The Millionaire's Marriage Claim. Lindsay Armstrong
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She stiffened as she felt his fingers on her waist and the elastic of her briefs pinged against her skin. ‘Good old Bonds Cottontails, I do believe,’ he added. ‘OK, get dressed, then we’re going for a drive.’
Jo pulled on her cargo pants. ‘A drive? How far?’
‘Right into—’ He paused. ‘Why?’
She hesitated, unsure whether to confess that she’d somehow underestimated the distance to Kin Can homestead, and another of her concerns had been that she’d run out of petrol…
‘Come on, Jo—’ he unslung the gun menacingly ‘—talk!’
‘I don’t have much petrol left.’
He swore. ‘Bloody women!’
‘I believe there’s a pump at the house so—’
‘Told you that, did they? Well, it’s not going to be of any use to me. Get in and switch on so I can see how low the tank is.’
Jo swallowed and finished dressing as quickly as she could. And when she switched the motor on and the petrol gauge was revealed—bordering the red—he swore again, even more murderously, then, ‘No spare tanks?’
‘No.’
‘What are you? One of their molls press-ganged into providing back-up?’
‘I have no idea what you’re talking about!’ Jo cried. ‘None of this makes any sense.’
‘Oh, yes, it does, sweetheart,’ he replied insolently, then rubbed his jaw with a sudden tinge of weariness. It didn’t last long, that first faint sign of weakness, however. ‘Plan B, then,’ he said grimly.
Ten minutes later, Jo was steering her vehicle over another diabolical track, but this time following her captor’s directions.
She’d had no opportunity to escape, as he’d made it quite clear he would shoot her down if she made any attempt to run away. Her request to be told what was going on had received a ‘don’t act all innocent with me, lady’ response.
And he’d quashed, with an impatient wave of his hand and virtually unheard, her solitary attempt to explain who she was, why she was on Kin Can station and her conviction that he was making a terrible mistake.
He’d also searched the vehicle before they’d set off, then glanced at her with a considering frown.
So she drove with a set mouth and her heart hammering; he wouldn’t allow her to use the headlights and the light was almost gone.
‘There,’ he said, pointing to a darker shadow on the landscape. ‘Pull into the shed on the other side.’
At first Jo thought it was only a clump of towering gum trees, then she discerned the outline of two buildings. ‘What is it?’
‘Boundary riders hut,’ he replied tersely as she nosed the vehicle into an old shed.
‘Is it…is this where you live?’
He laughed scornfully. ‘Who are you trying to kid, Jo?’
She sucked in a breath. ‘I’m not trying to kid anyone! I have no idea what’s going on or who on earth you are! What’s your name?’
He glanced at her mockingly. ‘For the purpose of maintaining your charade, why don’t you choose one? Tom, Dick or Harry will do.’
‘I have a better idea,’ she spat at him. ‘Mr Hitler is particularly appropriate for what I think of you!’
‘So the lady has claws,’ he said softly, with an appreciative gleam in his blue eyes, and switched on the inside light.
‘You better believe it.’
Their gazes clashed. It was an angry, defiant moment for Jo, but there was also fear lurking beneath it. Fear and something else—a certain amount of confusion. He might act like a bushranger or a boundary rider gone berserk, but he sounded like neither.
What he said was undoubtedly inflammatory and insulting—let alone the incomprehensibility of it all—but the voice was educated and cultured with the kind of accent that a wealthy, old-money family and a private school steeped in tradition would imbue.
Then there was his navy-blue jumper. If she was any judge, it would have cost a small fortune, being made of especially soft, fine new wool—although they were on a sheep station that specialized in fine new wool, weren’t they?
But most perplexing of all was the frisson tiptoeing along her nerve ends in the form of an awareness of him stealing over her. If you discounted his stubbly jaw and his eyes that could be murderous, he was well proportioned, excellently co-ordinated and rather devastatingly good-looking…
‘What?’
She blinked at his question. ‘N-nothing.’
‘Or—thinking of changing sides?’ he suggested. ‘Believe me, Jo, you’d be well advised to. Being my moll would have infinite advantages over—’
‘Stop it!’ She put her hands over her ears. ‘I’m no one’s moll and have no intention of becoming one!’
‘No?’ He said it consideringly with his gaze roaming over her narrowly. ‘You could have fooled me a moment ago.’
Jo bit her lip and was furious with herself.
He laughed softly. ‘You’re not much good at this, are you?’
‘If I had any idea what you’re talking about—’
She broke off as he moved impatiently.
‘Enough! Let’s get inside. We’ll take all your gear.’
‘What for?’
‘So I can go through it with a fine-tooth comb.’ He clicked off the overhead light and jumped out.
She had no choice but to follow suit. The shed had doors and he pushed them closed and latched them, so unless you knew to look, there was no sign of her car. Then he gestured for her to precede him into the hut.
He did go through her things with a fine-tooth comb, but after he’d secured the hut and lit a fire in the rusty combustion stove from a store of chopped wood and old newspapers.
The wooden hut was small and rudimentary. It had a half-loft storing some bales of old straw, but the ladder to it was broken. There were a couple of uncomfortable-looking narrow beds, a table and two hard chairs, one dilapidated old armchair, a small store of dry and tinned goods and a couple of milk cans filled with water.
There was one high window, but it had been broken and boarded up, and one door. All the same, as a precaution against any light being seen, Jo gathered, he hung a blanket over the door and a rough, dingy towel over the window.
Two things he did she could only approve of: the light and warmth from the stove were welcome against the cold, dark night, and the aroma from the pot of coffee he set on the stove caused her to close her eyes in deep appreciation as she took her anorak off.
On the other hand, two things she noticed while they waited for the coffee added to her confusion. He looked at his wrist, as if to check his watch, then with a grimace of annoyance, pulled it from his pocket and laid it on the table. It had a broken band, she saw, but, although it was plain enough, it was also sleek, platinum and shouted very expensive craftsmanship.
A faint frown knitted her brow. A demented boundary rider with a couple-of-thousand-dollar watch? Then there were his jeans. Torn and dirty they might be, but they were also designer jeans if she was any judge.
‘No milk, but there is sugar,’ he said presently, and handed her an enamel mug. ‘Help yourself.’ He indicated a sugar caddy.
She took two spoonfuls and looked around as she stirred them in.
‘Take the best chair, ma’am,’ he said with some irony and