Australian Outback Kings / The Cattle King's Mistress / The Playboy King's Wife / The Pleasure King's Bride (6 page)

She watched, with galloping trepidation, while his expression underwent several changes…disbelief shifting to reassessment, then distaste.

He couldn't have had anything serious in mind with her, she fiercely told herself. He just didn't like having his motives baldly laid out. Probably no other woman had ever knocked him back quite so bluntly or abruptly. New experience for him!

Just as his eyes took on a laser-like probe, a greeting rang out. They both turned to see a lean bearded man strolling towards them. The interruption was silently welcomed by Miranda. It broke the imminent threat of further confrontation with Nathan King and gave her the chance to regroup her defences.

The newcomer looked to be only in his early thirties and he viewed Miranda with speculative interest as Nathan introduced them. “Jim Hoskins, head park ranger, Miranda Wade, the new resort manager at King's Eden.”

They shook hands but there was no opportunity for any conversation between them. Nathan claimed Jim's attention, withdrawing a parcel of books from his bag. “The diaries. Take good care of them, won't you?”

Jim took the parcel, handling it with reverential care. “I'm much obliged, Nathan. I'll treat them with the utmost respect. Hard to get any history on this area.”

“Personal diaries aren't exact historical fact,” Nathan drily warned. “My great-grandmother might have been fed tall tales by the Aborigines of the time. Generally white people weren't let into tribal secrets.”

“Well, I'm sure I'll find them interesting anyway.”

Miranda thought she would, too, but she could hardly ask for a loan of old family diaries from a man she was intent on rejecting.

“Come along,” Jim invited, waving to the building. “I'll put tea or coffee on for you.” He smiled at Miranda as she and Nathan fell into step with him. “Your first time here?”

“Yes. This is an amazing place.”

“Unfortunately we're short of time, Jim,” Nathan interjected.

Miranda tensed. Was that true, or was he impatient to get her to himself again?

“I promised to show Miranda Cathedral Gorge and have her back at the resort at noon,” he explained. “I know she's eager to get on with the sight-seeing, so we'll pass up the coffee, if you don't mind. I've got some packed.”

Which neatly cut the park ranger out of the agenda, using her own excuse for hurrying out of the helicopter. It was clear Nathan was not going to allow her to use Jim Hoskins as a buffer between them. Not even for a short time. Though to be fair, she didn't know how long it took to get to Cathedral Gorge.

Jim shrugged, accepting the argument without question. “Pity you're so rushed.” He pointed to a heavy duty four-wheel-drive vehicle parked beside the road. “The Land Cruiser's ready to go. Keys in the ignition.”

“Thanks, Jim. We'll be off then.”

“No problem.”

He parted company with them with a cheery wave and Miranda resigned herself to being alone with Nathan again.

They headed straight for the Land Cruiser, neither of them offering conversation. Miranda didn't look at Nathan but she was extremely conscious of purposeful energy radiating from him and knew he was going to contest her “no play” decision. But if he kept it to only words, she would cope, and she didn't have to be more than polite in her replies. Let him think whatever he liked. The only important thing was to maintain a safe distance.

He opened the passenger door for her. She stepped past him with a cool “Thank you,” and heaved herself into the high cabin, noting that he didn't attempt to assist. Her independent exit from the helicopter had at least made that point.

He didn't speak even when they were on the road. In fact they travelled a considerable distance, the silence in the Land Cruiser growing more and more nerve-racking as the track they were taking got rougher and rougher, the four-wheel drive ploughing through deep sand, bumping over corrugations, traversing a rocky creek bed where running water could have made the crossing more perilous if he hadn't known which way to go.

There was no sign of anyone else now, no trace of any humanity in the ancient land around them. The clumps of spinifex and the high conical termite mounds added to the sense of life reduced to a minimal state. It was a far different world from the one she'd known all her life and she began to sense she was with a very different kind of man, too…a man who made his own rules.

She wasn't running this game.

