Southern Star: Destiny Romance (9 page)

Smiling, Blaze let her empty glass clunk to the floor as her eyes closed, and she fell asleep to dreams of a dark man’s passionate kiss.

Coming to with a start, Blaze rolled over and promptly fell off the sofa, landing on the rug in front of the fireplace. Fortunately the couch sagged so much, the drop was mere centimetres. It was dark in the room, with just a sliver of moon sending a pale gleam slashing across the floor and wall. Groping along the worn cushions, she found her phone in the dip between them and illuminated the display. Nearly two. That glass of wine had hit her for six, probably because it had been weeks since she’d drunk alcohol.

Groaning, she heaved herself upright, using the phone’s display to guide her across the room to the door. Her hand on the door knob, she jumped at the sudden sharp creak of timber from just outside the room. Cautiously, she waited to see if the sound came again, but the house settled once more into its usual cadence of soft shifts and sighs.

Switching on the light, Blaze eased the door open and peered up the gloomy hallway towards the front of the house. The front door was standing wide open, and as she watched, a gentle gust of wind caught it, sending it thudding against the wall. Crack!

Letting out a breath, Blaze smiled at her foolishness. The old door was so badly warped, it had a tendency to open in a stiff breeze unless it was locked, which she did only when she was going out or to bed.

It took a few attempts to get the door in the right place for the lock to slide home, and then she switched off the living-room light and made her way up the moonlit stairs, her mind on tomorrow and the start of a new phase in the life of Sweet Springs.

First job for Rowdy Parsons: fix the front door.

At around the same time, Mac stood naked and sleepless on the balcony of his bedroom looking east towards his nearest neighbour. The Sweet Springs homestead wasn’t visible, but he could see it in his mind’s eye as it had been decades before: sprawling, elegant, alive. Its high ceilings, spacious rooms and ornate Victorian-era touches were a link with the past that his home, despite the modern conveniences he’d installed, just didn’t have, while the lush, gently rolling land that surrounded Sweet Springs was on the wish list of every grazier within cooee.

God, he’d wanted Sweet Springs for so long. It was the main reason he’d acquired neighbouring Rosmerta, his thinking being that when Paddy Gillespie’s place came on the market he’d be perfectly positioned to snap it up. At a little over forty thousand hectares, it was relatively small, but combined with the sprawl of Rosmerta, it would join the ranks of the largest holdings in the region, and its quality was unsurpassed.

Whatever Blaze might say, he couldn’t seriously envisage her staying long, and whatever improvements she made to the property in the meantime were only to his benefit, as long as she wasn’t planning on introducing a Hollywood Hills style. Hopefully, Rowdy Parsons would steer her away from anything inappropriate.

Mac decided that, for as long as she was around, he’d keep a close eye on her – and not just because of his interest in Sweet Springs.

For a woman as worldly as Blaze Gillespie, her reaction when he’d acknowledged the attraction that simmered between them had not been what he expected. He’d anticipated either an outraged, drama-queen-style dismissal or a cool and amused invitation to get right down to it. Instead, she’d seemed wary, nervous even, and he didn’t know quite what to make of that.

Nevertheless, she wasn’t immune to him. Her hands had trembled when she’d tended his scratches the other day, and he’d seen the pulse throbbing in her throat. He’d wanted to lick it, and the way her eyes had flicked to his and then away, he’d known immediately that she’d wanted it, too.

Oh yeah, she wanted him, but clearly she was uncertain of his motives, and probably with good reason given the media headlines recently. Convincing Blaze Gillespie to explore their attraction probably wouldn’t be easy and Mac didn’t usually have the patience for long, drawn-out seductions; he’d never needed it before. And running a property the size of Rosmerta simply didn’t allow him the luxury of time for all the stuff women liked: the dinner dates, weekends at the beach, picnics.

