Cattle Baron Needs a Bride Read online

  Garrick closed the door, then set her against it, arms to either side of her, locking her in. “That is the most beautiful nightdress I’ve ever seen.” His eyes slid down over her body. It was quivering so much he might have made physical contact. “It’s almost a pity I have to take it off you.”

  “Why on earth would you want to do that?” she countered.

  He smiled. “Just kidding. You can keep it on. For the moment. Why, oh why, are you so nervous, Zara?” He stared deep into her lustrous dark eyes. “You never used to be.”

  “That was a lifetime ago,” she reminded him.

  “Indeed. Then and now are different lifetimes. You were one shameless hussy in those days, flaunting your nakedness when we were skinny-dipping in the lagoon. Ah, those passionate interludes!” He began to drag kisses down the column of her neck, the tip of his tongue against her scented skin. “What a difference the years bring.”

  She made no response, feeling the enormous pull of his gravity. Her breath was tightening, shortening as, unhurriedly, he let his hands slide over her body, every movement inventive, flicking a little electric switch. She couldn’t control the soft little moans of pleasure that escaped her. This man was her downfall. She turned to putty in his hands.

  “I’m still as mad about you as I ever was. Madder.” There was an edge of self-mockery in his tone. “I guess a psychiatrist would call it a fixation. You know, the one blind spot in an otherwise clear and controlled mind.” He raised his darkly glossy head. “It’s not a name I care to mention—I promise I’ll only say it one more time. Did you sleep with Hartmann?”

  Zara didn’t reply. Trust was sacred. He didn’t have it. “So I can take that as a yes?”

  Her eyes were suddenly full of fire. “Let me ask you a similar question, though I’m certain I know the answer. Have you any memory of sleeping with Sally?”

  He didn’t miss a beat. “She was my fiancée.”

  “So I take that as a yes?”

  The expression on his face was wry. “Sally was—is—a very sweet girl. Most likely I didn’t deserve anyone so sweet and understanding. With all your faults, you were more my speed. I thought I could love Sally. I couldn’t. Though I spent a fair bit of time trying to convince myself. Didn’t work. Wasn’t fair to Sally. The problem was, not a woman in the world has your incomparable ability to bring me to my knees.”

  She regarded him in silence for a moment. “And you couldn’t deal with it.”

  “What?” he mocked. “I couldn’t de—”

  She cut him off. “An abiding characteristic of yours is pride. Pride is one of the deadly sins.”

  He laughed suddenly, unexpectedly, the most attractive, seductive sound. “I dare say it is. Have you come to pick a fight, Zara, my darling?”

  “I want to understand you,” she said with intensity. “You ask about Konrad Hartmann. I’ll say this only one more time. He was not my lover. Nor would I have accepted him as a lover. He took me out a few times. Kissed me. Let’s leave it at that.”

  “I find it very hard to believe he could.” The violent rush of jealousy Garrick felt startled him.

  “You don’t trust what I say?” She stared into his blazing eyes. Backlit sapphires couldn’t have looked more blue or brilliant.

  “You’re a very beautiful woman, Zara. He had to have tried?”

  She shook her head. Her long sable hair, flowing down her back, rippled with the movement. “Konrad was never impertinent. He wasn’t a man who would ever need to deploy force.” She knew as she spoke she was winding Garrick up. It didn’t overly concern her. It was more pay-back time.

  “You have no trouble talking about him?” Garrick asked suavely. “You’re the one having the trouble, Rick.”

  “I guess I am.” His mouth curved down.

  “Trust is enormously important. Perhaps the most important thing. You don’t have trust in me. Maybe you never will.”

  Garrick raised a hand, his expression one of ironic reproof. “So is this what it’s all about? You’ll never forgive me for not opening your letters?”

  “It was a major mistake.”

  He dropped the humour. “Okay, I admit it. You have every right to be shocked and upset. But sometimes it’s extremely difficult to regain what is lost. I loved you so much. I gave full rein to my passion. I would have trusted you with my life. Maybe what I did was unforgivable, but pain has a way of lodging itself inside your brain. Pain became a part of me. I’m not a man who takes kindly to being betrayed. You were the one who set things in motion, Zara. Assigning blame seems pretty damned complicated to me. What did you say in your letters, anyway?”

