Vivienne Wallington - In Her Husband's Image

“Whatever damage has been done,” Zac said grimly, “I’ll fix it—if it’s not too late.”

“Can I go with Uncle Zac?” Mikey begged. “Dad used to let me ride on his motorbike.”

Only once, Rachel recalled, and only around the homestead yards. Her husband had decided it wasn’t safe. Safety had been paramount to Adrian. Until he’d made his one fatal mistake.

“No, you can not go, Mikey.” Best to keep him under her eye and away from Zac. Away from further trouble. “You can stay here and help me. And later I might give you a ride on Silver.”

Adrian had bought the pale-gray gelding for her as a wedding gift, after she’d told him she’d taken riding lessons for years and had competed in show-jumping events. On the rare occasions she could find someone to look after Mikey for a few hours, she loved taking Silver out on musters or for invigorating gallops to blow the cobwebs away and feel the wind in her hair. More and more often lately, at Mikey’s urging, she’d been letting her son ride around the yard on Silver.

“Wifout a lead?” Mikey gave her a beseeching look.

She hesitated. Silver was a big horse and could be hard to hold. But if they stayed in the yard and she stayed close by…

“If you do as I say.”

Zac gave a quick grin, as if he’d helped Mikey win a point. “Well, be seeing you.”

As he ruffled the boy’s dark curls and strode off to the shed, Rachel let out another sigh, remembering Zac’s comment about her husband’s assault on Bushy Hill. If it’s not too late, he’d said, in a harsh tone. There’d plainly been little love lost between the twin brothers.

Zac raised a trail of dust as he roared across the paddocks. His brow was lowered, but he wasn’t thinking of Adrian. He was thinking of Rachel. She clearly didn’t want him here. She hadn’t forgiven him. He’d be lucky if she ever did. And how could he blame her? Hadn’t he been blaming himself for what had happened on that highly charged night ever since?

He let out a savage groan. The only woman he’d ever wanted, ever cared about, ever lost his head over, and she could never be his, even now that she was free. She would never be able to forgive him or trust him again. She despised him. Damn his stupidity, his weakness, his pathetic loss of control. Damn it to hell!

Even now, he couldn’t understand how it had happened. Nothing like that had ever happened to him before. No woman had ever had that kind of power over him, making him forget everything but his scorching need for her and the mind-numbing, earth-shattering way she affected him. He’d always prided himself on his strength of character, his integrity, his loyalty.

But they’d deserted him the moment his brother’s wife had thrown herself at him and pressed her fevered lips to his, at the same time running her hand down his body and over his shorts, boldly gripping him, setting off a reaction he would never have believed possible. Some power or demon stronger than himself had taken possession of him.

If only he’d stayed away five years ago, today could have been their first meeting…and she just might have looked on him differently, despite what she’d heard about him from Adrian. At least she could have made up her own mind, with no preconceived ideas of her own to influence her.

But now it was too late!

He put his foot down even harder, almost flying through the air as he deliberately increased his speed, heedless of the danger, not caring in that black, reckless moment what happened to him. Even if he broke his neck, who would care?

And then he thought of Mikey, his nephew, a true Hammond by blood, as well as looks. The boy had recently lost his father. To lose his newly discovered uncle, as well, a man who looked just like his father…what would that do to him? Zac ground out a curse, at the same time giving an ironic laugh when he had to jam his foot down hard on the brake. There was a gate ahead and he would have to stop to open it.

By the time he’d reached the other side of the gate and shut it behind him, the black moment was past and his mind was focused on Bushy Hill.

It was dinnertime before Zac came back. Rachel had already fed and bathed Mikey, wanting him in bed and out of the way early, before he could blab to his uncle that he was about to turn four. She needed time to think and decide what would be the best thing to do—to keep her embarrassing secret or tell Zac the truth.

Zac Hammond was not the kind of man she wanted as a father for Mikey. Aside from his dubious character, he would seldom be around. Not that he would want the responsibility of a child, anyway. Zac wasn’t the type to take on responsibilities. He had his own life, his own world with his wild animals. That was how he liked it and would want to keep it.

And what would the truth do to Mikey? As an acknowledged father—a largely absent father figure— Zac would be an unsuitable influence on the boy, unsettling him and putting wild, reckless ideas into his head. She wanted Mikey to grow up to be a steady, responsible adult, with a normal, settled home life and a family one day, not to be an aimless loner like Zac, without any ties or responsibilities or anyone to love and care about or to love and care about him.

Yet how could she lie to Zac outright if he asked the question? Would it be right to stay silent, now that Adrian was gone and not here to be hurt? But how could she tell Zac the truth? What emotional turmoil and disruption to their lives would it lead to? She would have to sleep on it first.

Zac looked a real mess when he walked in. Dirt had mingled with sweat, his naturally unruly hair was matted and more disheveled than ever, and his shirt was filthy. Yet something deep in the pit of her stomach stirred at the sight of him. He still looked breathtakingly sexy and strong and disturbingly virile.

That he could affect her in such a raw, basic way brought a sharpness to her voice. “You’d better clean yourself up before you tell me what you’ve been doing.” What you’ve been doing to my land. “You can tell me over dinner. My head stockman, Vince, and his wife, Joanne, will be joining us.” She’d heard Vince’s Land Rover returning a while ago and had rushed out to meet it.

She often invited Vince and his new bride to the homestead to talk over station matters. If not to dinner, to drinks on the veranda, sometimes joined by Danny and whoever else was working at Yarrah Downs at the time.

“Can you wait for a cold beer until they come?” she asked Zac. “Or make do with some water for now?” How lucky that she’d asked Vince and Joanne for dinner tonight. Now she wouldn’t have to be alone with Zac.

He grinned.

“Sure. Where’s Mikey?”

“He’s already in bed. He tired himself out.”

“Reaction to all the excitement earlier in the day, hmm?” Zac’s dirt-smudged lips curved in that roguish way he had—so unlike his more serious twin brother, and so like Mikey. So disturbingly like Mikey.

“Reaction to being scared to death, more like it,” she heard herself snapping back, her nerves suddenly on edge. “Are you going to go and clean up or not?”

“Yes, ma’am.” He loped off, still grinning.

While she was waiting for him to come back, Vince and Joanne arrived, freshened up after their day spent checking the water bores. They lived in the head stockman’s cottage on the far side of the yards, past the communal bungalow Danny shared with any other stockmen working on the property.

Vince and his wife were both hardworking, rough-diamond types. Vince was short and muscular, with a shock of sandy hair normally hidden beneath a battered Akubra hat. Joanne, as strong and tough-talking as a man, had inherited her wiry strength from her stockman father and her dusky beauty from her Aboriginal mother. She pulled her weight with the men out on the station and acted as cook on musters.