Читать книгу The Millionaire's Marriage Claim - Lindsay Armstrong - Страница 7

JOANNE LUCAS steered her grey Range Rover over the appalling road and shook her head.

Sure, she hadn’t expected the drive to a sheep station somewhere south of Charleville in outback Queensland to be a picnic. But the road had been quite good until she’d turned off onto the station track, and it was far worse than anything she’d anticipated. It was also quite a bit further than she’d expected to drive, and the chill dusk of a winter’s evening was drawing in.

She scanned the horizon for some sign of habitation but there was none. This was serious sheep country, the Murweh shire—she knew from the research she’d done it carried approximately eight hundred thousand head of them! There were also cattle stations in the area so you expected it to be wide open and isolated.

On the other hand, her destination, Kin Can station, had quite a reputation. So did its owners, the Hastings family, for wealth and excellence in the wool they bred.

How come they couldn’t afford to put in a decent road to the homestead, then? And how on earth did the wool trucks cope with it?

Come to think of it, if she hadn’t had her wits about her, she would have missed the small, nearly illegible Kin Can sign on a gate—another surprise because she’d been led to believe the station was well signposted.

Do they actively discourage visitors? she asked herself, then slammed on the brakes as she topped a rise to see a man standing in the middle of the track aiming a gun at her.

Do they ever! It flashed through her mind, followed immediately by—So what to do now?

Any decision was taken out of her hands as the man loped forward and wrenched her door open before she could lock it. Not only that, he slung the gun over his shoulder and manhandled her out onto the road.

‘Now look here,’ she began, ‘this is insane and—’

‘What’s your name?’ he barked at her as he backed her up against the bonnet.

‘Jo…Joanne, b-but people call me Jo,’ she stammered.

‘Just as I thought, although I was expecting a Joe—of the masculine variety—but perhaps they thought you could seduce me and keep doing it until they tracked me down.’

He paused and a flash of ironic amusement lit his intensely blue eyes as he looked her up and down then murmured, ‘On the other hand, you don’t look that feminine, Jo, so I’ll go with my first scenario.’

Jo, who had gasped several times as he’d spoken, lost her temper and stamped heavily on his toe with the heel of her booted foot.

He didn’t even flinch. ‘Steel toecaps, darlin’,’ he drawled. ‘So it gets your goat up to be called unfeminine?’

Jo breathed heavily but a small portion of her mind conceded that, yes, it had—which was just about as insane as the whole mad situation. Nor could she resist a glance downwards, although she did resist the urge to tell this crazy person that most women would look unfeminine in creased cargo pants, a bulky anorak and a knitted beanie that concealed her hair.

She did quell the sneaky little voice in her head that reminded her some men found her height and straight shoulders unfeminine anyway…

‘Look here, whoever you are,’ she began, ‘I’m expected up at the homestead so—’

‘I’ll bet you are, Jo,’ he rasped, ‘but we’re going a different way. Let’s just see what you’re packing first.’ He started to pat her down like a policeman.

‘Packing?’ It came out in a strangled way edged with outrage as she tried to evade his hands. ‘Will you stop touching me? I’m not packing anything.’

‘Take ’em off, then,’ he ordered as his hands reached her waist.

Jo gaped at him. ‘Take what off?’

‘Your strides, lady.’

‘I most certainly will not—are you out of your mind?’

‘OK! Turn round and lean over the bonnet so I can search for hip holsters, thigh holsters or wherever women carry their concealed weapons.’

Jo stared at him in the fading daylight and wondered if she was the one going mad or—was this a nightmare? But the substance of her nightmare was anything but dream-like.

He was tall, taller than she was, with good shoulders. In a navy jumper and torn, dirty jeans, he looked to be extremely fit in a lean, rangy way. His thick black hair was short and ruffled and his jaw was covered with black stubble. Then there were those furious blue eyes that gave every indication of a man not to be trifled with.

But why? How? What? she wondered wildly. Some modern day bushranger on the loose? Surely not!

It’s not unheard of, she corrected herself immediately, but why would he have been expecting any kind of a ‘Joe’?

