High Stakes Bride (9 page)

It was a fact that everyone in town still assumed she was Carter's girl—despite her assertion that she wasn't. The reality of still being under his protection was difficult.

In ten years' time—maybe—it would be funny….

A faint sound, the soft weight of a blanket on her legs jerked her awake and for a moment she had trouble orienting herself. She felt as though she'd been asleep for hours, but she must have drifted off for only a few seconds.

Carter bent and tucked the blanket in against the rear of the sofa so it wouldn't slide off if she moved. The back of his hand brushed her fingers. The contact was fleeting, but the look that went with it—a moment of softness, of
recognition
—was intimate enough to curl her toes.

Seconds later the room was empty again. She heard the click of the front door closing and, shortly after, the receding sound of his truck as he drove down the drive.

Her fingers curled into the feather-light mohair rug. She still felt faintly dizzy, but now her mind was alive with memories of nights spent curled up with Carter, and long, lazy afternoons on the beach.

Why did he have to do that?

She had been
over
him.

Shoving to her feet, she made her way to the shower.

Now, exhausted or not, she was going to have trouble sleeping.

 

Carter walked into his kitchen and tensed. The tall, tanned figure standing at his kitchen bench pouring ice water into a tall glass was instantly recognizable.

“Mia.”

She grinned and winked. “Hey! Don't sound so pleased to see me. I was picking fruit down this way and decided to run you to ground. You're a hard man to find—I had to ask for directions at the general store. Someone named Gladys told me how to find you.” She hooked a chair out from the table and sat down. “It is a general store, isn't it? Definitely not a supermarket—Jackson's Ridge has to be one of the smallest towns I've ever seen.”

Carter fixed on the one point that seemed salient. “You asked at the general store?” That meant that by now everyone in town would know he had a female visitor. Jackson's Ridge might be tiny, but it had a communications network—code name, Gladys Hainey—that made satellite coms look primitive. If Gladys ever donated her body to medical science, worldwide intelligence would take a quantum leap.

“Uh-huh. And the pub, but the lady at the store was a little more forthcoming.”

Mia sipped her water and nibbled at a salad roll. Carter stifled a groan. That meant she'd also been to the café.

“Oh, here, I brought you one!” She handed him a paper bag with a roll inside. “You know me. Cooking isn't my best talent.”

His memory was a little fuzzy on that point, but no, it hadn't been.

Despite the name, there was nothing small and cute about Mia. She was lean and muscled, and just under six feet tall. Carter had met her at his local gym where she worked as a personal trainer and took aerobic classes in her spare time.

With a shrug, he took a chair and made a start on the salad roll. Amazon status or not, Mia was as friendly as a puppy and as harmless, and there was nothing he could do about her now. “What's with the fruit picking?”

“Thought it was a good way to do some travelling and catch up with friends. When I'm finished with the strawberries, I'm on my way down to Nelson to pick apples.”

She jerked her head in the direction of a pack propped against the ancient Welsh dresser that took up most of one of the kitchen walls. “You don't mind if I stay the night, do you? I tried to get a room at the pub, but they're all booked. Apparently some loon's trying to burn out one of the local farmers and they're having to put up extra fire crew and cops.” She gave him an amused look. “Which would explain why you look like a chimney sweep.”

“And smell like one. The fire was at a neighbour's. He lost his stables.”

Mia looked blank. Nice as she was, she was a city girl. Her reality had always been a whole lot different to his.

She indicated a bag of groceries on the counter. “I bought food.”

“No problem.” Carter studied the groceries with resignation. Kicking her out was an attractive proposition, but not viable if she didn't have anywhere else to stay. He'd known Mia for years, and he'd slept on her couch a couple of times after they'd broken up.

“I've put my foot in it. I thought I was getting some weird looks in town.” She set her roll down. “You've got a girlfriend.”

“Not exactly.” He had an ex-girlfriend, and she was going to kill him.

“Don't worry, I'll be gone in the morning. First thing.”

Silence reigned while she took another bite of her roll, chewed and swallowed. She gave Carter a reflective look. “You know, I've often thought you should have been the one.”

Carter could feel his mind going slightly crazy. It was the reason that whatever he and Mia had shared had been brief. He frowned. “The one?”

