Princes of the Outback Bundle (31 page)

“No,” she said without hesitation. “But I’ve been thinking about you in this bed.”

“Have you, now.”

“Ever since the night of your accident. When I undressed you.”

“I will let you do that again one day.” He started down the hallway. “Except, this time I’ll be conscious.”

She smiled and Rafe felt something stir through him and then settle rich and warm in his chest. Contentment. Satisfaction. And a major dose of sexual relief. A man should not have to wait five days to make love to his wife again. Not in the first week of his marriage.

“How many other places have you fantasized about having me?” he asked as he carted her into her bedroom.

“Besides in the guest-room shower?”

A bark of laughter escaped his throat as he sat on the bed and rolled with her until he had her positioned exactly where he wanted. Stretched out, with him on top. “So, Mrs. Carlisle. Did the reality live up to the fantasy?”

“In my fantasy I got to soap you. All over.”

“Is that a complaint?”

“More an observation.”

“Anything else you observed?”

Mischief gleamed green in her eyes. “My fantasies tend to be low on talking, big on action.”

“My action not big enough for you?”

She wiggled her hips and then blinked slowly. “Already?”

“Just adapting to the concept of a long-distance relationship.”

Something shifted in her eyes, a touch serious, a tad wary, and Rafe thought how easily he could chase that suspicion away. To sink down into a kiss and then into her body. But no matter what his friend downstairs might be signaling, he had taken the edge off his sexual hunger, and the mental side craved some loving, too.

He rolled onto his side, drawing her with him until they lay facing each other. He knew his expression had turned serious, knew because the wariness in her eyes had deepened. “I assume that’s what you want,” he said slowly. “Me flying out here on weekends and whenever else I can manage a night away.”

“You’d do that?”

“I’ll have to put some serious work in on your airstrip so I can land the Citation…but, yes.”

Alarm widened her eyes. “You’d fly out here in a jet? Don’t you need a—”

“Hey, I was joking.” He leaned forward and kissed her. “But only about the jet.”

That didn’t erase the sharp notes of whatever worried her eyes. She stared at him, intent and silent for several seconds before she asked, “Why me?”

He knew what she meant: Why had he chosen her? He couldn’t believe he hadn’t told her, at least several times, but he could stretch himself to tell her again. “Originally? Because I liked you right off the bat and I knew you’d make a good mother.”

“How can you say that?” A frown pleated her brow. “I’m used to being on my own. I don’t mix with families. I don’t have any experience with babies.”

“Yeah, but the way you looked after me when I was concussed—that’s the kind of care a mother should show. And then I saw you with those puppies.” He shrugged. “I could picture you with a baby.”

The fractiousness in her eyes settled, darkened, as if it turned inward. As if imagining that same picture.

Rafe realized then how quickly, how easily he’d grown used to the notion of a baby—
his
baby—when that thought had terrified the bejesus out of him two weeks ago. Who would have predicted it? An introspective smile played over his lips. “It’s a great picture, isn’t it?”

She nodded and attempted to return his smile. Hers wobbled a little at the edges. “I hope you’re right about the mother call.”

“How old were you when your mother died?” he asked, guessing at the cause of her concern.

“Four,” she said softly. “I don’t even remember her.”

Sorry didn’t cover something like that so he simply stroked a hand down her arm. “When did the wicked stepmother come into the picture?”

Her lips twitched. “I was twelve.”

“And she made your life an instant misery.”

“No, I was over-the-moon excited at first. A new mother who was beautiful and sophisticated and who brought me amazing gifts. Plus I was getting two sisters. Life was going to be perfect!”

The quiet shadow of sadness in her voice twisted Rafe’s gut. He leaned forward and brushed a soft kiss to her lips, and another and another until he’d chased that unhappy curve away. “What dastardly things did she do?”

“Oh, nothing overt. She didn’t make me scrub floors and chop firewood or anything. She just made me feel…less. Like no matter what I did I could never meet her standards. Then she started undermining my relationship with Dad. She even convinced him to send me to boarding school.”

“Isn’t that necessary?” he asked carefully. “Given your isolation?”

“Maybe, but I hated it from day one. I hated being away from home. I missed my dad and my animals like crazy.”

She was silent a long while, but Rafe waited, knowing there was more. Knowing, instinctively, that this was crucial to understanding her and why she wouldn’t spend time in the city.

“I was away at school when my father died. He was out mustering and he came off his bike. He broke his back and…other stuff.” Her hand fluttered under his, her breath shuddered and hitched and pierced somewhere deep in his chest. “He was alive for close to twenty-four hours but no one found him. He died out there, alone.”

“I’m sorry, baby” didn’t even come close, but he said it anyway. He said it and he wrapped her in his arms and wished he could absorb all her hurt into his own body. Wished he could say that being there wouldn’t have made any difference for her father but he didn’t know that. He did know it would have made a hell of a difference to Catriona.

