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  Shara’s generous smile emphasized her pearly teeth and lovely café au lait skin. She was dressed in what looked like a traditional Eastern costume of cream silk trousers, caught at the ankles by gold embroidery, and a billowing blouse cinched at the waist by a gold circlet, with more embroidery at the wrists.

  Beside her, Jo felt positively plain in the uncrushable teal linen pants and matching sleeveless vest she’d insisted on changing into at camp before letting Blake deliver her to the homestead. Although her assignment hadn’t allowed for socializing, she had brought this suit for traveling and felt it fitted the occasion better than jeans and a T-shirt, although there was a scattering of both among the party guests.

  “It’s a lovely night,” she agreed. “Thank you for letting me share your engagement party, Shara.”

  Jo felt odd calling the princess by her first name, but Shara had insisted when they first met, saying she’d had enough of titles in her own country to last a lifetime. “My pleasure,” Shara said. “Are you recovered from your close call with the crocodile this morning?”

  Jo suppressed a shiver. “It was terrifying, especially for Nigel, but thank goodness he wasn’t hurt.

  “I’m relieved to hear it, although I understand he decided to return home as a result.”

  Jo nodded. “I can’t say I blame him, can you?”

  Shara smiled. “Perhaps not. I’m relieved that the crocodile didn’t drive you away, as well.”

  Tom came up carrying a tray of drinks. The waves of love carried on the look he and Shara exchanged pierced Jo with unaccustomed longing. What must it feel like to know you were so totally loved?

  Shara retrieved a glass of wine for Jo and one of mineral water for herself, her fingers trailing over Tom’s gripping the tray. The two of them looked as if they couldn’t wait to be by themselves. When he moved away, the princess’s gaze lingered on him.

  “You must love him very much,” Jo observed.

  Shara took a sip of her mineral water. “Is it so obvious?”

  “Only to every eye in the gathering.” Smiling, Jo raised her glass. “May you and Tom always feel the way you do tonight.” She drank to the sentiment, then remembered the backgrounder she’d read on the family. “I understand it was you who discovered the ancient cave paintings that are helping to put Diamond Downs on the map.”

  Shara lowered her lashes. “The Uru civilization is a passion of mine. Tom and Blake actually found the cave when they were children.”

  “But you recognized the paintings on the walls as the work of the Uru and caused an international sensation. After the wire service picked up the story, my editor couldn’t wait to send me up here to do a feature.”

  Shara’s interest piqued. “Is your editor a fan of ancient history?”

  Jo shook her head. “Oddly enough, she hates history. But when she read about Des Logan and his special family, Karen was determined I should come to the Kimberley. She was the one who dreamed up the survival scenario.”

  The only thing that would have surprised Jo more was if Karen had announced she was undertaking the assignment herself. Her editor was the archetypal city girl, surgically attached to her cell phone and PDA. Jo could have sworn her boss had been itching to go, but had stopped herself for some reason. She had made Jo promise to report every detail of her experiences, holding nothing back. The request had almost offended Jo, and she’d reminded Karen that she knew how to do her job.

  The princess made a face. “When you arrived you told me you have a list of tasks to undertake and report on your progress. How will you manage alone?

  “I’ve already started on the shelter.” If gathering a heap of raw materials could be termed starting. She’d probably have made more progress if Nigel hadn’t insisted he knew how the job should be tackled. “Blake has offered me some guidance,” she added.

  Shara smiled. “You’re very brave.”

  “Not brave, persistent. I hate giving up on a challenge.”

  Shara gave her a conspiratorial look. “You may find Blake a greater challenge than dealing with the outback.”

  Jo felt warmth seep into her face. “I don’t have to deal with him. All he’s doing is helping me complete the assignment, nothing more.”

  Shara excused herself to mingle with the other guests. Jo was grateful to have a few minutes to herself. She hoped the others didn’t all think she was interested in Blake. He was a means to an end, that was all.