‘Make up your mind,’ her tormentor ordered. ‘We haven’t got all day.’

With trembling fingers, Jo unzipped her anorak and started to lower her cargo pants. Then she got angry again and pulled the anorak off and flung it over the bonnet. She ripped her boots off and stepped out of her pants. ‘You may look but don’t you dare lay a finger on me again,’ she ground out, her grey eyes flashing magnificently.

The man grimaced and raised his eyebrows. ‘Well, well!’ His gaze dwelt on her figure beneath a fitted, fine-knit blue jumper and pale blue cotton briefs, and drifted down her long legs.

‘Just goes to show you shouldn’t make snap judgements,’ he said with humour, looking back into her eyes, ‘since it would be fair to say that in other circumstances you’d be welcome to seduce me, love.’ The humour left his eyes. ‘Turn around.’

If she’d been angry before, Jo was boiling now, but caution had the upper hand. She turned and lifted her arms to shoulder height. ‘Satisfied?’ she asked over her shoulder.

‘Yep.’ She stiffened as she felt his fingers on her waist and the elastic of her briefs pinged against her skin. ‘Good old Bonds Cottontails, I do believe,’ he added. ‘OK, get dressed, then we’re going for a drive.’

Jo pulled on her cargo pants. ‘A drive? How far?’

‘Right into—’ He paused. ‘Why?’

She hesitated, unsure whether to confess that she’d somehow underestimated the distance to Kin Can homestead, and another of her concerns had been that she’d run out of petrol…

‘Come on, Jo—’ he unslung the gun menacingly ‘—talk!’

‘I don’t have much petrol left.’

He swore. ‘Bloody women!’

‘I believe there’s a pump at the house so—’

‘Told you that, did they? Well, it’s not going to be of any use to me. Get in and switch on so I can see how low the tank is.’

Jo swallowed and finished dressing as quickly as she could. And when she switched the motor on and the petrol gauge was revealed—bordering the red—he swore again, even more murderously, then, ‘No spare tanks?’

‘No.’

‘What are you? One of their molls press-ganged into providing back-up?’

‘I have no idea what you’re talking about!’ Jo cried. ‘None of this makes any sense.’

‘Oh, yes, it does, sweetheart,’ he replied insolently, then rubbed his jaw with a sudden tinge of weariness. It didn’t last long, that first faint sign of weakness, however. ‘Plan B, then,’ he said grimly.

Ten minutes later, Jo was steering her vehicle over another diabolical track, but this time following her captor’s directions.

She’d had no opportunity to escape, as he’d made it quite clear he would shoot her down if she made any attempt to run away. Her request to be told what was going on had received a ‘don’t act all innocent with me, lady’ response.

And he’d quashed, with an impatient wave of his hand and virtually unheard, her solitary attempt to explain who she was, why she was on Kin Can station and her conviction that he was making a terrible mistake.

He’d also searched the vehicle before they’d set off, then glanced at her with a considering frown.

So she drove with a set mouth and her heart hammering; he wouldn’t allow her to use the headlights and the light was almost gone.

‘There,’ he said, pointing to a darker shadow on the landscape. ‘Pull into the shed on the other side.’

At first Jo thought it was only a clump of towering gum trees, then she discerned the outline of two buildings. ‘What is it?’

‘Boundary riders hut,’ he replied tersely as she nosed the vehicle into an old shed.

‘Is it…is this where you live?’

He laughed scornfully. ‘Who are you trying to kid, Jo?’

She sucked in a breath. ‘I’m not trying to kid anyone! I have no idea what’s going on or who on earth you are! What’s your name?’

He glanced at her mockingly. ‘For the purpose of maintaining your charade, why don’t you choose one? Tom, Dick or Harry will do.’

‘I have a better idea,’ she spat at him. ‘Mr Hitler is particularly appropriate for what I think of you!’

‘So the lady has claws,’ he said softly, with an appreciative gleam in his blue eyes, and switched on the inside light.

‘You better believe it.’