“You know. The
one.
” She shrugged. “I don't know why it didn't work out. You're perfect for me.”

 

Carter stepped out of the shower, pulled on some fresh clothes then walked out to the kitchen. He picked up the portable phone, carried it out onto the veranda and dialled.

Murdoch picked up on the second ring.

Carter bypassed the pleasantries. “Who's O'Halloran?”

“Why do you want to know?”

“I like to know who my neighbours are.” And something about O'Halloran niggled at him. He was familiar, but Carter couldn't place him, which was unusual.

“He's more Dani's neighbour than yours. He's staying at that beach house at the edge of her property.”

“The Hamilton place?”

“That's it. He was married to one of the daughters.”

Carter stared at the beach, at the creamy line of surf and the long, glassy stretch of wet sand as the water sucked back for the next wave. “What's he doing here?”

“Having a holiday, I guess. It is summer.”

“You don't know anything else?”

“Why would I?” Murdoch sounded distinctly cagey.

Carter kept his tone mild. “Looked to me like you knew him.”

“Like I said, he was married to one of the Hamilton girls. I've seen him around.”

Which was more than Carter had. After exchanging a few pleasantries and asking after his aunt, Carter set the phone down. He stared at the waves coming in in sets. Something was going on in Jackson's Ridge—something that was giving him a cold itch down his spine, and Murdoch knew a lot more than he was admitting to.

S
unlight on her face woke Dani. Pushing to her feet, she made her way to the bathroom and examined herself in the mirror. Aside from the bandage on her wrist she looked surprisingly normal. Despite the emotional turmoil, she'd actually managed to sleep in.

Thirty minutes later, showered and changed into her work clothes, she walked out to the barn. She'd heard the tractor just minutes ago. It was now parked back in the shed, which meant Carter had beat her to the punch again and had already fed out.

Now at a loose end, she retraced her steps to the kitchen and poured herself another cup of tea. She was trying hard to find things not to like about Carter—and failing. Despite everything he was turning out to be a proverbial tower of strength. He'd helped save Tom's place, patched everyone up, including her, and he'd stepped in to help her on the farm, taking on the most physical job. The fact that he'd slipped back into the farm routine so easily reminded her that while Carter might be a soldier by choice, he had always been a skilled farmer.

The least she could do was take him some more brownies. She would leave them on his kitchen counter.

Holding a plate of brownies covered in plastic wrap in one hand, she knocked then opened his front door and stopped dead.

The woman was tall and built like a Paris runway model and, in a skimpy bikini and see-through sarong, close to naked.

She finished winding a satiny swathe of black hair in a knot on top of her head. “Carter's outside somewhere. Do you want me to call him?”

“No. Thank you.” Inconsequentially, Dani noticed that the strange woman was posed alongside an oil painting of Carter's great-great-grandmother. Amalie Rawlings had been tall and dark and gorgeous—a lot like the stranger. According to Rawlings family legend she had been engaged to an aristocrat but had abandoned a titled husband in favour of Thomas Rawlings—a reformed rake. In deep disfavour, Thomas had left England and carried off his bride. Amalie and her husband had settled in Jackson's Bay at about the same time the Galbraith family had.

Jaw set, Dani turned on her heel and started down the steps. Seeing the dark woman standing next to Amalie had put her relationship with Carter right back in perspective. Thomas Rawlings had given up king and country for Amalie, and she had had the ring to prove it.

“Wait! It's not what you think.”

Dani pasted a smile on her face. “I don't think anything. I'm just his neighbour.”

As she walked down the front steps, she caught a glimpse of Carter out in the paddock, his shirt off, sweat gleaming on his broad shoulders as he repaired a fence and for a disorienting moment her carefully constructed reality wobbled and shifted. The scene was a practical everyday one, but the emotions it engendered weren't.

Dani's fingers tightened on the plate. She felt as if a set of blinkers had just been ripped off. Injured or not, Carter was tough and fit with a methodical patience that was formidable. She had heard the bare details of what had happened to him in Indonesia, of how he'd survived months in captivity and a potentially lethal wound through skill and sheer endurance, not only engineering his own escape, but tracking the team that had been sent to rescue him until
he
found
them.
For years she had tried to slot him into a controllable compartment in her life, but the system hadn't worked because of two fundamental flaws.

