LITMIR.BIZ

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crammed her hat on her head so it came halfway down her forehead, shadowing her eyes. The rest of her still had the kick of a mule, but he was not going to be drawn by her lush femininity again. Let her sell it to the highest bidder. He was well out of that game.

      He was looking at her as though she had crawled out from under some rock. Miranda instinctively stiffened her spine but her stomach was in a sickening knot. She cursed herself again for having allowed this man past her guard. Now here he was, standing in judgement on her, so formidable and forbidding she hated her vulnerability to what he thought of her. She shouldn’t have to defend herself.

      And she wouldn’t.

      She had apologised for misinterpreting his last relationship. Nothing more need be said on any personal score. She glanced at her watch as she neared where he stood waiting for her. It was almost eight o’clock. Only four more hours to get through with him.

      “This way,” he said, barely waiting for her to fall into step beside him before setting off.

      Miranda kept her mouth firmly shut. The route into the gorge was signposted. She didn’t really need his guidance. In fact, she would have been better without it. He set such a brisk pace, she was so busy watching her footing over the rough ground, determined not to stumble or fall, there was little time for gazing around.

      The beehive domes gradually amalgamated into a gorge whose walls rose higher and higher. As the walking track narrowed and the terrain became more difficult, Nathan took the lead with a muttered, “Best to follow where I tread.”

      As much as she bridled against his high-handed manner, there was nothing to be gained from disobeying. The sun had gathered heat and there was no shelter from it anywhere. Nathan unerringly chose the safest way over rocks and past tricky little chasms. A couple of times he paused to check if she needed a hand to negotiate an awkward ascent or descent but Miranda was proudly determined on not accepting any assistance.

      Nevertheless, she reviewed her opinion about not needing a guide. The walk would have been much more hazardous and longer, picking her own way. As it was, she ended up misjudging her footing on a loose section of gravel at the top of a stony ridge, and as she took a steep step down to the next secure place, her back foot skidded out from under her, catapulting her straight towards the solid mass of Nathan King, who’d instantly swung at her yelp of distress.

      She thumped into him, her hands automatically grabbing his arms to save her from falling in a heap at his feet. Not that she needed to worry about that. He reacted so fast, she found herself clamped to him, then hauled up his body until her feet found steady ground…between the legs he’d spread to anchor himself. But he didn’t let her go…and she didn’t let him go.

      Her breasts were squashed against his chest and it felt as though their hearts were thundering in unison. Her pelvis and his seemed locked together, the key to his manhood fitting sensationally into the apex of her thighs. Her hands were wrapped around his biceps, loving their tensile strength. His vibrant heat and the sheer power of the man seemed to flood through her, holding her transfixed with a melting flow of insidious excitement.

      She wasn’t even aware that her hat had been knocked off. Her mind was abuzz with sexual signals that short-circuited all warning buttons. Her head tilted back, instinctively seeking more direct contact with him. The naked blast of desire in his eyes tore through the wanton glaze that had blinded her to what was happening. She sucked in a quick sobering breath through lips she realised were invitingly parted.

      She saw his mouth compress, his jaw tighten and a savage mockery wiped the blaze of wanting from his eyes. He set her firmly apart from him, swept up her hat from where it had fallen and presented it to her.

      “Better watch yourself more carefully, Miranda,” he advised acidly. “Another slip like that…who knows what might get broken?”

      Like her credibility in insisting she didn’t want him.

      “Thanks for saving me,” she managed to mutter, cramming her hat back on to hide her burning face.

      “Tommy needs you operational,” he slung at her before turning a broad, brick wall back and setting off again.

      Miranda’s legs felt like jelly. She forced them to work as they should, willing more energy into them. It wasn’t fair, she thought, staring resentfully at the pumped-out strength of his stride. She’d gone weak from that treacherous embrace and he’d gained power. Nothing was fair where sex was concerned, she grimly concluded.

      Twice now she’d succumbed to his attraction. He seemed to have some inbuilt magnet that got to her, overriding all common sense. She found herself eyeing the taut action of his buttocks and wrenched her gaze away. Somehow she had to switch off this physical thing with him, get her mind focused on her job again. Nathan King was not the object of this sight-seeing trip.

      The rock edifice on either side of them was not striped as the domes were. The colours were still striking, a mixture of red and orange, yellow ochre, beige and black. Miranda was wondering why this was called Cathedral Gorge, when she heard the sound, a deep haunting throb that seemed to vibrate off the cliff walls in a weird unearthly rhythm. She stopped dead, absorbed with listening to it.

      Nathan moved on a few steps, then turned, aware of her failure to follow. He frowned at her stillness, emitting impatience. He was about to voice it when she whipped up a hand to stop him.

      “Don’t you hear it?” she queried in an urgent whisper.

      He nodded, his eyes glinting with ironic amusement at her enthralment.

      It goaded her into asking, “What is it?”

      “A didgeridoo being played against the cavern wall. Come on. You’ll see it around the next bend. Albert must have decided to give the tourists a demonstration.”

      Albert?

      A didgeridoo was an Aboriginal instrument. Did one of the tribes still live here?

      Miranda sped after Nathan, eager to experience more of what she was hearing. And suddenly it came into view…the end of the gorge…a fantastic open cavern, the side walls towering up in incredibly sheer sheets of rock, the back one curved inward, sheltering a pool of mysterious black water surrounded by sand.

      Behind the pool a group of six people sat on a jumble of flat rocks, watching an Aboriginal man blowing into a long hollow pole, the end of it resting on the ground as his hands moved over the holes in the wood, controlling the emissions of sound.

      The eerie notes boomed up with all the power of a pipe organ in a cathedral, filling the cavern, echoing out like some primitive call that had passed through aeons of time, as though summoning the heartbeat of the earth itself so that those who heard it would feel its underlying rhythm and be in harmony with it.

      It couldn’t be called a song. There was no melody. Yet the interplay of sounds touched some deep soul chord that suddenly reminded Miranda of what Nathan had said earlier about his life being bound up in this land—ancient land—where survival reduced everything to basic needs.

      She hadn’t comprehended the full context of what he was saying but she had a glimmering of it now…the stark simplicity of choices laid out by nature, a cycle to be followed…birth, growth, mating, reproducing, death…an endless replenishment as long as the earth kept feeding it.

      No romantic gloss.

      Just life as it really was, underneath all the trimmings that civilisation had manufactured to sweeten it.

      The playing ended on a long, deep, mournful note, which seemed to reverberate through Miranda, making her tingle in a shivery way. The Aboriginal man shouldered his didgeridoo. The group of six applauded, their enthusiastic clapping sounding totally wrong to Miranda, somehow trivialising an experience that should have been savoured in silence.

      She was frowning over it when Nathan turned to look at her, his eyes hard and cynical. “The performance not worth your applause?”

      She stared at him, feeling his contempt for the lack of understanding that connected what

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