The Outback Engagement

by Margaret Way

Before she could say another word, he caught her to him with such fierce mastery she was overwhelmed. What he demanded she was compelled to give. It seemed the natural order of things. All the old magic swam into her veins like thick sweet honey. Curt was a sorcerer casting another one of his spells. She had given him her love and she had taken it back. But surely a man could be allowed one mistake?

  The passion of the encounter went a long way toward emptying the deep well of misery that had held her prisoner. For long moments she allowed her body to melt into his. The sensation was so bitter, so beautiful, she convulsively shuddered. Memories flooded into her mind. Of being naked with Curt poised above her, his eyes taking in every fact of her nakedness, her woman’s body. She saw the pearl grey of the sky in the pre-dawn, felt the scented breeze blowing in from the desert in that year covered with wildflowers. Such memories lived on…and on…and on. Love’s legacy.

  He opened her lips like they were petals with his tongue, exploring the interior so slowly so voluptuously her head swam and all sense of caution slowed. His touch wasn’t gentle. It was wonderfully hungry. So hungry the weight of longing soon became unbearable. Such a knowing kiss. Her lover’s kiss. A lover too powerful. Curt could make her do anything he asked.

  As he had then.

  He had impregnated her body.

  Her secret.

  With a little cry Darcy jerked back her head, but he covered her breast with the palm of his hand. “No, don’t,” he muttered, his tone filled with urgency. “Don’t pull away, Darcy. Please.”

  “You won’t let me.” She twisted and turned in a white heat.

  “Because you’re mine!” His strong hand, that moved with such conviction slipped the pearly buttons of her blouse as practised as if he did it every day. Man-like he sought her naked flesh.

  Darcy flinched, even though she was unbearabley moved. Whatever her mind chose to do her body did another. She felt it turn to fire. She heard him sigh with the pleasure her body was giving him as he teased and caressed the nipple of her exposed breast.

  She made a last urgent effort to stay him calling his name, but she doubted he even heard her. She never could break his intense concentration on her.

  She struggled. He pinned her, bending her back in a tortuous curve. “Did you really think the charade was going to go on forever? I’m going to make this last.”

  Sensation jack-knifed through her body as his mouth found her pink nipple, bunched like a berry. His lips drew on its sweetness, his teeth ever so gently nipping. There were knife like little stabs in her groin. She hadn’t forgotten those. His hand was sliding inside her jeans, his long fingers pressing down on her flat stomach, concentrating on reaching the secret folds of her body.

  Couldn’t she allow herself this bliss? God knows she wanted it. Wanted it with a near manic desire. She had tried sex with a few others but her experiences with Curt had completely traumatized her. She could feel the dampness of desire on the crotch of her briefs. Frantically she tried to push back against the cascades of passion. They weren’t safe. She remembered the time she had blindly assumed it was safe. Stupid, negligent, motherless girl. It was impossible to keep a clear head when her whole body was ablaze.

  Turn back the clock. Do it. You remember the way it was. The abandonment that always left you in tears of rapture and afterwards, despair.

  Her body was screaming for release. Do it!

  Of a sudden she felt sick. She should know better than anyone the price was too high. She’d been punished before. She’d be punished again.

  “Curt…Curt!” She bucked against him. “Don’t.”

  He shook his head like a maddened bull. “What’s your problem, Darcy? Can’t you for once admit this is what you want?”

  She laughed wildly. “You know me. There’s always a problem!” Her laugh almost turned into a howl. She threw out supplicating hands.

  For long moments he stared at her in all her staggering beauty. Intent on his own driving passion, pity began to trickle through the great wall of desire. His voice had a jagged edge, but understanding too. “Life has done a job on you, Darcy girl,” he said almost sorrowfully. “Come here to me.” He gathered her back in, cradling her like a child in his arms. “What is it about women who treat men badly? We keep coming back for more. You need help, Darcy. Just tell me this. Are you swearing off sex for the rest of your life?”