A
, he wasn't controllable, and
B
, she was in love with him.

Abruptly she understood what had happened to her mother when she'd met Galbraith, and every other woman who had ever fallen in love. The emotions were swamping, invasive and utterly logical. She wanted, she needed and she had to have.

The second she had seen the dark-haired woman in Carter's house, a primitive female part of her had gone ballistic. The emotions bordered on savage; she had wanted to drag her out by the hair. She couldn't tolerate the woman in Carter's house for the simple reason that Carter was
hers.

She had said she was “just his neighbour” but she didn't want to be “just” anything to Carter. The magnitude of what she wanted was stunning—especially in view of the fact that she had lost him.

A popping sound jerked her gaze down. Her thumb had punctured the plastic wrap. She loosened her grip and stared at the brownies.

Aside from having her world tipped upside down, she was definitely going soft in the head. Actually taking Carter chocolate. The next thing she'd be crawling into his bed.

If there was room.

 

An hour later, pale and barely composed, Dani was dressed for the clinic in track pants and a T-shirt, her hair pulled back in a ponytail. As she walked across the front lawn, Carter detached himself from the shaded side of the barn and fell into step beside her.

Dani controlled the urge to speed up. For the first time in years she wasn't just aware of Carter, she was suffocatingly aware of herself: the way her pulse jumped up a notch when he was near, the acute sensitivity of her skin.

She needed time to think—time to adjust. She needed time to form a strategy that would keep her sane and safe. In this case the solution of packing her bags and running didn't apply. Galbraith Station had her in a stranglehold: like it or not, she had to stay.

A flicker of movement through the trees drew Dani's gaze. The dark-haired woman was loading a pack onto the back of Carter's truck.

Grimly, she avoided looking at Carter. “You'd better go. Looks like your girlfriend wants to leave.”

He said something low beneath his breath. “Mia's not my girlfriend.”

“Mia?” Even her name was exotic. Dani felt like banging her head against something hard. Why on earth had she thought finishing with Carter would be some kind of punishment for him? If there had ever been an emotional vacuum in his life it must have lasted all of two seconds. She'd always known there was a queue—now it looked like it was starting at the farm gate.

Long brown fingers closed around her arm sending a hard jolt of heat through her. “I don't want Mia, I never have. I want you.”

Carter's gaze was steady, focused with a male intensity that sent a raw shiver through her, and not for the first time she recognized the dominant male qualities that should have sent her running.

It was ironic that after the trauma of her childhood, she should choose a man who was by his own admission dangerous, but maybe that, more than anything else, made sense. After years on the run she was never going to be attracted to a weakling and Carter had succeeded in a field that broke strong men. He wasn't the hunted, as she and Susan had been. He was the hunter.

With careful precision she released herself from his hold. Somehow this had all gotten way out of control.

Yesterday their relationship had been over; now she didn't know what they had. She had stepped out of her comfort zone into alien territory, and when it came to dealing with Carter, control had always been important. As strong as she was, he had always been in danger of overwhelming her. As much as Dani had given, he had wanted more, and the instinct to protect herself was too ingrained for her to surrender easily.

“If she's not your girlfriend, why is she staying with you?”

He glanced at his truck, his expression frustrated. Mia had the tailgate down and was perched on the end of the tray, enjoying the sun. “If I knew the answer to that, I'd tell you. She was there when I got back from the fire yesterday. Look, we need to talk—”

The sound of a vehicle engine preceded the plume of dust as O'Halloran's truck rounded the corner and pulled into the small parking area in front of her clinic. Dani checked her watch. It was ten on the dot; whatever else O'Halloran might or might not be he was punctual, his timing impeccable.

Dani covered the last few paces to the building and shoved the key in the lock. Carter pushed the door open and stepped into the clinic ahead of her.

Reaching up, she slipped the key on the hook just inside the door. “What do you think you're doing?”

“In case you hadn't heard, there's an arsonist in town.”

“In case
you
didn't hear, Murdoch thinks it's me.”

