Outback Bride

CHAPTER SEVEN

Why had it taken her so long to accept that she loved him? This time she couldn't tell herself that it was just a holiday romance, a passing passion for a stranger. This time it was for real.

Copper looked at her reflection in the long mirror. It was her wedding day. She was wearing a simple Twenties-style dress in ecru silk, with a drop waist, slender satin straps and a gossamer-fine top which whispered over her bare shoulders and floated ethereally with her slightest movement. Pearl drops trembled in her ears and there was frangipani in her hair. Her eyes were wide and dark and very green.

She ought to be happy. In a few minutes' time she would walk into the garden and marry the man she loved, surrounded by family and friends. She would be Mal's wife and he would take her back to Birraminda where she would have the challenge of setting up a project that would ensure her father's future and keep her busy and stimulated. What more could she want?

She wanted Mal to love her too. She wanted him to need her the way she needed him, to ache for her when she wasn't there, to feel that the world would stop turning without her.

But that hadn't been in the agreement, had it? Copper turned sadly away from the mirror and pulled the ribbon from her bouquet through her fingers as she remembered his words. 'I've had one wife who said that she loved me, and I don't want another.' Mal didn't want his life cluttered up with messy emotions. He wanted a practical wife, a business-like wife who would stick to the terms of the contract they had signed, and that was the kind of wife she would have to be.

'Dad's here!' Megan rushed in, trembling with excitement and still thrilled with the way the hairdresser had tied up her dusky curls with the palest pink ribbon to match her dress. 'Do you think he'll like my dress?'

'He'll think you're the prettiest little girl in the world,' Copper assured her, although her heart had started to do crazy somersaults and it was suddenly hard to breathe.

She hadn't been alone with Mal since that dreadful party. He had taken Megan out the next day while she had been swept into a whirl of activity by friends determined to celebrate her romantic marriage, and she had spent that evening quietly with her parents.

The knowledge of how much she loved him had held Copper in thrall for two days. She felt as if she were trapped in a strange dream-like state where she could walk and talk but everyone else was vaguely blurred. Nothing seemed real except her feelings for Mal, and now it was five o'clock and he was here and they were going to be married. Copper swallowed.

'You look beautiful.' Her father appeared behind her, turning her to hold her at arm's length so that he could admire her properly. 'This is the proudest day of my life,' he told her, his smile crooked with emotion. 'You're marrying a fine man, Caroline. We're going to miss you, but I know you'll be very happy together.'

Would they? Copper blinked back sudden tears. 'Thank you, Dad,' she said huskily, and kissed him on the cheek. 'Thank you for everything.'

Dan held her tightly for a moment, and then smiled almost fiercely as he offered her his arm. 'Are you ready?'

'Are we ready, Megan?'

Megan nodded vigorously. She had been ready all day.

Copper drew a deep breath and took her father's arm. 'We're ready,' she said.

Together they walked through the house where Copper had grown up and out under the pergola at the back. The garden was decorated with white and gold balloons, and there were vases of yellow and white flowers on every table beneath wide white sunshades. Frangipani flowers floated in the pool and the air was sweet with their scent.

When Copper appeared, a hush fell over the guests grouped in a semi-circle around the celebrant, who stood with Mal and Brett, and they all turned to watch her walk across the grass. Copper noticed none of them. There was only Mal, waiting for her in a white dinner jacket that emphasised the darkness of his hair and the tanned, angular planes of his face, but which did nothing to detract from his distinctive air of quiet, tough assurance.

He turned too, as she approached, and as their eyes met Copper's world steadied miraculously. The dreamy haze that had enveloped her for the last two days snapped into focus and she was suddenly acutely aware of every detail: the gossamer touch of silk against her skin, the heady scent of the flowers in her hand, the feel of her father's arm and the concentration on Megan's face as she tried to remember her part.

And Mal, watching her with a smile that made her heart turn over.

Suddenly she was beside him. Her father squeezed her hand, lifted it and kissed it before he stepped away, and Copper remembered to hand her flowers down to Megan, who peeped a smile at her as she took them very carefully. Then Mal was holding out his hand. She put hers into it and felt his fingers close around hers in a warm, strong clasp. Everything else ceased to exist.

