The Australian (10 page)

He seemed to regret the question almost immediately, but she was too shocked to notice. She remembered aching to have him ask that before she left for Hawaii. She had to admit it now: she wanted to be close to him. In spite of everything, part of her ached for it. But she knew she couldn’t be that close without giving herself away completely. She couldn’t risk it.

“No, thanks,” she said. “I haven’t been on a horse in years. It’s safer on the ground.”

He searched her eyes and smiled mockingly. “You aren’t flattering yourself that I had ulterior motives for that invitation?” he taunted. “I was offering you a lift. Nothing more.”

Her blood ran hot. She seethed at him with years of bitter hatred in her eyes. “I’d rather hitch a ride with a cobra!” she shot back. “I’m not in the market for an outback cowboy!”

“My bloody oath, you’re asking for it,” he bit off, and something in his eyes frightened her.

“Not from you,” she said coldly. “I want nothing from you. Not ever again.”

“Praise God,” he returned with a cutting smile.

She whirled and dashed off across the paddock, hardly noticing where she put her feet.

John watched her go with a bleak expression, eyes narrowed in something approaching pain as he followed her lithe figure until it was out of sight. After a minute, he turned his mount with unusual roughness and urged the stock horse into a gallop, his face as hard as stone.

* * *

Priscilla knew there was going to be trouble the minute the twins walked into her classroom Monday morning.

They glared at her horribly and did everything possible to disrupt the class. By lunch, when nothing she said or did worked, she went into the school office and phoned the Sterling Run.

Randy answered, and Priss hardly gave him time to say hello before she poured it all out.

“They have hidden my chalk, they’ve thrown schoolbooks out the window, they’ve talked and catcalled and made noise when I was trying to conduct class, and I’m at the end of my rope. Randy, I’m going to have to send them to the principal and let him deal with them, and it may mean expulsion.”

“In the first grade,” he sighed. “Where have Latrice and I gone wrong? Listen, Priss, I’ve got a meeting with some out-of-town cattlemen, and I can’t get away right now. Latrice stormed out of here Friday night, bag and baggage, and went to Bermuda on another holiday—John and I are half crazy with work...”

“I’m sorry you have problems, but I do think this takes priority, Randy,” she said with gentle firmness. “Expulsion on the twins’ record at this early stage in their education would be devastating. You can see that, can’t you?”

He muttered something. “All right, Priss, I’ll be there in fifteen minutes.”

She went back to the classroom, and as luck would have it, the twins had just returned early from lunch.

She stopped in the doorway and met their angry looks with one of her own.

“I’ve called your father,” she said quietly. “He’s on his way here now.”

“Big bloody deal,” said Gerry, pouting. “He never does anything.”

“That’s dinkum,” returned his twin, Bobby, with a triumphant smile.

“Do you realize how serious this is?” she asked. She sat down at her desk and tried to think how to reason with them. They were so young to be so out of hand. “Listen. There are other students here who want to learn. It’s my job to try to teach them. It simply isn’t possible with the two of you disrupting my class all the time. I don’t like sending you to the office. I don’t like having to tell your parents that you’re causing trouble. But I have a duty to all the other parents whose children are here to get an education.”

“Education is a lot of rot,” Gerry said. “We don’t need to go to school. Big Ben never went, and he knows lots of things.”

“Big Ben can smell rain,” Bobby said. “And track a man through the rain forest.”

“Fair go!” Gerry returned. “He knows important things.”

She nodded. “Yes, I know. Big Ben used to try to teach me to throw a boomerang. But I never learned.”

“I could show you that,” Gerry told her. “It’s easy.”

“He’s beaut,” Bobby agreed.

She pursed her lips. “Suppose,” she said, choosing her words, “that you wanted to show me how to throw a boomerang, Gerry, but two of your classmates kept making noise so you couldn’t talk above them. And suppose they hid the boomerang.”

Gerry scowled. “Why, I’d knock the bloody stuffings out of them,” he said belligerently.

“Perhaps that’s how Tim Reilley felt this morning,” she continued quietly, “when I was trying to show him how to spell his name, and you and your brother kept scraping your chairs across the floor.”

Gerry pondered that. “Well...” He looked thoughtful. Perhaps the twins would consider what she’d said.

