Outback Bachelor (3 page)

“Believe that, and you’ll believe anything,” Keefe bit off with disgust. He closed the short distance to where his brother stood, grabbing hold of his bare shoulder with such force Scott winced. “Goddammit, Scott,” Keefe groaned in a kind of agony. “I’m repulsed by you. Where’s your sense of decency? Your sense of honour?

“You got the lot,” Scott retorted with sudden venom, trying unsuccessfully to break his brother’s iron grasp. “You want her yourself
.”

Keefe’s expression was daunting. “What you’re saying is what I want, you must take for yourself.”

“Well, she is one alluring little chick!
”

That was when Keefe hit him. Scott dropped to the sand with blood streaming from his nose. He tried to get up, fell back again, moaning. “Can’t say I didn’t have that coming,” he wailed, as unpredictable as ever
.

“You bastard!” Keefe raged with a mix of horror and regret. “You never can deal with the consequences of your actions. Why do you let your dark side take you under?’

Skye, who had been frozen to the spot, now rushed to Keefe’s side. She had to make an attempt to allay his rage. “Don’t hit him again, Keefe. Please. Nothing happened
.”

“Keep out of this,” Keefe warned, with the blackest of frowns. “Get dressed and go home
.”

His anger sparked an answering anger in Skye. “Don’t treat me like a child.”

He turned on her, his silver-grey eyes so brilliant they bored right into her. “A child?” he ground out. “You’re no longer a child, Skye. You’re a woman, with all a woman’s power. My brother isn’t such a monster.”

“She’s temptation on legs,” Scott offered from his prone position on the sand. To his mind that exonerated him from all blame.

“Shut up!” Keefe violently kicked up the sand near him. “Apologise to Skye. Tell her you were acting crazy. Tell her such a thing will never happen again. And it won’t, believe me. This is your one and only warning. You’ll have me to deal with.”

Scott wilted beneath his brother’s fury and disgust. “You won’t tell Dad,” he choked, his hand pressed to his bleeding nose.

“Dad?” Keefe roared. “Apologise to Skye. How could you begin to betray her trust?”

Shaking all over, Skye fervently wished for her clothes, which were lying in a tidy pile on the opposite bank. As it was, she had to stand there, receiving the attention she didn’t want. Her brief bikini barely covered her. Even now she couldn’t believe what Scott had done. A woman’s beauty came with inherent dangers. Beauty brought fixations and unwelcome attention. The last thing in the world she wanted was to rouse the brute in a man. Now Scott! She had never dreamed she would be in this position, coming between the two brothers. She was the innocent party here, yet Keefe appeared to be so furious with her she might as well have been as guilty of wrongdoing as Scott.

Scott took the opportunity to stagger to his feet, gingerly feeling his jaw. Pain lanced up into his head. “I’m sorry, Skye,” he mumbled. “You know a lot about me so you know from time to time I run off the rails. I would never hurt you. I just wanted a kiss.”

“A kiss and the rest!” Keefe shouted, hooked into his rage.

“You sure pack a punch, Keefe. You really hurt me.” Unbelievably Scott appeared to be feeling sorry for himself
.

“You’re lucky I didn’t pummel you into the ground,” Keefe cried
.

“Damn! Damn everything,” Scott moaned. “So what am I supposed to do now, avoid her?
”

“What you’re supposed to do is what you’ve been reared to do. Treat Skye—all women—with respect. You think Dad would be angry? What about Gran? She’d have you horsewhipped.”

“She would, too.” Scott suddenly grinned
.

“Oh, please, please, stop,” Skye begged.

Only then did Keefe turn to stare at her. “Are you okay?”

She was caught in that diamond-hard star, so fierce she almost felt terror. “I told you. He didn’t touch me.” All she wanted was for this dreadful episode to be over.

Keefe’s laugh was a rasp. “Only because I turned up. I’ll never know why I came this way. I thought I heard you calling me.”

She had been.

The part of him beyond reason had clearly heard her.

A few minutes elapsed before a small airport runabout swept into sight. It pulled up beside her and the driver got out, coming around the rear of the vehicle. Skye gave a convulsive gasp. Some emotions were so extreme they couldn’t be put to rest.

