by Alison Kelly
Bart recognised the tell-tale shine of tears in her eyes. Her pain tore at his heart and became his pain.
‘It was then I decided that I was going to live my life for me and no one else.’ She gave a self-deprecating smile. ‘Stupidly I avoided music because I partly blamed Jenni’s obsession with it as being the cause of her death. Last night I realised that was silly.’ She jutted her chin a little and blinked back tears. ‘I’m not unambitious, Bart, just different from most people.’
He swore softly and hauled her into his arms, wanting nothing more than to eradicate the heartbreak from her past, yet knowing he couldn’t. Scooping her into his arms, he carried her to the living-room. He lowered his frame on to the sofa, still cradling her, and for several minutes neither of them spoke.
Alessandra rested her head against his shoulder, content to be in the tender confines of his arms, listening to the steady thump of his heart beneath her ear as her fingers drew slow abstract designs on his chest. She wondered how she could be spitting mad with him one moment and full of love for him the next.
‘I’m sorry, I forced you into that,’ he said.
‘Bart, stop taking credit you haven’t earned!’ she teased. ‘No one’s ever been able to force me to do something I didn’t want to do.’
He gave her a half-smile. ‘Still, I feel like an absolute heel.’
‘Not to me you don’t,’ she said, wrapping her arms around him and kissing the base of his throat. ‘To me to feel like the most incredibly sexy man I’ve ever known.’
‘Yeah?’ He grinned.
‘Mmm…now if I could just remember what his name was…’
‘Brat!’ he said, nuzzling the top of her head.
Alessandra snuggled closer. ‘Seriously, Bart, last night finally put Jenni’s death into the past. I needed to do that.’
‘What about your future?’ he asked, unable to stop his fingers from straying to the top button of her blouse.
‘My future?’
‘Yeah—what are your plans?’
‘Reckon I’ll buy myself a new guitar.’ She smiled as his fingers continued to open her blouse. ‘And perhaps— er—make love with you? Not necessarily in that order.’
Her voice was a husky whisper that ignited every nerveending in his body.
‘I wasn’t talking about just the immediate future,’ Bart said, lowering his lips to her breast as the last button surrendered to him.
Neither was I, Alessandra thought, but knew Bart wouldn’t want to hear those words. Cowardly she compromised.
‘I want to be happy,’ she sighed as his mouth closed over her.
He lifted his head and held her gaze as he snapped open her jeans.
‘I think I can take you way beyond happy,’ he said.
Alessandra knew he could.
CHAPTER NINE
‘GOOD morning.’
Alessandra opened her eyes and found herself face to face with Bart. It was the most heavenly way she could imagine waking up, just as last night had been the most heavenly way of falling to sleep—wrapped in his arms, contentedly exhausted from the wonder of his lovemaking.
‘Gidday,’ she said, sure his idiotic grin was being matched by one of her own. She felt herself warm as his eyes caressed her face with lazy thoroughness, and instinctively she snuggled closer. He gave a masculine groan.
‘Much as I’d love to continue on where we left off last night——’ his eyes darkened at the memory ‘—I have to get Redskin loaded and over to Shaffer’s.’
Alessandra recalled a small rodeo had been organised between the surrounding stations and that Bart had volunteered Redskin as one of the buckjumpers. She slowly ran a finger across his collarbone and smiled as she felt his response to the action against her thigh.
‘Then I guess you’d better get a move on,’ she told him as she directed her finger down the centre of his chest then made a right-angle turn through a soft tangle of curls to circle his nipple.
‘We have to be there in an hour,’ he said, his voice ragged. She nodded, moving her hand lower, beneath the sheets.
‘It’ll take us nearly forty-five minutes to get there,’ she observed, closing her hand around the warm stiffness of him. He gasped and in a smooth, easy action rolled on to her and placed his mouth against her ear. A shot of electric sensuality zapped her body.
‘Let’s risk a speeding ticket,’ Bart muttered.