“I hear your uncle took you out on the muster Saturday,” Priss offered, changing the subject.

They brightened immediately at that. “Yes, and he showed us how the ringers cut out bullocks, and how to toss a rope!” Gerry said enthusiastically, all eyes.

“One of the cows got her head caught in the fence,” Bobby interrupted, “and Uncle John said some words he told us not to repeat.”

She smiled involuntarily, picturing the scene. “Yes, I imagine so.”

“Uncle John can do anything,” Gerry continued. His face fell. “I wish my dad could ride a horse like that.”

“But your dad is grand at figures, did you know?” Priscilla told him. “He can add columns of figures in his head, faster than a calculator. I’ve seen him. And he’s a whiz at math.”

“Our dad?” Bobby asked.

“Yes, your dad,” she agreed. “He won a scholarship to college because he was so good at it.”

“How about that, mate?” Gerry asked his brother.

“But he studied very hard,” she continued solemnly. “He sat and paid attention in class and did his homework.”

Gerry shifted restlessly in his chair. “They took away the telly,” he complained, looking up at her with accusing eyes. “And Mom left again. She said it was because she couldn’t stand us around her. And it’s all your fault.”

Oh, Latrice, how could you? she thought, aching for that small proud boy.

“Your mother was upset, and she didn’t mean to hurt you. She loves you. So does your dad. You’re very special to them.”

“Then, why do they ignore us all the time?” Gerry persisted.

“Your dad’s trying to make a living, so he can support you all,” she began. “If he didn’t work hard, you’d be poor.”

“Like Uncle John was?” Bobby broke in, wide-eyed. “Dad said Uncle John didn’t have a bean before we came to live with him, but I guess he’s got some money now, because he bought me a truck.”

Priss stared at the boy with a puzzled frown. She was going to explain that John wasn’t poor, but before she could, Randy came into the room, looking angry and impatient and out of sorts.

“You lot are going to ruin me,” he accused the boys, growling at them. “I had to pass up an offer on two young bulls I was trying to see, because of you.”

“We’re sorry,” Gerry said, approaching his father with adoring eyes. “We didn’t mean to be bad, honest we didn’t.”

“Dinkum, Dad,” Bobby seconded. “We really didn’t.”

Priscilla stood up. “Why don’t you boys walk down the hall a bit? It’s ten minutes before we start class.”

“Thanks, Miss Priscilla,” Gerry said. “We’ll go look at the bird nest outside Mrs. Gaines’s window. Come on, mate!”

Bobby ran out behind him, and Priss folded her hands in front of her. “I’m sorry,” she apologized. “Something has to be done. They seem penitent right now, but I can’t go on letting them disrupt the class. You must see that.”

Randy was wearing a business suit but no hat, and he seemed haggard. He sat down in the chair beside her desk and fumbled to light a cigarette.

“I’m at my rope’s end,” he said. “We restricted the television. We gathered up most of their toys and put them away. We even spanked them. None of it worked. Their mother ran off again to some social affair in Bermuda, and I just haven’t time for them.”

“Randy,” she said, as gently as she could, “that’s the whole problem. Nobody has time for them. Children who misbehave as often as not do it to get attention. They don’t care whether it’s positive attention or not, as long as they get it from someone. But I have a responsibility to the other parents to provide an atmosphere in which their children can learn. I’m not able to do that with the twins disrupting my class. And right now they’re furious with me. They seem to blame me for the loss of their television
and
their mother.”

He looked oddly guilty. “That’s my fault,” he confessed. “I was muttering about how if you hadn’t come to the house...”

“Yes, I understand. But the boys are too young to separate angry words from honest ones. They said Latrice told them she couldn’t stand them. They took that literally, too.”

He smoked quietly, looking defeated. “I love my kids, Priss. But we shouldn’t have had them so soon. Latrice was used to being waited on hand and foot until she married me. I had money, of course, but not as much as she was used to. There were so many adjustments. And then having to come up here five years ago, to take over the Run...”

She felt herself going pale. Five years...? “What?”

“Didn’t anyone ever tell you?” he asked. “I realize that John didn’t want you to know in the beginning, but now that things are improving, I thought—no matter. He lost it, you see. The whole property. Everything. I had to bail him out or he’d have gone into receivership.” He searched her stunned face. “Didn’t you know?”

