Tasmanian Tangle (15 page)

Tanya just nodded in silent agreement with his observation. She would have worn a cotton top had she possessed one, but she saw no reason to buy one, not when her resources were as low as they were, but she didn't suppose Kade had thought of that, and she most certainly wasn't going to tell him.

'We'll have to get you some,' commented Kade, as he held the plate of ham out to her. 'I don't suppose you possess anything in that line, do you?'

Tanya wondered if he was getting in another sly reference to her past life. 'No, I don't,' she replied quietly, and left it at that.

He helped himself to some salad and ham before he said ruminatively, 'They usually have that sort of gear on sale at the conventions. It's a gimmick, of course, and they're usually advertising something or other, but I don't suppose you'd mind that?' he asked abruptly.

Tanya's wide eyes showed her surprise at the question. He was probably telling her that she could get one cheap at such meetings, not that she would bother. In the event she played safe by shaking her head to indicate that she wouldn't mind.

'Right!' he said brusquely, as he attacked his salad, 'I'll pick you up a couple tomorrow. I've promised to look in on one of my father's conventions. He likes to feel I'm still interested even if I prefer the country life to the city one.'

There was several minutes' silence after this odd offer of his while they ate their meal. Tanya wondered if she was going to be the proud owner of a T-shirt that bore the legend 'Player's Mills' inscribed across the front—or worse still, she thought, almost choking on a small piece of ham—the name 'Player' in large capitals! And she found herself devoutly hoping that they had either sold out of the shirts before he arrived, or that he would be kept too busy to remember his threat!

Her slight cough aroused Kade's attention and he glanced at her. 'Any preference for colour?' he asked, giving her a nasty suspicion that he had gauged her

thoughts to a nicety and was now hugely enjoying himself. 'For the sweater, I mean,' he added, giving a mock frown. 'At least, I suppose that's what they are. I'd better have your size, too,' he tacked on, relentlessly pursuing the subject.

Tanya was finding it exceedingly difficult to hold on to her temper. He was getting personal again; as if it mattered what colour the wretched things were! As for sizes, the usual norm was small, medium, and large—and he could take his pick since she wouldn't be wearing them anyway!

She met his feigned innocent look with a glint in her eyes. 'I'm hardly the type to fill a sweater,' she replied, taking refuge in brevity as she had a sudden vision of the voluptuous Melanie who had made a point of going in for sweaters. 'I think you'll find they're called T-shirts,' she added casually. 'As for colour, I've no real preference.'

'And size?' he persisted, his blue eyes lingering on her flushed cheeks, then moving slowly down her slight figure. 'Teenage, at a guess,' he observed in amusement.

Tanya was done with humouring him. 'Oh, sure, that figures!' she drawled, putting on a thick American accent to emphasise her feelings in the matter.

'I'd rather you didn't use slang,' he replied curtly. 'It doesn't become you,' he added harshly.

For a moment or so Tanya was too surprised to answer this cold rebuke. He had turned on the elder statesman act that made her feel an awkward fledgling—until it suited his purpose to see her as an adult, she thought bitterly. 'Sorry, Pop,' she replied, somehow managing to keep her voice light and breezy. 'I keep forgetting my place,' she added for good measure.

She felt his strong fingers grip her wrist and forcibly wrench her out of her chair, giving her no time to savour the brief look of astonishment she had caught a glimpse of before his swift reprisal, and found herself held hard against his lean strong body with one arm held in an iron hold behind her back and the other rendered completely useless by being crushed against him.

Her chin was caught in the same steely hold and she was made to look up into his blazing eyes. She knew he was going to kiss her, and that the kiss would not be a pleasant one, for it was going to be a punishment for stepping out of line. All this she knew but was powerless to prevent it.

The kiss did hurt, but Tanya's feelings suffered more than the actual physical assault on her soft lips. She was made to feel a wanton and used as such. A kiss was an intimate communication between a man and a woman: It could tell of love and tenderness and need, or it could be brutal and totally annihilating, and such was Kade's kiss. His hard lips were seeking to not only dominate her very existence but to reach through to her very being. Somewhere in that hard crushing kiss she had sensed frustration, and her shocked senses had wondered at it. Only when his lips finally released hers did she have the answer. He wanted her to grow up. He wanted to be able to treat her as a woman, in every sense of the word, and the thought terrified her. She was no match for him and never would be. She didn't know much about love, but if this was a foretaste, she could do very well without it. But it wasn't love, she thought bleakly. It was one bullying man intent on

crushing all opposition and not caring who got hurt in the process.

Her shocked eyes met his hooded ones and she could sense his satisfaction at having reduced her to this state of weakness. 'You had no right to do that,' she said, in a breathless whisper that spoke of her inward turmoil. 'Don't you ever touch me again, do you hear? I'm not one of your girl-friends,' she spat out at him. 'Save your masculine demonstrations for them in future and leave me alone!'

'Then keep a rein on that tongue of yours,' he bit back at her harshly. 'You asked for all you got. Call me that again and so help me you'll get the same treatment—no matter where we are. Is that understood? I've taken a lot from you, more than from any other woman, but there's a limit, and you've overstepped it. I'll not warn you again, and I'll take reprisal any damn way I want.'

He flicked a contemptuous finger at her pigtails. 'And don't think that teenager image you're trying to dodge behind will stop me, it won't. If anything, it has the reverse effect. I told you you had a lot of growing up to do, so you can take this as the first lesson. By the time I've finished with you, you'll know you're a woman, not an adolescent masquerading as one. If you still want to clear off to Oregon when the time's up, you'll have my blessing. At least I won't be worried about letting you loose in the big wide world, because by that time you'll be able to handle any unwanted advances you'll be getting from the wolf sector.'

