Heir To Danger. Valerie Parv

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      Close up, the tribal markings on his chest looked even more awesome. What must he have endured to acquire them?

      Heat radiated through her, not all of it traceable to her throbbing calf. She knew she was focusing on details to avoid facing the truth. This man she didn’t know had tried to put himself on the line to protect her. By interfering, she’d offended his code of honor, she assumed. But she had her own code, and it precluded letting someone else pay for her mistake.

      His hold on her stopped barely short of crushing. She dragged in a deep breath, regretting it almost at once as she was assailed by his musky man scent. This had gone far enough. “You can put me down. I can walk,” she insisted.

      His hold didn’t loosen. “No need. We’re almost there.”

      She strained to see anything around his daunting bulk, then stopped as the movement brought her into closer contact with his hard body. “Where is there?”

      “My vehicle.”

      Shifting her weight to one arm, he opened the door of a four-wheel-drive Jeep with the other and eased her onto the front seat, leaving the door open. She closed her eyes for a moment as the stored heat inside the car stole what remained of her breath.

      “Are you all right?”

      She forced her eyes open. “For someone who was speared, I’m fine. What do you think?”

      He retrieved a compact first-aid kit from the back of the vehicle and opened it on the floor at her feet. “If you’d stayed put, you wouldn’t be injured.”

      “I couldn’t let you suffer on my account.”

      He shrugged this off. “You don’t take orders easily, do you?”

      Did he sense that she was more accustomed to giving them? “Your friend Wandarra has his system of justice. I have mine.”

      “Well, next time, try not to let it lead you into trouble.” He reached for her damaged boot.

      She steeled herself, surprised to see him wince in sympathy when she was unable to suppress a cry. “You wouldn’t have been any better off,” she snapped, angry at herself for feeling so weak. Or was it because of the unwelcome feelings Tom’s touch stirred up? “I suppose you’re so tough that you would have walked away from the experience?”

      “The spearing is meant to teach a lesson, not cause undue harm. By moving, you could have been killed.”

      His anger suddenly made sense. Something tightened in her stomach, beyond the pain of the injury which she saw was mercifully slight when he pushed back the leg of her jeans.

      Slowly her own fury ebbed. “I haven’t thanked you yet for what you tried to do.”

      Tom kept his head down. “No thanks needed. You didn’t know what you were getting into.”

      She still didn’t, she thought, trying not to flinch when he used a razor blade to slice the leg of her jeans open to just above her knee. She wouldn’t be wearing them again. It came to her that this could be a problem. For the first time in her life, she didn’t have a dozen more pairs where they came from.

      As Tom cleaned her injury and wrapped a piece of gauze bandage around it, the touch of his fingers against her heated skin was deft, almost a caress. “Are you a doctor?” she asked.

      “In the outback you have to be a bit of everything.” He lifted his head. “That’s the best I can do for now. I’ll take you to Diamond Downs homestead where they’ll do a more thorough job. I have some painkillers on me if you need them.”

      “The antiseptic stings a bit, that’s all. I prefer not to cloud my thinking with painkillers.”

      He repacked the first-aid kit efficiently. “Pity you didn’t think of that before you blundered into the gorge.”

      “You think I don’t know that now? I may be many things, but stupid isn’t usually one of them.”

      He rested an arm against the open door of the vehicle, trapping her within the angle of his body. His speculative gaze raked her, sending fresh waves of heat coursing through her.

      “You don’t strike me as stupid. Naive, but not stupid.”

      “You’re too kind.” She laced her tone with regal sarcasm more reminiscent of her life in Q’aresh than her present situation.

      Instead of quailing, as her subjects would have done when she took that tone, Tom gave a sharp laugh. “Why do I get the feeling you expect me to fall at your feet and beg your forgiveness?”

      Because part of her did expect it. As the only daughter of the King of Q’aresh, she was accustomed to having her slightest wish obeyed. Here, she had to get used to being treated like everyone else. “You’re imagining things,” she said.

      “I don’t think so. You don’t exactly fit in here, do you?”

      “Not like Barrak, the white dingo.” She couldn’t help sounding bitter, knowing she was jealous because he so obviously belonged here, while she was the interloper.

      “The name was given to me when I was initiated into Wandarra’s clan. To everyone else, I’m Tom, the shire ranger,” he informed her.

      He waited for her to volunteer information about herself. When she remained silent, he shrugged. “Suit yourself. I’ll find out who you are one way or another. You’re obviously foreign, but you must have someone I should notify that you’re all right.”

      Panic welled inside her. “No, you mustn’t. I mean, there’s no need. I can look after myself.”

      His gaze swept her slitted jeans and bandaged calf. “So I see.” He gestured toward the car slewed at an angle a few yards behind his. “I assume you got here in that. Care to tell me what you’re doing with Des Logan’s car? Or is that classified information, too?”

      “I’m a guest of Mr. Logan’s.”

      Tom’s dark eyebrows swept upward. “Des is my foster father.”

      Suddenly she remembered where they’d crossed paths before. Tom’s familiarity had nagged at her. She had met him in the nearby township of Halls Creek when her father brought her with him on a cattle-buying expedition several years before.

      Chagrin gripped her. Tom obviously didn’t remember her. Not that she wanted him to. The fewer people who knew her identity, or where she was hiding out, the better. “I simply wanted a safe—that is, a place I could have some time to myself,” she improvised. “Mr. Logan was kind enough to let me stay in the old cottage.”

      Tom didn’t miss the hasty correction. Safe from what? “Des told me he had a guest staying out here, but that’s all.”

      “Surely he doesn’t have to tell you everything? I understand you don’t live at Diamond Downs now.”

      He nodded. “I have my own place outside Halls Creek.”

      “What were you doing here?”

      His СКАЧАТЬ