Outback Boss, City Bride Page 16

  The trouble was that it didn’t feel like a dream. It felt all too real, and London was the place that seemed strange and unreal. The first morning that Meredith woke on her own to the subdued rumble of traffic rather than squabbling cockatoos, the longing for Hal and Wirrindago hit her with the force of a blow and she curled up in bed, hugging herself against the pain, biting hard on her lip to stop herself from crying.

  She was hoping against hope that when she saw Richard all the old feelings would come flooding back and that her feelings for Hal would prove to be just a temporary obsession, a passing physical attraction, but sadly it didn’t work that way. She was delighted to see him sitting up and talking, and felt real affection as she leant down to kiss him on the cheek, but love…no. She knew what love felt like now.

  And, in spite of Lucy’s certainty, Meredith was sure Richard felt the same. He greeted her like a good friend, and told her with much good-humoured rolling of the eyes how embarrassed he was that his parents had sent her off on wild goose chase, but she noticed that his eyes followed a rather pretty nurse who seemed to be finding all sorts of excuses to come into his room.

  ‘So it looks like it was all for nothing,’ Meredith confessed dully to Lucy later. ‘I’m sorry. I should have left you alone in Australia.’

  But then she wouldn’t have known Hal. She would never have seen Wirrindago.

  Lucy was bitterly disappointed when she discovered that Richard had resisted the opportunity to sweep Meredith into his arms and declare undying love.

  ‘I was so sure that he was in love with you,’ she said, sounding almost aggrieved. ‘Once he’d confessed that he wasn’t in love with me any more, he spent his whole time telling me how great you were, how easy you were to talk to, and how he hoped you’d come back soon.’

  Meredith shook her head. ‘Richard has only ever thought of me as a friend,’ she said. ‘He’s never looked at me the way he used to look at you, or the way he looks at that blonde nurse.’

  ‘Oh, her.’ Lucy sniffed disapprovingly. ‘She’s always hanging around. I’m sure it’s very unprofessional.’

  ‘Maybe, but Richard looks quite happy about it.’ Meredith smiled at her sister. ‘To be honest, Lucy, I don’t think he wants either of us!’

  Lucy’s face crumpled. ‘I’m so sorry, Meredith. I’ve spoilt everything for you all over again! I should never have raised your hopes like that. I should have waited and found out exactly what the situation was instead of rushing in and getting it all wrong, the way I always do.’

  She looked anxiously at Meredith. ‘Are you very unhappy? You seem so sad.’

  ‘I’m not unhappy about Richard, I promise you,’ Meredith tried to reassure her. ‘I’m just…’

  Missing Hal. Wanting Hal. Needing Hal.

  ‘…just tired,’ she finished feebly. ‘I’m still a bit jet lagged.’

  ‘It takes a few days.’ Lucy brightened, convinced at least that Meredith wasn’t bitter about Richard. ‘You must have been glad to get back to your nice house, though. You’ve been away for weeks.’

  ‘Yes, it was time I came home,’ Meredith agreed.

  Only it didn’t feel like home any more. Her cosy, comfortable house felt claustrophobic now. It was just a place without Hal.

  She found a smile. ‘Anyway, Hal said you could have your job back whenever you want.’

  Lucy hesitated. ‘I’m not going back, Meredith,’ she said at last, and Meredith stared at her.

  ‘But…I thought you loved it there! You told me you were in love with Kevin.’

  ‘I know I did. I thought I was.’ Lucy sighed. ‘But…I think my feelings for him were just mixed up with how much I enjoyed being in Australia. I know the outback isn’t your kind of place, but I found it all so romantic.’

  It is my kind of place, Meredith wanted to shout at her. It is.

  ‘But once I left,’ Lucy went on, unaware of her sister’s mental interruption, ‘I started to think. Could I really spend my life somewhere like that? You know what an extrovert I’ve always been. Who would be my friends? I still think Kevin is incredibly attractive, but what would we have talked about after a while? The outback is all he knows, it’s part of his charm, but I came to realise that I was being unrealistic.’

  She glanced ruefully at her sister. ‘I’m sure that’s no news to you! You knew that all along, didn’t you? You said you were sorry for coming out and making me leave Australia, but I’m glad that you did, Meredith. Otherwise I could have made a big mistake.

