Copper Fire

by Fayrene Preston

  You’ll frighten her to death,he told himself fiercely. If he let go. If he gave in to desires urging him to tumble them both into the nearest bed and violently explore these feelings he had never felt before …

  She was too gentle and frail, he told himself, to respond to that kind of savagery. Too magically ethereal to want anything but tenderness and gentleness. She was sheer enchantment.

  Shane knew dimly that he was already placing her on a pedestal, already setting her like some Greek goddess on an Olympus where an earthy hand could never mark her.

  And he hardly heard the inner voice reminding him that the ancient gods and goddesses, for all their divinity, had been remarkably human at heart and quite definitely earthy in their passions.

  Beneath the magic.

  The Delaneys of Killaroo: Matilda, The Adventuress

  by Iris Johansen

  “What the hell! There’s a woman standing in the middle of the road!” Roman’s foot stomped on the brakes of the Jeep. The vehicle swerved and then skidded to the side of the road. He could hear the screech of brakes from the long column of trucks and trailers he was leading. The sound was immediately followed by the blistering curses of the drivers.

  “Well, there goes tomorrow’s shooting.” Brent gingerly touched the bruise he’d just acquired on his forehead from banging his head on the dashboard of the Jeep. “Unless you’d care to write in a barroom brawl. I’m going to have a devil of a bruise on my matchless profile.”

  “Are you all right?”

  The breathless question came from the woman who had run up to the Jeep as soon as it had come to a halt. Her tousled cinnamon-colored hair, sparkling as though touched by a golden hand, shimmered in the headlights; Roman was fascinated for a fleeting instant by that brilliant halo of color. He shifted his gaze to her face. “What the hell did you think you were doing? I almost ran over you.”

  “Lord, I’m sorry. I didn’t realize you were going so fast. I just wanted to …” Her eyes widened in amazement. “You’re Roman Gallagher. How wonderful. I’ve always wanted to meet you.”

  “Yes.” Hell, not another would-be starlet, he thought. He’d had his fill of actresses throwing themselves into his path in the hopes of getting a part in one of his films. As his gaze touched her he was startled to feel a swift and incredible desire for her. It didn’t make a damn bit of sense to him. She wasn’t even sexy. Yet his reaction had been undeniable. A tingle of annoyance went through him.

  She smiled, and he inhaled sharply. Warmth. Lord, her smile illuminated her thin face like the Southern Cross illuminated the night sky.

  “I love your films,” she said. “I thought Fulfillmentwas terrific, and I’ve seen all your documentaries. My favorite was the one you did on the Barrier Reef.”

  He tried to mask his surprise. She had clearly done her homework. He hadn’t made a documentary in seven years, and at that time his audience had been extremely small. “Thank you. I enjoyed filming it, even though the subject of the reefs had been done a hundred or so times before.”

  “But not like you did it. The underwater scenes were …” She took an eager step closer, her brown eyes shining in the reflected beam of the headlights. She met his gaze and suddenly her eyes widened in curious surprise, and she forgot what she wanted to say. Then she shook her head as if to clear it and laughed uncertainly. “There aren’t any words to describe that film. I wanted to hop on the next boat to the reef.”

  “I’m surprised you didn’t.”

  She whirled to her left, and faced the man who had just stepped down from the truck directly behind the Jeep. She squinted into the shadows as she tried to match a face with the familiar voice. “Dennis?” Then, as the man came into the perimeter of the headlights, his gray-flecked sandy brown hair and rough-hewn features became clearer. She flew across the road and into his arms, and gave him an enthusiastic hug. “Dennis Billet, what on earth are you doing here?”

  “I could ask you the same thing.” His hazel eyes were twinkling down at her. “Except I've given up being surprised at the places you turn up. Nowadays I just accept the fact that if there’s excitement or trouble or danger around, sooner or later you’ll be there.”