  Wasn’t he?

  Blake rested his forearms on the homestead veranda railing and watched Jo move gracefully among the guests. Every time she turned that high-voltage smile on one of the male guests and the man melted into a puddle at her feet, Blake wanted to head over there and drag her away. An odd impulse, considering he was avoiding romantic entanglements for the time being.

  After Rhonda Saffire, he’d believed it would be a long time before a woman interested him again. Rhonda had worked as a receptionist at Sawtooth Park and their relationship had meandered along for a few months without any real sparks, until they’d gradually stopped seeing each other. Then she’d come to tell him she was pregnant and that he was the father. Not physically impossible, just unlikely, considering he usually took the proper precautions. On the one occasion when he’d slipped up, she’d told him she was protected. She also knew that Blake’s experience of being unwanted until Des Logan took him in meant he wasn’t going to let any child of his grow up without a father.

  They’d have made it all the way to the altar if a friend of Blake’s hadn’t tipped him off that he’d been drinking with a man who claimed he was the father of Rhonda’s child. When Blake confronted the man, he’d confessed that he loved Rhonda but was scared of taking on a family. Given the choice between answering to Blake and facing his responsibilities, the man had chosen the latter course. Surprise, surprise, thought Blake.

  Later, a radiant Rhonda had shown him her engagement ring and apologized for lying to him. She admitted that she’d turned to him in panic after the real father of her child had let her down. Her fiancé hadn’t told her what had changed his mind, Blake gathered. To his surprise, he’d felt disappointed, having discovered he liked the idea of fatherhood a great deal. He missed that more than he missed Rhonda.

  Romance might not be high on his agenda for now, but it didn’t mean he was dead from the waist down. Or that he couldn’t appreciate Jo’s lithe, feminine movements and the enticing way her long hair rippled when she tossed her head.

  She was talking to Shara and he saw her laughing about something; then she looked up and saw him watching her. He felt the connection as a jolt of current stronger than one he’d received after accidentally touching an electric fence at the park. This also shocked him to the toes of his boots, but there was no cutoff switch, no way to short-circuit her effect.

  He could practically follow the sizzling bolt of energy as it arced between them. Her reaction came a split second later, as she rocked back on her heels, her eyes going wide with amazement until she dragged her gaze away.

  Blake had heard all the old chestnuts about eyes meeting across crowded rooms, but this was the first time he’d experienced the effect. The prospect of showing her around the outback suddenly seemed less like a favor to Des, and more of a no-holds-barred challenge.

  At least Blake could protect Jo from some of the dangers of the outback. Had she gone to the creek instead of Wylie, she might not have been strong enough to stop the crocodile from pulling her into the water.

  At the idea, he went cold from head to foot. Not long ago, an American model had been taken along Prince Regent Sound in the Kimberley, making headlines around the world. Blake had no business thinking of Gilgai’s actions as anything but a crime. In some countries, it was illegal to feed wild crocodiles. It should be in Australia, he thought. Then both Gilgai and his puppet master, Max Horvath, could be arrested for attempted murder. Since they couldn’t, Blake would have to make sure they didn’t harm Jo on his watch. From what he’d seen of her,
she wasn’t the type to welcome a protector, but for himself, he found the prospect thoroughly appealing.

  Midnight had come and gone by the time the party started to wind down. “Ready to go back to your camp?” Blake asked Jo as she sipped coffee and watched some of the guests dancing to recorded music. The dancers’ movements were slow and desultory, and in some cases downright stumbling, thanks to the effects of a much-depleted bar.

  She suppressed a yawn. “I should have called it a night long ago, but it seemed a shame to break up the party.” She didn’t add that she was reluctant to exchange the cozy atmosphere of the homestead for an isolated camp where danger lurked around every corner. She’d told Blake she was seeing the assignment through, and she wouldn’t back down now.

  He glanced around. “Some of this mob will still be here for breakfast. In the outback, you stay or go according to your own schedule.”

