Deadly Intent

“We never found out. When Cade went to have a more thorough look at the file later, he was attacked from behind. When he came to, he had a concussion and no memory of the attack.”

Ryan steepled his hands in front of him. “Of course the file was gone.”

“What do you think?”

“I think our next move should be to try and get it back.”

She picked up he coffee mug and stood up. “Easier said than done. There’s no proof, but we suspect that Max had something to do with the theft.”

Ryan shot her a curious look. “No fingerprints or other evidence?”

“He’s too smart for that. If he was involved, he would have put Eddy Gilgai up to the actual attack.”

“Now that Eddy’s dead, Max might have to start doing his own dirty work,” Ryan mused. “Do you still think it’s a good idea to be involved with him?”

She knew how reckless her insistence that she was attracted to Max made her look. But admitting the truth would only intensify Ryan’s efforts to claim her. And she couldn’t deal with that now. “So far Max’s part in this is purely circumstantial.”

“You said yourself you think he was behind the attack on Cade and the theft of the file.”

She planted a palm on the table. “Look, maybe Max was behind this and maybe he wasn’t. Under the law, he’s innocent until proven guilty.”

Ryan’s chair scraped back as he stood to face her. “You know he needs the diamonds to repay his creditors before they foreclose on him. And there’s a better than even chance he’s behind some of the attacks on your family. Yet you insist on seeing him. I’d never have picked you for a gold digger, Judy.”

He’d invaded her personal space, but she held her ground. “You’d better have a good explanation for that remark.”

“Do I need one? You can’t possibly be in love with the man after all he’s done and is doing to your family. So you must have another reason for sticking with him. The only one I can think of is money. Did he offer you a share of the mine if you become his wife?”

Ice dripped into her tone. “You’re treading on dangerous ground.”

“Not really. Just stating the facts as I see them.”

“You forget yourself,” she raged.

Her anger washed off him. “Of course. I’m only a drifter who can’t hold down a steady job for more than a few months. Max inherited a substantial chunk of land, and potentially a lot more if he gets his hands on Diamond Downs. From your point of view, he’s a better bargain as a lover.”

So angry she could barely stop herself from lashing out at him, she slammed the coffee cup down and spun out of the room.

Out on the veranda she dragged in a lungful of the cleansing air, hardly aware of the splendor of the night sky, like a velvet cloth strewn with the diamonds her home was named for. Did Ryan know that the sky with its myriad stars was the reason for the property’s name, not the fortune in precious stones said to be located here? Did he have the foggiest idea of what this place meant to her?

The land itself was her legacy, as it had been for generations of Logans. Only her father’s illness and his miscalculation in mortgaging the land to the Horvaths had changed everything. She had grown up knowing the legend of the diamonds, but never cared much about finding them until they were her only hope of holding onto the land for the next generation. The money itself was strictly a means to an end.

God, she hated to lose. And losing her heritage because she hadn’t done everything in her power to retain it would be the cruelest loss of all.

Intellectually she knew why Ryan had made his vile suggestion, but in her heart she felt mortally insulted. How could he think she would sell herself to Max for money?

That wasn’t the real reason she was so angry, she realized as she fought to bring her labored breathing under control. She was affronted because Ryan was the one making the accusation.

Buying and selling favors was probably second nature to him. The kind of women he was accustomed to dealing with probably wouldn’t have minded, she thought. But being placed in the same category had hurt her beyond belief.

Aware that he had followed her outside, she tensed, primed for battle.

His next words came as a shock. “I apologize. I was out of line.”

With the wind taken out of her sails, she didn’t turn around. “Have you any idea how close you came to being smacked across your big mouth?”

“Wouldn’t be the first time,” he said, an infuriating note of humor in his tone. “I shouldn’t have accused you of gold-digging. I know you better.”

How could he know her at all? She wondered. They’d spent so little time together as adults that his memory was of her as a teenage girl, not the woman she now was. He couldn’t possibly understand her fear of falling in love and losing control of her life. “Apology accepted,” she said evenly. “My reasons for seeing Max are my own affair, nobody else’s.”

“Doesn’t stop me being jealous as hell,” he said.

He moved up beside her and rested his hands on the top rail. “Beautiful night, isn’t it? Every time I go away from Diamond Downs I forget how magnificent this place is. Then I come back and wonder why I ever leave.”

Still shaken by his admission that jealousy had caused his outspokenness, she asked, “Why do you?”

“Work mostly.”

“You could work around here. Any cattle station in the region would make an opening for a man with your skills.”

“And what skills would they be?”

“Working cattle, horse breaking, mending fences.” She thought of the steaks he’d served tonight. “You could get a job as a cook. Not just a camp cook—in a restaurant,” she added.

“I’ve done all that and more, but it’s not the work I do,” he said.

She turned to him curiously, unwillingly admiring the way the starlight turned his hair to burnished gold and made his eyes seem darker and more unreadable. “I’ve seen you do all those jobs,” she insisted.

“What you saw was my cover story.” He reached for his wallet and flipped it open to show her a card in a window-faced pocket. “This is what I do for a living.”

In the pale light spilling from the house she examined the document. Credit-card-sized, it had an unflattering photo of Ryan on the left with a date beneath it. The words Security and Related Activities Control Act 1996 were printed across the top. But it was another word in large red type that jumped out at her. “Investigator? Wait a minute. This says you’re a private investigator.”

“Duly licensed by the Commercial Agents Squad of the Western Australian Police Service,” he agreed. “Among other activities, I can run surveillance on individuals and organizations, conduct asset and liability checks, investigate insurance claims and gather information for legal proceedings.”

She wondered if she looked as foolish as she felt. “I always thought you moved around so much because you couldn’t hold down a job.”

He made a wry face. “In the beginning you were right. Then I met an old friend from Broome who turned out to be working undercover at a cattle station where I was a jackeroo. I didn’t know it when I got there, but the station was being used as a holding center for supposedly stolen cattle while their owners filed dodgy insurance claims. After I helped my mate shut the operation down, he offered me regular work. I qualified for my investigator’s license. Later, when he decided to retire, I obtained my Inquiry Agent’s license and bought him out.”

Ryan rested a booted foot on the lower railing and his arms on the topmost one. “My home and office are in Broome and I travel around the Top End and to the Torres Strait islands, wherever the job takes me.”

“My hero, the P.I.,” she said on a note of wonder.

“We can skip the hero part,” he growled. “This doesn’t make me some sort of glamorous secret agent. Most of the work involves tedious evidence-gathering for companies or the courts.”

“With an element of risk,” she pointed out.

He slanted a grin at her. “Some of the people I investigate don’t take kindly to the attention.”

“I can see why they wouldn’t. Why didn’t you tell me any of this before?”