Copper never knew how she got through the ceremony, but somehow she must have made the right responses in the right places, for Mal was sliding the ring onto her finger. She looked down at the gold band that linked her to him: they were married. Wonderingly, Copper lifted her eyes to his.

Mal's smile was oddly twisted as he looked down at her for a moment before cradling her face in his hands and bending his head very gently to kiss her. The touch of his mouth was enough to drench Copper in a golden, honeyed enchantment that spilled through her like a rush of light. The terms of the contract they had agreed, the watching crowd, the knowledge that Mal would never love her as she loved him, none of these mattered as their lips caught and clung and sweetness spun an invisible web around them, enclosing them in their own private world where time lost its meaning and a kiss could stretch into infinity and yet end much, much too soon.

A sentimental sigh gusted through the guests as Mal lifted his head and let Copper drift gently back to earth. Her eyes were still dark and dazed, but she managed a tremulous smile which seemed to be the signal for the garden to erupt into laughter and cheers.

Megan was clutching her flowers, wide-eyed and a little bewildered by the sudden noise. Copper crouched down to hug her and then lifted her up so that Mal could take her and hold her high and safe in his arms. Reassured that she was included in the magic that she had sensed between the two of them, Megan's face cleared, and she released her vice-like grip on her father's neck, smiling and ready to be let down so that she could run off and boast to her little friend about her part in the ceremony.

Copper's mother was weeping, and her father looked as if he had something hard and tight stuck in his throat. Copper just had time to kiss them both before she and Mal were surrounded and swamped in a tide of congratulations and kisses. At first Mal kept a tight, reassuring grip on her hand, but it wasn't long before they were separated and Copper was borne apart by friends who were meeting him for the first time and wanted to tell her how lucky she was.

'He's gorgeous!' they sighed enviously. 'And just right for you, Copper. It's all so romantic!' Then they would pause and add casually, 'His brother seems nice too. Is he married?'

Romantic was the one thing her marriage wasn't, Copper thought wistfully as she nodded and smiled and agreed that everything had worked out perfectly. Even seeing Glyn again wasn't enough to distract her from the gleam of gold on her finger that kept catching at the corner of her vision. I'm married, she kept telling herself disbelievingly. I'm Mal's wife.

Mal's housekeeper, she corrected herself sadly. 'To our deal,' Mal had toasted her, and the last, lingering enchantment of his kiss seeped away at the memory. A few kisses wouldn't change anything for Mal.

Unaware of the wistful look on her face as she hugged Glyn and turned away, Copper suddenly found Mal beside her. 'Come and dance,' he said, taking a possessive hold of her waist and drawing her over to the paved area under the pergola before anyone had a chance to intercept them with more congratulations.

It had grown dark as the party wore on and someone had lit the candle lanterns that were hung around the garden. They cast a flickering glow over Mal's face as he swung Copper into his arms. It was obvious that everyone had been waiting for them to start the dancing, for a suitably romantic song was playing and others soon joined them in the soft candlelight.

Mal's hand was warm and strong in the small of her back as he held her close, and Copper was overwhelmingly aware of him as she rested her head against his shoulder. To anyone else they must look as if they were madly in love, she thought. Out of the corner of her eye she could see the pulse beating in his throat, tantalisingly close. If she was a real bride, dancing with her new husband, she could turn her head and touch it with her lips. She could lift her face up to his and know that he would kiss her. She could whisper that she wished they were alone and let her pulse leap at the thought of the night to come.

But she wasn't a real bride, and she couldn't do any of the things she wanted to do. She could only lean a little closer and pretend that she was just acting, and wish that it could be true.

They were married. Copper succumbed to temptation and rested her face against Mal's throat, breathing in the clean, male scent of his skin. She felt boneless, weak with desire. Some time tonight they would say goodbye to everybody and drive up into the hills to the hotel and the door would shut behind them and they would be alone in their room. And what then? Would Mal really wait for her to ask before he touched her? Or would he take her hand and draw her down onto the bed and let the excitement that leapt between them whenever they kissed take its course? Copper's skin clenched at the thought and she shivered as anticipation beat a wild tattoo down her spine.

