Australian Outback Kings / The Cattle King's Mistress / The Playboy King's Wife / The Pleasure King's Bride (26 page)

“And Jared is fascinated by what can be formed by the forces of earth and nature,” he went on. “Gold, diamonds, pearls. Underwater and underground treasures. Remember him panning for gold in the river, back when we were all here together?”

“Yes.” The memory was clear, even though nothing else was.

“Finding such things, shaping them into beautiful objects, seeing them enhanced to their most perfect potential…that's in his soul, Samantha. And as lovely as these pearls look on you today, I don't believe they mean anything to you. Do they?”

“Not really,” she acknowledged.

“Now look above the land and what do you see?”

Nothing but… “Blue sky.”

“That's
my
world, Samantha. I don't envy Nathan. I don't envy Jared. Because flying in that sky is what's in my soul. It has no boundaries. It has no substance. But when I'm up there I feel I own it. Or it owns me.”

She sighed, realising he was expressing her own feelings when she was in the air, piloting whatever small craft she'd taken up.

“So where's your soul?” he murmured close to her ear. “Is it bound to the land or flying free up there, Samantha?”

It felt as though he was tugging on her soul…or laying it bare. “Up there,” she answered truthfully. There was just no point in lying.

“Then that's something else you share with me…apart from strong chemistry,” he said softly. “Or maybe it's part of the chemistry…a soul link like that…”

She felt his lips graze down the curve of her bare neck and shoulder, a trail of warm butterfly kisses that sent little shivers through her heart…almost as though he was caressing her soul, pressing for access. She held her breath in exquisitely tense anticipation of what might come next.

Nothing.

He dropped his imprisoning stance, stepped around her, and turning his back to the view, leaned against the railing, subjecting her to a seemingly objective appraisal from hooded eyes that revealed nothing of his feelings.

“Your lipstick is smudged,” he advised her. His mouth curved into a wry little smile. “Best take a visit to your room after all…to freshen up your make-up. There'll probably be more photographs to be taken down by the marquee.”

For several wretched moments Sam was ravaged with disappointment. She struggled to interpret what was going on in Tommy's mind. This sexual encounter—if it could be called that—was over. What was she to expect from him now?

“Will you wait here for me?” she asked, feeling he surely must have been establishing further ground for them to tread by suggesting a soul link.

“I've waited a long time for you to join me, Samantha. I'm not about to walk away from finding out what it's worth to me. What's it worth to both of us.” He made a casual, invitational gesture. “Something for you to think about, too.”

It was certainly that. She
needed
to know its worth more than he could ever guess.

Was he just stringing her along, curious as to which way she'd bounce? It was difficult to know anything with Tommy. He was like quicksilver, impossible to pin down, switching from passionate intensity to blithe spirit in the twinkling of an eye.

“I'll only be a few minutes,” she said, and left him, knowing only that he had to spend more hours with her.

Throughout the whole wedding reception they would be seated next to each other at the bridal table in the marquee. Surely in that time she would be able to discern what was serious and what was play in Tommy's behaviour towards her.

A soul link…one of a kind…uniquely special… Sam grasped those words from all he'd said and welded them onto the hope that wouldn't die. They had to mean what she wanted them to mean.
They had to
.

CHAPTER SEVEN

S
UNSET WAS THE
given time for guests to make their way to the huge marquee which had been set up near the river. It was always a very short twilight in the Kimberly, so even as the sun was sinking below the horizon, turning the river into a gold ribbon and streaking the purpling sky with brilliant colour, the marquee was lit up by thousands of fairy lights, making it look like a magnificent tented palace.

Appreciative remarks flew around the stream of guests walking down the long lawn towards it. Tommy slanted a grin at Sam and remarked, “Trust my mother to come up with the dramatic effect. She's really quite brilliant at organisation.”

“It looks very romantic,” she replied, unaware of a wistful note creeping into her voice.

