Outback Boss, City Bride Page 9

  There was a tiny pause. Meredith watched a moth blunder into the blue light. ‘Once,’ she said.

  ‘So how come it didn’t work out?’ asked Hal harshly, unaccountably irritated by the idea of Meredith finding someone so perfect.

  So unlike him.

  ‘Or wasn’t he so perfect after all?’

  ‘No, he was perfect,’ said Meredith. ‘It turned out that I wasn’t perfect for him, that’s all. But that’s OK,’ she went on composedly. ‘Maybe there’s someone else out there for me, but until I meet him I’m not going to waste my time on anyone less than perfect.’

  ‘You mean like me?’ said Hal, hoping that he sounded suitably amused instead of chagrined.

  ‘Yes, like you,’ she said. ‘As you pointed out yourself, I’m a sensible woman and that really wouldn’t be a sensible thing to do.’

  CHAPTER SIX

  IT MIGHT not be sensible but at least it would be something to do, Meredith thought the next morning as she carried a bucket of scraps out to the chickens, who had a large fenced run on the far side of the yard. Spotting her, they came rushing to meet her, ruffling their feathers and tumbling over in their haste.

  What was she doing here? Meredith wondered. All those qualifications had got her to this point, tossing scraps to chickens in the middle of the Australian outback. The heat was crushing. Shaking out the bucket, she left the chooks to it and closed the gate behind her, walking slowly back across the yard, not at all charmed by the chickens or the dogs chained up in the shade.

  It was too hot and there were too many flies. She waved them irritably from her face. It must be hundreds of miles to the nearest bar. The pub at Whyman’s Creek didn’t count. She was thinking of somewhere cool and smart where she could sit back and enjoy a frosted glass of white wine.

  Here, there was just…nothing. Miles and miles and miles of nothing beneath the glaring sky. Nothing to do, no one to talk to, if one didn’t count Emma and Mickey, who could rarely be persuaded to lift their heads up from their computer games. The air was filled with the raucous cawing of crows, their cries falling mournfully into the thrumming silence.

  She had been up since five to prepare breakfast. It had been a silent meal, but that was hardly surprising at that hour. Even so, Meredith had been uncomfortably aware of Hal. She had spent far more time than was necessary last night reminding herself how sensible she was in not getting involved with him.

  She was attracted to him-Meredith was never less than honest with herself-but she simply couldn’t account for it. Hal wasn’t her type at all.

  Richard was the kind of man she had always been attracted to, and Hal was nothing like him. Richard had twinkling brown eyes and a lovely smile. Hal’s eyes were keen and hard, his smile elusive, but he had a mouth that for some reason dried the breath in Meredith’s throat whenever her eyes rested on it.

  Richard was charming and sensitive and not afraid to talk about his feelings. Hal was cool and self-contained. In fact, when he wasn’t there, Meredith could almost persuade herself that she didn’t really find him that attractive, but all he had to do was walk through that screen door and take off his hat and her heart would perform sickening somersaults while every sense in her body tautened as if she were walking a tightrope. Yes, thought Meredith wryly, her body was a regular circus routine when Hal was around.

  Still, that was no reason to fall into bed with him. Hal belonged in this strange, red land under this immense sky and she…well, she didn’t.

  Meredith looked around her. Overlooked by the kitchen, the dusty yard was shaded by a big gum-tree, where the dogs drowsed in the shade, and framed by an odd assortment of out-buildings, whose purpose was obscure, at least as far as Meredith was concerned. There were a couple of huge water tanks, the chicken run and a rickety wind tower, its arms unmoving in the still, shimmering heat. To Meredith, city girl incarnate, it was all profoundly alien.

  Australia was so big it was almost scary. The space and the light were so overwhelming that she was afraid that she would lose herself, crushed by the heat and the eerie silence. Meredith could practically feel herself diminishing, and she didn’t like it. She liked to be in control of things, but how could she control this huge, wild place?

  She had hardly given Lucy or Richard a thought either, she had realised guiltily last night. The sense of urgency that had possessed her since Richard’s accident had deserted her since she had arrived at Wirrindago. She really must check her email. Lucy had promised that she would let her know when she was safely back in London.

