Princes of the Outback Bundle

by Bronwyn Jameson

  After a quick shower—he’d have preferred leisurely, but he’d left Catriona and her chainsaw alone with Samuels—there wasn’t anything left to do but say goodbye.

  Oh, and kiss her.

  Distracted by whatever had gone down between her and Samuels while he showered—whatever had made her eyes churn in a dark and angry storm—she didn’t see the kiss coming until his head was bending down to hers. By then his hand cupped the back of her head and his fingers were dipping into the thick sections of her braid, and she couldn’t escape.

  His lips found hers just as her mouth opened to object. Perfect timing, he decided, smiling against her lips. Tasting her tiny gasp of surprise while he stroked his thumb over her sun-warmed hair. It was a short kiss, a sweet kiss, with no body contact but a whole world of connection when their eyes met and held. Rafe felt a jolt of pleasure, not savage, not fierce, not even unexpected.

  He knew he’d enjoy kissing his angel of mercy. Knew she’d taste as warm and earthy as she looked and that her eyes would shimmer with a thousand pleasurable possibilities. He wanted to tell her to think about every one—to think about him—when she was alone in her bed, but Samuels cleared his throat and reminded him they weren’t alone right now. Which started Bach growling like a turboprop before takeoff.

  Catriona made an impatient sound in her throat. “I know, I know,” she told her dog. “But he’s about to leave, I promise.”

  Rafe knew she was talking about Samuels and grinned at the edgy snarl to her voice. He fished a card from his pocket and jotted down his contact details. “I’ll call you when I get back to Sydney, but these are my numbers, home and office, in case—”

  “There’s no need.”

  “Oh, but there is.” He folded her fingers around the card she seemed reluctant to take and focused on the solid practicalities instead of the ethereal promise of that kiss. “There’s the small matter of the plane I landed in your paddock and then there’s the not-so-small matter of my bill.”

  “I was joking.”

  “And I’m not. Whether you want or not, I’m going to repay your hospitality, Catriona. You might want to start thinking about how and when.”

  Restitution was only the first of Rafe’s goals for Catriona. During the next sixty minutes, he intended to learn all he could about her—anything to stack the odds in his favor for when he got to the main one. As expected, Gordon Samuels fell all over himself to help.

  He learned that she’d inherited the debt-ridden Corroboree from her father while she was still at school. Samuels had managed the station and her stepmother the trust account while she completed her education. Significant, Rafe thought, that she now seemed to hold both parties in extreme contempt.

  Samuels told him that since Catriona took over management, she’d struggled to keep her head above water. “I threw her a life buoy but once she sets her mind on something, the girl’s as tough to shift as a barnacle.”

  Catriona might well be stubborn, but she didn’t strike him as a fool. Obviously, she needed help badly, so why had she refused to grab ahold of that buoy? There was something going on between her and the Samuelses, more that he needed to discover—more that he would discover—in order to find out what kind of rescue raft she would climb aboard.

  Unfortunately, he didn’t have much time to launch that raft. Two months and the clock was ticking.

  He cut a sideways glance at Gordon Samuels, at the man’s tough profile shaded beneath a big western hat, and he remembered the picture on Catriona’s fridge. And his certainty that the cowboy had let her down, badly.

  The same conviction snared him now. The knowledge that the key to Catriona rested with Drew Samuels.

  “So, Gordon,” he commenced casually. “Catriona tells me you have a son in America. A bullrider…?”

  Cat heard her phone ringing as she stepped out of the shower, and the certainty of who was calling buzzed through her at roughly the same frequency as that strident bell. She wished she could ignore it. Or at least take the time to dry herself instead of bolting, towel in hand, for her office.

  Unfortunately, she couldn’t. Nor could she stop the tremble in her hand as she picked up the receiver, although she put a choke hold on her unruly anticipation and took a deep breath before attempting to speak.

  All this just because the man had dropped in a cursory thank-you-and-goodbye kiss!

  “Hello,” she said, sounding quite calm, considering.

  “You really should get a message bank, Catriona.” No hello, no other preliminary—not that Rafe needed to identify himself. Who else drew her name out over all four syllables in that thoroughly extravagant way?

  “You’ve been trying to call?”

  “I told you I would.” She heard the smile in his voice, pictured those full lips quirked at the corners. Remembered their pressure against hers with a flutter of heat somewhere deep inside. “You must have started early this morning.”

  “Sixish,” she confirmed.

  “Guess I just missed you then.”

  “You called at sixish? I meant in the morning!”

  He laughed, a soft, low sound that vibrated through her like a cat’s purring. “I was down at Randwick Racecourse before sunrise, watching Alex’s next champion gallop. I called on my way home at sixish. Then again at sevenish. Again over lunch.”

  Whoa.

  “I thought I might catch you in. Don’t you ever eat?”

  Only when I have food in the house. “Only on odd-numbered days.”

  “So, you haven’t eaten tonight?”

  “If I say no, will you buy me dinner?” A safe question, with him five hundred miles away in Sydney. Safe and easy to swap banter with him at the other end of a phone call.

  “How long would it take you to get ready?” he asked.

