by Valerie Parv
Feeling better for having reaffirmed the decision, she reached for her pack, pulling her hand back as she remembered what had been in there the last time she opened it. This time a cautious prod yielded no movement, so she opened the pack and took out her compact video camera.
Absorbed in his task, Blake didn’t look up when she approached and the camera was almost silent so she was able to film him working for some minutes before he noticed what she was doing.
He stopped immediately, his gaze darkening. “I thought we agreed…”
“We agreed I wouldn’t interview you,” she cut in. “This isn’t an interview. It’s for my private…record.”
She’d nearly said enjoyment.
“I prefer that you don’t.”
She snapped the camera off. “Then I won’t. Don’t you want to be known as the Indiana Jones of the Kimberley?”
He shook his head. “I’ll settle for a kiss, thanks.”
“Isn’t everybody supposed to want fame?”
“As an abandoned kid, I made enough headlines to last me a lifetime. One of my foster families had all the newspaper clippings. After seeing them, I decided fame is overrated. Now are we going to talk or build?”
Watching him work and helping where she could, she was awed by how easy he made the job seem. One minute there was a bundle of forked sticks and twigs on the ground; the next, there was a rough framework roomy enough to shelter two adults. There was no covering as yet, only thin crosspieces of wood that he said would support a thatch roof.
While she held the last batten, he tied it into position and stood back. “All it needs now is some thatching to keep out the weather, and it’s done. Before we do that, does your camera have a remote trigger?”
“Yes.” She passed the camera to him. “I thought you didn’t approve of making a taped record.”
“For this I do.”
Curious, she followed him down to the bank of the creek, keeping a wary eye on the water. If the giant crocodile lurked in the green depths, she couldn’t see any sign of it. The carpet of water lilies looked tranquil and innocent. All the more reason to be cautious, she reminded herself.
Blake seemed unworried as he set the camera on its stand on the bank, pulling bushes around the location as a screen. “Are you hoping to photograph the crocodile?” she asked.
“We might catch a predator in action.”
Understanding grew. “You’re after Eddy.” Why hadn’t she thought of that herself?
“A court may not accept the recording as evidence of any wrongdoing, but Eddy’s clan elders certainly would, and he’d have to account to them for his actions.” Blake fiddled with the settings and then trailed the remote control to the landing, covering the cord with leaf litter. Anyone stepping onto the rocks would trigger the camera. “I hope you brought a supply of spare batteries.”
She nodded. “Do you plan to hide and wait for him?”
“It could be hours before he shows up or not at all. You have a roof to thatch.”
She stepped over the concealed cord to his side. “I’ve never thatched a roof in my life.”
He checked his handiwork one more time. “Think of it as knitting with grass.”
“Do I look like a woman who knits?”
“You look like a woman who does anything she sets her mind to.”
About to accuse him of chauvinism, she blew out a breath instead. “I hope you realize, if I do the work our agreement is off.”
His smile slanted wickedly. “Then I’d better collect while I still can.”
“That wasn’t what I…”
Whatever else she might have said was swept away as he took her in his arms and found her mouth with unerring precision.
She should kiss him back lightly, playfully, in the spirit of their deal. Not splay her fingers across his back and meet the pressure of his mouth with shameful eagerness. But choice seemed to have fled with his touch.
Heat skipped across her skin. Her heart pumped. This wasn’t a game. It was seduction, pure and simple. Against everything she believed she wanted. “The shelter…” she said shakily, striving to ground herself in ordinary matters.
He chose to misunderstand. “Good idea.”
Too overwhelmed to think straight, she let herself be held against his side and steered back to the campsite, where the unfinished shelter beckoned. She longed to enter it with him and give in to the desire pouring through her. The primitive setting demanded primitive responses. But accompanying the desire was a terrible feeling of foreboding that worsened as they neared the shelter.
Moving toward the structure, her steps faltered as she tried to figure out her confused feelings. Wanting Blake wasn’t a crime. They were both free and consenting adults. Was she worried about what would happen when this adventure ended? She already knew she would return to her city life and he to his crocodile park, and they’d probably never meet again. Cause for regret but surely not for the fear gripping her.
“Our deal was for one kiss,” she said, pitching her voice low to hide the tremor.
“Any deal can be renegotiated.”
He sounded as edgy as she felt. But a lot more sure of what he wanted to do about it. “We should finish the shelter.”
“Testing it would be more rewarding.”
She resisted the temptation to agree. “But not very practical.”
“You’re really going to stick to business, aren’t you?”
“For now.” Not what she had intended to say at all.
He nodded as if he’d heard the thought. “Very well, we’ll stick to business for now. But what’s between us isn’t going away.”
“I’m not ready,” she said.
Blake frowned. “Ready for what?”
She spread her hands. “Your family history may make you see relationships differently than I do.”
“My history may not have sold me on happy ever afters, but what’s wrong with happy for the moment?”
“I am happy for the moment,” she insisted less than honestly, then threw his own words back at him. “Are we going to talk or build?”
He could also twist words. “Build. For now.”