Keefe.

The world she had tried hard to build up for herself started to disintegrate and turn to rubble.

All you’ve got to do is breathe in and breathe out. Breathe in. Breathe out.

It was the voice of reason, only it took several seconds before she could even swallow. Inside she felt a piercing thrill of the old excitement. Outside a near-paralysis. Focusing hard, she drew a deep calming breath into her lungs. It didn’t quell the clamour. Her nerves were bunched tight. How did she hide her enormous vulnerability when it was pitted against a towering wave of pleasure?

He was even more handsome in maturity, but harder, tougher, severe of expression. All traces of that wonderful tenderness had gone. Some might say his arresting good looks were a bit on the intimidating side, given the air of gravitas and authority he projected. She knew strangers had sometimes mistaken that aura for arrogance. They were wrong. It was Keefe’s heightened sense of responsibility, of being who he was, instilled in him from childhood. He looked stunningly fit from a lifetime of hard physical activity. His darkly tanned skin glowed richly. His thickly curling sable hair worn longer than was usual—hairdressers were few and far between in the bush—was swept back from his forehead in the manner of some medieval prince. Strong and distinctive as his features were, they were dominated by his remarkable wide-set eyes. They were a mesmerising silver-grey, brilliant, crystal clear, yet impossible to read.

He didn’t smile. Neither did she.

The air crackled as it did when an electrical storm approached. They stood there studying one another in silence. Skye felt a deep, sharp sadness. As for Keefe, she couldn’t read him. As in everything, for so long now, he was an enigma. He had distanced himself from her as she had distanced herself from him. But what did he
really
want of her? What did she want of him? What were the changes each one of them saw in the other? She was ill prepared for this confrontation. Had she known Keefe was to come for her, she could have worked on some defence strategy.

Don’t kid yourself, girl. Such a strategy doesn’t exist
.

There was always drama around the McGoverns. Instead of Scott, Keefe had appeared. The man she dreamed about, so often and so vividly, that it was as if he was in bed with her. He was dressed in a khaki bush shirt with epaulettes and buttoned-down pockets, close-fitting jeans, beaten-copper-buckled leather belt, glossy riding boots on his feet. Everyday wear, but quality all the way. There was something utterly compelling about a splendid male body, she thought raggedly, the height, the width of shoulder, the narrowness of waist and hip descending into long, long straight legs.

“It’s good to see you, Skye.” Finally he spoke. “Weren’t waiting long?”

She readied herself. His voice, like the rest of him, carried a natural command. It had become more and more like his father’s; the timbre deep and dark, the accent polished and slightly clipped. “No more than five minutes,” she said with admirable composure. She had to force the adrenalin rush down. “I wasn’t expecting you, Keefe. I was told Scott was coming.”

“Well,
I’m
here,” he said, looking directly into her eyes.

He was so beautiful! All strength and sinew with an intense sexual aura. Her entire body leapt to vivid life, sparks coursing like little fires along her veins. What she felt for Keefe couldn’t be easily governed. Even her nerves were like tightly strung wires humming and vibrating inside her. How long had it been since she had felt this mad surge of excitement? Not since the last time she had been with him. Years of loving Keefe. Years of unfinished business. It was like they were tied together against their wills. She pulled in a deep breath, keeping her tone neutral.

“And thank you. I appreciate it.” No way could she betray the tumult in her heart. “I’m so very sorry about your father, Keefe. I know how hard it must be for you.”

His glittering gaze moved to the middle distance. “Forgive me, Skye. I can’t talk about it.”

“Of course not. I understand.”

“You always did have more sensitivity than anyone else,” he commented briefly, reaching for her suitcase. It was heavy—she had packed too much into just one case—but he lifted it as though its weight was negligible. “We’d best get away. As you can imagine, there’s much to be done at home.”

She shook her head helplessly. “You didn’t
have
to come for me, Keefe.”

He paused to give her another searing glance. “I
did
.”

