Outback Bachelor Read Free Page B

hard knot at the base of her breastbone. “I care that you’re making a huge mistake, Scott.” Her voice was tight with strain. “You’re my friend. You’re Scott. You can’t be anything more to me.”
    He struck like lightning. She landed a stinging lash on his arm. The tanned skin reddened immediately but he didn’t look at the welt, or appear to feel it. No matter how much she wished otherwise, there was no mistaking her imminent danger and his raw intent. Scott meant to have his way. Kiss her? Or take her forcibly? Anything was possible. Who was she to him anyway? Only the overseer’s daughter. Dozens of girls would gladly have swapped places with her, no matter the risk. Scott McGovern mightn’t be his brother, but he was still a great catch.
    “Now, what makes you think that?” he asked with slow menace. “I tell you, Skye, you’ve turned into the sexiest thing on two legs .”
    I’m scared but I can’t show it .
    Find me, Keefe. Find me .
    She concentrated on sending her message out into the great plains. “This isn’t going to work, Scott. You’d better find someone else .”
    “I don’t want anyone else.” He cut her off with a chopping motion of his hand. “And when I make up my mind, I don’t change it .”
    “Then go to hell!” she shouted, adrenalin flooding into her blood. “You’re acting like a bully and a coward .”
    It was a mistake .
    Scott reached for her, wrapping one arm around her. “This can work, Skye if you let it .”
    “No. No. And no!” She fought back, digging in her nails .
    “Too ordinary for you, am I? I’m not Keefe.”
    She threw back her head. “Keefe would never force a woman,” she cried with utter conviction.
    “Wouldn’t have to, would he? You’d let him take you in a minute!” There was rage and bitter resentment in Scott’s blue eyes as he repeated his resentment of his older brother. He went to kiss her and she turned her face, both of them recoiling abruptly as a familiar voice came from behind them in a barely contained roar of ferocity.
    “What the hell is going on here?”
    Keefe’s tall, wide-shouldered, lean figure came stalking along the narrow sunlit corridor. His body language was wrathful. He looked blazingly angry, angrier than Skye could ever have imagined. Keefe was famous for keeping his cool .
    Now it was Scott’s turn to be intimidated. Instead of attempting an answer, he appeared ludicrously shocked, while Skye found herself moaning her relief. With no thought to her actions, she ran to Keefe’s side, grasping his hard, muscled arm, feeling the heat of rage sizzle off his skin.
    “Okay, I guess I know what was happening,” he rasped, shoving Skye bodily behind him. “You can’t help yourself, can you, Scott? The only thing that concerns you is getting what you want.”
    “And I would have got it if you hadn’t turned up. Skye has the hots for me.”
    “Believe that, and you’ll believe anything,” Keefe bit off with disgust. He closed the short distance to where his brother stood, grabbing hold of his bare shoulder with such force Scott winced. “Goddammit, Scott,” Keefe groaned in a kind of agony. “I’m repulsed by you. Where’s your sense of decency? Your sense of honour?
    “You got the lot,” Scott retorted with sudden venom, trying unsuccessfully to break his brother’s iron grasp. “You want her yourself .”
    Keefe’s expression was daunting. “What you’re saying is what I want, you must take for yourself.”
    “Well, she is one alluring little chick! ”
    That was when Keefe hit him. Scott dropped to the sand with blood streaming from his nose. He tried to get up, fell back again, moaning. “Can’t say I didn’t have that coming,” he wailed, as unpredictable as ever .
    “You bastard!” Keefe raged with a mix of horror and regret. “You never can deal with the consequences of your actions. Why do you let your dark side take you under?’
    Skye, who had been frozen to the spot, now