Carter didn't bother to answer. Irritated, Dani pushed open windows. “So what? You think O'Halloran's the arsonist?”

“What I want to know is why Murdoch thinks it's you.”

Dani felt heat build in her cheeks. She hadn't committed a crime, but having to repeat the reasons why Murdoch thought she might have made her feel guilty. She marched through to the reception area to unlock the front door. “Because I was first on the scene at the fire over at the Barclays' place, and I also happened to be in town when Nola had her fire.”

First on the scene again.

O'Halloran stepped through the door. Without the covering of ash and soot, he was younger than she'd thought—early thirties at the most—with the dark tan and muscular build of someone who spent a lot of time working outdoors. For a man who had almost died eighteen months ago, he looked remarkably fit and well.

His gaze settled on Carter. The temperature in the room dropped by a few degrees.

Dani gestured him through to the treatment room and threw Carter a meaningful glance. Carter picked up a magazine and sat down in one of the easy chairs, his message clear.

He wasn't leaving until O'Halloran left.

 

At three-thirty Dani deposited the day's earnings in at the Jackson's Ridge bank and requested a balance on the farm account.

Her earnings had bolstered the account, but only marginally. She would have to empty the chequing account to pay the ostrich bill. Once that debt was cleared, she and David would be flat broke.

Half an hour later, she walked into the house, picked up the phone and dialled David's number. After fielding joking comments from two of his flatmates, she finally got David.

“I'm going to sell some furniture.”

There was a short silence. “Don't do that. I'll sell the car, it's got no sentimental value.”

That was typical David. Ever since he'd been small he'd had a sharp, clear intelligence, and despite his relative youth he had a flair for farming and business. It had been his decision to shift from sheep into beef that had finally turned the farm's finances around—until the drought had struck. David himself had no time for unnecessary luxuries; he would have sold the furniture in a second, but he knew
she
liked the furniture. “The furniture can go, you need a car.”

“I'll catch a bus, or hitch a ride with a mate.”

“I've already got a buyer.”

“You won't get much,” he said curtly. “Dad sold off the antiques that were worth anything years ago. Getting rid of the car makes sense, it costs more than it's worth to run. Besides, it's only a few weeks until exams then I'll be back for good. Once I'm home, I can use the truck. ”

“You won't get much for the car.”

“A few hundred dollars is better than nothing.”

Dani set the phone down and studied the figures. Every time she added up what they had against what was owed, she felt sick. No matter how optimistic she tried to be, she couldn't beat the maths. Even if David sold the car and she sold every piece of furniture in the house, unless the price of beef lifted they would still be short.

Pushing back the chair, she walked through the big airy rooms of the house, finally stopping in the room that Robert Galbraith and her mother had shared.

She slid open one of the small top drawers of a dressing table and lifted out a battered wooden casket: her grandmother's jewels. She hadn't mentioned them to David, because if he knew she was selling them he would go crazy.

One by one she opened velvet-lined cases and draped the pretty jewels on the bedspread. Ever since she'd been a child she'd been fascinated by the flash and glitter: a delicate diamond brooch in the shape of a star, a crescent-shaped hair ornament that had once had egret feathers in it, strings of pearls that glowed with a rich bronze lustre and a Victorian posy ring glittering with tiny gems. The jewellery, valuable as it was, represented much more than a financial nest egg. The pieces were the only link she had to a family she had never been a part of, fragments from Susan's past, and another age—one that celebrated the importance of family and marriage—when the jewels a bride wore were passed down through generations. In Susan's case, as the sole remaining heir, she had been bequeathed the jewels when her mother had died shortly before Dani had been born.

Slipping the pieces back into the box, she walked out to the kitchen, looked up a number in the phone directory and picked up the phone. Seconds later a slightly cracked, no-nonsense voice answered. Harriet Dawson was in her seventies and ran an upmarket boutique jewellery business in the much larger neighbouring town of Mason. She had been a longtime friend of Aunt Ellen's and had insisted on the odd occasions that she had visited that Dani and David address her as Aunt Harriet. When Ellen had died, Harriet had told Dani to keep in touch and if she needed help to let her know. This wasn't quite the help Harriet had envisioned, but there was no way around the fact that the jewellery had to be sold.