  “I hate to interrupt this reunion, but I have a location to set up.” Roman’s tone was caustic. For some irrational reason he was displeased at the sight of the goldenhaired woman in Billet’s arms. “You know this woman, Dennis?”

  Dennis nodded. “We go back a long way.” He placed his arm companionably around her waist as he turned to face Roman. “Manda Delaney, this is my boss, Roman Gallagher.”

  Manda was frowning. “Location? You’re going to set up a movie location here? But you can’t do that!”

  “I have a drawerful of permits back in Sydney that says the opposite.” Roman’s lips tightened. “I’d damn well better be able to do it. Are you saying you have a prior claim?”

  “No, not exactly.” She ran her fingers through her shining hair. “I tried to get one, but the authorities said the entire area had already been leased. I thought it was a mistake. No one comes to Deadman’s Ridge anymore. There haven’t been any opals found in this field for over twenty-five years.”

  “Which is why I had no trouble obtaining a three-month lease on the ridge.”

  “You’re going to be here for three months?” The dismay on her face was unmistakable. “Look, can’t you go somewhere else? I know I don’t have a legal permit, but I was here first, and my business is very important.”

  He was staring at her in disbelief. “Do you realize how much money I'd lose per day looking for another location?”

  She made a face. “No chance?”

  “No chance.” His eyes narrowed. “May I assume you’re not an actress then?”

  “Me?” She was astonished. “Why would you think I was an actress?”

  He stiffened. “What’s your business here? Are you a newspaper reporter?”

  “What is this? Twenty questions?”

  His lips twisted. “I know you people consider questions the prerogative of the press, but you should have thought of that before you decided to trespass on my land. Lord, I thought I’d gotten away from vultures like you.”

  “I'm nota reporter.”

  “Then just what is your business here, Miss Delaney?” “Manda.” She smiled and again he felt warmth radiate through him. “I’m afraid my business is of a private nature. However, I assure you it’s most urgent. I promise I won't get in your way if you let me stay.” Her voice dropped to wheedling softness. “I know you’ll understand.”

  Dennis Billet suddenly burst into laughter. “Manda, you never change. Be careful, Roman, she’ll be talking you out of your mobile home in another minute.”

  She had come very close to getting what she wanted from him. Roman felt a flare of anger when he realized that if he hadn’t been jarred by Dennis’s obvious amusement, he would probably have let her stay. “I can’t help you. I’ve made it a rule to close my set to outsiders.” Roman got back into the Jeep and started the ignition. He noticed Dennis’s arm still held the woman in a casual embrace, and he found his pilot’s familiarity with Manda Delaney oddly annoying. The woman was obviously an accomplished charmer and accustomed to getting her own way with men. Well, she would find he distinctly disliked being used by anyone, women in particular. “I’ll give you one day to pack up and get off the property.”

  “But you don’t understand. I can’t –” The rest of her sentence was lost as he revved the engine of the Jeep. “I haveto stay here. There are reasons.…”

  The Jeep jumped forward as he pressed the accelerator. A few seconds later he'd driven several yards down the road.

  “You weren’t very polite,” Brent drawled. “You didn’t introduce me, and I got the distinct impression that something about the lady annoyed the hell out of you. Pity. She could have been very entertaining to have around. You could have thought about myconvenience, Roman. You drag me out here in the wilds with an all-male cast
, forbid me to seduce any of the women on your production crew, and then send packing the only alluring woman who crosses our path. How inconsiderate can you be?”

  “I’m sure you'll survive. Besides, she wasn’t all that pretty.”

  “You don’t think so? Personally, I prefer the unconventional type.”

  “Too thin.”

  “But she really fills out a T-shirt.”

  “I didn’t notice,” Roman said.

  Brent glanced sidewise at him, and then smiled. “Oh, yes, you noticed all right. Is it okay if I go after her and offer her my sympathy, my gorgeous body, and anything else she’ll accept?”

