Curt gave a pirate’s grin. ‘Mind your own business.’
Without a lie he’d confirmed their suspicions that Peta had picked the gardenia and given it to him, thus clinching their relationship. To these men and their wives, only a man in the throes of desire would have worn it.
It was interesting to see how a master of innuendo worked, Peta thought with raw cynicism.
He leaned towards her. ‘Pudding? Gillian’s made her special chocolate mousse.’
His eyes were slightly hooded, and although his voice was quiet enough to indicate intimacy, there was a clear warning in his gaze.
Suddenly angry, Peta obeyed an instinct she’d never owned up to before. With slow, subtle deliberation, she held his gaze and let her tongue run the length of her lips. ‘I love her mousse,’ she said huskily.
His eyes darkened and his lashes drooped further. ‘Then you must have some.’
Serves you right, she thought furiously, only to flinch when he took her hand and drew her to her feet.
His fingers locking around hers like manacles, Curt said, ‘Who else wants chocolate mousse?’
In a flurry of feminine complaints that they didn’t dare eat such wicked indulgences so they’d have to stick to fruit salad, the group rose and went to collect their puddings.
On the way home, Peta broke into a charged silence by saying, ‘In the end they all had some of your sister’s mousse.’
‘It’s addictive,’ he agreed. He’d just informed her that tomorrow they’d go for a picnic at the beach.
Beneath the vehicle the bars of the cattle stop rattled and headlight beams blazed full onto the house, mercilessly highlighting the need for a new paint job. Laddie sat up and barked, subsiding into silence when Peta got out.
Curt escorted her to the door. Tension spiralled through her and the scent of the gardenia flowers tantalised her nostrils. Each blossom gleamed with a silvery sheen in the soft darkness. In spite of everything, she thought wearily, she’d enjoyed—well, no, that wasn’t the right word. Regret ached through her; if only they’d met like ordinary human beings, and this was the end of an ordinary date…
Common sense asserted itself briskly and brutally. He’d never have looked at you, it stated.
At the door when she turned to say good night, Curt said levelly, ‘I’ll come in.’
Anticipation simmered through her veins. ‘What?’
Did he sense it? If he did, his edged smile was calculated to deflate it. ‘No one is going to believe that I’ll come straight back.’
She clamped down on her instinctive rejection. Compared to the homestead her house was a shack. And if he once walked into it, she might never get rid of his presence.
‘No,’ he said pleasantly, ‘I’m not going to sit in the car. You can make me a cup of coffee and we’ll talk like ordinary neighbours over it.’
Ordinary neighbours? He had to be joking. ‘I only have instant,’ she said inanely.
He shrugged. ‘So?’ When she still hesitated he said on a note of derision, ‘It’s all right, Peta, you’ll be quite safe.’
‘Oh, come in if you must,’ she snapped, because she didn’t want to be safe.
The Peta who hadn’t kissed Curt was a different woman from the one who had; this new Peta had developed a reckless streak a mile wide.
Switching on the lights, she said, ‘Sit down, and I’ll put on the kettle,’ and escaped into the kitchen.
When she brought the coffee in, Curt was standing by the bookshelf examining a volume. She plonked the tray onto a coffee table. ‘Black or white?’
Other men almost as tall as he—stock agents, the occasional neighbour—had stood in that room, but none had dwarfed it as he did. And it wasn’t just his physical presence; something deeper, more potent than good genes gave him that formidable air of inner strength.
‘Black, thanks.’ He lowered himself into her father’s chair and made it his own.
Sipping her tea, Peta stayed obstinately silent, but when he asked her about the book he’d been looking at she had to answer.
Half an hour later she realised with shock that she was enjoying herself, albeit in a tense, disturbing way. His mind stimulated her and she liked the way he discussed things, with a sharp acuity that kept her on her toes.
And when she disagreed with him, he didn’t get angry— surely unusual for a dominant man? Her father’s rejection of anyone else’s opinions but his own had marred her childhood.
After a quick look at her watch she said, ‘I think you should go now.’
Lounging back in the big chair with its faded upholstery, he fixed her with a glinting glance. ‘Why?’
‘I don’t want to get a reputation for being easy,’ she said smartly. ‘I have to live here.’
There was a short silence while she recalled that she might not be living here for much longer if he decided to close down her access.
With a humourless smile he got to his feet. ‘That would never do. My mother drummed into me the importance of not stripping a woman of her good reputation,’ he drawled. ‘I’ll see you tomorrow. Can you be ready by ten?’
‘No.’ But she wanted to be. She explained, ‘I’ve got calves to feed and move into a new paddock. About eleven-thirty would be better, and I’ll have to be back by two-thirty.’
He frowned. ‘You work too hard.’
‘That’s life,’ she said flippantly.
She waited until his rear lights had disappeared, then changed and went across to the shed to check the animals. The calf she’d rescued from the swamp was dead.
CHAPTER FOUR
FIGHTING back tears, Peta sat down on a hay bale and blew her nose. She’d believed she was inured to the many different ways animals could die, so why was she crying?
Because it had been a horrible day. Curt had revealed his true colours as a hard-dealing magnate, threatening her with the loss of her livelihood and everything else, and demolishing with brutal contempt her attempts to convince him she wasn’t a money-hungry home-wrecker.
She wiped her eyes. And for some reason she wasn’t ready to face, his refusal to accept the truth hurt.
That was scary enough, but even more frightening was the physical longing, hot and urgent and uncontrollable, that had engulfed her both times he’d kissed her.
Scariest of all, was the fact that he wanted her too.
The difference was that Curt was in full control of his passions. She wasn’t, and if she spent too much time with him desire might deepen into craving.
On the other hand, she thought wearily, surely she had more pride than to choose as her first lover a man who despised her because he thought she was greedy and amoral.
‘What else can go wrong?’ she said aloud, startled by the thin wobble of her voice in the warm, hay-scented air.
The next morning she was halfway through digging a hole behind the shed when she heard a car come up the drive. Barking importantly, Laddie disappeared, only to fall silent almost immediately.
Someone the dog knew, then. Please, not Ian.
She kept on spading dirt away until Curt asked brusquely, ‘What are you doing?’
‘Digging a hole.’ She concentrated on keeping up a steady rhythm.
‘I’ll do it.’
She