your face.’
You’ll never be the kind of woman to turn a man’s head, Nicola Ann.
She lifted her chin. I beg to differ, Mum.
Would she turn Cade’s head?
‘In the same way,’ Dee added, ‘you hide that lovely figure of yours beneath clothes that are much too baggy.’
That snapped her to. ‘Lovely figure?’ It took a concerted effort not to snort. Dignified. Friendly and dignified. ‘I am way too curvy.’ Fat. ‘I need to lose at least ten kilos.’
‘Nonsense!’ Verity said crisply. ‘You’re perfect. You have gorgeous curves. I miss my curves.’ She ran her hands down her sides from bust to hip. ‘I seem to be shrinking as I get older.
‘But you look lovely,’ Nicola blurted out.
‘The secret is good foundation garments.’ Verity’s eyes twinkled and Nicola couldn’t help but laugh. ‘Besides, I firmly believe that men who only like stick insects have an innate hatred of women. I, for one, have never been the slightest bit interested in pleasing them. My darling Scott, Cade and Dee’s father, liked a full womanly figure. He was a big admirer of Marilyn Monroe and Jane Russell. He’d have hated all of this obsession with being skinny.’ Her eyes twinkled again. ‘And I’m pleased to say his son takes after him.’
Nicola blinked. Heavens, Verity didn’t think there was anything going on between her and Cade, did she? She opened her mouth to disabuse her of any such notion, but Verity swung her back to the mirror. ‘Dee has a dress that would look perfect on you. It’d nip you in at the waist and give you the perfect hourglass outline.’
‘Ooh, yes, the cherry-red. It’d look fabulous with your hair too. You must wear it tonight. Such a transformation deserves a proper celebration.’
Nicola had to blink back tears as she suddenly realised female solidarity wasn’t dead. It was alive and thriving in the world. She turned from the mirror to face the two women. ‘Thank you,’ she said simply with a smile from the heart.
When Nicola walked into the dining room that evening, Cade’s eyes widened. The world tilted to one side and he had to brace his legs to keep his balance. The woman had killer curves!
Femme fatale. The words thumped through him, punching him in the solar plexus and emptying his lungs of air. Femme fatale had been the furthest thought from his head when she’d climbed out of the plane earlier in the month, but now …
He shook himself. He had to stop from lingering on the way her dress hugged her body. He had to get his mind off those curves—well and truly off them or he’d embarrass himself.
Farm business. Think farm business! Calving, branding, mustering … riding in all the wildness of Waminda Downs with nothing but scrub and rock and the line of the hills in the distance … the curvaceous line of those hills and—
He shook his head in an attempt to snap out of the fog he’d descended into. To one side his mother and sister beamed at him and the tie he’d donned for dinner tightened around his throat. Colour flooded Nicola’s cheeks and her gaze darted away as if she was embarrassed or afraid of what he might say. She fussed about, placing Holly in her high chair and helping Ella into her seat. A strange tenderness filled him then, helping him to chain his rampant desires back under control. ‘Nicola?’
She glanced up and he took his time surveying her new hairstyle. His mother and Dee hadn’t ruined her, and they hadn’t turned her into a plastic version of herself. They’d somehow managed to reveal the beautiful woman who had been posing as an ordinary girl for far too long.
She stole his breath.
‘You look beautiful.’
She smiled then—that smile that could bowl a man over. ‘Thank you.’
She bowled him over the next morning too—even though she’d returned to her usual attire of long cotton shorts and a baggy T-shirt as she and the children painted Santa pictures.
But he knew the curves that hid beneath her clothes now. He could picture them in his mind. And if she let him kiss her again—
He snapped that thought off and went to break in a brand new colt—a far more constructive outlet for his energy. He wasn’t kissing Nicola again. She might kiss like a temptress. She might look like a temptress. But neither one of them needed the complication.
If he could just get the thought out of his head.
That thought was still there that afternoon, though, when he assembled everyone to help unwind and test the various strings of fairy lights. Her curves were hidden. Her new hairstyle was too because, at some stage during the day, she’d succumbed to the heat and had pulled it up onto the top of her head. But the most beguiling wisps found their way out of the knot to curl about her neck and ears.
Pretty ears.
And a neck a man would love to explore with long, slow kisses and—
Get a grip, damn it, man!
He tried not to look at her too much when he was on the ladder and she handed him up row upon row of fairy lights to attach to the frame of the homestead.
He kept his eyes averted from her that evening after dinner too when it was time for the grand unveiling. When, at the flick of a switch, the house lit up into a sparkling fairyland.
Fairy lights wound around veranda posts and along the railings. A series of fake icicles hung from the veranda ceiling. Each door and window frame had its own set of lights. So did the shrubs and trees in the garden. Everything winked and twinkled and sparkled. Beside Jamie and Simon, Ella jumped up and down. From her spot in Nicola’s arms, Holly’s eyes went wide and her mouth formed a perfect O. His heart expanded and his shoulders loosened. This—all of it—was for Ella and Holly. He wasn’t going to let anything, not even hormones, get in the way of that.
His smile slipped when he heard Dee murmur to their mother, ‘It’s a bit over the top, don’t you think? I mean, an entire generator to power fairy lights?’
‘Oh, I don’t know,’ Nicola chimed in. ‘The kids just love it and it really does look pretty. Ella, Jamie and Simon are gobsmacked and will probably talk about this for years to come.’
‘You’re probably right,’ Dee laughed. ‘On his own head be it, though, because I believe he’s just started a new family tradition.’
‘If so, it’s a lovely one,’ Verity said. ‘Nicola is right. It looks magical.’
‘What do you think, kids?’ Nicola asked. ‘Should there be Christmas lights like this every year at Waminda Downs?’
A resounding cheer went up from all the children, and Cade knew then that Nicola would do everything in her power to keep her side of the bargain—to make this Christmas the best one yet. He meant to keep his word too, but … What excuse could he come up with tomorrow to keep her away from that darn treadmill? He’d run out of fairy lights.
He churned the problem over and slowly a grin spread through him. She might have an angel’s own smile but, beneath it, every now and again he’d caught glimpses of a red-hot anger. He didn’t condemn