  “Why should I care? She’s nothing to me.” Roman’s hands tightened unconsciously on the steering wheel. “Though I don’t think it’s worth your while. She’ll be gone tomorrow.”

  “Long enough. Haven’t you heard I’m irresistible? All my press clippings say so.” The amusement was abruptly gone from Brent’s expression. “If you want her yourself, I’ll back away, Roman. My role in your film means too much to me to jeopardize our professional relationship over a woman.”

  For the briefest instant Roman was tempted to tell him to back off, to keep away from her. The instinct was brutally primitive. Lord, what had gotten into him tonight? There was no way he was going to involve himself with Manda Delaney. Her appearance in his life had been entirely too coincidental, and her reluctance to tell him the purpose of her business in the opal field was distinctly suspicious. She could be anything from a con artist on the make, to one of the paparazzi out to get an exclusive interview. This was sheer madness. He forced himself to relax and the moment of insanity passed. He shrugged. “Do what you like. She doesn’t appeal to me.”

  Manda laughed softly as she stood in the middle of the road watching the receding taillights of the vehicles of the caravan. The desert was no longer tranquil, and the entire situation was fraught with complications. Yet she was still feeling a familiar shiver of excitement. Change. Things were changing, events were going to occur, people would act and react. How she loved adventure and change and this time the potential was more exciting than ever before.

  Because a difficult, sensual man named Roman Gallagher was leading that caravan and she had suddenly realized he just might be the greatest adventure of all.

  The Delaneys of Killaroo: Sydney, The Temptress

  by Fayrene Preston

  One floor above the casino, from behind the one-way glass, Nicholas Charron watched her, as he had every night for the past three nights.

  Her name was Sydney Delaney. He had gotten this information from the registration card she had filled out when she had arrived on the island three days ago. Alone.

  With each night that passed his curiosity about her grew. She seemed intensely interested in the games, but she had yet to place a bet. And he had seen several men approach her, but with scarcely a look she had sent them on their way.

  From his remote observation post he had a complete view of the entire casino. Men and women dressed in their evening finery milled below him in a rhythm of bright color and swirling motion, uncaring that just beyond the casino’s wide expanse of windowed walls lay the wonder and the glory of the Great Barrier Reef. Their disregard of the natural beauty of the reef and the star-brilliant night above it amused him. While most casinos were windowless, his was not. He deliberately had had the windows included in the design as his own private joke –just as he had giant seawater aquariums set in the long wall that ran across the back of the casino. Although the aquariums featured the vividly patterned fish that swam in the waters of the reef, he knew that to the majority of the people in the casino, the fish provided little more than an exotic backdrop for the real reason they had come to the island –the gaming.

  He understood people, their vices, their greed. Soon, Nicholas promised himself, he would understand Sydney Delaney.

  He turned away from the window and walked to the long row of monitors that provided coverage of the entire casino. With a quick flick of a series of switches, four screens glowed simultaneously with her image.

  Sydney Delaney was clearly beautiful, but there were many women in his casino tonight who were as beautiful, if not more so. Yet there was something about her that had drawn his attention to her and had kept it there. Unprecedented for him.

  Once, a long time ago, he had seen a figurine of a young girl in a Chicago store window, so fine and delicate, she appeared translucent, so fragile and expensive, a glass dome had protected her. He had wanted the figurine. The woman below reminded him of that figurine.

  He looked closer, trying to decipher, to take apart, and thus explain, the pull she was exerting on him. Her hair seemed a dark burgundy and hung in a lustrous mass to below her shoulders. He frowned, for the color seemed to contain a depth that the screen of the monitor couldn’t satisfactorily register.

  In the monitor that caught her profile he saw a straight nose and a clean sweep of jaw. Another monitor showed him finely shaped brows arched over wide, light-colored eyes of an undiscernable shade and a disconcerting mouth, full and perfectly formed to fit under a man’s lips.