  She moaned, the weight of her history heavy on her heart. “Sex is the most dangerous thing in the world. It can be truly wonderous but it can ruin lives.”

  He gave her a long uncomprehending look but she averted her face. He wanted her so much he wasn’t entirely certain what he was going to do next. This woman drove him crazy. “Maybe you’re saving yourself for the right man?” he suggested with black humour. “Frankly if I were you I wouldn’t wait all that much longer. Even I have to get married some time. My mother demands it. She feels deprived without grandchildren. Sunset needs an heir. Only a complete fool, dedicated to masochism, would wait for you.”

  “I’ll kill you if you get married!” she said tightly.

  He gazed down on her for long moments. “You’re quite simply…mad.”

  “I am.” She broke away, making such a mess of doing up her buttons, Curt with a muffled oath did it for her.

  “But you won’t let me save you. Well, it’s only fair to tell you I’m thinking about marriage very seriously. I’ve never got any promises out of you.”

  He couldn’t know the great surge of pain she felt. “You could have any woman you liked.” Her own sister with the blue eyes and the golden curls?

  “That’s right,” he confirmed grimly. “Which is why you should pay attention. Come to think of it my brain must be scrambled trying to get any normal reaction out of you. We’d better go back to the house. I’m about a hair’s breadth away from putting you through a fate worse than death.”

  “I’m sorry, so sorry.” She moaned afresh.

  “About what precisely?” He took a handful of her hair and tipped her face to him. “Darcy, you’re a mystery to me. I loved you. I loved you. I could literally have loved you to the death but you didn’t think my love was worth it. You’ve done everything in your power to kill it.”

  “At least I can’t say I’ll die unloved.” Her little laugh cracked.

  “What went wrong between us, Darcy?” he asked, his eyes deadly serious.

  She flinched a little. “I promise I’ll tell you one day.”

  “Tell me now.”

  She wasn’t capable of doing it. “No,” she said in a tight voice. “It’s not good.”

  “Of course it’s not bloody good.” Even his rage was weary. “It’s sick. You let your father ruin your life. You let that old bastard turn you off me. Who knows what he said. He was a man who had no scruples about achieving his own ends. I thought you loved me. You certainly acted like it. But it wasn’t so. Aah…let’s forget it,” he released her in total self-disgust. “Pretend none of it happened. It’s all water under the bridge anyway.” He turned away from her, speaking over his shoulder. “Before we ride back, I have to advise you as your friend at least to stop flailing yourself about the will. Fight it or accept it. The hard unpalatable fact is your father had a right to do whatever he wanted with his money.”

  “Of course he did,” she cried. “I’m amazed he included me at all. First thing tomorrow I’m going to send away for a big stamp that says: Rejected.”

  “Well get one for me.” He headed away from her, his lean powerful body taut.

  Darcy found herself running after him. “You and Courtney have become very pally.” She stared up at his carved profile. “Do you suppose my little sister who appears so angelic drove a wedge between Dad and me? Could she possibly do that?”

  Curt stopped in his tracks. “Darcy, I would truly hate to think so,” he said.

  “You couldn’t hate it more than me,” Darcy answered sadly. “Those blue eyes of hers would melt any man’s heart.”

  The
same thought had crossed Adam Maynard’s mind many times since he had first laid eyes on the lovely Ms. Courtney McIvor. Very likely she’d left a string of broken hearts in her wake he considered, with the cynicism she seemed to bring out in him. Yet her expression as she sat opposite him was so sad it was all he could do not to offer comfort. The sort of comfort that could get him into all sorts of trouble. Curt had torn after the highly upset Darcy, now they were quite alone in Jock McIvor’s study with McIvor’s painted sapphire eyes checking on their every movement.

  “I shouldn’t have come,” Courtney was saying mournfully, shaking her head as she replayed that upsetting scene.

  “You answered your father’s call,” Adam offered smoothly, wondering where all these upsurges of suspicion were coming from. He certainly didn’t have the old cliché blonde bimbo in mind—one couldn’t miss her intelligence—it was just Ms. Courtney McIvor seemed to him the sort of young woman against whom a man needed a powerful defence.

