A Bride for the Maverick Millionaire

They were now high above the Timor Sea. The massive cliffs of the mainland towered above them, and hundreds of tiny islands dotted the seas beyond. This place seemed as wild and untouched as anywhere on earth. With Jason and Maud disappearing round a rock face, there was nothing in sight except rocks and sea and the tough wild plants that fought for survival. The sun was on their faces and Finn paused and thought that this was a place to get things in perspective. To get things right.

Rachel had paused as well and was gazing round her with awe.

‘The people who painted here seventeen thousand years ago,’ she whispered. ‘This is where they stood. What an absolute privilege to be here.’

He didn’t reply. There was no need. They simply stood and soaked in the sun and the place and the moment.

The silence stretched on, each of them deeply content, but at the back of Finn’s mind was a keen awareness of the woman beside him. How many women would stand like this, he wondered, in such silence? How many women that he knew?

Such a person must have learned the blessing of peace. The hard way?

‘We should get on,’ Rachel said at last, seemingly reluctant. ‘Maud will think we’ve fallen down a cliff.’

‘Not her. She’s having a wonderful time with Jason.’

‘She is, isn’t she?’ Rachel smiled with affection. ‘But Maud has a wonderful time with anyone. Her husband died a few months ago. She was shattered—she still is—but she puts it aside and concentrates on now. If she meets great people she embraces them as friends. If they’re not great, then she’s interested and tries to figure what makes them tick.’

‘Have you known her for long?’

She smiled at that. ‘Crazy as it seems, only for three weeks. We travelled on the Ghan together, the inland train running from Adelaide to Darwin. We were… Maud-embraced. My sister met Maud’s grandson and pow, that was it. My job at the university in Darwin doesn’t start until next month, so I took Hugo’s place on the ship. It’s surely no hardship.’

But the word had caught him. Pow. Everything else in her explanation seemed reasonable, but pow?

‘That was fast. Love at first sight…’ He couldn’t help the derisive note.

‘You don’t believe in it?’

‘Not in a million years. So how about you? Are you looking for pow yourself?’

‘No!’ The fear was back, just like that, and it brought him up fast.

He could have bitten out his tongue. What a stupid thing to ask.

‘Uh oh,’ he said ruefully. ‘I can’t believe I asked that. With what I know of you… that was extraordinarily insensitive. I’m so sorry. It’s none of my business.’

‘Like your private life is none of my business,’ she conceded and managed an apologetic smile. ‘I had no right to ask what you believe in—or why you’re travelling alone. Or even why you’re not wearing lipstick.’

He grinned and the tension dissipated a little. ‘I guess it’s okay to be curious,’ he told her, and by mutual accord they started climbing again. ‘We’re not part of this ship’s demographic.’

‘Yeah, the passenger list comprises three honeymoon couples and everyone else is over fifty. Which leaves us hanging loose.’ The strain had disappeared and friendship again seemed possible. ‘I need to warn you,’ she said honestly, ‘Maud is a born matchmaker and, frankly, she’s scary. Now she thinks of you as a hero, I’m thinking she’ll try very hard to get us together. Maybe you should start a mad, passionate affair with one of the Miss Taggerts, just to deflect her.’

As the Miss Taggerts were both in their seventies, he was able to chuckle. And, thankfully, so did she.

The awkward moment was past. Excellent.

He needed to tread warily, he thought. He did want this woman to be a friend.

But nothing else. Despite Maud’s intentions, he surely wasn’t in the market for a relationship, especially not in the hothouse atmosphere of a cruise ship. He did not believe in pow.

But he did want her to be a friend, he conceded—even if she was a passenger and little—and exceedingly cute.

They rounded the next rocky outcrop and saw Jason and Maud, high on the cliff face, with Maud waving wildly down at them.

‘They’re here,’ she boomed, her elderly voice echoing out over the wilderness. ‘The paintings are here and they’re wonderful. This whole place is magic. Come up and join the spell.’

‘That’s my Maud,’ Rachel said, grinning. ‘There’s magic wherever she goes.’

And ditto for Maud’s Rachel, Finn thought, watching her wave back, but he didn’t say so.

He climbed up the scree behind her, careful of her even though she wouldn’t accept help. He watched her wince as she put strain on her obviously injured hip. He watched her greet Maud with laughter and then he saw her quiet awe as she looked at the paintings she’d waited a lifetime to see.

