CULLEN'S BRIDE Page 5

  She knew who her saviour was without looking, even though she hadn't seen Cullen since the hospital incident over two weeks ago. Ever since she'd arrived at the Hansons' barbecue, which was an annual event and as much a business meeting for the various farmers and stock buyers as a social get-together, she'd been aware of Cullen.

  "Thank you," she muttered, jerking at the heel of her shoe, which had gotten wedged between two payers. She'd been so surprised and distracted to find Cullen all but blocking her route to the trestle tables that she hadn't watched where she was stepping. She should have remembered how uneven the Hansons' patio was. She should have remembered she was back in the country, where dressing for a barbecue meant jeans or cutoffs and sturdy footwear, not a silky dress and barely-there Italian shoes.

  Of course the shoe wouldn't budge. Cullen took the tray from her and set it aside, and before she could protest, he went down on his haunches and wrapped one big calloused hand around her ankle as he eased her foot from the shoe. The heat from his palm seared her skin.

  He looked up, straight into her eyes, his gaze faintly sardonic, cold and light against his olive skin and the midnight-sleek hair he'd pulled into a ponytail at his nape. "Are you going to take the other one off, City Girl? Or are you going to risk a broken ankle?"

  Flushing, Rachel jerked her ankle from his hands. Why hadn't she done that before? She slipped out of her other shoe while Cullen prised the stuck heel from the paver. He straightened, handing both shoes to her.

  Rachel accepted them, resisting the urge to snatch them back. "Saved again," she said coolly. "This is getting to be a habit."

  His mouth curled at one corner, but she sensed that this time the mockery was directed inward. "Only with you."

  "And Dane Trask. I hear he's staying out at your place."

  Cullen shrugged, the movement straining the light shirt he was wearing. "He's moved into the old shearers' quarters. It's hardly the Ritz."

  She stared down at the shoes she still held in her hand, then, without compunction, tossed them into a corner. "You gave him a break when no one else would."

  "He doesn't need another beating, that's for sure."

  She looked him squarely in the eye. "You're a nice man, Cullen Logan, no matter how hard you try to convince people otherwise."

  "Nice doesn't come into it. I need a hand, and I've had trouble getting casual labour. Dane's going to work harder than he's ever done in his life, first painting the shearers' quarters, then fencing."

  "And then the horses."

  "And then the horses," he agreed. "He's read every one of those magazines you dropped off to him twice over."

  Rachel couldn't help but smile. Dane had been embarrassed when she'd waked onto the ward, but as soon as he'd spied the magazines, he'd lost all awkwardness and talked non-stop about quarter horses and thoroughbreds until she'd had to leave a half hour later. According to Dane, he was more than happy to fix fences as long as he got to work with the prime horseflesh that had been left to run wild on Cullen's land. "Will you be able to keep him off … whatever he was on?"

  "It won't be easy. I can't control what's in his mind. He has to do that."

  The breeze lifted, blowing hair across Rachel's face and making the skirt of her dress float, then catch in a drifting shimmer of apricot silk as it snagged on Cullen's thigh. His long brown fingers closed on the silk, detaching it from the coarser, rougher denim; then he opened his hand, dropping the silk as if it had burned him.

  With a curt nod of dismissal, he returned to his lounging position against a shady pergola and continued his discussion with a local stock buyer.

  Rachel retrieved the tray of steaks from the chair Cullen had set it on. Her pulse was too rapid, and after being reasonably content and looking forward to a relaxing evening of socialising, she now felt brittle and tense, overwhelmed by a heightened awareness. The party was suddenly too loud, the laughter too brash, and the sharp scent of the charcoal barbecue ruined what little appetite she'd had. Despite her bewilderment and panic at her response to Cullen, she hadn't realised how badly she'd wanted him to follow up on the attraction she'd been sure was mutual.

  He'd just made it as clear as ice he wasn't going to.

  * * *

  "Nice," Russ Jones drawled as he handed Cullen a beer. "Thinking of trying your luck?"

  The beer frothed, ice-cold where Cullen tore the tab away. He regarded Russ narrowly. "Not my type," he said, resettling his shoulder against the pergola and watching as Rachel placed the tray on a trestle table near the barbecue.

