Belle at home. She’s had a rotten time of it. I can’t just abandon her, even if it’s only for a couple of weeks.”
“Take her along,” Joe urged. “Miss Isabelle is as good in the bush as anyone I’ve seen. She could be an asset.”
Sunderland shook his dark head. “I don’t see Belle laughing and happy any more, Joe. Neither do you. I know your heart aches for her as well. My sister is a woman who feels very deeply. It’ll take her a long time to get over Blair’s death. She’s punishing herself because his family, his mother in particular, appeared to blame her for his fatal accident.”
“Cruel, cruel woman,” Joe said. “I disliked that woman from day one.” He stopped short of saying he hadn’t taken to Miss Isabelle’s husband either. Good-looking guy—nothing beside Miss Isabelle’s splendid big brother—but as big a snob as his mother—aboriginal man too primitive to look at much less to speak to. No, Joe hadn’t taken to Miss Isabelle’s dead husband who had died in a car crash after some big society party. Miss Isabelle should have been with him but the awful truth was they had had a well publicised argument at the party before Blair Hartmann had stormed out to his death.
“Dad and I never took to her either,” Sunderland sighed. “Incredibly pretentious woman. But Blair was Belle’s choice. You know what she was like. As headstrong as they come. Blair was such a change from most guys she knew. A smooth sophisticated city guy, high flyer, establishment family, glamorous life style, family mansion on Sydney Harbour.”
“Dazzled her for a while,” Joe grunted. “But that wasn’t really Miss Isabelle.”
“No,” Sunderland agreed with a heavy heart. “I expect she was acting out a fantasy. She was too young and inexperienced and he was crazy about her. So crazy he practically railroaded her into it. I somehow think she’d never choose someone like Blair Hartmann again though she won’t hear a word against him. I don’t think I could convince her to go although I know she can handle herself. Hell she was born to it but on principle I don’t like women along on those kind of trips. Most of them are trouble. They can’t handle the rough. They put themselves and consequently others at risk. It makes it harder for the men.”
It took another few minutes before he came out with what was really bothering him. “If Langdon suggests his sister comes along I’m walking.”
“Langdon? That’s the photographer right? And the sister was the bridesmaid at Cy Bannerman’s wedding?” Joe flashed him a shrewd glance. Joe had never met the young lady but unlike everyone else Joe found it easy to read the man he had known from infancy. “I thought you took a real shine to her?” He chuckled and stretched but Sunderland refused to bite.
“How would you know?”
“I know.” Joe smiled.
“Pretty weird the way you read my mind. You’re a sorcerer, Joe Goolatta.”
Joe nodded. “Been one in my time.”
“Think I don’t know that.”
Joe closed his eyes.
The memory was seared into his brain like a brand.
The first time he laid eyes on Samantha Langdon she was running down the divided staircase at Mokhani homestead one hand holding up the glistening satin folds of the bridesmaid dress she had just tried on. He and Cy had picked that precise moment to walk in the front door after a long back breaking day. He’d been helping Cy out with a difficult muster, riding shot gun from the helicopter to frighten a stubborn herd of cleanskins out of the heavy scrub. That’s what friends were for. He and Cy went back to the toddler stage. He was Cy’s best man. Cy would be his if he ever got around to getting married. The floating apparition—that was the only way he could describe her—was a close friend of Cy’s bride to be, Jessica, a beautiful young woman, clever, funny with something real to say. Samantha Langdon was the chief bridesmaid. One of four. They were to have a rehearsal later on after the men had washed up and had time to catch a cold beer…
The vision laughed, spoke, the words tumbling out as if she were unable to help herself.
“Oh goodness, we didn’t think you’d be back so soon!”
She spoke the words at Cy, but rather looked at him as though he possessed some kind of uncommon magnetism. He remembered he just stood there, in turn, mesmerized. In the space of a few seconds he was overcome by feelings he had never experienced before. Hot, hard, fierce. They swirled around him like plumes of smoke. The sweat on his body sizzled his skin. It wasn’t just her beauty, so bright he felt he had to shield his eyes; it was the way she moved. Grace appropriate to a princess and something more. Something that arrested the eye. He supposed ballerinas had it. He wanted to reach for this gilded creature. Close his arms around her. Find her mouth, discover the nectar within.
Then all at once he pulled himself together, regaining his habitual tight control, shocked and wary at her impact. Lightning strikes didn’t feature in his emotional life. Why would they? He knew what sorrow a man’s obsession bred. He couldn’t trust a creature as fascinating as this. The lovely laugh. The teasing voice. The grace and femininity she used to marvellous effect. Not after what had happened to his family. He and Belle had been devastated by their parents’ divorce. Their much loved and revered father had never recovered. The wrong woman could destroy a man. He had long assured himself it would never happen to him.
The vision came towards them in her lovely luminous gown, the power to captivate men probably born in her, a creature of air and fire. Her shoulders were bare, her hair a glorious shade of copper streamed down her back. She had beautiful creamy skin, the high cheekbones tinted with apricot almost the colour of her heavy satin gown. He had to tear his eyes away from the slope of her breasts revealed above the low cut bodice. This was a powerful sexual encounter. Nothing more.
“It’s Ross, isn’t it?”
Not content to hold him spellbound her charm and breeding was about to reduce him to an oaf.
Cy smiling, started to introduce them with his engaging manner. He on the other hand must have appeared an ill mannered boor by contrast, stiff and standoffish. A consequence he knew of his strong reaction A man could drown in a woman’s eyes. Large, meltingly soft velvety brown eyes with gold chips in the iris. He knew the colour in her cheeks deepened when he looked down at her. Stared probably, not doing a good job of covering his innate hostility. He remembered he made some excuse about not taking her hand, standing well back so the dust and grime off his work gear wouldn’t come into contact with her beautiful gown. He knew he looked and felt like a savage. He found out later there was a dried smear of blood on his cheek bone.
She had endured his severity well. Right through that evening and the great day of the wedding. It was all so damned disturbing. He wasn’t usually like that. Looking back on his behaviour he cringed, cursing himself for his own susceptibility. It was a weakness and it pricked his pride. Maybe the Sunderlands weren’t fated to have happy emotional lives. His dad, then Belle. The very last thing he needed was to be enslaved by a woman. The secret he was convinced was never to lose sight of himself.
“Hey, where dja go?”
Joe’s voice broke into his troubled reverie, sounding a little worried.
“Just thinking.”
“About that girl?” Joe studied the strong profile in the increasing light.
“About Belle.”