They danced in silence, holding each other like lovers. Copper was so absorbed in her dreams that it was a shock when Mal spoke at last. 'Who was that you were kissing?' he asked, as if the words had been wrenched out of him.

'Kissing?' Copper pulled slightly away, disorientated by the contrast between his cool voice and the intimacy of his hold. 'When?' she asked vaguely. Surely she had kissed everybody that evening?

'Just now.'

'Oh…' She made an effort to remember who she had been talking to before Mal had appeared at her side. 'That was Glyn.'

Mal's grip on her tightened almost painfully. 'Glyn?' he echoed. 'Wasn't he the one who walked out on you? Who asked him to the wedding?'

'I did,' she said. 'Glyn was always a good friend. I couldn't not invite him.'

'I don't see why not,' said Mal disagreeably. 'I wouldn't have thought you'd have wanted to see him at all.'

'I don't hold any grudge against Glyn,' said Copper, a little puzzled by his attitude. If she hadn't known better, she might have thought Mal was jealous. 'If anything, we get on better now than we did before.'

It was true. The news of her engagement to Mal had dissolved the last vestiges of constraint between them and she had been able to talk to Glyn quite naturally as an old friend. And seeing him here tonight had made her realise just how differently she felt about Mal. Her re-lationship with Glyn had been warm and comfortable, but a tame thing compared to what she felt for the man who was holding her in his arms right now.

'You mean you've seen him before this evening?' Mal asked incredulously.

'A couple of times, yes.'

'And what about the so-called friend he left you for?' he went on in a harsh voice. 'Was she at those cosy reunions?'

Copper's face saddened, remembering how upset Glyn had been. 'No, Ellie's husband came back a couple of weeks ago, and Ellie feels that she owes it to him to give the marriage one last chance. So she and Glyn have agreed that they won't see each other for a while.'

'So he's free now,' Mal goaded her. 'You must be sorry you didn't wait for him a bit longer!'

He swung her round as he spoke. His arms were close around her, his head bent down to hers, for all the world a doting bridegroom. Sudden bitterness at the falsity of the picture sharpened Copper's tongue. 'I wouldn't have been able to set up business at Birraminda then, would I?' she said in a brief spurt of exasperation at his blindness. Couldn't he see how she felt? Wasn't it obvious whenever he kissed her?

She regretted the words as soon as they were spoken. The mention of business had been enough to harden Mal's expression, and it didn't take much to guess that he was thinking of his first wife who had also put business first.

'Reminding me of why you married me?' he asked, and Copper turned her face away into his shoulder.

'I don't think I need to do that,' she said in a low voice. Mal never forgot the real reasons for their marriage, and neither should she.

And yet, much later, when they finally managed to slip away from the party, Copper could think of nothing but the night to come. The tension of their exchange about Glyn had faded as the evening wore on, to be replaced by a new and very different kind of tension as the moment when they would be alone at last drew nearer.

The silence jangled between them as they drove through the wide, tree-lined streets and up into the hills, and Copper was gripped by such a strait-jacket of shyness that she would even have welcomed another argument to take her mind off the terrible, nameless longing that was drumming through her.

Mal was an overwhelming figure beside her in the darkness. Copper tried not to look at him, but her eyes kept flickering back to his profile, to the unyielding line of his jaw and the way the faint greenish light from the dashboard glanced over his lips. Every time her gaze fell on his mouth the knot of nerves would twist painfully inside her, and she would jerk her eyes away with a suppressed gasp, only to find herself staring at the strong, competent hands on the steering wheel and remembering how they had once felt against her body instead. It was all too easy to forget just why she had married him when desire tightened like a mesh over her skin.

By the time they reached the hotel Copper was vibrating with awareness, and her throat was so tight that she could hardly speak. It was Mal who checked in, Mal who. replied to the hotel manager's discreet congratulations and Mal who closed the door to their room at last, leaving Copper standing nervelessly in the middle of the carpet.

'Thank God that's over,' he sighed, dropping into one of the armchairs and wrenching at his bow tie until it dangled around his neck.

