“If I thought going to bed with you would get you out of my system I’d say yes.”

“You know better,” Ryan growled, unable to stay silent.

Lifting her head, Judy gave him a troubled look. “I know. But neither am I prepared to marry you. I’m not prepared to marry anyone. It isn’t personal.”

“The hell it isn’t. Whatever you need or want, tell me and I’ll make sure you have it.”

“What I want is to stay single.”

“What you want?”

She heard the disbelief in his tone. “All right, what I need. If you truly feel about me the way you claim, you’ll try to understand.”

“I’ll never understand,” he stated. “And I will do everything in my power to change your mind.”

Deadly Intent
Valerie Parv

www.millsandboon.co.uk

VALERIE PARV

With twenty million copies of her books sold, including three Waldenbooks bestsellers, it’s no wonder Valerie Parv is known as Australia’s queen of romance and is the recognized media spokesperson for all things romantic. Valerie is married to her own romantic hero, Paul, a former crocodile hunter in Australia’s tropical north.

These days he’s a cartoonist and the two live in the country’s capital city of Canberra, where both are volunteer zoo guides, sharing their love of animals with visitors from all over the world. Valerie continues to write her page-turning novels because they affirm her belief in love and happy endings. As she says, “Love gives you wings, romance helps you fly.” Keep up with Valerie’s latest releases at www.silromanceauthors.com.

Contents

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Epilogue

Chapter 1

Ryan liked seeing her in a dress, Judy Logan thought as she held the garment against her and checked the bedroom mirror. He would appreciate the way the sea-foam color complemented the sky blue of her eyes and the highlights she’d had put through her ash-blond hair, newly cut in an urchin style with strands feathered around her face.

He’d approve of the way the garment’s draping neckline made the most of her long neck and modest cleavage, the slinky short skirt skimming her legs. Privately, she thought they were her best feature, shapely and muscular thanks to an active lifestyle.

Seeing herself as more Australian stock horse than thoroughbred, she usually threw on whatever suited her schedule, not much caring about the result.

Realizing what she was doing, she flung the dress onto the bed, where it pooled innocently. Why did she care what Ryan thought of her appearance? He was only one of the boys her father and mother had fostered throughout most of Judy’s life.

After she was born, they’d been unable to have more children although they’d desperately wanted a large family. Her father still treated her like fragile china, although these days he was the frail one with a heart that threatened to stop beating at any moment.

She frowned at her mirror image. Des Logan was the reason she was going out with Ryan tonight. Not on a date, but to decide how best they could help her father. Des wouldn’t accept money, not that Ryan had much to offer. Of all the Logan foster sons, he was the least successful. He supported himself doing casual jobs on cattle stations throughout the Kimberley. Nothing wrong with that, but by Ryan’s age most men had something more substantial going for them.

If Judy hadn’t run across Ryan unexpectedly when she flew supplies to a remote Kimberly cattle station where he’d been working, he would still be estranged from them all. He hadn’t wanted to live with the Logans in the first place, she recalled. He’d claimed he was doing fine looking after himself. According to him, losing his mother and having no idea where his father was didn’t mean he needed help to run his life.

At the memory, Judy felt reluctant admiration sweep through her. As a boy he’d lived on his own for almost a year after his mother’s death, convincing the authorities that a friend of hers was his caregiver when, in fact, he’d had nobody. When the truth came out, he’d been dragged literally kicking and screaming into the Logan household.

Then he and Judy had spotted each other. Like a wild buffalo transfixed by a car’s headlights, he’d stopped fighting Des and stared at his new foster sister.

Just stared.

He’d looked her up and down with the insolence of a grown man. Too thin from eating whatever he could rustle up, he’d been lanky and awkward, but his eyes—how she remembered those midnight blue eyes—had been alight with masculine interest. She’d known he liked what he saw long before he’d told her he was in love with her and would marry her one day.

A shiver shook her. What had such a stripling known of love? She’d known even less. Oh, she’d been aware of the facts of life. You couldn’t grow up on a million-acre cattle station and remain ignorant for long. But the chemistry between male and female had been a compelling mystery.

Nevertheless, they’d both felt its power. But with him being only fourteen then and her newly into her teens, she hadn’t had a clue what her feelings signified or how to deal with them. Des Logan had solved the problem by calling Ryan into his study and ordering him to get any foolish ideas out of his head. Ryan had retorted that nobody told him how to run his life and he was going to marry Judy one day, with or without Des’s approval.

Neither of them had been aware of Judy hunting for a tennis ball in the bushes under Des’s office window. To her, it had seemed romantic to have a young man defy her father over her. These days, she knew Des had been right. They had been mere children, their feelings the result of overactive teenage hormones, nothing more.

Less than a year later, Ryan had run away, eluding Des’s and the authorities’ efforts to find him. Later Ryan told Judy that he’d lied about his age in order to get work as a jackeroo on remote cattle stations.

He hadn’t stayed anywhere for long, she’d learned when they’d met again. She hadn’t been able to tell if he was pleased to see her or not. His manner had been surly and distant, although he was obviously a world away from the difficult teenager she’d once known.

For one thing, he was all man. Taller, fuller in body and so broad-shouldered she’d had to look twice to assure herself he really was Ryan Smith. His red-gold hair and hair-trigger temper had convinced her. There couldn’t be two men with that blend of startling good looks and fiery temperament in the Kimberley.

Since their reunion three years before, she’d persuaded him to return to Diamond Downs a number of times, although he’d never stayed as long as she’d hoped he would. She looked forward to his visits, but no more than those of her other foster brothers, she assured herself. She blamed the fact that Ryan’s arrival made her heart beat faster on his dynamic personality and raw masculinity, enough to turn any woman on.

Judy wasn’t immune to male appeal. She relished her physicality, whether piloting her plane, mustering cattle on horseback or enjoying a relationship to the full, provided a man accepted that she could want him without needing him. She couldn’t imagine Ryan playing by this rule. He was the type to want more than she was prepared to give, so she kept a safe emotional distance.

Ryan and her father got along tolerably well these days in spite of the undercurrent simmering between them. After all this time, Judy wouldn’t allow that it had anything to do with her. More likely, the mistrust mirrored two bulls in the same paddock. They were similar in temperament, neither giving an inch.

Pleasing Ryan with feminine fripperies should be the last thing on her mind. To prove it, she cast the dress a withering look and flounced out of the homestead. Passing the bunkhouse and cottages occupied by the dwindling number of staff still on the station payroll, she found him in the hard-baked earth area used for car parking.

The only sign of him was a pair of jeans-clad legs protruding from under the ancient car he’d jacked up and supported on blocks. Long, long legs betrayed his height as over six feet. His scuffed R. M. Williams boots were a size eleven at least, and she felt a blush starting as she remembered the supposed connection between men and large feet.

Automatically she frowned at the sight of tools scattered over the ground. As a bush pilot, she hated to see good tools mistreated. Evidently Ryan’s drifter ways extended to the care of his equipment.

She hunkered down in time to see him lower the transmission pan in both hands and tilt it to spill the fluid into a drain tray beside him. “Need a hand?”

Without looking he said, “You can pass me the awl so I can get this grommet out.”

Surveying the tangle of tools around her, she said, “What patch of dirt do you suggest I look in?”

He angled his head to stare at her and she suppressed a shiver. Fourteen years on, his eyes still had the power to mesmerize. They were so dark and deep-set that looking into them was like looking into a bottomless pool. The sun was low and shone under the car, turning his hair to flame. The devil would look like this if she caught him working on a car, she thought.