  She placed her coffee cup on a table, stood up and stretched. “How come you’re so bright-eyed and bushy tailed?”

  He winked, sending a jolt to her insides. Probably the result of too much late-night caffeine, she decided. “Years of staying out all night catching crocodiles,” he said.

  She shuddered at the thought of meeting one of the prehistoric monsters in the dark on their own territory. “Sooner you than me.”

  The Jeep stood waiting on the edge of the lighted circle. “Would you like to drive?” he asked.

  Her tired smile told him she appreciated the choice, but she shook her head. “I haven’t driven one of these before.”

  “In daylight, I’ll give you lessons. Or we can take your rental car if you prefer.”

  “I’ll leave it here as we agreed. Your vehicle is better equipped for this terrain.” And she was almost out on her feet, so she’d probably run them off the dirt roads into a creek, whatever they were driving.

  She was blearily aware of joining Blake in making their farewells, and then they were driving away from the homestead into the star-studded blackness. The Jeep rocked in sync with the corrugated road and she was soon nodding.

  “Are you asleep?” he asked when she had been silent for some time.

  She forced her heavy lids open and lifted her hair off her nape with two hands. “Are we there yet?”

  He laughed, the luxuriant sound resonating through her. “You sound about thirteen.”

  Her tone was husky as she said, “You’re half-right.”

  “You’re twenty-six?”

  “Twenty-seven next month. I was speaking figuratively.”

  “You’ll have to tell me what day and we’ll celebrate.”

  “Most men don’t bother remembering such details.”

  “I’m not most men.”

  Tell me something I don’t know, she thought. Out loud, she asked, “So when’s yours?”

  “I don’t know.”

  She gave a start. “How can you not know your birthday?”

  “It’s a long story.”

  She straightened. “You started this, and we don’t have anything else to do right now.” Nothing they should be doing, at least. What the late hour and the isolation suggested, she was better off not thinking about.

  His voice reached her out of the darkness. “To know your birthday, you need to know where and when you were born.”

  The Jeep tilted forward as it topped the rise. “I get it. You don’t know because you were left on a stranger’s doorstep when you were only a couple of weeks old,” she said, quoting her research. Thirty years ago, his story had been front-page news.

  “If you know so much, why ask me?”

  Recoiling from the resentment in his voice, she said, “I wasn’t sure if your mother ever got in touch with you again.” Her research hadn’t been able to confirm that detail.

  “If she tried, I wasn’t there to meet her.” The harshness in his tone rejected any possibility.

  “By then, I suppose you’d moved to the outback?”

  Blake gave a hollow laugh. “Eventually. After my first foster parents found out they were having their own child and I became surplus to their requirements. I decided if I was that unlovable, I may as well act the part, getting myself chucked out of a succession of foster homes.”

  She swore colorfully, earning an answering murmur from him. “My thoughts exactly. Then I came up against Des and Fran Logan, who refused to give up on me.”

  His voice held no trace of self-pity so although her heart ached for him, she felt bound to match his steadiness. “Des is a good man.” He’d made Blake into a good man, too, when the outcome could so easily have been different.

  “Now it’s your turn,” Blake said.

  She shifted uncomfortably. Turnabout was fair play, but she hated talking about herself. It was probably why she’d become a journalist—so she could probe other people’s histories without revealing too much of her own. “Not much to tell. Father and mother, both doctors, currently working on a research project in Vanuatu. Two older brothers, one a computer whiz kid, the other a money market expert. They’re married with kids, but they still think it’s their mission in life to protect me from absolutely everything.” They’d been horrified when she told them about this assignment and had tried to talk her out of coming; they backed off only when they saw her resolve hardening instead of weakening.

  “Because you were abducted from a public event when you were six,” Blake put in.

  She strove to keep the aversion out of her voice. “How did you find out?”

