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She gave her head a little toss. ‘If you think you can kiss me whenever you like you need to realise I can do the same to you. That’s fair, isn’t it?’
‘Kissing is one thing but stimulating me to—’
‘You could have stopped me earlier,’ she cut him off. ‘Why didn’t you?’
He looked down at her for several pulsing seconds, his expression like a mask. ‘God knows,’ he said and, turning away, began to stride towards the river.
Hayley let out a painful sigh and followed a few paces behind, her legs dragging against the weight of the long grass.
She caught up to him a short time later and came to stand beside him as he looked out over the river to the blue-tinged hills beyond.
‘Are you really going to keep this place?’ she asked.
He glanced at her briefly. ‘You don’t think I’d look good in a pair of moleskins and elastic-sided work boots?’
‘I don’t know. Can you ride a horse?’
‘No, but I can ride a quad bike. At least they don’t bite and kick.’
‘But they can still be dangerous,’ she said. ‘Several people have been killed on the land using them.’
‘Well, if I am you can collect my life insurance. That should set you up for life.’
‘Don’t joke about stuff like that,’ she said, frowning at him in reproach.
His dark eyes came back to hers. ‘Why? Would you miss fighting with me?’
Hayley wanted to say she’d miss everything about him: the melted chocolate of his eyes, his teasing smile, his electric touch and his too tempting mouth and body.
‘Maybe,’ she acceded, beginning to walk back the way they had come.
She felt his shoulder brush against hers and tried to move further away, but she almost lost her footing on the uneven ground.
‘Careful,’ he said and steadied her.
She looked up at him. ‘We’ve always fought, though, haven’t we?’ she said. ‘From the first moment we met we were at each other’s throats.’
‘Yeah, pretty much, I guess.’
‘Why do you think that was?’ she asked.
His mouth tilted into a teasing grin. ‘Well for one thing you could have written and proofread the textbook on being spoilt.’
She gave him a thump on the arm. ‘And you were a surly teenager who thought it was beneath you to speak to a little kid five years younger.’
‘It seemed a big gap back then, didn’t it?’ he commented as they wandered on. ‘I mean, you were fourteen and I was nineteen when my father married your mother. That’s a whole different ball game from now. I’m thirty-three and you’re twenty-eight. Those five years have shrunk a lot.’
They walked a few more paces in silence. Hayley watched as Jasper absently snapped off a strand of long grass and threaded it through his fingers. His expression was clouded, as if he was thinking about his p
arent’s divorce and how her mother Eva had ruined so many lives. There was a shadow of something in his dark eyes as they looked into the distance. He reminded her of a lone wolf on a mountain top, surveying his territory.
He suddenly turned and looked down at her. ‘Have you ever wondered who your father was?’ he asked.
Hayley shifted her gaze so he wouldn’t see how ashamed she was of her background. She had longed to find out in the early years, but after her mother had hinted the one she suspected was responsible was now behind bars serving time for a serious crime she had left the subject well alone. ‘No …’ she answered.
Jasper took her hand in his as they came into closer view of the homestead, his forehead lined with a frown. ‘I guess sometimes in life there might be worse things than growing up without knowing who your real father is.’
‘Like being forced to marry your stepsister?’ she asked as she fell into step beside him.