“That sounds very much as though you yearn for romance, Samantha. Do you?” he asked, putting her on the spot.

Not playboy stuff, she silently amended, emotionally torn by the charm of manner Tommy had been exerting ever since they'd rejoined the throng of guests. Clearly he had switched into party mode, and while he included her in the smiles and the laughter and the happy banter, he also sought to keep people around them, socialising rather than seeking any further tete-a-tetes with her. It hadn't exactly reinforced the idea she was uniquely special to him.

However, they were more or less in a twosome now, most people focused on heading for the marquee. And he was still holding her hand, though loosely, not possessively.

“I think there's a time and place for romance. Especially when two people love each other,” she answered warily.

“And how do you define love?”

The light lilt in his voice turned it into a provocative question rather than a serious one. She decided to toss it back at him.

“How do you define it, Tommy?”

He shrugged. “If I knew, I wouldn't be asking you.”

“Well, what do you think it is?” she pressed, secretly glad he hadn't found it with any of the women he'd been involved with.

“I've thought it could be many things, but my feeling now is that it has to be everything. It's been my experience that half-measures never do develop into everything. They just stay…half-measures. And that's not enough.”

Sam hadn't expected a serious answer, yet it was one, spoken with a wry self-mockery that underlined disillusionment in the affairs he'd entered into.

“Do I take it Janice was a half-measure?”

“More like a quarter-measure,” he answered dryly. “I was feeling low at the time and Janice put a bit of fun into my life for a while.”

“Why were you feeling low?”

His eyes glittered briefly at her then looked ahead as he spoke. “Oh, there's this feisty little red-haired witch on my payroll who takes pleasure in cutting me down. Even when I've been acting for the greater good, she never sees it in that light. Just keeps hacking away.”

Sam frowned. Was that a fair description of how she treated him? Did she really make him feel
low?

She flushed as she remembered Elizabeth's words—men wanted to be respected, too. Probably all those women Tommy had been with had respected him and all he stood for, while she…but didn't she deserve respect from him, too?

“It could be a reflex action to the way you treat her,” she put forward, trying to keep her voice quiet and reasonable. “Perhaps she feels…down-sized by you.”

He threw her a sceptical glance. “Now how could she feel
down-sized
when I trust her to run an important part of my business? And I invariably implement the ideas she comes up with.”

He sounded convinced he had always done right by her.

Which bewildered Sam.

Didn't he know it went back long before he'd thought of the wilderness resort, right back to his reaction to her breaking his horse for him, and the way he'd furiously criticised her tactics with the helicopter when they'd been mustering cattle together?

At the time he'd offered her the position of resident pilot for the resort, she'd hoped their relationship would move to a different basis. A more adult basis. Mutual respect. But when she'd asked him why he'd thought of her for the job, what was his answer?

Not, “I want you with me” or “I like having you around” or “I know you'll do it well” or “I trust you more than anyone else.”

It was, “You're less likely to kill yourself doing this kind of work.”

Maybe he didn't realise what he did to her—all the put-downs that flattened her. In any case, and whatever the truth of his view of their relationship, this was a rare opportunity to reach an understanding with him, and however vulnerable it made her feel, Sam knew she had to seize it. Another time might never come. Besides, it was easier, putting the hostility at a distance, pretending they were speaking of someone else he knew. She chose her words with care, trying to make him see.

“I guess business is one thing and people's personal feelings are another. For example… Do you praise her? Do you make her feel valued? Have you ever shown her approval?”

The ensuing silence gathered a heavy host of memories. Sam swung between surges of guilt and self-justification over her own behaviour, but mostly she felt miserable, wishing their history had been different. She had to concede he had trusted her with a responsible job, and he had taken her ideas on board, but there'd never been any reward for what she'd done. At least, not the reward she'd wanted—having him look at her as he had today, wanting her above every other woman.

“If she feels so ill-used, why hasn't she left and got a position with another charter airline?” came the slightly abrasive reply. “She could have made the competition more competitive.”

