Six Australian Heroes. Margaret Way
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boxing but I did learn to channel all that energy more productively. I took up polo.’
Rhiannon looked heavenwards. ‘How very élite!’
‘But competitive, physically challenging and dangerous,’ he murmured.
‘I’d still like to bet it didn’t change your dangerous ways with girls,’ she said involuntarily.
‘Maybe not,’ he conceded and pulled off his T-shirt, ‘although this may interest you. They didn’t seem to mind.’
She was about to say ‘Tell me another!’—but a vision of Lee Richardson as a virile twenty-year-old with all those dark good looks and a bit of a bad-boy reputation planted itself in her mind and she shivered suddenly.
They would and they wouldn’t, she thought. Yes, they’d have known they were playing with fire but when he smiled at them as she’d seen him do two days before in an airport lounge, they’d have melted.
They still melted. She herself had melted.
She shook her head to dissolve the image. ‘Surely you had plenty of opportunity to channel your energy productively on all those cattle stations in the family?’ she objected.
‘Of course.’ He smiled fleetingly. ‘I was mustering cattle as a kid. But I also spent long years at boarding-school then university.’
He stripped off his track pants, revealing a red and white pair of hipster board shorts, and he placed his hands on his hips. ‘Why don’t you swim too? After a long, hard day slaving over a hot stove you deserve it.’
Rhiannon realised she was staring at him. Again. And again it was hard to stop because he was a work of art. Lean and tall with long, strong legs. Those wide shoulders tapering to a taut, narrow diaphragm; dark, springy hair on his chest and thighs; sleek, smooth, tanned skin sheathing streamlined muscles.
‘I—I don’t have a costume,’ she stammered as she backed away a couple of steps and was brought up short by a pillar.
‘You mean you weren’t at all tempted to try out our fabulous beaches if nothing else?’ he queried gravely but she knew he was laughing at her confusion as he followed her and came to stand right in front of her.
‘I was actually going to splash out and buy a new bikini,’ she replied as tartly as she was able to, considering that her breathing was ragged and her senses were leaping about like any teenage girl’s.
‘There’s not a lot of difference between some bikinis and a bra and undies,’ he said meditatively.
‘There is for me,’ she contradicted. ‘Besides which, with your reputation—’
He started to laugh. ‘Not only am I reformed and a lot older but I never did make a practice of leaping on girls even in their underwear without an invitation.’
‘It’s how you go about getting that invitation,’ she began but he stopped her short.
‘Rhiannon,’ he reached out and tucked her hair behind her ear—for once she hadn’t done it herself, ‘I would say we’re both a long way from either the indiscretions or disappointments of our earlier years. So don’t blame the effect I have on you,’ he looked at her breasts as they moved up and down agitatedly in tune with her uneven breathing, ‘on anything but a spontaneous attraction. I will do the same.’ His gaze came back to hers and it was curiously sombre and probing.
‘I don’t trust spontaneous attractions,’ she said a little raggedly. ‘Not only that—if you must know!—the whole concept irritates the life out of me.’ She shook her head frustratedly.
‘Because you don’t feel you’re completely in charge of yourself?’ he suggested drily.
Her eyes widened. Had he hit the nail on the head?
‘Maybe you should guard against being taken over by your job,’ he said then, and smiled lethally. ‘A little too much liking for that sense of power it gives you.’
She went to slap his face but he caught her wrist in a hard grip. ‘On the other hand,’ he said softly, ‘you’re not kidding me, Rhiannon Fairfax. There’s an electric current between us that tells me if you let your guard down your beautiful body would writhe with delight in my bed.’
He looked her up and down and, with sardonic intent, mentally stripped her.
She told herself to breathe evenly in a bid to destroy the images mounting in her mind but it seemed nothing could stop her from visualising herself naked in his arms, drinking in the sleek power of his body, even glorying in his scent of sweat, leather and chalk while he explored her body at whim …
‘In the meantime,’ he continued after a long, fraught moment as they stared at each other, he coldly and clinically, ‘I’m going for a swim. You please yourself but perhaps a cold shower would be a good idea.’
He released her, turned away and dived cleanly into the pool.
* * *
Rhiannon could only come up with one outfit that remotely resembled a party outfit.
‘Why didn’t I just say no to this?’ she asked herself bitterly as she studied her reflection in her bedroom mirror. ‘Because he would have cancelled the party, thereby causing considerable chaos or—because I wanted to prove to him he does nothing to me?’
She closed her eyes briefly as she contemplated her disarray beside the pool, and the feeling that she’d like to demolish Lee Richardson one moment, then wake up in his bed the next. Not to mention that insidious little sense that he’d firmly slammed a door in her face again.
She had on a knee-length A-line black skirt that she usually enjoyed wearing but not tonight—other than jeans she had nothing else to cover her legs—and black tights.
She’d teamed it with a coral fine-cotton camisole top with shoestring straps and a drawstring waistline. She wore a four-string fine silver necklace threaded lightly with jade beads and matching long, dangly earrings. Her black shoes had slender heels and were the same ones she’d worn with her grey trouser suit.
She had no evening bag so she tucked a lacy black hanky into her waistband.
She’d washed and dried her hair so it shone and felt bouncy and she’d applied her make-up carefully.
Then there was nothing more to do to herself but she delayed a few minutes longer as she tided her bedroom and bathroom scrupulously. But her conscience got the better of her desire to hold off from any more disturbing encounters with Lee Richardson. The more help she could give Sharon before the party started, the better.
It also struck her that Matt and Mary hadn’t arrived yet.
* * *
At a quarter to seven, Rhiannon stepped out onto the east veranda.
The candle glasses were lit, the roses scented the air delicately, all the accoutrements of the meal were in place and the veranda looked lovely.
Lee Richardson was already there, looking impossibly handsome in a grey suit with a black shirt and a silver tie.
She rushed into speech as his gaze flickered down to her legs. ‘Aren’t they here yet? Do you think they’re coming?’
‘I—’ he broke off and listened ‘—would say they’ve just arrived. For someone who had nothing to wear, you’ve done well, Rhiannon.’
‘Thanks,’ she mumbled, moving restlessly under his gaze.
He smiled slightly then turned as two people came out onto the veranda.
Matt Richardson didn’t resemble his brother much. He was shorter and squarer with curly brown hair, hazel eyes and a wide, engaging smile as he introduced himself to Rhiannon.
‘Thank you so much for all this,’ he enthused. ‘Mary is really grateful, aren’t you, sweetheart?’ He turned to his wife.