The Bridegroom's Dilemma

by Lindsay Armstrong

  Skye closed her eyes and fought the memories but it was useless. How to forget the feel of his hands on her as he’d lifted her from the water that night and held her up? Or forget how a little breeze on her wet skin had caused her nipples to unfurl, how she’d twined her legs around his waist and wrapped her arms around his neck and how wonderful the close contact of their cool, wet bodies had been…?

  ‘We didn’t make it back to the house,’ he mused reminiscently. ‘It was a magnificent night and we found a patch of lawn under a tree, but at first you weren’t all that keen, despite how we’d frolicked in the pool. You looked at me as if to say, This is living just a bit too dangerously, Nick. So we sat wrapped in our towels, I built a fire out of leaves and twigs, and we held hands and told each other jokes until we couldn’t stop laughing.’

  Skye gritted her teeth and knew it was no good asking him what he thought he was doing. Because she knew only too well—he was reminding her of exactly what she’d walked away from. Although why he was choosing to do it was another matter—male ego? Surely Wynn would have restored that by now…

  ‘Then you didn’t seem to mind making…’ he paused ‘…lovely, exciting love to me under that tree, Skye.’

  She turned slowly at last. ‘I remember. I wasn’t even that keen on swimming in the nude to start with. So if you’re trying to say you liberated me from some of my inhibitions, so you did.’ She swallowed.

  ‘And that’s something you regret?’ His gaze was terribly mocking.

  She folded her arms as she leant back against a post, and forced herself to say quietly, ‘What I do regret is not knowing how much of it was the real me or the other Skye Belmont who thought she was doing the things Nick Hunter wanted her to do.’

  ‘That’s crazy—’

  ‘That’s not so crazy, Nick,’ she said steadily. ‘But of course there are other regrets. You’re…wonderful to sleep with, lovely company and all the rest, but you’re not for me.’

  There was silence then she straightened, walked over to him and put the tips of her fingers on his cheek, and went on, ‘So, don’t take any notice of what I might think about Wynn. Because she’ll suit you far better than I would have. Goodnight.’

  She disappeared into her room like a wraith in the night.

  Nick Hunter swore beneath his breath.

  CHAPTER THREE

  SKYE slept dreamlessly and woke early.

  But as she lay in bed and listened to a rooster crowing her conversation with Nick came back to her vividly. And the thought slid into her mind that she should be on television… It had been that kind of bravura performance she’d put on after he’d done his damnedest to make her ache with desire for him.

  Of course, she was on television, she reminded herself ironically. That was half the problem. But a new problem was raising its head within her. Since when had she taken to deluding herself?

  Because, at the time, she’d meant every word she’d said to Nick. Yet the truth was she bitterly regretted losing him; she felt as if she’d been torn in two; life without him was almost unbearable. But, worse than that, the thought of him with another woman was a form of torture. Especially a woman she could put a name and a face to—a woman like Wynn Mortimer. Just to watch them dancing together had been hell…

  She must be mad, she thought miserably as she lay against a vast feather pillow in her blue silk nightgown with her hands folded upon a white crocheted coverlet.

  So what did that translate to? That she’d been mad to break up with Nick in the first place? That the defences and the arguments she’d put up at the time had been trivial?

  ‘No,’ she said aloud and softly, with a frown of pain. ‘And more so now because he made no effort to understand or come to a compromise, and whether she picked him up or not he’s still with someone else!’

  Which brought Bryce to mind, and she sighed heavily. How on earth had she got herself into this terrible predicament? What could she do?

  Go home, a little voice said in her head. She cast aside the bedclothes, full of sudden decision.

  Almost everyone had other ideas, however.

  Bryce was the first person she encountered.

  Breakfast was laid out on the table on the veranda and he was sitting at the table with a walking stick beside him and his bound ankle resting on a cushion on the floor.

  ‘Bryce,’ she said warmly, ‘how are you?’

  He raised his eyes to hers slowly. ‘Wishing there was an almighty hole I could crawl into,’ he replied with great feeling.