Their gazes clashed. It was an angry, defiant moment for Jo, but there was also fear lurking beneath it. Fear and something else—a certain amount of confusion. He might act like a bushranger or a boundary rider gone berserk, but he sounded like neither.

What he said was undoubtedly inflammatory and insulting—let alone the incomprehensibility of it all—but the voice was educated and cultured with the kind of accent that a wealthy, old-money family and a private school steeped in tradition would imbue.

Then there was his navy-blue jumper. If she was any judge, it would have cost a small fortune, being made of especially soft, fine new wool—although they were on a sheep station that specialized in fine new wool, weren’t they?

But most perplexing of all was the frisson tiptoeing along her nerve ends in the form of an awareness of him stealing over her. If you discounted his stubbly jaw and his eyes that could be murderous, he was well proportioned, excellently co-ordinated and rather devastatingly good-looking…

‘What?’

She blinked at his question. ‘N-nothing.’

‘Or—thinking of changing sides?’ he suggested. ‘Believe me, Jo, you’d be well advised to. Being my moll would have infinite advantages over—’

‘Stop it!’ She put her hands over her ears. ‘I’m no one’s moll and have no intention of becoming one!’

‘No?’ He said it consideringly with his gaze roaming over her narrowly. ‘You could have fooled me a moment ago.’

Jo bit her lip and was furious with herself.

He laughed softly. ‘You’re not much good at this, are you?’

‘If I had any idea what you’re talking about—’

She broke off as he moved impatiently.

‘Enough! Let’s get inside. We’ll take all your gear.’

‘What for?’

‘So I can go through it with a fine-tooth comb.’ He clicked off the overhead light and jumped out.

She had no choice but to follow suit. The shed had doors and he pushed them closed and latched them, so unless you knew to look, there was no sign of her car. Then he gestured for her to precede him into the hut.

He did go through her things with a fine-tooth comb, but after he’d secured the hut and lit a fire in the rusty combustion stove from a store of chopped wood and old newspapers.

The wooden hut was small and rudimentary. It had a half-loft storing some bales of old straw, but the ladder to it was broken. There were a couple of uncomfortable-looking narrow beds, a table and two hard chairs, one dilapidated old armchair, a small store of dry and tinned goods and a couple of milk cans filled with water.

There was one high window, but it had been broken and boarded up, and one door. All the same, as a precaution against any light being seen, Jo gathered, he hung a blanket over the door and a rough, dingy towel over the window.

Two things he did she could only approve of: the light and warmth from the stove were welcome against the cold, dark night, and the aroma from the pot of coffee he set on the stove caused her to close her eyes in deep appreciation as she took her anorak off.

On the other hand, two things she noticed while they waited for the coffee added to her confusion. He looked at his wrist, as if to check his watch, then with a grimace of annoyance, pulled it from his pocket and laid it on the table. It had a broken band, she saw, but, although it was plain enough, it was also sleek, platinum and shouted very expensive craftsmanship.

A faint frown knitted her brow. A demented boundary rider with a couple-of-thousand-dollar watch? Then there were his jeans. Torn and dirty they might be, but they were also designer jeans if she was any judge.

‘No milk, but there is sugar,’ he said presently, and handed her an enamel mug. ‘Help yourself.’ He indicated a sugar caddy.

She took two spoonfuls and looked around as she stirred them in.

‘Take the best chair, ma’am,’ he said with some irony and indicated the armchair.

‘Thanks,’ she murmured and sank down into it. A small cloud of dust rose but she was too tired and tense to care and she realized she was still wearing her beanie. She plucked it off irritably, and turned to look at her captor as he made an involuntary sound.

She raised an eyebrow at him. ‘What have I done now?’

‘Er—nothing,’ he responded. ‘Why on earth do you cover your hair?’

Jo ran her fingers through her cloud of dark gold hair. Someone had once told her it was the colour of beech leaves in autumn. True or not, she regarded it as her crowning glory, perhaps her only glory, and it was certainly her only vanity, her long, thick, silky hair.

She pushed her fringe back and shrugged. ‘It’s cold and dusty out there.’

