In Bed With...Collection

She didn’t find Tommy’s flirtatiousness fun, and didn’t really see what fun Sam could get out of watching them together. Apparently it amused her, yet Miranda kept remembering what Nathan had said about Sam’s feelings for Tommy, and she couldn’t help thinking it was masochistic to want to watch. Or maybe it was a case of not being able to help herself. If he was like a magnet to her…

A convulsive little shiver ran down Miranda’s spine. It had certainly been easier, throwing herself into her job and getting on top of it with Nathan out of sight, if not completely out of mind. Tommy was not a problem to her. His irrepressible personality seemed to bounce around her personal sidesteps and he never pushed beyond the boundaries she set. Getting the business right came first with him and he wasn’t about to upset that applecart.

“How’s it going?” he called cheerily as he came up the path.

“Fine!” Miranda answered.

He stopped short of the verandah, looking up at them with a quizzical little smile. “Mum and Jared have flown in for the weekend. You are commanded to come to dinner at the station homestead tonight.”

She frowned. “Commanded?”

Her heart started skittering. Nathan had commanded?

“Invited,” Tommy corrected wryly. “But take it from me, there’s no ducking out of my mother’s invitations.”

His mother, not Nathan.

Her mind started skittering.

Did Tommy think she ducked out of his invitations? Why couldn’t he simply accept her disinterest? Was he behind this command? Was Nathan? Was it simply Elizabeth King dictating her own desire to check the situation at the resort?

Why couldn’t they simply let her be? She was doing a good job. Yet she felt an irresistible tug at the thought of meeting Nathan again…what it might mean…

It would be safe, she reasoned. Had to be safe with Elizabeth King there, and the other brother, Jared. It might even dispose of the wanton thoughts that plagued her lonely nights…show her beyond question how foolish any involvement with him would be.

“What about our guests here?” she prevaricated, feeling hopelessly at odds with a desire she knew could lead nowhere good.

“Spend Happy Hour with them,” Tommy promptly replied. “Settle them at the table, and leave them to their own devices. They know each other from last night, don’t they?”

He’d checked the bookings earlier in the week and all four couples in the homestead suites overlapped this weekend. “I won’t be able to leave here until after seven,” she pointed out.

“That’s understood. We’ll be dining at eight.” He slid Sam a teasing look. “Mum said for you to come, too, squirt. Balance the table.”

“Oh, sure! I can just hear Elizabeth saying that,” she scorned.

“Well, I told her you probably didn’t have a dress to wear.”

“I’ll put one on especially for Jared.” She cocked her head on one side. “Or maybe I’ll make a play for Nathan, now that Susan’s out of the picture.”

Susan…Miranda found her hands clenching and consciously relaxed them. Susan might not have been Nathan’s mistress, but he hadn’t married her. Don’t forget that!

Tommy laughed and bounded up the steps, ruffling Sam’s copper curls as he passed. “Go get him, Red!” Then to Miranda, “I’ll just have a word with Roberto. He can come out of his kitchen between courses and wax lyrical about what he’s cooked for the guests. Keep them happy.”

They watched him head off inside, mission accomplished as far as they were concerned.

“One of these days I’m going to kick him in the shins,” Sam muttered.

It drew an instant wave of sympathy. Both of them fools over men. “You have beautiful hair,” Miranda quietly assured her. “If you ask me, Tommy couldn’t resist touching it.”

She heaved a rueful sigh. “I bet no man has ever ruffled your hair, Miranda.”

“I haven’t had the easy-going kind of friendships you’ve made. I rather envy you that.”

It drew a speculative look that Miranda instantly shied away from, not wanting to answer questions about her life. She glanced at her watch. “Better get moving. Are you going to accompany me to the commanded dinner or go over earlier by yourself?”

“I’ll wait for you. I’ll get one of the resort Jeeps and have it out here at seven-fifteen. Okay?”

“Yes. Thanks, Sam.”

“You’ll like Jared,” she remarked, still with that speculative look.

“We’ll see,” Miranda returned non-committally.

It wasn’t Jared on her mind as she headed off to get ready for tonight. It wasn’t Jared or Tommy or Elizabeth King playing havoc with her pulse rate and tying knots in her stomach.

Nathan…his name was like a drumbeat on her heart.

Tonight she would see him again.

And she wanted it to be right.

But how could it be?

It was mad to think it…mad to want it…yet despite every bit of hard, common sense reasoning…there was no denying what she felt.

CHAPTER NINE (#ud535c0fb-8216-5cc4-a273-7d8e9771b73f)

IT WAS Tommy, not Nathan, who greeted them at the door and ushered them inside. As they moved towards the lounge room, the usual snippy repartee went on between him and Sam but it floated over Miranda’s head. Every nerve in her body was screwed tight, waiting with an excruciating awareness of her own helpless fever-pitch anticipation, to feel whatever she would feel when she came face-to-face with Nathan King again.

Then they entered the room where he had to be…and he wasn’t there. The big black leather armchair where he’d been sitting that first night was unoccupied. Elizabeth King was sitting in her chair. A tall young man—the third brother?—had risen from the nearby chesterfield and was holding his arms out in welcome. No one else was in the room!

Sam rushed forward and into Jared’s offered embrace with all the gusto of an excited puppy, delighted to see a much-missed loved one. While she was being whirled around, admired and kissed, a strange, blank feeling descended on Miranda, stilling all the wild agitation this visit had set in motion.

She wasn’t aware of having come to a dead halt, wasn’t aware of Tommy lingering at her side, wasn’t aware of Elizabeth King watching her. For several empty moments, she didn’t know what she was doing here. The whole focus of her coming was lost. Nathan wasn’t even present.

Then Tommy nudged her elbow, and her mind clicked into a different alert phase. It was Elizabeth King who had commanded her presence and there was another brother to meet. It took a giant effort to recollect herself, to smile at Nathan’s mother, to move forward for the introduction Tommy obviously wanted to make. The older woman, dressed in a pale green shift tonight, and the pearls she seemingly always wore, dipped her head in a gracious acknowledgement.

Miranda had chosen to wear white, wanting Sam to feel she outshone her, which Sam did in a bright blue clingy dress that enhanced the colour of her eyes. Whether Sam’s glamorised appearance had the desired effect on Tommy, Miranda neither knew nor cared at the moment. His voice seemed to boom in her ears, accentuating the hollowness inside her.

“Jared, if you wouldn’t mind freeing yourself from the sex-kitten clinging onto you…”

The man with Sam grinned at him. “Jealous, Tommy?”

“Wait for the claws, little brother. That kitten can deliver lethal scratches.”

“Oh, there are some guys who can make me purr,” Sam tossed at him, purring so exaggeratedly it made both men laugh.

Miranda managed to keep a smile pasted on her face and tried to inject interest into her eyes as Tommy proceeded to present her to his brother.