  ‘Don’t—please don’t feel like that,’ she pleaded. ‘It was the kind of accident that could have happened to anyone.’

  ‘You don’t really believe that, Skye,’ he said gloomily. ‘And it wasn’t only what I did but what I said! I’m sure that’s why you ran away,’ he added, with a suddenly acute little look.

  Skye grimaced and sat down beside him. ‘To be honest, Bryce, there was nothing I could think of to say or do—it just…’

  ‘Was the last straw?’ he supplied.

  She shrugged. ‘It wasn’t an easy day.’

  ‘Don’t I know it? I’m just hoping and praying you’re not thinking of going home because of it?’

  Skye poured herself some orange juice as she tried to marshal the right words to say. ‘Well, since you mention it—’

  Bryce sat up urgently. ‘Don’t, Skye. You’ll never get over him if you keep running away from him.’

  ‘That’s what Sally said but I feel like a—I just know I shouldn’t be here. Dear Bryce,’ she added contritely, ‘I’m truly sorry; you’ve been so sweet—’

  ‘Then why don’t you leave him to the machinations of that awful woman and just take a bit of time to get to know me better, Skye?’

  Skye blinked several times and several expressions chased across her face. ‘So you don’t like her either?’ she said, and immediately wondered why she was taking up the least important point of his surprising statement. ‘I mean—it doesn’t matter, of course, but—’

  ‘No, I don’t. I never have liked that kind of man-eating woman.’

  For a moment Skye was tempted to burst out laughing, so distasteful did he look. But he then took her breath away by adding, ‘I would also like the question of Nick Hunter finally resolved for you, Skye, because—and please don’t feel you have to take the least responsibility for this—then you might just want to get to know me better.’

  ‘Oh, Bryce,’ she said on a sigh, ‘I was afraid of this, but look…’ She paused and frowned.

  That was when Mary Clarke joined them on the veranda and after they’d exchanged greetings and she’d asked after Bryce’s ankle she said diffidently to Skye, ‘I’ve sent Peter home, Skye, to pick up my grandmother’s cookbook. It’s an absolute gem of a country woman’s cookbook and she illustrated it herself in the margins. You’re very welcome to use any of the recipes in your book.’

  ‘Home?’ Skye said. ‘I thought—’

  ‘That’s a drive of about a hundred miles,’ Bryce contributed.

  ‘He won’t mind that. He’s used to driving long distances,’ Mary said serenely. ‘We could go through it together sometime today or tomorrow. I know you’ll be fascinated.’

  Skye swallowed. ‘That’s really kind of you, Mary. Thank you very much. I…I…’

  It was Jack who arrived on the veranda this time, to put a further dampener on Skye’s plans to go home. Jack flew his own plane and it wouldn’t have taken long for him to fly her to Cooktown where there were commercial flights to Cairns. Jack, however, arrived scratching his head and muttering about fuel injectors. Nick was with him and they’d both obviously scrubbed up for the meal but still had grease streaks on their clothes.

  It was Bryce who sat up suddenly and said on a note of eagerness unbefitting the situation, ‘Don’t tell me you’re earthbound at the moment, Jack?’

  ‘Sure am. I’ll have to get a part flown in from Cairns but the earliest they can do it is Monday.’

 
; Skye concealed a sigh of sheer frustration and asked herself what the alternative was. A long, backbreaking lift in a vehicle with a stranger? Trouble was, all roads were leading to Mount Gregory at the moment. And that only left Nick, who, despite being engaged to her for six months, had never flown her anywhere, which was why she hadn’t recognized his light plane on the station strip.

  How could she ask him to fly her out?

  Wynn set the seal on her fate by arriving last at breakfast, and completely ignoring her.

  Don’t take offence, Skye warned herself. Don’t take—anything! But she did. She suddenly found herself determined to stay on—a determination that had nothing to do with the fact that she had little choice.

  The rest of breakfast was spent discussing plans for the day. They’d have an early light lunch, Sally suggested, then hit the race track. But if anyone wanted to wander down beforehand and see the sights they should please feel free to do so.

  Skye decided to do exactly that, on her own, with a notebook and pencil.