He was.

At his own pace and on his own terms.

And that realisation sent a chill down Miranda's spine. His patient silence at the dinner table that first night, his patient silence in the helicopter, now in this Land Cruiser, waiting…waiting for what?

“You're right,” Nathan said abruptly. “I'm not offering romance. I've been there, done that, and come out empty every time. Fool's gold.”

The edge of contempt in his voice startled her into looking at him. He sliced her a hard, challenging glance, searing in its intensity. “Look around you,” he directed, turning his gaze back to the hazardous track. “My life is bound up in this land. It comes down to basic needs and that is pervasive if you live here long enough. I have a great respect for basic needs. And sharing them makes sense to me.”

Miranda frowned, realising he was talking of a stark reality he faced day after day. If basic needs weren't respected—and shared—survival could very well be at risk. She'd read stories of people who had perished in the outback, not appreciating all that could go wrong, nor comprehending the sheer isolation of great, empty distances—no ready help to call upon.

“Now I'd say there's something very basic between us that we could answer for each other,” he went on.

One could survive without
sex
, Miranda silently argued, gritting her teeth against saying so, determined not to invite or encourage any conversation on that subject.

“A sharing. Not a taking,” he emphasised.

Miranda remained stubbornly silent, her gaze trained out the side window, but she felt the hot, penetrating blast of his eyes on her and couldn't stop her muscles from tensing against it.

“I'm not interested in the games men and women play in the world you come from,” he continued with a relentless beat that seemed to drum on her mind and heart. “I don't make promises I can't or won't keep. I'll say how it is for me. I want you, yes.”

She didn't actually need that blunt honesty, having no doubts herself on that score.

“And you want me, Miranda.”

That stung her into whipping her head around. “Oh, no, I don't!” she shot at him.

His eyes instantly and sharply derided her contention. “Deny it as much as you like, for whatever reasons you have, but it's not going to go away.”

“Is that how you argued your last mistress into bed with you?”

“
Mistress?
”

His incredulity and the subsequent shake of his head left Miranda furious with herself at having let those words slip. She snapped her gaze back to the road, willing him not to pick up on them, to simply let the whole matter drop.

No such luck!

“I don't know where you're coming from, Miranda,” he said tersely, “but I am
not
married, and if I had a wife, I certainly wouldn't be seeking a mistress.”

Mistress…lover…what was the difference when the arrangement was for sex on tap?

“The relationships I've had with women were all mutually desired and not one of them was an adulterous affair,” he went on, his voice gathering an acid bite. “I happen to respect the commitment of marriage. A pity you don't.”

“I beg your pardon!” Miranda hurled at him in bitter resentment of his judgement of her.

“So what happened?” he threw back at her. “The guy wouldn't leave his wife for you? Is that why you took the job at King's Eden, burning your boats?”

It was so close to the truth, a wave of humiliating heat scorched up Miranda's neck.

Nathan didn't miss it. He turned on more heat. “Or maybe you threw down the gauntlet and you're hoping he'll follow you up here. Which explains the no-go with me.”

“This is none of your business!” she seethed.

“Well, I take exception to being coupled with a sleaze-bag who plays a game of deceit with the women in his life.”

“Then please accept my apology.” She managed to get frost into her voice even though her face was still flaming.

“And it most certainly is Tommy's business if you're counting on breaking the two-year contract, should your lover toe your line.”

“I have no intention of breaking it,” she grated out. “And I do not appreciate all this supposition on your part.”

“You opened the door, Miranda.”

“And I'd take it kindly if you'd respect my choice to close it.”

Blue eyes clashed with green in an electric exchange that sizzled the air between them. Miranda's heart thumped erratically. She could hear it in her ears, feel the strong throb of it in her temples. Goose-bumps rose on her skin.

“It's not a choice I can respect, but so be it,” he said tersely, and broke the connection with her.

