The Australian (13 page)

John was wearing a blue blazer, white shirt, and white trousers when he arrived for dinner. His blond head was bare, and he looked as urbane as any Brisbane businessman.

“You look nice,” Priss complimented reluctantly.

He smiled at her. “So do you. Very roaring twentyish.”

“I’m an old-fashioned girl,” she reminded him.

“I know,” he remarked with a devilish smile, and she dropped her eyes.

“Come on in to the living room while the women get the food on the table,” Adam said, “and I’ll pour you a brandy.”

“That sounds fine,” John said. “What do you think about this new political crisis in the States?”

They went off into a long discussion about politics in general while Priss and Renée set the bowls of steaming hot beef and rice and Brussels sprouts and biscuits on the table.

“What’s your opinion, Priss?” John asked as they were seated.

“About what?” she asked, going blank as she looked at his rugged face with its dimpled chin and twinkling eyes.

“Oh, I don’t know,” he murmured, as if staring back at her had knocked a few words out of his head, too. He searched her soft green eyes for a long moment and watched her pupils widen, her lips part. It took all his willpower not to get up and go across the table after her.

She cleared her throat and reached for her glass of iced tea. Not until she’d taken a calming sip of it did she try to talk again, and she didn’t look straight into his eyes this time.

“How are things going, John?” Renée asked as they waded through international politics and marked their way back to everyday topics. “This is your busiest time, I recall.”

“Yes,” he confirmed. “Lambing, calving, mustering, shearing.... It’s great to get away from the station and all the complaints.”

“You’ve hired on some new men, I hear,” Adam remarked.

“Have to.” John grinned. “Our own would quit if they had all that work to do alone. Besides, the shearers are a breed apart. It’s an experience to watch them in the sheds.”

“Indeed it is,” Priss agreed. She smiled at him over her coffee cup. “I got to help once.”

He cocked an eyebrow. “Yes, you did. I had the only sheep in the river basin with mohawks.”

She flushed. “Well, I tried.”

“You wouldn’t have gotten near my Merinos if that shearer hadn’t been sweet on you,” he added, cupping his coffee cup in his big hands. “I watched you, too, just to make sure he didn’t get fresh. You were a dish even at sixteen, little Priss.”

“Big brother to the rescue,” she chided, embarrassed because she’d never told her parents about that.

“Thank God you were around to look out for her,” Adam gratefully acknowledged. “She’s always been a handful.”

“A lovely handful, my darling,” Renée said with a smile. “The greatest joy of our lives.”

“I was almost the undoing of John a few times,” Priss admitted. She glanced at him, and for once all the animosity and bitterness fell away. “I worried you terribly, didn’t I?”

“I could have stopped you anytime I liked,” he confessed. He searched her puzzled eyes. “Or didn’t that ever occur to you?”

It hadn’t. She studied his craggy face curiously. “Why didn’t you?” she asked, her voice soft.

His thumb caressed the porcelain cup absently as he looked back at her. “I liked having you around,” he offered quietly. “Despite the fact that we all knew you were years too young to be daydreaming over me,” he added with a wicked grin.

“We trusted you,” Adam chuckled.

“Of course,” Priss submitted. “I was like his kid sister.”

John’s eyes narrowed and when she looked into them, she read graphically that in no way had she been like his kid sister.

“How about some dessert?” she asked quickly, and rose to get it.

In the kitchen, she uncovered the Southern pecan pie she’d made and began to slice it. Her heart was wildly racing, and she hoped she could calm down before she went back into the living room.

She felt him before she heard his voice, sensed his presence as if she’d been born with radar.

“Can I help?” John asked at her back.

“I’m just finishing up,” she replied. Was that squeaky voice really hers? The kitchen shrank when he walked in.

“I love that pie,” he said. “A southern-American specialty, isn’t it?”

“Yes,” she returned breathlessly. She reached for saucers, but his big hands slid around her waist and she froze, helpless, as his fingers moved, fondling her.

His breath sighed out against the top of her head, and she could feel the warmth of his big body, feel the muscles of his chest against her back. She was drowning again. She wanted to turn and let him crush her body into his; she wanted to lift her face and let him kiss her hungry mouth until she stopped aching.

