Battle of Wills Read online

  Battle of Wills

  By

  Victoria Gordon

  Contents

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  BATTLE OF WILLS

  The job as a forestry worker in Alberta that Seana had taken for the summer had turned out to be nothing but an endless battle with the infuriating Ryan Stranger. But would the war end with the summer, or would it continue indefinitely? For this man had the power to make her love him and hate him at the same time…

  Books you will enjoy by VICTORIA GORDON

  DINNER AT WYATT'S

  A typing error had gained Justine her job as head chef at Wyatt's, but she soon found it was the first of many in the stormy relationship with the restaurant's owner, Wyatt Burns. And the worst error of all, she soon realised to her cost, was falling in love with the wretched man!

  BLIND MAN'S BUFF

  The shock of meeting Ran Logan again, two years after he had seduced her and then callously walked out on her, was nothing compared to the shock of finding that during the interval he had become blind. But even worse, for Rena, was realising that she loved him as much as ever. What would happen if Ran discovered who she was?

  STAG AT BAY

  Kate Lyle didn't want or need another man in her life. After the end of her disastrous marriage she had gone to join her father on his Queensland deer farm with the intention of turning her back on men for ever. And she nearly succeeded, until the maddening Ben Croft came along…

  DREAM HOUSE

  When Kaarin went off to help the recalcitrant author Jackson Collier finish his latest book she also found herself pitchforked into helping him build his house! So she wasn't exactly well disposed towards him. But only when she realised how deeply involved he was with the lovely Nerida Gregg did it dawn on Kaarin how much her feelings had changed. But where was that going to get her?

  First published 1982

  This edition 1982

  © Victoria Gordon 1982

  ISBN 0 263 73974 0

  To Dana… and to Tom and Sharon,

  wherever they are this summer.

  CHAPTER ONE

  The aged Volkswagen coughed once, consumptively, then gathered strength once more and burrowed its snout into the surge of the headwind it had been battling for the last sixty miles. Seana's reaction was less instant; she held her breath for nearly a minute, eyes locked on the approaching T-intersection as if she could draw herself and her vehicle there by sheer willpower.

  She exhaled only when she halted at the intersection and found the car's engine still ticking over like a sick sewing machine.

  Clairmont Corner. Only three, four miles at the most and she'd surely find a service station. Provided, of course, the old car didn't run out of gas first, she thought with a rueful twist of her lips. The headwind had taken a severe toll of the car's fuel range, and she'd been running on the reserve tank far too long already.

  She sat for nearly five minutes, unable to make her turn because of the stream of oncoming traffic. And for every minute she seemed to hold her breath for most of it, ears pricked for the sound of the final, coughing death rattle that would mean a three- or four-mile walk.

  Most of the traffic was large heavy trucks moving from the Grande Prairie oilfields, mobile giants that brooked no argument in their demands for right of way.

  But finally she got a break, and stamping on the accelerator, Seana forced the car across the oncoming traffic lane and turned south for Grande Prairie and safety. She made the turn with room to spare, only to find herself with a brand-new driving problem; the headwind was now a vicious, erratic crosswind, a mischievous, unpredictable demon that toyed with her ageing car in a game that pushed her driving skills to their limit. The strong west wind would first shove at the car, bunting it towards the looming bulk of an oncoming truck; then with diabolical suddenness the wind would hold its breath, and Seana's own pull on the steering wheel would fling the small car to the right, where patches of spring snow still lay like streams of dirty cotton waste in the deep ditch.

  'Oh, lord! I'd have been safer to run out of gas,' she muttered aloud; then instantly regretted it as the car took a final slurp from the reserve tank, coughed, and sagged into an almost uncontrollable lethargy.

  'Oh… damn, damn, damn!' Seana moaned, stabbing furiously at the accelerator despite knowing it would do no good. She raised her left foot and then jammed it down on the clutch, eyes searching frantically for a wide spot where she could get the car out of the traffic lane.

