Princes of the Outback. Bronwyn Jameson

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СКАЧАТЬ settled around her legs where they dangled over the rock ledge, a flutter of feminine contrast to the rugged setting and the worn denim stretched over his thighs alongside.

      “Did you consider I might want to be alone?” he asked, surprising himself with the even tone of his voice. Ever since Jack Konrads read out that newly added will clause, tension had snarled through his blood and his flesh. An anger that had whipped the hollow numbness of grief and loss into something hot and taut and hazardous.

      “Yes,” she said simply, with a quick flash of smile.

      Although that could have been for Ajay, because on the heels of the smile came a softly crooned note of surprise. Her hand slid from his shoulder down his arm—from rolled-up shirtsleeve to skin—as she leaned around him to take a better look. “While I was clambering up here, I kinda thought you mightn’t have Sergeant anymore.”

      “He died.”

      For the tiniest hint of time, she stilled. Then the pressure of her hand on his forearm changed, a tactile expression of her next words. “I’m sorry to hear that.”

      “He got old.”

      “As we all do.” She leaned forward. “Well, aren’t you handsome.” And started to reach—“Best you don’t do that.”

      “I’m only saying hello.”

      And wouldn’t you know it? His wary-natured heeler didn’t take a piece out of her hand. Tomas breathed a tad easier…but only a tad. He was still struggling to reconcile the Angie he knew—the annoying, exasperating, teenage tomboy—with this exotic, alien creature who’d returned from Europe.

      She wore dresses, for pity’s sake. She’d straightened her unruly curls into one of those city-girl do’s, all sleek and dark and glossy. And every time she moved he heard the delicate tinkle of the jewelry she wore on her wrists and ankle.

      Hell, she even had some kind of rings on her toes. And as for the perfume…

      “What’s with the perfume?”

      “Excuse me?”

      Yeah, excuse him. He hadn’t meant to say it, the question that blared in his brain every time he breathed around her. Ever since that first day he saw her again—hell, was that only last week?—when she’d rushed down the hallway of the hospital to throw her arms around him, to hug him and hold him and leak tears and words and more tears into his shirt.

      Except instead of feeling comforted, he’d dragged in air rich with this perfume and he’d felt her curves against his body and he’d tensed. His hands had set her aside, this woman who no longer felt anything like Angie should.

      She’d changed when all he wanted was someone—something—to stay the same. To anchor him to the past that fate kept wrenching away.

      “You smell…different,” he accused now. She smelled different, she looked different, and right now in the dark he swore she was looking at him different, too. “You’ve changed, Dash.”

      His use of her childhood nickname surprised a laugh from her full lips. With a clink of bracelets, her hand slid away from his arm, thank God, and into her lap. “Wow. There’s a blast from the past. No one’s called me Dash in…forever.”

      Yeah, forever about summed it up.

      Forever since the last time she’d followed him down here, bent on telling him how the outback and Brooke would never see eye to eye. Like he hadn’t known. And like he’d not been young enough and cocky enough to think it wouldn’t make a difference.

      “It’s only been five years, but you’re right. I’ve changed, you’ve changed, everything’s changed,” she said softly, and suddenly the darkness seemed more intense. Suffocatingly so. “I’m sorry about your father, that he got so sick and had to suffer and that the last weeks were so hard on you all. I’m sorry I wasn’t here, and I hope—”

      “You didn’t have to come down here to tell me that. I’ve heard it more than enough times this last week.”

      “Yeah, well, you haven’t heard it from me. At least not without cutting me off midsentence and walking away.” She angled her chin in that determined way she had. “I have more to say, actually, and this time I want you to stay put until I finish.”

      Something about her tone and the sympathetic darkness of her eyes alerted him to what might be on her mind, and he started to move, to get the hell out of the conversation. But she put her hand on his knee, stopping him. It was the Angie-of-old, exasperating and annoying and not letting him get away without first saying her piece.

      “Did you get my letter?” she asked.

      Yeah, he’d gotten the letter she’d written after Brooke was killed. What did she expect him to say? Thank you for your kind thoughts? They really helped me cope when my heart had been ripped bleeding from my chest.

      “I hated that a lousy letter was all I could send,” she continued. “I wish I could have been here. I wish I could have found better words.”

      “It wouldn’t have made any difference.”

      “It would have to me.” She moved her hand—had she always been such a toucher, or had that changed, too?—this time covering his fist where it sat clenched on this thigh. She squeezed his tense knuckles. “I wasn’t here for you when it mattered, when I should have been. What kind of friend does that make me?”

      Was he supposed to answer that? Or just sit here like some priest in an outdoors confessional and let her talk so she’d feel better about herself?

      He hoped she wasn’t after absolution, because that sure wasn’t anything he was qualified to give!

      “Your friendship matters to me. Are we still friends, T.J.?”

      His childhood nickname, but it sounded all wrong on her lips because she’d leaned closer, her arm pressed warm and soft against his, her perfume a sensuous drift of woman in his nostrils. And then she did that squeezing thing again, probably meaning to reassure him but only screwing his tension up another notch.

      He wrested his hand away, put hers back in her lap. “If it makes you feel better, why the hell not?”

      “Yeesh, Tomas!” She let her breath go sharply, exasperated. “Can’t you at least pretend to accept sympathy from a friend? Would that hurt so very much?”

      When he didn’t answer, she shook her head slowly. The slippery ends of her hair skimmed against his bare forearm as if coolly mocking one of the reasons he didn’t feel like she was his friend. This strange awareness that he didn’t want or like or need.

      The disturbing notion that little Angie had grown up into a woman…and his man’s body wouldn’t stop noticing.

      “That’s all I came down here to say,” she said abruptly. “Accept it or don’t. I’ll leave you to enjoy your pity party alone.”

      She’d already started to rise, not using his shoulder for leverage this time, and Tomas should have let her go. Shouldn’t have felt the irrational need to ask, “That’s it? That’s all you came down here to say?”

      “Oh, СКАЧАТЬ