Heartbreak Homestead (Hearts of the Outback Book 2)

by Susanne Bellamy

“Ravenous.”

  Polishing off the last of his second helping of curry, Alex leaned back. “You’re a terrific cook, Lizzy. Who taught you? Your aunt?”

  “Trish is many things but a cook isn’t one of them. I learned basic cooking out of necessity.”

  “That meal had subtle combinations of flavours like a great restaurant meal. There was nothing basic about it.”

  She shrugged and rose to stack the plates. “The mum of my best mate at school taught me a few things. She owned a restaurant in Adelaide before they moved up here.”

  Alex took up his post-dinner position at the sink and began rinsing plates ready to wash up. The first time he’d done it Lizzy had told him not to bother. ‘I made the mess, I’ll clean up.’ But he’d wrapped his arms around her waist and gently moved her away from the sink. ‘We’re in a partnership. You cook, I wash. I guarantee you won’t want it the other way around.’ I consider myself lucky to be living with a chef.”

  “Cooking relaxes me. I enjoy feeding people.” She covered the leftovers with plastic wrap and carried them to the fridge.

  “If you keep feeding me like this, I may not be able to let you go.” Five months should be enough to get the need for her out of his system.

  Or not. Hunger for her roared back as she leaned into the open fridge and took a covered pie dish from the bottom shelf and replaced it with the leftovers.

  “Ha—ha. No man gives up his freedom for food.”

  Alex tipped his head, admiring the view of her long legs, short shorts, the flash of black underwear. His mouth dried. She’d worn black lace underwear on their wedding night.

  The night they’d discovered how good they were together.

  She shut the fridge door and held out the pie dish for his inspection. “Apricot and apple crumble. Am I forgiven for doubting you?”

  Alex turned to the sink on the pretext of adding plates to the suds while he surreptitiously eased the pressure of his zipper on his erection. “Trying to buy me off, Lizzy? I don’t come that cheap.”

  Her eyes widened, and her gaze ran boldly down his body as he turned back to her.

  His cock responded to her blatant appraisal by growing harder. Never a fan of abstinence, Alex wondered how he’d denied himself her body these past few days.

  She placed the pie on the table and sashayed across the room. Holding a ten-cent coin up, she offered it to him. “Is this enough?”

  “Oh Lizzy, we both know what the price is. Question is, are you willing to pay it?”

  Her body thrummed with need. Alex leaned back against the sink, the bulge in his jeans all the evidence she needed. Finally, they were back on the same page. “I’m willing to pay a fair price and you—” She glanced at his straining zipper. “I know you always deliver on your promise.”

  Beneath her shirt, sensitive nipples beaded in response to the desire in his eyes. “Shall we—negotiate in the bedroom?”

  “Why wait?” In three strides Alex crossed the kitchen and wrapped his arms around her.

  She tipped her face up and met the hungry demand of his mouth with a burning need of her own. Barely aware of the edge of the counter digging into her bottom, she pulled his shirt out of his jeans. Slipping her hands under the fabric, she skimmed her hands over warm skin and hard muscle. With a groan, she raked her nails across his back, feeling the ripple of muscle as he tightened his hold.

  Alex kissed a path along her jaw and down her neck and she tipped her head to give him better access. Through the haze of lust consuming her she became aware of Dan’s hungry grizzle.

  “Dan. I forgot he was there.” Pushing Alex back, she clung to the cupboard top and caught her breath as a wave of guilt rushed through her. She kneeled beside Dan’s bouncer and unclipped the harness. As she lifted him into her arms she kissed his forehead. “Sorry, baby boy. What an awful substitute for a mother I am. I’ll get your bottle now.”

  “I’ll do it.” With an economy of movement, Alex made up the formula while she played with Dan.

  Blowing bubbles on his bare belly rewarded her with smiles she felt she didn’t deserve. “How could I have forgotten him? What if the DCS knew—”

  “What? That you have a normal, healthy sex drive? It’s not as though you left him alone to go out on the town, Lizzy.”

  “I forgot to feed him before we—got involved.”

