Outback Bachelor

by Margaret Way

  When Scott was in his moods, especially as he grew older, station people learned to steer clear of him until the mood passed. Skye in later years realised she was perhaps the only one who had missed out for the most part on Scott’s sharp, hurtful ways. It had taken a while for her to become aware that Keefe had always appeared to keep a pretty close eye on them.

  Why?

  She had found out. And a lot sooner than she had ever imagined. When she had been around sixteen and Scott almost twenty he had fancied himself either in love with her or determined to take advantage of her. Either way, it was the cause of an ongoing simmering tension between the two brothers. One that stemmed from a single violent confrontation.

  Over her.

  All these years later, Skye remembered that traumatic episode as though it were yesterday…

  As she stepped into the deep emerald lagoon, catching her breath at its coldness, Skye became aware someone was watching her. She spun about, calling, “Who’s there?”

  She wasn’t nervous. She felt perfectly safe anywhere on the station. She knew everyone and everyone knew her. There wasn’t a soul on the station who hadn’t kept an eye on her as she was growing up. They had all known her beautiful mother. They worked alongside her father. The entire station community had as good as adopted her. No one would harm her. She called again, startling a flock of sulphur-crested, white cockatoos that set up a noisy protest. A few seconds later, lanky Scott appeared. He had the McGovern height but not Keefe’s great shape. He was dressed in his everyday working gear—skintight jeans, checked cotton shirt, riding boots. His hat was tipped down over his face. He had the McGovern widow’s peak that looked so dramatic on his older brother but vaguely sinister on him.

  “Why didn’t you speak?” she asked in surprise. How long had he been watching her from the cover of the tree—three minutes, four? She had stripped down to her turquoise and white bikini, leaving her clothes neatly folded on the sand.

  He didn’t move. Didn’t respond. He remained where he was at the top of the sloping bank, the loose sand bound by a profusion of hardy succulent-type plants with pockets of tiny perfumed white and mauve lilies in between.

  “Scott?” she questioned, shading her eyes with her hand. “Is something wrong?”

  Suddenly he smiled, spread out his long arms, then half ran, half skidded, like they had done when they had been kids, down the bank to the golden crescent of sand. “Boy, oh, boy, you should get a look at yourself,” he whooped. “That’s some bikini, girl!”

  It wasn’t the words, normal enough, but the way he said them that caused her first ever flurry of unease. “Like it?” She answered in a deliberately casual voice, nothing that could remotely sound like a come-on in her tone. “It’s new.” This was Scott. This was a McGovern. Much was expected of them.

  “You have a beautiful body, Skye, baby,” he drawled, his eyes moving very slowly and insolently over her. “Beautiful face. That blonde mane of hair and those sparkly blue eyes!”

  He moved closer, tossing his wide-brimmed hat away. “I’m coming in.”

  She wanted to shout, No! Some expression on his face was causing her alarm. Instead she managed, “Don’t, Scott.”

  For answer he began to strip off his shirt. “Don’t tell me what I can and can’t do, Skye McCory.”

  It sounded remarkably like a threat. That put the fight into her. “Well, you’ll have to swim alone,” she announced crisply. “I’m coming out. I have things to do.”

  “What things?” He spoke disparagingly, sounding a bit too much like his sister for comfort. “Don’t try to disappear on me,” he warned.

  Now he was stripping off his jeans.

  A voice inside told her things had changed. In his briefs, she couldn’t avoid seeing he was sexually aroused. Immediately she decided to change tack and strike out for the opposite bank. What then? She was a good swimmer with a lot of pace. Scott was coming after her. What was his plan, to trap her? Not only cold water washed over her. She felt the icy finger of panic. She couldn’t help knowing males got intense pleasure from looking at her these days. Even her friends at boarding school teased her all the time about the crushes their brothers had on her.

  She reached the jade shallows, pulling herself up out of the water, her heart banging against her ribs. Swiftly she shook back her long hair. It had come free of its plait. Where to now? Take one of the trails?

  Scott pulled himself out of the water seconds after her, his grin tight. “What’s the matter with you?” he challenged.

