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Baby At Bushman's Creek
Jessica Hart
“It sounds as if I could be useful to you.”
Gray’s unsettling brown gaze traveled from her earrings down over the stylishly simple dress to her strappy sandals. “In what way?”
“I could be your housekeeper,” Clare said with a shade of defiance. “I’m perfectly capable of cooking and cleaning.”
In response, Gray reached out and took hold of her hands. Turning them over, he ran his thumbs consideringly over her palms. “It doesn’t look as if you do much rough work.”
His touch was quite impersonal, but Clare was disconcerted to feel her skin tingling. His hands were strong, cool and calloused, and very brown against her English skin. She snatched her hands away, furious to find herself blushing.
“Herding a few cows is easy compared to looking after a baby for twenty-four hours a day!” she snapped, to cover her confusion. “I’m used to getting my hands dirty.”
OUTBACK
Brides
In the hot, dusty Australian Outback, the last thing a woman expects to find is a husband….
Clare, the Englishwoman, Ellie, the tomboy and Lizzy, the career girl, don’t come to this harsh, beautiful land looking for love.
Yet they all find themselves saying “I do” to a handsome Australian man of their dreams!
Baby at Bushman’s Creek
Wedding at Waverley Creek
A Bride for Barra Creek
Welcome to an exciting new trilogy by rising star
Jessica Hart
Celebrate three unexpected weddings, Australian style!
Baby at Bushman’s Creek
Jessica Hart
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
CONTENTS
CHAPTER ONE (#u1be893d4-8ab7-5727-a83d-05248b0291d5)
CHAPTER TWO (#u8b81b4b7-37ed-5fc0-b980-1d0168ff726c)
CHAPTER THREE (#uc1053e48-69a6-5dde-9155-5526148572d8)
CHAPTER FOUR (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER FIVE (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER SIX (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER SEVEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER EIGHT (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER NINE (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER TEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER ONE
EYES narrowed against the glare, Clare watched the cloud of dust approaching through the shimmering haze. Could this be Gray Henderson at last?
She certainly hoped so. She had been waiting for him all morning, with nothing to do but walk Alice up and down the main street of Mathison. It had not taken long, Clare remembered with a sigh.
Apart from the hotel, there was a general store, a bank and a petrol station. A handful of low, functional houses were set in dusty yards and the whole town—if such a straggling collection of buildings could be called a town—had an air of being battened down against the heat. They had seen no one during their walk, and had retreated to the shade of the hotel verandah, where Alice had been happy enough to play with her hands and chirrup gently to herself.
Clare, though, had been heartily bored. The emergence of the dust cloud on the road that stretched emptily out to the horizon had been enough to make her get to her feet, but it was some minutes before it materialised at last into a battered utility truck. It drew up opposite the hotel with a clunk of gears, the passenger door opened and a man got out.
From her viewpoint at the top of the verandah steps, Clare could see only that he was a lean, rangy figure in moleskin trousers and a checked shirt, bending down to say something through the window to the driver. As she watched, he slapped the roof of the cab in a gesture of farewell, the truck roared off, and he turned and walked across the road towards the hotel.
The unhurried stride, the laconic way he settled his hat on his head, matched so precisely the deep, slow voice on the phone that Clare’s nerves tightened with a mixture of relief that he had turned up at last and irritation. He clearly wasn’t in any hurry, in spite of having kept her waiting all morning!
Not that she would be able to say anything, Clare reminded herself. She would have to be very careful. She had to get this first meeting right, not just for Alice’s sake, but for her own. The realisation of just how important the next few minutes would be made Clare bend down and lift Alice into her arms, holding her small, solid body close for reassurance. Having spent the whole morning longing for Gray Henderson to arrive, she found herself suddenly hoping that it wouldn’t be him at all.
But it was.
The man paused at the bottom of the steps as he caught sight of her, eyeing her narrowly for a moment before climbing them with the same infuriating lack of haste. �Clare Marshall?’ he said, and took off his hat. His gaze flickered to Alice, and his brows lifted slightly. �I’m Gray Henderson. You wanted to see me.’