The art was extraordinary. Here was the depiction of life almost twenty thousand years before, stylized men and women who bore no resemblance to any identifiable race, animals that were long extinct, sketches that showed this vast rocky cliff had once looked out over grassy plains rather than a sea that must be junior in the scheme of time.

Finn had seen paintings like these the last time he’d done this cruise. Even so, his awe only deepened, and Rachel seemed almost unable to breathe.

She moved from painting to painting. She looked and looked, making no attempt to touch. Finn’s tour guides were trained to protect these wonders and Finn knew if Rachel tried to touch, Jason would stop her, but there was no need to intercede.

Maud was treating the paintings with the same respect, but Finn could see that half the old lady’s pleasure was seeing Rachel’s reaction.

Maybe that went for all of them. Rachel’s wonder was a wonder all by itself.

She examined everything. She saw the obvious paintings and then went looking for more. She slid underneath a crevice and found paintings on the underside of the rocks. She slid in further so she was in a shallow cave.

‘These look like pictures of some sort of wombat,’ she called. ‘On the roof. Oh, my… Come and see.’

‘I’m not caving for wombats,’ Maud retorted and Jason elected to keep his uniform clean so it was Finn who slid in after her.

She was looking in the half dark. Finn had a flashlight app on his camera phone. He shone it on the wombat-type animals and he watched her amazement.

‘They can’t have painted these here,’ she breathed, soaking in the freshness of ochre-red animals that looked as if they’d been painted yesterday. ‘This will have been the rock face. The gradual deformation of the magma will have pushed it sideways and under. Imagine how much art’s hidden, but how much has the cliff movement preserved? These rocks are the sentinels of this art. Silent keepers. It does my head in.’

He thought about it, or he tried to think about it. Artwork in geological terms. He looked again at the wombats—and then he looked at Rachel.

She was lying in the red dust, flat on her back, with the rock face art two feet above her head. She’d wriggled under the rocks, pushing dirt as she’d wriggled. Her blonde curls were now full of red dust, and there was a streak of red running from her forehead to her chin.

With the flashlight focused on the wombats, she was barely more than a silhouette, and a grubby one at that, and she wasn’t looking at him. She was totally engrossed in what she was seeing.

Friends?

That was fast, he thought ruefully. He’d decided he could think of this woman as a friend rather than… well, as a woman.

He’d thought it for a whole twenty minutes, but now he was lying in the dust beside her, her bare arm was just touching his, and he felt…

Like he had no business feeling. Like his life was about to get complicated.

Really complicated.

He did not want complications.

But she turned to him, her face flushed with excitement, and heaven only knew the effort it cost him not to take her face in his hands and kiss her.

How would she react?

The same way he’d react, he thought, or the same way he should react. He’d seen her fear. She didn’t want any sort of relationship and neither did he.

‘I can die happy now,’ she breathed, and that was enough to break the moment. To stop him thinking how much he really wanted to kiss her.

‘We’re not wedged that far under the rock,’ he managed. ‘I think if we try really hard we should be able to wriggle out. Maybe dying’s not an option.’

‘But you know what I mean.’

‘No,’ he said, and figured maybe he needed to take this further. There was something in Rachel’s voice that told him this place had been an end point, an ambition held close when things were terrible. If I can just hang on long enough to see the Kimberley art…

So now she’d seen the art, and maybe she’d need to do more than hang on, he thought. Given what he’d heard in her voice—maybe he should make a push to help her.

‘There’s lots of things I still need to do before I die,’ he told her, firm and sure. ‘Maybe not as magnificent as this, but excellent for all that. For instance, I believe today’s lunch on board is wild barramundi. Then we have Montgomery Reef to explore and the Mitchell River and the Horizontal Waterfalls. And, after that, when we get to Broome I’ve promised myself a camel ride. I’ve been there before but never had time to explore. And I hear there are dinosaur footprints in the Broome cliffs. How could I die before I see them?’

She hesitated in the half light before she spoke again, and he knew he was right to have been concerned. ‘I just…’ she whispered.

‘You just thought you could stop now? Think again.’ He couldn’t help himself. He leaned forward in the close confines of their cave and he kissed her, a feather touch, a trace of a kiss that brushed her lips and that was all. It had to be all.