'Yes,' was all she could manage. She watched as Mal undid the top button of his shirt and closed his eyes, leaning his head back against the chair and pushing his hands through his dark hair. Her breath shortened.

'It went all right, though, didn't it?'

'Yes,' she said on a gasp.

He looked tired. She wanted to go over to him, to stand behind him and massage his shoulders, to lean down and drop tiny kisses over his face until he smiled and forgot his exhaustion. The longing was so acute that Copper's bones dissolved. Her legs gave way abruptly and she collapsed onto the edge of the chair opposite his.

There was something hard and tight inside her, strangling the air in her lungs and making her heart boom and thud in her ears. Copper forced herself to concentrate on breathing. Inflate the lungs, hold it a moment, breathe out. It was easy when you tried.

Then Mal opened his eyes without warning and all her effort was wasted as the air evaporated around her, leaving her stranded, suspended in mid-breath, unable to speak or move or even think. The deep brown gaze held her transfixed for what seemed like an eternity before Copper was able to stumble to her feet with a cross between a gasp and a gulp. 'I-I think I'll have a shower,' she stammered, and fled to the bathroom.

Her body pounded as she stood under the shower and images from the past slid over her, as physical as the streaming water but infinitely more disturbing. She wanted to coil herself around him, just as she had done before. She wanted to kiss his throat and taste his skin and listen to his heart beating. She wanted to spread her hands over his back and glory in the hardness of his body.

Copper's hands were shaking as she wrapped a towelling robe around her, and when she looked in the mirror her eyes were a bright, almost feverish green. Her skin felt as if it were pulsating with a life of its own, twitching and rippling and aching for Mal and the way things had once been between them.

'All you have to do is ask…' Mal's words reverberated down her spine and Copper welcomed the suddenly invigorating surge of anger that accompanied the memory. It wasn't fair of him to make her beg him to make love to her. What did he expect her to say? Oh, by the way, Mal, I would like to sleep with you after all?

Copper stared at her reflection. She couldn't do it…could she?

Mal had been quite straightforward, after all. He hadn't seen any reason why they shouldn't have a satisfying physical relationship. The only thing he didn't want was to get emotionally involved, but she didn't have to tell him that she was in love with him. Surely anything would be better than spending three years racked by this terrible yearning?

'Have you fallen asleep in there?'

Copper started as Mal's shout broke through her fevered speculation. 'No, no…I'm just coming.' Drawing a deep breath, she tied her robe more securely. It was now or never.

When she opened the door, Mal was sitting bare-chested on the side of the bed, taking off his shoes and socks. 'I was beginning to wonder if you were planning to spend the night in there,' he said, without looking up.

'Sorry.' Copper's voice came out as a pathetic squeak. This was the moment. All she had to do was cross the room and sit down next to him. All she had to do was lay her hand on the warm, bare skin of his back. Make love to me, Mal-that was all she had to say. It wouldn't be so hard, she told herself. But her feet wouldn't move and the words stuck in her throat, and then Mal was standing up and heading for the bathroom in his turn and the moment had passed.

Sick with disappointment and despising herself for her lack of courage, Copper pushed open the door onto the balcony and let the night air cool her burning cheeks. Far below her she could see the lights of Adelaide, strung in spangled lines across the plain between the hills and the sea. Somewhere down there amongst them all her family and friends were still celebrating her marriage, perhaps imagining her up here with Mal, blissfully happy, in love, confidently facing a lifetime together instead of three years of tension and frustration.

'What are you doing out there?' Mal stopped as he came out of the bathroom and saw Copper still standing on the balcony, barefoot and half hidden in the shadows. After a moment's hesitation he stepped out onto the balcony as well, and leant on the rail a couple of feet away from her. He had taken off his trousers and was wearing only his boxer shorts, and his body was lean and powerful and tantalisingly close.

'I was thinking,' Copper answered him at last. A light breeze rustled through the trees and lifted her hair. She clutched the robe at her throat with both hands, as if she were cold.

'What about?'

'Oh…just that this isn't what I imagined my wedding night would be like,' she said, keeping her eyes firmly on the city lights below.

