LITMIR.BIZ

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affectionately around the shoulders, and kissed Rebecca’s satin cheek, wishing her all the happiness in the world. He told the bridesmaids, Francesca, Fee’s beautiful daughter, and Caroline, Rebecca’s long-time friend, they looked absolutely perfect before turning to Ally, who was unashamedly wiping the few spilt tears from her cheeks.

      “It must be fantastic to marry the woman you love,” he remarked as though there wasn’t a single dark corner left in him. “I’ve never seen Brod so happy or so utterly at peace.”

      His voice was deep and relaxed, yet Ally winced as if from a sharp sting. Knowing him so well, she was aware of the fires that burned deep inside him, the feelings of betrayal so smoothly hidden but a hundred times worse since the last time she had seen him at her father’s funeral. The message behind his words told her very clearly he would never take her back again. She wanted to go into his arms. Hug him. Beg his forgiveness, his understanding. But she knew she couldn’t.

      Instead she answered gently, “It was a beautiful ceremony. Perfect. I’m going to miss my big brother.” Her expression turned nostalgic. “Motherless, and with the way Dad was, Brod and I were so close.”

      Rafe tried to deal with a stab of pity. He wanted to stretch out a hand to her. Stroke her sumptuous wild hair. Wind it around his hand like he used to. Just the slightest breeze and it ruffled into a million curls.

      “You haven’t lost him, Ally,” he managed.

      “I know.” Ally felt the same old powerful tug towards him. “But Rebecca is the number one woman in his life now.”

      “And rightly so.” Rafe’s tone was crisp. “You want it that way, don’t you?” He looked across the throng of guests to the radiant bride and groom happily receiving kisses and congratulations and a little bit of warm teasing.

      “Of course I do!” She lifted her face to him in her spirited way. “I’m thrilled. I love Rebecca already. It’s just that…”

      Of course he knew. He was just trying to stir her up a little. “The family has regrouped,” he relented. As a Cameron, Brod’s best friend, and Ally’s once-taken-for-granted future husband, he knew just how dysfunctional the Kinross family had been. The late Stewart Kinross had been a hard, complex man, barely hiding his resentment of his charismatic son, subtly making Ally suffer. Brod and Ally had had to look to one another for understanding and support all their young lives. “Brod is married now,” he continued, “life goes on. But you haven’t lost your brother, Ally. Just gained a sister.”

      “Of course.” She gave her beautiful smile. “It’s just that weddings are serious times, aren’t they? Full of happiness, but a little sadness, too. Days when none of us seem to be able to tuck our emotions safely out of sight.” She allowed herself to look into his eyes. They were so beautiful. Gold-flecked, neither grey nor green but an iridescent mix of both.

      “Is that a shot at me?” he challenged.

      At least they were talking, she thought gratefully. “Will we ever be friends again, Rafe?” she asked, avoiding an answer.

      He chose to ignore the traitorous twist of his heart. Friends? he thought grimly. Was that what we were? He wasn’t going to permit this blatant appeal to his senses, either. “Why, Ally, darling,” he drawled, “I can’t remember a time when we weren’t.”

      She didn’t have to touch her cheeks to know they were on fire. She supposed she deserved this. His distinctive strong-boned face with the Cameron cleft chin, looked forged in gilt. He was a splendid creature full of power and energy, beautiful really with that mane of gold hair, another Cameron hallmark. There was an enormous guardedness in his expression, yet a glimmer of something even he couldn’t control, the powerful physical attraction that had once dictated their lives.

      Oh, God. I need you, Ally thought. I want you. I love you. I bitterly regret running away from you and bringing about my own destruction. She realised with hidden grief the strength of her feelings far from abating over time had become more desperate. Only Rafe was a proud man like all the Camerons. A man who placed an immense value on loyalty and she had betrayed him. One of those false steps in life when she had placed self-fulfilment or how she had thought of it then, above a love so strong and deep it had all but taken possession of her. Love isn’t always safe. At twenty years old the force of it had panicked her. Against everyone’s wishes, she had fled. Now this. Lifelong estrangement from Rafe. It made her want to weep.

      “Why look so heartbroken?” He cocked a golden brown eyebrow.

      “You forget how well I know you.” Though she smiled, Ally kept her telltale eyes veiled. “You’re even more remote since the last time I saw you. I’m fearful you’ve totally shut me out.”

      “For good, darling,” he assured her without apparent regret. A dark wing of her hair with its decorated little braid fell forward onto her cheek and despite himself he found he was tucking it back.

      Fool! Only Ally always had been too much to handle. When he spoke it seemed imperative he make his position perfectly clear. Now his eyes were trapped by the wide beautiful shape of her mouth. The eager, ardent mouth he had kissed a thousand times. And never enough. “I’ve got my life together,” he said by way of explanation. “I’d like to keep it that way. But don’t think I’m not grateful for what we had. The bond between us will last. It’s just I’m not your willing captive any more.”

      She gave a low sceptical laugh. “Captive? I could as easily capture an eagle. In my memory it was the other way round.”

      “You were always one-eyed,” he said in his deep seductive voice. “Who was the girl who at age fourteen told me she adored me. That she wanted to live with me all her life. You were going to marry me the day you turned eighteen. Remember, Ally? You the born seductress. Remember how you told me you belonged to me? Remember how you drove me crazy with desire when I’d made a sacred vow I wouldn’t touch you until you were old enough to handle our relationship. Poor me,” he mocked, “it was my duty to protect your vulnerable innocence.”

      Her eyes flickered, moved away. “You were always very gallant, Rafe. A gentleman in the grand manner.”

      She gave a passing guest that incandescent smile that somehow flooded him with anger. “But you changed all that, didn’t you?” He looked down into her face. “And maybe that was the big mistake. When it came right down to it, the fire you thought consumed you couldn’t match the fire in me. You were the candle to the inferno, or something like that. A reckless child to the man. Is that what frightened you away?”

      Because there was a hard kernel of truth in it, Ally tossed back her head, causing her long hair to bounce along her back. “You didn’t find fault with me when I was in your arms,” she retaliated, her heart swelling with emotion. She had a vivid flash of the way it was, an experience so momentous, like nothing else that had ever happened to her, their bodies bonding passionately in the great front bedroom at Opal. A bedroom not slept in since Sarah and Douglas Cameron, Rafe’s and Grant’s parents, had been killed in a light aircraft crash returning home to the station. But Rafe had wanted it that way. Wanted their first mating in the immense ancestral bed. A night without sleep. Delirious making love.

      Rafe. Her first love. Only love. There had been other relationships since, a very few; the ones she had settled for a second best, none with that tremendous significance. None who could make her soar. Mind, body, spirit. No one. Rafe was her past, her present. Life without him in the future was unimaginable. He was the missing piece of the jigsaw of her life without which the whole design could never be resolved.

      She should have married Rafe years ago when she’d had the chance, instead of fleeing his powerful aura. Rafe, like her brother Brod, had inherited wealth, power, responsibility. A life of service to the land. She understood it, bred to the same heritage, but she couldn’t pretend she had the same dedication. Now years later she would give that dedication gladly. Her career had brought her public admiration, the respect of her peers, but it hadn’t brought her either happiness or fulfilment. It had brought her a good deal of hard work, terrible hours, and increasingly a level of anxiety

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