  Courtney as it happened was well aware of the undercurrents. She drew herself erect, staring across the desk into Adam’s dark eyes. Surely there was a sparkle of mockery in their depths?

  “He never mentioned the possibility of leaving you a great deal of money,” Adam continued, “but you must have considered that was his clear intention?”

  A chill entered Courtney’s charming voice. “Strangely enough, Adam, my first thought as I’ve said before was seeing Darcy again.”

  “That’s what decided you?” He focused on her face. Her skin was beautiful, without blemish. He doubted such a skin would stand up to Outback life. Not that she’d stay. She’d get what she came for and get out.

  “I don’t know why I’m repeating myself, but yes,” she answered, sustaining the searching gaze.

  “You never thought Darcy might consider you the enemy?”

  Her eyes darkened. “I didn’t think Darcy would hold what happened to us against me. I was a child. I had no option but to go with my mother.”

  “No doubt you’ll want to get in touch with your mother?” He asked suavely. “Tell her the good news.”

  Courtney ignored that. “It seems however I’ve made an enemy out of you.”

  Adam backed off. “I’m sorry you should feel like that, Courtney, but I represent you and your sister.”

  Courtney answered promptly. “Who has Curt Berenger for a close friend. I don’t think Curt is going to allow anyone to put anything over him, or Darcy. Curt and Darcy appear to have a troubled history but you saw his reaction. He really cares about her.”

  “He does.” Adam inclined his dark head. “Your sister may well decide to fight the will. She did remain with her father all these years and it’s universally accepted she lent him a great deal of support. There’s also the fact your father led her to believe she would be the major beneficiary. That was how the first will was drafted.”

  Courtney could feel herself getting angry. “Darcy must do what she wants. She won’t let me stand in her way. Besides, as far as I’m concerned, she won’t have to fight anything. She can have whatever she wants. I waive any rights to my inheritance.”

  Adam kept his eyes on her. It was difficult not to she presented such an enchanting picture. “In any case we’re talking at least eighty million.” He heard her sucked in breath. “Maybe more. In other words, plenty to go around.”

  Her golden head snapped up. “I don’t like you, Adam Maynard.”

  “You’re kidding me,” he smiled.

  “No.” She shook her head.

  “You object to my being strictly factual?”

  “I object to your questioning my motivation in coming here. I object to your unspoken insinuations I tried my hardest to exert influence over my father during his last days.”

  “And did you?” he asked quietly.

  “I did not.” Courtney felt the warmth of anger so keenly it licked along her veins.

  “But that’s how it turned out?” he prompted in his lawyer’s voice.

  She should have expected this from Maynard. “It’s one of the strange paradoxes of life, Adam. Surely you’ve encountered it in your career. Dying people make unexpected wills.”

  “Isn’t that the truth!” Adam’s slow smile lit his faintly severe face. “I suppose we’ll never know.”

  “Know what?”

  He shrugged. “Why exactly your father did it when all along he was emphatic Darcy would get the lion’s share.”

  Courtney forced herself to remain calm. “I assure you I’m as much in shock as anyone. I did not take advantage of the situation as you seem to think. Exerting undue influence did not cross my mind.”

  “Of course not,” he rejoined. “It was a potent combination of your youth, your beauty and your charm of manner.” Especially those big blue eyes, he thought. They’d hold any man’s attention. “Clearly Darcy is bitterly upset and disappointed.”

  Courtney nibbled her bottom lip. “Darcy loved Father a lot. He might not have been everyone’s cup of tea but he must have been good to Darcy.”

  Oh good one, Adam thought but remained silent.

  “He’d promised her she’d be rewarded for her love and loyalty. She must feel betrayed.”

  A steely light entered Adam’s eyes. “Who could blame her for taking that view?”

  Courtney felt like flinging a paper weight at him. “Look, I really don’t need this. I’ll renounce my rights. Today if you like.”

