Princes of the Outback: The Rugged Loner / The Rich Stranger / The Ruthless Groom. Bronwyn Jameson
in what transpired next. Backing a stubborn man into the proverbial corner was not the way to win his cooperation. Lord knows, she came from a household steeped in testosterone. She should have known better.
She should have left his bedroom with better grace and some dignity, too. She shouldn’t have let him light a match to her temper. And she definitely should not have kept pushing and provoking until he ground out that line about after-she’d-gone. Mostly she wasn’t one to dwell on should-haves and most of that list she’d put well behind her by Thursday—all except the leaving thing and that bothered her deeply.
If he wouldn’t let her stay, then how could she prove herself and her love? If he was never home and their paths crossed as rarely as they’d done in the past five days, then how could he see that she’d fitted happily back into station life?
She didn’t assume he was avoiding her. It was a hectic time with mustering and branding and weaning and trucking out stock for sale and fattening. Tomas was responsible for managing a hundred thousand head of cattle and fifty employees. He was a busy man. So busy that he’d neglected to tell her he was flying out on a three-day visit to the company’s eastern feed-lots.
She simmered and seethed inside for a good twenty-four hours, but what could she do? She could prepare for his return, that’s what. She could make sure he did notice her seamless integration into his home and station life, and she could do so without another sharp-worded confrontation.
A few casual questions to a head stockman and she had an estimated time for the boss’s return. She prepared dinner herself and chose the perfect wine accompaniment from Chas’s extensive cellar. She soaked for a good hour in the honey and cinnamon bath-milk she’d bought especially for the trip—the same one she’d used in the hotel that night. “For you, Tomas,” she stated with some defiance as she poured a liberal dose into the tub. “Same as all the pretty underwear.”
Oh, and she gave the housekeeping staff the night off.
Tonight was the first of her three nights with Tomas, and she intended on making the most of it.
Despite the good food, the wine and the satin she’d chosen to wear next to her bath-softened skin, Angie didn’t go for a full-out seduction scene. In the interests of subtlety—and not scaring him off—she scuttled the candles and flowers, and left the stereo turned off. That would help, too, with hearing his incoming plane.
Ready early, she couldn’t stand still. She fussed over the lasagna and greens and bread rolls she’d baked earlier. She applied a third coat of Nude Shimmy polish and wandered restlessly around the gardens while her nails dried and the sun clocked off for the day. She even considered straightening her hair, just to fill some time.
But when she looked into the mirror at the mass of curls, she remembered Tomas saying he didn’t like sleek. She set down the straightening tool and smiled slowly. “Oh, yeah. I rather like it wild, too.”
Except she wasn’t thinking about her hair.
She huffed out a breath, hot with memories and keen with anticipation, and eyed her reflection in the mirror. She looked like a woman thinking about sex. Heat traced the line of her cheekbones and glowed dark in her eyes. And when she stood up and braced her shoulders, she felt the sweet tug of arousal in her breasts and satin panties.
Perhaps she should really surprise him and take them off. Perhaps she would after she’d fortified her bravery with a glass of merlot.
Yes, she needed a glass of wine. And to check the meal one more time. She straightened the neckline of her white gypsy top, smoothed the sitting-down wrinkles from her jeans, and set off for the kitchen at the opposite end of the house. With every step she could feel the friction of her clothes against each sensitive peak and fold of her body. Perhaps she should take everything off and really surprise him…although that would take a lot more than one glass of bravado!
Smiling at herself, she pushed through the kitchen door and came to a stunned standstill.
Tomas was home.
Right there in the middle of the kitchen, actually, although he hadn’t yet noticed her arrival. He stood in profile, a tall, dark, dusty hunk with a long-neck bottle in his hand. She watched his head tilt back as he raised the beer to his lips. Watched the movement of his throat as he drank…and she drank in his almost sybaritic enjoyment of that first long, slow pull from the cold bottle.
In that moment he wasn’t Tomas Carlisle, heir apparent to Australia’s richest cattle empire. He wasn’t any “Prince of the Outback.” He was just an ordinary cowboy at the end of a hellishly long working day.
A quiver of pure desire slid through her body, from the tingling in her scalp all the way to the freshly painted tips of her toes. She wanted to walk right up and kiss him on his drink-cooled lips and breathe the commingled scents of horse and leather and Kameruka dust on his skin. But more even than the physical, she longed to share dinner without sniping and harsh words. She wanted to let the evening flow naturally all the way to the moment when they stood in unison and walked hand in hand to bed.
Was that too much to ask?
Suddenly the hand holding the bottle stilled halfway back down from his mouth, and Angie had enough time to answer her own question—yes, definitely too much— before his head turned slowly her way. She could feel the tension in her bones and knew it seeped into the innocent kitchen air. And all she could think to say was, “You’re home.”
He grunted—possibly an acknowledgment, possibly a commentary on the intelligence of her opening remark.
“I didn’t hear your plane,” she continued, with a sweeping gesture toward the roof.
“I’m not surprised.”
Angie frowned. She’d turned off the music so she wouldn’t miss his arrival. “What do you mean?”
“You were in the bath.”
What? That was hours ago. And how did he know she—
“You wouldn’t have heard me above the music.”
Holy Henry, he must have been in the house earlier. How could she not have known? Angie blanched, remembering how she’d belted out whatever lyrics she knew and improvised the rest. “Why didn’t you say something?” she asked on a note of dismay.
“I only came in to change.”
And since he wasn’t laughing or looking horrified, perhaps he hadn’t heard her singing. Relaxing a smidge, she now realized the significance of her first impression. He wasn’t dressed for a business trip but for get-down-and-dirty cattle work, because he’d returned early and come to the house to change. Her gaze slid over his dusty blue Western shirt and lingered on the Wranglers he wore so well.
“What’s going on, Angie?” he asked with a hint of suspicion. And when her gaze flew back to his face she caught him giving her a similar once-over. “Where is everyone?”
“I gave Manny—” who’d been rostered for kitchen duty “—the night off.”
“Why?”
“I thought it would be easier, given you want to keep this just between us.”
He’d started to lift his beer again, but hesitated as the knowledge of what that meant arced between them, hot and sultry and heavy as a summer’s night. At least that’s how Angie’s body felt. Without breaking eye contact he took another long drink, another long swallow. “Is that why you’re all dressed up?”
She almost laughed out loud, remembering how many times she’d changed her clothes in an attempt to dress down. But, still, she liked that he knew she’d made an effort. She wasn’t afraid of letting him know she wanted him.
Slowly she crossed the kitchen floor, closing down the space between them, never losing that hot eye-to-eye connection. She ached to kiss him, to hold him, to have him right here and now. But beyond the surface of his blue-heat eyes she detected