CHAPTER ONE

      ‘HEY, Jonno, there’s a woman asking for you.’

      Jonathan Rivers dragged his attention from a first-class pen of Angus steers and shot a quick sideways glance down the muddy alley of the cattle sale yards.

      A woman, dressed in a pale city suit and high heels, hovered at the far end of the pens where the concrete path ended and the sloppy mud began.

      He stifled an urge to curse. ‘Not another husband-hunter?’

      ‘I guess so,’ Andy Bowen, his stock and station agent, admitted with a shrug. ‘But this one’s a cut above the rest. You should check her out, mate.’

      Jonno groaned and shook his head in disbelief. ‘I was hoping I wouldn’t have to go through this again.’

      ‘At least this one’s got class,’ chuckled Andy. ‘And I reckon she’s as stubborn as you are. Classy, sexy and stubborn as the devil. Could be your lucky day.’

      ‘If you’re so impressed, you go see what she wants.’

      Andy winked. ‘I’ve spoken to her and I know exactly what she wants.’ He raised his voice to reach Jonno above the crescendo of the auctioneer’s calls in the adjacent stall. ‘She wants you!’

      Against his better judgement, Jonno let his gaze slide sideways again. He caught a fleeting impression of contrasts—of a sophisticated female in smart city clothes amidst rough-clad country folk and cattle. A mass of exotic dark hair, dark eyes and dark mouth, set dramatically against pale skin. Physical slenderness offset by a proud carriage that hinted at inner strength.

      She wants you.

      ‘I’m not bloody available,’ he growled.

      ‘Course you’re available. You’ve sold most of your cattle. I’ll look after this last pen. I know the price you want for them. Get going, Jonno. You can’t leave a lady like her in all that mud and cattle muck.’

      The woman was still watching him intently and Jonno knew she would be aware that Andy had delivered her message. He let out a noisy sigh. ‘I suppose I should be good at this rejection caper by now.’

      Over the past months he’d literally lost count of the number of women who’d come chasing him since that crazy story turned up in the women’s magazine. Blondes, brunettes, redheads and all shades in between…older women and young girls…plain, beautiful…cautious, reckless, polite…rude…

      He’d sent them all packing…

      As he strode grimly towards this latest contender his gumboots squelched in the mud. Recent rains and the pounding of thousands of cattle hooves had turned the dirt floor of the sale yards into a quagmire.

      The woman, dressed in a soft beige wool suit with pale stockings and neat beige, high-heeled shoes, was eyeing the smelly mud warily as she waited for him at the edge of the walkway.

      He surprised himself by slowing his steps as he drew near so he didn’t splash her, but that was as far as his concessions went. He refused to smile. ‘You’re looking for me?’

      ‘Yes.’ She smiled cautiously and held out her hand. There was a small dark mole just above her upper lip. It was maddeningly distracting. ‘How do you do, Mr Rivers? I’m Camille Devereaux.’

      Her curly hair was dark chocolate and glossy, her eyes and lashes closer to black than brown, and her nose and chin were saved from sharpness by an indefinable elegance. Camille Devereaux. It occurred to Jonno that she matched her French name perfectly.

      As he extended a brief, reluctant handshake, she studied him with disturbing directness, her gaze intensely curious and not at all shy.

      And damn it, her perfume drifted towards him, teasing his senses for a tantalising instant before it was overpowered by the prevailing stench of mud and cattle.

      Her hand in his felt soft and cool. Jonno snatched his own rough and callused hand away, shoved it into the back pocket of his jeans and tried to ignore the fact that Andy had been right.

      This one was a cut above the others…

      She had the intriguing allure of an exotic stranger. Very Mediterranean. Unexpectedly sexy.

      His mistake was to allow his gaze to connect with hers for just a shade too long. For a fraction longer than was wise, he’d stared into her eyes and—

      And hell. He’d never experienced anything like the sudden certainty that he and this stranger shared an unwilling reaction, that they’d both felt the same helpless stirring. A deep shudder inside.

      An