  The wind pressed the fabric of her halter-neck dress against her feminine curves, reminding Cullen of exactly why she wasn't his type. A man could grow addicted to a body like that and forget everything that mattered—including who he was and, most especially, who he could never be.

  Russ lifted one blond brow in disbelief. "Mate, you're still breathing, aren't you? Judging from the conversation, every single man here who still has a pulse reckons she's exactly his type. And some who aren't single." He took a long pull at his beer and grinned. "Think I might get my hair cut next Friday."

  Cullen's jaw tightened. He wished with a sudden impatient savagery that Russ would go back to talking about beef prices and look the hell away from Rachel. That dress was worse than her being naked. She looked lush and fragile at the same time, the kind of combination that drove most men wild with lust—especially country boys who'd been staring at the ass-end of cows all day.

  He swallowed a mouthful of beer, willing his muscles to unlock, willing the ache in his groin to dissipate. When he'd arrived tonight, it had taken just one look at Rachel's silky hair and that beautiful stubborn mouth and the expected heat had slammed into him, putting paid to any plans he might have had of smoothing the restless edge off his mood. When he'd wrapped his fingers around her slim ankle, he'd wanted to do a lot more than just take her shoe off.

  Somebody started some dance music going. Cullen scanned the gathering of farmers, work hands and their families, all gathered to celebrate the successful end to Riverbend's annual stock sale. Rachel was at the centre of a lively group—most of them men—and one of them was Richard Hayward, a walking, talking advertisement for Gentleman's Quarterly. Hayward was senior partner in the law firm that did the lion's share of the legal work for several small country towns, including Riverbend. Just the thought of him putting his elegant, manicured hands on Rachel's pale skin filled Cullen with an irrational fury.

  He didn't trust Hayward. Fifteen years ago, the lawyer had offered to represent Cullen free of charge when Cullen had been pulled in for questioning about his father's death. But something about the smoothness of the offer, the casual assertion that Cullen needed representation, when he knew damn well there was no case the police could bring against him, had made Cullen instantly wary. The subsequent offer to dispose of Cullen's land for him had grated, too, even though at that point in time—in the cold anonymity of the police interview room—he'd had no desire to retain the land, no desire to do anything but get out of Riverbend and never come back.

  Hayward had changed Cullen's mind just by being nice.

  Nice hadn't sat easily with the coldness in Hayward's eyes. Especially when he'd never offered anything other than contempt or indifference before.

  A woman insinuated herself into the group, and Cullen recognised Hayward's wife, Caroline. She was no less elegant than her husband—her silk blouse and matching pants moulding a body that was as expensively well looked after as her carefully tended face and blond hair.

  Cullen's jaw tightened. He wondered what the couple were doing at a simple country gathering like this. The Haywards had moved out of Riverbend years ago, when Richard had taken his father's place in his practice in Fairley, and from all he'd heard, city lights and city vices were more to their taste than a farm barbecue.

  As if the intensity of his scrutiny had pulled at her, Caroline Hayward paused in her disinterested perusal of the crowd. Her eyes flew wide when she fin
ally spotted him. She jerked her gaze away just as her husband handed her a glass of some clear liquid. Lifting the glass, she took a long swallow. From the hectic colour that spread across her cheeks, Cullen deduced it wasn't water she was knocking back.

  Hayward looked at him then, and something about the bland lack of reaction in his glance sent cold warning snaking down Cullen's spine. Beside him, Russ crumpled his now empty beer can. The sound was preternaturally loud, even against the considerable background noise of the party.

  "Here comes the cavalry," Russ murmured.

  Cullen barely acknowledged Russ's comment, but a cold smile touched his mouth as Cole Sinclair, six-foot-two of mean, hard muscle, insinuated himself into Hayward's group and slid an arm around Rachel's waist. The man might as well have hung a Don't Touch sign around his sister's neck.

  It was crazy. Cullen hardly knew her, and she wouldn't tolerate it, but he'd wanted to do the same thing himself. "They'll have to get past Cole and maybe even some of those other big brothers of hers," he commented. "Now I'd really like to see that."