His blue gaze stayed on her in a rather unnerving manner and she felt a tinge of colour steal into her cheeks because she had no doubt he was contemplating her figure.

She would have died if she’d known that it had crossed his mind to wonder whether that deep rich gold colour of her hair was duplicated on her body…

He turned his attention rather abruptly to her two bags, unpacking the entire contents of the smaller one onto the table.

Jo sipped her coffee and watched as he went through every item of clothing she’d brought, her writing case, books, sponge bag and make-up, her first-aid kit. He upended her canvas tote bag and her diary, her phone, a map and her purse fell out together with a bag of sweets and some tissues.

He picked up the phone. ‘This isn’t any good to us out here, we’re out of mobile range.’

‘So I gathered,’ she said bitterly.

He smiled unpleasantly. ‘Did you try to get in touch with them after you left Cunnamulla? I would have thought they’d have warned you about that—or supplied you with a satellite phone. Joanne Lucas,’ he read as he examined her credit card, her diary, her Medicare card and her driver’s licence.

‘If you go back to the diary, you’ll find my address, my doctor, my dentist and possibly my plumber and electrician.’ She eyed him ironically.

He didn’t respond, but started to repack the bag. The sight of him handling her underwear again annoyed her intensely, however, and she jumped up. ‘I’ll do that!’

‘OK.’ He pushed it all down the table towards her and reached for the bigger bag. ‘Painting gear, from the earlier look I took at it,’ he said.

He took out a collapsible easel, a heavy box of oil crayons, charcoal pencils, a sheaf of cartridge paper and a smaller box of sharpeners and rubbers. ‘Now that—’ he sat back ‘—has to be an inspired bit of camouflage, Ms Lucas.’

‘You can believe what you like but, as I tried to tell you earlier, I was commissioned by Mrs Adele Hastings of Kin Can station to do her portrait. That’s why I’m here.’

‘Mrs Adele Hastings is not on Kin Can.’

Jo stared at him. ‘But I spoke to her only a few days ago to make the final arrangements!’

He shrugged and folded his arms.

‘How do you know she’s not there, anyway?’ Jo asked.

‘I…made it my business to know.’

Jo frowned. ‘Are you some demented, latter-day bushranger? Or a boundary rider gone berserk? Is that what this is all about?’

‘Go on.’

‘What do you mean, “go on”?’ Her frustration was obvious. ‘All I’m trying to do is make some sense of it.’

‘Fascinating stuff,’ he commented. ‘Just say I were either of those, what would it lead you to assume?’

She gestured with both hands. ‘You…held up the homestead, got sprung maybe, escaped, mistook me for reinforcements and took me hostage—’ She broke off abruptly and her grey eyes dilated as she castigated herself for even mentioning the possibility.

He smiled. ‘Well, it so happens I did escape, Jo. And not long before I did so, I heard them calling their back-up, by the name of Jo—Joe—whatever, and requesting confirmation of what the back-up vehicle would be. They repeated what they were told—a silver-grey Range Rover.’

This time her eyes virtually stood out on stalks. ‘That’s…that’s—’

‘Coincidence?’ he suggested sweetly. ‘I don’t think so.’ His mouth hardened. ‘Then there’s the fact that you drove in by the back gate, as instructed, which took you a long way out of your way but, being a woman, I presume, you neglected to think of the extra petrol you might need.’

Jo opened and closed her mouth a couple of times, then, ‘So that’s why it seemed a lot further than I’d calculated. But—’ she stopped to think briefly ‘—what happened to the front gate?’

His gaze narrowed on her. ‘You know,’ he said at last, ‘you might be whole lot cleverer than I first thought. You’re certainly an inspired liar—what the hell could have happened to the front gate?’

Jo gritted her teeth. ‘According to Mrs Adele Hastings, the front gate, the main gate, the only gate she mentioned should have been about fifty kilometres back from the gate I drove through. And it should have been well signposted. “You won’t miss it,” she told me. “It’s a big black truck tyre with the name painted in white on it.” Believe me, I kept my eyes peeled but I saw nothing like that.’