  She took exception to his tone. “Reasons for my behaviour,” she said pointedly.

  He made a gesture of infinite impatience. “So we’re going to talk on our feet, are we? At least we can lie down and slog it out.” He swooped, lifting her off her feet as though she were weightless, and carried her to his bed. Custom built to the scale of a big man, Zara thought as she tumbled across the sheets—not even crumpled—fresh, clean, smelling again of the wild boronia with its prized perfume.

  Garrick bounced down so heavily beside her that her light body with its coltishly long slender limbs almost became airborne. He put his hands behind his handsome head, his crow-black hair glossy and springy with health, staring at the plaster ceiling with its beautiful mouldings and central rose. A handsome bronze and rock crystal chandelier was appended from the rose, casting its light across the entire room.

  “Can we have that off?” she asked, putting up a hand as though the brilliance was blinding her. God help her, she was shy as well.

  “No,” he replied shortly, a brooding expression on his handsome countenance. “I want to look at you. Every inch of you. I want to be absolutely sure it is you beside me in bed. Multiple personalities and all! Now, where were we?”

  She heaved herself up, leaning over him. Her hair fanned out all around her face, cascading over her shoulders and curling into sinuous loops onto his chest. “Would you want me if I couldn’t give you children?”

  His whole demeanour changed dramatically. Before she knew what he was about, he had her on her back, staring down at her, a vertical line between his black brows. “What are you talking about?” His gaze was super-alert and penetrating. “Do you think you may have a problem? Do you know?”

  “No, actually, I don’t.” She sighed. “I’m just asking.”

  “God, Zara, I don’t know what I’m going to do about you,” he said. “Let’s turn this on its head. What if I had a problem? Would you marry me?”

  “Garrick, you’re the embodiment of masculinity.” Her beautiful dark eyes were filled with sudden melancholy. “My father tried to convince me I could have difficulty conceiving.”

  “Hang on, hang on.” Garrick was roused to anger. “He did what?”

  He sounded incredulous, maybe doubting. She turned her head away. “He said my mother had difficulty conceiving Corin and me. She found having children so threatening she didn’t want any more after us.”

  “And your father told you this?” He greeted that with outright aggression.

  “He made it sound as if it were out of regard for you. I told you in a letter, if only you’d read it.”

  Garrick’s expression was truly daunting. “I could murder him.”

  “Too late.”

  “But Zara, you’re exceptionally intelligent.” His voice became gentle. He moved a silky wisp of hair skeined across her cheek. “Why did you believe it? Why didn’t you get yourself checked out? Obviously, the thought has weighed heavily on you. Was it even true, anyway, about your mother? I don’t, for one, accept it. She was wonderful with children. I saw her. She loved children. They loved her. I suppose she could have had a bad time in childbirth. I wouldn’t know. Why don’t you ask Ellie? There’s not much my mother doesn’t know.’ “I have asked her. She won’t have a word of it. But then Helen makes no bones about what she thought of my father.”

&
nbsp; “And this was your fear? Seriously. For real?”

  “For real,” she told him flatly. “Or one of them. My father played me. He didn’t care. He thought nothing of the difficulties I might have in the future. Most definitely he didn’t want you for a son-in-law.”

  “Of course not!” Garrick gave a bark of laughter. “He wanted a son-in-law he could push around. But if you loved me, Zara, you would have married me regardless. So what other bombshells do you have in your arsenal?” He fell back against the pilled up pillows, sighing deeply.

  “You never did ask me to marry you.”

  He sat up again, the glint of anger in his fabulous face. “I think I spoke about when we were married ten thousand times. If you’d have hung around I would have gone down on bended knee. As it happened, the minute my back was turned, you took off. Isn’t that so, my beautiful Zara?” he taunted her. “Zara, the runaway. A most dishonourable departure.”

