Outback Wives Wanted!: Wedding at Wangaree Valley / Bride at Briar's Ridge / Cattle Rancher, Secret Son

“And leave my safe little world?” she asked shakily. She marvelled at the difference in him—in her. What had changed things so dramatically? Was this precarious kind of intimacy better or was she about to jeopardise her whole future? “It would be far too easy to fall under your spell, Guy,” she said. “The result could be a lot of pain.” Her sharp-talking, supremely self-confident cousin hid a lot of pain.

“And you’re scared of that?”

“Absolutely.” She released a pent-up breath.

“So what is it about me that scares you? You certainly haven’t given that impression over the years.”

“You’ve never invited me to come close.”

“You were too young. Come closer now.” He gathered her in. “You’re a beautiful dancer, by the way.”

“Have you just noticed?”

“I’ve always noticed.”

“You could have asked me to dance with you hundreds of times over the last couple of years, but you never have.”

“In the space of a few minutes the intervening years have disappeared. Maybe I thought you were being faithful to Simon?”

Her body abandoned all pretence, trembling in his arms. “Maybe I thought you were being faithful to Violette? Among others.” She couldn’t resist the little waspish sting in the tail.

His hand at her back exerted a little more pressure. “Remember what I said about being more careful?”

“Actually, I remember an astonishing number of things you’ve said to me,” she found herself admitting. “At my eighteenth birthday party you told me I was sweet. And smart.”

He gave her a disturbing smile. “Sweet, smart, and tart. Let’s see—I remember now. I could have added passionate, argumentative, with a good sense of humour and sexy but innocent too. Sad, beautiful, a wonderful daughter and sister. The best woman rider in the valley, and that’s saying something. I’ve always loved to see you competing. Poor Violette was always doomed to run second. Come to that, I love to see you working those Border Collies of yours. Not easy working dogs, but you instinctively know how to get the best out of them. You have a very attractive voice too. I’ve heard you singing to your own guitar accompaniment.”

She was totally disarmed. “Now you’re using your fabled charm on me, Guy.”

“Is it working?” He flicked her a downward glance.

“I’m not sure it would be wise to tell you.” She shook back her honey-blonde mane. “I feel sure you’re pledged elsewhere. Or you soon will be.”

Another couple whirled by, coming in too close. Instantly Guy’s arms drew her out of harm’s way.

Harm’s way? Her heart rate had risen as though she had run halfway up Mount Everest. They had known each other such a very long time, but she couldn’t imagine anyone who seemed so familiar yet so new to her. Her body fitted his so perfectly, it was beyond explanation. So perfectly she wondered if she should back off. All it needed was one tiny step over the dividing line. And there was a dividing line. She could never allow herself to forget that.

For the first time her graceful body offered resistance. “Cousin Vi’s over there, looking like she wants to bury a tiny hatchet in my head.” She tried to turn what must have been her perceptible withdrawal into a joke.

“I wouldn’t let her.”

Her breath shortened at his tone. “She could catch me on my own. Batter me in my sleep. Are you trying to make her jealous?” Did that explain his newfound manner?

“Don’t be ridiculous.” His reply was short. “I can’t even see her. You’re so dazzling.”

She had a sensation she was floating. What was he trying to do to her? And why? There were so many unanswered questions spinning around in her head. “I’m dazzling all of a sudden?” she questioned, lifting sceptical eyes no longer hazel but pure green.

“Let’s just say you’ve been dazzling me for quite a long time—though, very modestly, you’ve appeared unaware of it.”

Modesty didn’t prevent a highly explosive recklessness surging into her. Whatever it was that was happening between them, it was moving way too fast. Mistakes carried penalties, she reminded herself. “Who are you tonight, Guy?” She tipped her head back, to ask, “Do I really know you?”

“I don’t think you do.”

