The Pleasure King's Bride (8 page)

If
she’d got his message.

He snatched up the telephone and called Brian Galloway again.

‘‘Jared King here, Brian. Were you able to get my message to Christabel Valdez?” he asked, schooling his voice to a tone of pleasant inquiry.

“Yep. Gave it to her yesterday when she came back with her daughter after school.”

“Ah...thank you.”

“She’s been out all day today, as well. Might not have been convenient to call you. But she’s home now. Do you want me to give her a reminder?”

“No...no...that’s fine. Just wanted to be sure she got the message. Thanks, Brian.”

She was home now, he thought, as he put the telephone down, itching to drive straight over to Town Beach and...but what could be said—or done—in front of Alicia? Bad move. He had to wait for Christabel to come to him. Time alone together. That was what he needed for progress to be made.

Besides, the fact she’d been out both days until Alicia came home from school meant she’d been deliberately avoiding any personal visit from him. Maybe she needed time to think, to reappraise the situation. He could only hope she was moving towards positive decisions, not negative ones.

Wednesday...

He’d been at his office desk for an hour when he remembered Alicia chatting to him about a special school excursion to the bird observatory. He was almost sure she’d said Wednesday. Which probably meant Christabel would have accompanied the class group. Mothers were called upon to help supervise such outings.

He’d been pushing paper around his desk, keyed up for a call that wasn’t about to come. Deciding on some physical activity, he got up and went to his mother’s office, poking his head around her door to announce, “I’m going out to the pearl farm, see how the shell fishing is progressing. I’ll be back after lunch.”

She simply nodded, aware of his disinclination to talk.

Half an hour later he was on the Beagle Bay Road out of Broome, hoping for a day of distraction. He was no longer expecting any calls. When his car phone beeped, he frowned at it before leaning forward and activating the receiver. It wouldn’t be Christabel. She didn’t have this number.

“Jared King,” he said, automatically identifying himself.

“Jared...” His mother’s voice. “...I have some gentlemen in my office inquiring about Christabel Valdez.”

Every nerve in his body leapt to red alert. He put his foot on the brake, slowing the four-wheel drive to a halt while his mind zipped through possibilities.

“Men in suits?” he asked.

“Yes.”

“Where are they from?”

“I’ve been given to understand that Mr. Santiso, Mr. Vogel and Mr. Wissmann have flown all the way from Europe to talk to Christabel. At the moment they are trying to locate her. Brian Galloway of the Town Beach Caravan Park informed them of her connection with Picard Pearls and mentioned that she might have contacted you today.”

Big guns from Europe. The formality in his mother’s voice meant she was dealing with power. The long shadow of Christabel’s dead husband?

“Yes, she did,” Jared lied. “In fact, I’ll be meeting her in about an hour’s time.”

Long before the men in suits got to her!

“At the pearl farm?” his mother smoothly inquired, knowing there was no way they could reach her before he did, even if he was speaking the truth.

“Yes. I would expect Christabel to be back in Broome in time to pick her daughter up from school this afternoon. However, if they want to pass on a message...?”

He heard his mother offer what he’d fed to her and snatches of the ensuing conversation. Finally, “No message, Jared. Thank you for your information.”

They didn’t need to leave a message, Jared reasoned. They thought they had Alicia as hostage to Christabel’s return to Broome.

Santiso, Vogel, Wissmann...he recited their names, memorising them as he turned the four-wheel drive around and headed back to Broome as fast as he safely could. The bird observatory was eighteen kilometres on the other side of the township. He prayed Christabel was there with her daughter.

This was crunch time.

He knew it in his bones.

Christabel was frightened of men in suits.

She had to choose him.

It was
quite incredible, the huge flocks of waders at Crab Creek, Christabel thought, listening to the teacher identify the bird species for the children, though missing the names herself. Focusing her attention on anything external seemed beyond her. The constant mental and emotional turmoil over Jared King could not be pushed aside, and each day brought more urgency to the decision she had to face.

Stay or go...stay or go...stay or go...

It was like water torture on her brain, and her heart was so screwed up from wanting more of him, it literally ached all the time. She couldn’t keep Jared dangling as she had since Sunday night. One way or another, she had to decide and act on the decision. After what they’d shared together, he had to be feeling as deeply affected as she was, and it simply wasn’t fair to keep avoiding a meeting with him or even holding him at a distance as she had before.

She didn’t regret her night with him. Never would, she thought fiercely. It had been the best night of her life, and she could live off the memories of it for a long, long time. Yet...it made it so hard to walk away from. She didn’t want to live off memories. She desperately wanted what they’d shared to keep on going, to follow its natural course to...

Was it tempting too many fates to remain here, to fully embrace the simplicity of just being a woman in love with Jared King? Was it possible that she and Alicia could live out normal lives, untainted by an inheritance that distorted everything? If she was careful...
they
hadn’t tracked her to this outback haven so far. Could she take the chance they never would?