“Did you bake it?” he asked quietly.

“Yes...I...I can cook, you know,” she faltered.

His chest rose and fell roughly. His hands moved slowly up and down her waist. “You did the lunch today, too, didn’t you?” he murmured. “The chicken and potato salad...”

She swallowed. “Yes.”

He moved an inch closer, bringing his body into total contact with hers, and she caught her breath and stiffened.

“You still smell of gardenias,” he whispered in her ear. His mouth touched it and then ran slowly down the side of her neck to her shoulder. “You even taste of them.”

The feel of his hard warm mouth was doing crazy things to her willpower. Her head involuntarily went to one side to give him better access to her silky skin.

She felt the edge of his teeth then, and heard the ragged sigh of his breath.

“It’s no good,” he said roughly. “Turn around and give me your mouth.”

She wanted that, too. She needed to taste him, to let him satisfy the aching hungers he’d created. Without a protest, she started to turn, but the sound of footsteps broke them quickly apart.

“Sorry, but there’s a phone call for you, John,” Adam interrupted, peeking through the door. “Your jackeroo.”

“Damn,” John muttered darkly. He glanced ruefully at Priss before he went out the door, and Adam made a regretful face before he followed suit. Priss went back to dishing up the pie, with hands that shook and a body that hurt with unsatisfied need.

By the time she had the dishes on a tray and had carried them into the dining room, John was standing in the hall with Adam.

“Damned sorry,” John was saying irritably. He glanced toward the dining room. “I have to go,” he told her. “A blue down at the shearer’s quarters. My jackeroo can’t calm them down.”

She could imagine John doing that, quite easily. She’d seen him break up fights before.

“We’re glad you could come to supper,” she told him in a low voice.

His eyes searched hers across the room. “Walk me out.”

She went to him without a protest, a sheep going to the slaughter. She barely saw the knowing look her parents exchanged as she took the large hand John held out to her and went with him onto the darkened porch.

“Oh, God, come here, love,” he groaned urgently, drawing her trembling body completely against his. “Kiss me...!”

His mouth opened as it touched hers, and she met the kiss hungrily, reaching up to hold him, to plaster her aching body to the hardness of his. She clung to the strong muscles of his back, feeling his teeth against her own with ardent pressure of his devouring mouth.

She moaned helplessly, in the throes of something so explosive it rocked her on her feet, and his arms tightened.

“I need you,” he whispered into her mouth. “I need you...”

He was trembling, and so was she, and the darkness spun around her like a Ferris wheel while she tried to get enough of his warm demanding mouth, the deep penetration of his tongue, the rough massage of his hands down her spine.

She felt him maneuver their bodies so the porch wall was behind her. Still holding her mouth in bondage, he eased himself down against her, crushing her hips and breasts and thighs under his so she could feel the very texture of his muscles.

She cried out, softly, helplessly, and he lifted his blond head and stared into her eyes in the dim light.

“I want you under me like this in a bed,” he said unsteadily, his eyes glittering.

Her nails bit into his back as she tried to find a protest.

“Don’t start making excuses,” he commanded gruffly. “You want me, too.”

“You’re heavy,” she moaned.

“Yes, and you love it,” he breathed against her lips. He moved his hips deliberately and felt her stiffen and clutch at him. “Oh, Priss, I’d give anything to have you alone with me in a dark room for just an hour. Just one hour...!”

“I can’t,” she whispered tearfully. “I can’t, I won’t...!”

His mouth crushed down on hers, and he kissed her with a wild kind of frustration before he arched himself away from her and stood glaring down at her trembling body and wide misty eyes.

“Nothing’s changed,” he whispered huskily. “We cause a fever in each other so hot, ice couldn’t quench it. Eventually you’ll have me, Priscilla. Because the day will come when you can’t bear the torture of wanting me any longer.”

“But it won’t last,” she returned bitterly.

“Yes,” he replied. “Yes, it will. You’re all I see, hear, think, or need in all the world.”

“It’s just lust!” she threw at him. “You said so!”

He searched her wild eyes. “So I did. But it’s much more than that,” he said. “Much more. We must talk, and soon. I just wish I had the time now, but I don’t. Good night, Priss.”