“By your left foot,” he said shortly.

She blinked to banish the vision. Devil, indeed. He was nothing but a pain in the—awl. He didn’t care for anyone or anything but himself. Why he was bothering to talk about Des’s problems with her, she didn’t know. It wasn’t as if there were an inheritance at stake.

Without telling the rest of the family, her father had mortgaged Diamond Downs to a neighbor, Clive Horvath, who’d been Des’s best friend for most of their lives. Clive had intended to forgive the debt but Des had insisted on proper documentation, never suspecting that Clive would be thrown from a horse and killed less than a year after they shook hands on the deal. Now his son Max, owned the neighboring property and had made it clear he intended to collect on the mortgage.

It would be bad enough if Max only wanted the money, but he had his sights set on a diamond mine Judy’s great-grandfather was said to have found on Logan land. Jack Logan had disappeared before revealing the exact location of his find to anyone except the elders of the local indigenous people. Their descendants refused to talk about it, believing Jack’s spirit haunted the site.

At considerable risk to themselves, her foster brothers, Tom and Blake, had recently narrowed down the location to an area of Cotton Tree Gorge. But both men had fiancées now, and lives they couldn’t neglect indefinitely. So it was up to her and Ryan to finish the job before their neighbor did it for them. Some sixth sense told her they were close to finding the mine. All she had to do was persuade Ryan to help her before either Max Horvath’s own financial woes spelled the end of Diamond Downs or the fast-approaching wet season made the search impossible.

Spotting the tool he needed, she handed it to him. “I’ve never seen a car held together by rust before.”

“It goes, that’s all I ask.”

“Dad won’t mind if you use one of the station cars while you’re here.”

“I’d mind.”

“You would.” Not sure he’d heard the sotto voce comment, she watched him work the point of the tool up inside the filter neck, pushing it against the outside of the grommet. “Want a hammer to drive that in?”

“I’ll manage, thanks.”

At least he’d said thanks. But did such a puny gesture merit the surge of pleasure rippling through her? This would have to stop. Ryan had barely been at Diamond Downs for two days and already she could hardly think straight around him.

She was a bush pilot, for pity’s sake. She flew solo around the outback in a single-engine plane she largely maintained herself. Turning to jelly because of the way a man looked at her was for females in frilly clothes who spent hours at the hairdresser primping to impress.

She could write off the blond highlights as an aberration. But what about the slinky dress? Thank goodness she’d decided against wearing it tonight on their nondate.

Ryan walked his feet out from under the car and uncoiled disturbingly close to her. For a giddy moment, she thought he meant to touch her face till she saw the oily washer clutched in his fingers. “If you want to help, how about cleaning this?” he asked.

With an inward sigh, she accepted the magnet from the transmission pan and hunted among the tools for a scraper to clean it with. She welcomed the excuse to avoid his gaze, afraid he’d see into her soul.

What an idiot, she thought as her fingers closed around a putty knife. By the time she straightened, Ryan was sluicing the drain pan clean, careful not to spill any of the residue onto the ground. Could his preference for an old car be on environmental grounds? she wondered.

She was tempted to ask but he’d already slid back under the car and she heard the sound of a gasket being scraped off the bottom of the transmission.

Glad of something to occupy her hands, she set to work scraping the magnet clean. “I’ll say this for you, you’re thorough.”

“Might as well do the job right,” he agreed, his rich, deep voice muffled by his position. “One thing your dad taught me.”

She replaced the magnet in the pan and pushed it under the car to him. “So you admit he did some things right?”

“Never said he didn’t. Your folks meant well.”

She couldn’t resist. “Am I hearing an admission that you liked being a Logan?”

“I’m not a Logan and don’t want to be.”

“But you just said…”

He ducked out from under the car and swung himself upright. “You know perfectly well why I never wanted to be a Logan. That hasn’t changed.”

Because of her, she heard it in his voice. “Everything else has,” she said, pushing away the confusing feelings the thought aroused.

“Everything but you.”

She shook her head. “I’ve grown up.”

“You think I haven’t noticed?”

She knew he had. The awareness was in every look he gave her.

“I know you don’t think much of me,” he said. Before she could issue an empty denial, he went on, “Blake has his crocodile farm, Tom got his wish to become a shire ranger and Cade’s photos are published all over the world. While I dropped out of school, drive a beat-up old car and work where and when I can.”

She lifted her shoulders and let them drop. “None of that matters to me.”

“It’s who you are inside that counts,” he quoted her father. “He also said even a saint has to be able to educate his kids and put food on his family’s table.”

At the thought of Ryan’s children, her knees softened and she rested a palm against the sun-heated metal to steady herself. “Are you sure you’ve got things the right way around?”

Although she’d thought about it often enough, she hadn’t meant to come out and say it. His eyes clouded as he asked, “What do you mean?”

Too late to wish she’d never opened her mouth. “Being a no-hoper is a good excuse to avoid settling down.”

“You think I live the way I do to avoid taking on responsibility?”

“Don’t you?”

He made a harshly dismissive sound deep in his throat. “You don’t know the first thing about me.”

She started to turn away. “You’re right, I don’t.” And if she were wise, she would keep it that way.

His fingers clamped around her wrist leaving a smear of oil like a handcuff. “Such slim wrists,” he said unexpectedly. “Beats me how you pack so much muscle into such a slight body.”

If looks could kill, he would have been ash where he stood. “Aren’t you afraid of snapping such fragile bones?”

At her sarcastic tone, his mouth tightened. “I know precisely how much pressure I’m applying.”

So did she. Her whole body quivered with the awareness of his touch. Trying to shake him off would only betray his effect on her, so she schooled herself to stillness. “I prefer wiry to slight.”

He eased his thumb over her pulse point, making her wish she could slow the frantic beat by willpower alone. “Wiry, then. I like a woman with good muscle tone,” he said.

As if she kept herself fit to please him. “You didn’t always have so much muscle of your own to throw around,” she snapped.

Cruel, she told herself when she saw his dark lashes veil those memorable eyes. “Malnutrition does that to you,” he said.

She placed her hand over the one holding her. “I’m sorry, that was uncalled-for. I shouldn’t have reminded you.”

He looked down at their joined hands and an odd light flickered over his rugged features. “You didn’t have to. Some things you never forget.”

Her sigh gusted between them. “Ryan, why do we strike such sparks off each other?”

“I’m not complaining, if the alternative is indifference.”

He could make her mad as hell, dizzy with laughter and aching with other things she refused to name. The one thing she could never be around him was indifferent. “Are you saying you like it when we fight?”

“It’s communication, isn’t it?”

Her nod conceded his point. “Not very constructive communication,” she observed.

He released her hand slowly, as if reluctant to do so. “I don’t know. We’re getting the transmission filter changed.”

Other things were changing between them, too, although they were harder to pinpoint. She fell back on the superficial. “At this rate, it will be dinnertime before the job’s done.”

In tacit agreement, he dropped to the ground and shimmied back under the car and she heard the sound of bolts being tightened. Anticipating what he’d need next, she hunted around for a long-necked funnel and the AFT fluid. By the time he stood up again and was ready to let the car down, she had them handy.

She watched as he fed fluid into the filler tubes. His moves were sure and capable. She’d also seen him handle a horse and rope cattle with the best of them. “Why haven’t you bought your own land?”

“Didn’t suit me.”

“To be tied down?”

Fluid slopped over the funnel, earning a muttered oath. “Have I ever questioned how you run your life?”

“Not for a long time.” She placed a hand on his arm. “I wasn’t criticizing. I care about what happens to you.”