“Tell me about him.”

“My dad? Oh, he was tall. Dark.”

“And handsome?”

“
Rugged
I think is the right word.” Wry and sad, her smile reached in and grabbed him where he lived. “He was built like a rugby second-rower, which was handy since that’s the position he played.”

“Lucky.”

“He had a wicked sense of humor and a laugh that rolled up from his belly. I swear nobody could resist Dad’s laugh.”

“Sounds like you got a gem.”

“Yeah, I did. What about you?” she asked after a beat.

“I got lucky when my mother married Charles Carlisle.”

She watched him solemnly for a moment. “Have you ever met your birth father?”

“Once.” Rafe played a long tress of her hair through his fingers. Then he shrugged. “I wish I hadn’t bothered.”

“Why’s that?”

“He wasn’t worth knowing.”

The tenor of her expression changed, a subtle shift in the way she eyed him. Unease swirled in his belly because he knew he’d revealed more than he intended in that one flat statement. Knew that he had to divert her attention before
she honed in on the one area of his life he didn’t intend sharing.

He propped himself on an elbow and trailed a hand down her body, throat to navel in a drift of knuckles and warm velvet heat. “So, Mrs. Carlisle—”

“Are you trying to distract me?”

“No, I’m trying to keep on subject.”

Her eyes narrowed. “Which subject would that be?”

“You asked why I thought you’d make a good mother. I hadn’t finished answering.” Curiosity flared in her eyes, then heat as he caressed the curve of her belly. “I knew you came from good stock. Strong character, sharp brain, smart mouth.” Pausing for effect, he spanned her pelvis with his hand. “Good child-bearing hips.”

Naturally she growled and swatted him.

Naturally he wrestled her to her back and pinned her to the bed with the weight of his body.

Naturally he kissed the fire from her lips and looked deep into her eyes and told her he was joking, that mostly he just enjoyed her better than any woman he’d ever met. In and out of bed. And then he let her roll him onto his back so he could enjoy the weight of her body and her eyes smiling into his and then not smiling at all as she took him inside her and consumed him with her heat.

C
at managed to keep him in her bed long enough that the Friday night show became a moot point. But she didn’t forget how he’d distracted her from asking more about his birth father, or how much she had revealed in comparison. Over the next two days she tried to entice more from him, but he had a way of deflecting the conversation if he didn’t like the topic, and he did so with such finesse that Cat didn’t know she’d been stonewalled until afterward. Usually after a couple of orgasms and a nap to recover.

All weekend they worked together, sometimes in surprising harmony, but more often than not arguing about the most efficient method. Rafe might be good at giving, but he was not so good at giving in or at taking orders. He excelled, she discovered, at delegation and negotiation and cutting deals.

He excelled, too, at making her laugh and snarl within the same minute. At keeping her mind entertained and her tongue sharp and her body sated. Constantly she fought the notion
that she was getting too used to his company and too comfortable in his company, with him wearing jeans and boots and working alongside her.

Or wearing nothing at all and working alongside, on top of or beneath her.

This time there’d been some of all three, and now Cat lay sprawled beside him in the Sunday twilight quiet. Spent and satisfied but also shadowed in sadness because early in the morning he was returning to Sydney. Back to his job and his apartment and the life she felt no more ready to be a part of than five days earlier.

He’d asked, several times. And she’d tried to explain that she didn’t like the person she became in the city. Awkward and ill-at-ease and out of her element. She didn’t like spending time there. She didn’t want to damage what they’d forged this weekend, either.

Now, on the cooling sheets of her bed, she sensed him watching her again, and she didn’t have to ask what he was thinking. “Leave it,” she said, before he opened his mouth. “I won’t change my mind.”

“You said that about Vegas….”

“And look where that got me!”

Her debt paid off, a future for Corroboree, a possibility of family.

Feeling incredibly lucky and humbled and thankful, she turned her head to look at him. To quietly say, “Thank you.”

He didn’t smile and say, “My pleasure,” as she’d anticipated. He didn’t say anything for a long, solemn second. “How about you thank me by coming to Kameruka Downs next weekend.”

Not the first time he’d broached the subject of taking her to meet his mother, either. She shook her head against the pillow. “No. Not yet.”

“You’re being stubborn.”

“No, I’m being practical. I have responsibilities here. My animals—”

“The Porters looked after them while you were in America. Is there any reason they can’t do that again?”

“I can’t ask them every weekend.”

“I’m not asking—”

“Please, Rafe,” she cut in, quiet, intense. “Not yet.”

For several strong, hard beats of her heart she didn’t think he would let it go. He had that look in his eyes she didn’t trust. That intentness and purpose that always set her on edge. But then he rolled onto his back and stared at the ceiling. “I’ll come back here, then.”

