Bronwyn Jameson - Princes of the Outback - The Rugged Loner / The Rich Stranger / The Ruthless Groom

This morning, when she visited the bathroom, fate and the female cycle rudely snuffed out that light.

Naturally it was Monday and she couldn’t slink back to bed. Predictably it was a stinking grey Monday, the kind that decides to dump its wet load of misery on a woman’s shoulders when she’s running to catch the bus. And because she was in no mood for company, Rafe came to wander aimlessly around her workspace as soon as he arrived at the office.

That happened to be about five minutes after she’d tossed her rose-colored glasses in the bin beside her desk, along with the pregnancy-test kit she’d bought ahead of time and stored in the back of her filing cabinet. She knew the second Rafe’s miss-nothing eyes settled on the discarded box.

Why had she given in to that silly fit of hormonal pique? Why hadn’t she just left the kit where it was? She hadn’t needed to trash the damn thing!

A small frown lined her boss’s forehead. “Is that what I think it is?”

“That’s none of your business.”

His gaze lifted at her sharp tone. “It appears to be unopened.”

“How observant.” It was hard not to sound snarky when Rafe—dammit—was pushing aside papers to perch on the edge of her desk.

“Do I take it this is bad news?”

She clicked her mouse and stared hard at the computer screen.

“Because I always thought it was bad news when the lines turned pink.”

Eyes narrowed in irritation, she swung back to face him. “In your situation, that would be good news…or have you forgotten the baby you’re supposed—”

“So, you did do it.”

“What?”

“You and Tomas. That night in the suite. I wondered.”

Yet he hadn’t said a word. She wondered—

“I didn’t say anything in case nothing came of it,” he said, finishing her thought. He glanced back at her bin. “Is that what the unopened test means?”

“I’m not pregnant, if that’s what you’re asking.”

And because she couldn’t stand the sharp perceptiveness of his gaze—or the flicker of sympathy in his eyes—

she turned back to her computer. Tapped at a couple of keys before she realized she hadn’t opened a document. The computer beeped back at her, something that sounded like you dolt. And she was the stupid, idiotic queen of dolts for imagining she could do this, for thinking that one night would instantly provide a baby, and for wanting it so much. Dammit, and now she had to put up with her boss sitting there looking at her with pity and—

“What are you going to do about it?” he asked, and she whirled on him in a flash of fury.

“What are you doing about it? You, also being part of this pact. Why should it be up to me? And how about Alex—has he set a date yet?”

“Last I heard, he and Susannah are still in negotiation.”

Which meant no date, no marriage, no baby, since Alex had decided that marriage had to come first. “And you?”

“I’m still considering my options.”

“Too much choice?”

Instead of grinning or winking or chipping in with the usual Rafe-line, he looked at her steadily. “Or maybe I can’t find the right woman to make a baby with.”

The right woman, the right mother, the perfect candidate. Angie’s heartbeat sounded thick and loud in the sudden quiet. “Do you think Tomas found the right woman?”

“Do you?”

Yeesh, but she hated questions tossed back in her face. Twelve hours ago she knew the answer, unequivocally, but now? Had so much changed? Or was this only a wet-day hormone funk? She stared at the blankness of her computer screen a moment, and the only answer she found was the truth. “I want to make more than a baby with him. I want to make him live and laugh and love again.”

Rafe grinned. And winked. “Attagirl.”

Angie scowled back at him, but somewhere inside she felt the tiny flicker of hope. “Fat lot of good it will do me.”

“My brother needs someone like you. Someone with the balls—”

“Thank you very much!”

“—to keep pushing and prodding so he doesn’t hole up in his shell like a hermit crab. He needs someone who loves him enough to not give up.”

“You think?”

“He needs you more than he needs this baby, Ange.”

Holy Henry, she hoped so. Yet, if Rafe believed it—if he could sit there and recite with such conviction the belief engraved deep in her heart…“Do you suppose your father thought the same thing?” she asked slowly. “That he was using the will clause to push Tomas to find someone else?”

“Maybe.” In silence, they both considered this a minute. Then Rafe shook his head. “Nah, there’s too many things that could have gone wrong, the way he worded the clause.”

“I guess.”

“What matters is making sure everything goes right from here on in. You need to be in his face, Ange, showing him what he’s missing.”

“What do you suggest? That I turn up on his doorstep and chirp, ‘Honey, I’m home’?”

Rafe grinned. “You’re reading my mind.”

It took Angie a moment to realize he wasn’t joking. She wet her lips nervously. “What, exactly, are you thinking?”

“Two weeks, right? Until you can next make babies?”

Angie nodded.

“What if I fly you out there a bit earlier…?” Not really a question, since he didn’t wait for an answer. He picked up her desk calendar and studied it. When he looked up his eyes held a wicked glitter. “You know what this Saturday is?”

“Um…the twentieth?”

“The Ruby Creek Races.”

Angie frowned. The Ruby Creek weekend was an outback institution, more about socializing than horse-racing, but what did it have to do with her situation? “You want to go? You think I should go? Do you think Tomas will be going?”

“Unlikely. He doesn’t get out much these days. No, what I’m thinking is all the staff will be going and he’ll be home alone.”

Until she arrived. Angie’s pulse fluttered. “He won’t like it.”

“Does that matter?”

She smiled slowly and the glow of hope spread strong and rosy through her whole body. “No. I don’t suppose that it does.”

Tomas recognized the sound of the Carlisle Company plane coming in low over the Barakoolie ridge without lifting his gaze from the weaners he was tailing. He figured it was Alex or Rafe dropping in to visit with their mother. A wasted trip, since Maura had flown down to another of their stations to supervise the muster after the manager broke his leg. Tomas would have gone himself except…

His chest tightened as he recalled the plea in his mother’s pained eyes—a look that had cow-kicked him right where he lived. He knew what she couldn’t say. I’m lost and I’m hurting. I need to be busy, occupied, working as hard as my body can take. It’s the only way to live through this grief.

Oh, yeah, he knew better than anyone the benefits of physical exhaustion. Not a cure, but a salve to deaden the acute pain and a bandage dressing for the soul-deep loneliness. A means to fill the days and a way to find the salvation of sleep in a marriage bed suddenly left half-empty. So, yeah, he’d let Mau go with his blessing, and if either of his brothers gave him grief over it…After several weeks of fourteen- and fifteen-hour days he felt brutal enough to knock them both on their Armani-clad asses.

Thinking about that outcome gave him a grim satisfaction as he watched the King Air bank and turn before coming in low on its final approach to the airstrip. The young colt he was training jigged and danced beneath him. And if his pulse skipped in time with his fractious mount, that wasn’t because some rogue part of him remembered the last time one of company planes had sat on the Kameruka airstrip.