“I wish I could believe that.”

She was glad his attention was on his task so that he didn’t see her recoil in distress. “What makes you think I don’t?”

He turned his head, his gaze sharpening. “If you did, you’d ask what’s going on in my life instead of constantly jumping to conclusions.”

“You could simply tell me.”

“I could.”

But he wouldn’t, she heard. Annoyed at being put on the defensive, she examined her conscience. Had she jumped to conclusions about him? Perhaps he had a million dollars stashed away and chose to knock around the outback for pleasure, like the American billionaire she remembered reading about. Getty? Rockefeller? One of them, anyway.

Somehow, she doubted it. “Ryan,” she said on impulse, “If you were really rich, would you use your money to help Dad save Diamond Downs?”

“He wouldn’t permit it,” he said, avoiding the question.

At his signal, she got into the driver’s seat and cranked the engine. “But you would be willing to try?”

“Why do you think I’m here?”

She pulled the gearshift down through each gear in turn, allowing the fresh fluid to circulate through the transmission. “You do know we have less than a month to either pay off Max Horvath or find Great-grandpa’s diamond mine?”

Ryan pulled out the transmission dipstick and inspected it critically. “According to Blake and Cade, Max is in financial trouble up to his neck and his creditors are pouring on the pressure. From what I’ve heard about Max’s character, he could be even more dangerous with his back to the wall. But the wet season is going to make it hard to find anything in the area Blake and Jo mapped out.”

She nodded. “Especially if the mine is where they think it is, underground near Cotton Tree Gorge.” Jo Francis was a journalist who’d been working with Blake on a story when she’d tumbled into a hidden valley trying to elude one of Max Horvath’s henchmen. The ancient rock paintings they’d noted were placed high above the valley floor, indicating the dangerously high levels the creek flowing through it could reach during the monsoon rains. Diamond Downs had already tasted the fury of the rains soon to come, and the wet season still hadn’t started in earnest.

She could only pray the Wet would hold off long enough for her and Ryan to look for the mine. If they didn’t find anything…resolutely she pushed the thought of failure out of her mind. Not only her father’s life, but the only thing besides Des’s family that mattered to him—his land—was at stake. They couldn’t afford to fail.

Ryan swiped the dipstick with a clean rag and replaced it, then pulled it back out. “Close to full?” she asked.

“A quarter inch away from the full mark, close enough,” he agreed.

She got out as he began to check the radiator hoses and clamps. For a beat-up old car, it was in surprisingly good running order, she noted. Under her hand the engine had positively purred. Why drive a car that looked as if it was about to fall apart at any moment, yet keep it practically in racing condition? Another piece of the Ryan puzzle, she decided.

She leaned on her arms on the car body, angling in under the hood to watch him work, finding more enjoyment than she wanted to in his easy movements.

The thought disturbed her enough to say, “Why don’t we decide right now what we should do about finding the mine. Save us having to go out to eat later.”

His wry look raked her. “Jumping to conclusions again, Judy? Don’t you think I can afford to buy you dinner?”

From the look of him, a hamburger would stretch his resources. Then she considered what he’d said about asking first. “Can you?”

“I may have trouble servicing the bank loan, but I’ll manage somehow.”

Masking her irritation at the blatant mockery in his tone, she smiled. “Then we’d better find the diamonds soon.”

He replaced the dipstick and reached to close the hood, forcing her to jump out of the way. “Not on my account.”

“Won’t you feel better knowing Dad’s future is safe?”

“Give me some credit. Des deserves health and happiness more than most men. But not because I’m indebted to him for rescuing me. I was fine as I was.”

And what was he now? “Where do you call home?” she asked on impulse.

He looked surprised at the question. “You sound as if you don’t think I have one.”

Something else she hadn’t thought to ask. What additional surprises lay behind his inscrutable facade? “You’ve never mentioned one.”

“Doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist.”

Anger bubbled through her and she fisted her hands on her hips. “Is it too much to expect one straight answer out of you?”

He seemed to collapse in on himself. “You’re right, there’s no reason you shouldn’t know. I have a home, an old pearling master’s cottage in Broome.”

She knew her eyebrows had risen. Such heritage properties weren’t cheap to acquire or maintain. “I’d like to see it sometime.”

“I don’t spend very much time there.”

As soon as the words left his mouth and he saw her expression become shuttered, Ryan regretted being so blunt. It wasn’t her fault that she’d haunted his thoughts since his teens, making a mockery of his vow to rely only on himself and not allow anyone to get to him emotionally ever again.

In the three years since she’d shown up at a station where he was working, he’d returned to Diamond Downs only a handful of times, the last being four months ago, and he knew she was the reason. Around Judy he felt too much, wanted too much. On previous visits he’d managed to keep his feelings in check. This time, perhaps because Des’s health was declining and Diamond Downs faced such an uncertain future, Ryan had felt his resistance slipping.

The solution was as obvious as it was appealing. Have a fling with Judy and get her out of his system once and for all. He’d be doing them both a favor, he reasoned. She insisted she was more interested in flying planes than in serious relationships, so easing the tension between them with a no-strings affair should suit her, too. Afterward they’d be free to get on with their separate lives.

“I didn’t mean that the way it sounded. I am away a lot, but when I’m home I’ll gladly show you around,” he said.

“Deal,” she said, and smiled at him.

The change transformed her into the woman who’d filled his dreams since he was fourteen years old. Streaked with grease and dressed in slim-legged jeans, dusty elastic-sided boots and a high-cut T-shirt that revealed an inch of golden midriff with every move, she looked sensational.

He knew only too well why every other woman who’d crossed his path on his travels around the Kimberley had left him cold. However beautiful, pliant or eager for his company they’d been, they weren’t Judy Logan.

How many women would choose to spend an afternoon working on a car, as competently as Ryan himself? If she wanted him to join her hunting for a diamond mine he wasn’t convinced had ever existed, he’d be with her every step of the way.

He respected Des Logan enough to want to see him restored to health. And his intended fling with Judy would go more smoothly if she had the security the diamonds would provide, so it was what Ryan wanted, as well.

“You’re staring,” she said softly.

He felt as if molten metal were pouring along every vein, pooling in his groin. “If you had my vantage point, you’d stare, too.”

She shifted from one foot to the other as if the compliment made her uncomfortable. “Look, maybe this dinner date isn’t such a good idea.”

“It isn’t a dinner date—it’s a strategy meeting.” And he was Robinson Crusoe.

“And that’s all?”

He made the time-honored gesture. “Cross my heart.”

“Then perhaps Cade should come with us.”

Now there Ryan drew the line. “He ought to stay here in case your father needs anything.”

She caught her lower lip between slightly uneven white teeth. “You’re right, but—”

He couldn’t help it. His hand drifted to her cheek and he brushed away a streak of dust, eliciting a shiver that told him she wasn’t completely indifferent to him. “No buts. Be ready at seven.”

Chapter 2

“What’s going on?” Judy demanded as she followed Ryan into an old cottage a short drive from the main homestead. “I thought you wanted to come here to collect something.”

He gave her a wicked grin. “I did. You.”

She’d planned on spending the evening with him at a café in Halls Creek. Now she was confronted by a table set for two in the middle of what had been her grandparents’ home until the present homestead was built.

The old cottage, now used as guest quarters, was presently unoccupied. She found the scarred dining table disguised by a white cloth borrowed from the main house. A utilitarian candle jutted from a glass holder. A few wildflowers drooped in a jar, making her soften inwardly at Ryan’s attempt at creating an atmosphere. He had succeeded, but not in the way she suspected he’d intended. “You could have told me you planned on eating here,” she said to hide her discomfiture.