  “You didn’t forget. We’re feeding him now. Besides, a little anticipation sharpens the enjoyment.” Alex handed the bottle to her and brushed a hand over Dan’s head. “Looks like he’s going to be a ranga like you.”

  Sitting in the carver chair, Lizzy lay Dan back in her arms and picked up the bottle.

  He latched onto the teat and one small hand slapped onto the bottle and rested there. With one finger she stroked the reddish fuzz of Dan’s hair. “I think you’re right about his hair. I hope you’re right about the interview too.”

  “The interview will be fine. There’s no reason to worry.” Resting his rear on the edge of a cupboard, Alex leaned back on his arms. Power and charisma surrounded him, tempered by a protective streak she hadn’t expected as his gaze rested on Dan.

  The interviewer would see that and believe that little Dan had found a good home with two parents who would love and care for him. And they would be deceiving everyone when their arrangement ended. Trapped in a spider web of deceit, Lizzy could do nothing else if she wanted to keep Dan. Abhorring lies, she had created the biggest one of all.

  A chill ran through her and she hugged Dan to her chest. “We’ll do okay with the DCS thanks to you. But I’m not sure I can give Dan all that he needs. Will I be enough?”

  Alex frowned and pinned her with a look that brooked no nonsense. “Lizzy, do you feel you missed out because Trish raised you alone?”

  “Of course not. How could you suggest such a thing? She gave me so much love.”

  Alex with his two parents and his sister and a niece didn’t know squat about love if he thought she’d missed out. Trish had been mother, mentor and confidante to this day.

  “So why do you think you’ll do any less for your nephew than Trish did for you? Have faith in yourself. You’re a strong woman and you love Dan. That’s a wonderful start.”

  Alex was right. She loved Dan. And if she could command an SES team under stressful conditions, surely she could cope with the emotional needs of her orphaned nephew. She blinked away her silly weak tears and sniffed. “You’re right. I don’t know why I thought— thanks for reminding me.”

  “I’ll have a shower and allow my own anticipation to build.” He touched Dan’s nose with the tip of one finger. “Night, little mate.”

  By the time Dan finished his bottle, Lizzy heard the shower turn off and Alex appeared, a towel slung low on his hips.

  “Forget something?”

  “No. Just getting that buckle. I’m going to do a search on the internet and see if I can learn anything about its owner from the engraving.”

  As he walked to the window and picked up the buckle, Lizzy allowed her eyes to roam over the play of muscles beneath his bare skin. He was a feast for her gritty eyes and a reminder she was getting much more than just an ally from their deal. Hormones jumping—anticipating doing more than just looking at her husband—she raised Dan to her shoulder and patted his back. “I’ll join you when Dan goes to sleep.”

  “Good. You can make a—down payment on your debt.” With a wink and a wicked smile that heated her body and made it tingle with desire, Alex left her to settle Dan.

  Showered and changed, she stopped by Dan’s cot to check on him. Thumb in rosebud mouth, he made little sucking sounds as he slept and her heart swelled with love. Alex was right about that too. She kissed Dan’s head and whispered to him. “I’ll be the best mother I can be for you, Dan. I promise.”

  She headed down the hallway to the office. There was another, different promise she had to make good on.

  Bare-chested and wearing silky boxers, Alex sat at the computer tapping on the ke
yboard. Fantasies of sweeping folders to the floor and making love on the desk flashed through her mind. Softly she stole across the floor and slid her arms over his shoulders and down his biceps. They flexed beneath her hands and she leaned forward, breasts pressed against his back. “I’m here to pay an instalment.”

  He tipped his head and captured her lips in a brief kiss. Through her sleep shirt, his hand slid around her waist and she found herself seated on his lap. His arm brushed her breasts as he reached across and tapped the screen.

  “Look at this. You won’t believe what I just found.”

  Chapter Twelve

  Alex struggled to concentrate as Lizzy’s bottom nestled into his groin. Knowing better, he’d pulled her onto his lap when he should have been sharing his findings. That was the problem when he was near her, he didn’t think. And he hadn’t been thinking with her breasts pressed against his back, which explained how he’d created the current distraction.

