by Alison Kelly
So far as Bart could gauge, she could ride better than anyone on both sides of the Pacific, play poker better than any man breathing, and had every single man on his payroll in love with her and every married man wishing he was single. He got to his feet; he wasn’t in the mood to listen to childish bickering between grown men.
He’d come down here to discuss the fencing he wanted done tomorrow. All he’d got was a sermon on the countless charms and ability of one Alessandra MacKellar. It was the last thing he needed to hear. He hadn’t woken up in a good mood as it was; with the prospect of a scene with Lisa looming, he didn’t want thoughts of Alessandra muddling up his thinking—as they’d been wont to do more and more often.
‘Any truth in the rumour that she skinny dips down in the river?’
The question stopped Bart in his tracks, just outside the bunkhouse door, but he didn’t wait to overhear any more. His blood-pressure couldn’t take it!
‘What do you think you’re doing?’
Damn! She could tell from his tone he wasn’t in his nice-guy mode.
‘What’s it look like? I’m swimming!’
‘In what?’
She wondered if he’d suffered a heavy knock to the head. Perhaps after the verbal lashing he’d given to Lisa at lunch she’d come back downstairs and attacked him from behind with a blunt object.
‘In a creek. You know—water.’
‘Don’t be smart, Alessandra,’ he warned.
‘I’m not. It just seems that way due to the lack of another intelligent life form in the area!’
‘Are you naked?’
Alessandra was so stunned by the question that she found herself spluttering water before she could form a response. Actually, considering the high-voltage current his question had triggered through her body, it was a miracle she hadn’t been electrocuted!
‘No,’ she said with a smile, then reached down to free herself from a skimpy red bikini pants she’d been wearing. ‘But I am now!’
She calculated Bart’s jaw hit the ground at almost precisely the same moment her knickers landed at his feet.
‘Happy now?’ she queried sweetly, even as she fumed at the man’s unparalleled gall.
Bart wondered if at his age the sudden increase in his pulse-rate was likely to cause him to go into cardiac arrest. Not that it mattered, since his lungs were incapable of drawing in air and he was suffocating anyway.
‘Well? What next?’ Alessandra demanded.
‘I want a word with you.’
‘Sure…boss.’
She started to move towards the bank and Bart knew he should turn away, but she was clearly challenging him to watch her nude emergence from the water. He returned the challenge, standing silently as a hot excitement tightened his chest.
As the distance between herself and the river bank was reduced, Alessandra was starting to have doubts about the wisdom of calling his bluff. She knew it wasn’t wise to tempt fate too far.
‘Toss me my knickers.’
He gave her an expectant half-smile.
‘Please, Bart?’
They landed just in front of her and drifted under the surface a little before her hand grasped the wispy material. Working herself into them was not an easy task, since she didn’t want to expose more than her neck above the water. Finally she had them on. She waited, mainly for effect.
‘Are you going to turn around?’ she asked in a tight voice.
‘No.’
‘Fair enough.’
Bart thought he’d prepared himself for the effect seeing her practically naked would have on him. But he had never considered just how devastating her body would look covered by a skin-tight, saturated T-shirt!
It concealed and yet exposed every bit of her lush body in glorious detail, stopping at the top of her thighs. Although not visible, the scantily cut knickers were evident from their outline. He was helpless to do anything more than run his eyes over every delicious inch of her. She stood motionless, her breasts undulating with each breath beneath the beige cotton, nipples standing erotically erect.
‘Disappointed?’ Although she’d intended the query to be sarcastic it had come out as a husky whisper.
Bart trapped her eyes with his. ‘There’s not a man alive who could answer yes to that.’
Her body flooded with molten desire. She had never been so physically aware of a man in her entire life, but she wasn’t about to leave herself open to another putdown. Taking a steadying breath, she pushed her wet hair back from her face and lifted her chin.
