by Diana Palmer
Chapter Eleven
It was an unexpected treat to find the twins, as well as John, dressed to the hilt when they all came to get Priscilla the next evening. She was wearing the same white gauzy creation she’d worn several nights before, and John admired it.
“I like that,” he complimented.
She grinned. “I haven’t gone shopping in quite a while, so it will just have to do.”
“Have fun, darling,” Renée said from the door.
“We’ll have her home by midnight,” John promised as he helped her into the Ford.
“Dinkum, we will!” Gerry called out the window.
Priss looked over the back seat at the terrible twins. Gerry was wearing a blue suit, Bobby a brown one, and they did look elegant.
“I’d never have believed it,” she told them with pursed lips. “You’re both very handsome.”
“Uncle John is, too, isn’t he?” Gerry pressed her.
She surveyed John as he climbed in the front seat. He was dressed in a tan safari suit, his head was bare, and he looked as rugged as the country he lived in.
“Yes, he is,” Priss commented absently, studying him. “Very handsome, indeed.”
He lifted an eyebrow and smiled at her. “Thank you, Miss Johnson,” he responded dryly. “I must say, you look lovely yourself.”
She smiled back and started to settle herself on the seat, when he laid his big arm over the back of it and stared at her.
“Come here, love,” he said in a voice that made her toes curl.
She eased closer without a single protest and felt the reassuring warmth and strength of his body with surging delight.
“That’s more like it,” he murmured as he started the Ford and eased it into gear. “Tell Priss what we’re having for supper, boys,” he called into the back seat.
“We’re having steak and salad!” Gerry said.
“And apple pie for afters,” Bobby added.
“And homemade rolls!” Gerry interrupted. “Uncle John did them all alone!”
“When I was a boy, the cook we hired on for the shearing gang used to go on benders at the damnedest times,” he explained as they drove toward the Run in the moonlit darkness. “I learned to pinch-hit in self-defense.” He looked down at her. “Men work harder when they’ve been fed.”
“Do they?” she questioned, smiling up at him.
His arm tightened, and she sighed. Minutes later he pulled up in front of the Colonial-style house and the boys piled out quickly, racing for the porch.
John helped Priss get out and then stiffened at the haunting doglike howl that echoed beyond the outbuildings.
“A dingo,” he growled.
“But doesn’t the dingo fence keep them out?” she asked, recalling the miles and miles of fence around the sheep-raising country in the state of Queensland, along the New South Wales border and into western Australia. It was something of an international legend.
“Not entirely,” he informed her. “We still have to hunt them down occasionally.”
She shivered as the sound came again.
“They rarely attack people,” he told her, drawing her close at his side. “Besides, love, I’d never let anything hurt you.”
“Yes, I know,” she murmured. She let her eyes half close as they walked. Those were the sweetest steps she’d taken in five long years.
In no time, they were seated at the long elegant dinner table Mrs. Sterling had imported from England, enjoying the succulent steak John had cooked.
“You’re very good at this,” Priss praised when they’d worked their way through to the apple pie.
“Necessity,” he explained with a smile. “I can think of things I’d rather do than cook.”
“How’s your mother?” Priss asked then.
“Doing very well. She tells me she’s dating a financier.” He glanced up. “I expect she may marry him.”
“Will you mind?”
He shook his head. “She’s entitled to some happiness.”
“Uncle John, can we be excused?” Gerry asked as he finished off his apple pie. “There’s this dinkum movie on about the outback...”
“Go ahead,” John told them. “Don’t put the volume up too loud, though,” he added.
“Sure!” Bobby agreed. “We’ll be quiet as mice,” he promised as they rushed off into the living room.
“They’ve changed a lot in the past week,” Priss noted.
“Yes, I’ve seen it. I think when Randy and Latrice work out their problems, things will be better all around.” He sat back with a glass of white wine he’d just poured, and sipped it casually. “Did you mean what you told me the other day—that you were planning to go back to Hawaii?”
She studied the tablecloth. “At the time, I did.”
“And now? After yesterday?”
She looked up into his serene, steady gaze and felt her heart do cartwheels in her chest. “I don’t know that I could leave now.”
He searched her eyes for a long moment. Then he put the wineglass down. “Do you feel you could live in Australia for the rest of your life, without regretting it?”
“I planned that from the day my family came here,” she said, curious about where the conversation was heading.
But he changed the subject abruptly. “How does your father like having you at the school with him?”
She laughed. “He likes it a lot. He says now he has someone to sit with at lunch. I love my parents,” she related quietly. “They’ve been everything to me.”
“I’m rather fond of them myself,” he concurred.
“John, what was your father like?” she asked as she sipped her own wine.
He shrugged. “I’m not sure. All I have is my mother’s memory of him. And she worshipped the ground he walked on.” He stared blankly at his wineglass. “I was only a toddler when he died. Randy was newborn. Neither of us ever knew him. He was killed by a brumby.”
“That’s a wild horse, isn’t it?”