He had brown hair, brown weathered skin and a pair of unreadable brown eyes. Alice’s eyes, Clare realised with a jolt. Somehow she hadn’t expected that. Under their steady gaze, Clare was suddenly conscious of how strange and out of place she must look in this dusty outback town, with her pearl earrings and her yellow linen dress and her elegant Italian sandals. She had dressed with special care that morning, wanting to impress him, but if he was impressed, he was giving absolutely no sign of it.
�Yes.’ She had a horrible feeling that her smile was as brittle and alien as she looked, and her voice sounded clipped and very English compared to his slow Australian drawl. �Thank you for coming,’ she added, stilted with the effort not to ask him why it had taken him so long.
�You said it was important,’ he reminded her.
�It is.’
Ever since she had learnt that she wasn’t going to be able to see Jack, as she had hoped, Clare had been practising how to explain the situation to Gray Henderson, but now that he was actually there all her careful speeches had vanished, and she was left staring at him, her mind blank with panic.
If only he had been more like his brother! Pippa had told her so much about Jack’s warmth and charm and reckless sense of fun that Clare almost felt that she knew him herself, and she was unprepared to deal with a man as coolly unapproachable as Gray Henderson appeared to be. Where Jack’s face in photographs was mobile and smiling, Gray’s was guarded, expressionless, giving her no clues as to what he was thinking.
�Shall…shall we sit down?’ she suggested, playing for time while she tried to marshal her scrambled thoughts.
Gray followed her over to the bench at the back of the verandah, sat down next to her and waited calmly for her to tell him why she had asked him to meet her. It had seemed much too difficult to discuss over the phone when she had rung him last night, but now Clare wondered if it wouldn’t have been easier to explain without those enigmatic brown eyes on her face.
There was something oddly intimidating about his quiet self-containment. Clare had never met anyone so unperturbed by silence. Anyone else would have explained why they were late, or even asked her what it was she wanted, but, no! He just sat there and waited.
Since he obviously wasn’t going to give her an opening, Clare cleared her throat. �This is Alice,’ she said, nodding down at the baby, who was studying him with her unwinking baby’s stare.
�G’day, Alice,’ said Gray gravely.
He reached out to tickle her tummy with one brown finger, and Alice broke into a gummy smile that showed off her two bottom teeth. She grabbed at his finger, but lost her nerve the next moment. Overcome by shyness, she buried her face against Clare, but couldn’t resist a peep back at Gray from under impossibly long lashes. When she saw that he was still watching her, she quickly hid again, burrowing closer into the safety of Clare’s body.
Clare couldn’t help smiling. She was prejudiced, of course, but Alice really was a beautiful baby, plump and peachy-skinned, with fine blonde hair and brown eyes. Surely even Gray wouldn’t be able to resist her?
Glancing at him, she was immensely reassured to see that he was looking amused. There was a definite dent at the corner of his mouth, and a lurking smile in the brown eyes that made him look suddenly much more approachable. He prodded Alice on her tummy until she chuckled and squirmed, and Clare found herself thinking that he was much more attractive than he had seemed at first.
�How old is she?’ he asked, and Clare was obscurely hurt to see that when he looked at her the gleam of amusement had vanished from his eyes.
�Six months,’ she told him. �Nearly seven, in fact.’
Lifting Alice off her knee, she settled her into the baby seat that doubled as a backpack when required, and forestalled any protests by offering her a floppy rabbit that had already been so sucked, pummelled, dropped and generally loved into submission that few of its original pristine features survived. She had seen Gray steal a glance at his watch. It was time to get down to business.
Unconsciously squaring her shoulders, she looked at him. Unlike Alice’s, her eyes were grey, almost silvery in contrast to her smooth, dark hair. �I suppose you’re wondering what we’re doing here?’ she said.
�You said on the phone that you wanted to see Jack.’ Gray’s expression gave nothing away, but there was a shade of wariness in his voice. �You didn’t say anything about a baby.’
�No,’ she admitted. �As I told you, it’s difficult to explain over the phone, and when the hotel manager gave me your number he said that you had a party line, so I thought it would be better if we could talk face to face.’
�Well, now that we are face to face, perhaps you could tell me what you want?’ said Gray coolly.
Clare hesitated. �It’s really Jack I need to see. Do you have any idea when he’ll be back?’
�A month…six weeks, maybe.’