  * * *

  "What were you doing with Logan?" Cole asked in clipped tones as he walked Rachel far enough away from the socialising groups to ensure privacy.

  "It's none of your business," she retorted, "but my shoe got stuck in a paver. Cullen caught the meat tray before I dropped it and ruined everybody's dinner."

  "It didn't look like the tray he was holding to me."

  Rachel stepped away from Cole's hold, perversely wishing she had her two-inch heels back. Closer to eye-level contact might just remind Cole she was out of school. "He was giving me a lecture, not a come-on."

  The grim set to Cole's mouth told her that he didn't believe a word she'd said. "Stay away from him, Sis. You've had enough grief. Cullen's a hard man. The only thing I've ever heard of him doing with a woman is taking her to bed."

  Rachel didn't bother to disguise her incredulity. "Isn't that a bit like the pot calling the kettle black? And how can you possibly know how Cullen treats women? He hasn't been in Riverbend for years."

  Cole had the grace to flush, but his eyes were hard. "Cullen's old man was a violent drunk, and for a while it looked like Cullen was headed down the same road. I'm not saying Cullen's the same, but the history's there. I just don't want you building him up in your mind. He saved you from being hurt, but he's trained for combat. Cullen's spent the last fifteen years in the army, most of that in the Special Air Service. He could probably have killed the guy who attacked you without breaking sweat."

  His words dropped like stones into her mind, blocking out all the good-natured revelry, the too loud music. For a few seconds she was back in the alley, smelling the acrid scent of Dane Trask's sweat, along with something else sharper, more disturbing—glue or another potentially lethal substance. Then Cullen had been there. In contrast to the corruption and ruin of the boy, he'd been clean and strong.

  And that was what she couldn't forget. Cole could tell her how "wrong" Cullen was, but nothing could change the clarity of that first impression. Rachel might be as dumb as a post where relationships were concerned, but she knew gallantry and honest care when she saw it. When she'd needed it to be, everything about Cullen had been "right."

  * * *

  Rachel talked and danced her way through most of the evening, but she felt as if she were playing a part. No matter how hard she tried, her mind remained attuned to the tall, broad-shouldered figure propping up the pergola beside another shorter man. She knew exactly when Cullen filled his plate with steak and salad, and that he preferred plain rolls to garlic bread, ice-cold beer to hard spirits, and not too much of it.

  He spoke, he socialised, but there was an aloofness to him that repelled any but the most determined overtures. In such a physically powerful and attractive male, his intense aloneness was riveting. If he'd so much as smiled, women would have been all over him.

  Rachel tossed the paper plate with her barely touched meal into one of the conveniently placed rubbish sacks, and when she glanced up, she found herself staring at Cullen's profile. The now familiar jolt that just seeing him sent through her was replaced by an inexplicable wave of hurt. There's no reason to feel like this, she told herself fiercely. You don't know him. And he's made it plain he doesn't want to know you. Just when she was about to look away, Cullen turned his head. His eyes locked with hers. The movement and the glance were precise and deliberate. He'd been aware that she'd been watching him, and this was his way of telling her so.

  Rachel met his challenge with one of her own. He held her gaze, then inclined his head, granting her the minimum of courtesy before dismissing her. As snubs went, it was devastating. All the overheated blood drained from beneath her skin as swiftly as summer rain leaching through cracked, drought-stricken soil. If Rachel had one skill in life, it was communicating with people. It was the reason she enjoyed hairdressing, the reason she loved the whole concept of the family she'd never fully been a part of, and why she needed so much to put roots down in the hometown she'd never been given a chance to belong in. This man had blocked her as effectively as if she'd run into a solid wall.

  And not glass this time. Granite.

  Rachel turned back to the group of people she'd been eating with and plastered a smile on her face. It hurt that Cullen kept shutting her out. She'd tried to convince herself that she was simply suffering from the throes of a strong physical attraction. But she knew it was more than that, knew the single-minded intensity of her nature. Somehow, despite her wariness, Cullen had reached past her defences. Whatever was happening to her was out of control, and more dangerous, more compelling, than mere attraction.