His nights were spent poring over the accounts, researching better farming techniques or strategic planning, and his weekends were pretty much the same as weekdays. Any spare time he had went on his dreams of diversifying into stock horses that would marry durability and speed. He got to the occasional barbecue on a neighbouring property, and he made time to sail with his old buddy, Raf Gibson, once in a while during the warmer months, but that was pretty much the extent of his social life. The few women he’d dated in recent years had also worked the land and knew she was a demanding mistress.

Still what Mac might lack in time and romance, he made up for in focus. He was as intense and driven with a woman, especially between the sheets, as he was with every part of his life. He knew how to satisfy a woman and he didn’t cheat or lie about his intentions. When he was with a woman, he was with her. When he was working he was working; no time for a million cooing phone calls. And when an affair was over, it was over; no regrets.

Blaze Gillespie wasn’t any woman, though. Mac didn’t give a shit about the movie-star crap. That was simply surface glitter that he wanted to peel away to discover the woman within. Acknowledging this desire to know her gave him a jolt. No woman had ever intrigued him enough before to distract him from his responsibilities to Rosmerta. But with Blaze it was as if she’d thrown down a challenge he couldn’t ignore: you have to look behind the mirage if you want to find the real woman.

Who was Blaze Gillespie? Instead of the self-involved, demanding airhead he’d expected, he’d found a bruised and exhausted waif, a sultry-eyed vamp, a defender of stray animals and a humiliated heroine. She wore new personas the way other women did new outfits, and so convincingly that he felt continually off balance. He wanted to protect the waif, take apart whoever was behind the sex-tape garbage, even help her train the damn dog.

And the vamp he wanted to pin against a hard flat surface and fuck until they both screamed for mercy. That white-water river of lust was there constantly. Sometimes it was a raging torrent, at other times a languid ripple, but it was undeniable. If Mac needed to invest a little more effort than usual to get Blaze Gillespie into bed, that’s what he’d do.

For the fourth time that morning, Blaze went out to the porch to stare down the driveway. Paddy looked up from scratching himself and gave a little shrug as though to say:
Forget it. The drunk’s not going to show
.

It was probably true and definitely disheartening.

She’d been so excited this morning. Despite her disrupted sleep, she’d woken at sparrow fart and thrown back the covers, anxious to get started on the day. True, she hadn’t thought to ask Rowdy what time he’d be arriving, but it was nearly eleven now, more than enough time to have picked up what he needed and driven out here. Maybe he’d had car troubles or some other emergency and hadn’t been able to get in touch.

Maybe she was clutching at straws.

Okay, well, it was disappointing, but she was here, with two hands, a strong back and a working brain. She may not have any idea what to do or where to start, but that was what Google and YouTube were for, wasn’t it? And there was no shortage of rusty tools in the barn. She would just make a start somewhere on a simple project and trust to luck and good judgement.

Within an hour, she had picked up some basic tips for stripping loose and flaking paint from the old window-frames, and had dragged a ladder and hand tools from the barn up to the veranda. Of course, by now, it was approaching the hottest part of the day, so Blaze exchanged her jeans and shirt for denim cut-offs and a loose, off-the-shoulder T-shirt knotted at her hip so it didn’t catch on anything. Her mane of hair she bundled up on top of her head and added a band around it to stop wisps from getting in her eyes.

Feeling workmanlike, she carefully set up the ladder so she could begin work at the top of the window frame. The main problem was that the floorboards of the veranda had dried and warped over the years so she didn’t have a level surface to rest the ladder on. In fact, it wobbled dangerously at times and she had to keep moving it to try to find a safer spot. But by the time she decided to stop for lunch, she was getting into a rhythm and the ladder was now standing in a shallow pool of paint flakes.

After a hasty break for a snack and a long glass of water, she was about to head back outside, despite the heat that had sent Paddy out to the waterhole in search of shade, when the phone rang, cutting abruptly into the silence. Thankful for the reprieve, however brief, she went to answer it.

‘Gillespie residence.’

