Free Outback Bachelor by Margaret Way

skin. For a disconcerting moment it was almost as though he had pressed her hand to his lips. How susceptible was the flesh! It had been a blazingly hot day so she was wearing brief denim shorts and a pink cotton shirt tied loosely at the waist over one of her bikini tops. Quite a bit of her was on show. She wasn’t supposed to be on show, was she?
    “You’re really into this, aren’t you?” he asked, a trace of the old indulgence in his voice.
    “Love it,” she said, whisking a long shining wave of her hair off her flushed face. She had tied it back in a ponytail but the wind had gone to work on the neat arrangement. “It would take a lifetime but one of my ambitions is to photograph as much as I can of our great untouched land,” she confided, knowing he would understand. No one loved the land more than Keefe. The land was a passion they shared. “I can’t wait for the miracle of the wildflowers.”
    “Your special time,” he said.
    His diamond-bright eyes moved to rest on her with such an unsettlingly tender expression that her body might have been a long-stemmed blossom.
    “Our special time.” She managed a smile, tingling to the tips of her fingers. “I loved every moment I spent with you as a child. But those were the halcyon days, weren’t they? We’ve moved on.”
    “ You’ve moved on,” he said, a touch grimly. “ I’m still here.”
    “You wouldn’t be anywhere else,” she scoffed.
    “Don’t you miss it?” He leaned into the boulder with a characteristically elegant slouch. Keefe had such grace of movement. He had discarded his wide-brimmed hat, his luxuriant black hair thick and tousled, his darkly tanned skin glittering with the lightest sweat.
    “Of course I miss it!” she said fervently, betraying her sense of loss. “I’ll probably miss it all my life.”
    “So what’s your life going to be, Skye?” he questioned, his eyes a sharply observant silver.
    “I haven’t figured that out yet.” Immediately she was on the defensive.
    “Well, you’re only twenty.” He shrugged. “But you must have a whole string of admirers by now?”
    “No more than you,” she shot back.
    “Now you’re being ridiculous.”
    “I’m not being ridiculous at all,” she said heatedly. “What about Fiona Fraser? She stayed glued to your side at the party. Then there’s Clementine. I like Clemmie. Your second cousin Angela has become very glamorous. And she’s a gifted pianist.”
    “So she is,” he nodded. “A conservatorium graduate. Angela is a city girl.”
    “Here we go!” she answered breezily. “That counts her out, then. City girls are trouble. So we’re back to Fiona.”
    “ You’re back to Fiona, and I thought you were a hell of a lot smarter. I’m twenty-six years old, Skye. Twenty-six to your twenty. I have no thought of marriage on my mind.”
    “As yet. You have to be aware you’re one of the biggest catches in the country.’ It came to her that she was deliberately winding him up. It was really crazy of her, wanting to pick a fight.
    “Then you know way more than I do.” He dismissed that impatiently. “I’m the guy who’s being groomed to one day take over not only a cattle empire but Dad’s numerous business interests as well. We’ve been diversifying for a long time now.”
    “No one ever said the McGoverns weren’t smart.” She made a wry face, one hand making a move to button up her shirt. Only it was too darned obvious. The bikini top was pretty skimpy. Not that Keefe was looking at her in that way. The sad thing was he could arouse her most potent, erotic feelings with a single glance.
    She wanted…wanted…What did she want? She was still a virgin. No frustration attached to that state. She had plenty of friends. Male and female. It was simply that no young man she had met had come close to measuring up to Keefe. That was the pity of it.
    A pity beyond all telling is hid in the heart of love . Blake, his “Songs of Innocence”. She felt like