  “I don’t think you should. I don’t think you will!” he replied.

  Courtney’s small nostrils flared as anger flowed through her. She stood up in one swift movement, walking to the door. “Something I would like to do is change you as trustee.”

  His self-contained face remained impassive. “In which case the other trustees and your sister would have to agree. Curt trusts me. I believe Darcy does too. I’m sorry if I’ve offended you, Courtney, but it’s my business to know everything. That includes the past.”

  She stared at him for several seconds. “If you’re talking about my past I thought it was an open book?”

  “Not at all!” He shrugged. “You told your father there was no-one, no man in your life—”

  “How do you know that?” Courtney was taken aback.

  “Because your father said so. One of his main concerns was that you didn’t get involved with a man who took too great an interest in your money.”

  “I’m going for a walk.” Courtney said defiantly, her blue eyes sparkling with resentment.

  “May I join you?” Adam stood up, lean and elegant.

  “Sorry, no. You raise my blood pressure. And it’s only going to get worse.”

  “But I was so looking forward to it.” He joined her at the door, his dark gaze locking on hers. “Tell me, do you remember much about the station?”

  “I left it when I was ten.” There was sarcasm in the way she said it.

  “I can remember lots of things before I was ten,” he said, starting along the corridor so confidently, despite herself she felt compelled to fall into line.

  “I suppose you’d already decided to get your teeth into law?” she suggested tartly.

  “Not when I was that young,” he said. When he spoke again his voice had subtly altered. “I thought I might become a firefighter.”

  “A firefighter?” She lifted her head in surprise. “A dangerous job when you’re such a cautious man.”

  His expression suggested what he was going to say wasn’t easy or even planned. “I was staying with my parents at our weekend retreat in the country,” he said, dragging it out as though he was falling back on memory. “It was an old avocado plantation. During the night, the most terrifying night of my life, the old timber house caught fire. Dad rescued my mother and me and our two Labradors. He didn’t get out himself.”

  Courtney was so shocked she stopped walking. She looked up at him in distress. “I am so sorry, Adam.” She could only visualize the horror of the night. The dreadful memories he’d never get out of his syst
em even if he lived forever.

  Instantly his face that had been charged with feeling assumed its habitual mask. “I don’t know why I told you that.”

  “Do you think it was a mistake?”

  He continued to stare into her eyes. “I haven’t spoken about it in many years.” It had to be some special knack she had. Her spell had worked on her father.

  “It must have been a horrendous experience for you and your mother,” she said with exquisite gentleness.

  “My mother couldn’t handle it.” His answer was tense. “Dad was her life. I was reared by my paternal grandparents.”

  Courtney couldn’t ignore the implication. “Does that mean?”

  He appeared to look down and right through her. “The one thing I can’t talk about, Courtney. No more questions, please.” He recommenced walking.

  Courtney followed, unable to conceal her shock. Adam Maynard maybe thirty was already a partner in a prestigious law firm. He looked and spoke as though he had been born with every advantage in life yet he had known terrible tragedy. “Would you like me to drive you around the station?” she offered in a voice that was tender with sympathy. “I do remember a lot of things as it happens. I should be able to point out a few landmarks. I think we should leave Darcy and Curt a note before we go. They’ll wonder if they find us gone.”

  He hesitated, only briefly. “Thank you, Courtney. I’d like that. One moment and I’ll see to it.” He turned to walk back to the study for pen and paper.

  “Leave the note on the console in the entrance hall,” she suggested. “They’ll see it there. I’ll wait for you on the verandah.”

  He was continually amazed by the size of the Outback skies, so brilliantly cloudlessly blue. This was a vast land. Surreal in its way. A savage wilderness that was nevertheless unbelievably dramatic. And dazzling! Not just the quality of light that played tricks on perspective, but the vivid baked-in ochres of the terrain, the colours used by aboriginal artists some of whom were receiving world acclaim: the oranges and bright yellows, the burning reds, the stark whites, the cobalts, the mauves and the amethysts.