‘Ah right, ah I kind of . . . that is, I forgot about . . .’ The softly slurred voice broke off.

‘Rowdy.’

‘Yes, Miz Gillespie. It’s me.’ He sounded, Blaze thought, as miserable as anyone she’d ever heard.

‘I’m listening.’

There was a long pause before he spoke. ‘I only meant to have a couple of drinks, I swear. Just a couple of drinks. That’s all, but I couldn’t stop.’ He broke down then and Blaze heard the phone clunk as though he’d put it down on a table. Despairing sobs came faintly down the line, and then the sound of a nose being blown. Blaze was just about to consider ending the call when Rowdy came back on the line.

‘Sorry I let you down. I let everyone down.’

Blaze felt her heart squeeze in sympathy. Self-loathing was something she’d had a close acquaintance with recently. She knew about feeling a failure, about knowing people despised you, so she could manage a little compassion even though part of her wanted to write him off. But she also knew the temptation of giving in to misery. Not to mention that she really did need his experience. Rowdy had responded to her decisiveness and matter-of-fact approach yesterday, so she would try it again.

‘Rowdy, I can give you a second and last chance. But only if you do exactly as I say.’

‘All right.’ His nose blew again. ‘I promise.’ His voice sounded stronger.

‘Any alcohol in your house goes down the sink.’

‘But—’

‘All of it. I mean it. Then you sober up, clean yourself up and head over to the hardware store for what you need. Do not go to the pub. Do not buy more booze. Get an early night and I’ll see you here by eight tomorrow.’

‘All right, Miss. I’ll do it. I will, and I’ll be there tomorrow.’

‘Make sure you are.’

Pondering the wisdom of giving him another chance, Blaze ended the call, slathered another layer of sunscreen on her face and neck, and went back for another paint-stripping session. Fortunately, a cool front had blown in, dropping the temperature a degree or two, but the work was still repetitive, fiddly and messy. Her shoulders and biceps ached more from this than any personal-training session, her damp skin was coated with dust and dirt, and her left calf kept cramping from the strain of reaching up to sandpaper the top of the window frames.

Jaxon would be aghast if he saw her, she thought, tucking a piece of rebellious hair back under the band. Three weeks since she’d last been to the salon or the spa, her fingernails were wrecked, her arm scratched where she’d caught it on a nail, and a pocket was ripped on her designer shorts. Next trip to town, she would definitely remember to pick up some practical shirts and lightweight pants. There was no point ruining —

A heavy footstep sounded behind her and, startled, forgetting where she was, she tried to whirl around to face the intruder. The ladder wobbled on the uneven timber decking, her left calf cramped again, and as she reached for it, she lost her grip on the ladder and began pitching backwards. Her cry of panic ended in a shocked gasp, as hard arms banded her waist and bare thighs, lowering her quickly and efficiently to stand on the bottom rung.

It was her neighbour, looking even surlier than usual.

Macauley Black loomed over her, crowding her, his dark eyes flashing with irritation and something else. His sleeves were rolled up again to reveal those heavily muscled, hair-dusted forearms, and this close she could see that his black eyes were in fact the darkest of browns with tiny jet striations. Above his short beard, his lips looked hard and sensual – and pissed off.

‘Are you trying to kill yourself?’ he growled.

Startled from her perusal, Blaze’s temper flared to match his. ‘If you hadn’t crept up on me like that, I wouldn’t have lost my balance.’

‘Anything could have happened,’ he shot back. ‘It didn’t need me to startle you for you to lean too far, or a floorboard to splinter, or for you to lose your grip. And what then? You’d have been out here alone with a broken leg or arm,
at best
, unable to drag yourself to the phone and get help. You’re an accident waiting to happen!’

‘I was doing just fine till you interrupted, and if you have such a problem with me then stay the hell away,’ Blaze yelled back.

‘I would if I could,’ he muttered.

