‘I do,’ Morna told her equably, ‘though not the way you’re meaning. I’d lay down my life for him, but as far as I’m concerned he’s my brother. He always has been and he always will be.’
Cathy nodded. ‘The Two Musketeers—one for both and both for one.’ She laughed wryly. ‘I was jealous.’
‘You had no need to be. We’re family. He loves you quite differently.’ She met Cathy’s eyes and smiled.
‘I love him too.’ Cathy’s fine-featured face glowed.
Morna wondered what it would be like to be as small and delicately beautiful as the woman beside her.
Not that she’d exchange her extra height and strong-boned face, but occasionally she thought it would be…well, interestingly different to have a man treat her with the intensely protective love that Nick reserved for his wife.
She moved uncomfortably, transfixed by an itch between her shoulderblades. Someone was watching her with more than ordinary interest—she could feel an intentness that set alarm bells jangling in a primitive warning.
With a swift, mischievous grin Cathy nodded behind her. ‘If you want a real lord of the manor, your next-door neighbour Hawke Challenger is the best candidate. He’s just got back from Central Africa.’
Morna turned, oddly unsurprised when she caught the eyes of the dark-haired man. Conspicuously light-coloured in his tanned face, they held her gaze for several tense seconds before releasing it to survey the woman speaking to him.
Furious at the cool assessment in that pale scrutiny, she said thickly, ‘Is that him?’
‘That’s the owner of Somerville’s Reach cattle station,’ Cathy told her, adding, ‘And the staggeringly chic, exclusive resort at Somerville’s Bay, as well as its diabolically difficult golf course.’
To cover the prickle of feverish excitement in her bones, Morna remarked flippantly, ‘How could any couple stare into the face of their newborn child and decide to lumber him with such a totally over-the-top name?’
Hawke Challenger chose that moment to smile at the woman beside him.
Morna’s heart jumped. Shocked and disturbed, she noted how a brief flash of white teeth and the relaxation of a few muscles around a strong, masculine mouth could turn an impressive mask of force and power into an outrageously handsome face.
A hot flicker of sensation twisted inside her. She was not, she realised, the only woman watching him from behind sunglasses. Such potent male charisma summoned a focused high alert from every woman within range.
Stunned by her reaction, and bleakly resisting, she concentrated on what Cathy was saying.
‘I think Hawke Challenger suits him. Anyway, he’s not the sort to be swamped by a name, however extravagant. He’s got far too much presence.’
‘You’re completely right,’ Morna said, squelching a latent huskiness in her tone. ‘Too much—too, too macho. He’s not in the least what I expected.’
The Challenger man laughed again. Instead of softening that hard buccaneer’s face, his amusement seemed sardonic—a match for his slashing profile. He was truly gorgeous, his hard-edged features underpinned by a formidable self-possession that echoed his surname.
Morna made a habit of refusing challenges, except purely business ones, and this one she wasn’t going to touch. Chills scudded down her spine, because something in that cool, impervious regard, something in the way he smiled at the woman beside him, reinforced that initial reminder of Glen.
Did Cathy not notice it?
Cathy’s eyebrows rose. ‘You haven’t even met the man, yet you’ve made up your mind not to like him.’
Clearly she liked him. ‘He’s beautiful,’ Morna drawled.
Cathy chuckled. ‘Oh, absolutely. So?’
‘Beautiful men—apart from Nick, of course—are usually self-absorbed and conceited.’ Deliberately she turned away. ‘Bet you anything you like that Handsome Challenger is checking out the best-looking women here.’
‘You do jaded and worldly so well! I do admire that curl of the lip and the bored tone.’ Cathy grinned at her. ‘And if he’s assessing the best-looking women you’ve just been elected to that group, because he’s keeping an eye on you. Without being obvious, of course—Hawke is never obvious.’
The twining heat in the pit of Morna’s stomach tightened into a knot. ‘He’s probably eyeing you up and envying Nick,’ she said uncomfortably, keeping her gaze fixed onto the slow-moving procession of animals filing past.
The younger woman snorted. ‘Not Hawke—married women aren’t his style. And why shouldn’t he be interested in you? You’ve got spirit and character written all over your face, and a body to die for. As well as that fabulous skin.’
‘Well, thank you—’
Cathy ploughed on, ‘Hawke isn’t conceited. Dominant, yes, and completely confident—’
Smiling, Morna agreed, ‘OK, OK, he’s certainly nothing like the agricultural tycoon I’d imagined.’
‘What did you think he’d be like?’
‘A testy middle-aged man with a weather-beaten face and an unhealthy interest in sheep,’ Morna drawled.
Cathy choked back laughter. ‘I don’t believe that! You must have heard about him.’
‘The only locals I’ve talked to since I moved to Tarika Bay are you and Nick, and the Gorgeous Challenger hasn’t come up in the conversation.’
‘It’s time you started meeting people.’ Cathy looked at her with determination. ‘We gave you a month to settle in, but from now on I’m going to invite you whenever we entertain, and I expect you to come. You work too hard—you need to play a bit too.’
‘I’m a self-employed businesswoman; I have to work hard.’
Besides, she had an old debt to pay off.
At that moment Hawke Challenger looked deliberately at Cathy and smiled. It felt like a betrayal when Cathy’s face lit up with a warm response. Morna’s lips tightened. Why couldn’t her intelligent friend catch that painfully evocative resemblance to Glen?
Not in looks—although Glen had been a good-looking man, he wasn’t in the same league as Hawke Challenger. But both men wore an air of arrogant confidence, of complete conviction that they could do what they wanted because of who they were.
Cathy seemed quite blind to it. In a tone that could only be called cheerful she said, ‘So now you know you’ve got a truly fanciable man living right next door.’
‘Well, just over the hill,’ Morna agreed. She added tautly, ‘And I’m certain every time he thinks of Tarika Bay, with its three acres and that lovely little beach, he comes over all acquisitive. Before he died Jacob told me that “the Challenger circus” had approached him a couple of times to sell. Jacob turned each offer down, but I’ll bet Hawke Challenger believes he’s going to buy it off the estate.’
Cathy said fairly, ‘I can understand why Hawke wants it. His land surrounds Tarika Bay.’
‘He might want it,’ Morna told her with calm determination, ‘but he’s not going to get it.’
Cathy sighed. ‘You’ve decided to dislike him. I recognise that mulish jut to your jaw!’
‘I haven’t made up my mind,’ Morna said. ‘Anyway, it doesn’t matter what I think of him. I’m the interloper here, not him. He fits in very well with all these splendid animals: big and well-muscled and seething with testosterone. The colour’s right