Just Kate: His Only Wife (Bestselling Author Collection) (10 page)

“Is she still around anywhere, this Mrs. Pennwyler?” Kate asked. “I’d like to talk with her about Abby.”

Mrs. Manchester shook her head. “Sorry, love. The old girl, bless her soul, has gone to live with her eldest son up in Darwin.”

“What do you remember about Abby?”

“Mrs. Harris was very unhappy, miss.”

Kate nodded. “I know. She emailed often. But I’ve never understood why she didn’t divorce Sean—Mr. Harris—and catch a plane home.”

“She had problems,” the housekeeper said sadly.

Kate nodded, thinking of the coroner’s report. A chill swept over her as she imagined what it must have been like for Abby hurtling off a high cliff that way, knowing she was going to die within seconds.

Mrs. Manchester was putting Kate’s cup and saucer and the plate that had held a flaky croissant onto a tray. “Mustn’t let the dead get in the way of the living,” she said wisely. “Our time is limited enough as it is.”

For the first time since she’d started thinking about Abby, Kate smiled. “You’re right,” she agreed. “Is Mr. Harris up yet?”

Mrs. Manchester laughed. “Up? He’s been out and about for hours, miss—just got back a few minutes ago.”

Kate looked down at her jeans, flannel shirt and hiking boots as Mrs. Manchester left the room. She hoped she was dressed for whatever Sean had planned.

As if summoned by the mere thought of his name, he appeared, looking around the door at Kate. There was an appreciative glint in his green eyes. “Everything’s ready, love,” he said.

A tremor of mingled delight and fear went through Kate as the man she loved stepped into the room. Like her, he was wearing jeans and a casual shirt. He carried a slouchy leather hat in one hand. “How do I look?” she asked.

“Good enough to eat,” Sean responded hoarsely, and another shiver went through Kate even as her skin flushed hot.

She cleared her throat and averted her eyes for a moment, feeling shy again. “What about Gil? Did he leave on his field trip?”

“While you were still sleeping,” Sean said. One moment he was in the doorway, the next he was standing so close to Kate that she could feel the heat of his body. He traced the outline of her mouth with a light touch of his index finger.

Kate trembled visibly, and her response embarrassed and angered her. “I could still back out, you know,” she pointed out.

Boldly Sean cupped his hand over one of her breasts. The nipple hardened beneath the stroking of his thumb. “Could you?” he countered.

Kate groaned. “That isn’t fair,” she managed to say.

Sean was unbuttoning her shirt. Beneath it she wore a stretchy undershirt, rather than a bra, and her breasts and nipples were clearly visible through the thin fabric. Sean admired them for a long moment while Kate’s cheeks flared pink. Although she was outraged, she was unable to stop him.

With one finger, he drew the neckline of the undershirt down until one breast was exposed, plump and vulnerable. “Just a little taste of what’s going to happen when I get you alone,” Sean said, and when he bent and touched Kate’s nipple with the tip of his tongue, she tensed with sudden, violent pleasure. All thought of rebellion gone, she cupped her hands behind his head and pressed him to her.

But he was only playing. He abandoned the bare breast and turned to the one covered by the undershirt. Through the fabric, he nipped at it, grazing it lightly with his teeth, and Kate cried out softly, her head falling back.

Again she was disappointed. Sean caressed her naked breast once before covering it again, then he rebuttoned her shirt. She had never been more frustrated in her life.

“Sean, I need you,” she managed to say.

He gave her a kiss as exciting as his dalliance with her breasts had been. “Later, little sheila.”

Kate ached. “Now,” she said.

Sean chuckled and gave her trim backside a swat. “Later,” he repeated.

Kate was furious. Sean had aroused her on purpose and now he was just going to leave her to suffer. “I want you now,” she insisted.

“Tough,” Sean replied. He grasped Kate by the hand, taking up her suitcase with the other. She allowed him to lead her through the house and out into the driveway where an open Jeep was parked.

“Damn you,” she whispered angrily. “I want you to drop this Tarzan routine right now!”

Sean tossed her expensive suitcase into the back of the Jeep as though it were bargain-brand stuff. Then, grinning down at Kate, he lifted her by the waist and set her down inside the vehicle.

