Princes of the Outback Bundle (25 page)

“For how long?” she asked after a moment.

“As long as it takes,” Rafe answered easily as he steered the Jaguar back onto the single-lane road. Divergent currents of warm and cool air eddied through the car, whipping several long tresses around her face. “You might want to tie your hair back.”

The powerful engine pleaded for release in a low rumbling purr he couldn’t deny. He opened her up for the time it took to hit the speed limit—and a bit more—and she thanked him with a blood rush of sheer speed-induced pleasure. Not as good as sex, not as good as flying or outwitting a sharp opponent at the poker table, but the next best thing.

He glanced at Catriona. She’d given up holding her hair, and it sailed beyond the car’s confines in wild cinnamon streamers that obscured her face. He hoped the rush of speed had chased away some of her anxiety, that the sparse landscape with its rich ochre shades and wild, rough edges would feel enough like home to ease her tight expression.

That’s what he’d meant by “as long as it takes.”

He turned up a dirt trail leading nowhere in particular and eased off the speed. He aimed to find somewhere to pull over, somewhere they wouldn’t be disturbed. He hoped she was ready to let all that heartache pour out.

“Don’t you need to get back? To your business?”

They’d been stopped out here—wherever that was—for a while. Cat didn’t know how long. She’d walked until her san
dals started to rub through her numbness and register as imminent blisters. Then she’d returned to the sleek silvery blue sports car and climbed back into her seat.

Rafe didn’t move. “I don’t have to be anywhere.”

But despite the peace of this place and his relaxed immobility in the driver’s seat—how could someone slouch so gracefully?—she couldn’t sit still. She felt edgy and restless, as if the short walk had freed all her simmering frustrations from their previous frozen numbness.

She turned in her seat, better to face him. “Why did you bring me out here?”

“To walk. To talk if you want. I’m a good listener.”

“Talk.” She made a tight growling noise in her throat. “That won’t help me any!”

“Would it help if you tossed rocks at something? There are some sturdy-looking cacti out here. If you feel so inclined.”

No, she didn’t feel like throwing things any more than talking. She felt like…like…

“Did you know about Cherrie?”
Harsh, almost accusatory, the question exploded from deep inside, deep down where panic and anger and despair roiled in a churning cauldron of contained emotion.

“The girlfriend?”

“The
pregnant
girlfriend,” she corrected, and she could see by Rafe’s face that that much was news. And it struck her, randomly, inconsequentially, that he wouldn’t be the only one stunned by the news. Her laugh came out low and bitter, and she shook her head slowly. “Can you imagine his father’s face when he finds out?”

“Samuels doesn’t want grandkids?”

“That’s not the point. The point is Cherrie. Let’s just say Gordon would welcome even
me
with open arms in preference to a Vegas showgirl-slash-waitress!”

She could feel him watching her, silent as the spread of desert landscape, intent as one of the hawks that circled over
a distant canyon. “Was that ever an option? Samuels as your father-in-law?”

“I thought so. We lived together for a while, when Drew was home from rodeos. He and his father had a falling out, and we’d always been friends. It became…more. I took his money thinking we’d end up running Corroboree together, that we’d be partners, and the silly handshake I’ll-pay-you-back deal was only about my pride.” Now she’d started talking, the words simply wouldn’t let up. It didn’t matter who she was telling or whether he wanted to know, she just had to let it all out. “Why couldn’t he have told me about Cherrie and the baby and his busted shoulder? I would have understood him needing the money. I could have done something without him selling me out to his father!”

God knows what, but something! For a start she would have avoided this pointless trip, saved herself the discovery of Drew’s failure firsthand, of meeting the beaten flatness of his eyes. Of knowing he’d been too weak to return her calls and tell her the truth.

“I take it his rodeo dream didn’t pan out?”