  It required being less than honest and open to achieve it, however. As soon as she saw Bryce gearing himself to accompany her should she desire to go walkabout, she murmured something about spending an hour with her laptop, to put her initial impressions of Mount Gregory down. Jack then suggested he drive Bryce and whoever was interested to see a new stud bull he’d acquired.

  But in the seclusion of her room Skye didn’t even open her laptop. She put on a pair of khaki trousers, a checked shirt that she left hanging out, and boots. She flattened her hair to her head and put on a straight brown wig with a long fringe and added a battered felt broad-brimmed cattleman’s hat that she’d borrowed from the stand in the hall. As a final precaution, she donned a pair of wrap-around, very dark sunglasses.

  And, confident that no one would recognize her, she slipped out the back way.

  No one did recognize her and for at least an hour she wandered around the tent city that had grown beside the race track. It was fascinating.

  Mount Gregory was a huge cattle station, most of it rolling scrub country, criss-crossed by cattle trails in the red earth. It was isolated, prone to droughts and floods, and it was often awesomely beautiful, as Jack had been describing to them over dinner the previous evening. When its billabongs were full of bird life, when a good season brought tiny wild flowers, when the colours of the country took your breath away—red ochre, sage-green, blue sky.

  But it was a hard life living and working in this country. And its people loved a chance to party. As they gave every indication of as Skye wandered around.

  There were hot-food stalls, gambling games, people selling leather goods like belts and stock whips, as well as semiprecious stones. She caught herself thinking that Nick would be interested.

  There were huge dogs tied up in the back of small trucks, plenty of evidence of a good, solid intake of beer and very much a carnival atmosphere. There were horses everywhere, as well as broad-brimmed, high-crowned felt hats such as the one she was wearing.

  It was the beer intake that nearly brought about her undoing. A tall man with a slurred voice and a very red face started to follow her, making comments about what a nice little heifer she looked to be. She ignored him but decided it might be time to head back to the homestead.

  Her admirer had other ideas. He came up and tried to put his arms around her, breathing beery fumes all over her as she struggled to get free. The next moment he was lying in the dust and she was clamped to someone else’s chest.

  Someone who said, ‘Skye, should you be wandering around on your own?’

  Her heart, already beating heavily from the encounter with the drunk, began to beat a different tattoo because these arms and this chest felt so much like home to her.

  ‘Nick,’ she gasped gratefully. Then, as it occurred to her that, by her own hand, she’d given up all rights to this kind of intimacy with Nick Hunter, she said a little desperately, ‘Let me go, Nick. I’m fine.’

  He let her go.

  ‘How…how did you know it was me?’ she stammered.

  That dark gaze drifted wryly down her in a manner she knew so well, pausing quizzically on her brown hair then continuing leisurely. ‘The way you walk,’ he said softly, ‘your hands, your—outline, which I happen to know rather well.’

  Her face flamed.

  ‘But is a wig really necessary?’ he went on, touching a tress of the brown hair that lay on her shoulder.

  ‘You never know,’ she said stiffly. ‘Um…I just wanted to get some of the local colour. For my book. On my own.’

  He took her hand and led her through a gate into a grassed area behind the old grandstand. ‘You succeeded,’ he drawled. ‘You should have taken into account that even incognito you present a very tempting—outline, Skye.’

  ‘Were you following me?’ she asked tartly; it was all she could think of to say.

  ‘I didn’t set out to but once I realized it was you, yes. The other thing you should have thought of, Skye, is that a lot of the men here lead lonely, women-less lives on huge cattle stations.’

  ‘I…’ She paused awkwardly. ‘Well, I didn’t stop to think about that,’ she confessed. ‘But anyway—I thought you, and everyone else, had gone to see the bull.’

  ‘So we did. I thought you were going to work on your book.’

  ‘I am. In a way—All right, I lied,’ she confessed. ‘It was Bryce I was…’ She stopped.

  ‘Trying to evade?’ he queried.

  Skye sighed. ‘Yes. But as much on account of his ankle as anything else. What are you doing down here?’

