Princes of the Outback: The Rugged Loner / The Rich Stranger / The Ruthless Groom. Bronwyn Jameson

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      Angie had been pulling I-didn’t-think-this-through stunts all her life.

      No, it wasn’t so much the offer that had rendered him speechless as the disturbing stuff that went hand-in-hand. She’d thought about having sex with him. Quite a bit, she’d said.

      Sensations burned through his blood, images burned into his brain, and with a low growl of frustration he flung his body at the path and attacked the climb back to the homestead.

      That wasn’t going to happen. Not with Angie. He wouldn’t allow himself to think of her in those terms. Not naked, not in his bed, not beneath his body.

       No, no, absolutely no.

      She hadn’t meant she would, really, have his baby. Only hypothetically. And even if she had meant it, she would soon change her mind. A woman who couldn’t settle in one place—in one job—for longer than a month or three wasn’t going to cut it as a mother. Sure, she’d changed. She’d grown up some, but she hadn’t yet settled down. He didn’t know if her gypsy heart ever would.

      Back at the homestead he found Rafe lurking in the shadows by the door. An ambush, he suspected. If he hadn’t been so preoccupied by the worrying exchange with Angie, he might have suspected as much and avoided it.

      “Alex gone to bed?” he asked, stepping onto the veranda.

      “He’s on the phone. Business continues.”

      Even past midnight on the night of his father’s funeral. That was Alex.

      Rafe lifted his liqueur glass. “Care to join me in a nightcap?”

      “Another time.”

      But when he reached for the door, Rafe sidestepped to block his way. So neatly and pseudo-casually that Tomas knew it was no accident. “Don’t suppose you happened across Ange out there in the dark?”

      Trick question. Tomas’s whole body tensed although he schooled his face into passive indifference. Either Rafe had already seen her coming in—had maybe even talked to her—or she’d snuck under his radar by using the side entrance. “Isn’t she inside?”

      “She wasn’t in her room when I checked a while back.”

      Tomas crossed his arms. Said nothing, gave away nothing. He suspected Rafe would fill him in on why he was looking for Angie without any prompting on his behalf.

      “I had this notion, y’see, about the will.” Lips pursed, Rafe swirled the liquid in his glass. Tokay. The same dark amber as Angie’s eyes. The same eddying whirlpool as in Tomas’s gut as he waited for Rafe to continue. “I think Angie’s the answer.”

      “This isn’t her problem,” Tomas said tightly. “Leave her out of it.”

      “She knows the whole story so no tricky explanations are necessary. And Mau loves her like a daughter already.”

      And there was the problem. Angie and her brothers had grown up like part of the family. Their father had cooked for the Carlisles—he’d moved out to Kameruka Downs after his wife died, head-hunted by Chas because he’d cooked at Maura’s favorite Sydney restaurant. The Moris had occupied one of the workers’ cottages but the kids had spent as much time in the homestead as their father. The six of them, Carlisles and Moris, had grown up together, played together, been schooled together.

      “From where I’m standing,” Rafe continued, “Angie’s the perfect solution.”

      “From where I’m standing, she’s too much like one of the family.”

      “You mean like our sister?” Surprise whistled out on Rafe’s exhalation. “Can’t say I feel the same way, not since she’s come back from Italy with the new haircut and that body and the walk.” Rafe eyed him a moment. “You did notice the walk?”

      The sexy sway of her hips? The gauzy skirt that clung to her legs? The glint of a gold ankle chain against smooth olive skin? “No.”

      “The sad thing is I believe you.” Rafe shook his head, his expression a studied mix of disgust and pity. He sipped from his drink, then narrowed his eyes. “Although this does make things less complicated.”

      “How’s that?”

      “No need to toss you for her.”

      Tomas frowned. “I don’t follow…”

      “Ange is the perfect solution for one of us. If you’re not interested, then I’ll ask her.”

      To sleep with him, to have his baby? Tomas was shaking his head before the thought finished forming. “You and Angie? No way.”

      “Why not?”

      Tomas forced himself to relax. His fingers, he realized, had curled into fists. His gut felt about the same. “What makes you think she’d be interested in helping either one of us out?”

      “She has this thing about owing the family. For Mau looking out for her with all the girl stuff and Dad getting her into the fancy boarding school. For keeping her father on the payroll even after he was too sick to work.”

      “That’s bullshit.” Not what the Carlisles had done for Joe Mori and his family—that was all true—but the debt thing. “She doesn’t owe us a thing.”

      “She thinks she does.”

      “You’re not serious. About asking her to…” Tomas couldn’t say the words. They stuck in his throat, all wrong.

      “There isn’t anyone I’d rather ask.”

      “I thought you didn’t give a damn about your inheritance.”

      “I don’t.” Rafe swallowed the rest of his drink, then clamped a hand on Tomas’s shoulder. Their eyes met and held, his brother’s intensely serious for once. “But I know how much you care about yours.”

      “You’re not martyring yourself for me.”

      “One in, all in. Your words, little brother, and the only way to do this thing. We increase our chance of success and lessen the onus on any one of us. No martyrs here, Tomas, just realists out to get the job done.”

      “Not with Angie,” he said tightly.

      “Think about it, bro’. She is just about perfect.” And with a last squeeze of his shoulder, Rafe turned and disappeared into the house.

      The motionless silhouette of horse and rider etched against the clear blue sky must have been a mirage, because when Angie lifted a hand to shield her eyes from the morning sun, only a single Leichardt pine broke the horizon. She sat forward in the passenger seat and stared harder through the Land Rover’s dusty windscreen.

      Right the first time—nothing broke the mile-long line of ridge save that tree. The crazy woman not only let fly with impulsive offers in the midnight dark, but now she’d started seeing things! With a rueful half laugh, she sank back into her seat. And heard the driver clear his throat.

      “You СКАЧАТЬ