‘Unless it’s one who wears dresses. You said you wanted to speak with me…’
‘Believe me, lady, the last thing I want to do with you now is talk!’ Taking her by the shoulders, he hauled her against the masculine hardness of his body, and she half expected to hear a sizzle as her wet torso contacted with the dry heat of his. It never entered her head to resist, just as it would never occur to a drowning man to let go of a life support.
The initial urgency of his kisses was matched by hers. She opened her mouth to him, accepting the warmth of his tongue with grateful delight for several seconds before engaging it in a torrid, almost violent duel with her own. His groan of excited pleasure was echoed by one from deep within her as his hand burned a trail beneath her wet shirt from thigh to waist and onward to close possessively around the swell of her breast. He withdrew his tongue from her mouth to trail its tip along her jaw and a thousand fires flamed within her even as tiny shivers skipped along her spine. She tilted her head back to allow him greater access to her neck, the movement bringing her pelvis hard against his, giving further evidence of his arousal. The knowledge made her head swim as the surrounding air became heavy with raw, hungry passion. Alessandra grasped a handful of his hair and brought his oral attentions back to her mouth, where she was able to taste the sleek, smooth enamel of teeth.
All sense of logical thought was lost to her; one moment she was vaguely aware of thinking her legs might buckle beneath her, only to discover she was already lying beneath Bart’s sensual male body.
His hands peeled the damp T-shirt over her head and, before the late afternoon breeze had a chance to chill her skin, his lips were raining heated kisses over it. Her fingers combed his hair with wilful abandon, her body trembling from his touch as time and time again he returned to the depths of her mouth to deliver his honey sweetness to her taste-buds. She wanted desperately to provide him with the same pleasure he gave so easily. She nipped at his shoulder, intending only to please him, but found she herself gaining unimaginable delights from the muscular strength she discovered. The intensity of her need stunned her. She had never known such an aching want, such a desperate need, and was dimly aware of a button exploding from the front of his shirt as she feverishly pushed it aside to taste more of his naked flesh.
Bart felt a shudder of desire rip through him as her hands slipped beneath his shirt and she arched against him, levering herself on his shoulders.
‘Make love to me…’
Her breathless plea almost drove him over the edge. The wild, unbridled way she was responding to him was something he had never known with another woman. No woman had ever made him feel so male. Alessandra was a seductress straight out of every man’s fantasy; she could excite with the practised perfection that every man dreamed about…
The notion had the effect of ten gallons of cold water.
Bart rolled off her and stood up. Blue eyes, clouded by passion, searched his face.
‘Bart…?’
‘Get dressed. You can drive the truck back to the house.’
‘But…I…’ Alessandra choked on the contempt she saw in his eyes.
‘Get dressed!’ he said again, this time picking up her towel and jeans, which lay near by, and throwing them to her.
‘Bart, did I do or say something wrong?’
He gave a derisory laugh.
‘I wish to God you had.’
CHAPTER FOUR
FOR the next week Alessandr
a took care to keep out of Bart’s way as much as possible. This might have proven awkward had it not been for the fact that Bart was working equally hard to avoid her. Indeed, she might well have ended up talking to herself if it hadn’t been for Lisa, who was only too grateful for someone to chat with, since she wasn’t planning on speaking to her father ever again! At least, Alessandra thought, no one was arguing with anyone.
As she waited for the printer to run off a balance sheet of the monthly accounts, Alessandra wondered yet again what she’d done to turn Bart’s passion to anger in the space of just a few seconds. She had no doubt that if Bart hadn’t so abruptly called a halt to their lovemaking she couldn’t have. She’d never responded so heatedly to a man before and it hurt to know the man in question didn’t want a damned thing to do with her.
The shrill of the phone made her jump, but as she reached to pick it up it stopped, and as she was removing the report from the printer the office door was thrust open and Bart shoved his head in.
‘I need to use the computer. Are you through in here?’
‘Just about,’ she said, deciding he could give a whole new meaning to the word curt. She deliberately took her time labelling and filing the report.