“Again, you could have asked.”

True. It had never occurred to her that he’d be this creative. Not wanting to give him the satisfaction of seeing how much he’d rattled her, she looped her bag over the back of a chair and sat down. “I hope you don’t expect me to do the cooking,” she said, her tone disabusing him of any such notion.

He went into the kitchen and she heard him moving around. “I have everything under control,” he said through the open door.

Too curious to sit still, she got up and went into the kitchen. The setting wasn’t the only thing he’d planned, because he pulled two thick steaks out of the refrigerator and carried them to the stove where a pan was heating. When he placed the meat in the pan, the steaks sizzled fiercely and sent up a heavenly spicy aroma. She sniffed appreciatively. The evening might not be going according to her plan—and Lord knew, she hated having her plans thwarted—but the reward might just be worth it.

“There’s a tomato salad and ice water in the refrigerator. Or wine if you prefer,” he said.

“Ice water’s fine.” She took them out and carried them to the table, then went back to enjoy the sight of the family black sheep working in a kitchen. “You never let on you could cook,” she said.

He turned the steaks expertly. “If you’d known, you’d have had me pulling my weight long before this.”

Thinking of the times she’d cooked for him on his visits, assuming he didn’t know one end of a grill plate from another, she twisted her mouth into a sneer. “What other surprises do you have up your sleeve?”

His eyes sparkled. “If I told you, they wouldn’t be surprises.”

“Stop being so damned mysterious and talk. You have a house in Broome. You know your way around a kitchen. Did you win the lottery or something?”

“Or something.”

He would tell her when he was good and ready and not before, she heard in his tone. Happy to watch his fluid movements, she perched on a stool. “Did you know Dad had mortgaged the land to Clive Horvath?” she asked after a while.

Without turning back, Ryan shook his head. “We only talk on birthdays and Christmas, so I’m the last to hear anything.”

“He didn’t tell any of us until it was almost too late. Maybe it still is. You never met Max Horvath, did you?”

Ryan slid the steaks out of the pan onto plates. “His father and mother split up and he moved with her to Perth before I was sent here.”

Sent here, she noted. As if he’d been under a prison sentence. Not came to Diamond Downs, or joined the family. Typical of Ryan not to forget that the choice had been forced upon him. “Of course, you had to learn to cook while you were living alone for all those months,” she said with sudden understanding. “Looks like you’ve added a few frills since then as well.”

He picked up a plate in each hand, and nodded to indicate she was to return to the table. “Took you long enough to work it out.”

She sat down at the table and he placed a plate in front of her. The aroma made her mouth water. “You’re a crafty one. But when you came to us, you were so angry and introverted. And you took off before I got the chance to ask how you’d been managing your life.”

He took his seat and offered her the salad bowl so she could help herself. “I probably would have told you to mind your own business.”

“In words of four letters,” she said, smiling to soften the reminder.

“Yeah, I knew a few of those. Still do.”

But he rarely used them these days.

She sliced into the steak and took a bite, closing her eyes in appreciation. “Who do I have to bribe to get the recipe for this marinade?”

“Just me. Do you want to know my price?”

She opened her eyes and almost recoiled at the sight of her own reflection in his dark gaze. His expression told her more surely than words that she wouldn’t like his price, so she didn’t ask. “There’s garlic and oregano,” she said, trying to keep her voice steady.

His mouth turned up at the corners as if he could read her inner turmoil and was amused by it. “What else?”

She took another bite and let it linger on her tongue. “Red wine?” He nodded. “And something spicy. Not chili. Damn it, why don’t you just tell me?”

He rested an arm on the table. “Because it’s fun to watch your eyes go off like firecrackers when you take my bait.”

“That’s exactly the sort of remark we could have avoided if we’d eaten in a public place.”

“Why do you think I chose this one?”

She stared at him. “So you could provoke me?”

“Not provoke, challenge you into admitting you want me as much as I want you.”

She almost choked on the mouthful of steak she was just swallowing. Suspecting how he felt and having it spelled out were very different experiences. “Now I know you’ve gone crazy.”

“It isn’t crazy for a man to be attracted to a woman, especially when she feels the same way.”

“I do not.”

“Do, too.”

The childish exchange reminded her of all the reasons this conversation was totally inappropriate. “You can’t be attracted to your foster sister.”

His knife and fork clattered onto his plate and he indulged in a couple of the words they’d just discussed. “You are not and never have been my sister.”

“You were fostered by my father.”

“Not by choice. I lived in your house for less than a year, and I left before the relationship was made official.”

She took a hasty gulp of water. “Surely Dad became your legal guardian as he did for the others?”

“He wanted to, but I didn’t give him the chance. So my statement stands.”

His feelings were hardly news to her, but she’d always assumed nothing could come of them as long as he was family. Or had she hidden behind the belief rather than acknowledge the power of her response to him? She’d spent most of her adult years keeping men at a distance, determined not to have a life like her mother’s.

Or a death.

Judy still nursed a deep well of hurt whenever she thought of Fran Logan ignoring the pain of appendicitis and continuing to minister to her family’s needs until she collapsed. By the time medical help had been obtained for her, it had been too late.

Outback women like Fran lived and breathed the belief that their families came first. No sacrifice was too much. More often then not they hid their own feelings, needs and wants, never letting on to their families and those closest to them that they might be suffering. When food was scarce, they served themselves the smallest portions or none at all. If children were sick, they were nursed day and night, sometimes through their own sickness. They set bones and mended fences with equal stoicism. Educated their children at home. Endured isolation and deprivation beyond most people’s comprehension.

Satellites and cell phones might have eased the solitude, but not the need for sacrifice. Judy still encountered plenty of it on her flights to deliver supplies, medicine, news and visitors to outlying properties. The women were the ones who suffered in silence. Judy didn’t intend to become one of them. She didn’t have their qualifications for sainthood.

These days, there was no requirement for a woman to marry. Judy saw herself as living proof you could have a satisfying career and a social life without tying yourself down forever.

“Lots of men tell me they’re attracted to me,” she stated, wishing for another glass of water to ease her parched throat. “I’m not interested in anything long-term.”

He reached over and poured water from his own glass into hers. “Maybe you just haven’t been told by the right man.”

She sipped slowly. “The right man being you, I suppose?”

He helped himself to tomato salad, but didn’t eat. “We’ve always known what was between us. Ignoring it hasn’t helped. So the logical solution is to have an affair and be done with it.”

Her hands, usually so capable on the controls of her Cessna 182, fluttered helplessly. “Dad is seriously ill. We may not be able to hang on to Diamond Downs. And you want us to have an affair?”

“Blake and Tom have the same worries, but I don’t see Blake living without Jo, or Tom holding off on marrying his princess. If we wait for everything to be perfect before dealing with what’s between us, we can’t move on.”

“Blake and Tom are not…” Barely in time, she stopped herself from uttering the words long forbidden by her father. “Blood.” As Des saw it, his foster sons were as much family as his biological daughter.

Ryan’s expression stayed impassive, but his eyes had hardened. “You can say it. Des isn’t here to jump on you. Blake, Tom, Cade and I are grace-and-favor Logans. I can’t speak for them, but the situation suits me fine.”

Appalled at herself, she looked down at the plate. “I guess I don’t like thinking you actually prefer being an outsider.”

He smiled wryly. “If I wasn’t, we wouldn’t be having this discussion. I know Des means well but he can’t change history. All of us were born into other lives. He gave us a second chance and we respect him for it. But it doesn’t make us Logans. We can’t feel the same toward him and Diamond Downs as you who were born here of his flesh and blood.”