  Silent prayers and the car's own momentum were just enough to carry it the few metres necessary so that Seana could turn into a broad, grass-choked driveway to a roadside field.

  Seconds later she was out of the car, the wind tearing fiendishly at her long black hair and combining with frustration to bring tears to her eyes. They were large, wide-spaced eyes, so deep a purple as to look almost black beneath her sooty eyelashes and vivid, fine-drawn and high-arched brows. She stood looking angrily into the wind for a moment, oblivious to its ruthless assault on her hair and the mischievous tugs that lifted her skirt much higher than she would normally have accepted.

  She didn't even notice the high four-wheel-drive pick-up truck that eased to a halt behind her, and the wind whipped away the driver's voice as he called to her. It wasn't until he gently touched her shoulder that Seana realised she wasn't alone. She turned with a cry of alarm, and as she faced him, the devilish wind called up a particularly vicious gust to launch her into his outstretched arms.

  Her small shriek of dismay was muffled as her face was pushed into his chest, the crown of her head tucked beneath his chin to mingle with the rich, carrot fullness of his beard. For an instant her nostrils flared at the masculine scent of him, then strong hands grasped at her shoulders as he held her away from him and looked down into her eyes.

  'I'm pleased you're so glad to see me,' he said, teeth glinting in a grin that was half teasing, half… something else.

  The voice emerged from a forest of moustache, beard and wind-blown, fiery hair, but it was his eyes that Seana noticed first. They were green, but a green so pale that at first she took them for grey. And they fairly blazed with intensity from a skin so sunburned it seemed like fine leather. Holding her stilt, his hands gently firm on her shoulders, the man stared almost mockingly into her own dark eyes, then carelessly ran his eyes down the length of her shapely figure before lifting them again to meet her indignant glance.

  'We really will have to stop meeting like this,' he said then, grinning hugely as she pulled back in a futile attempt to escape his grip.

  'I can stand up by myself,' she snapped, unwilling to make a scene by struggling too obviously, yet suddenly quite desperate to free herself.

  'So I noticed,' he chuckled, blandly ignoring the hint. 'What's the matter with your beetle—run out of rubber bands?'

  His mockery made her leap instinctively to the decrepit vehicle's defence. 'My car,' she said firmly, 'is apparently out of gas.'

  This time when she shrugged against his grip, he released her instantly, then bared his teeth in a mocking laugh as the traitorous wind promptly thrust her back against him.

  'Having trouble making up your mind, are you?' he grinned, but made no further attempt to restrain her as she once again lurched free.

  In the process, Seana's eyes caught the time on his wrist-watch, and she quickly checked her own to confirm it. 'Oh, no!' she cried. 'I'm going to be late… I just know it!' She turned then to face the man, her voice pleading. 'Look, I don't want to trouble you, but I'
ve got an appointment in less than an hour. Could you please drive me to a service station or something? I've simply got to get some gas and get into Grande Prairie or I'll be late for my appointment, and… and I just don't dare be late. I… just can't!'

  He shrugged. 'Do better than that, seeing you're in such a hurry. Get the lid open.'

  The wind whipped at his words as he turned and walked to the rear of his truck and flung open the door of the home-made camper that crouched in the bed of the truck and extended over the cab as if resting on its elbows.

  He moved, Seana noticed, with a long, loose stride, but his lean body seemed curiously contained, like some great cat in fluid motion. She wasn't aware of staring until he suddenly emerged from the camper, a ten-gallon drum of gasoline cradled in his arms. He stalked to the front of her car and set the drum down with a thud, shouting at her against the wind as he turned back to his truck.

  'Well, don't just stand there; get the thing open. I thought you were supposed to be in a hurry!'

  Startled by the fierceness of his expression, Seana found herself scurrying to obey the command, but he'd already returned with a large screwdriver and a length of plastic hose before she could manipulate the lever which opened the bonnet of the car to give access to the gas tank. He stood watching, one eyebrow raised in obvious impatience, until she'd finally fumbled the latch open.

