Rescued By A Millionaire

CHAPTER EIGHT

THE water was unbelievably cool.

Away from the edge, the dam sank to eight or nine feet-deep enough to allow Jenna’s whole body to sink. She promptly sank. She stayed under until she ran out of air, then she surfaced and promptly sank again. Karli was safely with Riley so she could concentrate on getting herself cool. On getting herself together.

‘Does she always bob up and down like this? It’s very distracting.’

He was too close. Jenna surfaced, spluttered and looked wildly round to find Riley’s face immediately behind her left shoulder. He was floating on his back, and Karli was seated happily astride his broad chest.

For the life of her she couldn’t think what to do. Or what to say.

So she sank again. She stayed under for as long as she could.

When she rose to the surface he was waiting. Riley had swung Karli onto a floating log, and as Jenna rose he caught her shoulders and held her above the surface.

‘This is very unrestful,’ he complained.

‘Unrestful for who?’ she asked breathlessly. ‘Let me go.’

‘Only if you promise not to sink again. It’s making Karli and me nervous. We keep thinking you’re being eaten by yabbies.’

‘Yabbies?’ Unconsciously Jenna’s toes lifted so she was floating with drawn-up knees.

‘Yabbies.’ Riley smiled. ‘Little lobsters.’ His face was glistening with water, and his streaming hair was plastered in curling tendrils across his forehead. He looked wickedly attractive. And his eyes were inches from hers. Too close for comfort.

Far too close.

And then suddenly he was not close enough for Jenna’s liking. There was an almost unbearable temptation to put out a hand and touch that laughing face. To push back the streaming hair. To press herself closer in the water-press herself against her man.

That was how she was thinking of Riley Jackson, she knew, with a sudden fierce realisation of how her heart was working. There was something deep inside that was telling her that Riley was her man. Her home. Whether he knew it or not.

‘I’m not scared of yabbies,’ she told him. She pulled away, and something of the way she was feeling must have come through. Riley released her and stayed treading water, his face watchful.

‘You don’t need to be scared of yabbies,’ he agreed. ‘And you don’t need to be scared of me. I won’t hurt you, Jenna,’ he said softly across the water now dividing them. ‘I have no dishonourable intentions.’

I wish you did, Jenna thought desperately. Because I certainly do.

She didn’t say it out loud. Instead she managed to smile at Karli, then gave her log a shove that had the little girl sailing across to the far side of the dam. Jenna followed, kicking hard, sending up a spray, propelling the log until she was about twenty feet from Riley. She was trying desperately to make herself relax.

‘Push me into the mud,’ Karli commanded. ‘I need to make mud pies.’

‘Certainly, my lady.’ She shoved until Karli’s craft beached itself. Karli proceeded to roll herself into waist-deep water, scoop up handfuls of mud and arrange them with care on her log-raft.

Karli had always been a self-contained child, a talent born of necessity. She’d never needed to be entertained. It worried Jenna at times, but she’d learned not to press. She didn’t press now, even though making mud pies with Karli might have lessened the tension. Instead she lay back in the water, floating with the warmth of the evening sun on her face.

It was glorious.

But all she could think of was Riley.

What if she’d stayed in his grasp? she thought. What if, instead of pulling away, she’d let herself be drawn closer?

Nothing would have happened, she told herself bitterly. How could he be attracted to her? He’d never asked her to come here. And she wasn’t exactly free. She had Karli.

She came with strings.

As far as Riley was concerned, Jenna must be a nuisance of an English girl who’d climbed off the train and demanded his help. A nuisance with a child attached who he felt sorry for. And that was it.

Like her, Riley was floating on his back, but he’d remained on the far side of the dam. There was as much distance as possible between the two of them. It was the way he obviously wanted it.

But she didn’t want distance. She desperately didn’t want distance.

What to do about it?

Nothing.

Nothing was for cowards. Nothing was…unthinkable.

Tomorrow morning he’d leave again and be gone for another interminable day. Then he’d put her in his aeroplane and take her back to civilisation. That would be that.

She’d leave here for ever, she thought bleakly. She and Karli would go back to England to her hospital bedsitter, and figure out how she could afford to keep Karli. Her life had been bleak before as she’d struggled to pay off the debts she’d incurred to get her professional qualifications. How much more bleak would it be now?

At least she’d have Karli.

That was a good thought. It settled her. She glanced over at her little sister who was concentrating on mud-pie making as if she were performing brain surgery. Life would be better with Karli.

It’d be even better if she’d never met Riley, she thought dully. If she’d never known such a man existed.

Jenna’s eyes left Karli. She very carefully didn’t look at Riley, but she let her gaze wander everywhere else.