  Rachel danced some more, talked with a woman who ran a local craft cooperative, and told herself she'd done enough. Rachel Sinclair had had the time of her life. No one would miss her if she walked off and grabbed herself some much needed solitude.

  The Hanson property was big, with well set out buildings, manicured lawns and gardens, and a view of the high country they all shared. Rounding a corner, she came to an abrupt halt. Cullen was leaning against a wooden railing, looking out over the newly cut hay paddocks, which stretched away like bleached, rough-cut velvet beneath an almost full moon.

  A little of the fighting spirit she'd once taken for granted welled up inside her, and she lifted her chin against the shadows that made his face look even darker, more dangerous, than it usually was. "Getting ready to do a little howling?"

  He made a soft sound that might almost have been a laugh. But she didn't believe that for a minute. She'd never seen Cullen smile; a laugh was beyond imagining.

  "You trying to get me run out of town?" he asked in a low voice. "The locals already give me a wide berth."

  She strolled closer, wondering if he could see through her pretence of casualness to the uncertainty that racked her. But his eyes revealed nothing; they still looked about as cold and giving as tempered steel. She set her hands on the top rail of the wood fence, the rough grain abrasive against her chronically sensitive hairdresser's palms. "Maybe if you smiled once in a while they might smile back."

  "I'm not much on smiling."

  "Or dancing."

  "You did enough for both of us."

  The way he coupled them together in the same sentence, his voice low and raspy, sent waves of heat through her. They could be lovers discussing the party, secure in the knowledge that when they lay down at night it was only with each other. Her fingers tightened convulsively on the fence, and she felt the sharp sting of a splinter sliding into her flesh. "I would have liked to have danced with you."

  "Didn't Cole read you the riot act?"

  Cullen hadn't even bothered to look at her, to acknowledge the enormous risk she'd taken in exposing her desire to dance with him. And for Rachel it was an unheard of exposure. She'd been brought up to accept her role as passive in the male-female relationship. Men chased; women waited. But suddenly that passivity infuriated her. It hadn't brought her the kind of marria
ge she'd needed, and it hadn't allowed her to keep her husband.

  With a deliberate movement she withdrew her hands from the fence and turned to face him, curling her fingers in on the small pain invading her palm, using the needle-sharp sting to remind her of everything she'd lost and the reasons why. "Cole's my brother, not my keeper."

  "But he warned you off."

  "Cole warns me not to burn my toast," she said with raw exasperation. "I don't see the point of this—"

  She stopped abruptly as his gaze pierced her. Impatience and restless energy vibrated from him, along with something else, a tension that was completely male. "I'm not a charity case, Miss Sinclair. I came to the barbecue to conduct business, and because these are my neighbours and I'd like their goodwill while I knock my property into shape. If I want a woman, I can get one."

  "And if I want a man, I can get one on my own." She paused. "For a time, anyway."

  He let out a slow breath. "I'm trying to save us both some strife. You don't know what you're getting into."

  She tilted her head, challenging him. "I was only talking about dancing. This doesn't mean we're engaged."

  His very stillness sent a shiver through her. She was staring into bright moonlight, while his face was eclipsed by shadow, and she was achingly aware of how alone they were.

  He shifted, and his shadow slipped over her, casting her into a darkness that held a sudden suffocating intimacy. His nearness made her acutely aware of his solid muscularity, the sheer density and power of his male body.

  "I wouldn't want to stop at a dance."

  The simple statement sent a jolt of pure feminine fear down her spine, but it wasn't enough to make her back off, because a dizzying elation came with it, too. "What makes you think I'd allow you anything more?"

  For a moment she thought he was going to touch her; then he turned back to the undulating fields, back to the velvet ebb and flow of the breeze. "Because you'd want it, too."

  "You don't have the first clue what I want," she returned quietly. She wanted to yell at him, to release the fierceness rising inside her, the terrible aching need to love and be loved. The need for a man who would see only her, want only her. It was a futile desire, but she was riding that emotional roller coaster again, and she'd lost her perspective the same way she'd lost her husband. Fast.