She turned to seize his kiss; his tongue’s response was as ravenous and greedy as her own. She arched against him and when he plunged into her her wanton peal of ecstasy bounced off the walls. His release followed almost immediately.
‘Sorry,’ Bart said some minutes later.
‘For what?’
‘That must qualify as the quickie to end all quickies.’
She smiled at his dejected words and dropped a kiss on to his cheek.
‘It’s quality not quantity that counts. I happened to think that a good time beats a long time any day!’
As she stood watching Redskin being unloaded Alessandra silently prayed those doing the job would escape the fury of his flying hoofs.
‘Honestly, Bart, why you keep that damned animal is beyond me. He doesn’t have a pleasant bone in his entire body.’
‘He’s a hell of a looker, though,’ Bart said, equally intent on the scene before them. ‘Plus you’ve got to admire his spirit. I’m going to try and get him used to a saddle in another few months.’ Alessandra pushed her hat back and gave him a look that said she considered him loco. ‘He’s getting used to me,’ Bart assured her.
‘Yeah, well, there’s a saying that familiarity breeds contempt. Let’s hope Redskin hasn’t heard about it.’
‘Oh, I reckon I’m getting kinda good at taming attractive, highly strung creatures,’ Bart said smugly. ‘Of course, there’s a difference between being able to tame something and being able to ride something.’
Alessandra felt a shudder of excitement slide down her spine. ‘Which is?’
‘One’s pure challenge and the other’s pure pleasure!’
By mid-morning there was a crowd of about a hundred people. Some gathered around the perimeters of the makeshift arena watching the battle between man and horse, while others thronged under the huge marquee seeking refuge from an already spiteful sun and enjoying steak sandwiches and drinks. Bart had been spirited away by several neighbouring ranchers to look at a newly acquired horse, so Alessandra had secured a prime position on the fence and was enjoying the action of the saddle bronco event. She was cheering quite vocally for a young man whom she’d met once or twice when a cultured voice caused her spine to stiffen.
‘I hear Bart’s sister has taken Lisa away on vacation.’
Alessandra couldn’t stifle a groan at the appearance of Rachel Shaffer, but she determinedly kept her voice civil.
‘Yes, she has.’
‘So you and Bart have the house to yourselves. That must be…interesting.’
‘I doubt it’ll make the national news coverage, Rachel,’ she told the redhead, who was dressed in immaculate riding breeches and an obviously expensive western shirt, although the woman’s appraisal of Alessandra left no doubt that she considered the younger woman’s worn jeans and T-shirt left a lot to be desired.
‘Do I pass muster, Rachel?’
‘At least you’re wearing shoes today. Were you deliberately trying to make a spectacle of yourself the other night or is lack of taste the sole reason you were attired like some sort of pagan whore?’
‘Actually, Rachel, the pagan whore look is really in,’ she said sweetly, ‘although I can see you prefer the designer-label, bitchy look yourself. But then it’s so you.’
The older woman’s eyes narrowed and for an instant Alessandra thought she might find herself being shoved under the hoofs of the bucking chestnut only yards away. The sudden interruption of an elegantly dressed blonde drew the older woman’s attention. It was the man on the blonde’s arm who drew Alessandra’s.
‘
Mother, look who I’ve found. Bart Cameron.’
Alessandra wondered why Bart hadn’t been told as a child that if you became lost you sought a policeman, not a blonde who looked as if she’d just stepped out of the latest issue of Vogue. That she was Rachel’s daughter was distinguishable only by her chic; apart from that she looked human. Obviously she took after Doug!
‘Hello, Bart, I’ve just been chatting with…’ Rachel, waved her hand, implying she’d forgotten Alessandra’s name.
‘Alessandra,’ Bart supplied, struggling with an amused expression. ‘Alessandra, I’d like to introduce Tiffany Shaffer.’
Tiffany! Typical, thought Alessandra, even her name is synonymous with million-dollar price tags. Remarkably Alessandra managed a friendly greeting, camouflaging the fact she wanted to break every finger in the blonde’s hand that was resting possessively on Bart’s arm.
