Emma Darcy: Australia: In Bed with a King: The Cattle King's Mistress

“Do you know him very well?”

“Too well.” The grin turned into a grimace. “Like I’m the kid sister he never had. I’ve been working for the Kings for years, mustering cattle, even before the resort was built.”

Which explained the familiarity between Sam and Tommy, the teasing and her disrespectful responses yesterday. “Then you must know Nathan well, too.” The words slipped out before Miranda could bite on her tongue. She didn’t want to reveal any curiosity about him. She didn’t even want to think about him.

“I know all of them well,” Sam replied with feeling, sounding exasperated by them or their family attitudes.

She set off down the hall again and Miranda kept pace with her, grateful the subject was apparently dropped.

“Come to think of it,” Sam muttered. “It’s not like Tommy to give up.” She frowned at Miranda. “Didn’t he even line up one trip with you?”

Miranda stifled a sigh. No point in hiding what would soon be common knowledge. “Nathan is flying me to the Bungle Bungle Range tomorrow,” she stated flatly.

“Nathan?” Another dead halt as Sam stared wide-eyed at her. “Nathan’s taking you?”

“He’s going anyway,” Miranda explained, trying to keep a terse note out of her voice. “He plans to take some old diaries about the Aboriginal tribes to the park ranger there.”

Sam’s mouth twitched. Her eyes danced with inner hilarity. “Nothing to do with you, of course.”

“Just a ready opportunity,” Miranda said dismissively.

Sam laughed out loud. “Oh, I wish I could have seen Tommy’s face when Nathan beat him to the draw.”

She chuckled on and off, little bursts of private amusement, all the way to the main administration office. Miranda hid her vexation behind silence, disdaining any comment, yet the memory of Tommy’s face at the dinner table last night kept playing through her mind.

She hoped the two King brothers were not going to make her the meat in their sandwich. Would they respect her choice not to get personally involved with either of them? It could become very unpleasant if they didn’t.

Miranda’s stomach was churning by the time she and Sam finally settled in the office, both of them in chairs, facing the computer on her desk. She needed to get her thoughts focused on business again. Tomorrow morning she would face what she had to with Nathan King. Until then…

“He’s free,” Sam said with a sidelong look at her.

“I beg your pardon?” Miranda answered distractedly, watching the monitor screen as the computer went through its start procedure.

“Nathan…he’s unattached right now. The woman he was seeing got married. He hasn’t started up with anyone else yet.”

“Well, I guess he’s feeling rejected,” Miranda commented, hoping she sounded careless, though she was amazed that Nathan King had been turned down for some other man.

“Oh, she didn’t reject him. It wasn’t that kind of relationship. Just casual lovers, really, though it did go on for a few years.”

Miranda gritted her teeth as anger blazed through her. Casual lovers! More like a convenient mistress who finally wised up and got herself a man who really loved her. If Nathan King was harbouring the idea that she could now fall into that convenient slot, he could think again. One way or another she would make her position very clear to him tomorrow.

“Shall we get down to business?” she said coldly, drawing a startled glance from Sam.

“Sure! Just thought you might like to know about Nathan.”

“I know all I need to know, Sam. He’s a member of the King family. Okay?”

Wide blue eyes met green ice and curiosity was instantly quenched. “Fine!” Sam’s gaze snapped to the monitor screen. “The bookings are listed in time sequence and…”

Finally…business!

Miranda savagely recalled Tommy King saying Nathan was a brick wall. She vowed that the cattle King would meet a steel wall tomorrow, with barbed wire on top to deter any attempt at scaling it.

MIRANDA was already at the resort helipad when Nathan pulled up in his Jeep. She had arrived five minutes before the arranged time of meeting, driving one of the luggage buggies, which she’d commandeered for her use. Being early made her feel more prepared, more on top of the situation.

Even so, Nathan swung himself out of the Jeep and Miranda’s breath caught in her throat. Regardless of her mental shields, his physical impact got to her, a big blast of strong maleness that instantly set everything female in her aquiver. Like herself, he was dressed in shorts, shirt, walking boots, a hat in one hand, a backpack dangling from his shoulder, but he emanated purposeful vitality while she felt hopelessly paralysed.

“Good morning,” he said, shooting a smile at her that jump-started her heart again. “We’ve struck it lucky with a cloudless sky. A clear sunrise makes the colours more vivid.”

“Yes, it is a good morning,” she agreed, though it promised a hot, hot day to come. In more ways than one, given her instinctive response to him.

He waved her towards the helicopter on the pad and she fell into step beside him, concentrating on injecting more steel into her spine.

“Have you read anything about the Bungle Bungle Range?” he asked.

“Only what was in the tour pamphlet.”

“Well, seeing says it all.”

Clearly he was not interested in lecturing or showing off his local knowledge, but his interest in her was twinkling from his eyes and playing havoc with Miranda’s nerves.

“Having trouble sleeping?” he asked.

“No,” she instantly denied, wondering if she looked tired from last night’s tossing and turning over this meeting. “Why should I?” she challenged, wanting to pin-point the reason for his speculation.

“Oh, the quiet sometimes gets to city people. They miss the background noise, and other things they’re used to.”

Like sex?

Miranda found her jaw clenching and mentally berated herself for being ultra-sensitive. On the surface his comment was perfectly reasonable. On the surface he wasn’t saying or doing anything she could take objection to. But under the surface she felt the buzz of possibilities that were far from innocent.

“The last two days have been so busy, I guess the quiet hasn’t impressed itself on me yet,” she answered.

“It will,” he said matter-of-factly. “You’ll come to like it or hate it. One thing can be said definitively about the outback. It very quickly sorts out the visitors and the stayers.”

“So I understand. I’ve been told there can be a stir-crazy problem with some of the staff if they don’t get regular leave.” That moved the conversation to a more impersonal level!

“Not just with staff,” he returned drily. “Most women I’ve known.”

He slanted her a look that seemed to be weighing if she had the grit to be a stayer. It set Miranda wondering about the woman who’d chosen to marry someone else…a woman who didn’t want to spend her life on a cattle station? But why would Nathan King keep the relationship going for years if it hadn’t suited him?

“There must be women who were born and bred to the outback like you,” she said pertinently. “Like Sam Connelly.”

“Ah, Sam,” he said in a tone of fond indulgence. He slid her an ironic look. “There aren’t many like Sam, believe me, and she only has eyes for Tommy. One of these days he might stop chasing glitter and see the gold right under his nose.”

Was that true about Sam? Miranda tucked the information away for future reference and targeted the man who was criticising his brother. “Perhaps he’s not inclined to look. Some men don’t want real commitment to a woman.”