  Then she stood by, feeling quite helpless and not a little embarrassed as he adroitly dropped to one knee and hoisted the drum on to the other—while he plopped one end of the hose in the drum and sucked on the other until he had a steady run of gasoline flowing. As the fuel flowed into the Volkswagen's tank, he spat distastefully several times, his eyes and mouth writhing at the acrid taste of the gasoline. But when he was finished, he dropped the near-empty drum and rose to his feet with a bright smile.

  'There you are, ladybug. Just give me a minute and I'll be out of your way,' he said, hefting the drum and turning back towards his truck.

  Ladybug? Seana's mind shifted quite irrelevantly to the old nursery rhyme, and she wondered if his use of the word might be some sort of omen reflecting on the interview she might now just be on time for. Then she was fumbling into her large handbag, seeking to get out some money as the red-bearded man returned to stoop gracefully and pick up both the syphon hose and his screwdriver.

  'I… er… I don't know how much to offer you,' she said lamely as he looked down at her with an amused glint in his pale green eyes.

  'Don't worry about it for now. You can catch me later, when you're not in such a hurry,' he said.

  'But… but you don't even know me,' she stammered. 'Please, I feel I must straighten this out now.' Then she looked again at her watch. 'Oh, and if I don't go now I'll still be late. Please, tell me how much.'

  His laugh took on a note of careless harshness that struck her pride like a thunderbolt. Then he moved closer to stand with his face only inches from her own.

  'Wasn't for the taste of the gasoline, I'd settle for a kiss or two,' he said, voice like silk although his eyes were hot with undisguised provocation. Then he twisted his mouth in a grimace of distaste. 'But I wouldn't wish this taste on anybody, so I'll settle for a raincheck. You're going to be around G.P. for a while?'

  It wasn't really a question, but Seana felt conscience-bound to answer. She met his glance, aware that they were surrounded in an aura of physical awareness like nothing she'd ever experienced before. 'I… I hope so,' she said in a low voice, her stomach tightening as his eyes burned into hers.

  Then he shrugged, almost like a horse throwing off flies, and the light in his eyes faded slightly. 'Okay,' he said. 'Leave it for now.'

  'But I can't,' she replied. 'I mean, if I get this job… well, I won't exactly be… where we'd be able to find each other. Please, let me pay you now.'

  'Have you got a name, ladybug?' The question cut across her protest, nullifying it almost rudely.

  'Seana. Seana Muldoon,' she replied, unable to resist the command in his voice.

  'And where will you be… presuming you get this job you're almost certain to be late for?'

  'I don't know.' The reply was totally honest, but at the scowl it brought, she expanded somewhat. 'I'm serious. I'm hoping to work in forestry, on a fire tower. But I don't know where. They haven't told me anything. Oh… really, I simply must go now!'

  'That's what I told you five minutes ago,' he chuckled. 'Now stop arguing, get in the car, and get to it. I don't want you blaming me for the fact if you turn up late.'

  And to her amazement he turned away without so much as a farewell, waving one hand not in goodbye, but in a stern gesture to get her into her car and away.

  Seana looked after him incredulously, then flung herself in a quick dash that allowed her to catch up only after he had clambered into his truck and slammed the door. She had to pound on the window to get him to notice her, and he opened it to smile down at her enquiringly.

  'Are you still here?' he asked in mock amazement. 'I suppose now you've lost your car keys.'

  'I have not,' she replied, feeling the first flush of real embarrassment but determined to follow through her original intention. 'I just… what's your name?'

  'Does it matter?' His voice was deliberately soft now, his eyes alight with an unholy, teasing humour.

  'Well, of course it matters,' Seana snapped. 'Do you think I'd deliberately make myself late if it didn't?'

  'Gee, I don't know. Women do such strange things sometimes,' he replied tauntingly.