Chapter Eight

If she hadn’t been sitting down, her knees would have given way under her. She sat staring at Randy without even seeing him while the words repeated themselves in her numb mind. John had gone bankrupt. He’d gone bankrupt. And she’d never even known. There had been a conspiracy of silence all around; even her parents had kept it from her. But why? Why?

“I’m sorry,” Randy said gently. “I didn’t realize it would hit you so hard, Priss, or I’d never have said anything.”

She straightened. Her heart ran wild in her chest. “Why didn’t someone tell me?”

He shrugged. “I thought you knew. It was all over the district when it happened.” He crushed out his cigarette in the ashtray on her desk.

She wasn’t sure she could stand up. She felt as sick as she’d ever been in her life. All she could think about was her own cruelty to him since she’d been home, the way she’d ridiculed his clothing...and he was such a proud man. Oh, God, what had she done?

Her hands went into the drawer to produce a tissue. She dabbed at her eyes.

“I’m sorry if I upset you,” he said.

She looked up. “You pulled the station out of the fire, I gather?”

He started to speak, ran a hand through his hair, and smiled bitterly. “I was a first-class wowser, if you want to know,” he told her. “I lorded it over John and crushed what little pride he had left, and walked around with a head like a draft beer. I was going to show big John that I could run rings around him in business.” He stared at his clasped hands on his knees. “And at the end of the first year, I’d fouled up everything. I almost lost my own station in New South Wales, and the Sterling Run was no better off. I was desperate enough to ask John for help. He hadn’t seemed to care up until then, about anything. But after that, he and I put our heads together and came up with a plan. We’re progressing slowly, but we’ve restocked and reinvested, and we’re back on the way to prosperity. I managed to hold on to the sheep station down in New South Wales, and if everything goes well, Latrice and I can move back there in a few months. Maybe she’ll settle better near her people.”

She stared at the desk. “Yes, perhaps.”

He stood up. “Priss, I’ll promise you that Latrice and I will make the effort with the twins. I’ll try to arrange my schedule so I have more time to give them. Meanwhile, if you have any more problems, let me know. If necessary, I’ll cart them off to military school.”

She started to protest, but she held her tongue. A teacher could only interfere up to a point. Ultimately it would have to be Randy and Latrice’s decision, not hers.

“Thanks for coming, Randy,” she said, forcing a smile.

He nodded. “Are you sure you’re okay?”

She averted her eyes and mumbled something. He left and the children filed back in from lunch.

Waiting for school to be over was the most difficult thing she’d ever had to do. And as the hours went by, her temper blazed up like a gasoline-soaked fire. By the time the final bell rang, she was out for blood. The first person she went after was her father. She ran him to ground outside in the parking lot and stared at him with wild, hurting eyes.

“Why didn’t you tell me about John Sterling?” she asked quietly. “Why did you keep his bankruptcy from me?”

He looked uncomfortable. More than uncomfortable. He ran his hand around the back of his neck with a sigh. “By that time you’d broken up with him,” he began, as if he was choosing his words very carefully. “It didn’t seem necessary to tell you.”

Her eyes stung with unshed tears. “Yes, but I’ve said some horrible things to him since I’ve been back. And all because I didn’t know the situation. I feel horrible!”

He avoided her gaze. “I’m sorry, darling. Really sorry. But we promised...” He cleared his throat. “I mean, we promised each other we wouldn’t say anything to you. We didn’t realize the problems we might be creating, if that’s any excuse.”

She stared down at the ground, feeling betrayed and sick and ashamed, all at once. “I have to go and see him,” she said.

He studied her bent head. “Yes. That might be the best way,” he murmured absently. “Drive carefully. Are you all right?”

“I’ve just had a shock, that’s all,” she replied numbly. “I’ll be home in a little while.”

And with a forced smile, she got into the little secondhand Datsun her father had bought for her, and headed straight for the Sterling Run. She knew Randy would be picking up the twins, and luckily Latrice was away. Priss didn’t really want an audience for her interview with John. It would be awkward enough as it was!