  He produced a key and unlocked a door that led into a little room under the stand. ‘For my sins I’m an honorary steward today. Come in.’

  Skye followed him in and looked around. There was a large scale, a table and hard chairs and not much else.

  ‘This does duty as the weigh-in area for the jockeys and the steward’s room,’ he explained. ‘It is now my task to write the final scratchings from each race on the blackboards on the wall outside.’ He pulled a sheaf of papers from the pocket of his jeans. ‘There are a lot of them,’ he added dryly.

  ‘Would you have two pieces of chalk?’

  ‘Are you proposing to help me, Skye?’ he asked with a glint of irony.

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘After the shots we fired at each other last night it does seem a little surprising.’ His gaze was steady on her face.

  She shrugged. ‘Since then you’ve saved me from a fate worse than death, and since everybody,’ she said bitterly, ‘has conspired against all my plans to leave Mount Gregory so that you’re stuck with me, Nick, why not?’

  He sat down on the corner of the table and studied her narrowly. ‘Last night you appeared to have no problem about being stuck here with me, Skye.’

  ‘Maybe not,’ she said after a quick think, ‘but Bryce is another matter.’

  ‘Ah.’ He folded his arms. ‘By the way, I didn’t conspire against you because I didn’t know your plans.’

  ‘You’re the last person I could ask to fly me out,’ Skye said prosaically.

  ‘Why?’

  She looked at him frustratedly. ‘You must see why!’

  ‘No, I don’t.’

  ‘Because it’s tantamount to admitting that I’m…running away from you—’ She broke off and bit her lip.

  ‘However you went and whoever you went with, it would still have the same connotations,’ he pointed out.

  ‘Perhaps,’ Skye conceded through her teeth, ‘but—Oh, this is ridiculous! Anyway, much as it irks me to admit this, and I’m not admitting anything else, Nick…’ she warned, and stopped.

  ‘No?’ He raised a lazy eyebrow at her.

  ‘No. You’re the one who just can’t see how…impossible it would be to ask you of all people to fly me out!’

  ‘I’m still a bit puzzled,’ he murmured, ‘but go on. Something else irks you?’

  She paused and eyed him crossly. Then she grimaced inw
ardly as she wished devoutly she’d never got herself into this, and tried for another approach. ‘This is going to sound really feminine and illogical, Nick, but, since you never, ever flew me anywhere despite being engaged to me and all the rest, I have no intention of starting to fly with you now.’ She even managed to look casually quizzical as she said it.

  He laughed softly.

  Skye went on before he could say anything, though. ‘No, that pleasure is entirely Wynn’s now! Do you want me to help you chalk up scratchings, Nick Hunter, or not? I’m getting tired of this kind of…’ She gestured impatiently.

  ‘Chit-chat? You’re right, we don’t seem to be making much sense, so—’ he stood up ‘—yes, please, Skye Belmont; if you’d like to help I’d be happy to have it.’

  The ‘much sense’ bit made her look annoyed but what he said then was worse.

  ‘On second thoughts, I wouldn’t have flown you out, you know. Because I think Bryce deserves another chance. Here’s your chalk. I’ll do the first four races, you can do the last four. After you.’

  He handed her a piece of chalk and stood aside for her to precede him out into the sunlight.

  Skye closed her mouth, ignored the glint of satire in his dark eyes and stalked outside.

  Lunch was cold meat and salad, ice cream and fruit salad accompanied by tea and coffee.

  Sally told them that champagne and snacks would be available in a tent that had been erected for their use as well as other friends of the Attwoods down at the course. And, having earlier imparted the news that she intended to dress up and wear a hat, she lent one to Skye, the only one who had come hatless, except for a floppy linen sunhat.

  Of the four hats she’d had to choose from, Skye had selected a delightful black tulle confection with a wide, down-turned brim. It was a good sort of camouflage hat and not a curl of her trademark hair showed beneath it. With her sunglasses on, she thought that she again might be unrecognizable. She teamed it with a sleeveless black figure-hugging knit shirt, black trousers and a big silk yellow rose pinned to the waistband of her trousers.