  It was too much. Seana turned away before her mouth said something vicious, but her angry walk left no doubt as to her feelings. She was several paces from the truck when his voice forged through the wind to catch her.

  'Hey!' She ignored him, but when he repeated the call she turned and glared at him, oblivious to the warmth of his smile as he finally answered her.

  'Ryan,' he said, then churned the truck engine to life. 'Ryan Stranger.' And before she could reply he had slammed the vehicle into gear and slewed out on to the highway, one hand raised in a friendly yet mocking salute.

  Ryan Stranger. Seana mouthed the name over and over as she got her own car going, sending it flying into town and thinking herself doubly lucky to find a parking spot handy to the Forestry Department offices.

  An unusual name. And, she was forced to admit, an unusual man—exasperating, annoying, deliberately and blatantly antagonising. And yet nice. Also, she thought, very, very handsome, in his own way. Then as she scampered up the stairs towards the superintendent's office, she laughed aloud.

  'Handsome! How could I tell?' she said half aloud. For all she knew, he could have any sort of face hidden beneath that incredible fiery beard. Maybe no chin at all, for instance. And yet she knew, somehow, that the portions of his face that the beard disguised were just as handsome as what had been revealed. There was simply no way that those piercing, pale green eyes, that aquiline nose and the broad, generous mouth could go with a weak chin or any other beard-hidden flaw.

  But she forgot about Ryan Stranger when she pushed open the Forestry Department door and stepped inside with an unconscious glance at her wrist-watch.

  'You're just in time,' said a warm, welcoming voice, and Seana looked up to see a motherly, white-haired woman in her late fifties, smiling at her kindly. 'I'm Mrs Jorgensen,' the woman said, 'and you'll be Seana Muldoon, of course. Sit down, please. The super's expecting you, but he'll be a minute or two.'

  Seana sat down gladly, grateful for the chance to catch her breath. But she was barely into her chair when the woman's next words brought her to startled alertness.

  'Don't be… surprised if the interview doesn't go quite as you'd expected,' the older woman said. 'I think you'll find that the super—his name's Frank Hutton, by the way—might be just a wee bit surprised when he sees you.'

  'I don't understand,' Seana replied. 'Why should he be surprised?'

  'Let's just say you don't look quite as much like your father as I think he's expecting
,' Mrs Jorgensen replied with a knowing grin.

  Seana blanched. 'You mean…' Her question was aborted by a buzz from the intercom and a gruff voice that followed it.

  'Mrs J.! If Muldoon's here, let's get on with it. The appointment was for eleven-thirty, wasn't it?'

  'Coming in now, sir,' Mrs Jorgensen replied, waving Seana through the inter-office door with a good-luck gesture.

  The man behind the desk didn't even look up as Seana walked briskly into the office, her upright carriage and posture hiding an uncertainty she dared not reveal. All she could really see of him was a stubble of close-cropped white hair as he studied some papers before him, blindly waving her to a seat opposite him.

  She seated herself without a word and waited patiently as he continued the charade of ignoring her. It was only too obvious, she thought, that this man made it a habit to keep his subordinates thoroughly under his thumb.

  Her father had been slightly inclined that way, so Seana knew enough to restrain her urge to giggle when Frank Hutton muttered, 'Now, Muldoon,' and then looked up to see her for the first time. He stifled a half-uttered oath, then demanded, 'Who the hell are you?'

  'Seana Muldoon, sir,' she replied with a perfectly straight face which she slowly softened to a light smile. 'I'm here about the tower job.'

  'I know very well why you're here,' he snapped, the blustery answer revealing the obvious confusion he felt as he shuffled through the papers once more, this time emerging with the file of letters she had written in application. He slowly scanned the signature of each letter before looking up at her again with an obvious mixture of confusion and genuine embarrassment.

  'Well,' he finally said with a shrug of snowy eyebrows, 'I guess it's my mistake after all, Miss Muldoon. And one I must certainly apologise for, since I truly had no intention of wasting both your time and my own by letting this thing go so far…'