  Swinging the empty scrap bucket, Meredith climbed the steps to the kitchen with a renewed sense of purpose. It was high time she set up her computer and got down to some work too. It would be easier then to remember who she was and what she was doing here.

  But she had to clean that office first. If she opened her laptop in there now it would be choked in dust in five minutes. There was no way she could work in that mess. Hal would probably have a fit, but she didn’t care. It wouldn’t kill him to have one tidy room.

  With everything under control in the kitchen, Meredith rolled up her sleeves and prepared to get dirty. The desk was piled so high with papers that she could hardly see the phone, and the desktop computer was shrouded in dust. She wiped it down, unimpressed. She had seen more up-to-date technology in a museum. Thank God she had brought her laptop with her.

  Fine red dust lay in thick layers over everything. Meredith’s eyes were soon watery from sneezing, and she was very glad of Hal’s shirt which, disturbing or not, kept the worst of the dirt from her own clothes. She would have to borrow another so that she could wash this one.

  Mindful of Hal’s reaction to her removal of the old magazines from the veranda yesterday, Meredith was careful not to throw anything away, but she tidied and straightened and did her best to put everything in date order. Methodically, she worked through pile after pile of assorted papers and, in spite of not knowing anything about station business, she thought she did a pretty good job of sorting it out. Everything that looked similar she stacked together in date order, her eyebrows climbing as she saw some papers going back twenty-five years. Didn’t these people understand the notion of filing?

  It was the kind of job that appealed to Meredith’s organised nature and, although she tutted, she secretly enjoyed restoring order. When it was tidy, the office would be a great place to work, she decided. On a corner, it had one window that looked out over the kitchen yard and another with a view of the garden and the lemon tree she had been so thrilled to see. A bright pink bougainvillaea scrambled over a pergola built into the garden, keeping the room cool and shady without cutting out too much of the light, and it was very quiet.

  Yes, she could happily work here, Meredith thought.

  She was sitting on the floor, sorting through an old cardboard box which had clearly functioned as a rudimentary filing drawer, when Hal came in, and her heart promptly began its usual impression of a trapeze artist.

  Look! Up it soared into the air to perform-gasp!-a triple somersault before catching on to a pair of ankles just in time and-yes!-managing a neat flip before settling into a breathless swing from one side of her chest to another.

  Desperately hoping that her internal acrobatics didn’t show in her face, Meredith did her best to keep her expression cool. ‘Hi,’ she said, delighted at how casual she sounded.

  Hal was staring suspiciously around the office. ‘What are you doing in here?’

  ‘I’d have thought that was obvious,’ she said. ‘I’m tidying up. You told me I could,’ she reminded him before he could object. ‘“Knock yourself out”, you said. And you don’t need to panic,’ she added, correctly interpreting his expression of dismay. ‘I haven’t thrown anything away! But there is a pile of stuff over there that looks like complete junk to me.’ She pointed. ‘Since you’re here, could you please check it and take out anything you want to keep? The rest is going in the incinerator.’

  ‘I’ll never be able to find
anything again!’ grumbled Hal, but he didn’t actually tell her to put everything back as he had done the day before.

  Encouraged, Meredith scrambled to her feet. ‘Nonsense, you’ve got a system now,’ she said and showed him how she had arranged things into piles. ‘You know, if you invested in a couple of decent filing cabinets, you could get all this stuff out of the way.’

  Hal’s down-turned mouth showed how much he thought of that suggestion, but he did pick up the first few papers from the junk pile and flicked through them briefly before tossing them aside. ‘They can be burnt.’

  Just as Meredith had thought, in fact.

  Hal picked up another sheaf of papers. ‘Why are you so determined to reorganise me?’ he asked.

  ‘It’s nothing to do with you,’ Meredith pointed out astringently. ‘I can’t work in the kind of mess this office was in. I wanted to use the computer to check my email in case Lucy had been in touch, but it took me an hour just to find the keyboard! A tidy office is just a bonus for you. You ought to be grateful.’