Although her pride dictated that she get out of the Jeep, storm into the house and call a taxi to take her back to the hotel, she buckled the seat belt instead.

Sean put the hat on and got behind the wheel. Looking over one shoulder, Kate noticed he’d brought a lot of other things besides her suitcase. She saw a tent, a single sleeping bag, fishing poles and a lot of packaged food, among other things.

“How come there’s only one sleeping bag?” she demanded.

Sean grinned at her as he shifted into reverse. He was looking back at the road when he answered, “Spoiling for a fight, aren’t you, sheila? Well, watch out, because you’re about to get one.”

Kate glowered at him and folded her arms across her chest. Her breasts still tingled from Sean’s earlier attentions. He was a skunk, she decided, to get her excited and then leave her high and dry. “I wouldn’t lower myself,” she said.

“We’ll see about that,” Sean quipped, and then they were moving rapidly down the left hand side of the road.

Kate gasped, forgetting for a moment that all Australians drove that way. Sean put a hand on her thigh. Although Kate knew the gesture was meant to relax her, it only heightened her tensions.

“It’ll be all right, Katie-did,” he shouted over the noise of the wind.

Kate pushed his hand away and folded her arms again. That made Sean laugh.

They didn’t attempt to speak after that. Instead, they raced through traffic rapidly, leaving the sprawling city behind. After an hour they reached a small airport.

Kate felt as though the breath had been buffeted from her. Her hair, so carefully plaited into a tidy French braid, was flying wildly about her face. Before looking at Sean, she grimaced into the side mirror to make sure there were no bugs in her teeth.

Sean caught her by surprise when he lifted her from the Jeep. Her body brushed the length of his as he lowered her to her feet, and the ache within her intensified until it was nearly unbearable.

“I ought to slap you,” she said.

He kissed her until her knees were weak. “Patience, little one,” he told her gruffly. “We’re spending tonight on a friend of mine’s station. You can do all your lovely little tricks for me when we’re alone.”

Kate decided then that she definitely
would
slap him. She raised her hand to do so, but Sean caught her by the wrist and pulled her close. She was breathless.

Sean kissed her forehead lightly. “Behave yourself,” he ordered. Then he left Kate and started unloading the things in the back of the Jeep.

For lack of a better idea, Kate helped. He stowed the tent inside a small twin-engine airplane and went back for more baggage. Once they’d loaded the plane, he got inside and started the engines, then walked around the small craft, making a mysterious examination of everything.

Thinking she might lose her courage if she didn’t take definite action, Kate climbed onto the wing, the way she’d seen Sean do, opened the passenger door and got into the seat.

Sean was wearing earphones now, and tuning in the radio. “Buckle up, love,” he said to Kate.

She fastened her seat belt, trying not to think about how small and fragile that airplane seemed. As far as Kate was concerned, it was almost as flimsy as Gil’s model. She bit down hard on her lower lip and clasped the edges of the seat in both hands.

Sean was talking with the control tower, but Kate didn’t listen to his words. Her whole life was passing before her eyes.

Soon the plane was lumbering and jolting along the rough pavement toward the single runway. Kate closed her eyes tight and prayed silently for some last-minute reprieve, like a flat tire or an empty gas tank.

God was not listening to Kate’s prayer. The airplane gained the runway and began taxiing along it at an ever-increasing speed.

“Open your eyes, Kate,” Sean said reasonably, although he had to speak in a loud voice to be heard over the roar of the engines.

Kate obeyed him, not because of any desire to see, but because her first impulse was always to do just as Sean said. She was going to have to work on that, or she’d end up fetching his slippers and lighting his pipe. “Oh, God,” she cried.

Sean laughed as the little craft hurtled into the sky. The ground fell away beneath them while they climbed toward the clouds.

Kate’s knuckles were beginning to ache. She released her grasp on the seat and let out her breath. An exhilarating sensation of freedom and excitement had overtaken her horror, and her eyes went wide as she looked down upon farmhouses and fields.

“It’s beautiful!”

“I know,” Sean answered. They had gained enough altitude, it seemed, for he was leveling the plane off now. He muttered something into the speaker on his earphone and then grinned at Kate. “Control says they’re glad you like it,” he told her.

Kate made a mental note to watch what she said from then on. There were things she wanted to say to Sean that were none of Control’s business. She rolled her eyes at him and gave him a shaky smile.