‘Life is great,’ he told her, firmly and surely. ‘Ghastly things happen, but life’s still great. You remember what’s lost with regret, but you still look forward. There’s always something.’

‘You speak like you know…’

‘I’m not a wise old man yet, Rachel,’ he told her. ‘But I do know life’s good, and I do know that if I’d died yesterday I wouldn’t be lying here with you, and I do know there’s life after lunch as well. So shall we go find out?’

She gazed at him in the dim light and he gazed right back at her. She was so close. He could reach out and take her in his arms and kiss her as he wanted to kiss her—but he knew he couldn’t.

It wasn’t fair. It wasn’t right, and what was more, it’d make her run.

He was not his father.

Lunch. Sense. He managed a grin.

‘There’s mango trifle as well as barramundi,’ he said. ‘Who could ask for more?’

‘How do you know?’

‘Spying’s my splinter skill,’ he told her, mock modest. ‘I broke the code for the day’s lunch menu at breakfast.’

Her smile returned. It was a smile he was starting to know and starting to like. A lot.

‘Mango trifle?’ she managed. ‘Really?’

‘You have my word.’

‘I guess seventeen-thousand-year-old art fades into insignificance,’ she said, casting another look at the wombats.

‘Not quite,’ he said and managed not to kiss her again. That was twice he’d contained himself in as many minutes. He should get a medal. ‘But it’s close. You want me to haul myself out first and tug you after?’

‘I can manage on my own,’ Rachel said. ‘I haven’t done it very well yet, but I will now. I must.’

They walked back to the ship as a foursome. Jason and Rachel traded knowledge about the area, and by the time they reached the beach Finn realised Jason was eagerly soaking in a knowledge that was greater than his own.

Jason was a great kid and he was humble enough to recognise Rachel’s in-depth knowledge of this area. He’d done tour guide training for the Kimberleys, but Rachel’s background knowledge was awesome.

We could employ her, Finn thought, shifting back to owner mode. She’d be an awesome tour guide for his company.

He’d be her undercover boss.

Not going to happen.

Besides, she was still handicapped. By the time they reached the ship she was making a visible effort not to limp.

‘Hold Rachel’s hand as she crosses the ramp,’ Maud ordered him. ‘I don’t want anyone else falling in the water.’

He held out his hand, but Rachel shook her head.

‘Take it,’ he growled and she glanced up at him and flushed—and took it. They all visibly relaxed.

He led her onto the ship and then turned to make sure Jason had Maud safe.

‘I’m fine,’ Maud said, stepping nimbly back on board. ‘This morning was an aberration. Will you have lunch with us, Mr Kinnard?’

‘Thank you, but no.’

‘Why not?’ She fixed him with a gimlet eye and he was eerily reminded of two great-aunts who’d bossed him mercilessly as a child. In Maud’s presence, he felt about six again.

‘I prefer my own company,’ he said apologetically. A man did have to be sensible. ‘I have books I need to read.’

‘So does Rachel,’ Maud snapped. ‘And what good do books do her? Why do you prefer your own company? Are you married?’

It was an impudent question. Maud met his gaze with a look that said she knew very well she had no business asking, but what use was old age if she couldn’t take a few liberties?

He could have snubbed her—but he’d kind of liked those old aunts.

‘No,’ he conceded.

‘Are you gay?’

Rachel choked but he managed to keep a straight face.

‘No again.’

‘This isn’t one of those “This-is-my-honeymoon-I’ve-been-dumped-but-I’m-coming-anyway” set-ups, is it?’ she demanded and Rachel gasped.

‘Maud! That’s enough!’

‘I’m just asking,’ Maud said, innocent as butter. ‘He’s gorgeous. There has to be a reason why he’s on his own.’

He sighed. He didn’t want to tell her to mind her own business, but this was one fiery, intelligent lady and if he didn’t tell her something she’d go on probing. Maybe she’d even guess the truth.

‘You don’t need to tell us anything,’ Rachel said firmly. ‘Maud, leave the man alone.’

‘It’s no secret,’ he said, and managed a rueful grin. ‘I might not be married but I’m not exactly a loner. I have three blissful weeks without two kids, and I’m making the most of them.’ He glanced at Rachel and he saw the vulnerability in her eyes—and then he glanced at Maud and thought uh oh, maybe admitting to having kids was just going to lead to more questions.