'What did you imagine?' asked Mal quietly from the shadows, and Copper swallowed.

'A room like this, perhaps,' she said painfully. 'A view like this. A night like this. I thought it might be all these things but I never thought that everything else would be so different.'

'I saw the way you looked when you were talking to Glyn this evening.' Mal's voice was flat, rather harsh. 'I suppose you imagined you would be with him.'

Copper clutched her robe tighter. 'I just imagined that I would be with someone I loved, with someone who loved me,' she said with difficulty. 'That's all.'

There was a long, airless silence. Copper was excruciatingly aware of the beat of her own heart, of the soft towelling next to her skin, of Mal's powerful frame and the unbearable gap between them.

'Mal?' she said, suddenly urgent.

'Yes?'

'I-I know it's not like that for us, but…' Copper's voice petered out in despair as her nerve began to fail. 'But I've been thinking about what you said…' she struggled on desperately, before she lost it altogether.

She felt rather than saw Mal straighten, suddenly alert. 'What did I say?' he asked softly.

'You-you said that you wouldn't touch me unless I asked you to,' said Copper in a rush. She was still staring down at the distant lights that winked and glimmered as if mocking her stammered attempts to explain. 'And…and I wondered if…well, if we could pretend- just for tonight-that…that it was all how I'd imagined it after all, and that we'd just got married because… because we loved each other and not because of some deal we've made?'

She trailed off, unable to look at Mal but miserably aware of his silence. 'I mean…you don't have to. It's probably not a good idea, anyway,' she said desperately. 'It's been a long day and we're both tired and-'

The rest of the sentence died in her throat as Mal closed the gap between them and very gently turned her towards him. 'I'm not tired,' he said softly, sliding his hand around her throat to tilt her face with his thumb so that she had to meet his eyes. 'Are you?'

Copper's heart stopped at the expression in his eyes. 'N-no,' she whispered.

'Shall we pretend, then?' Mal's thumb was drifting along her jaw, feathering down her throat, the merest graze of his fingers enough to send sparks fizzling through her veins.

'J-just for tonight,' stammered Copper. It was suddenly terribly important that Mal didn't think that she was changing the rules already. Let him believe that she was just regretting what might have been instead of feeling weak with need for him. Let him think anything as long as he kissed her soon.

'Just for tonight,' Mal confirmed gravely, but there was a smile gleaming at the back of his eyes and his hand was sliding around to stroke the nape of her neck. 'How shall we begin?'

The caress of his fingers sent tiny shudders of desire down Copper's spine, and all at once it was easy. 'We-ell…' She pretended to consider. 'If I were in love with you, I wouldn't be at all shy. I might step a bit closer-like this,' she said, lifting her hands to his chest and spreading them over his bare skin with a wonderful sense of release. 'And then I might kiss you-just here.' She touched her lips tantalisingly to the pulse in his throat before kissing her way slowly, deliciously, up to the angle of his jaw and then the lobe of his ear. 'Or maybe here,' she whispered as she went. 'Or here…or here…'

Mal had stilled at her first touch, but as her kisses grew more provocative he tangled his fingers in the softness of her hair and tipped her head back almost fiercely. 'If I were in love with you,' he said, looking down into her face, 'I'd tell you that you looked beautiful today.' His voice was deep and very low. 'I'd tell you what it felt like to watch you and know that you were mine at last.' Slowly, very slowly, he lowered his head until his lips were just brushing hers. 'I might even tell you that I'd spent all day thinking about this,' he murmured, and then the waiting was over and his mouth came down on hers.

Copper's mouth opened like a flower to the sun. Her arms slid up to his shoulders and locked around his neck as she kissed him back, giddy with the pleasure of being able to touch him and taste him, of knowing that he was real and that whatever happened tomorrow, tonight was theirs.

Mal had released her head only to gather her hard against him, his hands insistent through the towelling robe, and Copper gasped with excitement as his lips left hers. 'I think,' he murmured wickedly against her throat, 'we would make ourselves more comfortable, don't you? If we were in love, that is,' he added, brushing the robe apart to tease kisses along her shoulder.

