by Valerie Parv
“For a city woman?”
“For any woman.”
Her pulse jumped in instant response to his nearness. But she didn’t move back. Didn’t push him away when he invaded the last of her personal space. Worryingly, she even lifted her face so he could kiss her more easily. How could you want something and not want it at the same time?
He threaded his fingers through her hair and the wanting intensified. “This is getting to be a habit,” he growled.
“A bad habit,” she said without much conviction. “Didn’t somebody once say the only way to deal with a habit is to give in to it?”
“Is that what you want?”
Her gaze locked with his. “I shouldn’t.”
“Because?”
Words were hard to summon. Hard to argue against a need so powerful. “My career. Your outback life.”
“I’ll grant you one out of the two.”
And he was right. Their lifestyles weren’t incompatible. But the one impediment she hadn’t mentioned was fear. She valued her independence and hated feeling so needy. Whenever anyone became overly protective, she instinctively pushed them away. She felt the urge to be wanted and needed by Blake so strongly she could almost taste it, and it scared the devil out of her.
Could he possibly know? And why was her independence so important to her that anything threatening it filled her with mind-numbing fear? Being with Nigel or any of her former boyfriends had never triggered such intense feelings. But then none of them had never affected her as strongly as Blake did. Something nagged deep down inside her, but when she reached for it, it scurried out of the light, out of her conscious reach.
“There’s something else, isn’t there? Something you’re not telling me.”
She shifted uncomfortably. When had he become so in tune with her? “What makes you think so?”
He tilted her chin up. “It’s in your eyes. I’ve been around wild creatures a long time and I’ve seen that look before. You want to trust me but for some reason, you can’t let yourself. Someone hurt you pretty badly once. Was it a man?”
Tension gripped her as the nebulous thought in her subconscious scuttled deeper into shadow. She moved her head away from his hand. “I don’t stick around long enough to get hurt.” Now what had possessed her to say that?
He nodded as if he’d heard more than she’d said. “And you don’t plan to this time, even though you can feel the power of what’s between us.”
“What’s between us is pure, unbridled lust,” she said on a brittle note. “Maybe we should just make love and get it out of our systems.”
His head whipped around in instant negation. “I can’t deny the idea has plenty of appeal. Nor that it will happen. But when we make love, it’s going to be for all the right reasons.”
She tried to keep her tone light. Failed miserably. “What do you call the right reasons?”
“The certainty that what you’re doing is so right you can’t hold back a moment longer. The hope that it will lead to an unbreakable bond between the two of you.”
“And if it doesn’t?” she was practically whispering now.
“Sometimes it doesn’t, but you keep trying. Keep hoping.”
She had to move, to busy her hands. If she didn’t, they would be wrapped around him and her mouth would be reaching for his. Setting up her laptop was the safe antidote, the familiar activity, and she took refuge in it. “How have you stayed so positive after all you’ve been through in your life?” she asked without looking at him.
He watched her for a moment. “I only had two options, sink or swim. A long time ago, I made up my mind to swim. Everyone has the same choice.”
Not everyone had his strength. She dragged a folding chair up to the table and opened a file on her computer. The article she’d begun that morning leaped onto the screen, the letters fading in the strong sunlight. Then she realized her view was blurred. She blinked hard. What was it about Blake that pierced straight to the heart of everything she was?
He was still watching her, she noticed out of the corner of her eye, but kept her attention fixed on the screen. “I made more progress than I realized,” she said. “All I have to do is write some snappy closing paragraphs, polish up the rest, and it will be ready to send to Karen.”
“Real life doesn’t always lend itself to snappy closing paragraphs,” he observed. “Most of the time, we have to muddle through with what we’ve got.”
She was tired of feeling so open and exposed to him. She’d had experts trawling through her mind to try to get at the source of her fear of being dependent on anyone. He wasn’t going to do better in a few days. He wasn’t a therapist. Maybe there wasn’t anything to find. “Don’t you have a crocodile to wrestle or something?” she demanded. “I have work to do.”
“You got that right,” he said softly, his tone making it clear that he didn’t mean the article. “I’ll help you.”
“So you can get me into bed?”
“Low blow,” he said. “We both know I could get you into bed in the next thirty seconds if I wanted to.”
She couldn’t deny what he’d felt for himself when he’d held her in his arms. Her resistance to his appeal was zero. She half turned and opened her arms in a theatrical gesture. “Then what are you waiting for? Take me, I’m yours.” Heat flooded through her, the invitation not entirely in jest.
He heard it, too. “If I believed that, I’d sweep you into the shelter so fast your head would spin. But it isn’t true, not yet anyway. When we make love, I want you with me in spirit as well as body.”
Going to the Jeep he pulled out a sturdy-looking rod and reel, slung a pack over his shoulder and strode off into the bush, leaving his words hanging in the air behind him.
When. Not if. He’d said it as if it was only a matter of time. “I have to write,” she mumbled, feeling her fear return. How she hated this. Why couldn’t they have a fun fling and be done with it?
Because of his blasted code of the outback, she thought, raising her head from the screen. How did it go? You don’t back down, you don’t give up and you stand by your mates.
Even when they didn’t want you to?