His voice held the faintest rasp to it, yet it was very seductive. His evident experience made her acutely conscious of her own lack of it. She was still a virgin, probably the last one left in the Valley, but that had never mattered to her. To date she hadn’t met anyone she had wanted to enter into a serious love affair with. She hadn’t even glimpsed anyone who didn’t pale before Guy Radcliffe. Now she was discovering there was a lot of emotion locked up in her. Passion. Desperate hunger. She didn’t want to feel this vulnerable. Up until now she had been rock solid, in control. A whole person, not part of someone else. Falling madly in love didn’t guarantee happiness. Love could be abruptly withdrawn, leaving the rejected one to battle the pain.

“Wait.” She placed a shaky hand against the snowy-white of his dress shirt Immediately his expression turned to concern. “What is it?”

“Nothing really. I just feel a little odd.” Her emotions, of course, were getting too hard to handle. But she couldn’t tell him that.

“Let’s go out onto the terrace. Get some air.” His hand moved beneath her elbow guiding her outside.

The mingled scents from the garden were like incense on the warm air. Couples were standing laughing, talking, on the lush sweeping lawn; others were wandering the many stone paths, one with a little bridge that spanned a man-made pond where black swans sailed majestically and came at your call. The way was lit by hundreds and hundreds of twinkling white lights that had been placed in the density of the overhead trees.

The night was all around them, the vast dome of the sky thickly studded with glittering stars. There was Orion, the mighty hunter with his jewelled belt. The Southern Cross was so bright she understood perfectly why the aborigines worshipped it, and the Milky Way was a broad sparkling stream, the resting place of the great tribal heros.

Thoughtfully Guy produced a handkerchief to dust off the wide surrounds of a stone pillar—one of eight that supported the roof of the loggia. “Sit here. There’s a lovely breeze.”

“How good it feels!” she sighed, letting the breeze slide over her to cool her heated skin. Hadn’t her inner voice always warned her it would be dangerous to get too close to Guy Radcliffe? And with good reason. Now that she had done so, however lightly, she realised she couldn’t go back. His magic had already worked its way into her. She should do something to counteract it. But what?

He stood with his tall elegant body eased back against the pillar, looking down at her. “You’re very like your mother,” he told her quietly. “She was such a radiant woman. The Valley isn’t as bright without her.”

The gentleness and the compassion in his voice overwhelmed her. She was so incredibly touched she feared she might burst into tears. She remembered how her mother had always laughed merrily when Alana had made her tart little comments about Guy Radcliffe, Lord of the Valley. Of course her mother, skilled at recognising the truth of it, had seen through her. Now she thought there was a possibility Guy might tell her what she had so recently learned about her mother and his father. She desperately wanted to know.

Had they once had a relationship? Even a brief flutter that had burnt itself out? She had always felt a decided resistance to her from Guy’s mother, Sidonie. Not that Mrs Radcliffe, who lived near Alex these days, wasn’t always gracious. But she was ultra-reserved, withholding any real warmth.

“Guy?” She lifted her head to him, her voice betraying strong emotion.

He looked down on her. The exterior lights were making a glory of her beautiful hair, and burnishing the golden-green of her evening dress, its long skirt pooling around her. “If it’s what I think you’re going to ask, the answer is no!”

She felt the powerful rejection. “You can read my mind?”

“This time I can. You forget, I’ve known you since you were a little girl. I’ve a pretty good idea where you’re heading. You were bound to hear something from your father at some point.”

“And so I have—just a comment. I want you to tell me.” She shifted position so she could look directly at him.

For a fraught moment he seemed to consider. “Alana, you shouldn’t listen to gossip,” he said finally.

“Gossip?” The tightness that had gathered in her throat was reflected in her voice. “There’s always gossip in the Valley, but my father never gossips. I’ve never heard this before.”

“And you’re not going to hear it from me.”

He said it so decisively it had the power and authority to stop her in her tracks. She rose to her feet, not knowing how to continue.

“Is that a warning?”

“No, of course not!” His brooding expression almost immediately lightened. “I’m simply stating my feelings. Leave it, Alana, please. There’s nothing to be gained. Tell me how you feel now.”

Rocked to my soul!