  “For a free meal, I’d go as I am.”

  “And how’s that, Catriona?” His deep voice lingered over her name in a way that made her very aware of her nakedness. And of how she’d been daydreaming under the shower about seeing him right out of the shower.

  Daydreaming about him using that princely body to pay her back for her hospitality.

  An acceptable fantasy, she’d justified sometime during the night when it first slid steamy and alluring into her imagination, since it was only a fantasy. Acceptable, too, because it stopped her thinking about that disturbing conversation out at the kennels. Stopped her daydreaming about things like, oh, having the man’s baby.

  “What are you wearing?” he prompted.

  Cat snorted and propped the receiver between ear and shoulder so she could wrap herself in the towel. “Don’t tell me you get your jollies from women describing their underwear.”

  “Usually—” he paused and the sound of movement made her think he was settling back, getting comfortable “—I get my jollies taking off women’s underwear.”

  That predictable response rolled smooth and silky from his tongue—the same way she imagined him rolling underwear from her body. Except he hadn’t meant her underwear, and the notion of his expert hands on other women’s underwear—on other women’s bodies—turned her next provocative response to bitter-tasting ashes.

  She sat heavily in her desk chair and gripped the front of her towel more firmly. Fun time was over. “Why were you calling all day, anyway?” she asked. “Is there a problem with salvaging the plane?”

  “No. They’re sending someone out tomorrow…but that’s not why I called. I need to settle my bill.”

  He’d called half a dozen times about that? “You do understand I was joking.”

  “You do understand I was serious about repaying your hospitality.”

  “There’s no need,” she said quickly. Her heart was starting to beat with similar speed. She was getting bad vibes about this. “I don’t need any payment.”

  There was the briefest pause before he asked, “Are you sure about that, Catriona?”

  Grimacing, she pinched the bridge of her nose between finger and thumb. Gordo
n Samuels and his big mouth. That’s where the bad vibes stemmed from! “You shouldn’t believe everything you hear.”

  “And what is it you think I’ve heard?”

  “It’s a long drive into Bourke,” she said dryly, “so I expect you heard a lot.”

  “Samuels told me you were doing it tough. Should I believe that?”

  He’d been there. He’d stepped over roofing iron blown from her rundown buildings. Did he really have to ask? “Did my good neighbor tell you why I’m broke?”

  “He mentioned drought years after your father’s death—”

  “That’s not what I meant, unless you count the way his drought mismanagement drove Corroboree into the ground!” She inhaled sharply in a last-ditch effort to contain the bitterness that had crept into her tone. “Actually, I meant more recently. Like in the last month.”

  Silence. She’d thought as much. And although every instinct hammered at her to shut the hell up, she couldn’t. Who knew what crap Samuels had spun during that drive? It shouldn’t have mattered what Rafe Carlisle had heard and whether that had influenced his opinion of her, but it did. She’d lost so much over the last several years. Pride was one of the few things she had left.

  “I took money from his son. A personal loan, I suppose, although—” She stopped cold, realizing suddenly that she didn’t want to share the “although” because that included the part about giving Drew her body and her love and her trust. The part where they’d lain in her bed and talked about running Corroboree together. When he offered her the money, she took it as his commitment to their future, although her pride had insisted she call it a loan.

  “Although?” he prompted.

  “Last month Samuels told me the money was his. He says he wants it repaid, but what he really wants is Corroboree.”

  “Is the money his?”

  “I don’t know.” Cat sighed and pinched the bridge of her nose again. Harder. “I’ve been trying to contact Drew to find out what’s going on, but he’s not answering my messages. He could be anywhere, competing or on the road. He mightn’t have e-mail access, he might have changed his mobile phone number, he mightn’t be getting my messages.”

  Rafe said nothing for a long time, and that pause seemed to resonate with the desperate ring of her words.

  Cat squeezed her eyes shut and grimaced. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to tell you all that. I just wanted to set the record straight, given what Samuels might have told you. I just opened my mouth and out it all came.”

  “Don’t apologize, Catriona. I like that you’ve taken me into your confidence.”

  Is that what she’d done? Taken this man—this stranger from another world—into her confidence? Like a friend? She coiled the phone cord around her hand while tendrils of unease coiled around her stomach.

  “So, what are you doing to set this straight?”

  “What can I do?” She huffed out a ragged little laugh. “Look, Rafe, you don’t have to concern—”

  “Does Samuels have proof that he loaned you anything?”

  Apparently he did have to concern himself, and Cat hovered for a second, twisting and untwisting the phone cord, unsure about this confidence thing. Perhaps talking it over with a stranger, an outsider, was a good thing. Perhaps he’d shake loose an angle she’d missed.

  “Did you sign anything?”

  “No,” she admitted, sinking deeper into the chair and closing her eyes. “I took the money from Drew on a handshake agreement, but Samuels says he signed the loan over to him. How could that work?”

  “Sounds like you need legal advice.”

  A fine idea if she had the money to pay for such advice! “What I need is to talk to Drew.”

  “Have you thought about hiring someone to find him? Or going over there to track him down?”