  She put her arms around herself, shielding her small breasts, their contours enhanced by the snugly fitting bra top from his view. “What’s the matter with you is more to the point?” she said sharply. “You’re upsetting me, Scott.” Indeed, he was changing her perception of him.

  His answer was to lurch towards her, fixing her with a look that dismayed her. He easily pinned her wrists, because he was very much taller and stronger. “I want to kiss you. I want you to kiss me back.”

  Part of her brain searched for words to stop him but couldn’t find them. He was overstepping the boundaries and he knew it. “Are you mad?” She got ready to aim a well-deserved kick at his groin. She was an Outback-bred girl. She knew all the ways a lone woman could defend herself.

  “Mad for you.” There was the fierce glow of lust in his eyes.

  She looked around her quickly. On this side of the lagoon the trees grew more thickly. There was sunlight coming in streams through the canopy, lighting up the trails taken by horses and riders. This particular lagoon was her favourite swimming spot, one of many on the vast station, but today the whole magnificent wild area seemed threatening and deserted. “Take a deep breath, Scott,” she cautioned, wishing Keefe would miraculously ride that way. “Stop this now.”

  “Stop what?” He leaned closer to her.

  “What you think you’ve started. It’s not on. So get yourself together. Remember who you are.”

  Scott set his jaw, his handsome face turning grim. “I’m not Keefe. Is that it? I’ll never be Keefe. Keefe is the one you want.” His grip on her wrists became punishingly hard as his pathological jealousy grew.

  She responded with heat. “You’re hurting me, Scott.” She wasn’t about to show her fear. She stood her ground, even if inwardly she cringed.

  Abruptly he released her, but just as she relaxed, one of his hands reached out to caress her breast. He wasn’t toying with her. He was dead serious.

  She flung herself backwards and dashed a tear from her eye. Surely she wasn’t crying? She never cried. A small fallen branch lay on the sand. She bent sideways to pick it up. If she had to defend herself, she would. She knew with Scott in this mood something bad could happen to her.

  He found it too easy to create fear in her. Scott appeared to be enjoying her efforts at evasion. “Give up,” he advised with a brittle laugh. “I’m really mad about you, Skye. That’s what I’m tryin’ to tell you. Don’t you care?”

  There was a hard knot at the base of her breastbone. “I care that you’re making a huge mistake, Scott.” Her voice was tight with strain. “You’re my friend. You’re Scott. You can’t be anything more to me.”

  He struck like lightning. She landed a stinging lash on his arm. The tanned skin reddened immediately but he didn’t look at the welt, or appear to feel it. No matter how much she wished otherwise, there was no mistaking her imminent danger and his raw intent. Scott meant to have his way. Kiss her? Or take her forcibly? Anything was possible. Who was she to him anyway? Only the overseer’s daughter. Dozens of girls would gladly have swapped places with her, no matter the risk. Scott McGovern mightn’t be his brother, but he was still a great catch.

  “Now, what makes you think that?” he asked with slow menace. “I tell you, Skye, you’ve turned into the sexiest thing on two legs.”

  I’m scared but I can’t show it.

  Find me, Keefe. Find me.

  She concentrated on sending her message out into the great
plains. “This isn’t going to work, Scott. You’d better find someone else.”

  “I don’t want anyone else.” He cut her off with a chopping motion of his hand. “And when I make up my mind, I don’t change it.”

  “Then go to hell!” she shouted, adrenalin flooding into her blood. “You’re acting like a bully and a coward.”

  It was a mistake.

  Scott reached for her, wrapping one arm around her. “This can work, Skye if you let it.”

  “No. No. And no!” She fought back, digging in her nails.

  “Too ordinary for you, am I? I’m not Keefe.”

  She threw back her head. “Keefe would never force a woman,” she cried with utter conviction.

  “Wouldn’t have to, would he? You’d let him take you in a minute!” There was rage and bitter resentment in Scott’s blue eyes as he repeated his resentment of his older brother. He went to kiss her and she turned her face, both of them recoiling abruptly as a familiar voice came from behind them in a barely contained roar of ferocity.

  “What the hell is going on here?”

