christabel shivered.

Some things can't be stopped
.

Jared's words…but they applied to much more than their feelings for each other. Still, for a little while…a defiant recklessness surged over the torturous fears…she
would
have what she wanted. And so would Jared.

It was
his
choice, too.

CHAPTER TWO

F
EAR…BECAUSE HE'D
been wearing a suit.

Jared mulled over that information as he drove back to the main shopping area to buy the chocolate chip ice-cream. It was another piece of the jigsaw he'd been fitting together ever since he'd met Christabel Valdez. The more he thought about it, the more it felt like a key piece.

His unexpected apparel had represented some kind of threat to her peace of mind. Was the suit simply an image that evoked bad memories, or was there more to it than that, a fear of someone who always wore suits turning up in her life again?

Jared didn't care for this last thought. Yet perhaps it tied in with her living in a caravan, a mobile trailer home she could take with her if she felt the need to move at a moment's notice. On the other hand, many people enjoyed the sense of a nomadic life that a caravan allowed. Not everyone wanted to put down roots in one place. Impossible to really know Christabel's truth until she chose to reveal it herself.

It wasn't the done thing to pry into the background of people who came to work in the Australian outback. There could be many reasons for dropping out of more sophisticated centres of civilisation. It might be as simple as a wish for a change of lifestyle, a need for space, a desire to experience something different…in which case they usually told you so. But there were those who stayed silent, wanting to shed what they'd left behind…and that was their personal and private business, to be respected as such.

Christabel projected the first attitude but gave out so little of her past, Jared had concluded she wanted to shut the door on it. What had been tantalising, and intensely frustrating to him, was her stance of keeping everyone, including him, at arm's length, as though she couldn't bring herself to trust a close relationship, however much she might want it.

And she did want it with him.

Jared's fingers curled more tightly around the driving wheel as triumphant excitement coursed through him. At last he'd broken through her resistance. She'd given in. Though why now…he shook his head. It didn't matter.

Perhaps it was the realisation that her fear—whatever its cause—was unfounded with him. If so, all the better. He didn't want fear to play any part in their relationship. He'd sort that out soon enough, now he had the chance to get close to her, closer than he ever had before in five long months of laying subtle siege to her defences.

Christabel…

He smiled on a wave of sheer exhilaration as he rolled the lovely lilt of her name through his mind…a name he'd thought might haunt him all his days, accompanied by a vision of eyes that glittered like gold in moments of fierce emotion and darkened to a simmering, sensual amber in moments of pleasure.

A woman with the heart of a tiger, he'd often thought, imagining her stretched out on his bed, lazily slumbrous, yet with those eyes inviting dangerous play, her satin-smooth olive skin gleaming, the rich abundance of her glorious long hair spreading silkily across pillows, the soft, perfect femininity of her body calling to everything male in him, a beautiful exotic mystery.

A haunting name, a haunting image…and all this time it had seemed the reality of her might remain forever elusive.

No more.

Tonight she would be within his reach.

Tonight…

It took considerable effort to bank down the passion she stirred in him and concentrate on practical details. Even his fingers were tingling as he activated the car phone and pressed his home number.

“Vikki here,” came the familiar sing-song voice.

“Visitors for dinner, Vikki. Christabel Valdez and her daughter.” It gave him intense pleasure to say that.

“Ah! So you win. I said to your mother, Jared will win. He does not know how to lose, that boy. He keeps at it until he wins.”

He laughed. Vikki Chan had been with the family all his life, cook and housekeeper to his widowed grandfather, staying on to maintain the old Picard home for his mother after Angus Picard's death. It wasn't the least bit surprising she knew of his interest in Christabel. Jared suspected she knew everything that went on in Broome from her many long-established grapevines. Besides, his mother was in the habit of confiding worries to her.

“I'm about to pick up the ice-cream her daughter likes,” he informed. “I also promised Alicia honey prawns…”

“No problem. I shall call and have the best green prawns delivered. Also more fish. Is fish all right for your Christabel?”

His
Christabel…he hoped. “I'm sure it will be perfect. They'll be arriving early. Six-thirty. Alicia goes to bed at eight.”

“I will take care of the little one. A bedroom near mine.”

“They may not stay beyond eight, Vikki.” He couldn't assume too much, given the hot flare of resentment from Christabel when he had used Alicia to press the invitation. In fact, the giving in may not extend anywhere near as far as he wanted.

“I shall work it so you have time alone with her, Jared,” came the arch reply. “I have not lost my touch with children. And I very much doubt you have lost your touch for winning.”

Her confidence set him smiling again. “You're a wicked old woman, Vikki Chan.”

He heard her cackling with delighted amusement as she disconnected to make other calls and imagined her wizened little face creased into a myriad happy wrinkles and her black eyes asparkle with plots and plans.

Vikki Chan would never say how old she was. Probably in her eighties, Jared guessed, though still incredibly spry and full of a zest for life. She'd be on the telephone right now to her seafood supplier, demanding the very best and threatening terrible fates if it wasn't delivered. The pencil she invariably poked through the bun that kept her scraggly grey hair under tight control would be down in her hand, making notes no one else could read.