Sam's heart sank. He saw no blame in himself, or was not prepared to admit to it. In actual fact, she'd thought of leaving him a thousand times. She just couldn't let go.

“If
you
feel so ill-used, why don't you get rid of her?” she countered, her nerves very much on edge now, feeling she had lost and there was nothing she could do about it. How else could she have explained?

It wasn't all her fault, was it?

Panic clutched her again as she looked ahead and saw Elizabeth and Jared already stationed at the entrance to the marquee. There wasn't much time left for private talk. Nathan and Miranda were moving into place, setting up the reception line. She and Tommy would be joining them in a matter of seconds and then they'd be busy, greeting the full complement of guests as they passed by on their way inside.

She couldn't help an anxious glance at him. He caught it and unaccountably, shot her a crooked little smile. Then, as he'd done twice before, he lifted her hand and hooked it around his arm, drawing her into a close togetherness that set her heart fluttering with wild hopes again.

“Why do you suppose neither of us can let each other go, Samantha?” he said softly.

In the twilight his eyes were too dark for her to read, but she felt their intensity, boring into hers, touching all the raw places he'd opened up. Her mind burned with the answer…
Because I love you. I've always loved you. And my life won't be complete unless you love me right back
. But she couldn't say those words. They would lay her too unbearably unprotected if he couldn't return them.

“Something more to think about, isn't it?” he murmured, then walked her straight to their allotted position beside the bride and groom.

A stream of guests exchanging a few happy words with them precluded any thinking beyond meeting the requirements of being sociable. Most of them passed quickly by, but Janice's parents, Ron and Marta Findlay, claimed Tommy's attention for several minutes, waxing lyrical about the wedding and the setting.

They owned a string of travel agencies across the Top End—Cairns, Darwin, Wyndham, Kununurra, Broome—and had been highly promoting Outback tourism, so they were a good business connection. Sam wondered how they viewed Tommy's short-lived affair with their daughter. They showed no sign of knowing Janice had been comprehensively dumped. Undoubtedly they would favour Tommy King as a prospective son-in-law, and they were certainly currying his favour.

Not that they were short of wealth themselves, Sam thought, eyeing the obviously expensive rings on Marta Findlay's touchy-feely hand, and her classy silk dress, featuring a similar deep cleavage to her daughter's. Nevertheless, if they were into status symbols, one of the legendary Kings of the Kimberly was probably a prize scalp to bandy around.

Sam felt relieved when Marta unclutched herself from Tommy and moved on with her husband. It was probably foolish to let such women get to her, but they invariably did with their artful little mannerisms, their gushing, their confident awareness of being
female
.

She could feel herself getting prickly every time she met one, and found it extremely vexing that men were suckered in by such stuff. To her mind, it diminished them, which was why she'd been so cutting to Tommy about the women who seemed to fawn over him. Which, according to him, had sent him straight into the arms of Janice Findlay.

Perhaps she was too judgmental. All the same, she had never seen Miranda fawning over Nathan, and they had found what they wanted in each other. Why couldn't it be that way with her and Tommy?

Her parents went by with simply a smile directed at them, not holding up the queue still outside the marquee. Sam reflected her mother had never been a gusher. Nor was Elizabeth King. Though both women had an innate pride in being women. There was definitely something to be learned from them, she decided, wondering if she could reform herself enough to hold Tommy's current interest in her.

“I'm Christabel Valdez,” a soft musical voice announced.

Sam, whose gaze had followed her mother, instantly switched it to the woman now standing in front of Tommy, offering her hand.

“We haven't met,” she went on.

“No, but Jared has spoken of you,” Tommy said warmly, taking her hand as he added, “Welcome to King's Eden, Christabel. I hope you're enjoying yourself.”

“Thank you. I now understand why Jared thought a visit here might be inspiring. Your King's Eden has a heart of its own.”