The ensuing silence was incredibly oppressive. Miranda felt totally drained of energy and miserable over the impression she'd left him with by not correcting his assumptions. Not that he had any right to make them!

Okay, she shouldn't have used the word,
mistress
, but it had been what Bobby had wanted of her, not what she had been. As for Nathan King, maybe she'd let her experience with Bobby Hewson colour her reading of his last relationship. On the other hand, he wasn't promising anything other than sex, which was all a mistress got from a man.

If there was one thing Miranda had learnt, it was she wanted to be valued for more than a roll in the hay. A roll with Nathan King might be…an interesting experience. Even special, she grudgingly conceded. But that wasn't enough for her. Especially not after Bobby Hewson. She wanted the kind of sharing that encompassed everything, the kind that led to marriage because no one else could fulfil that very special equation of wanting to be with each other. Exclusively! Which was hardly a likely prospect with Nathan King of the legendary King family.

Miranda was still brooding over this when the Land Cruiser came to a halt in an open camping area on the outskirts of the Bungle Bungle Range. A four-wheel-drive wagon was parked close to four tents but they all seemed abandoned, no one in view anywhere.

“We hike in from here,” Nathan stated. “The camping amenities block is kept clean. If you want to use it before we set out…”

“Yes, I will. Thank you.”

She didn't wait for him to open her door. As she strode away from the Land Cruiser, she thought he probably hadn't intended to extend that courtesy to her anyway. A woman who didn't care about committing adultery didn't deserve his respect. Except she did care, and she hated having him think that of her.

No use telling herself it didn't matter, so long as it kept him away from her. It was a point of pride. And reputation. Though it went deeper than that, right down to her sense of self-worth.

She was not like her mother.

She was never going to be like her mother.

She needed to live her life on her own terms and somehow she had to make Nathan King understand that. And respect it.

CHAPTER SEVEN

M
ISTRESS
!

Nathan brooded over his misconception of Miranda Wade as he waited for her to be ready for the trek into the gorge. Far from being a feminist, she was right at the other end of the scale, pleasuring married men. Of course, a woman with her looks would naturally attract wealthy targets whose egos were fed by having a mistress with such spectacular physical assets. And no doubt she'd profited by it. The dress she'd worn to dinner that first night undoubtedly had a designer label.

Was she turning the screws on some guy, putting herself out of easy reach by this shift to King's Eden? Or maybe she saw the resort homestead as a fertile hunting ground. The few select suites for guests there cost almost a thousand dollars a night. Anyone who could afford to stay for several days was in the millionaire class, and the managerial position put her in close proximity with them, hostessing dinner each night. It was a much more intimate footing than she'd get, managing a city hotel.

Nevertheless, despite whatever cool calculations went on in her mind, she had slipped up this morning. There
was
strong chemistry between them, however much she might want to dismiss it. Obviously he didn't have what she wanted out of life, so he was a waste of her time.

And, face it, man! She was a waste of his
.

However frustrated he might feel about her ice beating the fire of this morning, pursuing the instincts still raging through him would only lead to more frustration. Best to let go right now. The last thing he needed was to be screwed up by a woman who was practised in deceit. Especially adulterous deceit.

The click of a door opening alerted him to her imminent return to his side. He half turned to watch her. She'd crammed her hat on her head so it came halfway down her forehead, shadowing her eyes. The rest of her still had the kick of a mule, but he was not going to be drawn by her lush femininity again. Let her sell it to the highest bidder. He was well out of that game.

He was looking at her as though she had crawled out from under some rock. Miranda instinctively stiffened her spine but her stomach was in a sickening knot. She cursed herself again for having allowed this man past her guard. Now here he was, standing in judgement on her, so formidable and forbidding she hated her vulnerability to what he thought of her. She shouldn't have to defend herself.

And she wouldn't.

She had apologised for misinterpreting his last relationship. Nothing more need be said on any personal score. She glanced at her watch as she neared where he stood waiting for her. It was almost eight o'clock. Only four more hours to get through with him.