His eyes narrowed but he maintained the attack from a different direction. ‘And you just kept on driving all those extra kilometres?’ he taunted.

‘Yes, I did! But only after I used my mobile phone to contact Kin Can only to find I’d gone out of range. That road was quite good, though, and I thought—what’s fifty kilometres to country people?’

A glimmer of a smile lit his eyes but it was gone as soon as it came.

‘Nevertheless, you have it right. I do intend to hold you hostage, sweetheart, so I hope you mean something to whoever you’re working for, otherwise things could be a little nasty for you.’ He stood up. ‘Care for some soup? Or there’s baked beans, uh, tinned spaghetti—’

Jo went to slap his face, only to end up pinned in his arms.

‘Now, now, Lady Longlegs,’ he said softly. ‘You may be pretty athletic, but you’re no match for me.’

‘Don’t call me that!’

‘I’ll call you what I like. I’m the man with the gun, remember?’

Jo shivered.

He felt it through her clothes and it crossed his mind again that, in different circumstances, Jo Lucas was his kind of woman—tall, with lovely, clean lines and some fascinating curves. As for her face, perhaps not a face to look twice at in the first instance, he thought, but once you did, it held the eye.

Her skin was smooth and creamy, but her lashes and eyebrows were darker than her hair and they framed her grey eyes admirably. Her nose was straight, her mouth was actually fascinating with a slightly swollen bee-stung upper lip that excited a rash impulse to kiss it he had to kill rather swiftly…

And the whole was completely natural, no trace of make-up, no plucking of her eyebrows into coy arches and, he glanced down at her hands, no painted nails.

So what does that all tell me? he wondered. She’s a practical, serious-minded person but rather unexpectedly lovely in her own quiet way?

He chewed his lip and stilled the sudden movement she made to free herself and again their gazes clashed. He smiled inwardly at the proud expression in her grey eyes that told him she was hating every moment of being confined in his arms against her will.

If looks could kill, I should be six feet under, he reflected wryly. I wonder how she reacts to being made love to? Soberly or…

He paused his thoughts with an ironic lifting of his eyebrows, and she blinked in sudden confusion as if she’d been trying to read his mind, and failed.

Just as well, he mused with a certain humour, and attempted to direct his thoughts into a more businesslike channel, only to find himself speculating on how she’d got roped into this diabolical situation.

She was bound to be someone’s lover, surely? Brought in on a tide of passion, perhaps—but no, it just didn’t seem to fit her. Neither did she look venal, although it was hard to tell with women. But what was left? A grudge? What the hell could she, personally, have against him? A grudge against society, then, or…

That was when he paused to ask himself if there could be some mistake?

But how about all those coincidences? Too many to be believable? Yes. On the other hand, she appeared to have no suspicious equipment, no equipment at all other than a useless mobile phone. But did that preclude her from simply driving a back-up vehicle? It did not and he couldn’t afford to take any chances anyway.

He let her go abruptly.

‘I’ve had a thought,’ she said quietly. ‘While you’re holding me hostage here, the real Joe, if there is such a person, is probably making his way to the homestead as we speak.’

His eyes narrowed again. ‘Time will tell, lady.’

‘Who are you?’ It came out unwittingly and she bit her lip but, once said, she decided to persevere. ‘At least tell me what’s going on. Surely, as a hostage, I’m entitled to know what I’ve got myself into?’

Several expressions chased across his eyes—did she imagine it or was one of them a trace of perplexity? If so, it was immediately replaced with bland insolence.

‘Got yourself into?’ he repeated. ‘A bed of your own making, I would imagine, Jo. In the meantime, I don’t know about you, but it’s going to be baked beans and biscuits for me.’

Two hours later, the hut was quiet and dim.

Jo had eaten a few spoonfuls of baked beans, she’d attended to a call of nature in the rough outhouse attached to the hut, and been attended in turn by her captor. When she’d finished, they’d both stood outside for a short time, listening and trying to probe the dense, chill darkness for any sign of life, but there had been none.

In Jo’s case, she’d also been trying to get her bearings just in case an opportunity to escape came up.

Then he’d shepherded her inside and told her to go to sleep.