“He says he was doing all right until he got laid up with injury, but who knows? As far as I know he didn’t even tell his father that much. Back home I kept hearing how well he was doing on the circuit.” She slapped a hand against the console. “I should have known better. I had my doubts when I stopped seeing his name in the results on the Internet.”

“You were hoping you were wrong.”

With a rueful sigh, she slumped back in her seat. “Yeah. I was hoping.”

“Valid,” he suggested after a long beat of pause, “since you love him.”

That statement, spoken quietly, evenly, stretched through the ensuing silence and wrapped around Cat’s conscience. She frowned. Did she love Drew? Present tense…no, she didn’t. Past tense…yes, she must have. Why else would she have
trusted him? Why else would his betrayal have struck such an acute hurt in her heart?

Because
the result
mattered so deeply. Because, now, she would have to find some way to repay Samuels and she feared that selling at least part of Corroboree was her only option. She feared that Samuels wouldn’t stop at part, that he would keep hammering away until he had the whole.

“He’s always wanted Corroboree.” A simple statement, but her voice ached with all that meant. Failing her father and failing herself. “I don’t know what I’m going to do, Rafe.”

She’d turned toward him, her arms spread in unconscious appeal, and although he didn’t move a muscle, she sensed a change. A new alertness. As if he’d been sitting there waiting for her to get to this point. Waiting for his cue to take over.

“You’re not going to do anything, Catriona. Not yet.”

“But—”

“You’re tired, you’re stressed, you’re emotional. That’s not the time to be making big decisions.”

True, but…

Rafe the listener, lounging back in his sports car seat, prompting her to toss her verbal rocks at the abandoned terrain…
that
Rafe she trusted. This intent, take-charge version disturbed her at some elemental level. Having to seek his advice on what to do next disturbed her even more, yet she couldn’t help herself. She felt so lost and fretful she might as well have been out there, wandering across the red-tinged vastness of the Nevada landscape, alone and without a compass.

“When will I be ready?”

“Not before tomorrow,” he said without pause. “At the earliest.”

“And what do you suggest I do in the meantime?”

“You’re in Vegas.” Slowly he straightened out of his lazy sprawl. “I suggest twenty-four hours of self-indulgence.”

Oh, right, sure. “You think I’m going to what…take in the
sights and a show? Check out a few casinos? When my world is falling apart?”

“I think you need to forget about your world for twenty-four hours.”

“And experience yours?”

“Not so much mine. I’m talking spas and shopping. Relaxation and retail therapy.”

“Not my thing.”

“You’re a woman.” His gaze lingered on her lips. His mouth kicked with a hint of wicked knowledge. “Of course they’re your thing.”

“They’re a waste of money.”

“I’ve got plenty.”

Exasperated by his attitude, she threw her hands in the air. “If you’re so damn desperate to squander your money, why don’t you spend it on something worthwhile?”

For a long second he eyed her silently. Then he smiled. “Oh, I intend to, baby.”

C
at didn’t so much give in as give up.

Physically tired, emotionally drained, she put herself into the hands of Bridget—who worked for the hotel in some do-whatever-the-wealthy-guest-wants capacity—because it was easier than convincing Rafe that she didn’t go for the conventional female treats. That her idea of self-indulgence was sleeping in an extra hour on the odd Sunday morning and buying fresh peaches instead of canned. That the only spa she’d ever seen was in her stepmother’s bathroom. That her idea of retail therapy would be unlimited credit at a stud cattle sale.

Bridget, it turned out, was very good at her job.

She had a way of drawing Cat into conversation and distracting her with an apparent keen interest in Australia and all things outback. Then, midconversation, while they strolled through the hotel’s high-rent shopping arcade, she would point out something and get all excited.

“Oh, that would look smashing on you, Catriona! You must try it on!”

Cat’s eyes boggled at the designer names—Dior, Chanel, Prada, Armani—and balked at the changing-room doors. Bridget cajoled. Cat gave in. Saleswomen gushed. And against all previous experience and knowledge of herself, she started to enjoy the trying-on, being-gushed-over thing.