  Keefe’s tall, wide-shouldered, lean figure came stalking along the narrow sunlit corridor. His body language was wrathful. He looked blazingly angry, angrier than Skye could ever have imagined. Keefe was famous for keeping his cool.

  Now it was Scott’s turn to be intimidated. Instead of attempting an answer, he appeared ludicrously shocked, while Skye found herself moaning her relief. With no thought to her actions, she ran to Keefe’s side, grasping his hard, muscled arm, feeling the heat of rage sizzle off his skin.

  “Okay, I guess I know what was happening,” he rasped, shoving Skye bodily behind him. “You can’t help yourself, can you, Scott? The only thing that concerns you is getting what you want.”

  “And I would have got it if you hadn’t turned up. Skye has the hots for me.”

  “Believe that, and you’ll believe anything,” Keefe bit off with disgust. He closed the short distance to where his brother stood, grabbing hold of his bare shoulder with such force Scott winced. “Goddammit, Scott,” Keefe groaned in a kind of agony. “I’m repulsed by you. Where’s your sense of decency? Your sense of honour?

  “You got the lot,” Scott retorted with sudden venom, trying unsuccessfully to break his brother’s iron grasp. “You want her yourself.”

  Keefe’s expression was daunting. “What you’re saying is what I want, you must take for yourself.”

  “Well, she is one alluring little chick!”

  That was when Keefe hit him. Scott dropped to the sand with blood streaming from his nose. He tried to get up, fell back again, moaning. “Can’t say I didn’t have that coming,” he wailed, as unpredictable as ever.

  “You bastard!” Keefe raged with a mix of horror and regret. “You never can deal with the consequences of your actions. Why do you let your dark side take you under?’

  Skye, who had been frozen to the spot, now rushed to Keefe’s side. She had to make an attempt to allay his rage. “Don’t hit him again, Keefe. Please. Nothing happened.”

  “Keep out of this,” Keefe warned, with the blackest of frowns. “Get dressed and go home.”

  His anger sparked an answering anger in Skye. “Don’t treat me like a child.”

  He turned on her, his silver-grey eyes so brilliant they bored right into her. “A child?” he ground out. “You’re no longer a child, Skye. You’re a woman, with all a woman’s power. My brother isn’t such a monster.”

  “She’s temptation on legs,” Scott offered from his prone position on the sand. To his mind that exonerated him from all blame.

  “Shut up!” Keefe violently kicked up the sand near him. “Apologise to Skye. Tell her you were acting crazy. Tell her such a thing will never happen again. And it won’t, believe me. This is your one and only warning. You’ll have me to deal with.”

  Scott wilted beneath his brother’s fury and disgust. “You won’t tell Dad,” he choked, his hand pressed to his bleeding nose.

  “Dad?” Keefe roared. “Apologise to Skye. How could you begin to betray her trust?”

  Shaking all over, Skye fervently wished for her clothes, which were lying in a tidy pile on the opposite bank. As it was, she had to stand there, receiving the attention she didn’t want. Her brief bikini barely covered her. Even now she couldn’t believe what Scott had done. A woman’s beauty came with inherent dangers. Beauty brought fixations and unwelcome attention. The last thing in the world she wanted was to rouse the brute in a man. Now Scott! She had never dreamed she would be in this position, coming between the two brothers. She was the innocent party here, yet Keefe appeared to be so furious with her she might as well have been as guilty of wrongdoing as Scott.

  Scott took the opportunity to stagger to his feet, gingerly feeling his jaw. Pain lanced up into his head. “I’m sorry, Skye,” he mumbled. “You know a lot about me so you know from time to time I run off the rails. I would never hurt you. I just wanted a kiss.”

  “A kiss and the rest!” Keefe shouted, hooked into his rage.

  “You sure pack a punch, Keefe. You really hurt me.” Unbelievably Scott appeared to be feeling sorry for himself.

  “You’re lucky I didn’t pummel you into the ground,” Keefe cried.

  “Damn! Damn everything,” Scott moaned. “So what am I supposed to do now, avoid her?”

  “What you’re supposed to do is what you’ve been reared to do. Treat Skye—all women—with respect. You think Dad would be angry? What about Gran? She’d have you horsewhipped.”

