The Australians' Brides: The Runaway and the Cattleman

“I don’t understand.”

“I couldn’t satisfy you, that’s the problem. I couldn’t satisfy either of us. I haven’t been able to in four years, since—” He broke off and swore beneath his breath, then looked her full in the face with his blue eyes burning. “You see, I’m impotent,” he said, and she knew for him these had to be the ugliest two words in the world.

Chapter Ten

One wrong word.

All she would need to do would be to say one wrong word at this point and everything between them—the trust, the chemistry—would be shattered, Jacinda knew.

And yet silence was wrong, too, which meant she had to think fast. She held on to him, understanding the tight, rigid state of his body much better now, and she wondered how arrogant she must be to even hope that her touch could soften him, after what he’d just said.

“Thank you for telling me,” she said quietly, just before the silence grew too heavy.

“Well, you pretty much gave me no choice.”

“No. Okay.”

“So there you have it.”

She waited for him to move, to disengage physically and emotionally from their close body contact, but he stayed where he was, and so did she. “Who have you talked to about it?” she asked.

Letting her head fall lightly against his chest, she felt the strong beat of his heart. There was nothing wrong with his circulation, for sure, and absolutely nothing wrong with his ability to arouse a woman.

“You,” he answered her. “Just now.” His voice was barely human, more like a growl.

“Not a doctor?” She was moved—and scared—that she was the one who’d heard his confession, when no one else had.

“No, not a doctor.”

“Shouldn’t you?”

“Hey, do people need doctors anymore? All that trouble and expense? We can scare ourselves for free on the Internet.”

“So you’ve looked it up there?”

“I couldn’t find anything that seemed … relevant. It was all too much about side effects from illness. Prostate cancer. Diabetes. Physical things.”

“So you think this is emo—?”

“I don’t want to talk about it, Jacinda.”

No hesitation. No doubt. The same tone he’d used when he’d said I don’t need help.

She didn’t have the right to push any further, and he’d pulled out of her arms so she couldn’t even touch him anymore.

“We should eat then,” she answered carefully. “You rescued the fried eggs, we shouldn’t let them get cold. But first can I say again, thank you for telling me?”

“That means you’re going to bring the subject up again, right?” He moved farther away, picked up the panful of eggs. Every nuance of his body language screamed at her to keep her distance.

“I’m remembering how this started, you see. Because you understood about my writer’s block. We have common ground, Callan. You were the one to work that out first. If we can help each other, I don’t want to let this go.”

“Don’t—just don’t—talk about helping me.”

“Okay.” She took a breath. “Boy, that bacon smells good!”

They ate, sitting on adjacent rocks, and every bite tasted fabulous after the early morning climb and all the fresh air.

Well, she’s still here, Callan thought, dragging in a long, hot mouthful of smoky coffee.

Which put her in the same category as Birgit. The blonde at the races would have been long gone by now. Jacinda would go the sex-therapist route, take his admission of sexual inadequacy as a personal challenge. He hadn’t told Birgit that his failure with her wasn’t his first, so she’d used phrases like getting you back in the mood and scary the first time, with someone new.

He felt defensive. Didn’t want to hear any of those kinds of lines from Jacinda, the way he hadn’t wanted to read the pamphlets on bereavement from the hospital. He would prefer that they spent the remaining two and a half weeks of her visit in total, monklike silence. From beneath the concealing brim of his hat, he watched her, waiting for her to pounce. It took him a while to understand that she wasn’t planning to.

She ate with a mixture of fastidiousness and greed that no one could have faked. It wasn’t intended to seduce, but, Lord, he found it sexy! Something deep in his body began to stir again. Putting egg, bacon and tomato inside a sandwich of two bits of toast, she opened her mouth wide and bit down on it hard and slow, closing her eyes. The liquid egg yolk burst, leaked from her lips and ran down her chin, and she opened her eyes and laughed.

Running her index finger up to push the yolk back into her mouth, she said, “I wish this could be breakfast every day. Salt? Cholesterol? Who cares! The sun evaporates that stuff, right?” She swallowed, grinned, and then apologized for talking with her mouth full.

A small, irritating black bush fly buzzed around her face and she waved it away, her hand soft. Callan remembered how her fingers had felt on his body just now, pushing for his response. He took another gulp of coffee, to disguise the fact that his breathing wasn’t quite steady.

A fantasy flashed into his mind, as complete as an edited piece of film. He would spread out a blanket on the sand—never mind that he hadn’t brought one with him—and he’d fall asleep. Jacinda would seduce him without waking him. He would believe the whole thing to be a dream. She’d take off his clothes with whisper-soft movements. He would feel her breath, the brush of her hair on his skin.

The sun would climb and the air would heat up. Her naked body would almost burn him as she slid over him, wrapping him in her long limbs. He’d thrust into her, hard as a rock, engulfed by her silky heat and, because it was a dream, he wouldn’t think any of those panicky, mood-destroying thoughts for a second and they’d surge over the crest of the wave together. Success, before the concept of failure had even entered his head.

Failure.

The stirring, swelling, expectant feeling sank away like water down a plug hole.

Callan, just finish your breakfast.

“Do we have time to swim?” Jacinda asked, as he drained the last mouthful of coffee.

“It would be pretty cold,” he said, dampening the idea down the way his body had just dampened down its own need. “The sun isn’t on the water, yet.”

“The water’s cold even with the sun on it. I don’t mind. I think a swim would be good.”

For both of us, the words implied.

Therapy.

Or a cure.

Yeah, and she was probably right. The outback version of a cold shower. Not that he needed one right at this moment, but maybe she did. He knew she wanted him, and he’d left her hanging.

“We’d better put the fire out, first,” he said.

She remembered the way they’d done it last week and shoveled on scoops of creek sand with the billycan, smothering the dying coals. “Is that enough?”

“It’s fine. You’d have to be unlucky to start a bushfire in these conditions, even if you left it in flames.”