“Yes.” He put the glass down. “I’ve often wondered how things might have gone if he’d lived. Randy and I were never close, until this crisis came up. Mother...” He laughed. “You know Mother. She likes her independence. I grew up not liking ties. It’s been hard for me to change. To get used to the idea of answering to another human being.”
She supposed he meant to Randy, since his brother had taken over the station. She put down her wineglass and dabbed at her full lips with the napkin.
“I suppose it was the other way with me,” she replied. “I was loved and indulged and protected. Oh, my parents disciplined me along the way, but I was never allowed to learn things by experience.”
“Except with me,” he mused, watching her.
She smiled slowly. “Except with you.” She looked up into his broad tanned face wonderingly. “Why did you put up with me?”
“You were a beautiful girl,” he said simply. “Like sunshine to be around. Full of life and joy and delightful warmth. I enjoyed being with you, even before I discovered what it was like to want you in any physical way.”
“Did you want me before that afternoon I left for college?” she queried, but she couldn’t manage to meet his eyes as she asked the question.
“Remember the morning you came running across the paddock barefoot?” he asked, smiling at the memory. “To show me the scholarship you’d won?”
“Yes,” she said.
“That was the first time. I looked at you and had a sudden, and rather frightening, reaction to you.” He stroked his wineglass as if it were a woman’s body, but he was looking across the table at Priss. “I was trying to decide what to do about it when you started avoiding me.” His eyes fell to the table. “I didn’t quite know how to handle that. It disturbed me greatly.”<
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She felt her nerves tingle with pleasure as she studied his broad chest. He looked up then, his eyes mysterious and vividly blue in his craggy face as he viewed her.
“Then I came out to the house to ask why, to say good-bye. And I kissed you.” His eyebrows lifted, and he smiled wickedly. “It was meant to be just a kiss, for good-bye. But once I started, you see, I found that I couldn’t stop. You never knew that it was touch and go with me, did you, Priss?” he added meaningfully. “All that saved you was the fear that I might make you pregnant.”
“Terrifying thought!” she murmured, trying to make light of it.
“Not at all,” he countered quietly. “I found myself considering children. And ties. And settling down. And that was when I decided to go to Hawaii and ask you to marry me.” He pushed his chair back. “And then the bottom fell out.”
She didn’t like thinking about that. She heard him come around the table to pull her chair out.
“Let’s go sit in my study,” he suggested. “I could use a brandy, and the boys won’t disturb us in there.”
She got up, her eyes involuntarily going to his face.
“No,” he breathed, looking back with equal urgency. “We can’t. Sure as hell they’d walk in on us, and I don’t want them asking embarrassing questions.”
She flushed. “I wasn’t—” she protested.
“I want it, too,” he ground out. He was standing close enough that the warmth of his body warmed hers, too. He smelled of spicy cologne and soap.
She drew in a steadying breath. “I’m sorry.”
“There’s nothing to be sorry about. Come on.” He caught her hand in his and locked his fingers into hers. Big warm fingers, very strong, very capable. She felt lighter than air as he led her along with him. “I missed you,” he confided. “For five years, I didn’t spend a night without thinking about where you were, what you were doing. Who you were with.”
She’d done that, too, but she wasn’t going to admit it. Her pride had taken a hell of a blow already.
“It must have been very hard for you, at first,” she prodded. “Losing the station, I mean.”
“Yes. It cut my pride to ribbons. And Randy had a bit of a superiority complex at the outset. That didn’t help, either.” He tightened his grip on her hand. “I was devastated at first. I all but gave up. There was so little left to lose that I stopped giving a damn.” He led her into the study, leaving the door open, and left her at the couch while he poured brandy into two snifters. “Then Randy got in over his head and came to me for advice. A first,” he added with a faint grin. “I got caught up in the challenge, and we’ve been working well together ever since.”
She stared down at her folded hands. “So everything worked out for the best, anyway.”
“Not quite.” He handed her a snifter and dropped down beside her with his in hand. “I lost you.”
“Was that so bad? You didn’t seem to think so at the time.”
“Someday, at a better time, I’ll tell you all about it. But not tonight.” He slid an arm around her. “Come close, love. Tell me about Hawaii.”
She kicked off her shoes and curled up in the curve of his arm, loving the warm contact. Her head rested on his shoulder and she nuzzled against him.
“There isn’t a lot to tell. I studied hard. I had friends. I went on weekend trips to the other islands, and once I flew to California for summer vacation. I had a marvelous time, but I missed Australia.”
“You never came home, did you?” he probed.
She smiled sadly. “I was afraid I might see you.”
He shifted restlessly. “But the pommy was always around, wasn’t he?”
“Ronald was my best friend,” she confirmed. “I’m very fond of him. He was there when I needed someone to cry on. But it was only friendship.”
“I thought you loved him,” he said.
She shook her head, feeling the hard muscle of his arm behind her nape. “No. Not even at first.”