  “Like you, I believe in doing my homework. I wanted to know why a city girl would voluntarily maroon herself in the outback for a month.”

  “It’s my job,” she said, sounding defensive despite her best efforts. “Your research must have told you I was with my abductor for all of five hours before the police found me and took me home. The poor old woman had dementia and thought I was her little girl, who had to be in her thirties by then. While I was with her, we watched cartoons and she fed me ice cream. I thought it was pretty cool.”

  “The way I thought being left on a doorstep was cool,” he commented.

  “Maybe I do want to show my family they don’t need to protect me all my life. So what?”

  Blake drove into the camp and cut the engine. The sound was immediately replaced with the buzz and rustle of nocturnal life. He let his hands slide off the wheel and turned to her. “First rule of handling a new species—find out what makes them tick.”

  A sensation of raw need coiled through her, urgently pushed away. “For the record, I’m not a new species, and there’s going to be no handling involved.” The very idea made her throat feel dry and her hands go damp. Blake’s unexpected substitution for Nigel had thrown her, she told herself. Yet Nigel’s words had never made her heart beat this fast.

  Thinking of what Blake might do with more than words drained the last of her strength. If she hadn’t been sitting in the car, she’d have sunk to the ground. Lifting her into his arms, Blake would have found her mouth, and the needs she’d been tamping down all evening would have flared into fiery passion.

  She blinked hard, struggling back to full wakefulness. What was she doing, imagining herself in Blake’s arms? Just because she hadn’t found Mr. Right yet didn’t mean she was ready to fall into the arms of the first man who came along, even if he was a walking, talking female fantasy.

  The fantasy unfastened his seat belt and reached into the back to retrieve his holdall and tropical sleeping bag. He’d collected both from Sawtooth Park after meeting Cade at the airport. At first, the prospect of his company had reassured her; now, she wondered if having him around was such a smart idea, given the way he made her feel.

  “Out here, city girl is an introduced species,” he continued. “You’re checking out the new environment and uncertainty is making you defensive. You’ve spotted a promising male and you’re instinctively making overtures to attract his attention, but you’re uncertain if it’s the right thing to do.”

  Was he reading her m
ind now? Her fingers froze on the seat belt release.

  “Puh-lease. Next thing you’ll have us sending out mating signals.”

  “What do you think we’ve been doing all evening? Humans are no different from animals. We dress up our mating rituals in fancy clothes and expensive restaurants, but the objective is the same—survival of the species.”

  Because he was uncomfortably close to being right, she took refuge in sarcasm. “Good grief, I’ve walked onto the set of the Nature Channel.”

  “We live on it. All humans do.” His tone warmed. “You felt the pull between us the second we met.”

  A pulse jumped in her neck. “In your dreams.”

  “That, too,” he said without missing a beat.

  She got out of the car but kept a hand on it as if braced for flight. “I suppose having driven off your rival, you’re now staking out the female?”

  “You’re getting the idea.”

  Anger swirled through her, although some of it was at his perceptiveness, she recognized. She had picked up the signals flashing between them, and her responses were as primitive as his animal analogy suggested. Arousal stronger than anything she’d ever felt. Annoyance that he could read her so easily and completely.

  And fear.

  Blake Stirton was exciting but dangerous. He saw life in far more basic terms than she did. Thinking she should be scarred by her childhood experience, for example, when it was no more than a glitch on her life’s radar screen. Assuming because the sparks were there, she intended to act on them.

  He was wrong on all counts. The outback might be his world, but hers was the city, with its nonstop excitement and shops where you had more than one choice of everything. The crocodile hunter and his habitat were an assignment, nothing more.

  He came around to her side of the car and she tensed, but he brushed past on the way to the tent. One tent. Why hadn’t she asked him to set up another so they wouldn’t have to share? At least there were two cots, and he’d brought his own sleeping bag. Zipped up in hers, she’d have more to worry about than arousal. Like how to go to the bathroom without getting eaten by a crocodile.