Ah, the heady magnetism of his gaze! She moved quickly, letting her honey-blonde hair cascade across one side of her face. Anything to hide the wild hot rush of blood. She opened the passenger door, then slid into the seat. All the years she had spent mounting defences against Keefe…!

You still have no protection.

Their flight into Djinjara couldn’t have been smoother. Keefe was an experienced pilot. But, then, his skills were many, all burnished to a high polish. He had been groomed from childhood to take over leadership from his father.

They were
home
.

Djinjara was still—would always be—the best place in the world. The vastness, the freedom, the call of the wild. There was a magic to it she had never found in the city, for all the glamour of her hectic life there. She had made many friends. Some of them in high places. She was asked everywhere. She had a stack of admirers. She knew she was rated a fine, committed advocate. Her clients trusted her, looked to her to get them through their difficult times. Her career was on the up and up. Yet, oddly, though she had hoped to gain great satisfaction from it all, that hadn’t happened. Sometimes she felt disconnected from her city life. Other times she felt disconnected from everything. Successful on the outside, when she allowed herself time for introspection, she felt curiously
empty
. Starved of what she really wanted.

Such was the pull of love; the elation, the sense of completion in being with Keefe. But along with it went long periods of
loneliness
.

On the ground, beneath a deliriously blue sky, she marked the familiar spectacular flights of birds, the shadows beneath the rolling red sand dunes that stretched across the vast plains. The sands were heavily embossed with huge pincushions of spinifex scorched to a dark gold; in the shimmering distance the purple of the eroded hills with their caves and secret, crystal-clear waterholes.

Skye drew the unique pungent aromas of the bush into her lungs, realising how much she had missed Djinjara. The mingling wind-whipped scents, so aromatic like crushed and dried native herbs, to her epitomised the Outback. She had a very real feel for the place of her birth, even though her mother had died here giving her life. Not everyone fell under the spell of the bush but Djinjara, from her earliest memories, had held her captive.

They were met by her father. He had been lolling against a station Jeep, a tall whipcord-thin man with a lived-in, interesting sort of face and love for his daughter shining out of bright blue eyes.

“Skye, darling girl! It’s marvellous to see you.” Jack rushed forward, his hard muscled arms wide stretched in greeting.

“Marvellous to see
you
, Dad.” Skye picked up her own pace, meeting up with her father joyously. She went into his embrace, kissing his weathered mahogany cheek. He smelled of sunlight, leather and horses. “I’ve missed you
so
much.”

“Missed you.” Jack looked down into his daughter’s beautiful face, revelling in her presence, the glorious grace of her. She was so like his beloved Cathy. The way she smiled. The way she
shone
.

“Sad about Mr McGovern,” Skye spoke in a low voice.

“Tragic!” her father agreed, dropping his arms as Keefe, who had given father and daughter a few moments alone, came towards them.

Keefe was a stunning-looking man by any standard, Skye thought. Quite unlike any other man she had ever seen. “I’ll take you up to the house first, boss,” Jack called. “Then I’ll drop Skye off.”

“Fine,” Keefe responded. The force field around him was such it drew father and daughter in. “I know you’ll want to spend this first night together, Jack. You must have much to catch up on—but I thought as the bungalow is on the small side, Skye might be more comfortable up at the house for the rest of her stay.” He looked from one to the other. “It’s entirely up to you.”

Skye’s heart leapt, then dropped like a stone. She had no stomach for the rest of the family, other than Lady McGovern. “I’ll stay with Dad,” she answered promptly, “but thank you for the kind thought, Keefe.” Despite herself, a certain dryness crept into her tone.

“You might want to change your mind, my darling,” Jack said wryly, looking at his beautiful daughter. He was immensely gratified she wanted to stay with him, but worried the bungalow really
was
too small.

“Well, see how it goes,” Keefe clipped off.

“It’s very good of you, Keefe.” Jack looked respectfully towards the younger man.

“Not at all.” Keefe turned his splendid profile. “My grandmother will want to see you, Skye.”

“Of course.” She couldn’t miss out on an audience with Lady McGovern, who would be devastated by the loss of her son. Pity rushed in. Besides, she could never forget what she owed the McGoverns for what they had done for her. Albeit without her knowledge.