They’d been flying for over an hour when Sean switched the radio off and removed the earphones.

Kate was alarmed. “Don’t you need to stay in contact with the tower?” she asked.

Sean smiled indulgently. “We’re too far out for that, love,” he said.

“Oh,” Kate replied, and she was smiling, too. There were thoughts of revenge in her mind. “I suppose there’s no reason I can’t repay you for all the frustration you’ve caused me, then, is there?”

Sean looked a little worried. “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he said.

Kate unfastened her seat belt and turned sideways. “You will,” she promised.

Sean stiffened and gave an involuntary groan as she ran her hand lightly up his thigh.

And that was only the beginning.

* * *

By the time the trees and craggy cliffs beneath them had given way to open grassland, Sean was as disconcerted and unsatisfied as Kate. He gave her a hard look as she settled back and refastened her seat belt.

She smiled at him. “How do you like the taste of your own medicine, Mr. Harris?” she asked.

“I’d step lightly if I were you, sheila,” he told her. His jaw was clamped down tight, and he shifted uncomfortably in his seat. “As you Yanks like to say, you’re on thin ice.”

Kate tilted her head to one side. “Just what is it you’re threatening to do to me?” she asked sweetly, batting her eyelashes and clasping her hands together beneath her chin. “Beat me? Strip me naked and leave me for the dingoes?”

Sean gave her a wry look. “Wrong. Except, of course, the part where I strip you naked. I like that one.”

Kate laughed. “I think we’re even,” she said.

“Do you? Well, two can play at your game.” With that, he reached out and laid his hand on her upper thigh. She tensed as his fingers brushed her most sensitive and private place. Even knowing that he had no intention of satisfying her, any more than she’d satisfied him, she couldn’t bring herself to push him away.

She felt a thin layer of perspiration cooling her heated skin. “Sean,” she whispered as he tormented her with touches as light as the passing of a butterfly.

He chuckled. “The poet was right. Vengeance is sweet.”

“I hate you,” Kate gasped, even as her body jerked slightly in response to the whisper-light forays of his fingers.

“Absolutely,” he replied.

“Oh,” Kate moaned.

“Open your shirt, Kate,” Sean said quietly. His tone was warm and inviting and terribly seductive. “I want to look at you.”

“No,” she murmured breathlessly, even as her fingers rose awkwardly to the buttons of her shirt and began working them.

When her shirt was open, Sean’s fingers moved to her breasts. Their peaks strained against the fabric of her undershirt, longing to be free.

“You know what I want now, Kate,” Sean said with a gentle kind of sternness that heated Kate’s blood to a passionate simmer.

She did know, and it wasn’t in her to refuse, even though she knew Sean was only dallying with her. He would leave her unsated until they were in bed that night, and that was hours away. With both hands, she raised the undershirt so that her breasts were bared for Sean’s gratification.

He made an appreciative sound low in his throat and began to caress and shape her. With a groan, Kate sunk her teeth into her lower lip and turned her head, looking down at the distant ground, searching for anything that would distract her from Sean’s delicious torment.

Half a dozen kangaroos hopped along the grassy ground, moving more rapidly than Kate had ever dreamed they could. She moaned as Sean continued to fondle her, arching her back even as she searched her mind for a way to rebel.

The plane began a gradual descent, and Kate scanned the horizon. There was no sign of a station anywhere in sight. She couldn’t even see a single sheep.

“What are you doing?” she asked.

Sean withdrew his hand in order to concentrate fully on the controls. “You win, sheila,” he answered cryptically. “I can’t wait any longer.”

“But this is the middle of nowhere!” Kate cried, coming swiftly to her senses. She pulled down her undershirt and then fastened her buttons.

“The perfect place,” Sean answered.

Moments later the plane was bumping crazily along the ground. “What if we can’t take off again?” she asked, wide-eyed.

“In a few minutes, love,” he answered, “you’re not going to need a plane to fly.”

Kate’s muscles went limp, then tensed again, going taut as piano wire. The plane came to a stop, and she closed her eyes in relief. Her heart was hammering, and she wasn’t sure whether it was the unscheduled landing that had caused it, or the prospect of Sean’s lovemaking.