Her hands were shaking so, she had trouble keeping the little car on the road as she sped across the cattle grids and past the white fences to the Sterling Run. She was on her way to the front door when she heard voices down at the stables, a short walk away. She turned and headed resolutely down the dirt path.

John was saying something to Big Ben, the aboriginal stockman, who looked past him to spot Priss and grinned toothlessly from ear to ear. He swept off his stock hat and greeted her, his curly white hair gleaming in the sunlight.

“Hello, Missy,” he called. “Plurry long time you go away, thought you deadfella. Good you come again.”

“Thanks, Ben,” she said. “I still haven’t learned to throw a boomerang, but at least now I can spell it!”

He grinned and turned away to mount his horse, then rode off to carry out whatever instructions John had given him.

John stared at her, taking in her pale cheeks and pained expression.

“Well, what’s your problem?” he growled.

She didn’t even reply. She just stared at him and searched for words. Yes, she could see it all now. The khaki trousers and dingo boots, the wide-brimmed Stetson and faded khaki bush shirt half open over his brawny hair-covered chest—they were all old. But she had a feeling the best he owned now wasn’t much better than what he had on. The Ford was an economy car. And there had been many bits of conversation about hard times at the Run. All of it came back to haunt her, most of all her own haughty remarks about the suit he’d worn to her homecoming party.

Tears shimmered in her wide eyes, and her lower lip trembled precariously as she looked up. “Randy told me the truth,” she said unsteadily and watched his eyes blaze with sudden anger. “Can you imagine how I feel?”

He seemed to turn to stone at the question, at the pity that was plain in her eyes. He let out his breath slowly, and there was a dangerous look on his face as he studied her. “By God, I’ll break his back...!”

“Why?” she cried brokenly. “Why didn’t you tell me? Was that why you broke the engagement—because you went broke? John, for God’s sake, I wouldn’t have turned my back on you just because you weren’t rich! I’d have been back here like a shot, I’d have helped...!”

His jaw tightened as he looked down. He turned away to light a cigarette. As he moved the muscles rippled in his powerful arms, and she could hardly bear to be so near him without touching him.

“I had all I could handle,” he said after a minute. He stared off down the dirt road that led between the paddocks, where fat Merino sheep were grazing. “Bankruptcy and marriage are a poor combination. And,” he added coldly, “there was your age.”

She wrapped her arms around herself, staring at his tall form, so alien to her now, so different. “I was growing up fast.”

He laughed, without amusement, and turned back. “You wanted me,” he said flatly. “And I wanted you. But love wasn’t part of it, despite your romantic little daydreams.”

“That’s not true,” she protested, and tears filled her eyes. She went close to him, sympathy mingling with regret in her soft oval face as she stared up at him with the same eyes that had once adored him. “I wouldn’t have cared what you had. I’d have stuck by you, no matter what.”

“Don’t pity me,” he ground out. His eyes frightened her. “My bloody oath, I won’t have that from you!”

“John,” she whispered tearfully. “You did care, a little, didn’t you?”

His nostrils flared. He slammed the cigarette down into the dust and made a grab for her. Without another word, he lifted her roughly in his arms and carried her into the deserted barn, shocking her speechless. There was one stall off the neat, clean aisle where hay was kept. He carried her in there and threw her into the golden softness, slinging his hat to one side as he loomed over her.

“Let me show you how much I cared,” he said roughly and slid down against her prone body so quickly, she didn’t have time to avoid him.

She fought with him, but he only threw a powerful leg across both of hers and held her down. His eyes gleamed with some violent emotion as he searched hers, his hands pinning her wrists to the straw-covered ground.

“I wanted you,” he repeated, holding her still. He eased his body completely over hers, letting her feel what was happening to him, watching her face flush and her eyes dilate as the contact made her stiffen. “As you can feel, I still do,” he added with a mocking smile. “But that’s all it was, all it is, with me. I loved your body, Priss.” His eyes devoured the soft form pinned beneath his body, and his heart began pounding, his breath backed up in his throat.

“I loved it...” His voice trailed off as he drew his lips suddenly over the erect peak of her breast, which was outlined against the thin fabric of the green dress. His hands released her wrists to slide under her and hold her to him.

She stiffened more and gasped. Her hands caught in his thick blond hair and tried to pry him away, but he only laughed huskily.