“Are you sure?”

A long pause preceded his reply. “Honest answer? I don’t know. When I was a teenager, I envied the other boys for belonging here when I felt as if I never would. Maybe they do feel more kinship with Des and the land than I want to think. One day, I may even ask them if we get drunk enough.”

She gave a shaky smile and resumed eating. “Their answers may surprise you.”

He attacked his steak as if it were his beliefs. “Wouldn’t be the first time. When I got here, I was so full of my own bull, thinking nobody knew the troubles I’d seen. Then I found out Tom’s dad was in jail for killing his mother in a fit of jealous rage, and Blake had been left on a doorstep when he was a baby. My problems seemed feeble by comparison.”

“They were real enough to you. It wasn’t fun having to fend for yourself at fourteen.”

“But I’d had my mother until then, and some happy memories of my father before he vanished without trace. It’s more than Blake ever had. And my dad may have run out on us, but while we lived as a family he never raised a hand to his wife.”

She masked a smile, recognizing—as Ryan evidently failed to do—Des Logan’s words to the boy soon after he arrived. Reminding him to count what he had, rather than what he lacked. Her father had been more of an influence over Ryan than he knew.

Finishing the steak, she pushed the plate away. “I’d like the marinade recipe one day, if the price comes down.”

His expression said it wouldn’t where she was concerned. Then he said, surprising her, “You can have the secret for free. It’s wasabi, Japanese mustard. Just a touch makes all the difference.”

She should have known. His home was in Broome, where the Japanese influence had been strong for a couple of centuries. The town even held a Japanese pearl festival each year, the Shinju Matsuri. “Wasabi, I’ll remember,” she said.

“I’ll bring you some next time I visit,” he promised.

She placed her knife and fork side by side on the plate. “Maybe you shouldn’t.”

Steel settled in his gaze. “Shouldn’t bring wasabi, or shouldn’t come?”

“Both. Having an affair might work for you, but it isn’t what I want. I only wanted you to come back because you’re part of the family.”

He leaned closer. “What are you afraid of? If it’s my prospects, I’m a better catch than I’ve let you believe.”

She stood up and started to pace, her movements constrained by the small room. “Your prospects aren’t the problem.” It was his overwhelming effect on her.

“You can’t say you don’t feel anything for me.”

She swung around, wrapping her arms around herself. She couldn’t lie. But she didn’t have to tell the whole truth. “There’s a complication.”

His mouth thinned. “As in another man?”

“I’m seeing Max Horvath.”

Ryan looked thunderstruck. “You can’t be serious. I know he had a thing for you a few years back, but I thought you’d made it clear you weren’t interested in this or any other lifetime.”

“I did. Then I—changed my mind. I shouldn’t even be here with you tonight. I broke a date with Max because I wanted this chance for us to talk privately.”

Looking as if he’d rather shatter them to bits, Ryan gathered the plates and glasses with exaggerated care, but stayed standing at the table. “I can’t believe I’m hearing this. Max is the one with designs on your land and your legendary diamonds. Is this some kind of crazy self-sacrifice thing? Marrying him so he’ll let your father keep the land? Is that your bride price, Judy?”

“No.” In fact, she had started seeing Max again against her family’s better judgment so she could keep an eye on his activities. They were all convinced Max was behind a string of suspicious incidents on Diamond Downs, but the police couldn’t pin anything on him without proof. She was hoping if he let his guard down with her, she could obtain the proof.

The list of grievances was long and getting longer. No sooner had Tom and Shara discovered a cave of valuable rock art on the land than a crocodile attack had attracted negative publicity, threatening the income from tourism Des had hoped to bring in.

Journalist Jo Francis had arrived to write a series of stories about surviving in the outback, her editor paying well for the access. Then Blake, an expert on crocodile behavior, had caught Max’s henchman Eddy Gilgai luring the crocodile dangerously close to Jo’s camp.

The scheme had backfired when Eddy himself had been taken by a crocodile, but the resulting media coverage hadn’t done Diamond Downs’s fledgling tourism venture much good. With the wet season approaching, fewer tourists were visiting the Kimberley anyway. By the time the dry season came around again—assuming they could hang on that long—Judy hoped the fuss over the crocodile attacks would have subsided, and they could focus attention on the rock art caves again.

She couldn’t tell Ryan what she hoped to achieve by dating Max, without letting him think she was available for a romantic fling with him. The very thought sent needs she didn’t want to acknowledge coiling through her. Right now he looked angry enough to break something, but the fire in his expression ignited an answering one inside her. What would it be like to feel his strong arms around her and his mouth hungry on hers?

Since she couldn’t find out and keep faith with herself, she tore her gaze away. “I didn’t want to talk about this, Ryan. You don’t control me.”

“I’m not going to stand back and let you barter yourself for a creep like Max Horvarth,” he said. “If finding that mine will keep you away from him, I’ll find it for you.”

She had hoped to convince him to help, but not like this. “Are you offering to help so I’ll have an affair with you? If so, the price is too high.”

“The price is the same as it’s always been—your body and soul. And the chance to get this…thing…between us worked out once and for all.”

“Damn you, Ryan. Don’t do this to me.”

“It’s done. All I did was up the ante. Unless you want me to go back to Broome and forget about helping you look for the mine.”

Careful to avoid touching him, she took the plates from him and carried them to the kitchen, where she started to run hot water into the sink. Mechanically, she began to wash the plates.

He came up beside her and picked up a dish towel, drying the plates as if the two of them were a couple doing their nightly chores. The image had more appeal than she wanted it to.

“What’s it to be?” he asked as he put the plates away.

She lifted dripping hands out of the water to gesture futilely. “You ask the impossible. I need your help if I’m to have any chance of finding the mine before the wet season cuts off access, but I can’t agree to…your terms.”

He flicked the kettle on and lifted two coffee mugs down from a shelf. “What can you agree to?”

Her voice struggled to rise above a whisper. “To think about your offer?”

“Not good enough. Thinking’s too intangible.”

Ryan knew he’d done enough thinking about her to drive a man crazy. Already he was regretting tonight. Arranging dinner in the isolated cottage had seemed like a good idea when he’d devised it. He hadn’t allowed for her effect on him. Seated across the table, knowing how easily he could carry her to the bedroom, had made this the most uncomfortable meal of his life. Before he’d known it, he’d suggested an affair in exchange for his help. Judy’s presence made him forget all gentlemanly behavior—forget everything but how badly he wanted her.

“I’m sure Dad would agree to give you a share of the mine.”

He slammed the coffee mugs onto the timber counter hard enough to startle them both. “I don’t want a share of the bloody mine.”

“Then I’ll go looking alone.”

“Am I so offensive to you that you’d risk your life, rather than consider a relationship with me?” he demanded.

“Oh, Ryan, no. I could make love to you far too easily if I let myself.” Or fall in love with you.

His hopes, almost throttled, began to rise. “Then if I’m not the problem, what is? You can’t tell me you’re in love with Max Horvath.”

“I have my own reasons. If you really care about me, you’ll respect them and leave me alone.”

He ran his hands up and down her arms, feeling the shivers of response. “What do you think I’ve been doing the last few years?”

Caught by surprise, she turned, right into his embrace. “Is that why you come back so seldom?”

He smoothed out the furrow in her brow with his lips. Her skin tasted of sun and heat. She rarely used perfume, but her natural scent swirled through his brain, dazzling him. He took her mouth much harder than he’d meant to, as a starving man might attack his first offering of food. The impact wound all the way to his gut and stayed there, urging him not to stop at a kiss but to plunder and take. Now. Now.