There were those who would say this was the bleakest place on God’s earth. The water she was swimming in was mud-brown. The dam was surrounded by a low bank of churned-up mud and there was one ancient, gnarled and very dead tree nearby. Apart from the dead tree, all that was in sight was a line of underfed cattle, staring out over the swimmers with bovine nonchalance.

Plus two small kangaroos, approaching the water with caution for an evening drink.

This place was the ends of the earth, she thought. She should welcome the thought of getting out of here. Of leaving.

Instead Jenna turned back toward Riley and knew that in leaving it’d be as if she were tearing her heart from her body.

So do something, Jenna, her inner self told her.

Show him how you feel.

Jenna froze, horrified. She couldn’t.

Could she?

But suddenly she couldn’t bear not to. After all, what did she have to lose?

Riley?

She was losing him anyway. He wasn’t hers-except in her heart.

And if, somehow, she could find the courage to show him…

So Jenna Svenson, quiet, diminutive Jenna, who’d held herself to herself for the whole of her life, whose only gambles had led to disaster, took a deep breath, counted to three-and duck-dived under the water straight towards him.

She got it right. Years of visits to unwelcoming parents in five-star resorts, stuck with bored child-minders who’d had the choice of caring for their charge in a hotel room or at the hotel pool-those years had taught both her and Karli to swim like fish. She aimed herself beautifully. There was no way Riley could see her coming.

So Riley knew nothing until Jenna surfaced right underneath him. He jerked sideways in shock. Her breasts slid up against his naked chest and her hands came out to grasp his body, as if to steady herself.

Accidentally maybe, but how carefully planned!

‘Hey.’ He jerked away and she was forced to release him. ‘A whole dam and you crash into me?’ he spluttered.

‘Sorry.’

He looked at her oddly and she gazed back with nonchalance.

He turned back to his floating.

‘You’re being incredibly lazy,’ she told him. ‘You’ve hardly swum.’

‘I’ve swum enough.’

‘You’re hardly even wet,’ she teased-and she dived straight under him. She grabbed his feet and he was so stunned that Jenna succeeded in pulling him right under. He surfaced, choking and gasping, to find Jenna laughing from two feet away.

‘You don’t hold your breath very well,’ she told him, considering. ‘Are you not a good swimmer?’

‘You little…’

She eyed him with hope. This man held himself under such rigid control. What she wanted-desperately-was for that control to snap.

‘Maybe it’s time for us to head back to the house,’ Riley said flatly and he turned away.

Was he made of iron?

One last try.

‘When you’ve had a good soaking,’ she told him. She duck-dived again, grabbing his feet and hauling him down once more, but this time instead of releasing him she clung like a limpet-holding him under so that he had to twist and grab her and haul her to the surface with him.

It was never a contest. Riley’s strength so far outweighed hers that there was no way Jenna could hold him down-but now as they surfaced he was holding her, and she wasn’t pushing away. Not when she was so close to him. Not when her body was against his and she knew that she was absolutely right to fight for this. What this man made her feel…

Even if Riley never touched her again, Jenna would remember how it was to touch him like this, she decided. There was a feeling running through her that seemed like an electric charge. But instead of pain, the current was forming colours, so that all the hues of the rainbow were swirling inside her head as Jenna clung to the man she loved as if she’d never let go.

Over and over a tiny prayer repeated itself. Please let him feel it. Please let me not be imagining this. This man is my other half. Let him recognise it. Let him want me just as much as I want him. Tomorrow can take care of itself, if only I can hold this man right now.

She looked up into his wet and streaming face-her body still huddled where he’d hauled her into his arms in self defence.

Please.

And Riley looked down into Jenna’s pleading eyes-and she saw his defences crumble absolutely.

Who could resist this? Who could hold themselves apart from this lovely wisp of a girl-this elf, who one moment was a laughing, teasing wanton-and the next a bereft and frightened girl?

Not a girl. No. The woman in his arms was every bit a woman. He felt her soft, voluptuous curves yielding to the hardness of his body and he felt a piercing of new life surging through his veins. Of hope. Of a sudden trust that life could once again hold warmth and intimacy and love.

Crazy thought. Crazy.

Yet who could doubt it? Certainly not Riley. Not here. Not now. He held her, and Jenna looked up, and he knew by her eyes that she was expecting to be pushed away.

Somewhere in his inner consciousness he knew that this was no wanton action on Jenna’s part. He knew that she would do this for no other man.

He was under no illusions. No matter how sweet love could be, it wasn’t for him. Not for ever.