He studied her still partially stunned wide eyes. 'You can stop fooling yourself for a start,' he told her grimly. 'You want me to notice you. It's part and parcel of

growing up. It's as well that I recognised the tactics, someone else might not have done and you'd have been in trouble, and an easy mark for the Lance Saddlers of this world.'

It took a second for Tanya to work out who he was talking about and then she had it. A wave of bitterness washed over her. He was telling her that it was all right for her to make a fool of herself over him, he was used to it, but woe betide her if she sought tuition elsewhere! She felt like shaking her head as if to clear the fog that was surrounding her senses. Surely he didn't really believe what he was saying? He was making her sound like a wild filly that needed a master's hand, and he intended to be that master! It wasn't like that at all, and he must know it, she thought bewilderedly.

When she recalled what he had said about her being an easy mark for any unsavoury character, her bewilderment turned to fury. Where did he think she had spent the last few years? In a convent? How dared he assume he could run her life for her! One minute he was telling her that she was a woman, and the next telling her he was out to protect her from the big bad world! He couldn't have it both ways!

'I'd rather make my own mistakes if you don't mind,' she bit out at him furiously. 'I've heard that you learn more that way. And what's more,' she tacked on fervently, 'I've a mind to accept Mrs Saddler's next invitation. As you said earlier, I'll do exactly what I want to do ! '

'Like hell you will! ' he replied savagely. 'If I find you anywhere near that menage, what happened today will seem pleasant to what you'll get for disobeying my orders. I'll give you the hiding of your life!'

Tanya stood blinking at him, scarcely able to believe her ears. He meant every word and Kade's word was law. 'Why?' she asked slowly, her eyes showing her bewilderment at his adamant declaration.

It was not really a question but a need for her to understand his reasoning behind what amounted to an ultimatum, and Kade recognised it as such. 'Because you're John Hume's daughter, that's why,' he replied harshly. 'I've still a lot of respect for that name, even if you haven't.'

There was no answer to that, Tanya thought wearily, but at least a lot of what had happened now made sense —well, a kind of sense anyway. Without realising it he was attempting to play the father role in her life. To him she was a fledgling that needed guidance and whether she wanted it or not he was set on giving her that guidance.

'Now sit down and finish your lunch,' said Kade, casually, as if nothing had happened.

Tanya gulped. Food would choke her—and as for spending the rest of the afternoon in his company—she couldn't do it! 'I'm not hungry,' she said quietly. 'I hadn't much of an appetite before, so I'll pass, thank you.' Her eyes met his squarely. 'You're not going to believe this, but I have a headache, and would like to go home.'

'To cry on Connie's shoulder?' he answered der
isively. 'Okay, run away again !
Spill out your troubles to Connie, she's enough sense to put you right. We'll do the paper work tomorrow. I want you here sharp at nine. I've to be in Hobart at twelve and I want that out of the way by eleven.'

Tanya gave a curt nod at this autocratic order, only

too happy to be able to make her escape, and had to exercise a lot of self-control to prevent herself from running out of the kitchen towards freedom.

She had closed the kitchen door behind her when she heard Kade's loud and
explosive, 'Hell and damnation !
' shout, that made her take to her heels in flight. Only when she reached Orchard House did she feel safe from the fury that she had felt unleashed in Kade's voice.

KANE's assumption that Tanya would seek Connie out and spill out her troubles to her could not have been more off the mark. Tanya knew where Connie's allegiance lay where Kade was concerned. As for Connie 'putting her right', what was right? Was it right that he should bulldoze her into compliance with his wishes where the question of her future was concerned?

Tanya considered herself fair
minded, and Kade's way of going about things was not fair. Had she not inherited her father's streak of obstinacy she would have been completely overwhelmed by him and would have walked into a future of 'Yes, Kade', or 'No, Kade', depending upon the circumstances, and spent the rest of her life eating her heart out for him. He would have expected no less of her, indeed, would take her adoration as his due. He knew the ropes too well, and that was what was so unfair.

Connie was in the vegetable garden when Tanya had arrived back, and Tanya had had to explain why she was back early. She told a little white lie on the grounds that they had got through work earlier than anticipated, and no, she didn't want any lunch, she was going to write some letters.

This was the truth, for Tanya was beginning to feel guilty about not writing to Lloyd and telling him how she was settling down. It would also, she thought, as she

selected some writing paper from the study bureau, give her an opportunity of finding out if he was still of the same mind about offering her a home.

She sat down at the bureau and taking a pen she began her letter. Firstly, she brought him up to date, informing him of her father's death, and telling him that she was now working for her living, but not mentioning the conditions she was forced to work under.

When she had written part of the letter she sat back and chewed the end of the pen. She would have to be very careful not to give Lloyd the impression that she was unhappy and make him feel obliged to whisk her out of the situation she was in. She had told him that the farm now belonged to the man who had managed the business for her father, taking care to keep personalities out of it. Kade might have been a balding man of sixty with a grown-up family, for all the impression she had given on this point.

She re-read what she had written and found that it looked as if she had lost all rights to the business, and this was not quite correct, so she added another paragraph to the effect that she still had an interest in the farm, and had been offered a partnership, but had not yet made up her mind to accept it.

She sighed when she had finished that part of it. It was true that she had been offered a partnership, but not true that she had not made her mind up about accepting it. She had, and no argument Kade could produce would alter her mind.

After a few moments' debate, she decided to leave it at that. If Lloyd still wanted her to join him then he would say so when he replied to the letter. He would say something on the lines that if she decided not to

accept the partnership, his offer still held good. It would also, she thought sadly, give him a chance of backing out of the promise that had been made at a time of great personal grief for both of them. If Kade were right, and Lloyd had found consolation elsewhere, then she was offering him a let-out from what could be an embarrassing situation for both of them.