Her arms wound around his neck and she pressed against him as if she also had trouble controlling her actions. When he’d claimed her mouth, her lips had parted instinctively and he flicked his tongue against the soft corners, gratified by her small indrawn gasps of pleasure.

With his knee, he nuzzled her legs apart and pressed closer. Thinking they’d be dining in town, she’d exchanged her jeans for a long, batik-printed skirt, more like a length of cloth wound around her slender hips. The cloth parted at his probing, revealing long legs strengthened by years of outdoor work and handling heavy cargo on her own.

As his body collided with hers, she opened her mouth as if to protest, but any objection she might have made was swallowed when he deepened the kiss. He’d found her core with his thigh and now he moved gently, seductively between her legs until she released a moan against his mouth. Through her skimpy white cotton top, he felt her nipples harden and almost moaned himself. Wanting her set his belly aflame and his blood roaring. It came to him that he could take her now and end this pointless argument once and for all. She would be his, end of story.

But until he knew what kept her from giving herself to him of her own accord, he couldn’t in good conscience take what was within his grasp, although, heaven knew, he wanted to. He had never wanted anything—or anyone—more.

Cursing Des Logan for instilling at least a few principles into him, he trailed kisses down her throat and stiffly, painfully lifted his head. Her eyes were cloudy with desire, her limbs shaky. He held her until he was sure she could stand on her own, then stepped back.

“Now you know why I don’t return more often.”

Her breathing became shallow. “I never guessed.”

“You must have known I was attracted to you.”

“But not—like this.”

To give them both time, he finished making the coffee and carried the mugs to the living room. He was surprised nothing spilled, considering how unsteady his hands felt. She followed more slowly and sat across the table from him, her face pale.

He disliked cornering her, but he’d had to show her what was at stake. Words could never have convinced her. He realized he’d taken a risk by showing her how strongly she affected him. Sharing his feelings wasn’t something he did easily, and he doubted he did it well. She might still reject him, but if she agreed to his proposition, they’d both have a chance of moving on.

She cupped her hands around the mug he placed in front of her. “I admit I feel something for you, and it’s powerful. No, let me finish while I can,” she said as he moved to interrupt. “If I thought going to bed with you would get you out of my system I’d say yes.”

“So what’s the problem?” he demanded, unable to stay silent.

Lifting her head, she gave him a troubled look. “I prefer to keep my life the way it is, free of emotional entanglements. It isn’t personal.”

“The hell it isn’t. Whatever you need or want from me to ease your fears on that score, tell me and I’ll make sure you have it.”

“It isn’t that simple. What I want is to stay uninvolved.”

“What you want?”

She heard the disbelief in his tone. “All right, what I need. If you truly feel about me the way you claim, you’ll try to understand.”

“I’ll never understand,” he stated. “And I will do everything in my power to change your mind.”

Her faint smile was his reward. “I’d be surprised if you didn’t. But I won’t change my mind. And I’ll find another way to go after the diamond mine.”

“That won’t be necessary.”

Coffee sloshed over the edge of her cup. “You mean you’ll help me?”

“I always intended to help you, no matter what your answer. I guess I hoped you’d fall for my bluff and give me more incentive to go looking for this blasted mine.”

“Don’t you believe it exists?”

“It’s a beautiful legend, and as tempting as that lottery win you mentioned before. And just about as likely.”

“Then why look for it?”

He couldn’t hold back his smile. “Because it gives me an excuse to stay close to you for the next month. How else can I work on changing your mind?”

Chapter 3

Judy wasn’t sure how she felt; everything was happening too fast. She didn’t need anything else on her plate. Least of all Ryan trying to pressure her into a hot and heavy affair.

No, not an affair. She could have handled a fling. And she couldn’t pretend she hadn’t thought about becoming involved with him. But she doubted she could protect her heart if they took their attraction to the next level.

He wasn’t the only one struggling to deal with the chemistry between them. She also remembered the awareness that had flashed between them like summer lightning when they were both too young to understand what was going on.

Every time she’d seen him since then, she’d felt the pull growing stronger, more irresistible, until she’d found herself making excuses to fly to wherever she knew he was working, usually as a stockman on some outlying property. He’d greeted her cordially enough, but she’d never been able to tell whether he was pleased to see her. Once or twice, he’d acted as if he couldn’t wait for her to leave, making her wonder if there was another woman involved. Still she’d kept tabs on him. Some people never learned.

Sometimes she wished she could forget all about him, putting as much distance between them as humanly possible. Was that how he’d felt when he’d run away from Diamond Downs as a teenager? When he’d gone, she’d felt as if something precious had been taken away. She’d told herself she was worried about how he would cope on his own, although he’d been doing it long enough. The truth was she’d missed him.

Not that she’d been short of companionship. Blake, Tom and Cade were good fun when they’d been persuaded to forget that she was—shock, horror—a girl. Ryan had never needed persuading; every look and casual touch acknowledged the inescapable fact. She’d missed that, too.

Especially that.

Yet now, facing him and hearing him say point-blank that he wanted her, she wished she were anything but female. Anything but the focus of his single-minded attention. What was going on with her?

The feel of his kiss lingered on her mouth more strongly than the food they’d shared. She knew she would taste him long into this night.

Ever alert to her moods, he pushed his coffee mug to one side and rested his forearms on the table. “Where do you want to start?”

With her mind still on his kiss, she almost answered the wrong question. Then she realized he meant the diamond mine.

She marshaled her scattered wits. “You went over the map with Blake and Tom, so you know roughly where they think the mine should be found.”

“The hidden valley that leads off Cotton Tree Gorge,” he said, showing he’d done his homework.

She smiled. “Blake wants Dad to call it Francis Valley after Jo.”

“Sounds fair. I gather she took quite a tumble falling into the place while dodging Eddy Gilgai. Then she picked herself up and went exploring. Resilient as well as smart. She did well for herself snagging Blake.”

Judy made a face at him. “Couldn’t he be the lucky one?”

“Ideally, the benefits are mutual.”

“Big of you to admit it,” she muttered under her breath.

Ryan didn’t react. “They did us a favor finding the remnants of your great-grandfather’s canoe in the Bowen River,” he went on.

“If they’re right, a branch of the river disappears underground not far from the Uru cave—where Tom and Shara found the rock paintings,” she said.

“I know where it is. I haven’t seen the cave yet, but the others brought me up to speed on the discovery. They were pretty excited to find evidence of a prehistoric civilization living in the area. No wonder the world’s scientists are already beating a path to your door.” A frown arrowed his brow. “Didn’t Max Horvath find traces of diamonds somewhere near the Uru cave?”

She inclined her head in agreement. “Jo found a couple more along the creek in her hidden valley.”

He drew patterns on the checkered cloth with a finger. “So the truth lies somewhere along that creek between the cave site and the floating island where Jack Logan’s canoe fetched up sixty years ago.”

Ryan’s nails were short and blunted by hard manual work, Judy noticed, distracted. But his hands were clean and well cared for. A man’s hands, she thought. Hard when touching her softness. Gentle but irresistible. How would they feel seeking greater intimacy? The thought sent streaks of flame licking through her, homing in on the places she imagined him touching.

A physical relationship with him would never be enough to satisfy her, she sensed. Against all her self-imposed rules, he would make her want more, need more, leading to the very future she was determined to avoid. So she pushed the images away although the quivers of sensation lingered, making concentration difficult.