  ‘It was me that made all the running with Kevin,’ she said, ‘and I could probably have swept him along into marriage, but what would he have done with a wife like me? I might not have been able to stick it out, and then I would have hurt him, and that would have been terrible. As it is, I bet he didn’t really miss me that much, did he?’

  ‘He seemed just the same,’ Meredith had to admit.

  Lucy’s words resonated in her heart. I could have made a big mistake…What would he have done with a wife like me?…I might not have been able to stick it out…I would have hurt him… They could all apply to her, Meredith knew. She should be thinking like Lucy. Lucy thought that she would understand, and she did, but only with her head, not with her heart.

  ‘It was just a holiday romance,’ Lucy was saying. ‘I realise that now, and some day I would like to go back to Australia, but not yet.’

  ‘What about Hal?’ asked Meredith, though it hurt just to say his name. Was that all their love had been? A holiday romance? ‘He’s been left without anyone to do the cooking.’

  ‘I know, I feel bad about that,’ said Lucy. ‘But he said that they would be able to manage until he could find someone else. To be honest, I thought he might be more difficult about letting you go, but he was fine about it.’

  Meredith thought about the way Hal had kissed her goodbye. I love you, he had said. He had let her go, but he hadn’t been fine about it at all.

  Drawing a breath, she forced a smile for her sister. ‘So what now?’

  ‘I’ve decided it’s time for me to grow up,’ said Lucy seriously. No more looking after me, Meredith. I’ve got to look after myself. I’ve got a job, and from now on I’m going to be sensible like you.’

  Right. Sensible.

  But being sensible didn’t help. Sensibly, Meredith got straight back to work. Sensibly, she made sure that she went out with friends every night so that she didn’t have too much time to think.

  Sensibly, she reminded herself frequently that Hal didn’t want any relationship to last longer than a few weeks or months. She told herself that he was right in saying that she would get bored of Wirrindago. After a month or two she would hankering for the bright lights. It was nonsense to suppose that she could be content with one man and a million acres of red earth.

  And yet…and yet she couldn’t stop thinking about Hal, about the last time he had kissed her. I love you, he had said, and she had believed him. They loved each other. She would be good for him, Meredith was sure. She could make him happy and she would be happy. They could have good life together, but how could she make him see that?

  She couldn’t force herself on him. Hal had said what he felt. He didn’t want forever. We can’t change the people we are, she had told him, but then, who was she? Was she careful, practical, sensible Meredith? Meredith who would never take a risk? Or was she a different person entirely?

  She remembered how free and unfettered she had felt at Wirrindago. Jumping off that rock, sliding on to Hal’s lap, loving him, she had discovered a sensuous side to her nature that she had never known before.

  And it hadn’t just been Hal’s body. All her senses had been sharper there. She had been more aware of everything: of the smell of dried gum leaves in the creek, the sound of all those boots clattering up the steps to supper, the taste of billy tea, the feel of Hal’s shirt brushing against her bare skin…

  What if that was the real Meredith after all? Think about yourself, Hal had told her. What do you
want? The trouble was that there were two answers. Her practical brain wanted to forget Wirrindago and get on with her life in London. It wanted to go back to the way she had been before-calm, content, not yearning for something more.

  But her heart didn’t want that. It wanted to feel that joyous sense of rightness again. It wanted to feel complete. It wanted to go home.

  Doing the sensible thing would be safe. Following her heart would be a risk. A big risk. Three weeks later, Meredith stared down from her bedroom window at the busy road, picturing a dry creek bed and a homestead with a lemon tree in the garden, seeing the galahs wheeling in the sky and a man in a hat walking up the veranda steps.

  She knew what she wanted. Now the only question was whether she was brave enough to reach out and take it for herself.

  ‘Wirrindago.’ It was unmistakably Kevin’s voice, and Meredith, who had been screwing up her courage for this moment for the past two weeks, didn’t know whether to be relieved or disappointed. She had deliberately waited until lunchtime before ringing, but she had expected Hal himself to answer the phone.

  ‘Hi, Kevin, it’s Meredith,’ she said, clearing her throat.