Gray seemed unconcerned by the vagueness of his brother’s plans, but Clare could only stare at him in dismay. She had been expecting him to say that Jack was in Darwin or Perth, and would be back in a matter of days. �A month! But…where is he?’
�He’s in Texas, buying bull semen to improve our breeding programme.’
She swallowed. �Can you get in touch with him?’
�Not easily,’ said Gray unhelpfully.
Clare’s shoulders slumped as a crushing wave of exhaustion rolled over her without warning. It was more than the effect of the interminable flight from London, or the way she had lain awake the previous night worrying about how Gray Henderson would react. It was as if the strain of coping with a small baby after losing Pippa had suddenly caught up with her. She felt as if she hadn’t slept for months. Planning the trip to Australia had given her something to focus on, but now that she was here she was too tired to think clearly, and the thought of trying to explain it all to Gray was all at once too much to bear.
Bowing her head as if beneath a physical weight, Clare clutched her hands together in her lap and forced herself to concentrate. She couldn’t fall apart now. �I should have written,’ she said with an effort, her face hidden by the slide of dark, silky hair. �It never occurred to me that Jack wouldn’t be here.’
�If you want to leave a letter, I’ll make sure Jack gets it when he gets back,’ Gray offered, almost as if against his better judgement, but she only shook her head, defeated.
�It’s too late for that. I need to talk to him now.’
�I’m afraid that’s not possible, so you’ll have to talk to me instead.’
�Yes,’ said Clare numbly.
Alice had dropped her rabbit, and set up a shout when Clare didn’t immediately retrieve it for her. Automatically, Clare bent to pick it up and hand it back to her. She couldn’t think; she could just look at the baby who was utterly dependent on her to do the right thing. Reaching out, she stroked Alice’s head, and Alice smiled trustingly up at her as she stuffed the rabbit’s ear back in her mouth.
�Look, I don’t want to rush you,’ said Gray after a while, and for the first time there was an edge of impatience in his voice, �but I’ve got a thousand head of cattle in the yards right now, and I’ve already given up time I can’t spare to come in and listen to you. Do you think you could get to the point?’
Straightening, Clare turned to look at him once more. �Alice is the point,’ she said.
He frowned. �What do you mean?’
�I mean that she is Jack’s daughter,’ she said steadily, �and she needs her father.’
There was an intense silence. �What?’ said Gray, dangerously quiet.
�Alice is Jack’s daughter.’
His gaze narrowed, and he looked from Clare to Alice, who stared back at him with serious, uncannily similar eyes. One little hand held her toy to her mouth so that she could suck it, the other twiddled her ear as if to show off how versatile she was.
�Jack said nothing about this to me,’ he said harshly at last.
�He doesn’t know about Alice.’
�Then isn’t it a little late to claim him as her father now?’
Clare pushed her hair behind her ears in an unconsciously nervous gesture. �I think he’d want to know.’
�I think he’d have wanted to know a whole lot sooner than now if he had a child,’ said Gray in a hard voice. �If you say Alice is six months old, that means you’ve had a good fifteen months to decide on a father. Why wait until now to pick on Jack?’
Clare flushed. �I haven’t picked on him!’
�That’s what it sounds like to me.’ He looked her up and down almost insultingly, taking in her slightness, her tired face and the eyes that were at once surprisingly vivid and desperately sad. �I wouldn’t even have said you were Jack’s type.’
�I’m not,’ she admitted, smiling faintly in spite of herself. From all she had heard about Jack, she couldn’t imagine that she would ever have appealed to him. She was too calm, too sensible, too different from Pippa. �But my sister was.’
�Then Alice isn’t your baby?’ said Gray slowly.
�No, she’s my niece.’ Clare looked directly into his eyes. �She’s your niece, too.’
�And her mother?’ he asked after a moment.
�My sister. Pippa.’ She turned away to stare at the heat wavering above the empty road. �She died six weeks ago,’ she told Gray in a light, brittle voice, almost as if it didn’t matter, almost as if her world hadn’t fallen in.
There was a long silence. Beyond the shade, the sun bounced off the tin roofs and beat down on the road. A four-wheel drive, red with dust, drove past the hotel and parked a little further down, outside the general store, but that seemed to be the sum of the town’s activity. To Clare, used to busy city streets, the stillness was uncanny. She could smell the dryness of the air, feel the hard bench beneath her thighs, hear her pulse booming in her ears, and she was suddenly very conscious of the man sitting quietly beside her.