As a pilot, she was trained to shut out extraneous images. She made herself think of the problem of Ryan as a tricky landing on a too-short outback strip littered with rocks.

In other words, a recipe for a crash landing.

“Do you know anything about a family file Blake and your dad were talking about?” Ryan asked.

She pulled out of the crash dive barely in time. “Cade’s the only one who saw it. He was helping Dad by catching up on some accounts when he came across a folder of very old records that had been misfiled and forgotten. He didn’t think much about them until a friend showed Blake and Jo an old photo they recognized as Great-grandpa Logan’s canoe washed up on the island. According to Cade, there were more photos and paperwork from the same era, giving us more clues to the mine’s location.”

“And did they?”

“We never found out. When Cade went to have a more thorough look at the file later, he was attacked from behind. When he came to, he had a concussion and no memory of the attack.”

Ryan steepled his hands in front of him. “Of course the file was gone.”

“What do you think?”

“I think our next move should be to try and get it back.”

She picked up he coffee mug and stood up. “Easier said than done. There’s no proof, but we suspect that Max had something to do with the theft.”

Ryan shot her a curious look. “No fingerprints or other evidence?”

“He’s too smart for that. If he was involved, he would have put Eddy Gilgai up to the actual attack.”

“Now that Eddy’s dead, Max might have to start doing his own dirty work,” Ryan mused. “Do you still think it’s a good idea to be involved with him?”

She knew how reckless her insistence that she was attracted to Max made her look. But admitting the truth would only intensify Ryan’s efforts to claim her. And she couldn’t deal with that now. “So far Max’s part in this is purely circumstantial.”

“You said yourself you think he was behind the attack on Cade and the theft of the file.”

She planted a palm on the table. “Look, maybe Max was behind this and maybe he wasn’t. Under the law, he’s innocent until proven guilty.”

Ryan’s chair scraped back as he stood to face her. “You know he needs the diamonds to repay his creditors before they foreclose on him. And there’s a better than even chance he’s behind some of the attacks on your family. Yet you insist on seeing him. I’d never have picked you for a gold digger, Judy.”

He’d invaded her personal space, but she held her ground. “You’d better have a good explanation for that remark.”

“Do I need one? You can’t possibly be in love with the man after all he’s done and is doing to your family. So you must have another reason for sticking with him. The only one I can think of is money. Did he offer you a share of the mine if you become his wife?”

Ice dripped into her tone. “You’re treading on dangerous ground.”

“Not really. Just stating the facts as I see them.”

“You forget yourself,” she raged.

Her anger washed off him. “Of course. I’m only a drifter who can’t hold down a steady job for more than a few months. Max inherited a substantial chunk of land, and potentially a lot more if he gets his hands on Diamond Downs. From your point of view, he’s a better bargain as a lover.”

So angry she could barely stop herself from lashing out at him, she slammed the coffee cup down and spun out of the room.

Out on the veranda she dragged in a lungful of the cleansing air, hardly aware of the splendor of the night sky, like a velvet cloth strewn with the diamonds her home was named for. Did Ryan know that the sky with its myriad stars was the reason for the property’s name, not the fortune in precious stones said to be located here? Did he have the foggiest idea of what this place meant to her?

The land itself was her legacy, as it had been for generations of Logans. Only her father’s illness and his miscalculation in mortgaging the land to the Horvaths had changed everything. She had grown up knowing the legend of the diamonds, but never cared much about finding them until they were her only hope of holding onto the land for the next generation. The money itself was strictly a means to an end.

God, she hated to lose. And losing her heritage because she hadn’t done everything in her power to retain it would be the cruelest loss of all.

Intellectually she knew why Ryan had made his vile suggestion, but in her heart she felt mortally insulted. How could he think she would sell herself to Max for money?

That wasn’t the real reason she was so angry, she realized as she fought to bring her labored breathing under control. She was affronted because Ryan was the one making the accusation.

Buying and selling favors was probably second nature to him. The kind of women he was accustomed to dealing with probably wouldn’t have minded, she thought. But being placed in the same category had hurt her beyond belief.

Aware that he had followed her outside, she tensed, primed for battle.

His next words came as a shock. “I apologize. I was out of line.”

With the wind taken out of her sails, she didn’t turn around. “Have you any idea how close you came to being smacked across your big mouth?”

“Wouldn’t be the first time,” he said, an infuriating note of humor in his tone. “I shouldn’t have accused you of gold-digging. I know you better.”

How could he know her at all? She wondered. They’d spent so little time together as adults that his memory was of her as a teenage girl, not the woman she now was. He couldn’t possibly understand her fear of falling in love and losing control of her life. “Apology accepted,” she said evenly. “My reasons for seeing Max are my own affair, nobody else’s.”

“Doesn’t stop me being jealous as hell,” he said.

He moved up beside her and rested his hands on the top rail. “Beautiful night, isn’t it? Every time I go away from Diamond Downs I forget how magnificent this place is. Then I come back and wonder why I ever leave.”

Still shaken by his admission that jealousy had caused his outspokenness, she asked, “Why do you?”

“Work mostly.”

“You could work around here. Any cattle station in the region would make an opening for a man with your skills.”

“And what skills would they be?”

“Working cattle, horse breaking, mending fences.” She thought of the steaks he’d served tonight. “You could get a job as a cook. Not just a camp cook—in a restaurant,” she added.

“I’ve done all that and more, but it’s not the work I do,” he said.

She turned to him curiously, unwillingly admiring the way the starlight turned his hair to burnished gold and made his eyes seem darker and more unreadable. “I’ve seen you do all those jobs,” she insisted.

“What you saw was my cover story.” He reached for his wallet and flipped it open to show her a card in a window-faced pocket. “This is what I do for a living.”

In the pale light spilling from the house she examined the document. Credit-card-sized, it had an unflattering photo of Ryan on the left with a date beneath it. The words Security and Related Activities Control Act 1996 were printed across the top. But it was another word in large red type that jumped out at her. “Investigator? Wait a minute. This says you’re a private investigator.”

“Duly licensed by the Commercial Agents Squad of the Western Australian Police Service,” he agreed. “Among other activities, I can run surveillance on individuals and organizations, conduct asset and liability checks, investigate insurance claims and gather information for legal proceedings.”

She wondered if she looked as foolish as she felt. “I always thought you moved around so much because you couldn’t hold down a job.”

He made a wry face. “In the beginning you were right. Then I met an old friend from Broome who turned out to be working undercover at a cattle station where I was a jackeroo. I didn’t know it when I got there, but the station was being used as a holding center for supposedly stolen cattle while their owners filed dodgy insurance claims. After I helped my mate shut the operation down, he offered me regular work. I qualified for my investigator’s license. Later, when he decided to retire, I obtained my Inquiry Agent’s license and bought him out.”

Ryan rested a booted foot on the lower railing and his arms on the topmost one. “My home and office are in Broome and I travel around the Top End and to the Torres Strait islands, wherever the job takes me.”

“My hero, the P.I.,” she said on a note of wonder.

“We can skip the hero part,” he growled. “This doesn’t make me some sort of glamorous secret agent. Most of the work involves tedious evidence-gathering for companies or the courts.”

“With an element of risk,” she pointed out.

He slanted a grin at her. “Some of the people I investigate don’t take kindly to the attention.”

“I can see why they wouldn’t. Why didn’t you tell me any of this before?”

“Being looked on as a no-hoper, even by the people closest to you, has advantages. Your attitude toward me helped convince quite a few people that I was no more than what I seemed.”

She straightened. “What attitude?”