Blaze stared at him. She could see the damp patches beneath his arms, smell the heat and maleness of him. He was too close, and though she’d loosened her arms from around his neck, his hands still touched her bare skin. As though he could read her thoughts, the fingers of the hand just below her shorts stroked across the flesh of her thigh.

The touch was as light as butterfly wings and as shocking as a shark bite.

She shuddered.

He cursed.

‘If you don’t want this, you have two seconds to get inside and shut the door,’ he said hoarsely, his breath fanning across her face.

‘Don’t,’ she started, unsteadily.

‘Two, one,’ he counted. His hands shifted their grip as he hauled her into his arms and inside.

‘What? Wait!’ Blaze stuttered as he carried her through the house and up the stairs.

‘You had your chance,’ he said. ‘Where’s your bedroom?’

‘No! What?’ Her eyes were transfixed by the movement of his throat, her gaze moving down to the dark tuft of hair that peeked from the open neck of his shirt.

He gave a strangled laugh. ‘Your bedroom?’

‘Oh!’ Blaze tore her eyes away from his throat and realised they were on the first floor. ‘Up another level to the attic.’

‘You sleep in the attic?’

‘That’s where my room is, from when I used to stay with Gram and Gramps.’

‘Christ,’ he cursed, his long legs eating up the few stairs to the top floor. ‘Am I going to feel like I’m seducing a schoolgirl in her childhood bedroom?’

The image his words conjured made Blaze laugh, blasting aside her shock at the way he’d taken charge – and her own compliance. ‘I could probably find an old gym slip to wear if that would help fulfil a fantasy,’ she murmured.

‘It’s not . . . hell!’ he growled in response to her grin.

She smiled saucily. ‘Just be gentle with me, as it’s my first time and you’re such a big man,’ she purred in her best little-girl voice as he shouldered his way into the attic with its angled roof and shadowed corners.

It was a mess. She’d been in a hurry to get started this morning, and the bed was rumpled, her sleepwear strewn carelessly over the floor. But she didn’t have time to be embarrassed as he dropped her on to the sheets. Laughing, she bounced as he came down on one knee beside her, his fists either side of her head.

‘I think,’ he whispered huskily, lowering his head to nibble at her lower lip, ‘that you can be a very naughty girl.’

‘Are you going to be very strict with me?’ she whispered, trying to capture his mouth with hers.

‘You have no idea how strict,’ he whispered back and then showed her what he meant with an invasion of her mouth that had nothing to do with kissing and everything to do with possession. It was deep and drugging, sucking her under into a carnal whirlpool of senses and sighs.

Her hand was twisted in the collar of his shirt, holding him to her. He untangled it, placing her arms around his neck and bringing her body hard against his.

‘Spread your legs, honey.’ He lifted his head, his lips shiny from hers, his eyes intense, as he settled his hard hips into the softness of hers.

Blaze shuddered as she felt his erection, thrusting and urgent beneath his jeans. She had joked about him being a big man, but she hadn’t known the half of it.

Macauley smiled wolfishly, as if he knew what she was thinking and agreed with her. He pushed his upper body away from her, his hands urgent at the hem of her top. He swore when he fumbled with the knot at her waist, and settled with ripping it in two. Blaze gasped as he reared above her, stripping the ruined shirt from her in one fluid movement to reveal the lacy froth of pale green beneath.

Her heart hammered in her chest as she saw the heat intensify in his eyes. He reached out a hand to trace the lace edging across the slope of her breast, and his fingers shook. In seconds he had her boots, socks, shorts and underwear off, her headband was flung to the far side of the room and her hair was wrapped around his wrist. The other was busy, unsnapping his jeans. Blaze’s eyes held his, her heart in her throat as he approached her, his intention clear. The preliminaries were over. This was it.

Not speaking, he spread her legs wide, draping them over his thighs and taking himself in hand as he knelt over her. At the first touch of his heat to hers, she flinched.

‘Easy,’ he said as he fitted himself to her.