The slinky fabrics shimmered against her skin when she moved. The world’s cleverest push-’em-up bra produced never-seen-before cleavage. Cunningly shaped dresses defined her waist and skimmed her hips, and in the magical mirrors she looked tall and slender and sexy.

It was a deception, she knew, but a harmless one. A girly game she would soon forget back in the real world, but for now she conceded Rafe’s point. Today she needed to forget that world. Just for a little while.

After the shops, she gave herself over to the day spa staff without demur. When they asked which treatments she preferred, she shrugged and smiled. “You decide for me. Just wake me when you’re done.” Several hours and one body wrap, one oxygenating facial, one hair revival treatment and one full makeup application later, she was done.

Strangely enough she wasn’t done in.

On her way up to the top floor of their hotel, her heart hammered fifteen to the dozen with what felt like anticipation. Outside the door to their suite she paused and drew a deep breath and called herself to task for that ridiculous nervous excitement. She didn’t even know if Rafe was in. She didn’t know if she would see him at all tonight. One still-functioning kernel of her brain cynically suggested that this whole long afternoon of Cat-pampering served another purpose—it had taken her off his hands so he could do whatever he’d come to Vegas to do.

And what if that’s you, Catriona? What if he’s come to Vegas to—

No! She didn’t let that wanton thought go any further. She didn’t even know where it had come from, but it could go right back there! He hadn’t even mentioned his need of a baby again, not once since that morning at Corroboree. For all she knew, he’d already found someone. For all she knew, he could be off finding someone now.

What if that someone is inside now? In this suite? In his bed?

“Then it’s his business,” she told herself sternly. Not hers to ponder or judge. Not hers to care about. She’d already made a fool of herself over their sleeping arrangements at check-in.

“A shared suite?” she’d objected. “Oh, no. I’ll take an ordinary room.”

Rafe’s eyes had narrowed. “You expect me to pay for a room of your own? On top of the plane ticket? And the jet?”

He’d meant the private jet waiting in L.A., ready for the early-morning hop to Vegas. Another stunning surprise in a list that went on and on. “I’ll pay for my own room,” she’d said stiffly. “I’d rather have my own.”

“Do you know what that will set you back?”

She’d guessed. He’d laughed. And the literal-minded clerk had corrected her miles-too-low assumption. Afterward, on their way to this penthouse suite, she’d paid more attention to the marble tiles and mother-of-pearl mosaics and intricate old-world furnishings.

“I didn’t ask you to pay for my room,” she said tightly, feeling gauche and ill equipped to deal with such plush surroundings. Feeling another swamping wave of what-have-I-let-myself-in-for panic.

Rafe had just shrugged with his trademark negligence. “It’s a two-bedroom suite. I only need one.”

They’d showered, changed, each on their separate side of the huge central living area. And she’d rushed through it all, dealing with her anxiety by focusing on what lay ahead with Drew.

Now, ten hours later, with her heart in her mouth, she forced herself to open the door and walk inside. Instantly she
felt the empty silence and contradictory pangs of relief and disappointment.

She was alone.

“And that’s okay, Cat,” she told herself. She didn’t need his company. She was used to alone…although not in such an alien habitat. She kicked off her sandals and prowled a circuit of the parlor.
The parlor. Huh.
That’s what the concierge had called it when he’d shown them through. A grand name for a grand room in a grand suite of a grand hotel.

After picking up her sandals, which were making the place look untidy, she padded off to her bedroom. No need to feel abandoned. There was a television with about a zillion cable channels. Her choice of movies. She could get adventurous and order room service, which she would somehow pay for herself, and then—

She stopped short in the doorway to her bedroom.

Mouth open like a startled guppy, she stared at the boxes and bags—
shopping
bags—neatly stacked on the satin chaise beneath the picture window. It was not a small stack. Her stomach went into free fall.

