it.”
“Maybe he did.” Dev shrugged. “He might have stopped Dad, but not Mum. She broke free. My parents should have moved away from Kooraki after they were married. They should have had a home of their own. I remember they were happy once. I believe they still have strong feelings for one another.”
Mel thought so, too. “Will your mother come?”
Dev nodded. “If Gregory dies, there’ll be the funeral.”
“Is Ava happy?” Mel asked. Lovely, graceful Ava, the granddaughter shoved into the background.
Dev gave a brotherly howl of anguish. “We both know Ava chose marriage as a way out. She had no real idea of what she was letting herself in for. She always claims she’s happy, but I don’t accept that. If I ever found out that husband of hers was ill-treating her in any way—not physically. He wouldn’t dare—but trying to browbeat her, he’d better look out. And that’s a promise.”
Mel had no doubts about that. She stood up. “For your information, I did intend to go, Dev. I’m as good as packed. I’ll have to cancel my morning flight.”
“Better do it now,” he said, rising to his feet and carrying the tray back into the kitchen. “I’m not exactly sure where I’m to sleep. Obviously the master bedroom is verboten. No need to lock the door, by the way. I don’t bother women.”
“No. It’s generally the other way around.”
“I’m a man like any other, Mel.” He gave her a sweeping glance out of his aquamarine eyes. “Even for you I can’t swear off sex entirely.” There was a sardonic twist to his handsome mouth.
“No need to tell me,” she said with an acid edge. “Someone always manages to give me the latest gossip. I knew all about your little fling with Megan Kennedy.”
“Megan knew what she was getting into,” he said, unperturbed. “We’re still friends.”
She rounded on him, temper flashing. “Isn’t that lovely!” She hadn’t forgotten how fearfully upset she had been, how hard it had been to hide it. The “Megan” affair had been her worst case of jealousy yet. She had to remind herself she’d had her own little flings that were predestined to fail.
“Might I remind you the pot can’t call the kettle black?” he said suavely. “Now, where do I sleep?”
She waved an imperious arm. “There’s the second bedroom, as you well know. The bed is made up.”
“You only have to call out if you get lonely, Mel.”
“My head only has to touch the pillow and it’s lights out,” she assured him.
CHAPTER THREE
DESPITE her claim, Mel lay awake with the full moon casting its light across her bedroom. Maybe it was the coffee that was keeping her awake? That was the easy answer. The real answer? How could she sleep with Dev just down the hall? She knew what her problem was. She was sexually frustrated, assailed by desires she couldn’t control with him around. She had to ask herself—could there possibly be another man in the world for her but James Devereaux Langdon?
Restlessly, she kicked at the top sheet, freeing her feet. She punched the pillows yet again, then turned on her left side, only she wasn’t comfortable with the steady thud of her heart. Over to the right side, she checked the time. Twelve forty-five. She would be exhausted in the morning if she didn’t succeed in putting Dev and her body’s needs out of her mind. Ten minutes went by. Was there no way out of this? It was as though a tribal sorcerer had put a spell on her. There were one or two old sorcerers left on Kooraki. Magic and ritual with the Aboriginal people would never die out. Only she knew as well as anybody you couldn’t get everything you wanted in this world. She had wanted a career. She had one. She had gained the respect of her peers and notice from the hierarchy. She was earning really good money.
You made a big mistake letting Dev stay.
He knew exactly how to push her buttons.
In the guest bedroom Dev was having an even worse time of it, the area below his navel aflame. He was unbearably aroused. He wanted to get up and go down the hall to her. He gave a short frustrated laugh that he muffled against the pillow. The last thing he should do was put Mel under even more pressure, even if it was killing him keeping his hands off her. Why was it he never had a problem with other women, yet he had one big problem with Mel? He threw the top sheet off, trying to rein in emotions so driving they threatened to sweep away any misgivings. This constant pitch of desire he had for Amelia could be classed as a type of lunacy.
His poor embattled grandmother had tried hard to convince him that Mel could have been Gregory’s daughter. It had upset him enormously at the time, but he had never really believed it. His gut told him not. And his gut was right. It was a pathetic and cruel attempt on his grandmother’s part to separate him from Mel. Yet he had understood his grandmother’s raging jealousy. His grandfather had lost his heart. But not to his lawfully wedded wife. It was there in his grandfather’s eyes every time he looked at Sarina.
He had no idea when that love had been consummated. Perhaps after the tragic death of Mel’s father. Mike Norton had been a leading hand on Maru Downs, a North Queensland station in the Langdon chain. His grandfather’s normal practice was to visit all the stations and the outstations checking on operations. There he had met Sarina, Mike Norton’s beautiful young wife.
His grandfather had offered Mike a job on Kooraki. No question Mike had been foreman material, well up to the job offered, but the intense allure of Norton’s young wife could have been the deciding factor. Was that what had happened? His grandfather had been a man of strong passions. Sexual passion had a way of not allowing its victims to escape.
He should know.
Afterwards, she told herself she didn’t really remember walking down the corridor to Dev’s room. Maybe her mind was playing tricks, surrendering to a dream. It was not as though they didn’t know one another’s body intimately, but the thrill, the rapture, the sense of belonging had never lessened, never lost its power.
Dev heard the door handle turn. He swung onto his back, looking up to see Mel framed in the doorway. There was enough light from the full moon to see her clearly. She was wearing a pale coloured nightgown that shimmered like moonbeams.
He sat up, startled, supporting himself on one elbow. “Are you okay?”
She shook her dark head.
“What is it, Mel?”
She gave a little laugh that sounded like a sob. “I’m never okay. You know that.” She moved across the room, then sat on the side of his bed, staring into his eyes.
“You can’t do this, Mel,” he protested, his whole body powerfully, painfully aroused.
“I want to sleep with you,” she said, dragging the top sheet away from him. It exposed his naked hard-muscled chest with its tracery of golden hair.
His voice held a tense warning. “You get into this bed and we’re going to have sex, Mel,” he said. “You know that. So don’t try the little-sister routine.”
“No, no. I come to you for comfort, like I always used