  Stifling a groan, he willed his eyes to look at the screen and not the twin peaks of her breasts beneath her sleep shirt. The need to make love to his wife, to lose himself in her silky warmth, grew with each breath she released across his skin, each brush of her breasts against his arm.

  “What am I meant to be looking at?” Her hand caressed his cheek, softly rubbing the stubble.

  “I should have shaved.”

  “Why? I like it.”

  “You like whisker burn between your thighs? Masochistic minx.”

  “And you like putting it there.” She wriggled her hips and her mouth tipped up in a siren smile he had no chance of resisting.

  A week without Lizzy was too long. He kissed her—hard.

  Matching him kiss for kiss, she wrapped her arms around his head and held tight while she slipped off his lap and straddled him.

  Her T-shirt rose, baring her thighs and a small pair of silky panties to his touch. His hands cupped her arse, digging into the tender flesh while his cock tented his boxers.

  Frantic kisses rained on his mouth, and she nipped his bottom lip. A spark of pain balanced the painful need pressing between her thighs. “More, Alex. Now.”

  He tried to reach between them to give her what she demanded and banged his elbow on the wooden arm of the chair. Muttering an oath, he pushed the files stacked on the corner of the desk onto the floor and lifted her onto the cleared space. Kneeling between her legs, her musky scent surrounded him as he trailed kisses up her thigh.

  He buried his nose in her moist, scented heat and nipped her through the silken barrier.

  “Alex, please.” God, he loved her husky voice saying his name as he took her closer to the edge.

  “Not yet, babe.” Not until he’d tasted her sweetness and given her what she needed. Seeing her come apart with his mouth on her had become his addiction of choice and an interminable week of abstinence had sharpened his appetite for her. Holding her undies aside he slid a finger into her. She raised her hips and clenched around his finger with a soft sigh.

  Unerringly his tongue found her nub and he flicked and teased it. A second finger joined the first and curled inside her. Little murmurs of encouragement turned to soft panting as she leaned back on her arms. She was close to coming and when he sucked hard, she came apart like a glorious firework lighting the night.

  Seconds, minutes passed. He stroked her skin and finally, she opened her eyes.

  “Feel better, Lizzy?” He nuzzled her wet curls and ran his tongue over her cleft.

  “Uh-huh. Your turn.” She reached for the button on his boxers.

  He stopped her hand before she touched him. He was hard and hornier than he’d ever been and if she so much as laid a finger on him, he’d lose his load. “All I want now, babe, is to bury myself so deep in you, you scream with pleasure.”

  Slumberous eyes rose from his groin and met his gaze. Without a word she shed her T-shirt. Sliding forward, she perched on the edge of the desk and wrapped her legs around his waist. Then she kissed him, her tongue thrusting into his mouth in a rhythm he had to answer. He pulled down his boxers and buried himself in her.

  “Well, that’s a first.” Legs wobbling, Lizzy took Alex’s hand.

  “What? Having sex on a desk?”

  “That too. In case you didn’t notice, we’re both still wearing underwear.” The friction of the material had added a certain something to her pleasure. Although, she decided as Alex adjusted his boxers, there was more to be said for seeing her husband in the raw.

  As she bent to retrieve her T-shirt, she stepped on something hard beneath her top. The frame on the photo of Jeb and Donna had broken and the glass was cracked. Guilt stabbed her and she pulled on her T-shirt before carefully lifting the broken glass off the photo and tossing it in the bin. The photo appeared to be undamaged but, as she picked it up, something slipped out from between the photo and its cardboard backing.

  “What is it?” Alex sat in the chair and pulled her onto his lap again.

  Setting the photo on the desk, Lizzy opened the page. “A graph like those you’ve been making for your research with some handwritten notes that I can’t read. What do you make of it?” A prickle of unreasoning worry ran down her spine as she handed the page to him.

  Alex scanned the graph and frowned. At her waist, his hand tightened and he set the paper on the desk. “Those notes are in your brother’s handwriting. He knew the dam water was contaminated, Lizzy. See here”—he pointed to a scientific notation ending with a question mark—“where he’s listed what he found. It’s the same as what the hospital detected in the water sample.”