�I think you’d better tell me everything,’ he said.
There was something peculiarly steadying about his voice. Clare drew a long breath. She had passed the first hurdle. He would listen to her. She couldn’t ask any more of him yet.
Digging in her bag, she drew out the photograph that Pippa had kept by her bed until the last. It was creased and dog-eared with handling, and Clare smoothed it out on her knee before passing it over to Gray. �That’s Pippa,’ she said. �And that’s your brother with her, isn’t it?’
�Yes, that’s Jack,’ he admitted.
He studied the picture, frowning slightly. Jack had his arm around a vibrant, lovely girl who seemed to be zinging with happiness, and they were smiling at each other as if the rest of the world had ceased to exist. �Jack never mentioned your sister to me,’ he told Clare bluntly, �and it’s not like him to be secretive.’ He handed back the photograph. �How did they meet?’
�Pippa got a job as a cook at Bushman’s Creek. I’m not sure how.’
�Probably through the agency,’ he said, in spite of himself. �The station is so isolated that nobody ever stays very long, and in the dry season we always need people to help.’
If the station was anything like Mathison, Clare could imagine that no one would want to stay. �I know she was thrilled to get the job,’ she went on, unable to prevent her own mystification from creeping into her voice. �Pippa had always dreamed about working on a real outback cattle station.’
She sighed, remembering her sister’s face as she’d talked about the outback. �Even before she left school she was talking about Australia, and as soon as she could afford the fare she got herself a working visa and came out to find a job. She started in Sydney first of all, but after a while she moved to somewhere on the Queensland coast, and then, about eighteen months ago, she wrote and said that she’d got a job on a station called Bushman’s Creek.’
Clare turned to Gray as if struck for the first time. �You can’t have been there, or you would remember Pippa. She wasn’t the kind of person you could forget.’
�I spent three months in South East Asia meeting buyers about eighteen months ago,’ Gray admitted reluctantly. �She could have been at Bushman’s Creek then.’
�That would be about right.’ She nodded. �She was there nearly three months, and she said it was the happiest time of her life. She told me about the station, about how isolated it was and how hard everyone had to work.’ Clare shook her head, remembering. �I thought it sounded awful,’ she confessed, �but Pippa loved it.’
She paused, holding the photograph between her hands. �And then there was Jack,’ she said. �You can see how happy they were together. Pippa said that it was love at first sight. They spent all their time together, and were talking about getting married when a row blew up one day about something quite trivial. I don’t know what it was, or what was said, but I think they must have hurt each other very badly.
�Pippa was incredibly volatile. She was either ecstatic or miserable.’ Clare smiled a little tiredly. �I don’t think she ever understood the meaning of moderation or balance, and she was never any good at compromising either.’
Clare glanced at Gray again. He didn’t look like a man who did much compromising either, but in a quite different way from Pippa. How could she explain Pippa’s intense, ebullient personality to someone like Gray?
�You have to understand what Pippa was like,’ she said with an edge of desperation. �She was passionate about everything she did. She could be the kindest, funniest, most wonderful person, and she could also be the most difficult. There was no middle way with Pippa. It was typical of her to react so dramatically when she and Jack had that argument. She thought that it meant the end of everything, and she just threw her things in a bag and came home.’
Clare sighed a little, remembering how Pippa had collapsed messily back into her own calm, ordered life. �She didn’t discover that she was pregnant until a couple of months later.’
Gray had been listening in silence, leaning forward, holding his hat loosely between his knees, but he glanced up at that. �Why didn’t she contact Jack then?’
�I tried to persuade her to write to him at least, but she wouldn’t.’ Clare’s gaze rested on Alice, who was still happily chewing her toy and dribbling down her chin. Reaching into her bag for a tissue, Clare wiped her face as she continued.