  ‘Meredith!’ Kevin exclaimed in surprise. ‘We thought you’d gone back to the UK.’

  ‘I did but…well, I’m back in Whyman’s Creek. I’m ringing from the pub.’

  ‘I hope you’re coming back,’ said Kevin. ‘We haven’t had a cook since you’ve been gone.’

  ‘Who’s been doing the cooking?’ she asked.

  ‘Hal, usually, but we’re taking it in turns while he’s away.’

  ‘He’s away?’ Meredith stared at the phone in her hand. How could he not be there? Hal was always there. ‘Where is he?’

  ‘In Sydney.’

  Sydney? It was the last thing Meredith had expected. In all the possible scenarios she had played out in her head, Hal being in Sydney simply hadn’t occurred to her.

  ‘He’s gone to see his sister and the kids-hold on.’ There was a murmured consultation in the background, then he obviously turned back to the phone. ‘Ted says he’s due back tomorrow. Do you want one of the guys here to come and fetch you this afternoon?’ he asked hopefully.

  ‘No, thanks, Kevin,’ said Meredith slowly. ‘I think I’ll wait until tomorrow and see Hal here.’

  Less embarrassing then if Hal said no to her proposition, she reasoned. Less awkward to catch the next plane back to Darwin and let her brain tell her heart I told you so.

  But another twenty four hours to wonder if she was mad. What if he had just been saying that he loved her? What if he had met someone else? What if he was horrified to see her? What if…what if…?

  Meredith paced restlessly around Whyman’s Creek. It felt different this time, she thought, remembering how dismissive she had been of the little town. OK, it was no buzzing metropolis, but she liked the camaraderie in the shop, and she was happy to sit on the pub’s veranda and watch the light and listen to the crows and think about Hal.

  Bill was disappointed when she asked him if he would drive her out to the airport in time to meet the plane from Sydney the next day. His face fell. ‘You’re not going already?’

  ‘One way or another,’ she told him. She would be going somewhere, she just didn’t know where yet.

  Hal’s little plane was parked where she had last seen it and Meredith waited for the Sydney flight to arrive in the shade of its wing. Sitting on her case, she was sick and shaky with nerves, torn between the longing to see Hal again and terror in case the greatest risk she had ever taken turned out to be the greatest mistake she had ever made.

  With each minute that crawled past, the knot of anxiety inside her tightened and by the time the plane appeared Meredith had lost her nerve completely.

  But she couldn’t go back now. She had already jumped. It was too late to change her mind now.

  She saw Hal as soon as he ducked out of the cabin and came down the steps and her heart, which had been thumping and thudding deafeningly ever since the plane had touched down, seemed to stop altogether. He only had hand luggage, so merely lifted a hand in greeting to the official waiting by the terminal and headed straight for his plane.

  For her.

  Slowly, Meredith stood up, ducking underneath the wing so that he would see her. When he did, he stopped dead, just like her heart had done.

  ‘Hi,’ she said in a high, cracked voice.

  Hal took a breath and looked deliberately away from her, across the tarmac to the heat haze on the horizon, and then back. She was still there.

  ‘Meredith…’ he said, coming closer. He put down his case when they were face to face, his eyes never leaving her face, devouring her with his eyes. ‘Meredith,’ he said again, unable to find the words for the turmoil of emotion that he felt at the sight of her. ‘It’s you.’

  ‘Yes.’ She couldn’t tear her gaze from his. It was as if they were having two conversations, and the one with their eyes was the only one that made sense.

  Hal half shook his head, as if still not entirely convinced that he wasn’t imagining things. ‘What are you doing here?’

  ‘I…um…I was hoping you’d give me a job,’ she said. ‘I understand you need a cook. Kevin sounds quite fed up.’

  ‘You want to come back to Wirrindago?’ Hal couldn’t believe what he was hearing.

  At last a question that she could answer with complete certainty. ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘That’s what I want.’

  ‘Meredith…are you sure?’

  ‘Yes,’ she said again, and drew a deep breath. ‘You told me once that I was afraid, Hal. You said I was afraid to reach out for what I wanted, but I’m reaching out now.’