‘Tiffany is here on vacation; she’s an interior designer.’ Rachel’s tone suggested the vocation would ultimately lead to world peace. ‘Alessandra is working as a jillaroo on Bart’s property,’ she told her daughter.
‘Really? I can’t say I envy you being in this heat day in and day out,’ Tiffany said with a nice smile.
‘Actually, I was employed as a bookkeeper, but I conned Bart into letting me work with the cattle,’ Alessandra said. ‘Bookkeeping is far too boring for my liking. I prefer being where the action is.’
‘It shows,’ Rachel said in an aside only Alessandra could hear, then smoothly manoeuvred herself so that she effectively cut her from the group. ‘Come, Bart, Tiffany. There’s someone I want you both to meet.’
Left to her own devices, Alessandra got herself a Coke and a hot dog before wandering down to where the competitors were getting ready for the bare-back bronco riding. She spied Jim and a few of the other guys from Rough Rivers.
‘Any of you guys draw Redskin?’ she asked.
‘Nah. You aren’t permitted to ride a horse from your own place otherwise it might look rigged.’
‘Well, whoever gets him will be hard to beat if they can stay in the saddle long enough to see the time out,’ she said, moving to sit on a hay bale. ‘He sure can buck.’
‘Yeah, him and Goodnight, from the Lane spread, are the hardest workers. Bart pulled Goodnight.’
‘Bart’s riding?’
‘Sure. Why wouldn’t he be?’
Alessandra shrugged and gave her attention to her sandwich. Bart hadn’t told her he was competing, but then again she’d not seen him since Rachel and the beautiful Tiffany had spirited him away. It was all very well to tell herself she wasn’t jealous, but it was another thing to mean it. She was as jealous as hell! It didn’t take a genius to work out that Rachel’s dislike of her stemmed from the fact that the old witch had earmarked Bart for her daughter. Just how the glamorous Tiffany felt about it, Alessandra couldn’t hazard a guess, but if a woman had even an ounce of red blood in her veins she’d be attracted to him.
‘I wondered where you’d got to.’
At the sound of Bart’s deep drawl her head jerked up. Just the look of his smiling face was enough to send her heart into overdrive. Standing in front of her with his hat pulled low over his eyes and his thumbs hooked into the waistband of his jeans, Bart seemed even more devastatingly handsome than any man she could think of.
‘Keep looking at me like that and I might forget where we are and drag you into the hayloft,’ he threatened.
If only you would, she thought. If just once you would forget about decorum and who might see us and just go with the flow!
‘Like what?’ she asked, crossing her eyes and poking out her tongue. ‘I always look like this!’
Laughing, he moved her can of drink and sat down beside her. ‘So what was it Rachel said that had you looking so murderous this morning?’
‘Nothing and everything. Do me a favour and don’t mention the old buzzard’s name to me.’
‘She’s not exactly enamoured of you either,’ Bart told her, watching her intently. ‘You OK? You seem a little pale.’ He placed a hand against her forehead and frowned. ‘No temperature,’ he said, moving his hand in a slow caress down the side of her face; then, realising they could be easily seen, he pulled it away.
‘I’m fine. Just tired. It’s probably totally unladylike to point this out, but I am suffering from what is commonly called too much bed and not enough sleep.’ His sheepish smile delighted her. ‘Not that I’m complaining. You’re terrific in bed, Mr Cameron.’
He darted a quick look over his shoulder as if trying to gauge whether or not her voice had carried to anyone but him. The imp in her prodded her to tease him further.
‘You know what I love best? The way you stroke the inside of——’
‘Bart! You’re up next!’ a voice called from the chutes where the riders mounted the animals before being turned loose into the arena.
Bart’s groan was audible only to her.
‘If you say another suggestive word the effect you have on me will be obvious to every man, woman and child present. I’ll deal with you later,’ he said, pulling his hat firmly down on to his head. When he rose to his feet she remained sitting and didn’t realise that that was the reason for his disappointed expression.