While he went looking for suitable roofing material, she made a sketch of the shelter in her notebook. She couldn’t help admiring the ingenious way Blake had planted sticks in the ground to make an A-frame, tying each pair of sticks at the top with lengths of vine. Thin pieces of wood were tied at intervals to the long sides of the shelter. It looked strong enough to stand for some time.
Striving to be practical, Jo couldn’t help thinking what a beautiful, primitive bower the shelter would make for a tryst. The floor could be carpeted with leaves, making a soft, fragrant bed for two as moonlight filtered through the thatched roof.
She tore the page out of her notebook and crumpled it. The shelter was designed for survival, not lovemaking. She had Blake to thank for making her think in those terms. And in any case, though she might be prepared to kiss him, her idea of a romantic hideaway came with five stars and room service, not crocodiles and snakes.
She was here to do a job, not fall in love. What was it about Blake that made her forget why she was here? What was it about him that made her turn a deaf ear to her common sense and listen to her heart instead?
Ruggedly handsome he might be, but he had a complicated history, and his interests were a world away from hers. She couldn’t imagine him in a crowded nightclub where you could hardly hear yourself think. He needed wide open spaces and being close to nature.
The Kimberley suited him, she thought, remembering how often she’d longed to get away from the noise and strobe lights when she’d been out with Nigel. She’d have to be careful not to confuse her enjoyment of the outback solitude with her feelings for Blake.
Blake returned with an armful of long, pliable tufts of grass. Demonstrating, he said, “You take a handful, bend it over the side battens and secure it by twisting a strand around the sheath just under the batten.”
His hand
closed over hers, directing her inexperienced movements. “Then you slide the sheaves along the batten so they overlap and form a weatherproof barrier, like this.”
With an effort, she focused her mind on the task, although it was difficult when every movement brought her into contact with him. Somehow they got the thatching completed.
“If this was a true survival exercise, we’d make a bed out of forest debris,” he said.
Remembering her vision of sharing a leafy bower with him, she said, “There’s a limit to how authentic I’m prepared to be for the magazine.”
“Survival with a few frills,” he reminded her. Disappearing into the tent, he soon came back carrying one of the cots, with a sleeping bag draped over his shoulder.
“What inspired your editor to assign you to this story?” he asked as he set up the stretcher.
Jo came back with the second stretcher and sleeping bag, trying not to notice how close together they would be in the narrow shelter. “I’ve been asking myself the same question ever since Karen dreamed up the idea. The Prentisses are hardly outdoor types, but she was determined to have this story.”
“Ron Prentiss is a property developer, isn’t he?”
“Big-time. He’s the main reason I agreed to do this.”
She’d snagged Blake’s interest, she saw. “Is he involved with the magazine?”
She shook out the sleeping bag and handed it to him. “He owns it, but leaves running it entirely to Karen. He calls it her little hobby.”
“Expensive hobby,” Blake observed.
“Not in their circle. She told me he bought the magazine so she’d stay out of his projects. One of which could leave a friend of mine homeless.”
“How so?”
She stopped rummaging through the food stores. “Lauren Gale and I have been friends since my school set up a kind of mentoring relationship with her school when I was fifteen. She’s a great kid, full of laughter and energy, just a few years behind her age group developmentally.
“Ron Prentiss wants to put up an apartment block that would mean tearing down the group home where she and her friends live. I hate to think how she’ll manage if that happens. She’s happy and well-adjusted where she is, but she doesn’t cope well with change.”
“So by writing your boss’s pet story, you’re hoping she’ll use her influence with her husband,” Blake surmised. “Sounds like a long shot. What will you do if it doesn’t work out?”
“Then I’ll think of something else,” she said. She dived back into the food box. “You have a choice of soup or soup with the leftover bread. I’m too tired to cook tonight.”
“I could do it.”
She yawned hugely. “Thanks, but I’m too tired to eat, as well. Staying up all last night is taking its toll. I might settle for a hunk of the bread and some fruit, and call it a night.”
“At least you won’t lie awake out in the open, wondering what’s out there,” he pointed out.
She nodded, sure that his nearness would be more disturbing than anything in the bush. Luckily, her tiredness wasn’t an act. What with snakes, crocodiles, Nigel’s departure and Blake’s effect on her, she was genuinely worn out.
All the same, after they ate and cleaned up, she lay awake for some time listening to the sounds of him moving around the camp. He had elected to stay up, claiming he never went to bed early even after being up all night.
She turned her head to look at his bed, less than a hand’s span away from hers. They might as well be sharing a double bed. They would have been if she had been willing. The thought sent alarm rushing through her, and she turned abruptly away to gaze at the thatching through which moonlight filtered.
In the distance, she heard a dingo call and relaxed, enjoying the primitive night sounds and imagining Nigel’s astonishment that she could actually like sleeping in a rustic shelter under the stars.
In this state of mind, she drifted into a dreamless sleep.
Blake cradled his coffee mug and stared into the embers of the campfire. Behind him he heard the small sounds of Jo settling to sleep. Everything in him urged him to join her and finish what they’d started earlier in the day.