  “Oh my God! He poisoned the water in the agistment area. But why?” Jeb had loved the cattle when Lizzy had been a child following him down to the pens. Her stomach roiled at the thought of him deliberately harming Alex’s herd. What had happened to change his affinity with the animals?

  “Maybe.” Alex examined the graph again. “Can you read that date beneath the question mark?”

  She peered at the page. “I think it’s the eighth of—last month. A week before he died. This can’t be a coincidence.”

  Alex shook his head and moved the mouse. A blurred image of a silver buckle like the one he’d found at the hayshed filled the screen. “I agree. Look, this used to be given as part of the first prize at rodeos but I couldn’t find any mention of Jeb participating let alone winning one. So, the question is, whose is it and what was it doing near your hayshed?”

  She shrugged. “I doubt it’s anything. Alex, what’s GT? Is that something the hospital found in the water?” She pointed to the notation on the graph.

  “It’s written as two capitals with a question mark. Elements on the periodic table are written with one capital and one small letter.”

  A tiny spark of hope sprang up in Lizzy’s chest. She knew Jeb had done bad things and mistreated his wife, but what if he was innocent of this crime? What if it wasn’t him who had tried to harm the herd?

  “Could they be initials? Maybe Jeb knew who poisoned the water.”

  “If he did, he might have been killed because of it.”

  The room closed in around Lizzy and she struggled to breathe past the lump in her throat. The word was so hideous, so monstrously unbelievable, she barely whispered it. “Murdered?”

  ##

  Detective Caleb Richards picked up the pages from the printer and stapled them together before flipping through details of the Carter company deal. Things weren’t as they seemed and he had a bad feeling in his gut that he was missing an important connection.

  The radio call with Alex and Lizzy Carter out at ‘Craeborn’ reinforced Caleb’s belief that Jeb Campbell’s death was suspicious. But gut feelings didn’t catch killers or stand up in court. A concealed document and a silver rodeo buckle now gave him his first real breaks.

  He read his notes of the Carters’ information and highlighted key points. Capping the yellow pen, he tossed it on the desk and checked the time. After ten p.m. A headache was forming behind his eyes and h
e leaned back and pinched the bridge of his nose. “GT? Who are you?”

  “Talking to yourself is a sign of mental instability, mate.” Doug Henderson walked in with a coffee in each hand and plonked one on Caleb’s desk. The sergeant had copped a late call to cover the nightshift front counter after the rostered officer had called in sick.

  “Beats talking to the lack of talent that passes for policing in this room.” He raised the mug and took a big mouthful. “Thanks for the caffeine hit. By the way, you might want to get the tech to check the radio. The line was clicking in and out.”

  “It gets like that with multiple callers.” Doug drank a mouthful and sat back with a satisfied sigh.

  “Can’t be that this time. I only had one party on the line, the Carters.”

  Doug grinned good-naturedly and jerked his thumb at the file in front of Caleb. “I’ll leave a note in the log for him. Need any help while it’s quiet?”

  “Know much about the rodeo circuit in these parts? Champs, prizes and so on?”

  Doug pulled a roller chair across and sat opposite Alex. “My brother’s boy, Connor, is on the circuit. I’ve seen him ride the bulls a few times. He almost made eight seconds on Tornado last carnival.”

  “Is that the big black bull, looks like a devil and acts worse?”

  “That’s the one. Connor reckons he corkscrewed. Anyway, the boy has won a couple of prizes already and he’s just turned twenty-one.”

  “Did he win one of those fancy silver buckles?”

  Doug shrugged. “Can’t say. Not at any of the rodeos I’ve been to but different circuits offer them as prizes in addition to cash. A few of the older blokes wear them. At his age, Connor prefers money.”

  “What happens to the older rodeo riders when they’re past it?”

  Doug leaned on the desk and sipped his coffee. “Reckon some of them stay on in other jobs around the ring. They need the smell of rodeo like they need air. Others work on stations. One bloke opened a training school out Winton way.”

  “Sarge, how would you like to do a bit of quiet digging? See if you can find any station hands with the initials GT who might have been on the rodeo circuit.”