  ‘Funnily enough, grateful is not what I feel when I find my home is being turned upside down,’ said Hal, discarding another handful, but he wasn’t really cross.

  The truth was that he didn’t really know how he felt. It certainly wasn’t grateful. When he saw her sitting on the floor, her face smudged with dirt, with those dark, beautiful eyes and that curving mouth and his shirt caressing her generous curves…no, grateful wasn’t the word.

  He couldn’t get used to how someone who looked so warm and soft and sexy could so often sound so tart and be so briskly competent. It made for an arresting combination and Hal wished that he hadn’t blown it yesterday by so casually suggesting a temporary relationship to her. He had handled it badly, but he had been thrown as ever by the disjunction between the way Meredith looked and the way Meredith actually was.

  He found her exasperating and intriguing and seductive and sometimes downright infuriating. She was interfering and managing and uncompromising, but…he liked her, Hal realised. He liked her intelligence and her sharp tongue. He liked the combative lift of her chin and the challenge in her eyes and the way she rolled up her sleeves and got on with what had to be done. He liked coming into the homestead and finding her there, her mouth turned down in disapproval at the state of things. Look at him now, coming to find her on the flimsiest of pretexts when he should still be out in the yards.

  It was all a bit unexpected. Hal had been prepared to dismiss her as a shallow city girl. He had wanted to disapprove of her-and in lots of ways he did-but the liking had crept up on him in spite of everything she did that infuriated him, in spite of the fact that they had absolutely nothing in common.

  Hal couldn’t help thinking that the next few weeks would be a lot easier if he didn’t like her.

  ‘Did you hear from Lucy?’ he asked, feeling the fool that Meredith obviously thought him.

  Meredith nodded. ‘Yes, just a quick message to say that she had arrived, but she hasn’t been to see Richard yet. She seems to be staying with Guy.’ There was a crease between her brows as she sat down on the revolving chair by the desk and bit her lip. ‘That’s my fault.’

  ‘Why?’ Hal’s voice was unnecessarily harsh, but he had to distract himself somehow from the way she was chewing her lip, unaware of the effect it might be having on anyone else. Him, for instance.

  ‘I completely forgot to give her the keys to my house.’

  ‘I still don’t understand why it’s your fault.’

  ‘Well…because Lucy hasn’t got anywhere else to stay in London,’ Meredith explained. ‘She gave up the house she was sharing when she left for Australia. I had it all planned that Lucy could stay in my house, and now she can’t.’

  ‘Will Lucy be saying that it’s her fault that she forgot to ask you for the key?’ asked Hal.

  ‘No…probably not,’ she admitted reluctantly.

  ‘Why do you assume that Lucy can’t do anything for herself?’

  ‘I don’t!’

  ‘Lucy would have organised her own flight if you and Guy had let her,’ Hal said. ‘She’s perfectly capable, but you treat her like a child.’

  Meredith bridled. ‘I do not!’

  ‘Don’t you? I’m not surprised that Lucy wanted to come out to Australia and live her own life,’ he said in the same hard voice, ‘and you can’t even let her do that on her own.’

  ‘That’s rubbish!’ Meredith pushed her hair angrily away from her face, leaving another smear of dust on her cheek. ‘I wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for Richard’s accident.’

  ‘Yes, and whose idea was it to come and get her to go back? Who made sure it happened, even when Lucy didn’t particularly want to go?’

  Hal didn’t know why he was pushing her so hard. He had a nasty feeling it was to punish her in some way for always taking charge, for leaving him out of control, and he regretted it when he saw that Meredith was staring at him, appalled, the violet blue eyes clouded with distress.

  ‘Is that how it seems?’ she said, and her voice sounded suddenly small.

  Hal felt terrible. He wanted to take back what he had said, but he couldn’t, not now. ‘Lucy can look after herself, you know, Meredith,’ he said more gently.

  ‘I know, it’s just…’ Meredith sighed, realising too late how controlling she had been. Poor Lucy. Had she really come all the way to Australia to get away from her? It was a horrible thought.