She’d said she wasn’t ready but in his arms, she had felt more than ready. Eager. It wouldn’t have taken much persuasion on his part for them to have made love. The thought made his groin tighten. But he didn’t want to persuade her. Didn’t want her having second thoughts later. When they made love—and he had no doubt it was when, not if—he wanted her as hungry for him as he was for her.
She thought she had unfinished business with Nigel, but she was wrong. In Blake’s experience, no man walked away from a woman he cared about unless he was sacrificing himself for her benefit. And Nigel didn’t strike Blake as the self-sacrificing type.
He had a feeling Jo knew it and was using Nigel as a shield against whatever was between her and Blake. The thought made a smile of satisfaction play around his mouth. He could live with that until she was ready to accept reality. Then it wouldn’t matter whether he came to her in a luxury hotel room or a leafy shelter under the stars. The result would be spectacular.
Cold shower time, Stirton, he told himself. Or the next best thing the outback had to offer. He kicked soil over the embers, making sure no sparks remained, then went to wash his cup and himself in a bucket of water. Some time later, chores completed, he was stretched out on the cot beside Jo, the pleasure of watching her sleep threatening to undo the benefits of the cold sponge bath.
Wearing a knee-length T-shirt with a Kisses From The Kimberley logo rising and falling with every breath, she sprawled half-out of the sleeping bag as if she was hot. One arm was crooked over her head, and her smile suggested a pleasant dream. He yearned to share whatever was provoking that Mona Lisa smile. He yearned for a lot more, and had to remind himself of his vow to wait until she was ready. The wait would make their joining all the sweeter.
If he’d learned one thing on his crocodile hunts, it was the virtue of patience.
Unable to stop himself, he leaned across the narrow space between their beds and brushed his lips over hers. Only a taste to hold him until she was ready, he told himself.
Instantly liquid fire tore along his veins and he bit back a groan. He should have known a taste would only sharpen his need. He lowered himself onto his own cot, taking deep breaths and willing the tremors to pass. He’d desired other women and satisfied himself and them without feeling this all-consuming hunger. It scared him. He’d built his life around not needing anyone. He might choose their company, as he’d done with Des Logan and his family, but Blake had grown up determined not to need anyone. Not to leave himself open to being abandoned ever again.
He had reckoned without Jo Francis.
“What are you so cheerful about?” he groused, hearing her hum as she prepared muesli and toast for their breakfast. He’d already made coffee and was on his second cup, needing the caffeine fix after a night of fitful sleep.
“It’s a beautiful morning. I slept well. Didn’t you?” she asked innocently as they ate.
He debated telling her that she’d kept him awake long into the night, wondering how she fit into his self-contained life and finally deciding she didn’t. He kept quiet because the logical conclusion hadn’t swayed the part of him she touched so effortlessly. He shouldn’t want her, but he did.
“I slept well enough,” he said. “What’s on this morning’s agenda?”
“I need to work on my article for Karen.”
“While you’re doing that, I’ll replenish our water supply and check on the video camera.”
“Watch out for the…” she started to say, then intercepted his pitying look and remembered who she was talking to. “Just because you’re a crocodile man, you can still get eaten.”
“I won’t,” he assured her. He had no intention of taking risks when he still hoped to catch Eddy Gilgai. Hoping to make love to Jo gave Blake another incentive to take care.
Jo pushed the
breakfast things aside and opened her laptop computer on the folding table. She couldn’t remember when she had felt so energized. Was it the outback setting, or sharing it with Blake? She banished the possibility as ideas and fragments of sentences began to take shape in her mind. Soon the words were pouring through her fingers almost faster than she could type.
She hardly looked up when Blake returned, until he set the water container down and came to her at the table, the video camera in his hand.
Then she noticed his set expression. “Did we get anything useful?”
He pulled a chair up beside her. “Lots of footage of animals coming to the landing to drink early this morning. Then this.”
He showed her the tiny preview screen. She could make out a figure stepping up to the landing and dropping down to examine the rocks, unaware of the camera recording the activity. She frowned. “It isn’t Eddy, so who?”
“Take a closer look.”
She took the camera from him, went back to where the figure arrived on the scene, and studied the sequence that followed. Something about the person was familiar. Then it came to her and she looked at Blake in confusion. “Your sister, Judy? Why would she be hanging around the creek at sunrise?”
His mouth tightened into a grim line. “I don’t know but I intend to find out.”
Chapter 7
“Where is everybody?” Jo asked as they neared the Logan homestead. The sprawling house that sat on a ridge of grassland between river and rain forest looked deserted.
“Des had to let a lot of the staff go when he couldn’t meet the payroll,” Blake said. “The few who remain are taking care of the cattle. Andy and his people told Des he can pay them when he’s able. Without Andy and his friends, Diamond Downs wouldn’t survive.”
“Karma,” she murmured.
“What?”
“For years, he’s given so much to others. Now it’s coming back to him in the form of love and loyalty.”
He parked the car under the shade of a sprawling gum tree and they got out. “You really believe in karma?”
“I believe what goes around comes around.” Her tone dared him to disagree.
