between them, then taking a long drink from the bottle of mineral water everyone had told her to take, warning of dehydration.
“I have a thermos of coffee. Would you like some?” he asked.
“Yes. Please.”
He used the same “table” rock to set out mugs and fill them, then produced two plastic containers of sandwiches. “Bacon, lettuce, tomato and cheese,” he informed her. “You’ll need something more substantial than melon. Help yourself.”
“You, too,” she invited.
They sat, munching and drinking in a loaded silence.
Eventually Miranda decided to settle a harmless point of curiosity. “Why did Albert call you ‘oldfella’? I wouldn’t call you old.”
“It relates to my family having been linked to this area for more years than Albert has lived. Longevity is counted in generations. Five generations here makes all of the Kings ‘oldfellas.”’
“I see,” she murmured, mentally kicking herself for even momentarily regretting her earlier rejection of him. A member of the King family would never seriously link himself with her, any more than a member of the Hewson family would, as Bobby had finally spelled out to her.
“What do you see, Miranda?”
She shrugged, meeting the searing question in his eyes with the inescapable fact she’d known from the beginning. “That I don’t belong and you do.”
“Where do you belong?” he asked.
She broke into laughter, shaking her head over the emptiness of that question. “Nowhere. That’s part of why I’m here. It doesn’t matter where I am.” She flashed him an ironic look. “I guess you could say I belong to myself.”
He frowned and turned his gaze down to the pool below them. A dark, dark pool, Miranda thought, like her family background. Not that it could actually be called family, just her and her mother whose men had never offered a wedding ring…the whole sorry misery of it coming to a lonely end years ago. It was hardly the kind of history the King family would want attached to them in any shape or form.
“So you don’t care about breaking up anyone else’s sense of belonging.”
The harsh remark was one too many for Miranda. “You have no right to probe into my personal life. I am here on a professional basis,” she stated icily.
“You might have fooled my mother…”
She leapt to her feet, snapping with anger. “That’s enough! I have never been a married man’s mistress. Nor would I ever put myself in such a demeaning situation.”
“Then what was all that mistress stuff about?” he shot back at her.
“It was about a man like you, wanting to put me in that position, and he had the power to mess up all I’d worked for. Just as you have the power to mess up my contracted time at King’s Eden.”
He was suddenly on his feet, a towering figure of proud indignation. “That’s a hell of a thing to think of me!”
“Like the things you’ve being thinking about me, huh? Treating me like dirt because I said no play!” Her eyes raked his arrogant pride into meaningless tatters. “Well, let me tell you I’m not about to take the chance you’re any different from him. I don’t care how sexy you are. I…won’t…play!”
Her whole body was shaking with the vehemence of that denial and her last three words boomed around the cavern, echoing, echoing…out of her control. She’d let him drive her out of control.
Desperate to grab some shreds of it back, she shoved her drink bottle into her bag. Her hands fumbled over the lid of the melon container. A hand clamped around her wrist, stilling the agitated action.
“I promise you…I swear to you…your position at King’s Eden is safe from any interference from me.”
Her heart was pounding so hard she couldn’t bring herself to speak at all. She stared down at the strong brown fingers wrapped around her wrist, imprisoning it.
“And please…accept my apology for making you feel at risk. That was not my intention.”
His voice seemed to throb with sincerity. She couldn’t look at him, couldn’t tear her gaze from the hold he had on her, his flesh imprinting itself on hers, fingers pressing on her pulse, his energy zipping into her bloodstream, imparting an indelible sense of joining that wasn’t true. It couldn’t be true.
“As for what I thought of you…I’m glad I was wrong. And I apologise for that, too. Believe me now…you are safe with me, Miranda. Okay?”
She nodded, too choked by a tumult of emotion to do anything else. He released her and began repacking his bag. Miranda concentrated hard on finishing with hers.
Her mind thrummed with the knowledge that she didn’t feel safe with Nathan King and never would. He was more than Bobby Hewson. Much more. And even if he left her alone, as he promised, she would not stop being acutely aware of him and the power he had to reach into her.
Neither of them said anything throughout the hours it took to journey back to the resort. There was no touching, physical or verbal. Miranda did her utmost to block him out of her personal space but he kept infiltrating it just by the sheer force of his presence.
For all her practised professionalism, she found herself hopelessly tongue-tied when she finally had to face him on the helipad at King’s Eden. She forced her gaze to meet his and almost flinched at the intense blue of his eyes as they probed hers.
“Thank you,” she blurted out, barely stopping herself from backing away from him.
“Miranda, I have nothing to do with the resort and Tommy would certainly not welcome any interference from me in his business,” he stated emphatically. “It’s entirely up to you to make good your position here.”
She nodded, her throat too constricted to speak.
“You want time to feel settled into your job…fine!” he went on. “But I don’t see myself forgetting what there is between us. And I don’t think you will, either.”
She did not answer, feeling the threat to her peace of mind and not knowing what to do about it.
“I’ll see you again sometime,” he added, and took his leave of her.
She watched him get into his Jeep and drive away. Only when he was out of sight did she begin to breathe easily. Two years at King’s Eden, she thought. Of course she would see him again…sometime. And what then?
What then?
IT WAS good to see Jared again. Nathan reflected that he always had enjoyed his youngest brother’s company. Tommy had a competitive streak, wanting to score points on everything, while Jared was simply content to be himself, not in contest with either brother. Maybe it was because he’d moved himself into their mother’s world, away from King’s Eden. Or maybe it was simply his nature.
They sat in the breakfast room, idling over morning tea, Jared and their mother relaxing after their flight from Broome, Nathan catching up on their recent activities. Tommy would fly in this afternoon and would inevitably draw Jared’s attention to himself, but for the moment, it was very pleasant listening to his youngest brother’s plans to extend the pearl business from wholesale into retail, as well.
“So how goes it with you, Nathan?” he asked, the conversation having lulled after he and their mother had filled him in on their news.
“Oh, nothing really changes here,” he drawled, except he only had half his mind concentrated on station business. Miranda Wade occupied the other half, but he wasn’t