Was it
everything
she’d tried on?

Heart palpitating, she slowly crossed the room. Had Rafe told Bridget to do this? To buy her all these things? Yes, he had plenty of money. He hadn’t needed to tell her that. But she’d didn’t want him wasting any more on her. She didn’t need pretty clothes she would never wear.

Her breath caught as she opened the first box. It held the last dress she’d tried on. An evening dress she would never choose in a million years. White satin, tucked and pleated. Completely impractical.

She jammed the lid back on and kept her hands pressed down hard on the box. Not that she expected the dress to fling itself free like a jack-in-the-box. She didn’t trust herself. If she didn’t get rid of the thing—all the things!—right away, she might fall for the lure of that exquisitely soft fabric.

The temptation of playing dress-up again could strike her at a weak moment.

But not if she called Bridget—provided she was still on duty—to come and take it all away. She was pretty certain that once she’d eaten and slept and come to grips with the past twenty-four hours, she’d feel guilty enough about the cost of the spa treatments she couldn’t give back. The clothes she could.

Pleased with that decision, she looked around for a phone…and heard the outer door to the suite open. Rafe. Her heart skipped and stalled, but for the life of her, she couldn’t move. She was standing, frozen, midway between the chaise and the desk with the phone when he appeared in her doorway.

Their gazes met, linked, locked, and for a long moment that was it…no words, no movement, nothing but hot, heavy desire in her blood, in her breasts, in her belly. In the silent, sandalwood-tinted air of her bedroom.

Rafe moved first, his gaze ambling over her face, lingering on the soft-coral curve of her lips, taking in the carefully constructed wildness of her curls…and when he met her eyes again, Cat saw satisfaction and something else in those sea-green depths. Something that wasn’t surprise. Something that electrified her sluggish nerves with wanton excitement.

If he’d said,
Take off your clothes,
Cat would have started stripping. It was that kind of look, that kind of response. That potent.

But all he said was, “Nice job,” in that low, lazy way he had, and Cat felt a ridiculously sharp stab of disappointment. She hadn’t really expected the let’s-get-naked demand, but “You look good” would at least have given some credit to her. Instead he’d complimented the stylist.

“You paid them enough,” she said. “You should expect better than a nice job.”

His eyes narrowed a fraction. “Didn’t you enjoy yourself? Don’t you like your hair?”

“Do you?”

“Yeah,” he said after a long beat of silence. Long enough for Cat to regret her hastily fired retort. Long enough for her heart to start thundering in her chest because his expression had changed, turned tricky and unreadable. “I like it. But then I liked it that night at your house, when you’d washed it and you smelled of peaches. I like it in that long braid that slaps against your spine when you walk. I liked it all mussed when you slept on the plane.”

Crikey. She’d been looking for a your-hair-looks-good compliment. And he’d noticed all that!

“Right now you look like one of those Botticelli angels…but that’s not the point. This afternoon was for your pleasure, Catriona, not mine.”

For her pleasure, and she’d returned the favor by sniping about the cost.

Cat shook her head, a vain attempt to dislodge the scintillating effect of his comments. The knowledge that he’d watched her, noticed her, on all those occasions. A vain attempt to snap her brain into action.

“I did enjoy myself,” she assured him finally. “Even the clothes.”

A corner of his mouth quirked. “I wasn’t sure how that part would go.”

“I’m not a big fan of dressing up.”

His eyes slid behind her, to the pile of bags and boxes. “Looks like you found something you liked.”

“Oh, no. I mean, yes.” Confused, she frowned. “Beautiful things, and fun to try on, and, yes, how could I not like them? But I don’t want them. I can’t keep them.”

“Why not?”

“Because they’re too expensive and I would never wear them.” She lifted her arms and let them drop. “This is me—jeans and shirts. I don’t go anywhere to wear flashy clothes.”