He turned and walked away. It was several minutes before she could get her rubbery legs to take her back inside. And it was hours before she slept. She tossed and turned all night long, worrying about John’s dogged pursuit and her own vulnerability. What was she going to do? She couldn’t survive a second rejection. Could she believe John when he said the blazing passion between them would last? It was a question to which she still hadn’t found an answer by morning.

She went with her parents to church and then came back home and brooded for the rest of the day. It was almost a relief when Monday morning came and she could go back to school.

She heard from the twins that John was frightfully busy, and her daydreams about having him repeat his invitation to the muster went up in smoke. Obviously he hadn’t time for anything else except the station right now. And she couldn’t even feel angry about it, now that she knew what a difficult time he’d had the past five years.

On Thursday the twins broke their record streak of good behavior by putting a frog into a little girl’s dress. The ensuing pandemonium got Priscilla a stern lecture from the principal, and she had to keep the twins after class as punishment. They didn’t seem to mind and, secretly, neither did she. She had a feeling that John would come for them.

“Poor Uncle John’s been staggering tired,” Gerry told her that afternoon after the other children had gone home.

“Dad offered to come home, but Uncle John said no,” Bobby added. “He said that Mom and Dad needed...needed...” He frowned.

“A honeymoon,” Gerry provided.

Priss laughed. “Well, I’m glad they’re enjoying themselves. And I’m sure your uncle can cope.”

“I say—” Ronald George stuck his head in the door “—your dad said to tell you that he and your mom are going to drive over to see the Thompsons and that they won’t be home until about dark.”

“Thanks, Ronald,” she replied, grinning at him.

He seemed to take that as an invitation. He came into the room, shut the door, and perched his tall form on the edge of Priss’s desk. His eyes went over the picture she made in her pale pink blouse and gray skirt.

“You look cool today,” he remarked. “Like one of our English roses.”

“Beware of my thorns,” she teased mischievously.

“I’m not afraid of roses.” He pursed his lips. He folded his arms. “As a matter of fact, I’m not afraid of anything today. I have scored a point.”

She frowned and cast a quick look at the twins. But they were in the back of the room peering into the class’s aquarium, where two turtles lived.

“Scored?” she questioned.

He leaned toward her, so that his face was almost touching hers. “Remember Mandy? Well, she’s finally agreed to go out with me!”

She laughed softly. “Lucky old you!” she exclaimed. “Ronald, that’s just super!”

“I can hardly wait,” he continued, searching her twinkling eyes. “It must be love,” he added more audibly.

To the man standing frozen and furious in the doorway, it was an eye-opening little tableau. Ronald leaning over Priss, with his mouth just inches from hers, and her bright face turned up and laughing at him, while he made her declarations of love. John clenched his hands by his side, weary from his day’s work, his drill pants and bush shirt covered with dust and bits of wool and dirt, his face stern with anger.

Priss saw him first, and her heart turned over. “Oh. Hello, John,” she faltered.

Ronald George straightened up, grinning. “Hi, Mr. Sterling. Nice day. You look a bit bushed.”

“Down here, bushed means lost, and I’m not that,” John returned with cold formality. “Gerry, Bobby, let’s go.”

He opened the door and ushered them out. And then he followed them! Without a word to Priss, without a single word, he was gone.

She couldn’t help the sick, empty feeling in her stomach. She stared at the closed door with a sense of disaster. Surely he hadn’t been jealous? She laughed bitterly to herself even as she thought it. John, jealous of her—that was a good one.

“I say, are you all right?” Ronald asked.

She forced a smile. “Of course. It’s just been a long day. Well, I’d better pack up and go home. Thanks for the message. And good luck on your date!”

He stood up, smiling. “I’ll need it. Mentally she can cut me to pieces. But she’s a lovely lady, and I’m hopelessly smitten. Perhaps I can convince her I’m a good risk.”

“I’m sure you will.” Priss smiled at him. “See you tomorrow.”

“Have a nice evening,” he called as she went out the door with her belongings.

After she got home and changed, she walked down by the creek and sat there for a long time, puzzled over John’s utter rudeness. Was he angry at her, or the boys, or had it just been weariness? Oh, how she wished she knew!