  “It was in its way,” she admitted. She had caught the freight plane when Garrick was in Darwin for a couple of days on business for his father. Made up some excuse about her father needing her to sign papers, whatever.

  “You want to explain that a bit more?”

  “No,” she said. “Of the two of us, I had the roughest deal.”

  “Sez you! Anyway, why don’t we check it out?” He sounded very matter-of-fact.

  “Check what out?” She gripped his arm, her eyes huge.

  “How quickly you can fall pregnant.” He gazed back at her with open challenge. “I am not going to fall pregnant. Just for the moment. I don’t really think I like you.” She pretended interest in the rock crystals in the chandelier.

  His mouth curved into an enigmatic smile. “Liking isn’t necessary for you-know-what. All right then, a postponement. But you will consider it?”

  “Are you serious or joking?” she asked cautiously.

  “I couldn’t be more serious.” As though arriving at a decision, he threw his long legs off the bed, stood straight. Then he began stripping off his clothes, making short work of it. “I will make you pregnant, Zara. Have no fear of that. It’s your inevitable fate. But it’s all a question of commitment, isn’t it? I’m assuming you want my child?’

  “We could have had two or three by now,” she flashed back. Her dark gaze fixed on his splendid male body was anguished. God, he was a glorious man! The classic model for splendid male sculpture. Height, strength, ridges of rippling muscle. Dominant sexuality. She was desperate and exhilarated at one and the same time. She wanted him to seize her, make passionate love to her, make a baby.

  And there was something else. She attempted to identify it. Something quite profound. Ah, yes! She no longer believed a word her father had said, even if it had taken a ferociously long time.

  “Move over.” Garrick gave the order, the flush of blood in his striking face. “I’m going to undress you. V-e-r-y slowly.” He turned her head towards him. Then he bent to touch, taste, then fully capture her mouth in a long ravishing kiss that gave her a huge buzz.

  “Behold, you are beautiful, my love,” he murmured, lifting his mouth momentarily from hers. “My love, my dove, my one desire. Your breasts are perfect white roses, tipped with pink. You’re impossibly beautiful.” His voice was very gentle, yet fantastically seductive.

  Sensation was growing, e-x-p-a-n-d-i-n-g inside her. Her long slender legs began moving restlessly of their own accord. Ripples of excitement passed over her. Heat flared at the delta of her body. He placed his hand very gently over the pulsing area, fingers dipping into the tender cleft. “Zara?” Brilliant blue eyes questioned.

  “I never could resist you.” Her head felt so heavy she thought she couldn’t lift it off the pillow. Her whole body was heavy. Heavy and deeply languorous with desire.

  “So let’s make your robe disappear.” He turned her on her side. “We might dawdle over the nightgown. I feel like kissing you through the satin.”

  She was lying on her back again, staring up at him, her flesh responding to his teasing, highly provocative ministrations. He touched his mouth to each breast in turn, the nipples exquisitely sensitised, bunched tight like berries. “Five years. Five years, Zara!” he groaned. “Is it any wonder there’s so much hurt in me?”

  Her eyes, which had been shut against such thrilling sensation, opened. Her voice rose up from within her, vibrating with desire. “Make love to me, Rick,” she gasped. “I’m serious here. Before I go up in smoke!”

  “My, my, my!” he drawled, turning her so he could align her body with his. Man. Woman. His arms enfolding her. “So impatient! I’m going to spin this out for a little while. Go to sleep if you want,” he mocked.

  “You’re a devil…a devil…” Spasms of excitement were shooting through her, stifled little moans.

  He began to draw her satin nightdress over her head; she shifted her weight to make it easy for him. “No devil, Zara,” he said. “Just a fool for love.”

  CHAPTER SIX

  LIGHT aircraft arriving mid-morning announced the big sporting event on the Outback calendar, the Sinclair Cup. It was the perfect day for the match—a cobalt blue sky with a single puffball cloud on the horizon and a welcome cooling breeze blowing right across the plains country and the rolling grasslands. Numerous creeks and streams were in flow after better than expected spring rains added moisture to the atmosphere. There was even a good deal more shade around the polo field. The bauhinias were in abundance pink, white and cerise, scattering a ring of spent blossom like multicoloured confetti. Many of the gums were sporting masses of sweet blossom in pendant branches of hot orange and smouldering scarlet. Even the shimmering heat mirage was floating mid-air.