Her whole being yearned for more time with Jared, a continuance of the intimacy he’d led her into. It had felt as though they were truly soul mates on a level nothing else could touch. If they could just journey on together, maybe the answers to her situation would somehow become clearer and the burden she carried could be moved aside to a place of less and less importance.

A flurry of beating wings drew her attention to a flock taking off behind her...birds flying free. Was it a good omen, she thought fancifully, turning to watch them. Her heart leapt into a wild flutter as she caught sight of what had disturbed them into flight...the man striding fast and purposefully towards the class group...the man she’d last seen naked...the man who had just as powerful an impact fully dressed...Jared King.

He wasn’t waiting for her decision.

He’d come to claim her as his woman.

She knew it, knew it with intuitive certainty, and she stood mesmerised, feeling her stomach contract in remembered excitement. Her mind jolted through fear of the consequences and surges of dizzying pleasure. He shouldn’t be here but he was...he was...he was...and even from the short distance left between them he emitted an energy that swirled around her and held her captive. She couldn’t tear her eyes off him.

He wore business clothes—sports shirt, tailored shorts, long socks, lace-up shoes—not dressed for a birdwatching stroll. He’d come from work, and the grimly determined set of his face telegraphed that he would not be turned away. Not by anything. And a sense of panic started welling inside her, diffusing the pleasure of his presence. She’d stolen one night with him. Could she really keep stealing more and more time without bringing a terrible punishment on both of them?

“Christabel...”

He spoke her name in a commanding tone, just as he waved her aside from the group in a commanding gesture. The urgent intensity in his dark eyes drew her into obeying, even as her mind frantically warned of the dangers inherent in involving herself further in this relationship. She tried to gather her defences as she stepped over to where he’d halted, out of ready earshot of the children, but there was no defence that could have withstood the shock of his next words.

“What do the names Santiso, Vogel and Wissmann mean to you?”

Her heart stopped. The safety net she thought she had instantly disintegrated. They’d come. She’d stayed too long and they’d caught up with her.

“Alicia...” The name tripped off her tongue in alarm as she instinctively swung to check where her daughter was.

A hand fell on her shoulder, gripping, halting any further movement. “She’s right there with her teacher,” Jared assured her. “None of the men I named know where you are. They think Alicia is at school and you’re at the pearl farm with me. I bought you time if time is what you want.”

She looked at him, dazed by his understanding. “Where are they?” she asked, struggling to contain the full-blown panic the knowledge of their arrival had triggered.

“Last I heard they were in my mother’s office at Picard headquarters. I was on my way to the pearl farm when she called me. I said you were meeting me there.”

“Why did you put yourself between me and them?’’ she cried, anguished by his personal interference. It was the last thing she’d wanted, Jared drawing the attention of men like Rafael Santiso to him. It was what had stopped her from...too late now. Wretchedly she sought to explain the situation. “You don’t know...”

“I know you’re afraid of them,” he cut in forcefully. “You’ve been running from them, Christabel. I don’t know how long you’ve been on the run but that’s why you’re here, isn’t it? The Australian outback seemed safe.”

“There’s nowhere safe,” she muttered bitterly. It was over—her chance with Jared. Over before it had barely begun.

“Yes, there is.”

His insistence was hollow to her, words that had no substance in the sickening reality she knew only too well. She shook her head despairingly. “They’ll be more watchful this time. I won’t get the chance to give them the slip again.”

“We do it now. Go and collect Alicia and tell the teacher that both of you are leaving with me.”

The aggressive assertiveness in his voice rattled her. “I can’t let you get involved,” she cried. “It’s bad enough that...”

“I am involved, Christabel,” he retorted vehemently.

“You don’t need to be,” she argued just as vehemently. “You can say I didn’t turn up at the pearl farm. I won’t drag you into this, Jared.”

“I won’t walk away. Not when you’re in trouble and I can give you a way out.” His eyes burned into hers with steady resolution as he reasoned, “You came here in the excursion bus. They’ll have you if you go back to Broome in it. I can take you to a safe place. It will give you time to plan what you want to do.”

Time...her whirling mind seized on the sliver of hope he was offering. Everything within her recoiled from going back to
them
and the dreadful life they would impose on her and Alicia. Jared had bought her time with his interference and maybe she could make good use of it. Any postponement of the inevitable was better than giving up.

“Where can we go?’’ she fretted. “The road only leads here and back to Broome.”

“The airport.” He took a mobile telephone out of his shirt pocket. “I’ll ring KingAir now to get a plane ready to fly.”

KingAir...
the charter company owned by his brother Tommy. Of course! She and Alicia could fly anywhere. And hopefully Jared’s part in their escape could be covered up. A charter service was in the public domain. Just because his brother owned it didn’t necessarily mean her use of it was tied to the King family in any personal sense.

“I can pay for it. One thing I’m not short of is money,” she said with savage irony.

