Required: Three Outback Brides: Cattle Rancher, Convenient Wife / In the Heart of the Outback... / Single Dad, Outback Wife

She took a few moments to answer. ‘You’re going to psychoanalyse me?’

‘No, just a question.’

‘Why would you say that?’ She wasn’t surprised, however, by his perception.

He gave a self-deprecating shrug. ‘I’m an authority on mothers that go missing. Mine left home when I was twelve and my brother, Jay, fourteen.’

‘And the reason, seeing we’re cutting right through the usual preliminaries?’

‘She couldn’t take it anymore,’ he offered bluntly.

‘She was having marital problems?’ Allegra began to load the trolley.

‘You would know about them,’ he answered in a low dark voice.

‘Indeed I do,’ she returned smartly.

‘Yes, she was having problems,’ he admitted, thinking the very air scintillated around her. ‘My father was and remains a very difficult man.’

‘You look like you might have a few hang-ups of your own?’ She stopped what she was doing and pinned him with her gaze

‘Thanks for noticing,’ he said suavely.

‘Don’t feel bad about it. I have them as well. So name one.’

‘I don’t trust beautiful women.’

Her stomach did a little flip. He could say that yet it was as if he had reached out and kissed her. ‘Never in this world?’ Somehow she managed a smile.

‘No.’ Slowly he shook his head, not breaking the eye contact.

‘Wow!’ The expression on her face was both satirical and amused. ‘We’re going to have lots to talk about. I don’t trust handsome men.’

‘I understood your ex-husband adored you?’ Now that was definitely a challenge.

‘We had different ideas about what being ‘adored’ meant. I think you actually did adore your mother?’

His eyes turned as turbulent as a stormy sea. ‘We both did. Jay and I. Seen from our point of view her leaving was an abandonment.’

‘But you see her now?’ she asked, fully expecting the answer to be yes.

He picked up three lemons and juggled them in his sure hands. ‘Not for many years,’ he said and returned the lemons to the bowl. ‘Close on fifteen.’

‘Good grief!’ She didn’t hide her surprise. ‘So you haven’t seen her since you were a boy?’ She wondered how that could have been allowed to happen.

He held aloof. ‘That’s right, Mrs Hamilton.’ He focused on watching her move around the kitchen. She was very efficient in her movements. In fact she was perfectly at home in a kitchen when he had been too ready to think she was the quintessential hothouse flower who lay about gracefully while someone else did the work.

‘Allegra,’ she corrected, speaking sharply because he was unnerving her and he knew it. ‘Sorry, I don’t care for Mrs Hamilton,’ she said more calmly. ‘You don’t feel motivated to find her?’

He didn’t hesitate. ‘No. But I know where she is.’

She had to suck air into her lungs. ‘You make it sound like the outer reaches of the galaxy.’

‘Might as well be.’ Rory had to steady himself, too, unwilling for her to see just how much the old trauma still hurt. ‘It’s a long, hard road back from betrayal, Allegra.’ He placed mocking emphasis on her name.

She studied his handsome, brooding face for a moment. ‘Isn’t it strange how we punish the ones we love? You’re absolutely sure you know the reason? She must have been desperately unhappy?’

He took so long to answer she thought he was going to ignore her question. ‘That’s there under the abandonment,’ he conceded. ‘I guess she was unhappy. For a while at least.’ He put a mocking hand to his heart, his luminous eyes dangerously bright. ‘She remarried a couple of years later.’

‘Life goes on.’ She shrugged. ‘So did my dad, but he never forgot my mother. One of the reasons he remarried so soon was that he needed a wife to look after me.’

And what a beautiful child she must have been! Rory let his gaze rest on her, aware his fingers were curled tight into his palms as though he might make some involuntary move towards her. A woman like that any man could lose his senses. But to let himself fall in love with her would be one hell of an ill fated idea. She had wonderful skin, wonderful colouring. He allowed his eyes, at least, to barely skim the low neckline of her top. It dipped as she moved, revealing the satin-smooth upper curves of her breasts. The blue of that clingy little top was the same colour as her eyes. Of course she knew that. She wore her mane of garnet hair in a classic knot. And it was natural. Abandoning indifference if only for a moment he had asked Chloe. Chloe said the only nice thing she had said about her sister all night. ‘Yes, isn’t it beautiful! Hair that colour is rare!’

The sheer power of a beautiful woman!. A lover of beauty in all its forms, Rory felt himself drenched in heat. He had to realise he was achingly vulnerable to this particular woman. A woman like that could take a lot off a man without giving a thing back.

Belatedly he picked up the conversation. ‘And that woman was Valerie?’

‘Yes.’ Allegra for her part, didn’t fully understand why this man moved her like he did. It was as though she could see through the layers of defences accumulated through the years, to when he was a handsome, daring little boy. A little boy who had the capacity to be badly hurt.

‘A lot of expectations were put on her,’ he said.

‘Absolutely!’ Her answer was faintly bitter in response to the irony of his tone.

‘It can’t be an easy job trying to raise another woman’s child?’ He looked at her, lifting a black brow.

‘No one suggested it was,’ she said bluntly.

‘Okay, I’ll back off.’

‘Do.’ She was frosty in her tone. ‘To get off the subject, I might as well tell you I’ve read up on Compton Holdings. I’ll ask a few questions of my own now, if I may? Why did you leave? Surely with a huge enterprise and a flagship station like Turrawin there was more than enough room and work for two brothers? Or a dozen brothers for that matter.’

His expression hardened. ‘For most people there would be, but you haven’t met my father. My father is a very controlling sort of man and I’m long past marching to his drumbeat. I needed to strike out on my own.’

‘Then you have the money to buy here?’ She resorted to a brisk business-like tone.

‘Always supposing I’m interested.’ His eyes mocked her. ‘I haven’t seen over the place yet.’

‘You wouldn’t be here if you thought it a waste of time, but I warn you I’m no push-over, Rory Compton.’

‘Excuse me, you inherited?’ He leaned back nonchalantly against a cabinet and folded his arms.

What a combination of male graces he had, such an elegance of movement. ‘I’m the major shareholder,’ she informed him coolly, aware of something else. He offered torment as well as poignancy.

‘That’s unusual?’

‘Well you’d know all about that.’ She came back spiritedly.

‘Touché!’ Unexpectedly he gave her his rare smile. It was so heartbreaking it was just as well it came and went fairly rarely. ‘I think we got off on the wrong foot, Allegra.’