But for now…

Treading water in his muddy dam, with his cattle watching in silent approval, with Karli calmly playing on the opposite bank, there was no way Riley could reject what Jenna was offering. He stared down into her lovely face and there were no defences. No defences at all.

Jenna. His love?

His love for now.

But maybe now was all that mattered. With infinite gentleness he gathered her closer, willing her body to nestle into his, and he felt her joyful submission with a shard of pure, piercing joy.

It was crazy to feel like this. Yet a man would have to be superhuman to resist-to not want her-to push away what she was offering.

He wanted her so much. He wanted her as a starving man wanted food. More. It was as if his soul had been starved for all these years, and somehow Jenna were feeding it, releasing his soul from its lonely, shrivelling self and letting it burst forth in an explosion of pure joy.

Her hands were on his shoulders, sliding round to hold his muscled body against her, and her breasts were moulding into his chest. He was totally supporting her now. If they sank, they sank together, and at one level a thought shot through him that that was just what they should do. Die now. Die happy.

Which was crazy. A hundred cattle were watching-dependent on him. His responsibility. Karli was making mud pies. Jenna’s responsibility. There could only be this one moment, snatched from reality.

But a moment was okay by him. If a moment was all they had, then so be it. He looked into Jenna’s face and found her eyes were glistening with something that wasn’t the muddy dam water. Tears? There was laughter, a boldness, echoes of the toughness that had kept her from going under for all those years as she’d fended for herself, but underneath she was soft and aching and as needful as he was.

He wasn’t needful.

Liar. Who wouldn’t be needful when this woman was in reach? When she was so close and so lovely.

He managed a fleeting glance across at Karli, almost hoping that she needed them. That she could stop what was starting to seem inevitable. But Karli had discovered the kangaroos. She was carrying one of her mud pies out of the water, as if to take it to the animals on the bank.

She was safe and she was occupied.

Back in the water, Jenna watched him. Waiting.

There was no help for it. A man had to do what a man had to do.

‘You realise we’re playing with fire,’ he told her.

‘We’re in water. We can put any fire out.’

‘Are you sure?’

‘No,’ she admitted. ‘I’m not sure of anything. All I know is that I want you.’

‘You…’

‘Shut up, Riley,’ she said softly. ‘Just shut up and kiss me.’

So he did. Finally, tenderly, inevitably, Riley did what he had to do. He bent his face and kissed her.

He’d never known such sweetness. Never. Jenna’s lips welcomed him with joy. Her tongue came out and tasted, piercing him with a desire that filled his entire body. Her hands held, clung-wanted and wanted…

He’d tugged her out of deep water now, so they were able to stand. Their feet were sinking into mud but it left them free to concentrate on each other rather than staying afloat.

Still they kissed. There were no barriers between them now. The barricades they’d built around themselves seemed to have dissipated in the hot night air, disappearing as if they’d never been. It was as if there’d been some silent exchange of vows.

For this moment, we’re one. Pain and separation and the extensions of bleak lives are for tomorrow. For now there’s only joy, and that joy has to be taken and grasped with both hands.

Would that this moment could last for ever, Riley thought, dazed beyond belief. This perfection.

He pulled back and found Jenna watching him, her eyes still wet with tears. Was this woman weeping for him?

‘Jenna, I don’t want to hurt you.’

‘Oh, Riley.’ Jenna ran her hands through his hair and she leaned forward and kissed him again, lightly and with infinite tenderness. ‘Riley, how could you ever hurt me? I love you.’

There. It was out. He gazed at her and saw that she was expecting him to recoil. As he should recoil. But how could he?

‘I could love you, too,’ he murmured.

I could love you.

It was a possibility. That was all.

Yet still, for now it was enough. Jenna’s hands ran through his hair again and again, and she knew there was some deep hurt here. Some hurt that would have to be healed before he could trust.

And if that didn’t happen? If she didn’t have time? If she and Karli had to board a plane to England in a couple of days and never see this man again?

What then?

Then this would have been worth it, she told herself. She loved him and she’d fight with everything she had. She’d fought for what she needed all her life. This might be the biggest fight of all.

‘You are so beautiful,’ he whispered. ‘To make love to you…’

‘Is impossible,’ she whispered back and she made no effort to hide her regret. ‘Not with my little sister in full view. We’ve probably shocked her socks off as it is.’

‘I don’t see any socks-and kangaroos are much more interesting than we are.’ Riley glanced across at Karli and his mouth twisted into a smile. ‘Though that’s not saying we don’t have a very interested audience.’

Jenna blinked and checked for herself. He was right. The cows were lined up on the bank, peering down at them with astonishment. Behind them, the kangaroos had grown in number to about thirty. They’d come to the waterhole for their evening drink, but every kangaroo in the mob was staring straight at Jenna and Riley.