“Did you miss me?” he quizzed after a minute. “Or were you too bitter?”
“I was bitter at first. But I got over it,” she lied. “Then I tried not to think about you.”
“Successfully?”
She bit her lower lip. “Sometimes.”
His fingers curved under her chin and nudged it up so he could search her wide, sad green eyes. He caressed the side of her throat with a light pressure that made her pulse go crazy.
“I’d think of you at night sometimes,” he said. “And it would get so bad, I’d climb into my clothes and saddle a horse and ride for hours. And when I got back, tired to the bone and half dead from lack of sleep, I’d lie awake and remember how it felt to cherish your mouth under mine.”
Her lower lip trembled, because it had been that way with her, too.
“I missed you so badly,” he whispered gruffly, bending. “It was like losing part of me.”
His mouth pressed down against hers, cool and moist and tasting of brandy. He kissed her tenderly, lovingly, breaking the taut line of her lips with a lazy coaxing pressure that soon became slow and deep and urgent.
She made a tiny sound in her throat and turned to get closer to him,
“Wait a minute,” he whispered. He stopped long enough to get the brandy snifters out of the way, and then she was in his arms, held close, crushed against his shirt. He kissed her so deeply, that she felt her heart turn over in her breast.
He groaned deeply, forcing her head into the curve of his elbow with the urgency of his need.
She touched his cheek, ran her fingers into his hair. She moaned softly as one big hand moved under her arm and began to lightly stroke the soft flesh there.
“Yes,” she murmured eagerly, moving her body to tempt his fingers onto it.
“No,” he ground out, lifting his head. He was breathing roughly, and his eyes devoured her, but he put her away from him. “No more. I can’t handle this.”
He got to his feet, running his fingers through his blond-streaked hair, breathing heavily. His back was to her as he stared out the darkened window and stretched to ease the tension in his body.
She sat up, gnawing her lip, wondering at his self-control.
“You always could do that,” she commented on a nervous laugh.
He turned, frowning. “Do what?”
“Pull away. Stop before things got out of control.” Her eyes fell. “I was never able to draw back.”
“You were an innocent. I wasn’t.” He laughed softly. “And I had plenty of practice controlling my urges when I was with you. All I had to do was hum Brahms’s lullaby to myself.”
“I might not have gotten pregnant,” she argued.
“I’d have bet the station on it,” he returned shortly. His eyes searched hers, and he smiled. “Did you expect that I’d have stopped with one time?”
Her lips parted on a surprised breath. “Wouldn’t you?” she asked in a whisper.
He shook his head from side to side. “Three or four times by morning, darling,” he said quietly. “At least.”
Her face flamed. “I always thought...men gave out.”
“You’ve got a lot to learn. And someday soon,” he added with an intent stare, “I’m going to teach you all of it.”
She steeled herself to refuse. “I won’t have an affair with you—I’ve already said that.”
“I know.” He moved back to the sofa and sat down beside her. His face was solemn as he drew a box out of the pockets of his bush jacket and pressed it into her hands. “Open that when you get home. I’ll come for you first thing in the morning, and we’ll talk.”
She touched the gray felt of the small box lightly, her eyes conveying her puzzlement.
“Don’t open it until you get home,” he repeated. He bent and kissed
her mouth tenderly. “And don’t worry yourself to death about my motives. Think about what life will be like without me. Because I’ve already considered that question. And I’ve decided that no life at all would be better than living without you.”
She hardly heard anything else he said for the rest of the evening. She was still in a daze when he took her home, and she mumbled something to the boys, forgot to say anything at all to John, and went into her house at ten o’clock feeling as if she’d been out all night.
It wasn’t until she was in bed that she opened the tiny box with trembling fingers and looked at its contents. It was a blazing emerald, small but perfect, in a gold setting. The engagement ring was accompanied by a solid-gold band with the same intricate design. She watched it blur before her eyes and only then realized that she was crying.
All the long years she’d loved John Sterling, she’d never imagined how it might feel if he bought her a ring. He hadn’t when he’d proposed in Hawaii; he hadn’t even mentioned buying a ring. And now here it was, without the proposal, and she didn’t think she had enough strength in her body to turn him down.
For better or for worse, for richer or for poorer...she didn’t mind that he wasn’t rich. She’d work beside him. She’d take care of him. And at night she’d sleep in his big arms. And in time would come children. Then perhaps he’d grow to love her. Perhaps the physical need he had of her would grow into an emotional one and what she felt for him would be returned.
There was, though, the chance that it wouldn’t. Yet when she thought about living the rest of her life without him, it was a chance she was willing to take. She knew there’d never be another man. She didn’t want anyone else. She hadn’t in five years.
Her fingers trembled as she took the emerald out and slid it onto her wedding finger, finding the fit perfect. Her eyes closed in a silent prayer. This time it had to work. This time she had to make him love her. It was already too late to run away. She was more deeply in love than she had been at eighteen. Too much in love to let go.
