by Valerie Parv
She was barely aware of other hands joining her efforts to beat out the spot fires until the roar of a bulldozer told her Cade, Andy and the other men had arrived and were clearing away all flammable material between the fire and the houses.
A gang of cockatoos flew overhead, screaming at the flames as if in protest, their white wings turning the smoke cloud ragged. The light was now an eerie reddish yellow and she couldn’t see Ryan through the brown, dusty smoke.
Somewhere behind her a window shattered. She dodged flying chunks of debris and flaming branches, focusing all her attention on beating out fires as fast as they erupted around her. Her breath felt as if it were being sucked out of her lungs.
Then her exposed skin was stung by what she took to be another ember and she beat at it frantically, but her hand came away wet. It was raining. Praise be, it was actually raining. She pulled the mask off her face.
Her back muscles protested as she let the wet burlap bag fall against her side, and looked up to see the clouds finally dumping their life-saving load of water on the homestead. Moments later, water was streaming down her face, mingling with soot and tears. Slowly, the air cleared and the ground steamed as the fire met its nemesis, rain.
Ryan was still directing a stream of water under the eaves of the homestead where wisps of smoke told her how close they had come to losing everything. Too overwhelmed to move, she stood in the cleansing rain, trying to make sense of what had just happened.
Horvath had happened, of that she was sure. Ryan had seen his men in the vicinity. No doubt a lookout had made them aware of the exact moment when she and Ryan had driven away. Knowing Cade and the rest of the men were out at the muster camp, Coghlan could have taken his time setting the fire. When she investigated, she’d probably find it had started in the bunkhouse, the most flammable structure, now reduced to a smoldering pile of rubble.
Automatically, she took stock. Besides the bunkhouse, one unoccupied cottage had gone, as well as several smaller outbuildings and most of the fencing closest to the house. The horses were safe, having instinctively sought safer ground as soon as they were let out. She could see them huddled together on a low hillside, nervously sniffing the air. The people around her were soot-blackened and looked as exhausted as she felt. But they were all safe, she found, when Cade ordered a head count. Not even one of the working dogs had been lost.
Glad of the rain camouflaging her tears, she let her knees soften and the sack drop to the ground. How much more of this was she going to have to take? The urge to throw herself down and howl was strong, but she couldn’t. She needed to provide leadership for the remaining staff.
For one second, she buried her face in her hands, then resolutely lifted her head and walked back to the waiting crew.
An hour later, as much order as possible had been restored, although the acrid smell lingered. The horses were secure in a makeshift paddock and Cade was already overseeing the clearing of the bunkhouse, the women supplying a steady stream of tea and helping hands where needed.
Ryan came up behind her in the rain and began to massage her knotted neck muscles. His touch felt wonderful, but she didn’t melt against him in spite of the temptation. “Is the house okay?”
“No serious damage. None of the burning embers managed to get in.”
“We have you and Cade to thank for saving the house. In his condition, Des couldn’t have handled losing the place.”
“What about you?” Ryan asked.
The gentleness in his voice was her undoing. All at once, her control evaporated. She turned away. If he said one more word, she would bury her face against his shoulder and let the tears come.
Chapter 12
She was aware of Ryan leading her inside the homestead but didn’t resist, not wanting the others to see her break down. She fought the demeaning tears. She couldn’t come apart. Too many people needed her.
He steered her to a chair but stayed close. “It’s okay to let go. The worst is over now.”
Her head came up. “Is it?” she demanded. “What comes next? You, Cade or one of the others gets killed?” The very thought was enough to threaten her fragile composure, but she dragged in a shuddering breath and scrubbed at her eyes, making them sting as soot mixed with her tears.
“We knew Horvath would raise the stakes when he learned he’d been tricked out of the deed to Cotton Tree Gorge.”
“If you’d given the paper to him, this might not have happened.”
She saw his body tense.
“You don’t mean that. Giving in to a man like Horvath only makes him demand more and more,” he said.
Her voice sounded wobbly. “You’re right, I didn’t mean it. But how much more is there for him to take? He already holds our mortgage. If he gets Diamond Downs, he gets everything anyway.”
Ryan’s hand cupped her chin, forcing her to look at him. “He isn’t getting Diamond Downs.”
Fresh tremors swept through her. “He nearly did today.”
“Buildings can be replaced. That’s all he got, Judy. Hang on to that. Don’t let him win.”
“It’s hard.”
He cupped her face. “Not impossible. Think of this. His men must have left clues when they started the fire. We may finally have the evidence to put him behind bars.”
She shook her head. “You said yourself, he doesn’t get his hands dirty. I bet we find evidence that the fire was deliberately lit, but nothing to connect the crime with Horvath.”
His sigh ripped through her. “Yeah, I thought of that, too.”
Going into the kitchen, he came back with a portable lantern and matches kept for emergencies. Soon the living room was bathed in a yellow glow. Outside, lights bobbed as Cade supervised the cleanup. The tree branch falling against the lines must have damaged the power supply. They had a generator, but it needed to be turned on. She started to get up.
Ryan came back to stand over her. “Where do you think you’re going?”
“To start the generator.”