‘We’ve shocked the socks off the animal kingdom,’ Riley told her, chuckling into her hair. He lowered his mouth so he was kissing the nape of her neck. Sensations of pure light were filtering up from Jenna’s toes and flicking back down again, through and through.

She belonged right here, Jenna thought dreamily. In this man’s arms. Wherever Riley was, that was where Jenna belonged.

‘Why are you kissing Jenna?’ It seemed Karli had finally noticed.

Riley pulled away, and with infinite regret Jenna let herself be put at arm’s length

‘Jenna’s worth kissing,’ Riley told Karli. ‘Don’t you think so?’

‘Yeah, but that was a really long, slurpy kiss,’ Karli told them. ‘Do you see the kangaroos, Jenna?’

‘Y…yes,’ said Jenna.

‘Do you want to help me make mud pies?’

‘Maybe we should,’ Riley said, and Jenna could have screamed.

‘In a bit, Karli,’ she told her. ‘When we finish kissing.’

‘The kids at school say you get boy germs if you kiss,’ Karli told them. ‘And babies.’

‘How horrible.’ Jenna laughed, but it was a pretty shaky laugh.

‘And we wouldn’t want boy germs or babies, now, would we?’ Riley said and she winced. There was suddenly distance in his voice. As if he’d remembered something important.

‘Um…no.’

‘Maybe we’d better go,’ Riley said.

‘You mean stop kissing?’ Jenna asked.

‘I think…maybe we’re not being wise.’

‘Are you afraid of how I make you feel?’ she asked-and the whole world held its breath while she waited for the answer.

‘I don’t do emotion,’ he said at last.

‘Why not?’ This was a crazy time and a crazy place for such a conversation, she thought. They were neck-deep in muddy water. Karli had returned to her pie-making, and all around them were cows and kangaroos having their evening drink.

Surely this conversation shouldn’t be so intense?

But it was and they had to see it out.

Riley’s defences were back in place, Jenna thought bleakly. What was going on? What was in this man’s past to make him react like this?

‘You say you love me,’ he said, and his voice was suddenly mocking.

‘I think…I think that I do.’

‘Then you need to do some fast learning.’

‘To learn what?’ Her eyes weren’t leaving his face, and what she saw there made her cringe. She’d fought but she’d lost. His defences were up again and his eyes were bleak and hard.

‘Love’s only another name for present need,’ he told her. ‘It assuages loneliness, and that’s all it does. It doesn’t lock one person to another for ever. Nothing does that.’

How could he say that? That nothing tied one person to another? When she was so tightly bound she felt she’d be ripped apart if she were to leave him.

‘How did you learn that?’ she whispered.

He shrugged, moving back a step in the water. Extending the distance between them. ‘I was a fool. I got married.’

‘Oh.’

He looked down at her then, and his face suddenly relaxed into humour. ‘There’s no need to look like that,’ he told her. ‘I told you. It’s long over. You’re not having an illicit embrace with a man with a wife, six kids and a mother-in-law. Lisa left me years ago.’

Jenna swallowed. ‘Wh…why?’ It was none of her business, but she knew the answer was desperately important.

‘People do. They walk away and others hurt. Like us. If we took this anywhere and then broke up, it’d tear Karli apart.’

She stared up in confusion. He’d moved beyond her. ‘How could that happen?’

‘Everyone leaves this place. No woman can handle the life out here.’

Jenna looked about her-cautiously. ‘If you brought your wife here, then maybe you couldn’t blame her for wanting a few creature comforts after a while,’ she ventured. ‘If you brought her to a place like this…’

‘Munyering’s not like this,’ Riley said harshly. ‘And she knew…’ He stopped, as if thinking better of what he’d started to say. ‘This is nothing to do with us. With you. It’s been years.’

‘But not long enough for you to trust a woman again?’

‘Until you came I swore I’d never touch another woman.’

‘And now you’ve touched me. Excellent.’ She reached forward, took his face between her hands and kissed him again, hard and deep, searching for the break in his defences. ‘So now your vow’s broken-what are you going to do with me?’ she whispered. ‘Send me to the dungeon for tempting a man?’

‘It’d be a waste to put you in any dungeon.’ His hands gripped her waist, but, instead of gathering her to him again as she so desperately wanted, he set her back from him again. ‘No. Jenna, you’re enough to make any man break any vow. If Karli wasn’t here, and if you hadn’t said you loved me, then maybe I’d take you to my bed and we’d have great sex and we’d remember this interlude with pleasure for the rest of our lives.’ His gaze was suddenly uncertain. Wistful? As if he was speaking of something that could never be.

