and she felt her body heating in response. She couldn’t tear her gaze away; her breaths came short and choppy. He didn’t move—he didn’t have to. Whenever he looked at her like that, she always came to him … came running.
How easy I made everything for him. A loving wife and Jarndirri, all neatly served on Dad’s platter. One kiss, one touch and I became his for the taking.
‘And?’ she croaked, forcing her feet to stay in place. Heart and mind fought a body that suddenly reminded her that, uterus or not, she was still a woman. Sort of.
‘And we had a good laugh later. From the day I moved in, we were like brother and sister. There was nothing there.’
‘Really?’ She tried to snort the word, but it came out breathless. ‘You two always got on so well.’
‘Every way but one.’ The smile slowly grew, and she felt her feet itching, trying to move. Her hands ached, screaming to touch him. She might not love him now, but, oh, he knew every way to arouse her, to give her satisfaction. ‘She didn’t want me either. We tried to kiss once, and ended up falling on the ground laughing.’ He grinned now. ‘She kept wiping her mouth and saying, “Ick, gross, it’s like kissing my brother.”’
‘Did you like it?’ she asked slowly, wishing she could keep the words locked inside, but so many years of wondering.
He took a step toward her, the predatory intent clear, and all the words she’d practised since asking him to come fled her mind. She watched him come, her body coming alive, hot and breathless, her breasts swelling and her hands lifting.
‘Kissing Lea was one of my life’s happier memories. It was then I knew I had a sister for life—and I knew I’d never hurt her.’
Interpreting everything he hadn’t said, as usual, she relaxed—until he took another step closer, body heat the oxygen fuelling her slow-burning body, and she gulped and breathed, trying to keep up with her galloping heart. ‘And then?’
‘I found you three weeks later in the haystack, hiding from Lea with the chocolate stash you stole,’ he murmured, eyes languorous with blatant sexuality, and his tinder sparked the slow flame in her.
Hiding from Lea, she’d whispered frantically to Jared to not give her away when he found her there. He’d looked at her in silence, asking without words what on earth she was doing. She’d lifted the chocolate in laughing offer, sharing her booty if he wouldn’t give her away. And he bent to her, saying she’d made a mess of her face, and took the chocolate smears from her mouth with his lips and tongue. She’d forgotten all about the chocolate, the hay in her hair and on her clothes; she wrapped her arms around his neck and kissed him back, crossing the unseen threshold from child to woman in an instant.
He hadn’t kissed her again for a long time—she was only fifteen to his eighteen—but he hadn’t gone with all the young guys to the infamous B&S balls—the Bachelor & Spinster balls—after that. And he hadn’t let any other guy near her either. He’d kept her on constant sensual alert with burning-hot glances and unspoken promises, soft whispers in her ear and intimate jokes for her alone.
But on her eighteenth birthday he’d given her a beautiful diamond ring made especially for her with gold from Jarndirri and a Kimberley diamond, danced with her all night at her party, and took her outside to the high verandah where she kept dozens of sweet-scented potted flowers and her climbing roses—planting them, even in the high ground, would drown them in the Wet—and he’d kissed her again, this time deep and slow with his arms around her.
I’m going to marry you, he’d whispered in her ear after half an hour of dazzling, melting kisses, and, poor, starry-eyed girl that she’d been, she’d had no thought of denying him anything he’d wanted. They’d come back into the house with that ring on her left hand, and her eighteenth party had become their engagement party.
They’d married four years later, after she’d finished university as her father demanded. She’d come home, torn between wanting to teach and aching to be with the man she adored. One slow smile from Jared on her return to Jarndirri, one melting kiss, and her future was decided. She couldn’t have left him again if her life depended on it.
She’d never kissed any other man, had never wanted to. From the first time she’d seen him, she’d been lost; from the moment he’d kissed her in that haystack, his wishes had become her wishes, his world hers.
Then the bottom fell out of the world they’d forged for themselves, the shattering of dreams as beautiful as pure crystal, and just as delicate. When she came home from the hospital, she’d felt the storm building inside him slowly, worse for its being unspoken. He wanted her to talk, to come past her intense grief, to heal … but he only wanted her to say what he was ready to hear. She knew what he wanted—the smiles and laughter, the sensuality and return to the joyous woman she’d once been. He’d wanted relief from the endless pain, for the uncertainty to be over, so he could get on with his life.
He could get on with life, because he still had options. He could still become a father. He could never understand the depth of her double loss. He just wanted her sadness to be over so he could bring up what he’d planned. She felt the leashed impatience as the months passed.
That was Jared. He was willing to run any race, fight any fire, swim any flood … he’d be there whenever she needed him, for whatever reason she needed him, so long as she didn’t expect him to talk, to share—or to feel. He just wanted to get on with it, whatever it was.
With Adam’s death and the hysterectomy, she saw her life through new eyes: the compliance, the hollowness of trying to please a man who only saw her as his adjunct. What did she have that was all hers, that wasn’t handed to her by her father, or given by Jared? What did she really want in life? It certainly wasn’t the souvenir store.
She still didn’t know what she wanted, and within an hour Jared’s mere presence was threatening her determination to find it. He could shatter her newfound strength with the promise of a kiss—and, what was worse, she was almost giving in. With a kiss, he could make her want to come home for good—and she’d never know. Her life would again be Jared’s to own.
She lifted her chin. ‘While that’s all sweet, it’s really rather irrelevant now. I only want to come back until we hear from Rosie—and if she still wants us to adopt her, I’ll give you Jarndirri, the money—whatever you want—if I can have Melanie.’
The long silence unnerved her—especially when he didn’t move or step back. ‘Is that a promise?’ he asked slowly at last.
She frowned. ‘What, about giving you … a divorce?’ She sipped her cooling coffee. Funny, after all the times she’d practised the word, it was still so hard to say. ‘Of course, I told you—’
‘That isn’t what you said,’ he interrupted her, his voice uncompromising. ‘You promised me everything I want, if I let you stay.’
He wants more than Jarndirri.
Her stomach hollowed out. What little coffee she’d drunk churned inside, making her want to be sick. Twelve years together, five years married, so much they’d been through together, and still what she wanted meant nothing to him. A million hectares of earth still held his heart captive—that, and the life he’d planned for them. That was Jared, stubborn to the last.
I can’t give you children, she wanted to scream. I can’t go back to where my sweet Adam was still here, still alive!
Jarndirri was no longer home to her; it was the place where hope and dreams and love and laughter had died. All she wanted was to never go back.
For Melanie, her heart whispered. You’ll have Melanie.
She forced her chin up. Her fists curled, she drew in a breath and said with a semblance of calm, ‘Everything you wanted that I can give you, Jared.’
‘Everything I wanted, Anna,’ he repeated, his voice