  Her eyes never left his. ‘I know what I want,’ she said. ‘I want to be with you. I know you don’t do forever, and I’m not asking for any commitment. I just need to be near you, for as long as I can.’

  ‘But Meredith…’ Hal felt uncharacteristically helpless. ‘You can’t give up your life in London.’

  ‘I can,’ she said. ‘I have given it up.’

  He was startled out of his numb sense of disbelief. ‘You’ve done what?’

  ‘I’ve given up that life. I’ve put my house on the market and I’ve applied to emigrate. I know you don’t want to get married, Hal, and I can’t be leaving every time my visa runs out.’

  ‘But your friends…your career…’ he said incredulously. Had she really done that? His sensible, practical Meredith?

  ‘I’ve brought my career with me,’ she said. It was the only safety net she had. ‘I can work as well at Wirrindago as anywhere else. My friends can come and see me. And yes,’ she said, ‘maybe there will be times when I’ll get bored. Maybe there will be times when I think I’d like to go and see a film or a concert or eat in a restaurant with white tablecloths and food I haven’t cooked myself, but there’s no reason why I can’t take a trip to the city now and then, is there?’

  ‘No,’ Hal agreed.

  ‘Well, then.’

  A smile was dawning in Hal’s eyes, warming them, spreading slowly over his face. He knew this Meredith, hiding her nervousness beneath that brisk veneer. She didn’t fool him, though.

  They still hadn’t touched. ‘And you’ve done all this without knowing what I would say?’ he asked, and she nodded defiantly.

  ‘I jumped. You were the one who taught me that I could,’ she reminded him.

  Hal took a step closer. ‘This is a bigger risk than jumping off a rock.’

  ‘I know,’ she said. ‘I know it isn’t sensible, but I don’t want to be sensible any more, Hal. I’ve changed,’ she told him with a tremulous smile. ‘I’m a risk taker now!’

  ‘And you’ll take a risk on me?’

  The dark blue eyes steadied. ‘On loving you, yes.’

  ‘Even knowing that I’ve changed too?’

  A chill ran through Meredith and she bit her lip. Was this the moment she had dreaded? Was Hal trying to tell her that he didn’t love her the way he’d said
he did before? Perhaps she had taken too much for granted. Perhaps she had jumped too far.

  Swallowing, she put up her chin and made herself smile. ‘If you’ve changed, you can say no and I’ll go,’ she said, knowing that he must be able to hear the tremor in her voice.

  ‘Oh, no,’ said Hal, and the smile reached his mouth as he pulled her into his arms at last. He didn’t kiss her at first; he just held her tightly against him and felt her arms go round him, and they stood, hardly daring to believe that the waiting was over and they were holding each other again.

  ‘I’m not going to say no,’ he said against her hair. ‘I’m not letting you leave me again. You’re not the only one who’s changed, Meredith. I’m going to be the sensible one from now on, and the sensible thing to do when you find the woman you want to spend the rest of your life with is to hold on to her, isn’t it?’

  Tipping her face up to his, he smiled down into her blue, beautiful eyes. ‘In fact, the really sensible thing to do is to marry her.’

  Her eyes widened in surprise. ‘You don’t want to get married!’

  ‘I do now,’ said Hal. ‘I used to think that marriage had to be the marriage my parents had. But then I started to think it didn’t have to be like that. It could be being with you every day, holding you every night and waking up with you every morning. And I realised that was the marriage I wanted,’ he told her. ‘I wanted a marriage where you would always be there.’

  His hands came up to cup her face and with one thumb he tenderly traced the line of her mouth. ‘I missed you, Meredith,’ he said, his voice deep and low. ‘After you’d gone, I realised what a fool I’d been. The homestead was echoing without you. I couldn’t go anywhere without expecting to see you, and then I’d remember you weren’t there and I’d feel…bereft. I had a lot to say about how afraid you were, didn’t I, but I was the one that was afraid. I was too afraid of losing you to let myself love you properly.’

  They had both been afraid, thought Meredith. Her heart was so full she could hardly speak. ‘Hal…’ she said lovingly. She pulled him closer, her hands tightening possessively around him, giddy with relief that he was warm and solid and there. ‘Don’t be afraid.’