The Cattle King's Bride. Margaret Way
The worst of it was he looked marvellous. Tall, rangy, wide shoulders that emphasized the narrow expanse of his waist, lean hips, long legs. A shock of blond, thickly waving hair curled up at the collar of his denim bomber jacket. Jewels for eyes, a dazzling shade of aquamarine that glittered against the dark golden tan of his skin.
Here was a man sexy enough to take any woman by storm. “I’m here to pick you up, dear heart. Your mother contacted me. I’ve got Uncle Noel’s Cessna. We leave first thing in the morning.”
She leant heavily into sarcasm as her form of defence. “Are you proud of the way you give orders?” She ran a backward hand over her tumbled mane.
“Not proud of it at all,” he said wryly. “It’s inherited, I suppose.”
“Not from your father.”
He spun to face her. His chiselled features with his strong cheekbones had grown taut. “Enough about my dad.”
“Let’s move on to my mother,” she countered. There were always shifts and starts, backing off, coming together, combustible electric currents, with her and Dev. Why not? They had serious unresolved issues between them.
“Try to keep focus, Mel,” he said briskly. “My grandfather is dying. He wants to see you and me.” He stood back so he could study her from head to toe. “You look beautiful, Mel,” he said in a dark, caressing voice. “More beautiful every time I lay eyes on you. Which isn’t often of late,” he tacked on in an entirely different tone.
“I thought we’d agreed on time-out?”
He contradicted flatly, “You’re the one who always insists on time-out. Just how much time-out do you want? You’re so into your intensive search for identity, it’s become an obsession. You’d better find yourself soon. Neither of us is getting any younger. Neither of us is able to jettison the other. I know you’ve tried.”
“What about you?” she retorted hotly, falling into the trap. “Isn’t Megan Kennedy still in the picture?” An image of that very glamorous brunette sprang to mind. “It’s certainly a match the clan would approve.”
“Except for a couple of strikes against it. One, I don’t give a damn what the clan thinks. Two, although I like Megan—she’s a fun girl and doesn’t pretend otherwise—no chance I’m in love with her.”
“But shouldn’t we treat love as absolutely foolish, Dev? What’s that saying? ‘There is always some madness in love’?”
“Nietzsche.” Dev came up with the name of the German philosopher. “He went on to say, ‘But there is also always some reason in madness.’“
“Madness either way. Love fades, Dev. Other attributes have to come into play—friendship, shared backgrounds and beliefs, eligibility. Sex isn’t the be-all and end-all.”
Dev gave a sardonic laugh, his dazzling eyes whipping over her face and beautiful body beneath its thin silky covering. “I wouldn’t marry a woman I didn’t want in my bed. My kind of woman would have sole possession of my body, my heart and my soul. The trouble with you, Amelia, is you’re not only at war with me, you’re at war with yourself.”
She didn’t reply. Her anger was warring with a terrible longing.
Dev threw up his elegant hands, callused on the fingertips. “Look, I don’t want to continue along these lines, Mel. I could do with a drink. I need to unravel.”
“What about a power nap, then take off?” she suggested, hardly trusting her own voice. Whatever the friction, there was the never-ending thrill of his presence. “Where are you staying, anyway?’
“Mel, darling, I’m staying right here.”
“Joke?”
“Can’t say I’m full of humour at the moment,” he confessed, stabbing a hand into his thick hair. It was one heck of an asset, that hair, Mel thought, bleached by a hot sun to a lighter gold than the last time she had seen him. “You can put me up, can’t you, Mel? I’m not expecting to share your bed.”
“Smart thinking, Dev. You won’t.” It was her classic defence mechanism.
Only he gave her a devastating grin. “Can’t you say, ‘I’ve missed you’? ‘It’s good to see you, Dev.’ Something with a bit of weight to it?”
“Sorry.” She shook her head. “You’ve taken me by surprise. And at this time of night! You could have rung.”
“And have you hang up? No way! Drink, Mel. Single malt Scotch if you’ve got it.”
She moved away, anxious to break eye contact. “So Noel lent you the Cessna?” Noel was the Devereaux patriarch. Dev, his great-nephew and godson, was the apple of his eye. Noel Devereaux had two daughters, but no son to succeed him. He adored his girls, both married to the right people, but it was a son he had longed for. Now he had Dev, since Dev had packed up and stormed off Kooraki. There was no love lost between Gregory Langdon and Noel Devereaux, both rich, powerful men.
“I do most of the flying these days. Noel is a good guy.”
“It must be a big help having you around the place,” she pointed out dryly. “Word is, you virtually run Westhaven.”
“So?”
“So I thought congratulations might be in order?”
“I’m not an employee, sweetheart.” Dev’s tone was laconic. “I’m family. Uncle Noel actually wants to hand over control.”
“You mean retire?” she asked in genuine surprise.
He shrugged. “Not exactly, but Diane wants to travel. She wants them to spend much more time together—see more of their girls and their grandchildren. The time appears to be right for Noel to hand over the reins.”
“To you, obviously.”
“The girls aren’t interested, neither are the husbands, very successful city men. It’s control, anyway, not ownership.”
She didn’t risk another comment. “Can I get you something else?” He had come a long way. And for her. Though it was as if she had little say in the matter.
“A ham sandwich, maybe? Could I grab a cup of black coffee, as well? You doing okay, Mel?”
“Wonderfully well, thank you, Dev.” She maintained a cool control.
“So look at me. I always know when you’re telling big fat lies.”
“No lie. I’m highly regarded at Greshams.” Mel began to assemble the makings of a ham, cheese and wholegrain mustard sandwich. The coffee would take only a few moments. “I’ll feed you, then I wish you’d find yourself a hotel, Dev.”
He pressed his back into the plush leather sofa with an exaggerated sigh of comfort. “Sorry, Amelia. I’m staying here. I need some sleep. Speaking of sleep, it’s not too late for you to say you’ll sleep with me.”
“Get it straight, Dev. I won’t.” Mel’s answer was remarkably breezy considering how she felt. She walked back, handing him a good measure of Glenfiddich over a few ice cubes.
He raised his remarkable eyes to her. “Many thanks, dear heart.”
Knowing him so well, she observed, “You’re upset.”
He took a long gulp of whisky before replying. “Why wouldn’t I be? I owe him. You owe him. He cared about you. You were such a feisty little kid.”
“So what went wrong, Dev?” she asked with some bitterness.
They were back on well-trodden ground. “We all know that,” Dev gritted out.
“Your grandmother hated my mother and me.”
His expression darkened. “She feared