“You used to like this,” he reminded her tauntingly. “Lie still. No one’s going to disturb us here. We can go all the way this time. You’re not a shy little virgin anymore.”

She opened her mouth to correct that impression and felt his lips cover it. She meant to fight; she wanted to. But it had been five years, and the feel of his hard smoky mouth on hers was intoxicatingly close to heaven. She relaxed very slowly into the hay, feeling the warmth of his lips as they opened, parting hers at the same time. Her hands stopped tugging his hair and eased around to his rough cheeks. She stroked his face, feeling the corners of his mouth with her thumbs, feeling it kissing hers....

He moaned softly, as the tiny caress aroused him, and his hands smoothed over her breasts with tender possession. He bit at her mouth in a familiar remembered way, and she opened her lips to let his tongue probe inside.

His fingers went between them to unbutton his shirt. He took one of her hands from his face and edged it under the fabric, bunching her fingers against one hard male nipple.

“Stroke me there,” he whispered gruffly.

Her rebellious fingers liked that telltale sign, and they obeyed him without protest. His mouth grew rougher, more demanding. His hands cupped her breasts and shaped them, his thumbs arousing them even through two layers of fabric. She hated the dress and the bra she wore under it, she wanted her flesh laid bare to his hands, and she gasped in protest when he removed them.

“Priss,” he breathed into her mouth. He kissed her harder, with blatant possession. His big rough hands went under her dress and undergarments then, and he slid them along the silken skin of her thighs in a caress more intimate than any they’d ever shared.

She stiffened, catching his hands in her own. Her eyes were wide and a little frightened, her mouth swollen and moist from his kisses.

“No one will see us,” he assured. His voice was like velvet, deep and slow. “You want me, don’t you?”

“John, you don’t...understand.” She fought to explain before it was too late, before her weakness gave him what he wanted.

“Aren’t you on the pill?” he asked. His hands gave in to her renewed protest and moved back up to shelter her head from the hay. “Is that why?”

“No, I’m not on the pill,” she rejoined breathlessly. “I never have been. John, I...I haven’t...nothing’s changed about my body. I mean...”

His glazed eyes began to focus, as sanity came back with a rush. “Are you trying to tell me you’re still a virgin?” he asked. “My oath, that’s rich!” he added with a cold laugh. He searched for her mouth, but she jerked her face away.

“It’s the truth!”

“Of course it is.” His hands moved back under the skirt, roughly demanding, and his mouth crushed over hers fiercely. “Stop pretending, Priscilla,” he bit off.

“Go ahead, then!” she said angrily, eyes searing him. “Go ahead! You’ll find out for yourself, but it will be too late!”

She gritted her teeth and waited. He was strong enough to force her and she knew it. But she hoped his integrity would be enough to save her. And it was.

He let her go and sat up. His big body was shaking with the effort it took and his eyes were savage, but he breathed deeply and slowly until his heartbeat slackened. His hands smoothed back his disheveled hair, and he stared down at her with an expression that made her blood run cold.

“I feel like a Saturday night special,” she managed with a trembling, hard laugh. She avoided his eyes as she sat up and rearranged her clothing. “Like a streetwalker.”

He got to his feet and leaned over to sweep up his Stetson and cock it over one eye. He held out a hand with obvious reluctance, but she ignored it and scrambled to her feet alone.

“So now I know,” she said, white-faced. She pulled hay out of her hair with trembling fingers. “I know exactly why you proposed. It was the only way you could get me, and you knew it, is that it? Your conscience wouldn’t let you seduce your neighbor’s teenage daughter!”

He lifted his chin. “Call it a fleeting noble gesture.” His eyes narrowed as he watched her body. “I wanted you until it was an obsession.”

She swallowed. “So I saw.”

His face went hard and cold. “It was only that. I never mentioned loving you.”

“That’s true,” she managed huskily. “You never did.” She forced a wan smile and turned away. “We both had a lucky escape, don’t you think?”

She averted her eyes and wrapped her arms around her chilled body. All the illusions were gone now. Every one. She realized she’d been living on the thought that he might have cared. On the hope that once she was all grown up he would realize what he had been missing. But now she knew the truth. That it could never be more than desire for him.