“What about tonight?” he asked, ever so casually. She hadn’t seen him move, but she noticed that he was lazing
against the doorjamb. Posture as laidback as always, but those eyes still dangerously alert. Disturbingly sexy.

“What about tonight?” she asked warily.

“To thank me for today, for this afternoon, you’re letting me take you to dinner.”

Cat stared at him. Did he really think she would buy that excuse? She would have dinner with him…as a thank-you? What was wrong with that picture!

“You must be hungry.”

“Yes,” she conceded. She’d missed lunch. Breakfast on the plane seemed a lifetime ago. “I’m starving, actually. But I thought I’d just order in some room service and then crash.”

“Even better. You want to eat formally at the table, or pizza while we watch a movie?”

The televisions were in the bedrooms and the next question went unasked, but she read it in the heat of his eyes as they flicked to her bed and back to her face.

Your room or mine?

Five minutes ago he’d looked at her and she’d almost started shedding clothes. Now he’d shaken her up enough for her brain to start operating on some subliminal level—enough to know that if she stayed in this suite, if they ordered in food, she would end up naked. She was too tired and too sensually smitten and too emotionally needy to resist.

And tomorrow she would hate herself.

“Well?” he prompted.

“I…I’ve changed my mind.” Decision made, she spoke quickly, convincing that part of her that still wanted to stay in and get naked as much as convincing Rafe. “I’m in Vegas and I’ll probably never be here again. I would like to go out—for a little while—to have a meal and see the lights and the famous fire-and-water show. Bridget said I shouldn’t miss that! And I have to put at least one coin through the slots.”

“You are in Vegas,” he agreed, sounding not the least put out by her vacillations.

In fact, he looked a little too pleased with himself as he straightened from the doorjamb and came into her room. Cat stiffened reflexively. “What are you doing?”

“Choosing something for you to wear.”

“You can’t.”

“I am.”

He unlidded the top box. And stilled. Slowly, softly, he ran the back of his hand across the white satin, and Cat’s skin tingled with heat as if he’d touched her in that same way. As he
had
touched her, on the plane.

When he started to lift the dress from the box, she stopped him with a hand on his arm. On the hard curved muscle of his forearm. “Not that one.”

Slowly he lifted his gaze to hers. “Why not this one?”

“It’s too formal.” She took her hand back. “Too much.”

“Are you going to find a complaint with every one of these?” he asked, reaching for a smaller bag.

It was the underwear—the lace and satin and gel cups and g-strings—she just knew it. Fighting the urge to grab and wrestle him for possession, she stood calm and still. “No. There’s a green dress I tried on. It’s probably in one of these bags. I’ll wear that one.”

“Green?”

“Sort of green.” And sort of flattering, she remembered, the way the sheer layers of fabric draped from the halter neck over her breasts, and flared from the waist to an uneven hemline that played peek-a-boo with her knees.

Sort of sexy in a subtle way.

He smiled in a way that was definitely sexy—no “sort of” about it—as he handed over the underwear. As he told her to wear that dress because, “Sort of green’s my favorite color.”

Rafe didn’t really have a favorite color. Not until he saw Catriona in that dress. It wasn’t “sort of” green; it was knock-your-eyes-out, kick-in-the-gut, heart-pumping green.

Although that reaction, when she came out of her room fifteen minutes later, probably had as much to do with the shy heat in her eyes and the nervous jump of her pulse and the certainty that he’d be peeling that green lick of silk from her body in a couple of hours’ time.

He’d thought about making that sooner. He was pretty sure he could have talked her into staying in, but then he’d have missed the awed delight in her wide eyes as they watched the water fountains play under golden lights. He’d have missed pouring her a glass of champagne and feeding her her first taste of truffles…and watching her spit them back out again. He’d have missed the quiet intensity of her gaze on his face while he told her about his apartment in Sydney, her husky laughter at his collection of hotel management war stories, the gusty appetite with which she consumed her meal.