So it would seem. Releasing a breath composed of equal parts longing and exasperation, Jo got to work.
Chapter 8
Karen must have picked up the phone as soon as she received her e-mail, Jo decided when her cell phone rang moments later. In the middle of recording a video diary entry, she stopped the camera and opened her phone. “Jo Francis.”
“Great work, Jo. The article really sizzles. The digital photos are excellent, too.”
Recognizing her editor’s voice, Jo let her eyebrows lift. “You didn’t waste any time reading it.”
“I’m as fascinated by your experience as our readers are going to be.”
Jo pulled a face at the phone. “So my deathless prose isn’t the reason you rushed to call me?”
“You don’t need me to tell you you’re a good writer,” Karen said briskly. “But the best writer in the world can’t make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear.”
They didn’t talk in clichés either, Jo thought good-humoredly. “Then you’re not concerned about me finding the snake in my bag?”
“Why? It’s exactly the sort of adventure you’re supposed to be having. You are all right, aren’t you? The snake didn’t bite you?”
Contrarily, Jo was irritated at Karen’s evident complacency. Jo didn’t want Karen pulling back on the story, because she considered it too dangerous. But she might show some concern for her reporter’s well-being. Make up your mind, she thought. “If it had, I wouldn’t be here talking about it,” she told Karen. “Blake knew exactly how to deal with the snake.”
“He’s quite an asset, isn’t he?”
In more ways than one, came the swift thought. “He’s at home in the outback. And surprisingly tolerant of my inexperience.”
“And?”
And he pushes every one of my buttons, and there
’s every chance we’ll go to bed together before this assignment is over, Jo thought. She wasn’t about to share such an admission with her editor. Other than at the office party, when Karen had talked about not having children, they’d never indulged in much girl talk and Jo wasn’t comfortable starting now. It wasn’t like Karen to take much interest in the private life of a staff member. Maybe Karen also found Blake attractive.
The swift, sharp stab of jealousy caught Jo unawares. “And he’ll make sure I don’t kill myself before this is over. Although you have to agree, it would make a heck of a closing article for the series.”
“Don’t even joke about it,” Karen snapped. “I’m well aware that what you’re doing has its dangers and I trust you to be sensible.”
Now she sounded like the headmistress from Jo’s old high school. “Yes ma’am,” she murmured dutifully, deciding that the image didn’t suit the older woman. “Have you spoken to your husband about saving Lauren’s house?” she asked to change the subject.
There was a long pause. “Ron has been very busy lately.”
In other words, no. “You will talk to him before he goes any further with his development plans, won’t you?”
“I’ve said I would.”
Subject closed, Jo heard. Had she made a mistake leaving Perth before the question was resolved? She’d taken the assignment to please Karen, on condition that the editor would use her influence with her husband to let Lauren and her friends remain in their home. If Karen didn’t keep her end of the bargain, this had all been for nothing.
Not quite for nothing, Jo thought with a glance at the track Blake had taken into the bush. She would still have her memories of him and his primeval world. The thought of leaving the Kimberley behind—leaving him behind?—was surprisingly disconcerting. “I’m sure you’ll do everything you can,” she told Karen.
She heard computer keys tapping as the editor multi-tasked. “I’m not as heartless as you seem to think. I’m well aware of how much you care about your friend, and how important it is for someone like her to have a settled home and familiar surroundings.”
Jo didn’t like hearing Lauren described as “someone like her” but she was careful not to risk offending Karen further. She was still Lauren’s best hope. Ron Prentiss was on record as saying he’d do anything for the wife he adored. Jo remembered seeing an interview with the millionaire property developer in which he crowed about how impressed he’d been at Karen’s virginal state when they’d met, and how he always wanted to be first with her in everything. He’d added that if another man so much as looked at her, he didn’t know what he’d do.
Jealous? Jo asked herself. While she wouldn’t want the world knowing the details, she knew she’d give a lot to have a man feel that way about her.
Who was she kidding? The moment a man took such an intense interest in her, she’d run a as fast as she could to get away from him. She valued her independence too much to want what Karen and Ron Prentiss had.
Didn’t she?
“I have to go,” she said. “My phone battery’s running low.” Unless she collected the spare batteries she’d left with Cade to recharge, she would soon be off the air completely.
“I will talk to Ron,” Karen promised. “In the meantime, see if you can persuade Blake to give you an interview about himself. Use your feminine charms.”
They might work for Karen on Ron, but Jo couldn’t see them having much effect on Blake. “He’s publicity shy,” she said, wondering again why the editor was so interested in the crocodile man. Given her husband’s possessiveness, she would seem to be playing with fire.
“And send me more photos,” Karen said as if Jo hadn’t spoken. “One of Blake handling a snake or a crocodile would be sensational.”
What am I, invisible? Jo thought. Anyone would think Blake was the focus of this story. Karen seemed far more interested in him than in Jo’s activities. She was jealous, she decided, of her editor playing favorites. Jo couldn’t possibly feel territorial about Blake, or could she? She should be glad she had something she could use to persuade Karen to keep her end of their bargain.
“I’ll see what I can do. Let me know when you’ve spoken to Ron,” she said. She started to say goodbye, but Karen had already hung up.