  Many more people, competitors, guests and spectators, had made the trek overland in safaris of dusty four-wheel drives, covered trucks and buses. There were refreshments awaiting them in several of the huge marquees with their bright bunting and streamers that had been positioned around the grounds. Excitement was in the air. Lots of smiling faces, the mingling of many voices. It promised to be a thrilling match with both teams sporting superb players. Garrick was captain of the Blue Team. Moss Northrop was long time captain of the Red Team. It was going to be quite a battle. Both men were very, very tough competitors. The lead up match, with players of less outstanding handicaps but plenty of drive, would start after the lavish barbecue lunch on offer starting at noon. The main match was scheduled for three p.m.

  By noon the whole area was crammed, the excited crowd taking great delight in an occasion that brought Outback people together from across a huge area of the South-West. The Polo Ball would start at eight p.m. a dance to dawn affair. Breakfast would be provided from first light. It was just the best time! Greatly appreciated by all. Such times brought everyone together in friendship.

  Or so one would have hoped.

  But there was always the exception to keep events balanced.

  Helen had put Sally and Nick Draper into one of the guest rooms in the West Wing. It was a beautiful big room, sunshine-yellow and white with touches of sapphire blue with an adjoining en suite bathroom, but one would have thought it was a broom closet, so sour was the expression on Sally Draper’s attractively angular, lightly tanned face. Zara, obeying Helen’s instructions, had escorted Sally to it, seeing there was a new version of Sally Draper. Sally had developed a very hard edge, though it had not been apparent in Helen’s company. Rather the reverse. Sally had been all sweetness and light.

  Safely inside the guest bedroom, it was a different story. Sally started right in without a breather. “It was a huge surprise to hear you were staying here,” she said, her hazel eyes as clear and cold as Antarctic waters.

  Zara felt the tide of dislike like an approaching tsunami. From what little she had seen of Sally, she had formed the opinion that she was a very pleasant young woman. Obviously Sally had undergone a remarkable sea change.

  “Why is that?” Zara kept her tone mild with an act of will. Anyone would have thought she wa
s personally responsible for Sally’s marriage problems.

  Sally’s tanned cheeks turned bright pink. “Why so coy? I really don’t need that. We’re of an age. You know perfectly well you’re the one who broke Garrick’s heart. Made quite a job of it too. He couldn’t settle for me. Oh, no! Not after you, with the magnolia skin and the big, big black eyes.” She looked Zara full in the face. “So what are you doing back here?”

  “Well, hello to you too, Sally,” Zara managed, wryly. This had nothing to do with Sally’s husband at all. “I’m a guest here—what else? Surely you don’t give a damn either way?” Slow to anger, Zara could feel her temper rising. “I appreciate you were once engaged to Garrick, Sally, but you’re now a happily married woman.”

  “Whoa there!” Sally, splendid horsewoman that she was, held up a restraining hand. “Last time I looked, my marriage was a goddamned mess.”

  “And you’re looking for someone to blame?” Zara’s question was almost gentle. She wanted no part of a confrontation.

  “Don’t be smart!” Sally warned. “I had a dream and it went up in smoke.” It couldn’t have been plainer that Sally was hurting.

  “Then I’m sorry to hear it,” Zara said, slowly and carefully. “Can’t you work your way through a bad patch?”

  Sally gave a near equine snort of disgust. “You’re a great one for offering advice. Tell me, are you planning on dumping Garrick again?”

  Zara found herself more angry on Garrick’s behalf than her own. She wanted to hit back. But reined herself in. “That’s really none of your business, Sally. I never dumped Rick, as you call it. Rick isn’t exactly the sort of man one dumps.”

  “Not the way I heard it,” Sally retorted, a granite edge to her voice. “Garrick told me all about you. I had to listen for hours. But I did. I guess it was a sort of therapy for him.”