  She laughed without mirth. “If I had a dollar for every time I’ve thought about getting over there and grabbing him by the shirtfront and shaking the damn truth out of him, I’d be able to afford the airfare.”

  “What if you had the airfare?” he asked after a tick of pause, and Cat sucked in a breath and straightened her back in bristling denial.

  “Oh, no, Rafe. You are not going to pay for a ticket.”

  “Are you too stubborn to accept help?”

  “I can’t accept your help.”

  “Yet I had to accept yours.”

  “That was different,” she fired back. “If I ever knock myself out landing a plane, I will accept your help in a heartbeat.”

  “Do you remember taking me to bed?” he asked softly. Cat swallowed. In her fantasies, yes. “You told me you weren’t a difficult person.”

  Oh, that taking him to bed. Taking his weight when his balance gave out. Stumbling at the door to her bedroom. Shaking her head when he refused to allow one last check of his responses.

  And he’d asked if she was always this difficult!

  “Let me help you with this, Catriona.” His voice changed, as if he’d shifted position again, as if he held the receiver closer to his mouth. As if he were right here, mouth close to her ear, enticing her to let him do all kinds of things for her. To her. With her. Cat shivered. “Let me do this very small thing to repay you. Let me buy you a plane ticket so you can go shake the hell out of this cowboy of yours.”

  “It’s not that easy.” She shook her head, hoping to clear the heat that seemed to be hazing her good sense. Why else would she be feeling the insidious tug of temptation? “I don’t know where he is.”

  “An investigator would locate him in a day.”

  “Maybe, but that’d be—” Underhanded. Over-the-top. “—wrong.”

  “Scared?”

  She bristled at the low-voiced taunt. “Scared of what?”

  “I don’t know, Catriona,” he said in that same low, dangerous voice. “Maybe you’re scared of what you’ll find out about your cowboy.”

  “Scared of the truth? No way.”

  “Then let me—”

  “No,” she said quickly, adamantly. “If you insist on repayment, you can buy me that dinner sometime.”

  “Think about it.”

  “Oh, I’m sure I will think about it.” With a rueful half smile, Cat shook her head. She would think about it most every waking hour, and dream about it while she slept. “I’ll think about it but I won’t change my mind.”

  After he disconnected, Rafe’s smile curled with the thrill of a challenge innocently laid down and not-so-innocently accepted. He didn’t know how he would change her mind, only that he’d give it one hell of a shot. And not only because she’d challenged him, not only because his life had become too easy, too predictable, too dissatisfying.

  He knew his brothers treated his part in their baby-making pact as a joke. Rafe as a father? Shoot, he’s too irresponsible, too reckless. Too shallow. He hasn’t grown up himself. Not that he blamed them for that opinion, since it amused him to overplay his reputation. Charm, after all, was the one and only thing he excelled at.

  But now it was time to show his hand. Time to show his brothers that he was up to the challenge, that he could do something as well as—even better than—them.

  For once he could give something back to his family.

  He’d found the right woman, but could he find the means to change her mind?

  Six

  “What made you change your mind?”

  Cat sighed, unleashing a fraction of the tight breath she swore had been backing up in her lungs for days. Ever since she left a message on the man at her side’s voice mail to say, I have changed my mind. I would like to accept your offer to help. The man she’d found already seated when the flight attendant walked her through the curtain into first class on this Sydney to Los Angeles flight.

  Clever, clever man. He knew she’d have balked at accepting a first-class ticket and his company, so he’d waited until the last minute to spring both on her.

  Shaky already with nerves and an awful sense of what-have-I-gotten-myself-into, he hadn
’t helped matters by standing and kissing her shell-shocked lips. Nothing explicit, nothing extreme, just a brief taste of mint and a wicked lick of temptation that curled Cat’s toes and weakened her knees. So much so that she’d slumped into her seat while he calmly explained about having some business to attend to. Thought he might as well travel with her. Make sure she found her cowboy, who he’d located recovering from injury in Vegas. Two birds with the one stone. Etc, etc.

  How could she dispute what sounded too glib and convenient but could be the straight truth? He worked, apparently, as some kind of executive with Carlisle Hotels. He was, reputedly, a gambler. He could, easily, do business in Las Vegas.

  With a small elite audience and a hovering flight attendant wanting to make her feel at home—in first class with champagne? not likely!—she couldn’t kick up a fuss. And when she did open her mouth to question his motives, Rafe pressed a finger to her lips and suggested she follow the safety demonstration.

  As if a whistle and light would do her any good if this big bird went down over the Pacific Ocean!

  By then the plane was rolling and he was asking why she’d changed her mind and it was much too late to change it back again.

  “My stepmother,” she replied. “She changed it for me.”

  “I’m going to have to meet the wicked stepmother. Find out how she managed the impossible.”

  She turned her head and found him watching her, his eyes alight with the same smile that laced his voice. Silky and sexy and altogether too satisfied. As if he’d known she would change her mind, which he couldn’t possibly have done since she hadn’t known herself.

  Not until after she’d dialed his number in a furious fit of pique, driven by one phone call from the step-monster. No one had the power to play her emotions like Pamela McConnell Smythe—not even Gordon Samuels, although he came close!