LITMIR.BIZ

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      He picked up a plate in each hand, and nodded to indicate she was to return to the table. “Took you long enough to work it out.”

      She sat down at the table and he placed a plate in front of her. The aroma made her mouth water. “You’re a crafty one. But when you came to us, you were so angry and introverted. And you took off before I got the chance to ask how you’d been managing your life.”

      He took his seat and offered her the salad bowl so she could help herself. “I probably would have told you to mind your own business.”

      “In words of four letters,” she said, smiling to soften the reminder.

      “Yeah, I knew a few of those. Still do.”

      But he rarely used them these days.

      She sliced into the steak and took a bite, closing her eyes in appreciation. “Who do I have to bribe to get the recipe for this marinade?”

      “Just me. Do you want to know my price?”

      She opened her eyes and almost recoiled at the sight of her own reflection in his dark gaze. His expression told her more surely than words that she wouldn’t like his price, so she didn’t ask. “There’s garlic and oregano,” she said, trying to keep her voice steady.

      His mouth turned up at the corners as if he could read her inner turmoil and was amused by it. “What else?”

      She took another bite and let it linger on her tongue. “Red wine?” He nodded. “And something spicy. Not chili. Damn it, why don’t you just tell me?”

      He rested an arm on the table. “Because it’s fun to watch your eyes go off like firecrackers when you take my bait.”

      “That’s exactly the sort of remark we could have avoided if we’d eaten in a public place.”

      “Why do you think I chose this one?”

      She stared at him. “So you could provoke me?”

      “Not provoke, challenge you into admitting you want me as much as I want you.”

      She almost choked on the mouthful of steak she was just swallowing. Suspecting how he felt and having it spelled out were very different experiences. “Now I know you’ve gone crazy.”

      “It isn’t crazy for a man to be attracted to a woman, especially when she feels the same way.”

      “I do not.”

      “Do, too.”

      The childish exchange reminded her of all the reasons this conversation was totally inappropriate. “You can’t be attracted to your foster sister.”

      His knife and fork clattered onto his plate and he indulged in a couple of the words they’d just discussed. “You are not and never have been my sister.”

      “You were fostered by my father.”

      “Not by choice. I lived in your house for less than a year, and I left before the relationship was made official.”

      She took a hasty gulp of water. “Surely Dad became your legal guardian as he did for the others?”

      “He wanted to, but I didn’t give him the chance. So my statement stands.”

      His feelings were hardly news to her, but she’d always assumed nothing could come of them as long as he was family. Or had she hidden behind the belief rather than acknowledge the power of her response to him? She’d spent most of her adult years keeping men at a distance, determined not to have a life like her mother’s.

      Or a death.

      Judy still nursed a deep well of hurt whenever she thought of Fran Logan ignoring the pain of appendicitis and continuing to minister to her family’s needs until she collapsed. By the time medical help had been obtained for her, it had been too late.

      Outback women like Fran lived and breathed the belief that their families came first. No sacrifice was too much. More often then not they hid their own feelings, needs and wants, never letting on to their families and those closest to them that they might be suffering. When food was scarce, they served themselves the smallest portions or none at all. If children were sick, they were nursed day and night, sometimes through their own sickness. They set bones and mended fences with equal stoicism. Educated their children at home. Endured isolation and deprivation beyond most people’s comprehension.

      Satellites and cell phones might have eased the solitude, but not the need for sacrifice. Judy still encountered plenty of it on her flights to deliver supplies, medicine, news and visitors to outlying properties. The women were the ones who suffered in silence. Judy didn’t intend to become one of them. She didn’t have their qualifications for sainthood.

      These days, there was no requirement for a woman to marry. Judy saw herself as living proof you could have a satisfying career and a social life without tying yourself down forever.

      “Lots of men tell me they’re attracted to me,” she stated, wishing for another glass of water to ease her parched throat. “I’m not interested in anything long-term.”

      He reached over and poured water from his own glass into hers. “Maybe you just haven’t been told by the right man.”

      She sipped slowly. “The right man being you, I suppose?”

      He helped himself to tomato salad, but didn’t eat. “We’ve always known what was between us. Ignoring it hasn’t helped. So the logical solution is to have an affair and be done with it.”

      Her hands, usually so capable on the controls of her Cessna 182, fluttered helplessly. “Dad is seriously ill. We may not be able to hang on to Diamond Downs. And you want us to have an affair?”

      “Blake and Tom have the same worries, but I don’t see Blake living without Jo, or Tom holding off on marrying his princess. If we wait for everything to be perfect before dealing with what’s between us, we can’t move on.”

      “Blake and Tom are not…” Barely in time, she stopped herself from uttering the words long forbidden by her father. “Blood.” As Des saw it, his foster sons were as much family as his biological daughter.

      Ryan’s expression stayed impassive, but his eyes had hardened. “You can say it. Des isn’t here to jump on you. Blake, Tom, Cade and I are grace-and-favor Logans. I can’t speak for them, but the situation suits me fine.”

      Appalled at herself, she looked down at the plate. “I guess I don’t like thinking you actually prefer being an outsider.”

      He smiled wryly. “If I wasn’t, we wouldn’t be having this discussion. I know Des means well but he can’t change history. All of us were born into other lives. He gave us a second chance and we respect him for it. But it doesn’t make us Logans. We can’t feel the same toward him and Diamond Downs as you who were born here of his flesh and blood.”

      “Are you sure?”

      A long pause preceded his reply. “Honest answer? I don’t know. When I was a teenager, I envied the other boys for belonging here when I felt as if I never would. Maybe they do feel more kinship with Des and the land than I want to think. One day, I may even ask them if we get drunk enough.”

      She gave a shaky smile and resumed eating. “Their answers may surprise you.”

      He attacked his steak as if it were his beliefs. “Wouldn’t be the first time. When I got here, I was so full of my own bull, thinking nobody knew the troubles I’d seen. Then I found out Tom’s dad was in jail for killing his mother in a fit of jealous rage, and Blake had been left on a doorstep when he was a baby. My problems seemed feeble by comparison.”

      “They were real enough to you. It wasn’t fun having to fend for yourself at fourteen.”

      “But I’d had my mother until then, and some happy memories of my father before he vanished without trace. It’s more than Blake ever had.

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