He gestured toward the activity visible through the window. “Plenty of people to take care of that for now. Cade is making sure everything’s under control.”
She collapsed back in the chair like a rag doll, her burst of strength waning. When a glass was placed in her hand, she looked at it with mild curiosity. “What is this?”
“I opened your dad’s best fifteen-year-old Scotch whiskey.”
From somewhere she dredged up a laugh. “He’ll kill you. He was saving this for a special occasion.”
“I think saving his home counts as special, don’t you?”
She raised the glass in a toast. “That definitely counts. I don’t know how I would have been able to tell Dad if the homestead had gone up.” Hearing her voice falter again, she drank quickly. The tawny liquid seared her smoke-ravaged throat but the heat spread quickly through her body, blunting the worst of the trauma. She swallowed the rest of the drink.
Ryan finished his and set both glasses aside. “You need to eat, then rest.”
“I’m not hungry. Perhaps later.”
“It’s already later.”
Tilting her arm to the lantern, she read her watch. During the crisis, evening had come and gone. Now it was fully dark outside and she hadn’t even noticed. “We should call Dad.”
“Cade said he’ll do it tomorrow. Everything else will keep. There’s nothing you have to do right now except go to bed.”
“Not alone.” She didn’t know why she said it, except that it was how she felt.
His gaze bored into her, unreadable in the low light. “Are you sure, Judy?”
After the fire, the thought of being alone made her quake. She wanted Ryan to hold and comfort her. Love her? One step at a time. “I’m sure.”
He adjusted the lantern to a soft glow so Cade would have light when he came in. Then Ryan all but lifted her out of the chair. When he started to scoop her into his arms, she balked. “I can walk.”
“Always so independent,”
he murmured. However, his arm around her did a good job of holding her up. Her legs felt rubbery. Maybe she should have let him carry her. She hadn’t been carried in years. But she hated feeling so weak, so—female?
In his bedroom, lit by a fat white candle, she saw herself in the mirror and winced. Streaked with soot and tears, with ashes in her hair, she looked a sight. “I should shower,” she said.
“You look beautiful. We’re a pair.”
He meant in looking so messy, but the word disturbed her. She didn’t want to be a pair like lovebirds, salt and pepper, Jack and Jill. Ryan and Judy. Lord, she must be more tired than she’d realized. The room felt as if it was spinning.
Seeing her stumble, he took her in his arms and the room steadied. “Let me.”
She stood like a mannequin while he undressed her, stripping off her ruined clothes down to bra and panties. “I can manage these,” she said, instinctively pulling back when he reached for her bra fastening.
“Do you want me to sleep in another room?”
She understood he was giving her a last chance to change her mind. There was only one possible answer, and they both needed to be clear about it. She wasn’t only reacting to the crisis. She wanted to be with him. What would happen afterward, she didn’t know. For once, she didn’t feel as if she needed to know. That much was reaction to the fire. Forcibly reminded of life’s fragility, she didn’t want to risk never knowing his lovemaking.
“I want you to sleep here with me,” she said clearly.
Her voice was the only decisive thing about her. Everything else was a mass of edgy nerves and nameless desires. Not hard to see why so many women fantasized about being carried off by a man. How much simpler to have the decision taken out of your hands, the pleasure unfettered by moral constraints.
Ryan wasn’t the type, she knew. He would always consider her needs and wishes. But oh, how tired she was of decisions for the moment. Surrender was alien to her, but had never seemed more tempting.
He seemed to sense her mood and was galvanized to jerk her against him. “I won’t ask again.”
Needs slammed through her, leaving her powerless to resist the onslaught of his mouth on hers. His fingers raked through her hair, down her neck and around to the fullness of her breast. Her bra was pushed aside in his hunger to touch and hold.
As he found her sensitized nipple, she arched against him, all wanting. She started to pant, air suddenly in short supply. Her arms linked around his neck, pulling his head down until he fastened on her breast, making her head spin anew. The suckling sensation found an echo deep within her body. When he pressed her back onto the bed, she pulled him down with her, not wanting to let him go.
Her fingers tore at his buttons, opening the shirt so she could plunge her hands inside. Kneeling over her, he felt hard and hot, his chest hair teasing her palms and making her dig her splayed fingers into his unyielding flesh, kneading it like a cat clawing until his breath became as labored as hers.
Rearing back, he stripped the shirt off and flung it aside, then stood up long enough to unzip his pants and let them drop. His eyes feasting on her, he tore off his underpants and leaned over her again.
In the lantern light, she’d seen his magnificence and felt a heartbeat’s pride in bringing him to that. Giddy with power, she lifted her arms in invitation.
He bent and kissed her throat, then down and down the length of her body, kissing and caressing her until she cried out with the intensity of her desire.
Her bra followed his clothes, and she raised her hips to help him pull off her panties. Reason fled with the garments. She wanted to feel him next to her and inside her. Nothing else mattered.
Ryan felt her surrender to him. For so long, he had been on edge waiting for the moment to happen, never doubting that it would. In his mind, she had always been his. This was simply confirmation.
And what glorious confirmation.
