Outback Bachelor by Margaret Way Page A

had its genesis in status. His. Hers. Though successive generations were easing up on the status war. Once it would have been considered a disgrace for the scion of a great pastoral family to become involved with the daughter of a lowly employee. But she was an educated woman living in the twenty-first century. She could take her place anywhere. Except, it seemed, at Djinjara.
    “Do I want it?” She considered his question bleakly. With a tremendous effort of will she exerted enough strength to break free of him. High time she made it perfectly plain she was her own woman. “Do you really believe I’m happy to think of myself as a woman possessed?” A high flush of colour had come to her cheeks.
    “Possessed and possessing,” he answered bluntly. His hand, with a life of its own, moved up to caress her breast, shaping its contours within his palm, his thumb teasing the berry-ripe nipple. “I can feel your heart racing. It beats for me .”
    The truth of it cut her to the bone. One had an intellectual life. And one had an emotional life. Sometimes the two were at war. “So arrogant!” she lamented. “I exist only to worship at your feet?” Deliberately she removed his hand from her breast. She knew about love. She knew about total seduction. He had long since mastered the art.
    “Maybe I am arrogant,” he agreed flatly. “Maybe that’s what you do to me, Skye.”
    He resumed his position, in all probability waiting for her to come round. Instead, she sat rigid with self-control, watching an eagle hawk swoop on its prey. “Are you ever going to free me, Keefe?” she asked eventually. “Or are you just holding onto me until you find someone else?”
    He didn’t appear to be listening to her. As though what she was saying made no sense to him. “This is almost the precise spot where I first made love to you,” he said in a quiet, serious voice, an element of—was it regret?—in his tone.
    “The heir to Djinjara having sex with the young daughter of a station employee.”
    Again he didn’t choose to hear her. “The world was perfect that day. You made me feel like a titan. Capable of taking on the world. Sweet, funny little Skye with her ceaseless questions grown into a beautiful woman.”
    “You always took the time to answer those questions.”
    “They were always so intelligent. You had a great thirst for knowledge.”
    Her released breath had a soft, shaken sound. “You were so kind to me in those days. Then overnight you drew back. You kept your distance.“
    His handsome features tightened. “What would you have had me do? Keeping a distance between us was the only course open to me.”
    “Of course.” There was brittle acceptance in her tone. “Keefe McGovern and Skye McCory. What a no-no! That was never going to work.” Her gaze went beyond him. “It’s going to storm.”
    He didn’t move. “Right this minute I don’t care if we’re heading for Armageddon. I want to crush you. You won’t let me. I want to take every little particle of you into me.”
    “That would seem to be our misfortune,” she said with the greatest irony.
    “I call it destiny.” Abruptly he sat up. “I’ve missed you so much, Skye. You were supposed to come in August.”
    To be here with him, remote from everyone and everything, and hold herself aloof was an excruciating test of her resolve. “And sow more discord?” she challenged. ‘No, Keefe, I couldn’t. What was the point? Besides, you might have found yourself a fiancée by then.”
    His expression hardened. “Be damned to that! Haven’t you forgotten something?”
    “And what is that?” She spoke in a strung-out voice, knowing she was coming close to tumbling over the edge.
    “ You’re the only woman I want.”
    The admission was like a blinding illumination.
    Isn’t that your lifetime passion? said the voice in her head. To be Keefe’s woman?
    When she spoke she spoke sadly. “The things you say are enough to blow my mind. I’m the