  A third monitor revealed a full-length picture of her. The long dress she wore was of cream-colored slipper satin. The neckline was high, but the back dipped to the waist, exposing skin that, on the monitor at least, appeared flawless. In involuntary anticipation of the time when he would touch that flawless skin, his fingers curled one by one, into his palm.

  Experience told him that most of the gowns on the women in the casino revealed more and cost more than the one she wore, but it didn’t matter. Any clothing would look marvelous on her, he concluded.

  There was an elegance about her and a grace, even as she remained still, and motion and noise swirled around her –like the sea that surrounded the island …his island, the Isle of Charron.

  Did she have that much command over her emotions and nerves? he wondered. The question intrigued him.

  His mind returned briefly to the glass dome that had surrounded the fragile figurine years before. Glass could be broken.

  * * *

  If a panther could live on a tropical island, his name would surely be Nicholas Charron, Sydney decided. She had never seen him, but she could feelhim –like a violent disturbance in the atmosphere.

  Strangely, she never questioned why she felt he was there above her, watching. She just did. She knew that he paced in his control room above the casino, and she sensed his eyes on her, like a warm breath across her skin.

  The fact that he was observing her from behind a oneway mirror made her feel exposed, unprotected, and it was a feeling she hated above all else. But she dealt with the vulnerability he was opening up in her as she always did –with absolute control over her body and her mind.

  As was her way, she never went into any situation blind if she could help it. Before she had come to the Isle of Charron, she had researched the island, the casino, and the man who owned both. She had learned a great deal, but not all.

  Nicholas Charron was a mysterious man. It was known that he was an American expatriate, but exactly what he had done from the time he left America to the time he bought the Isle of Charron was shrouded in mystery. However, over the last five years he had developed an island resort and casino like nothing Australia had seen before, especially on the Great Barrier Reef. They called his casino and hotel complex Charron’s Glass Palace –like everything else on the island, his name was attached, whether he intended it to be or not. As a result, the Isle of Charron had gained an international reputation among jet setters and high rollers. They came to spend money, to have a good time, and if possible to see Nicholas Charron.

  Speculation ran high, and extraordinary things were whispered about him. He had an aura that was as dark as the night, and to the thrill-seeking gamblers, his mystique was as big a draw as his casino.

  But he never came down onto the casino floor, and only rarely did he invite anyone to his apartment at the top of the res
ort complex. Unless …

  People talked and word spread. She hadn’t been on the island more than a day, when an excited lady she had encountered on the beach had told her that sometimes Nicholas Charron would stand in his control room above the casino floor and scan the action below him to choose a woman for the night.

  Sydney had watched women do things she knew were calculated to attract the attention of the dark man everyone talked about but very few ever saw. Somehow she had known the women wouldn't be successful. Somehow she had known it was shehe watched.

  She was being pursued by someone who couldn’t be seen, only felt, but Sydney refused to give in to the agitation that ran through her veins with a singing excitement. She had to keep her mind on her purpose for being in the casino. Since she had been on the island, she had carefully studied the action of each of the games, and tonight she had chosen craps to observe. It was a fast-paced game, and the chances of winning large amounts of money seemed good. Wondering about the odds, she opened her purse and pulled out a small calculator.

  Within the space of a few seconds two men stood on either side of her.

  And watching from the control room, Nicholas Charron reached for the phone.

  One man was big and muscular and had a face so grooved and pitted, it looked as if it had been pulled straight off the side of Ayers Rock. The other man, an Oriental, was short and wiry with flat black eyes that stared at her without expression.

  It was the larger of the two men who spoke. “I’m sorry, miss, you’ll have to come with us.”

  “Where exactly is it that you’re taking me?” she asked as they halted before a set of black stainless steel doors.

  “To Mr. Charron's apartment.”

  The doors swished open, and they stepped into a lift. The doors closed, sealing her and the strange men by her side off from the comfort and familiarity of the crowd in the casino.