Bart mentally counted to ten in an effort to keep his pulse-rate steady. His hopes of squashing the attraction he felt for the white-haired Aussie by limiting his exposure to her had been for nothing. Seeing the way her blouse pulled across her breasts as she pushed her chair clear of the desk was enough to rocket his memory back to way they had tasted while still damp from her swim in the creek.
‘Bart.’
He gave himself a mental shake, realising he’d not heard what had been said to him.
‘Pardon?’
‘I said would you please move so that I can get through the door? The office is all yours.’
‘Oh. There was no need to rush. Are you sure you’re finished?’
Alessandra eyed him strangely. If she didn’t know better she’d have accused him of smoking something other than ordinary tobacco. He was definitely wearing a Disneyland expression.
‘Bart, are you OK? You seem kinda…strange.’
‘Do I?’
Now he was giving her that stupidly boyish grin which caused her insides to mush up. Don’t let him suck you in, she warned herself.
‘Look, you said you wanted the computer. It’s all yours.’
‘Alessan…oh, hell! I’ve left Doug Shaffer waiting on the outside phone!’ Moving past her, Bart snatched up the receiver of the desk phone. ‘Do me a favour and hang up the kitchen extension, will you? Oh, by the way, I’ll be driving into town on Thursday, so we’ll be leaving early. Hello, Doug? Sorry to keep you…’
Alessandra lay in bed for a few moments, telling herself that she was no more pleased about making the routine trip into town for the wages with Bart than she normally was with Jim. Bull! her inner self roared. You’ve just woken up from the most X-rated dream you’ve ever had and the leading man wasn’t Jim! Gritting her teeth, she willed herself not to smile—to no avail. She let loose an excited giggle and swung herself off the mattress.
‘Face it, kiddo,’ she told her reflection in the mirror, ‘you have the hots for Bart Cameron something fierce.’
Slipping on her old towelling robe, she was about to head for the bathroom when there was a knock on her door.
‘Alessandra, may I come in?’
‘Door’s open.’
‘Can I talk to you for a minute?’ Lisa asked.
Alessandra motioned the girl to the room’s only chair and sat herself on the edge of the bed. She could tell at a glance that the teenager hadn’t slept well.
‘Shoot,’ she said with an encouraging smile.
‘I…I need to go into town with you today.’
‘Well, you’d better hurry and get dressed, ‘cause your dad wants to leave early——’
‘Dad! I thought Jim would be driving you in…He always does.’
‘Usually, but apparently Bart has an errand to run, so it makes sense that I go with him.’
Alessandra watched as the younger woman first twisted then untwisted her hands for several moments before she spoke again.
‘Forget it. I can wait until next week.’
‘Lisa, I realise you’re angry with your father, but you can’t keep on avoiding him.’
‘It’s not that. I don’t want him to know where I’m going.’ She cast a look of uncertainty towards the older woman. ‘I want to go to the doctor’s and he’ll want to know why.’
‘I see.’ Alessandra thought she knew exactly why Lisa wanted to consult a doctor and why she didn’t want her father to find out. ‘Are you sure?’
‘Sure? Of course I’m sure. Daddy will freak! You won’t tell him, will you, Alessandra?’
Alessandra stood up and went to crouch by the girl’s chair. Her heart went out to the kid. She could just imagine the fear the poor thing was feeling, but Lisa couldn’t realistically expect her to end the conversation there.
‘Lisa, you have to tell your father. This is something you have to discuss with him.’
‘No way. It hasn’t anything to do with him——’
‘Oh, come on, Lisa! He’s your father. You have to tell him. How far along are you?’
‘What?’
‘How advanced is the pregnancy?’
‘Pregnancy! I’m not pregnant, Alessandra! That’s what I’m trying to avoid!’
Alessandra sank to her knees and offered a silent thanks to the Lord. Raising her head, she smiled widely.