  “She would, too.” Scott suddenly grinned.

  “Oh, please, please, stop,” Skye begged.

  Only then did Keefe turn to stare at her. “Are you okay?”

  She was caught in that diamond-hard star, so fierce she almost felt terror. “I told you. He didn’t touch me.” All she wanted was for this dreadful episode to be over.

  Keefe’s laugh was a rasp. “Only because I turned up. I’ll never know why I came this way. I thought I heard you calling me.”

  She had been.

  The part of him beyond reason had clearly heard her.

  A few minutes elapsed before a small airport runabout swept into sight. It pulled up beside her and the driver got out, coming around the rear of the vehicle. Skye gave a convulsive gasp. Some emotions were so extreme they couldn’t be put to rest.

  Keefe.

  The world she had tried hard to build up for herself started to disintegrate and turn to rubble.

  All you’ve got to do is breathe in and breathe out. Breathe in. Breathe out.

  It was the voice of reason, only it took several seconds before she could even swallow. Inside she felt a piercing thrill of the old excitement. Outside a near-paralysis. Focusing hard, she drew a deep calming breath into her lungs. It didn’t quell the clamour. Her nerves were bunched tight. How did she hide her enormous vulnerability when it was pitted against a towering wave of pleasure?

  He was even more handsome in maturity, but harder, tougher, severe of expression. All traces of that wonderful tenderness had gone. Some might say his arresting good looks were a bit on the intimidating side, given the air of gravitas and authority he projected. She knew strangers had sometimes mistaken that aura for arrogance. They were wrong. It was Keefe’s heightened sense of responsibility, of being who he was, instilled in him from childhood. He looked stunningly fit from a lifetime of hard physical activity. His darkly tanned skin glowed richly. His thickly curling sable hair worn longer than was usual—hairdressers were few and far between in the bush—was swept back from his forehead in the manner of some medieval prince. Strong and distinctive as his features were, they were dominated by his remarkable wide-set eyes. They were a mesmerising silver-grey, brilliant, crystal clear, yet impossible to read.

  He didn’t smile. Neither did she.

  The air crackled as it did when an electrical storm approached. They stood there studying one another in silence. Skye felt a deep, sharp sadness. As for Keefe, she coul
dn’t read him. As in everything, for so long now, he was an enigma. He had distanced himself from her as she had distanced herself from him. But what did he really want of her? What did she want of him? What were the changes each one of them saw in the other? She was ill prepared for this confrontation. Had she known Keefe was to come for her, she could have worked on some defence strategy.

  Don’t kid yourself, girl. Such a strategy doesn’t exist.

  There was always drama around the McGoverns. Instead of Scott, Keefe had appeared. The man she dreamed about, so often and so vividly, that it was as if he was in bed with her. He was dressed in a khaki bush shirt with epaulettes and buttoned-down pockets, close-fitting jeans, beaten-copper-buckled leather belt, glossy riding boots on his feet. Everyday wear, but quality all the way. There was something utterly compelling about a splendid male body, she thought raggedly, the height, the width of shoulder, the narrowness of waist and hip descending into long, long straight legs.

  “It’s good to see you, Skye.” Finally he spoke. “Weren’t waiting long?”

  She readied herself. His voice, like the rest of him, carried a natural command. It had become more and more like his father’s; the timbre deep and dark, the accent polished and slightly clipped. “No more than five minutes,” she said with admirable composure. She had to force the adrenalin rush down. “I wasn’t expecting you, Keefe. I was told Scott was coming.”

  “Well, I’m here,” he said, looking directly into her eyes.

  He was so beautiful! All strength and sinew with an intense sexual aura. Her entire body leapt to vivid life, sparks coursing like little fires along her veins. What she felt for Keefe couldn’t be easily governed. Even her nerves were like tightly strung wires humming and vibrating inside her. How long had it been since she had felt this mad surge of excitement? Not since the last time she had been with him. Years of loving Keefe. Years of unfinished business. It was like they were tied together against their wills. She pulled in a deep breath, keeping her tone neutral.