‘But you have said you love me,’ he told her. ‘I don’t believe it, but I can’t think… I can’t hurt you. Whatever it means, it can’t be allowed to progress any further than it already has. It’s not your life you’re playing with here, but Karli’s.’

Huh? ‘Are you saying I’m risking Karli?’ Jenna’s aching desire was suddenly overtaken by confusion. ‘What do you mean?’

‘Your responsibility is to Karli.’

Confusion became anger-just like that. ‘And I’m risking that by falling in love with you?’

‘You don’t really love me. You just want-’

‘You know nothing about what I want,’ she snapped. ‘You know nothing about me at all if you think I’d risk Karli in any way. I have no idea why I’m feeling like I’m feeling about you. I only know that I am. So now I’ve told you. I’m honest. Not like you, Riley Jackson, who can’t even admit to himself what he’s feeling.’

‘I don’t-’

‘You do,’ she snapped. ‘I can feel what you feel. I’m not some teenage twit with a crush. I have no idea what’s between us, but I do know that I’ve never experienced it before and it’s special and it’s brilliant and you’re not brave enough to even take the first step to trying to figure out where this could take us.’

‘I don’t want-’

‘To take risks,’ she flashed.

‘And you do?’ Anger was meeting anger. ‘Of course you do. You’re a born risk-taker. Getting off a train in the middle of nowhere even if it means risking your sister’s life.’

What was he saying? She couldn’t believe it. Her hand came back to slap the accusation from his harsh, unyielding face.

She caught herself. No.

She wanted to slap him. More than anything else she wanted to pierce that accusing harshness. And if she did…

Maybe it could work. Maybe. But Karli was on the other side of the dam. To resort to physical aggression was never appropriate, but how much more inappropriate now.

‘Fine,’ she said grimly and turned away to trudge out of the dam. ‘If that’s the way you want to think of me, then it’s okay by me. Karli and I are getting out of here as soon as possible, and you’ll never see us again.’

‘Do you want to catch the train tomorrow instead of flying out with me?’

That made her pause. The train.

Yes. She did want to catch the train. She desperately wanted to walk away. Her humiliation was threatening to overwhelm her and she could cope with a few reporters if the alternative was more humiliation.

But then her eyes flew to Karli.

Karli was starting to be happy again. The little girl had faced so much. How much more could she stand?

‘No,’ she whispered. ‘I…please.’ She’d risked too much. She’d risked Karli’s well-being just by being attracted to him. She’d forgotten how dependent they were on this man.

There was a moment’s loaded silence. She met his look and held it and something of what she was feeling must have come through. She saw his expression turn to rueful, as if he too was remembering what else she was facing.

‘I won’t put you on the train.’ His gaze shifted to Karli and there was suddenly a real remorse in his tone. ‘Hell. I’m sorry that I implied you’d put Karli at risk. It was a stupid thing to say and I had no right to say it.’ He hesitated. ‘But I need to put you away from me, Jenna. I don’t do relationships. I’m on my own. You’re with Karli and I’m here. There’s no meeting place. Not in a million years.’

Not in a million years.

Jenna nodded. Bleakly. Maybe Riley was right. He didn’t want her in his world and she had no right to ask to be included.

But it was so hard.

What she was feeling was love. She knew it. She’d never felt like this before, but now the sensation threatened to overwhelm her. Her love might be transient, she thought bleakly. It might be based on present need, but her heart swelled with pain at what he was saying.

There’s no meeting place.

She could do no more. She’d thrown her pride to the wind. She’d thrown herself at him and exposed herself to pain and to rejection as she’d done to no one in her life. There was nothing more she could do.

‘Thank you for our swim,’ she said dully. ‘We loved it. Maybe you’re right, though. Maybe it’s time to go back to the house.’

‘I’m sorry, Jenna.’

She looked at him then-really looked at him-and her chin tilted upward. He was sorry. ‘Coward,’ she whispered.

‘I’m not a coward. I don’t want to hurt you.’

‘You don’t want to be hurt yourself.’

‘Maybe.’ His face closed. ‘Whatever. You’re right. It’s time we went home.’

He turned and strode out of the water, up the bank and across to where Karli was offering mud-pie sandwiches to cows.

‘Are you ready to go home?’ he asked her and she raised her face to his and smiled.

‘Okay. Have you finished kissing Jenna?’

‘Yes, I’ve finished kissing Jenna.’

‘Good, ’cos it looked pretty yucky to me.’

‘Yep.’ He glanced across at Jenna and his face closed even further. ‘We never should have done it.’