The beds were along the walls at right angles to each other, their thin grey and white ticking mattresses unadorned by sheets, although each bed had one dismal-looking pillow and one hairy-looking blanket.

She took her anorak off again and her boots, and prepared to lie down, but he stopped her suddenly.

‘Get your night gear on,’ he ordered.

‘What for?’

‘You are going to bed.’

She gestured contemptuously. ‘You call this a bed?’

‘It’s all there is.’

‘Perhaps, but I’d feel much happier in my clothes. There could be fleas, there could be ticks, there could be—anything.’

‘All the same, Jo, I’d rather you got into your PJs. I’ll get them for you.’ He picked up her bag.

‘No—hang on!’ she protested with her hands planted on her hips. ‘If you think I’m going to afford you some kind of a peep show, if that’s why you want me to change into pyjamas, you’re mistaken, Dick!’

He raised a lazy eyebrow and scanned her from head to toe. Her hands-on-hips posture and her straight back made the jut of her breasts particularly enticing beneath the fine pale blue wool of her jumper.

‘What a pleasant thought,’ he said softly, eyeing the outline of her nipples and the narrowness of her waist. ‘But—’ his lips twitched as she looked downwards and hastily amended her stance ‘—sadly, it wasn’t what I had in mind. I fully intended to step outside while you changed.’

‘So why…what…?’ She stared at him in confusion.

‘It’s simple, sweetheart,’ he said. ‘You’re much less likely to be running around the countryside in your nightwear, should you devise some devilish plan of escape. Apart from anything else—’ he smiled at her with pure devilry ‘—you’d freeze. Don’t be long,’ he added. ‘I’m not too happy about freezing either.’ He stepped outside.

Jo unclenched her jaw and said every swear word she could think of beneath her breath. But there was nothing for it other than to retrieve the least revealing of the two pairs of pyjamas she’d packed, and change into them.

‘Decent?’ he called.

‘Yes.’

‘Decent and—mad,’ he murmured as he came in, closed the door behind him and rearranged the blanket. ‘Mmm.’ He scanned her from head to toe. ‘I see you kept your bra on. Not much protection against—anything, I would have thought.’

Jo looked down at her pyjamas. In a fine white cotton, with bands of filigree embroidery, her bra was visible beneath the top, but the alternative had been a pair of short, sleeveless pyjamas in a sensuous lilac satin.

She raised her gaze to his face. ‘I’ll get even with you one day for all this if it’s the last thing I do.’

‘Should be interesting. Go to bed, Jo.’

‘What…what are you going to do?’

‘Wait and watch, what else?’

‘If you dare try crawling into my bed—’ she began, but he cut her off.

‘I don’t actually hold with rape, whatever else you may think of me. I prefer my women warm and willing. Unless—’ he cocked an eyebrow at her ‘—a bit of hostility is what turns you on?’

‘You’re disgusting,’ she said through her teeth.

He laughed softly. ‘There is quite—a body of evidence that would disagree with you.’

‘I can imagine. Gangster molls, no doubt.’

His expression cooled. ‘Certainly none of them have been as good an actress as you are, my dear.’ He turned away to pick up her boots, her anorak and her bag of clothes and he slung them onto the loft.

Jo could have screamed from frustration. Instead, with an expression of rigid distaste but supreme self-control, she lay down on the bed and pulled the blanket up.

Sleep, of course, was the furthest thing from her mind, although she closed her eyes a couple of times as the fire in the stove burnt low, and her captor lounged back in the armchair—with his gun across his knees.

If she could feign sleep, she reasoned, perhaps he would lower his guard, even fall asleep himself? But what could she do if she managed to sneak out of the hut? He had her car keys in his pocket and he’d locked the car; her clothes and boots were out of reach. And, as he had so diabolically foreseen, running around the rough terrain outside in her bare feet and pyjamas was highly unappealing if not to say inviting pneumonia and injury.

But perhaps I could hide, she mused. He doesn’t appear to have a torch and perhaps I could sneak a blanket out with me?