�Pippa was still simmering after the argument. It had been over two months, and she hadn’t heard from Jack, so she assumed that he wasn’t interested any more, and she was too proud to ask him for help. She thought if he knew about the baby, he’d feel pressurised into a relationship he didn’t really want. I think Alice’s birth made her realise just how much she still loved him, though,’ Clare went on slowly. �That was something they should have shared, and she made up her mind to come back to Australia with Alice and see if she and Jack could sort something out, but…’
Her voice wavered, and she took a deep, steadying breath. �But a couple of months after Alice was born Pippa found a lump. She was diagnosed with cancer, and…well, she was one of the unlucky ones. There was nothing they could do for her. It was very quick.’ Clare’s eyes darkened with pain. �Three months later she was dead.’
�I’m sorry,’ said Gray quietly, and she sighed.
�So am I. She was such a special person. Those last terrible weeks, all she thought about was Jack and Alice. She made me promise to tell Jack how much she had loved him, and to ask him to bring their daughter up. She wanted Alice to grow up with her father in the place she had been so happy.’
�So you promised?’
Clare lifted her hands slightly and let them fall in a gesture of acceptance. �I promised,’ she said in a low voice. �And here I am.’
Gray got to his feet and walked over to lean on the verandah rail, looking out. �I’m not saying I don’t believe you,’ he said at last, �but can you prove that Alice is Jack’s daughter?’
�Why would I make it up?’ she asked, bemused.
He turned to face her, folding his arms and leaning back against the rail. �Money?’ he suggested with a cynical look.
�What money? From all Pippa ever told me, you don’t exactly live in the lap of luxury at Bushman’s Creek!’
�We don’t, but between us Jack and I own a fair chunk of land. As Jack’s daughter, Alice would have a claim on that.’
Clare could hardly believe what she was hearing. �I’m not interested in your land!’ she said furiously, eyes blazing. �What do you think I am?’
�I don’t know. That’s the whole point,’ he said with infuriating calm. �Until last night I’d never heard of you, or your sister, and now you expect me to believe that my brother is father to a child he knows nothing about. How do I know you’re telling the truth?’
�The photograph—’ she began, but he interrupted her.
�A photograph isn’t proof of paternity.’
�If Jack wants to have DNA tests, he can,’ said Clare, �but I think that once he looks at Alice, he’ll know that she’s his daughter. You only have to look at the photo to see what he and Pippa had together, and I don’t believe that Pippa would have loved anyone who could turn his back on that completely.’
�Maybe,’ said Gray, clearly unconvinced, �but that’s a decision only Jack can make. You can’t expect me to accept responsibility for a baby on his behalf.’
�I understand that.’ Clare was feeling very tired, but she forced herself to her feet and went to lean next to him at the verandah rail. �All I want is for you to contact Jack and ask him to come home as soon as he can. That’s not too much to ask, is it?’
He looked from her to the baby, kicking her feet against the floor and squealing at the excitement of a new sensation. �No,’ he conceded, �but it may take some time to track him down. He didn’t have a fixed itinerary, so I’ll have to ring round a few contacts and hope that he turns up and gets the message sooner rather than later.’
Gray’s gaze came back to rest on Clare. The straight dark hair that swung below her jaw was pushed wearily behind her ears, and there were shadows beneath the great silvery eyes. She looked bruised and exhausted, and when she looked up at him it was clear that only the stubborn strength of her will was keeping her going.
�I think it would be better if you went back to England and waited for Jack there,’ he said gruffly.
Clare straightened from the rail. �I’m not going to do that,’ she told him quite simply. �Alice and I only arrived yesterday, and even if I could face turning round and getting back on that plane for another twenty-three hours, I wouldn’t. I couldn’t afford to bring Alice back to Australia again when Jack finally turns up, and if he does decide to accept responsibility for her, I’d want to be able to stay with her for a while until she settles.’
�So what are you going to do?’
�Can’t we come back to Bushman’s Creek with you?’
There was a pause. Gray looked down into pleading eyes the colour of pale smoke and ringed with black, as if someone had taken a dark pen to outline each iris, and turned almost abruptly away.
�Bushman’s Creek isn’t a suitable place for you or the baby,’ he said brusquely.
�Are you trying to tell me that there are no women or children in the outback?’
�I’m trying to tell you that conditions on the station are very different to what you’re used to,’ said Gray with an edge to his voice. �It takes nearly forty minutes to fly there from here, and it’s over two hours by road. In the Wet, the only way you can get in and out is by plane. You’d be a very long way from shops and doctors and all the other things you probably take for granted, and, quite frankly, I haven’t the time to look after you at the moment. This is one of the busiest times of the year.