The tight breathlessness in Cat’s chest eased. He was coming back. Another weekend, another chance to forge his indelible impression in her home and in her life. In her heart, too, but she was stoically trying to ignore that. “I hope you will.”

“Why don’t we invite your neighbors over,” he asked after another short pause.

“Now?” she asked, rising on her elbow. Indicating their nakedness with an arched eyebrow.

“Next weekend.”

“I gather you mean Bob and Jennifer Porter.” She eyed him a moment, trying to work out his angle. Suspicious of this seemingly random idea coming hot on the heels of his latest invitation to spend a weekend away. “Are you thinking of using them to persuade me I’m not needed here? Because—”

“I’m thinking they’re your closest neighbors and old family friends and you might like to introduce them to your husband.”

Taken aback by his tone and the matching snap to his eyes, Cat blinked.

“Unless there’s some reason you don’t want to,” he added.

“What would that be?”

“You tell me. You don’t have a problem with having me here, putting me to work, having me in your bed…but you don’t want to go anywhere with me. You don’t want to meet
my family or me to meet your neighbors. I’m starting to wonder if you don’t want to be seen with me.”

“Don’t be ridiculous!”

“Am I?” He asked, low and dangerous. “Who have you told about our marriage, Catriona?”

Her silence was telling.

“Not even your stepmother? You told me last week you’d love to wipe the floor with her patronizing attitude. Aren’t I a big enough prize?”

“Is that how you see yourself?” she countered. “Is that how you’d like me to introduce you to my neighbors next weekend? Jen and Bob, meet Rafe Carlisle, my prize husband. I won him on the roulette wheel in Vegas!”

He glared at her a long moment, then he shook his head and expelled a low oath. “I would like you to introduce me as your husband. That’s all.”

“I can do that,” she said softly, relenting. “Saturday night?”

“Saturday night is good.”

As always, the heat of their exchange shifted to another kind of heat, and he made love to her with an edgy intensity that set her pulse hammering and her blood roaring. And when he held her on the brink, fire burned in his gaze as he insisted on hearing his name on her lips.

Cat didn’t think about that conversation again until after he’d gone. Around midmorning on Monday she was drawing up a working budget—arguably the world’s most boring task—when she recalled Milla’s words that day on his terrace.

He’s a better man than he lets on, even to himself.

Unsettled, she rocked back from her computer spreadsheet and onto her feet. She knew she’d underestimated him from the start, dismissing him as lightweight and a charming diversion. That seemed to come so easily to him—he played on it, she knew—yet there were so many other layers to the man.
Depth and capability and intelligence that he liked to bury beneath the sexy, playboy charm.

Now she wondered why…and Milla’s comment and that Sunday evening conversation drifted through her consciousness.

Surely he couldn’t have any kind of inferiority thing. Not Rafe Carlisle. Surely he didn’t believe that she’d kept their marriage from her friends and distant family because
he
was lacking. That was laughable in an ironic way, seeing as she’d been thinking the exact opposite.

That
she
might be seen as deficient by
his
family and friends.

She knew she lacked nothing here in her environment, in the life she’d chosen as a child riding at her father’s side. Here she was herself, she was happy, and that was that. If she fell pregnant, she would have an added link with his family, a bond beyond her marriage.

Then she would travel to Kameruka Downs and meet his mother. Then he could take her to a fancy restaurant to lunch with his brothers, but not before. It would be hard enough saying goodbye to Rafe when he decided to end their marriage.

She did not want to lose her heart to his family, as well.

Cat hated to admit it—even to herself—but all week she’d been like a kid waiting for Christmas. She had enough work to fill her days. She had his phone calls to look forward to each night. It shouldn’t have taken so long for Friday to come around. And when it did and she arrived home to a message saying he wouldn’t be arriving until Saturday, she should not have felt such a dismal sense of letdown.

It’s okay, Cat told herself, since she wasn’t a kid waiting for Christmas. She was an adult. Independent and capable of dealing with the first hiccup in their long-distance marriage. He, too, had responsibilities.

Saturday morning she’d intended to wait for Rafe before
starting work, but the early arrival of her period had her wired tight and sharp as a newly strained barb. She couldn’t sit around wringing her hands in disappointment because she hadn’t fallen pregnant the first time. Now, there was no reason not to yard the cows herself.

Mustering gave her some time to think and to decide she didn’t like her happiness hanging on his arrival or nonarrival. Perhaps she should reevaluate their relationship. Perhaps the long distance thing would never work.

And perhaps she shouldn’t make any decisions on a day when she felt so funky and out of sorts. Or while working with large, unpredictable animals, she added, when a cow balked suddenly almost knocking the gate from her hands.

