Barbara Hannay - The Cattleman's English Rose

Grabbing a raincoat, she ran out into the storm. She tried to call Tim, but the wind and the rain whipped the words away and she hadn’t thought to bring a torch, so she had to feel her way forward like a blind person.

‘Tim, please, where are you? I can’t bear this awful worry.’

Then, somehow, she knew the answer to her own question. He was in the graveyard.

A bolt of lightning lit up the churchyard, showing her the way through the dark night. On legs rubbery with fear, she scurried past the yew tree behind the church, ducking between the gravestones, slipping on the wet grass and trying not to think of ghosts.

She found Tim huddled on the grave where their dear mother lay.

Such a forlorn, shivering, little boy of seven, clinging to a block of cold marble, his black hair plastered to his head and his pyjamas soaked through.

Her heart broke as she swept him into her arms. He clung to her and he was as wet and slippery as a frog, with bony elbows and knees.

‘I want Mummy,’ he sobbed. ‘I want her. I want her to come back.’

‘Oh, darling.’

She couldn’t be angry with him. All she could do was cuddle him close and cover him with kisses. ‘I’m here, sweetheart. I love you. You must let me be mummy now.’

To her horror the boy struggled out of her arms and took off, running away from her into the stormy night.

‘You’re no good. You keep losing me,’ he cried.

And he disappeared into the black.

‘Tim! No! Please don’t go. Come back!’

Charity’s terrified cry woke her.

She tried to open her eyes. Ouch! Blinding stripes of sunlight blasted through the Venetian blinds and she snapped her eyes shut again as the trauma of her dream was replaced by reality.

Tim was missing. In Australia.

And then she was aware of physical pain. Her head. And yuck! Her mouth tasted like the bottom of a bird’s cage.

What had happened?

All she could remember of the previous night was having a long, cosy chat with Marsha. Actually…it had been rather a one-sided chat. She had listened while the other woman talked. Marsha had told her about Tim…about what a lovely fellow he was…And Charity had a vague memory that Marsha had insisted they keep drinking if she wanted to hear everything about her brother.

But if she’d learned anything significant it was lost to her now. At some point the conversation had shifted to Kane and his brother, Reid…but she couldn’t remember anything much. Except Marsha’s clear warning to stay away from Kane…

She felt vile. Awful. This had to be a hangover. Her first. And where on earth was she?

Keeping her eyes closed, she lay very still while she explored her surroundings with her hands. There was a mattress, a pillow beneath her head and a sheet covering her. Carefully she turned her head away from the bright window, opened one eye and squinted and discovered that the light on this side of the room was more hangover-friendly.

Okay. There was no doubt that she was in a bedroom. But where was this room?

Bravely, she opened the other eye and took in details. The room was simply furnished, its only decoration a dried arrangement of Australian wildflowers on an old-fashioned pine dresser. The walls were a dingy off-white and an ugly mustard and brown striped rug covered most of the floor. A doorway led to an adjoining room.

It had to be a bathroom, because she could hear the sound of running water. And splashes.

Splashes? Good grief. Splashes meant someone was in the bathroom. It meant…

Before she could come to terms with what it meant, the running water stopped.

For five seconds there was silence except for the desperate thumping of her heartbeats in her ears. And then footsteps.

And a tall figure appeared in the doorway.

Kane McKinnon.

She felt deprived of oxygen. How on earth had she ended up in a bedroom with him?

He was wearing nothing but blue jeans and, although she didn’t want to, she couldn’t help staring at him—at his bronzed skin, which looked as if it had been polished to a high sheen—at his broad shoulders, his taut torso, and his muscles—his exceptional muscles.

Kane and his muscles strolled into her room and he stood at the end of her bed, looking down at her.

She tried to ask him what he was doing in her room—what she was doing there—but when she opened her mouth no words came.

‘Good morning,’ he drawled.

So it was morning.

Which meant…there’d been a night. But where and when and…how?

‘Good—’ Charity gulped. ‘Morning.’ If only her mouth wasn’t so parched. ‘W-where are we?’

A ghost of a smile played at the corners of his mouth. ‘We’re in a cabin at the back of the Mirrabrook pub. Don’t you remember?’

‘No.’ Pain pounded behind her eyes and she closed them, but she felt too vulnerable with her eyes closed while Kane towered at the foot of her bed, so she squinted at him. ‘What are you doing in my bedroom?’

‘I beg your pardon, Miss Denham, but you should rephrase that question.’

‘Why?’ she asked faintly, dreading the answer.

‘This is my room.’

Her eyes flashed wide again. ‘Then how—?’ She had to stop and wet her lips with her tongue. ‘Why am I—’ Oh, help. ‘How did I get here?’

‘I carried you.’

Lord have mercy.

A mocking smile tweaked his lips. ‘I found you in the beer garden with Marsha, tossing back drinks like a ringer. Marsha’s used to grog, but you were on the verge of passing out and in need of a bed, and—’ He shrugged his massive bare shoulders. ‘This was the only room left.’

‘I see. I suppose I should thank you.’

He walked the length of the bed to her side and her breath caught. It was unnerving to have Kane McKinnon so undressed…and so close to her bed. What was he doing here? What had happened last night?

She shivered at the thought that this mega-masculine body might have lain next to her, that she might have…they might have…

Had she touched that satiny skin?

No. Surely not.

She realised he’d brought her a glass of water and two pain-killers.

‘I imagine you’ll need these.’

‘Thanks,’ she said, but she didn’t take them. There were too many important questions that had to be clarified. ‘You didn’t sleep here—with—with me, did you?’

His eyes were the silvery-blue of an early morning sky and now they glinted with suppressed amusement. ‘I didn’t have any choice. I told you this was the only cabin left.’

‘But why couldn’t you have gone home? Why did you stay here?’

‘I had to make sure you were okay.’

Was that true? Was she supposed to be grateful? What kind of man was Kane McKinnon? She had no idea whether he was trustworthy. The tanned skin on his face was cut by a pale scar that sliced through his right eyebrow and almost reached his eyelid and she couldn’t help wondering what had caused it.

‘What did we—? We didn’t—Did we—um—’ How on earth did she ask this? ‘We didn’t—make love or—or anything, did we?’

She saw a flash of white teeth as he grinned. ‘Make love? Hell, no.’

‘Thank heavens,’ she whispered and felt some of her tension let go.

‘I don’t think I’d call it love,’ he said in a slow drawl.

Charity braced herself for the worst. The tension returned one hundred fold.

‘What we had was more like straight out lust—’

‘No!’

‘Simple, uncomplicated sex,’ he said and the blue eyes gleamed.

A horrified moan escaped her. Wrenching the sheet over her, she cowered beneath it. But now, with her eyes closed, she saw a vision of all the devout women in her father’s parish staring at their rector’s reprobate, drunken daughter with scandalised, open-mouthed horror.