So close the door on them, here and now.

‘What I’m about to tell you is a bit like telling you I’m an alcoholic,’ he said, softly but deadly serious, ‘then saying please don’t give me a drink. What I’m saying is that Connie and Richard are both the result of shipboard affairs. I like travelling but I don’t always like the consequences. Rachel says you like to matchmake, Dame Maud. Well, if I were you, I’d keep your Rachel far away from me. Grant me my peace, Dame Maud, and leave me alone with my books.’

CHAPTER TWO

WHY had he said that?

He watched both their faces change. He watched Dame Maud fight for the courage to ask more questions. He met her gaze levelly, coolly and he saw her decide that she wouldn’t.

She was a brazen old lady but she was also lovely. She knew when boundaries couldn’t be crossed.

‘Granted,’ she said at last, finally moving on. ‘Very well. Thank you for the warning. Mr Kinnard. Thank you also for rescuing me this morning.’

‘We’re very grateful,’ Rachel said, and she smiled. ‘But wow, you didn’t need to warn us off so dramatically. The matchmaking thing was dumb. Maud’s flushed with the success of her grandson’s engagement to my sister, but enough’s enough. I’m not about to fall into your arms—or anyone else’s for that matter. How embarrassing. Maud, you’re the limit. Now if you’ll excuse us… We’ll see you at lunch, Mr Kinnard, but I give you my word, we’ll leave you alone.’

So that was that. Excellent.

Or was it?

He headed for the shower and soaked for a long time, thinking about the morning, thinking about why he’d said what he’d said.

He’d just met a woman he thought was adorable. Rachel Cotton seemed a woman he’d really like to get to know.

But… was this the way his father had thought at the beginning of each and every one of his shipboard romances? He wouldn’t mind betting it was.

Finn’s grandfather had built a line of cruise ships that were world-renowned for their luxury and the fantastic places they went. The old man had been passionate about his ships and the experiences he gave his passengers.

Finn’s father, however, had inherited little of his father’s acumen but all of his love of luxury. He’d travelled the world, playing the wealthy ship owner, turning the heads of women he sailed with. They became his passion.

He’d selected innocents. He had a type. Little, cute, vulnerable women, sailing alone.

Finn was the first of his three known children, born to three different mothers and then totally rejected by their playboy father. Finn’s mother had returned from her once-in-a-lifetime cruise, nineteen years old, pregnant and sure her life was ruined. She’d died five years later, leaving Finn to be raised by his grandparents. As he’d grown old enough to enquire, he’d found he had a half-sister and a half brother who hadn’t even had the support he’d had.

Finn’s father had left the remnants of the shipping line to Finn on the condition he change his name. Finn’s first instinct had been to refuse. He hadn’t needed his father for thirty years; why take his money now?

But then he found out more about his younger half-siblings. They were still just kids, and both were desperately unhappy. Richard was packing shelves in a supermarket, but aching to study. Connie was working on an assembly line in a textile factory, and already starting to suffer from arthritis in her hands.

When his father had died, Finn had been working as a boat-builder. Maybe that was why his father had chosen him. His sources must have told him of Finn’s passion for boats—or maybe it was the fact that Finn’s grandparents had never thought of asking for his father’s assistance. It seemed the other women who’d borne him children had tried to get support and failed. But…

‘He gave us you, so we can’t hate him,’ his grandfather had told him. ‘But I’m darned if we’ll take anything else from him.’

Finn didn’t need his father, or his inheritance. The cruise line was in financial crisis. Split and sold off, it’d produce little.

But Connie and Richard haunted him. They had minimal education and no way forward without help.

A boat-builder couldn’t help them.

So he’d taken a risk. He’d accepted his father’s name, sold off the bigger ships and put what was left into a small line of intimate cruisers. He tailored his cruises to make them ecologically wonderful, exciting, fun. He took a wage but the remaining profits went into a family trust. He and Connie and Richard thus all inherited.

And somehow he’d found a life he loved. He’d established a relationship with Connie and Richard. He’d even become attached to two kids who were still disbelieving of their new life.