She paid more attention then, as she prepared to start drafting off the dry cows. The day was warm already, the air thick with dust churned by racing hooves. She ducked through the railed fence and was unlatching the gate at the end of the draft when she thought she heard the buzz of a plane overhead. Even as she tipped back her hat to scan the sky she called herself silly. The airstrip hadn’t been graded. He would fly to the Samuelses’ again.

Swinging back, she saw the danger a millisecond too late. A cow hit the gate she held, knocking it from her grip and driving it into her chest. Before she could regain her balance, the whole yard sniffed the open gate and charged full tilt for freedom.

This time the iron bar caught her on the side of the head and she went down for the count.

Rafe had a bad feeling gnawing at him all the way from Sydney. It made him fly cautiously for a change, but once on the ground and behind the wheel of his borrowed vehicle he nearly flew the ten miles to Corroboree. He barely slowed for the cattle grids or the sharp turn by the house. He could see the dust cloud of activity at the cattle yards a mile farther on that confirmed his gut feeling was spot-on.

He’d told her not to start without him. She’d argued that she’d been working cattle on her own since her teens. He pointed out that since he had a vested interest, he’d prefer she didn’t do such work on her own again. Not when she could be pregnant.

“And of course you have to do it your way,” he ground out as he wheeled to a halt beside the yards.

His hot anger morphed to cold fear the second he slammed the door on the utility. The cattle wheeled around the yards in obvious agitation stirring up a choking cloud of dust, but even through that he should have been able to pick out Cat’s figure.

He couldn’t. Yet her bike was here. He took the fence at a run, climbing two rails at a time and feeling his heart lurch in his chest when he saw her from the top. Crouched in the corner of the yard, her dog at her feet.

He called her name as he hit the ground, but the croaky sound was swallowed up in the bellowing chaos of the startled herd.
She’s all right, she’s conscious, she’s trying to get to her feet, she’s all right,
chanted through his mind as he pushed through the next fence and finally she looked up, her face pale beneath a coating of dust, a smile trembling on her lips.

Her legs started to wobble, and before he could get there she started to sink to the ground. Rafe hunkered down with her, his own limbs felt wonky with fear and shock and relief because at least she was conscious.

“It’s okay, baby,” he told her. “I’m here now.”

Her attempt at a smile was wan. “There’s two of you.”

“That’s a good thing, surely.”

“Ish it?” There was a definite slur to her speech. “’Nough trouble handling one…”

Her voice trailed off as she slumped into unconsciousness and Rafe swore silently as he bent to scoop her up.

“You just need more practice.”

Cat couldn’t remember anything about the accident or getting to the hospital. Dimly she recalled an altercation over her admission and the objections swirling in her dizzy brain because she didn’t want to be hospitalized. She remembered being blind-sided by the pain of her head injury and her broken ribs, and the sharp note in Rafe’s voice as he demanded a doctor’s attention.

Sometime later she’d drifted into consciousness and he was there, sitting beside her bed, holding her hand and murmuring something she couldn’t catch through the blur of pain medication. She’d floated back to sleep with a smile on her lips and in her heart, but when she woke again the chair was empty. Perhaps it was the drugs, but that small vignette of the big picture had seemed profoundly significant. He’d been there, looking out for her, making her smile, easing her loneliness, and then he was gone.

On Monday, when she opened her eyes and found him smiling down at her, the sweet ache of joy was almost unbearable. She could have put that down to her injuries—her chest hurt like the devil—but deep inside she acknowledged the inevitable. She wanted the glorious impossibility of Rafe Carlisle’s smile whenever she opened her eyes. She wanted him as her real husband, at her side, forever.

In that instant she knew that nothing less than his love would do.

“Nice shiner,” he drawled, parking himself on the edge of her mattress. But the kiss he pressed to her lips was tender, the depths of his eyes dark with concern.

“You’re here.”

“Did you think I’d leave you? All beaten up? In this place?”

“I thought…” Her frown hurt like the blazes, but not as much as the leap of her heart against her bruised and broken ribs. “I thought, maybe, you would need to be at work today.”

“I needed to be here today.” He lifted her hand and held it against his face for a second. “How are you feeling?”

“Like I was trampled by a herd of beasts.”

The low note of his laughter did glorious things to her aching body. So did the brush of his fingers against her cheek. “I brought you some flowers and fruit.”

“Thank you.”

“And this.”

“This” turned out to be diamonds. A diamond necklace, to be precise. Cat blinked in shock. Then—she couldn’t help herself—she laughed. Flowers and fruit and, as an aside, diamonds. That was so over-the-top. So Rafe.

And so not her.

The laughter, the warmth, her delight in his presence suddenly turned brittle. She stared at the dazzling stones without touching them. “Where on earth did you get that?”