As he pushed inside her, Blaze cried out in shock at the size of him, and came up off the bed. She put a hand to his chest.

Macauley paused his penetration until she began to relax. He touched her at the place where their bodies fused, and her eyes shut, pulse thudding as blood coursed through her veins.

This wasn’t sex as she knew it. Sex was entertaining, fun, a release. This was something more, primal, elemental. This was about taking . . . and being taken.

‘Breathe,’ he told her. Until that moment, she hadn’t realised she’d stopped. Blaze felt his body tense as he began his steady invasion for the second time. She flinched again, but this time he didn’t pause, thrusting long and deep until he was lodged fully in her.

‘Macauley,’ she breathed, not a question or an order, just his name. She said it again when he withdrew and then powered forward, hitting the sweet spot inside her. ‘Yes,’ she whispered, in shock that he seemed to know exactly how she liked to be taken. ‘Yes, oh yes.’

‘There?’ he asked, narrowing his eyes, and gave it to her again.

She nodded, gold meeting deep brown as their eyes clashed, slid away and returned. He was all taut sinew and heavy muscle above her, around her, in her. His chest bellowed, his throat swallowed as he set up a steady, driving rhythm. Neither easy nor urgent, it was simply inexorable, taking over her awareness until the world shrank to the size of the bed, and everything in her was focused on the thickness of him pounding inside her, the shaking of her limbs spread wide for him, the quiver of release as it spread out from her core and took her screaming over the edge.

Even then, he kept up his ceaseless rhythm, driving her on until her wildly clenching body took him down with her.

With practised efficiency, Mac unclipped the front opening of the lace bra Blaze wore and pulled it from her unresisting body. One day when they had more time, he’d take a good long look at her in the bra and the matching briefs that lay somewhere on the floor. Now wasn’t that time. They’d taken the edge off, but that was all. Tonight had a long way to run.

In the late-afternoon light that flooded the room from the small window, her body was pale gold and slender, with curves at breast and hip that took his breath away. The sheet was pulled up to her waist, and she was tucked on her side, breathing softly in sleep. One breast was clearly exposed, a pert handful tipped with deep beige-rose. His mouth watered at the thought of tasting it.

Without taking his eyes from her sleeping body, he stripped off his own clothes in five seconds flat, and climbed back into the bed. Blaze gave a sleepy sigh and rolled on to her stomach, presenting the long elegant line of her back to him. He traced her spine, down to her buttocks and back. She murmured sleepily and he knew she was awake. Making the return trip, his finger ran lightly up her back, around her shoulder blades to her neck. Under his hands she shuddered delicately. He combed his fingers through her thick mane of hair, tugging slightly, and she uttered a sexy moan, starting to turn, but Mac stilled her with his hand.

‘No,’ he whispered in her ear. ‘I want you this way.’

Their lust burned, barely controlled, deep into the night until all the world was still and quiet save the racing of their hearts and the occasional murmur of satisfaction. By the time they’d both taken their fill, dawn was only an hour away.

Beside Mac, Blaze finally slept, her breathing slow and soft. Despite the ease of her rest, she curled away from him towards the edge of the bed – a reminder that they were sexual partners only, without the trust and intimacy of long-term lovers.

This knowledge didn’t sit well with Mac. He wanted her head on his shoulder, her palm resting on his chest as she slept, her smooth leg bent across his rough one. Dissatisfied, he came up on his elbow, wanting to tug her closer and let their heat burn away his disquiet, but he hesitated when she muttered in her sleep.

For a second he thought she breathed his name. He bent closer.

‘Mitch,’ she mumbled.

Mac reared back as though a bucket of cold water had been tossed his way. Flinging off the sheet, he got out of bed and went to stand by the small dormer window, wondering what the hell he was doing. This was a one-off, nothing more. They were both consenting adults, both attractive sexual animals who’d wanted to get their rocks off. Light, easy, uncomplicated.

