Outback Bachelor / The Cattleman's Adopted Family. Margaret Way

expression that her body might have been a long-stemmed blossom.

      “Our special time.” She managed a smile, tingling to the tips of her fingers. “I loved every moment I spent with you as a child. But those were the halcyon days, weren’t they? We’ve moved on.”

      “You’ve moved on,” he said, a touch grimly. “I’m still here.”

      “You wouldn’t be anywhere else,” she scoffed.

      “Don’t you miss it?” He leaned into the boulder with a characteristically elegant slouch. Keefe had such grace of movement. He had discarded his wide-brimmed hat, his luxuriant black hair thick and tousled, his darkly tanned skin glittering with the lightest sweat.

      “Of course I miss it!” she said fervently, betraying her sense of loss. “I’ll probably miss it all my life.”

      “So what’s your life going to be, Skye?” he questioned, his eyes a sharply observant silver.

      “I haven’t figured that out yet.” Immediately she was on the defensive.

      “Well, you’re only twenty.” He shrugged. “But you must have a whole string of admirers by now?”

      “No more than you,” she shot back.

      “Now you’re being ridiculous.”

      “I’m not being ridiculous at all,” she said heatedly. “What about Fiona Fraser? She stayed glued to your side at the party. Then there’s Clementine. I like Clemmie. Your second cousin Angela has become very glamorous. And she’s a gifted pianist.”

      “So she is,” he nodded. “A conservatorium graduate. Angela is a city girl.”

      “Here we go!” she answered breezily. “That counts her out, then. City girls are trouble. So we’re back to Fiona.”

      “You’re back to Fiona, and I thought you were a hell of a lot smarter. I’m twenty-six years old, Skye. Twenty-six to your twenty. I have no thought of marriage on my mind.”

      “As yet. You have to be aware you’re one of the biggest catches in the country.’ It came to her that she was deliberately winding him up. It was really crazy of her, wanting to pick a fight.

      “Then you know way more than I do.” He dismissed that impatiently. “I’m the guy who’s being groomed to one day take over not only a cattle empire but Dad’s numerous business interests as well. We’ve been diversifying for a long time now.”

      “No one ever said the McGoverns weren’t smart.” She made a wry face, one hand making a move to button up her shirt. Only it was too darned obvious. The bikini top was pretty skimpy. Not that Keefe was looking at her in that way. The sad thing was he could arouse her most potent, erotic feelings with a single glance.

      She wanted…wanted…What did she want? She was still a virgin. No frustration attached to that state. She had plenty of friends. Male and female. It was simply that no young man she had met had come close to measuring up to Keefe. That was the pity of it.

      A pity beyond all telling is hid in the heart of love. Blake, his “Songs of Innocence”. She felt like an innocent, a babe in the woods.

      There was a frown on Keefe’s dynamic face as he watched her. “Don’t you feel safe here, Skye?” he asked.

      The seriousness of his tone cut across her reverie. “What a question!” Her hand dropped to her side. Why was she so nervous of revealing her body to Keefe? She was oblivious to all the stares she received whenever she visited a beach. Then she thought: It’s Keefe! It’s always Keefe.

      Dusk was closing in. Shrieking, the legions of birds were starting to home into the density of trees that lined the maze of watercourses, lagoons, swamps and creeks on the station. It was an awe-inspiring sight, the sheer numbers.

      “Answer it,” Keefe said in a firm voice.

      She stared at him. “You sound stressed.”

      “Maybe I am.” He swatted at a dragonfly with iridescent wings. It seemed bent on landing on his head. “Scott won’t bother you,” he said, his expression formidable.

      Scott? Scott wasn’t even an afterthought. “I’m not worried about Scott, Keefe,” she assured him quickly. “We’re getting along. You warned him off. He heeded your message. You love your brother, don’t you?”

      He plunged an impatient hand through his hair, fingers splaying into the distinctive McGovern widow’s peak. “Of course I do,” he said edgily. “But like you I know he has a callous streak. I don’t want to see that turned on women.”

      “Of course not!” She couldn’t control a shudder, acutely aware he was monitoring her every movement and expression. “Is he interested in Jemma Templeton?” She knew for a fact Jemma had always had a crush on Scott.

      “Why do you want to know?” His silver eyes blazed.

      She swallowed at his tone. It was so clipped it provoked a flash of anger. “No particular reason,” she answered shortly. “Just making conversation. I have no interest in Scott, Keefe. Take my word for it.”

       It’s you I love.

      “Sometimes I get so tired of it all.” Unexpectedly he made the admission. “Not the job. I can handle that. Handle the lot.” He paused, studying her closely. “Nothing is the same between us, is it, Skye? The ease has gone with the wind.”

      He hadn’t moved, yet she felt she had been taken into a passionate embrace. “You sound like you’re grieving for what we lost.” Despite that and the angst of his tone, she had an escalating sense of excitement, so intense she knew it was carrying her close to peril.

      His silver eyes blazed. “If I touch you I’ll make love to you. Do you know that?”

      He had said it yet she seemed hardly able to take it in. Even her heart rocked in shock.

      “No answer?”

      She began to shiver in the dry heat. How could she answer? She needed time to react to the pulverising shock. Besides, his tone seemed as much savage as sensual, as though he had found himself unwillingly caught in a dilemma.

      “Here in the shadow of the sand dunes with all the Dreamtime gods around us,” he intoned. “I’m convinced this is a sacred place. That’s one reason why I’d like to spread a blanket on the sand, take you down on it. You’ve always been little Skye to me. Now you’ve become pure desire.” He spoke with such intensity his luminous eyes had darkened to slate grey. “I didn’t tell you how beautiful you looked in your blue dress the other night.”

      Her stomach was churning, her limbs seized by trembling. Yet incredibly she said, “Maybe your eyes told me.” Even her body was swaying towards him like a flower swayed towards the sun.

      “Eventually I was bound to give myself away,” he said, a twist to this mouth. “I’m sure I’ll remember how you looked that night to the end of my days. No one wears the colour blue like you do.”

      Whatever he said, he wore the demeanour of a man who was in the process of making a hard decision. A decision he meant to stick by come what may. “I don’t want to leave you here.” He turned his head abruptly, his tone a shield. “It’s getting late. You can come back tomorrow if you like. There’s always another sunset.”

      “It’s okay, I’ll stay.” He was hurting her, punishing her. For what? Growing up? Turning into a desirable woman? She could see the pulse drumming away in his temple.

      “It’s me, isn’t it, Keefe?” She took a hesitant step towards him, her blue eyes full of entreaty. “I’m the one causing you tension. You don’t really want me here. I’ve turned from your ‘little buddy’ into a woman, thus an unwanted distraction.”

      The air between them