LITMIR.BIZ

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Air,’ Francesca said casually, and at the same time she thought, so that accounts for the savoir-faire.

      ‘But, you see, he’s his own boss now and Banyo Air is acquiring quite a reputation—it’s actually the perfect combination for a cattleman, especially now that so much mustering is done by helicopter. He has the experience of cattle—he was inducted into that almost before he could walk—he knows the peninsula and the gulf really well, and he’s a first-class flier. So contract mustering is the mainstay of Banyo Air, but he also runs scenic charter flights and so on.’

      Francesca thought of the trim craft she’d flown in to Cairns, and indeed of the disparity between all the polished craft that had stood upon the apron that fateful day and the unprepossessing offices of Banyo Air. Her thoughts were tinged with bitterness—if the offices had been as trim and polished as the aircraft Raefe Stevensen flew, might she have been more restrained herself? So why did he operate out of a tinpot sort of office if Banyo Air was so highly regarded?

      Sarah answered that right on cue. ‘His next project is upgrading the facilities at the airport he operates out of. It’s badly needed, believe me. But these things take time and money. And planning permission,’ she added with a grimace.

      

      Francesca pondered all this anew as she was getting ready for bed that night. Her bedroom with its en suite bathroom was comfortable and pretty, with a double bed, a cool tiled floor and yellow sherbet coloured curtains and bedspread. She had a dressing table and a writing table, both made from silky oak, and one comfortable armchair, and it was into this she sank to examine, with a rather strange feeling, how well she’d slipped into the lifestyle of Bramble Downs.

      Not only had she taken Jess over from the bead stockman’s wife, who had been helping Sarah out since she’d broken her wrist, but the cook’s disappearance had given her the opportunity to exercise her culinary skills. All of which had meant she’d had hardly a minute to herself, yet she felt curiously fulfilled and satisfied.

      And, more than that, it was as if she was saying to Raefe Stevensen, yes, I can see that the way the Valentine millions are flaunted and the way I acted that day would be an affront to someone who comes from this quiet but solid, achieving and cultured background of yours—but you still misread me!

      The one thing she couldn’t do was visualise his reaction to her presence at Bramble, although she told herself that he surely wouldn’t react too excessively in front of his sister and child. What she didn’t count on was that their first meeting would take place without anyone to witness it...

      

      She woke just before dawn the next morning and listened to the birds saluting the new day for a few minutes—birds you didn’t hear down south, and ones that would always be inextricably linked in her mind with Far North Queensland, with its heat, its isolation, the thick mat of turf beneath your feet as you stepped off the veranda at Bramble, with the casuarinas and pandanus palms that rimmed the beach and the lovely waters of the Great Barrier Reef...

      Just thinking of it prompted her to take the opportunity, while Jess still slept, to go for a dawn swim. She pulled on a violet bikini, brushed her hair, reached for a towel and slipped out of the house noiselessly as the first rays of light touched the sky.

      Because of the proliferation of crocodiles in this part of the world since they’d become a protected species, as well as the prevalence of the deadly box jellyfish in summer, a wire-mesh and pole swimming enclosure had been built which extended into the water and up the beach. Francesca clicked open the gate, saw that the tide was high, which meant plenty of water to swim in, and ran down the beach to dive in.

      It was heavenly—still cool enough to be refreshing, salty and with a gentle swell that lifted her rhythmically off her feet. After she’d swum up and down energetically for about ten minutes, she lay in the shallows and watched the sun rise in a symphony of apricot and lemon as the birds sang on. Then she heard the enclosure gate click open and, thinking it might be Jess, sighed lightly and stood up to start her daily duties.

      But it wasn’t Jess, it was the girl’s father, with his shirt and shoes already off and his hands frozen on the waistband of his khaki trousers.

      Francesca froze too, and they stared at each other over about six feet of sand, close enough for her to see the disbelief and then the sheer, deadly anger that came to his grey eyes, the way all the muscles of his strong, streamlined torso and arms bunched and the knuckles of his hands went white.

      It crossed her mind with a genuine tremor of fear that she might be about to come to an early demise on this beautiful beach so far away from anywhere, but then his eyes changed to unreadable, those muscles relaxed and he unclamped his jaw to say roughly, ‘Fran something or other? What a fool I was not to connect the name when Sarah rang me about the gem of a new governess they’d sent her. How did you do it, Francesca Valentine? Forge a few references? Or did you buy out Acme?’

      The savage scorn and disgust in his voice seared Francesca and she went a little pale. But she managed to say evenly, ‘I forged nothing. I—’

      ‘Oh, come on! How the hell do you expect me to believe that?’

      ‘I don’t care what you choose to believe,’ she said tautly. ‘But you won’t be able to disbelieve that I have an arts degree with a teaching diploma because I can prove it. I can also prove that I’ve worked regularly with handicapped children, and those institutions were very happy to supply me with references.’

      ‘What about your honesty and integrity?’ he shot back.

      ‘Strangely enough, I had no trouble finding several people to vouch for my honesty and integrity—people who were even happy to commit to paper the fact that I had no police record, no vices, no—’

      ‘Vices?’ he said scornfully. ‘And what would you describe this as? Above-board and open-handed? Honest? To change your name and masquerade as someone you’re not in order to worm your way into a household where you know damn well you’re the last person who would be wanted?’ The grey of his eyes resembled cold steel as he added, ‘And that brings us to why you did it.’

      The awkward question, of course, Francesca acknowledged in her mind, and paused before answering to make sure she presented her case coolly and clinically. It proved to be a fatal pause.

      Raefe Stevensen advanced several steps to stand right in front of her and look down at her with all his old insolent cynicism as he said softly, ‘Don’t try to con me further, Chessie. I know the answer. You don’t like to think any man can walk away from you, do you? You came here with one aim in mind, didn’t you? To add me to your list of scalps.’

      There was so much tension between them that Francesca found herself briefly possessed of the notion that the air was crackling with static, and she realised as she spoke that her voice was alive with it. ‘Don’t you kid yourself, Raefe Stevensen,’ she said unevenly, barely concealing the wild anger that ran through her veins.

      But he only looked coldly amused. Then he subjected her damp, glowing body to the most minute scrutiny. Her bare neck and shoulders, her firm lovely breasts and the erect nipples clearly visible beneath the wisp of violet silk, the curve of her hips and thighs, adorned by what suddenly seemed to Francesca to be a particularly small triangle of silk, the sweep of her legs. He scrutinised her so effectively, she was made to feel as if he was running his hands over every curve, every secret, intimate part of her.

      Then he said mockingly, ‘This is really why, isn’t it, Chessie Valentine? You can’t believe any man could be unaffected by your...’ his grey gaze swept her body again ‘...admittedly very beautiful body, your lovely face and, most of all, your father’s millions. You assume that they will distract them from your shallow little soul.’

      Francesca stared at him with her lips parted incredulously.

      ‘And that’s why,’ he went on, ‘you’re to be found on my beach in your designer bikini. I’m quite sure if this hadn’t happened first you’d have found the opportunity to parade yourself before me in it somehow,’ he finished

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