God knows, he’d had plenty of women over the years, and she’d had other men . . . Not wanting to go there, he drew in a breath and grabbed his jeans from the floor, then heard the distinctive sound of foil in the pocket. Shit. Shit! In all the time they’d spent rolling around the sheets, he’d never once thought of protection.

He’d never, ever had unprotected sex before, not even as a horny fifteen-year-old, but somehow he’d just broken the cardinal rule of casual sex – multiple times. Now he’d have to tackle the matter with her when she woke and that wasn’t a thought he relished.

His phone vibrated in his jeans pocket and he pulled it out, recognising the Rosmerta landline number as he walked out of the bedroom to answer it.

‘Black,’ he said quietly, heading down to the next level to look for a bathroom.

‘Boss?’ Amos’s voice quivered and broke at the other end. Mac found the bathroom, and tugged on his jeans as he answered.

‘Yeah, Amos. What’s up?’

‘Boss, where are you? You need to get back here right now.’

Mac frowned at the distress in the old man’s voice. ‘What’s going on? Are you all right?’

A choked sound came down the line and for a frightening moment, Mac thought Amos was having a heart attack. Then he realised his oldest hand and good friend was crying.

‘You have to come home, boss. Something terrible . . . it’s Peggy. There’s been an accident.’

It didn’t take long to get the hang of death; not nearly as long as most people might think, and the rush of power it brought was addictive. That prick of a movie director had actually got on his knees to beg, as if that would make a difference. What a joke! And he’d asked why.

Why? Because I can, that’s why. It’s nothing personal; well, not between you and me. Retribution is due elsewhere, and unfortunately that means your camera stops rolling. Permanently.

A knife was a supremely satisfying way to kill. You could stab frenziedly at a body. Police liked to interpret that as incredibly personal. Overkill. Or you could cut delicately, with ritualistic overtones. Or you could just slash the throat from ear to ear, execution-style. Or, in the case of Mitch Redmond, all three, finished off with a vertical slice. Wonder what the cops had read into that!

Yes, knifing was a satisfactory way to kill. The movie-festival shooting had been fun, too. Right in the eye. Bam! Not the intended target, but still. And then the fan stampede, exactly like cattle. It hadn’t been the intention for the whore to be knocked unconscious; that was just a side benefit. No, the real purpose had been to make her suffer. Look at the carnage you have caused!

Which led to tonight’s entertainment, which was death by bludgeoning. No chance of being pigeonholed with a versatile résumé that encompassed knives, guns and, haha, a heavy-bottomed pan – that’s if any bright spark connected the dots to Macauley Black’s cookware drawer. Unlikely.

And believe it or not, the latest wasn’t actually murder. Who’d have known the old bat was going to be staying overnight? She usually went home mid-afternoon, and as Mr Superstud Black had been getting his rocks off over at Sweet Springs and the hands were all tucked up in the bunkhouse, the coast seemed clear for a bit of a snoop.

The disappointing thing was that the cops were unlikely to link the attack on Peggy Fairchild with Blaze Gillespie. However, there were a number of positives to come out of the exercise. It showed a commendable ability to adapt to the circumstances and use available items as weapons. Those cheapskates who favoured aluminium pans would never know how effective a cast-iron skillet could be for bashing someone’s brains out. Great sound effects, too.

Still, the bitch would pick up on the connection. Slut she might be, but she wouldn’t miss the sense of death in pursuit. You can run but you can’t hide. She’d get the message for sure.

He was gone. Blaze knew it before she opened her eyes, before she reached out a hand in the ridiculous hope of finding warm male flesh lying next to her. Ridiculously, her heart sank just a little. But what did she expect? Mornings after were tricky to negotiate in the best of circumstances, and he’d probably figured it was just best avoided altogether in her case.

Flinging an arm over her eyes, she groaned. She couldn’t exactly complain she hadn’t been forewarned, either. He hadn’t made any bones about his intention for them to become lovers, and what had she done? Proven right everybody who’d ever said she was easy.