She strained her eyes in the gloom and stared at the door. There was no lock, only a bolt on the inside and—her heart started to beat faster as she remembered—a bolt on the outside as well. How much better if she could not only sneak out and find a place to hide, but lock the man inside the hut as well? If he was trying to escape detection for whatever reason, he’d hardly shoot his way out of the hut…

She took some deep breaths to compose herself and moved slightly. The bed squeaked a bit but he didn’t stir.

Gotcha, she thought, but decided to wait a while longer in case he was only cat-napping.

Ten minutes later, she sat up cautiously, and waited. No movement from the armchair, so she eased herself off the bed and flinched at the series of squeaks. Still no movement from the chair, though, but she stood quietly, trying to adjust her eyes to the gloom. The fire was nearly out in the stove but eventually she could see him. He was sprawled out with his head back and one arm hanging over the side of the chair.

The gun was still in his lap and an almost overwhelming temptation came to her—she only had to steal forward and grab it—but she had no knowledge of guns at all. What was there to know, though? Anyone could pull a trigger, not necessarily at him, but if he knew she was prepared to fire the damn gun wouldn’t that be enough?

Then he moved and she froze. But all he did was turn slightly and bring his arm up so that his hand rested across the gun. And he muttered something unintelligible, but slept on.

Almost weak with relief, Jo stayed where she was for a few minutes, but decided that grabbing the gun was out—she could get herself shot. And she lifted the blanket off the bed and tiptoed towards the door where, with infinite care, she moved the blanket covering it aside and eased the bolt ever so slowly backwards.

‘Nice try, darling.’

She nearly jumped a foot off the floor and lurched round to find him standing behind her with the gun pointed straight at her heart. How he’d got there so soundlessly was a mystery.

‘Wh-what woke you?’ she stammered.

‘Don’t know. Some sixth sense, maybe. What—’ he looked at her ironically ‘—did you hope to achieve, Jo?’

Her shoulders slumped. ‘I don’t know. But,’ she said with more spirit, ‘I couldn’t just lie there and accept—fate or whatever!’

He stared down at her. There was an agitated pulse thudding at the base of her throat and her eyes were wide and terrified but also stubborn.

He heaved an inward sigh and lowered the gun. Whatever she was, this woman was getting to him, he acknowledged. There were things he couldn’t help admiring about her. You had to be brave to try to escape out into an unknown landscape on a frigid night with no shoes and only an old blanket.

But he still couldn’t afford to take the chance that she wasn’t who she said she was, however brave and—all the rest.

He turned away to put some more wood in the stove, then he stretched and studied his options. He had no idea what had woken him but one thing he did know—over twenty-four hours without sleep was taking its toll and his gaze fell longingly on the beds.

‘OK,’ he said, ‘here’s what we’ll do.’ He pushed her bed lengthwise against the other one, closing it in against the wall. ‘You hop into that one—’ he indicated the one against the wall ‘—and I’ll use this one.’

She opened her mouth to protest but he forestalled her wearily. ‘Jo, you’re in no physical danger from me. However, I should warn you that the only way you can escape from that bed is to climb over me, and you mightn’t find me in as conciliatory a mood were you to try. Now will you hop in?’

She hesitated, then did as she was told, to lie with her back to the second bed. He put her blanket over her and lay down, grappling with his own.

He was right, she realized. There was probably two inches’ leeway from the other walls at the head and the foot of both beds so she was effectively penned in. She sighed and wriggled a bit to get comfortable.

A sleepy voice behind her said, ‘You’re right. These are only an apology for beds. You’ll be pleased to hear, if you are Joanne Lucas, wandering portrait painter, that the beds up at the homestead are much more comfortable.’

‘How would you know?’

‘I’ve tried ’em.’

Jo frowned. ‘These people you imagine I’m part of—who are they? And why are you running from them?’

‘Kidnappers, as if you didn’t know.’

Jo cast her blanket aside and sat up. ‘Oh, this is ridiculous! Why would anyone, but particularly me, want to kidnap you?’

‘For my sins,’ her captor said, ‘I happen to be Gavin Hastings the Fourth.’