  ‘I suppose I’ve always been used to looking after her,’ she said slowly, trying to explain. ‘I was always big sister, and she was little sister, and she felt like my responsibility, especially when we had to go to boarding school.’ Her mouth twisted at the memory. ‘Lucy was only seven, poor little kid.’

  Hal hooked a stool out with his foot and sat down on it, leaning forward to rest his elbows on his knees. ‘How old were you?’

  ‘Nine.’

  Nine. The same age as Emma. She had just been a little girl. ‘You were a poor little kid too, then,’ he said.

  Meredith half smiled. ‘I can see that now, but at the time I felt much older than Lucy. I just knew that I had to look after her.’

  ‘You were a bit young for boarding school, weren’t you?’ he said curiously. ‘We had to go away to school too, but not that early.’

  ‘It was just the way things worked out.’ She straightened the edges of a pile of bills on the desk. ‘My father worked for an oil company and he was often posted overseas in places that weren’t suitable for children. He remarried a few years after our mother died and understandably our stepmother didn’t want to stay at home with two small children who weren’t even her own, so the next time he was posted she went with him and Lucy and I were sent away to school.’

  Hal frowned. ‘That must have been hard for you. You can’t have been very pleased when your father remarried.’

  ‘I just accepted it. I was only five when my mother died and I don’t really remember her, to tell you the truth. I’ve got an impression of her more than anything else…her perfume, how thrilled I was when she used to come in and kiss us goodnight when she was all dressed up to go out. We’ve got some photos, though, and we know that she loved us. That means a lot.

  ‘And Fay isn’t a wicked stepmother,’ she told Hal. ‘She really loves Dad, and she’s a great expatriate wife. We’d go out in the holidays-we used to like travelling as unaccompanied minors-or she and Dad would come back to the UK, and she was always nice to us. It’s not like we had a tragic life or anything.’

  Maybe not, but Hal didn’t think that losing your mother at five and being sent away to school at nine sounded like much of a childhood either.

  ‘It can’t have been much fun going to boarding school at that age,’ he said, and Meredith grimaced.

  ‘No, it was terrible at first,’ she agreed, her hands stilling at last. ‘I didn’t really understand what was happening. I mean, they’d told us about school, and I thought it sounded quite exciting until I realised that my fat
her was actually going to go away and leave us there. I thought we were going on a visit and then we’d be able to go home with him.’

  She smiled sadly at her childish innocence. ‘I was about to get into the car when my father told me I had to stay. He said I had to be a good girl and not cry, as I had to look after Lucy for him…so that’s what I did.’ She gave a little sigh, remembering. ‘I guess that’s what I’ve been doing ever since.’

  ‘Poor kid,’ said Hal quietly. He had hated being sent away to school at twelve and he knew how desolate it could feel when you were left on your own.

  ‘I’ll never forget watching my father drive away that day,’ said Meredith. ‘I can still feel Lucy’s sticky little hand in mine and wishing I could let it go and run after him. I kept telling myself that he’d stop and turn round and tell us it was all a mistake, but it wasn’t. He didn’t come back.’ She shook her head with pity for her smaller self.

  ‘Lucy was crying. She didn’t understand what was happening either, and all I could do was hold on to what my father had told me. So I kept telling her that everything would be all right, and that I’d look after her. And I didn’t let myself cry, in case that upset her even more.’

  Hal’s throat ached at the thought of the sturdy little girl, abandoned in a strange place, holding on to her little sister, her mouth trembling with the effort of not crying.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ he said.

  ‘Oh, don’t be.’ Embarrassed at having fallen into something very close to self-pity, Meredith was once more all briskness. ‘It wasn’t so bad.’ She made the bills into a neat pile and put them to one side before pulling a set of incomprehensible veterinary notes towards her. ‘We got used to it eventually, and in lots of ways it was easier for me because I had Lucy to look after. I was so busy making sure that she was OK that I didn’t have time to think about myself.’

  She glanced at Hal. ‘I can cope with anything as long as I have something to do,’ she told him, ‘but yes, you’re probably right. I do look after Lucy too much. It’s second nature now. We used to fly out to see our father and stepmother in the holidays and it was always me that had to think about tickets and getting to the airport on time when we were old enough to travel unaccompanied.’