Chinese, she said, but Jared had learnt to speak and read Chinese proficiently and he could never decipher what she wrote. It gave Vikki an enormously smug pleasure to keep her little secrets, while worming out everyone else's. Though not even she had managed to learn anything about Christabel beyond what Jared had learnt himself.

Which wasn't much.

She knew Amsterdam. A conversation on diamonds had dropped that fact. Singapore was another piece of the jigsaw, perhaps simply a stopover on her way to Australia. Wherever she had learnt it, she had an extensive knowledge of jewellery and a keen appreciation of how it was valued.

He parked the car in Carnarvon Street, crossed the road to Cocos Ice Cream Parlour, bought two individual tubs of chocolate chip for good measure since Christabel might like it, too, plus several cones in case licking was preferred to spooning.

From there it was a short drive up to the bluff where the old Picard home overlooked Roebuck Bay. Prime position, Jared always thought appreciatively, though the house itself was not a particularly impressive place, just a big, rather ramshackle wooden building, surrounded on three sides by wide verandas that could be shuttered against inclement weather.

Still, it held a lot of history for his mother and it was large enough to accommodate the whole family with space to spare whenever his brothers came to Broome. Tonight it was going to accommodate Christabel Valdez and her daughter, for as long as they were willing to stay.
As long as he could make it
, Jared privately vowed as he headed inside to the kitchen with the ice-cream supplies.

Vikki was chopping vegetables at her workbench. “Everything okay?” he asked, crossing to the freezer.

“Of course.” She eyed him critically. “You look very hot, shirt sticking to your back. You need a shower and a shave.”

Having put the ice-cream away, he placed the cones on the bench and shot Vikki a teasing grin. “I think I can remember to brush my teeth.”

Unabashed, she returned an arch look. “That cologne you have…it is very nice. Definitely a subtle come-on.”

“I'm glad you approve my choice. Been sniffing it, have you?”

She humphed. “You need all the help you can get to make the most of this night.”

“Not artificial help. It won't impress Christabel one bit. Nothing has…not who I am or what I am or any material advantages she could get from me.”

“Maybe…maybe not. I'm thinking a clever woman doles out a long rope for a man to hang himself with. You are a prize, Jared, and it occurs to me no other woman has ever tied you up this firmly.”

He shook his head. “She doesn't see me as a prize. That's not where it's at.”

She raised derisive eyes. “The executive head of Picard Pearls? A man with his own custom-fitted Learjet? One of the Kings of the Kimberly?”

“It's all irrelevant to her. I'd know if it wasn't. I'm not a fool, Vikki.”

“Men in love can be blind.”

“Not that blind.”

There was a loud rap on the back door. “Ah, the prawns and the fish!” Vikki made a shooing gesture as she moved to answer the summons. “Go off with you, Jared. And if you want my opinion, if your Christabel doesn't know you are a prize,
she
is a fool.”

Not a fool, Jared thought, leaving the kitchen to go to the suite of rooms he'd made his. Christabel operated on values that had nothing to do with wealth. That had been clear to him from the beginning, and her independent stance had remained consistent ever since. This was a woman who thought for herself, acted for herself and was wary of allowing any outside influence into her life.

He dumped his briefcase in his home office, stripped off in his bedroom and moved automatically towards showering and shaving, his mind occupied with memories.…

The necklace…looking up from the paperwork on his desk and seeing it around his secretary's throat…

“Where did you get that piece of jewellery?”

“Oh, sorry!” A fluster of guilty embarrassment. “I know I should be wearing pearls…”

“It's all right. I just want to know. The design is very striking.” Artistic, elegant, cleverly leading the eye to the enamelled pieces it featured.

“Yes. I love it and couldn't resist buying it.”

“Where from?”

“At the Town Beach markets on Friday night.”

“The markets?” It was not market goods. It was class. High class!

“Yes. Usually there's only cheap, fairly tacky stuff, but there was this rather small collection of really super costume jewellery on the stall that sells velvet jewellery bags. I would have bought more but this was seventy dollars.”

“Locally made?”

“Well, the person who made it is a newcomer, though she's been here a while now. Lives in the caravan park. Very exotic-looking. Comes from Brazil, someone said.”

Exotic…he'd imagined some over made up woman in a multicoloured floating garment…yet that design had tugged him into reconnoitring the market stalls at Town Beach the following Friday evening.

His first sight of her…like a magnet pulling him, his heart hammering, pulse racing. She'd been chatting to her co-stall holder. Had she
felt
him coming? Her head turned sharply. Their eyes met. An instant sexual awareness. Electric. How long had it lasted? Several seconds? Then she stiffened as though suddenly alert to danger, and her lashes swept down, shutting him out.

The abrupt switch off paused Jared in his tracks. It was wrong, unnatural. He sensed a shielding that was determined on blocking him out, and the urge to fight it welled up in him. She didn't know him, he realised, and he didn't know her. He tempered his more aggressive instincts, listening to the one warning him that storming defences was not a winning move.

He slowed his approach and made a casual study of the jewellery on the trestle table she stood behind. Each piece, to his eye, was a unique design, displaying a creative artistry he found almost as exciting as the woman. Part of her, he thought, an intrinsic part of heart, soul and mind woven into patterns and fashioned with exquisite taste. He couldn't resist touching them.