'I'm sure we would,' she said unsteadily.

Inside, Mal switched off the overhead light, and for a long moment they just looked at each other in the warm glow cast by the bedside lamps, both held by the knowledge of what was to come. Copper's body strummed with anticipation as Mal took off his boxer shorts and then, very deliberately, reached out at last and loosened the belt of her robe so that he could slide the towelling off her shoulders and down her arms until it fell in a soft heap at her feet.

Her skin was luminous in the soft light and Mal drew an uneven breath, his hands unsteady as they spanned her waist. 'Copper,' was all he said, but he made her name a caress, and Copper's every sense snarled at the desire in his voice and the expression in his eyes and the hard promise of his hands. Not daring to breathe in case she broke the spell and woke to find that this was all a dream, Copper waited, poised breathless on the brink, and then Mal smiled and secured her against him as he drew her down onto the soft bed, and the world shattered into a thousand spinning fragments of delight.

The thrill of skin meeting skin was so intense that Copper gave something between a gasp and a sob. Her hands were impatient over him, exploring the texture of taut flesh over muscles, loving his sleekness and his strength as her body clamoured for his possession, but Mal was in no hurry.

He stretched her beside him and swept his hand luxuriously up from the gentle curve of her hip. 'If we were in love,' he whispered as he reached her breast, 'I'd tell you that I'd dreamed about you, about touching you like this…' His fingers circled and teased, searing Copper's senses until she arched beneath him, and when he bent his head to allow his lips to follow their scorching progress she could only sob his name, afire with a nameless, electrifying hunger.

He explored every inch of her without haste, lingering possessively over each bewitching curve, treasuring each dip and hollow, ravishing, exploring, smiling against her skin. Mal's hands were as slow and sure as Copper remembered, his mouth as enticing, but her need for him was greater, much greater than before. His body was like tempered steel, unyielding and yet warm and supple and gloriously exciting.

Intoxicated by it, she tumbled over him, running her hands down his flank and trailing kisses from his chest down to his flat stomach, tickling him with her tongue and her tousled hair until Mal groaned and swung her back roughly beneath him. He punished her with long, slow kisses, deliberately prolonging her torment, and it was only when Copper begged for release, her words tumbling incoherently over each other, that he gave himself up to the urgency that was spiralling out of control.

Copper cried out at the feel of him inside her. Wrapping herself around him, she sobbed his name, and Mal responded instinctively to her unspoken appeal, taking her with him through the wild, clamorous, spinning hunger until the insistent plunging rhythm of their bodies bore them out of it and onto the edge of eternity.

There they paused for one dazzling, timeless moment before a great, unstoppable surge of feeling broke over them, sweeping them out over the abyss, swirling them onwards and upwards and onwards again. Awed, abandoned, Mal and Copper clung together, calling each other's names for reassurance, and then, just when it seemed that they would shatter like glass, they exploded into sheer ecstasy that blotted out anything but each other and let them spiral slowly downwards through the afterglow at last.

Aeons later, Copper opened her eyes languorously and was amazed to find that the room was still there, looking quite Unchanged. They had left the door to the balcony open and the breeze was billowing the curtains but otherwise all was still, as if time itself had stopped. She could hear the sound of their ragged breathing, but it seemed to come from a long way away. Copper's real self seemed to be still spinning through the stars and she felt curiously disembodied, able to look down on herself lying tangled with Mal in drowsy limbo.

She lay contentedly, her hands smoothing lovingly over his back, savouring the warm, compact body lying relaxed and heavy on hers, and listened to their breathing as it slowed and steadied. Mal stirred then and lifted himself up slightly to smile down at Copper and smooth the hair tenderly away from her face.

'I know we're pretending,' he said very softly, 'but if I was in love with you, I would tell you how much I loved you now.'

The truth trembled on Copper's tongue but she held it back. If she told him that she was really in love with him he might feel irritated or embarrassed, or feel that she expected him to say it back, and she wanted nothing to spoil this magical night. Instead she wound her arms around his neck and pulled his head down to blot out reality with a kiss.

'And I would say I loved you too.'