Heir To Danger. Valerie Parv

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СКАЧАТЬ style="font-size:15px;">      Chapter 2

      Feeling the color drain from her face, she let her head drop against the leather headrest. What had he called her?

      “That does it, I’m getting you back to the homestead.”

      She forced her head up. “I don’t feel faint, just…” What? Alone in a strange land? Terrified that she would be caught by her fiancé, Jamal, before she could get evidence of his true nature to her father? If she hadn’t been so distracted with these worries, she would have braked more quickly when the kangaroo leaped across her path. Then she wouldn’t have needed to follow the animal to ensure it wasn’t hurt, and come across the forbidden site.

      A lot of ifs, she thought. She bit down hard on her lower lip to control the threatening tears, recognizing them as a product of mild shock. Tom didn’t know who she was. He’d called her princess as a nickname.

      “Have you had your tetanus shots?” he asked.

      “I’ve had every immunization possible.”

      His eyes narrowed. “How long since you’ve eaten something?”

      “I—I’m not sure. Breakfast, I think.” She had eaten some crackers and an apple, too unsettled to face anything more.

      “That was hours ago. Des should have warned you against setting off alone without water, at the very least.”

      “I have food and a water bottle in the car.”

      He unscrewed the top of a canteen and handed it to her. As soon as the water spilled down her throat she realized how thirsty she’d been. How hungry she was.

      He watched her grimly. “You really are a babe in the woods, aren’t you, princess?”

      She lowered the canteen warily. “Why do you call me that?”

      “Because of your haughty manner, as if everyone else is a rung or two beneath you on the social ladder.”

      It was truer than he knew, at least in Q’aresh. “I’ll try to appear more sociable,” she said as much to herself as to him.

      “I recommend it if you want to last long in the outback. And speaking of lasting long, if you run into any more trouble, the first rule of survival is to stay with your vehicle.”

      His warning sent a stab of alarm through her. She’d never intended to last long in the outback, as Tom put it, only to eavesdrop on a meeting between Jamal Sayed and some of his cronies aboard the private plane Jamal would take to Australia on an assignment for her father.

      She’d planned to leave the plane when it dropped the other men off at a coastal airstrip, but Jamal had caught her taping his conversation, and forced her to accompany him to Australia, telling her father she couldn’t bear being separated from her fiancé for so long.

      Before he’d searched her bag, she’d managed to push her taped record of his treasonous meeting into a secret compartment under a seat. With luck, the tape was still on the plane. Her only hope of convincing her father that the man he expected her to marry was a traitor.

      When the king had brought Shara with him to the Kimberley eight years before, she had never imagined she would return under such circumstances. Or that she’d find her life depending on the Logan family whom she’d met on that visit.

      She was sure that the Logans, and by extension Tom, weren’t involved with Jamal. Shara had remained in touch with Judy Logan after meeting her at Diamond Downs on that first visit. Drawn together as the only teenage girls in the party, they’d discovered a mutual passion for rock art. Shara had been fascinated by the ancient sites in Q’aresh, deciding to set up an exchange program between the traditional artists in Australia and her country as soon as she came of age. Judy had become the scheme’s contact in Australia. Judy had been the logical person for Shara to turn to, although getting away from Jamal at the airport hadn’t been easy.

      Claiming a need to visit the ladies’ room, Shara had squeezed out through a tiny window into the open air. By the time Jamal became impatient waiting for her, she’d persuaded a taxi driver to take her to a bank where she’d used her credit card to obtain some Australian currency, then paid the driver to take her to Diamond Downs.

      Had it only been two days ago? It felt like an eternity. The seat gave as Tom got into the Jeep. She opened her eyes. He was a lot like his foster father, she thought. Not in looks, since they weren’t related by blood. But in his cool decisiveness. Not domineering, but no pushover, either. Qualities she admired in a man. In Tom.

      His foster father had reacted as if having a runaway princess land on his doorstep was an everyday event. A room at the homestead was hers for as long as she wanted. Too risky for them if Jamal traced her to the Logans, she’d argued. In the end she’d agreed to stay at the original cottage some distance from the homestead, and accept Des’s offer of the use of an old work car.

      In it she’d been checking out escape routes from the cottage, when she and the kangaroo had their fateful disagreement.

      She rubbed her aching calf. “Where are we going?”

      Tom gunned the engine. “I’d prefer to take you to a doctor, but since you’ve vetoed that idea, and you evidently don’t want to have me arrested, I’m taking you home where there’s a better medical kit on hand. We can send someone to fetch the car later.”

      This time the fluttering in her chest was easier to subdue. “What you’ve done feels fine. You don’t have to worry about me.”

      “Looking after stray princesses is part of my job.”

      She was getting used to hearing her title used as a nickname, feeling as if it eroded some barrier between them. Australians gave nicknames to people they liked, she recalled her grandmother telling her. And she found the idea of Tom liking her oddly appealing. “Do you come across many of us out here?” she asked.

      “Not normally at spear point.”

      The concerned tone of his voice pulled at her. He really hadn’t wanted her to get hurt, and tried to save her from greater harm. “I was a fool to go into the gorge without knowing the correct protocol,” she said.

      “You couldn’t have known what would happen.”

      “I should have. I’ve studied rock art for long enough to understand that traditional people have their own ways of doing things and their own reasons. The taboo on women entering the area has probably existed for hundreds of thousands of years.”

      The look he gave her was thoughtful. “Are you always this forgiving?”

      She guessed he was referring to her reluctance to press charges against him. “Only when I know I’m in the wrong.”

      “Are you really female under those classy clothes?”

      She felt the blush all the way to her toes. “Excuse me?”

      He looked equally disconcerted, she saw, when she forced herself to meet his heated gaze, as if he’d blundered into territory where he had no business going.

      “I mean, I can see that you’re female.” He pushed his bush hat far back on СКАЧАТЬ