In his wildest dreams, he had never expected her to make him burn hotter than the fire they’d fought together. He inhaled the smokiness lingering on her skin and hair, tasted fine whiskey on her mouth, and gloried in all of it. With her hair unkempt, specked with ash and twigs, and her face smeared with soot like tribal markings, she looked primitive, wonderful.
She pushed him so close to the brink that he felt out of control, barely able to stop himself from plunging and taking his fill.
She deserved better, he reminded himself in the fringes of rational thought remaining to him. She deserved the very best he could give her. If that meant aching with the need to hold back, so be it.
Holding back didn’t seem to be what she wanted. As he explored her, desperate to give her every bit of pleasure he could for as long as he could, she took him in her hands and gave back measure for measure, until the drumming rain outside found an answer in the throb of the blood at his temples.
Enough sense lingered to drive him to his wallet and get out a condom. He’d carried it almost as a talisman since returning to Diamond Downs. The urge to give her his child was so strong that his hand shook as he opened the packet and covered himself. She wanted him. It wouldn’t always be enough, but he wouldn’t think past right now.
Then he could hold back no longer. Raising her hips, he eased himself into her but she arched and took him more deeply than he’d meant to go yet. She was having none of his restraint, lifting her legs and linking her ankles behind him, astonishingly strong as she gave herself to him and took from him, moaning his name over and over.
Lightning split the darkened sky outside, reflected as jagged lights in his head. She was his storm and his shelter as he alternatively raged and quieted. She took everything and demanded more. Gave to him. Soared with him. As reckless as he was. Insatiable.
He knew the fire had kindled this response. Seen the despair that had made her turn to him. He didn’t care. They would have come to this one way or another. She was his destiny as he was hers, and the knowledge sent him deeper and deeper, driving faster and faster, aware of carrying her with him until she threw her head back and cried out her release. Calling her name, he spilled himself into her and felt himself hurtle off the edge of the world.
The next morning, Judy awoke wondering if the whole world had converged on Diamond Downs. The sound of voices and machinery outside had her glancing at the clock radio. After nine. What was she thinking?
She flung away the covers and stopped as memory flooded back. She was in Ryan’s room and alone, but the imprint of his body remained in the bed beside her. Sooty streaks on the wildly twisted sheets told their own story. She felt gritty, aching in every muscle, but alive in a way she hadn’t felt for a long time.
His bathroom still smelled enticingly of masculine shower gel and aftershave, the scents intensified by the steam from her shower. She had to stop herself from breathing them in like a lovestruck fool, which she wasn’t.
Wrapped in a towel, she padded to her own room and got dressed in jeans and a faded blue chambray western shirt. Yesterday’s clothes and the sheets all needed laundering, so she left them for now. Too ravenous to go outside without eating, she sliced cold chicken into a bread roll and made coffee, downing the makeshift meal as quickly as possible. An investigation of the fire was under way outside, and she wanted to be part of it. She should really be directing the show but, looking out she saw Ryan and Cade already had this under control.
Ryan was good at taking the lead, she thought bitterly. Yet she couldn’t blame him for last night. She’d asked him to stay with her, knowing what would happen. Her reaction to the fire and turning to him for comfort justified her decision, but did not explain the urgency she felt to be with him and feel him inside her. Watching him through the window, she felt the desire building again. She deliberately tried to use anger to drown out her physical needs. Allowing herself a night of passion with Ryan was acceptable, but mooning over him and imagining a life and family with Ryan was not.
By the time she emerged from the house, the old Judy was
back, at least outwardly, all traces of neediness banished to the darkest reaches of her mind for now. Ryan saw her and came over accompanied by a slim, black-haired Japanese-Australian man in police uniform. “Hello, Tony,” she said, recognizing him as a constable stationed in the region.
Tony Honda shook her hand. “Looks like you had quite a party here.”
Her gaze went to Cade and two of the stockmen steadily quartering the burned-out rubble of the bunkhouse. “Find anything?”
The constable frowned. “Not so far. There was a lot of lightning last night. A strike could have sparked the fire.”
“The lightning came later,” Ryan said. “This was deliberate.”
She made herself meet his gaze and shivered at the desire still there. She might have known he wouldn’t let her forget so easily, as his expression made clear. Her irritation rose. Why couldn’t he be happy with a one-night stand like any other normal cowboy? Because he knew she couldn’t, she sensed. And he was right, damn him. Quarantining her feelings while she focused on other things would only work for a time; then they would have to face what had happened. But not now.
“The challenge is proving arson,” Tony Honda went on, oblivious to the currents swirling around him. “If this was deliberate, whoever set the fire was careful and thorough.”
“Not thorough enough,” Ryan said. He strode to the burned-out shell of the car, the first thing to catch fire. Metal glinted in the ashes and he stirred them with his feet, then picked out a small object.
The police officer looked at it with interest. “A key tag?”
“Belonging to Mick Coghlan,” Ryan explained. “I saw it on a bunch of keys hanging from his belt at Horvath’s place.”
“You noticed that detail while Coghlan was shooting at you?” she asked in astonishment.
Tony shot Ryan a curious look. “Do I want to know?”
Ryan rubbed the scar at his temple. “Better you don’t ask. I was looking for evidence and he interrupted me.”