Blake had meant what he’d said to Jo. They wouldn’t make love until she wanted him as much as he wanted her. Something was keeping her from giving herself to him. Perhaps had stopped her from giving herself completely to any man.
If she didn’t resolve whatever was getting in her way, taking her to bed might make things worse. The better their lovemaking—and Blake fully intended to make it spectacular—the greater the likelihood that her unnamed fear would send her running afterward. And Blake didn’t want her running anywhere but into his arms.
Reaching the rock landing overhanging the creek, he hunkered down, looking for signs of human intrusion but finding no fresh evidence. Had failing to scare Jo away by luring the crocodile in close to the camp and by planting the snake in her bag, or knowing she was now under Blake’s protection, forced Max to change his tactics?
At the thought of the man pawing his foster sister, Blake stood up, his fingers white around the fishing rod. He didn’t think there was a chance of Judy being seriously interested in the man, but the idea of Max as a prospective brother-in-law turned Blake’s stomach.
Since there was nothing he could do about the situation now except trust both the women in his life, he set about catching a barramundi for their dinner. The barra was the legendary eating fish of the tropical north, gracing the menus of the finest restaurants. Right now was the prime time for catching the fish around the inland creeks and lagoons.
From his pack, he retrieved a minnow-shaped plastic lure designed to swim about three feet below the surface. Tying it to a sixteen-pound line at the end of a heavier leader and sinker, he cast the rig out over a cluster of fallen trees where the water tended to be warmer and the fish food plentiful. Then he twitched the rod tip to make the lure jump around in the water in imitation of the insects that were the barra’s favorite meal.
He didn’t have too long to wait. After a series of fruitless casts, working the lure all the way back to his feet and then casting it out again, he felt something strike the lure hard and his rod bent almost ninety degrees. He began to wind the line in as fast as he could, concentrating on keeping the line taut while the aggressive fish indulged in a series of rod-bending lunges that made Blake’s arms feel as if they would be torn from their sockets.
Several times, he thought the fish had snagged his line under fallen trees or rock bars but he kept up the pressure, gradually playing the fish closer and closer to the rocks until he could slip a net under it and bring it to shore.
All the time, he kept a wary eye on the water at his feet, alert in case the big crocodile that frequented the creek decided to take an interest in his catch. It wouldn’t be the first time he’d left fish lying half in and half out of the water to keep them cool, and returned to find only the heads remaining. But the crocodile must have fed recently because Blake saw no sign of it.
The barramundi was a good fifteen pounds in weight, he assessed as he cleaned and prepared the fish well away from the water’s edge. No sense in tempting fate more than necessary. When he’d finished the job he threw the fish head and trimmings into the creek, knowing they wouldn’t go to waste.
By the time he returned to camp, Jo had put away her laptop and had dragged the folding table into the center of the clearing. She was setting it with enamel plates and mugs for three. She looked so attractive that his breath caught and he stopped at the edge of the clearing, and enjoyed the view.
She’d bunched her hair up on top of her head for coolness, and a few tendrils curled onto her neck. Her skin was turning golden from the sun, despite the sunscreen she applied conscientiously. The top three buttons of her checked western-style shirt were undone, revealing a generous expanse of creamy flesh. She looked so enticing that
he almost forgot his vow not to make love to her until he could be sure not to frighten her away.
He instantly suppressed the low groan that collected in his throat. The urge to take her into his arms was almost overwhelming. He wasn’t a psychologist. Maybe he was wrong. She might not be spooked. She might even thank him for showing her that her fears were groundless.
And he might wake up one morning to find her gone without explanation.
The prospect made his blood turn to ice. He knew once he had possessed her he would never want to let her go. For a moment, he shared her fear. Until Des and Fran came into his life, he hadn’t experienced much in the way of happy families, starting with the most elemental relationship—his mother. What made him think he had what it took to create something lasting with Jo?
Was she also afraid that love didn’t last? Unlike his there was nothing in Jo’s family history to support the fear. She had loving parents who were still happily married and brothers whose main crime, according to Jo, was overprotectiveness. Until he knew what was making her so afraid to trust him, he would have to take extra care with her.
Jo hummed to herself as she prepared the table. She was probably being overly fussy. This was a bush camp, after all. Placing wildflowers in a glass in the center of the table was hardly essential to their survival. But they looked pretty and added to her sense of occasion. For a foolish moment, she wished she and Blake were dining alone under the stars.
This was a business arrangement. He wouldn’t be here at all if he wasn’t being paid by the magazine to assist her, she reminded herself. He had hardly fallen over himself to make love to her when given the chance. Telling herself he’d pulled back for her sake didn’t help. She hadn’t wanted him to. She’d wanted…in truth, she didn’t know what she’d wanted. Maybe he was right. It was better to wait until she was free of doubts.
Would she know when that time came? As a young teenager, she’d asked her mother how you knew when you were in love. Frustratingly, her mother’s answer had been, “You’ll know.” Jo guessed the same applied now. If Blake was right and some deep-seated explanation for her fear needed to be dislodged before they made love, then she’d better start working on the cause of the fear.