But now… Something was wrong with the Kimberley Temptress and he was determined to find out what. It was a challenge he relished.

He did not need the complication of being attracted to Rachel Cotton.

So he’d lied to her?

Not exactly lied.

Lied, his conscience told him. He’d implied that Connie and Richard were his children.

His half-brother and sister now shared his father’s massive house with him. Somehow over the last few years they’d established a loose sibling bond. It was true he was enjoying three weeks without Connie’s questionable taste in music, but as for escaping from children… Connie was now twenty-five, and Richard was twenty-one.

They still seemed like kids to him. They’d come from damaged homes. There were still times when they were vulnerable; when he needed to look out for them.

But they weren’t children, they weren’t his and he’d implied to Rachel and to Maud that they were.

The deception had been necessary, he told himself as he showered. With the connection he felt between himself and Rachel—with this weird, uncalled for attraction, and with Maud obviously set on making the most of it—he’d done what he must to protect both Rachel and himself.

‘You could have done it without lying,’ he told himself.

‘I didn’t lie,’ he said out loud.

‘That’s semantics. You deceived them. They’re not women to be deceived.’

And deceiving women was what his father had done, not him.

The conversation was futile, he told himself. What was done was done. Go back to avoiding them and move on. Remember why he was here.

For instance, they’d missed the tide today. They’d not been able to spend nearly as much time exploring the rock art as had been promised in the cruise itinerary. Passengers were awed by the art they had seen, and they wouldn’t be happy with the shortened visit.

And Esme, the tour guide, had been distracted. She’d looked tired.

A minor mechanical glitch and a tired tour guide. These were tiny things but they were enough to cast a shadow on what should have been a flawless morning.

So focus on that, he told himself. That was what he was here for. Not wondering about the morality of deceiving a woman he couldn’t have anything to do with.

‘There are things he’s not telling us.’ Maud plonked herself on her luxurious bed and glared at Rachel. ‘The man’s an enigma.’

‘The man’s told us more than we had a right to ask or know,’ Rachel retorted, flushing. ‘Enigma or not, Maud, you overstepped the mark.’

‘I know I did,’ the old lady conceded, and sighed. ‘He just seemed so perfect. He still seems perfect, but if he really has a taste for shipboard affairs… Though why tell us? It doesn’t make sense. He’s an honourable scoundrel?’

Rachel giggled. ‘I kind of like the concept,’ she confessed. ‘So he’s here to ravish some unsuspecting maiden who isn’t me. Who, then? There aren’t a lot of maidens left.’ She met Maud’s twinkle and chuckled. ‘How about you?’

‘Well, I won’t be adding more children to his nursery,’ Maud retorted and chuckled her agreement. ‘But there’s more to Finn Kinnard than meets the eye, mark my words. Scoundrel, though… Maybe you do need to stay clear of him.’

‘I can look after myself.’

‘If you can’t, then he’ll have me to deal with,’ Maud retorted. ‘But he obviously has no intentions where you’re concerned.’

‘He kissed me in the cave,’ Rachel said and coloured.

‘He what?’ Maud sat bolt upright, and Rachel could almost see her antennae rise and quiver. ‘What did you say?’

‘You heard. He kissed me.’

And she’d done what she’d planned to do. She’d shocked the normally unshockable Maud, who stared at her, open-mouthed.

‘What… what sort of kiss?’ she managed at last.

Rachel chuckled, and pretended to consider, as if academically interested. ‘Not very hard. It was more a brush of lips than a proper kiss. Maybe he didn’t like it.’

‘Did you like it?’ Maud demanded and Rachel forgot about being academic and coloured a bit more.

‘I didn’t mind it,’ she conceded. ‘But I’m not looking for more.’

‘Well… Maybe it’s just as well I told him about your loss,’ Maud said, sounding dumbfounded. ‘Maybe that’s what’s making him confess all. If so, it’s just as well. With your history, there’s no way you need a scoundrel.’

‘Even an honourable scoundrel?’ Rachel demanded and grinned. In truth, she was as confused as Maud, by the strangeness of her feelings towards Finn as much as anything else. Why had she reacted like she had? In the dark of the cave… She’d almost kissed him back, she conceded. She’d felt him wanting to kiss her again, she’d known such a kiss was within her reach, and a part of her had almost thought about encouraging him.