‘Crossed wires in the worst way. Sorry, Lisa.’
‘That’s OK. But telling Dad I want to go on the Pill would be on a par to telling him I’m pregnant, believe me.’
‘I don’t think so. What method of contraception are you and Todd practising at the moment?’
‘None…’
‘Are you crazy, Lisa?’ She wanted to shake the youngster; instead she ran anxious fingers through her short cropped hair. ‘Talk about tempting fate!’
Lisa was shaking her head vigorously. ‘We aren’t sleeping together yet.’
Once again Alessandra congratulated herself on jumping the gun. She should have realised that Lisa was far too sensible to take such a risk.
‘That’s why I want to go on the Pill now. Before anything happens.’
‘Smart girl. OK, listen, I still think it would be wise to discuss the matter with your father, but I can understand how you feel. At eighteen I felt the same way. What if I swap my next Saturday off with one of the guys and on Monday you and I can head into town for a shopping excursion and a visit to the doctor’s?’
‘You’d do that? You’d come with me?’
‘Sure.’
Alessandra was hugged enthusiastically even before she’d finished speaking.
‘Oh, Alessandra! You are terrific! Totally and absolutely terrific!’
‘I’m glad one Cameron thinks so,’ she said drily.
Bart was already in the Range Rover when Alessandra climbed into the front seat. Without looking at him, she tossed a casual ‘Gidday’ and reached for her seatbelt. Only when that was comfortably secure did she become aware that Bart was staring at her as if she had two heads.
‘Bart?’
‘My God, you’re wearing a dress.’
‘Skirt, actually.’
‘Have you run out of jeans?’
She smiled at the first piece of teasing conversation she’d heard from him in a week, glad she hadn’t chickened out and resorted to her daily uniform of Levis. He had noticed.
‘I like a change every so often.’
He offered no further comment, gunning the engine to life, and they drove for six miles before the prickling silence became too much for Alessandra. She turned slightly in the seat, pulling her legs up under the calf-length skirt, to make herself more comfortable.
‘I see your vow of silence is going well,’ she said casually.
Bart, struggling not to laug
h, cast her a quick glance.
‘Oh, no…it’s the shock of the skirt. I see,’ Alessandra said with pseudo-sympathy.
He laughed.
‘Sshh,’ Alessandra said. ‘Someone might hear you and get the idea that you don’t find my presence quite so aggravating as you make out.’
‘Is that what you think? That you aggravate me?’
‘Sometimes.’
He arched an eyebrow below the brim of his stetson. ‘Only sometimes?’
‘Yeah. The rest of the time I infuriate you. True?’
Bart wondered how she would respond if he told her that while she did at times both aggravate and infuriate him, she turned him on all the time. He gripped the wheel as resentment of his attraction to her fought the need to tell her the truth: that he couldn’t get her out of his head, that the scent of the magnolia oil she always wore was constantly with him, and that he was still kicking himself over the incident at the creek. Although he wasn’t sure if it was because he’d started it or because he’d stopped it short of its natural conclusion.
‘You puzzle me, Alessandra. I don’t understand you.’
Alessandra laughed loudly.
‘What’s so funny?’ he asked, not certain he wasn’t the source of her amusement.
‘Don’t sound so concerned, Bart. If I had ten cents for every time someone has said that I’d be worth millions!’
‘You have to admit you’re not the conventional twenty-eight-year-old.’
‘Conventional by whose standards?’
‘Normal standards.’
‘So not only am I aggravating, infuriating and unconventional, I’m also not normal…’
‘I didn’t mean any offence, Alessandra…’
‘Ease up, Bart, I’m only stirring you,’ she said, putting a conciliatory hand on his shoulder and hastily whipping it away as a shot of electricity rocketed up her arm.
‘Stir…stirring me?’ Bart struggled to get the words out and ignore the warmth her touch had ignited within him. Lord, she was stirring him all right!