“Fine! Get Alicia and we’ll leave now.” She left him talking to someone in the KingAir office on his mobile, confident he could charter a plane for them at a moment’s notice. Christabel didn’t doubt he would manage it, one way or another. He was so positive about getting her and Alicia to a safe place, she let herself hope it could really happen.

As she approached the class teacher, her mind was already racing over a course of action. The emergency funds hidden behind the lining of her handbag would take her anywhere she decided to go, buy anything she and Alicia required until such time as she could get back to the safety deposit box in Sydney. The caravan and the Cherokee could be left behind. Best to completely abandon them.

The teacher was sympathetic to her apologies for leaving the group, accepting the explanation that she had to take Alicia to meet some people who’d arrived unexpectedly in Broome. Which neatly covered Jared’s coming to collect her.

Alicia, of course, had more awkward questions for her to handle. “Why can’t we stay, Mummy?” she half-wailed as Christabel took her hand and drew her away from her friends.

“Because we have to leave.”

“Butwe were going to have a picnic on the beach.”

“Jared is taking us somewhere better.”

“Where?” she demanded truculently.

“It’s a surprise.”

“I don’t want a surprise. I like it here.”

“Don’t argue with me, Alicia. We’re going with Jared and that’s that.”

She huffed and sulked.

“Don’t shame me with bad behaviour in front of Jared,” Christabel tersely reproved. “He’s been very kind to us.”

Another more resigned sigh, then a spark of interest. “Are we going to his house again?”

“We’ll have to wait and see.”

Jared was replacing his mobile telephone in his pocket as they joined him. He gave Christabel a nod of confirmation, then smiled at Alicia, projecting his usual charming manner.

“Sorry to take you away from your friends, but I do have a special treat lined up for you.”

She instantly brightened, her little face lighting with eager curiosity. “What is it?”

“Well...” He took her other hand, intent on hurrying the three of them along as they set off together, “...instead of watching birds, I thought you might like to zoom off into the sky like one.”

“You mean in a plane?” she cried excitedly.

“Yes. A small plane. It will give you a bird’s view of everything you fly over.”

While Jared chatted on with Alicia, explaining how differently places looked from the sky, Christabel forced her mind off the all too distracting rapport that flowed so easily—so
appealingly
—between Jared and her daughter and concentrated on mulling over possible destinations.

Perth or Darwin were big enough cities to hide them for a while but they’d be the first places Rafael Santiso would target, and since he’d come this far to get them under his thumb again, he’d stop at nothing in searching them out. Alice Springs was a less likely place for him to look, right in the centre of Australia.

She recollected there was a famous train—the Ghan—that ran from there to the city of Adelaide in South Australia. One didn’t need identification to buy tickets for a train trip. It might throw off any investigators from picking up her track.

Having made the decision, her thoughts circled around Rafael Santiso, the formidable Argentinian who had once headed the South American branch of the Kruger network. He’d moved very fast to clinch a much higher position after Laurens’s death, manoeuvring his way around the other factions to win Bernhard’s trust and support, taking the reins of power the moment the old man had passed on. Christabel had never trusted him. He was the one who had benefited most from her husband’s fatal
accident.

Worriedly she glanced at Jared. He didn’t realise what he was dealing with. It was a dangerous game, helping her like this, frustrating very powerful interests. Her heart was deeply torn by having to leave him, having to cut him out of her life—this beautiful, wonderful man who’d shown her how it could be when everything felt right and nothing bad intruded— yet it could never be right for them again now.

Any more stolen time with him could put all he held dear in jeopardy. No matter how strong he was, the Kruger juggernaut would run over him, uncaring what was destroyed in serving its best interests. Somehow she had to figure out a way to keep Jared safely removed from her situation.

By the time they reached the car park and were settled in his big Range Rover, Christabel was ready to lay out her plan. With Alicia in the back seat, she had Jared more or less to herself, seated next to him at the front of the vehicle. Once he’d switched on the engine and set off towards Broome, she broached the subject of avoiding any trouble from his connection to her escape.

“The lie you told your mother about our meeting at the pearl farm...how do you intend to explain that away, Jared?”

He slanted her a wryly amused look. “I don’t have to explain it, Christabel.”

“You once said to me some things can’t be stopped. You can count Santiso as one of those things,” she warned.

His face turned grim. “Tell me why you fear him so much.”

She ignored his demand for information, rushing out a scenario he could use. “You could say I called you after your mother’s call and cancelled our meeting at the pearl farm, explaining about the excursion. Say I cut off the connection too quickly for you to tell me about...about the people asking for me, so you came to the bird observatory to let me know and offer us a lift back to town. I think that’s a reasonable story.”

“I don’t need a story,” he said with a hint of exasperation and a look that derided her attempt to clear his involvement with her. “What I need is the truth about these men and what part they play in your life.”

“That isn’t important,” she shot at him anxiously. “What is important is to keep you out of it.”