‘Aren’t you going to watch?’ he asked.
‘Only if you promise not to fall off.’
‘Me? I won’t fall off.’
* * *
‘“I won’t fall off.” What is it they say goes before the fall, Bart?’
‘You’re enjoying this, aren’t you?’ he accused as he eased himself down on to the sofa.
‘Sure, aren’t you?’ Alessandra laughed, handing him a beer.
When Bart and his mount had parted company, he had already done enough to win the bare-back section, but the pick up riders hadn’t been quick enough getting to him and the infamous Goodnight had sent his body head first into the dirt. Although she could laugh about it in retrospect, at the time Alessandra had been filled with cold dread. In the seconds he’d lain motionless on the ground she’d been frozen with fear. In those moments she’d prayed harder than she’d ever prayed in her life. She blinked to rid herself of the image.
‘There isn’t a bone in my entire body that doesn’t ache,’ he complained, wincing as if to give credibility to his claim. ‘You could at least pretend to be sympathetic.’
‘You’ve had more than enough sympathy for one day. In fact if sympathy was water you’d have drowned,’ she mumbled, recalling how Tiffany had fussed over him after the incident. ‘What you need now is a hot bath; I’ll go upstairs and run you one.’
‘By the time I manage to get up there it’ll be cold,’ Bart muttered as he gingerly rose from the couch to follow her amid a chorus of colourful curses.
‘Feeling better?’ Alessandra asked when Bart was finally propped up in bed and drinking the coffee she’d brought him.
He merely grunted in response. He was in a mood because she’d refused to bathe him, despite his pleas that he was too sore to do it himself. She suspected he was exaggerating and like all men was milking his injuries for all the sympathy they were worth and then some, yet that hadn’t been the reason for her refusal. She knew it would have been impossible for her to touch him naked and not react on a sexual level to the intimacy, and tonight sex was something she didn’t feel up to either physically or mentally.
‘Considering your condition, it might be best if I slept in my own room tonight,’ she said reasonably, but received an angry look in return. ‘You said yourself you ache all over…’
‘I do! But sleeping in the same bed as me doesn’t automatically mean we have to jump on each other’s bones!’ Bart said. ‘Can’t you equate sharing a bed with anything but sex, Alessandra? Beds are also for sleeping, you know. There’s no law that says when you climb into bed with another person you can’t just sleep.’
At first his outburst stunned her, but then it made her hopping mad.
‘I’m well aware of just how
multi-functional a bed is, Bart! Contrary to what you and Rachel Shaffer may think, I’m not a whore! I hope you ache all night!’
She slammed the door against his call of her name and was disappointed to see it remained on its hinges. Through a blur of tears that threatened to become steam as a result of her white-hot rage, she locked her bedroom door amid a string of bar-room curses. If she didn’t love him so much she’d hate him!
The bruise on his hip was probably the worst, Bart decided as he gingerly dried himself. Yet it didn’t hurt half as much as the memory of what he’d said to Alessandra the previous night.
She’d left the house by the time he awoke, which gave him a chance to work on the apology he owed her, although even the most well rehearsed and polished apology would be inadequate in the circumstances. Instead of simply telling her that he needed her near him, he’d all but accused her of being a nymphomaniac. Just because she was the most exciting woman he’d ever made love with and didn’t mean she’d spent her lifetime perfecting the technique. Thinking about her was making him ache in places that had nothing to do with being thrown from a horse. Silently he invoked the Lord’s intervention and switched on the computer. There’d be no riding for him for a few days; even sitting in an armchair hurt like hell.
Twilight’s last rays were fading from the sky when Alessandra arrived back at the house. She was a hot, sweaty mess and the sight of an unfamiliar car in the yard wasn’t welcome. She stood at the foot of the porch steps and sighed before mounting them. She wanted a hot shower, a light meal and three days’ solid sleep, not visitors. And particularly not this visitor.
‘Hi. You look worn out.’ Tiffany greeted her in her soft, elegant voice and gave a soft, elegant smile.