“I call it your Mother Teresa thing, trying to help the poor and oppressed.”

Denial coursed through her. “I never acted like that.”

“You were forever checking on my welfare, wherever I was working, and bringing me stuff you thought I needed.”

He thought she’d been dispensing charity. She didn’t know whether to be glad or sorry that he hadn’t worked out the real reason. She’d welcomed—craved—the excuse to keep in touch with him. Now that she’d discovered the truth, what would be her excuse? “They were only books, CDs, clothing, nothing valuable. I didn’t mean you to take my gestures the wrong way,” was the nearest she dared come to admitting the truth.

Fortunately he didn’t probe, saying, “Admit it, I was one of your good causes, like that art foundation you and Shara are so committed to.”

When Shara Najran had first accompanied her father, King Awad of Q’aresh on a cattle-buying expedition to The Kimberley, the young Middle Eastern princess had been bored and lonely. Drawn together as the only teenage girls in the vicinity, she and Judy had discovered they shared a passion for ancient rock art. They’d stayed in touch for years. Then Shara had persuaded her father to set up an exchange program for indigenous artists between their two countries. These days, Judy represented the foundation locally. She looked forward to having Shara as her sister-in-law when she married Tom.

Heat flushed through Judy, making her wish she could be more honest about her motives for checking on Ryan. On the other hand, there had been times when she had considered him in need of uplifting, so he wasn’t entirely off track. “The Art Bridge Foundation is not a charity,” she denied.

“But I was.”

“Maybe a little.”

He touched her shoulders, moving her to face him. The heat of his hands burned through her cotton T-shirt. “I didn’t mind because it kept me in your thoughts,” he said.

She felt her vision start to blur. “I was always thinking of you, although at times you seemed angry when I turned up and couldn’t wait to get rid of me. That was when you were working on a case, wasn’t it?”

“I didn’t want you in any danger.”

“And now?”

“Now you’re mixing with Max Horvath and I can’t get it through your head that the man is high-risk.”

She tossed her head, wishing that her short-cropped hair didn’t make the gesture so ineffectual. “All men are high risk.” Another thought occurred to her. “Have you been checking Max out? If you have, I don’t want to hear about whatever you turned up.”

Ryan’s face had turned to stone. “Because you’re in love with him?”

“I’m not…” The betraying admission was out before she could stop it. “Damn you, Ryan. You know I could never love Max. I’m seeing him because it’s the best way to get close to him and find out what other tricks he has up his sleeve.”

Ryan extended his hand, palm upward. “I want to see it.”

“See what?”

“Your private investigator’s license.” When she didn’t move, he placed his hand against her cheek. “You’re not licensed or qualified to conduct an undercover operation, yet you’re prepared to put yourself on the line. For your father? For Diamond Downs? Does inheriting this place mean that much to you?”

She struggled to find the words, not least because his hold on her was clouding her thinking. “I love my dad. I’d do almost anything for him. And I love this land, but not because of any inheritance value. Andy Wandarra and the other indigenous people here would say it’s my country. They’ll travel thousands of miles to die in their own place, their own country. This is mine.”

“So you’d never want to leave?”

The bitterness she heard in his tone had her wondering. “I didn’t say that. One’s country isn’t necessarily where you spend your whole life. But it is the land where you’re born and where you hope to return before you die, what Andy would call your dreaming place.”

She saw some of the tension leave him. “I understand. I may not have a dreaming place of my own, but I understand.”

“Everyone has a dreaming place.”

His shoulders lifted. “I was born in Kalgoorlie and lived there until my dad disappeared. My mother came from Irish stock and had no relatives in Australia, only a pen friend in Broome. When she realized Dad was never coming back, we moved there to be closer to her friend. So is my dreaming place Kalgoorlie, Broome or where my parents originated?”

“It’s wherever you feel you belong.”

His bladed hand dismissed the sentiment. “When I find out, I’ll let you know.”

“This could be your dreaming place,” she suggested quietly. “You may not have chosen to remain at Diamond Downs, but I thought you were happy here.”

“I was for a time.” Until Des Logan had made it clear that the destitute youth had no business making eyes at his daughter, Ryan thought. Des had been careful not to say that Ryan wasn’t good enough, but what other reason could there have been? Des wasn’t exactly falling over himself to come between Judy and Max Horvath, Ryan noted. He wondered if Judy had noticed that detail.

“You could be happy here again,” she persisted. “The other boys will be pleased when they find out the truth about your activities.”

“They won’t find out because you aren’t going to tell them,” Ryan snapped, beyond caring that he was projecting his own past hurts into his voice. He regretted it when he saw Judy recoil. “The fewer people who know what I do, the more effectively I can do my job,” he said more gently.

He saw her master her hurt with an effort. “At least I know now why you think you can get that file back from Max.”

“Let’s say I’ve had a bit of practice at this sort of work.” He shifted so his face was half in shadow. “I want you to arrange a date with lover boy.”

Her chin came up and her eyes glinted with shock. “You want me to go out with him?”

He shook his head. “Believe me, I’d rather swim with crocodiles, but I’ll need you to lure him away from his house so I can go through his office.”

“Don’t you need warrants to do stuff like that?”

“Not if I’m there legitimately. Eddy’s death left Max shorthanded. We’re going to convince him to hire me, then I’ll do my investigator thing while he’s whispering sweet nothings in your ear.”

When he saw a shudder take her, he felt gratified. He hated throwing her to this particular wolf, but he couldn’t think of a better way to keep their target out of the way while he turned over Max’s place. “Just don’t let him get too close.”

“You will be careful, won’t you? I don’t want anyone else getting hurt.”

He stroked her hair lightly. “Who are you worried about, Max or me?”

Before she could answer, her cell phone chimed in the background. She hurried back inside and retrieved the phone from her bag in time to take the call.

Hoping it wasn’t Max, Ryan found himself following her. He should probably give her privacy but if it was the other man, Ryan knew he’d have to find a way to cut the call short. The thought of her dating that sleazy character was almost more than he could tolerate. Maybe they’d all get lucky and Max would be eaten by a crocodile before she had to see the man again.

“Is he going to be all right?” Ryan heard her say into the phone. His senses sharpened. “I’ll be there as soon as I can,” she said and ended the call.

“Your father?” he asked.

She nodded, so pale he ached to take her in his arms, but her body language negated the idea. “At dinner he complained of chest pains and difficulty breathing. Cade’s taken him to the hospital in Halls Creek.”

“I didn’t think they had cardiac services in a four-bed hospital. Shouldn’t he be airlifted to Perth?”

Her hand went to her hair and she pushed it back, a trick of hers when she was nervous, he’d noticed. “They’re arranging for the Flying Doctor to evacuate him, but he needs to be stabilized before he goes anywhere. He’ll be at Halls Creek for at least a couple more hours.”

He picked up his car keys. “Let’s go.”

“We’ll be quicker in the Cessna.”

His glance inventoried her pale features and shaking hands. “You aren’t in any condition to fly anywhere.”

“Maybe not, but I’m going to anyway. You don’t have to come.”

Stopped in his tracks, he said, “Would you rather I didn’t?”

Her faltering smile and slight shake of her head was the answer he needed. He swept up her bag and his jacket in one hand, and her in the other. Holding her close at his side, he walked her out to the car. “Forget the Cessna. I’ll drive you there. By the time you do your preflight, take off and land, and get from the airport to the hospital, you won’t get there much faster.”

“How long do you plan to stick around?”

Ryan brushed her lips with his then opened the car door for her. “Consider me glued to your side from now until we find your diamond mine.”

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