�I’ve got fifteen thousand head of cattle out there,’ he went on, nodding his head at the distant horizon. �They’ve all got to be mustered in so that we can deal with them and draft out the sale cattle. The last cook-cum-housekeeper left several weeks ago, and nobody’s done any cleaning since. We’re taking it in turns to cook, and the kindest way to describe meals at the moment is “basic”.’
He shook his head. �I think you’d find the conditions too uncomfortable,’ he told Clare bluntly. �If you don’t want to go home, you’d be better off taking Alice to one of the resorts on the coast and waiting there until Jack gets back.’
�I don’t think I can afford to do that, either.’ Clare flushed, humiliated at having to admit how precarious her financial situation was. �I’ve got a good job at home, but Pippa had never managed to save any money, and babies are expensive little things. And then when Pippa was ill, and I had to take time off to look after her and Alice, I used up the savings I had. I bought our ticket out here on credit as it was.’ She bit her lip. �I just don’t see how I could manage staying in a hotel or renting a house without knowing when Jack was going to get your message.
�Besides,’ she went on bravely, �it sounds as if I could be useful to you.’
Gray’s unsettling brown gaze travelled from her earrings down over the stylishly simple dress to her strappy sandals. �Useful?’ he echoed, lifting one brow in a way that brought a flush to her cheeks. �In what way?’
His expression didn’t change, but she knew that he was amused. It was something to do with the deepening of a dent at the corner of his mouth, a creasing at the edges of his eyes, the faintest of glimmers in the unfathomable eyes. If he thought she was funny, she thought illogically, he might at least have the decency to smile properly!
She put up her chin. �I could be your housekeeper,’ she said with a shade of defiance. �I’m perfectly capable of cooking and cleaning.’
In response, Gray reached out and took hold of her hands. Turning them over, he ran his thumbs consideringly over her palms. �It doesn’t look as if you do very much rough work.’
His touch was quite impersonal, but Clare was disconcerted to feel her skin tingling. His hands were strong, cool and callused and very brown against the paleness of her English skin. It was as if his fingers were charged with electricity, sending tiny shocks shivering all the way up her arm, and she snatched her hands away, furious to find herself blushing.
�Herding a few cows around is easy compared to looking after a baby for twenty-four hours a day,’ she snapped, to cover her confusion. �I’m used to getting my hands dirty.’
�You’re not used to the heat and the dust and the flies and the boredom,’ Gray pointed out, apparently unperturbed by the way she had pulled her hands out of his. �I’m not sure you realise how tough things can be out there.’
Not quite sure what to do with her hands now that she had freed them, Clare folded her arms in an unconsciously defensive pose. �I’m tougher than I look,’ she said.
Gray was unimpressed. �I’m talking about physical toughness, and right now you don’t look very tough to me.’ He eyed Clare critically. �You look as if you’re about to collapse.’
�I’ve got jet-lag,’ she said, wondering why she could still feel her hands burning where he had touched her. �We only arrived in Australia yesterday morning, and I haven’t been able to rest much since then. I’ll be fine after a good night’s sleep.
�Look,’ she went on persuasively, seeing that Gray still looked unconvinced, �I may not be your ideal housekeeper, but you said yourself that you haven’t the time to find anyone else, and I’m prepared to work hard in return for accommodation. I won’t get in your way. To be honest, I’d rather have something to do to keep my mind off things.’
She hesitated. �You’ve been very frank about the conditions on the station. I can’t say I’m going to like it out there—I’m not like Pippa; I’ve never enjoyed roughing it—but I’ll do whatever I have to to get to Bushman’s Creek.’
�Why are you so keen to get there if you don’t think you’re going to like it?’ he asked.
�Because I can’t afford to do anything else,’ said Clare, pushing her hair wearily behind her ear. �Because I want to see the place that meant so much to Pippa. If conditions are as unsuitable as you say, it may be that I’ll have to take Alice home with me, but I need to see for myself. If, on the other hand, I think it’s somewhere she could grow up safely and happily, I could make sure that she’s settled by the time Jack gets back. And, to be perfectly frank,’ she finished, �because I just want to stop for a while. I want to stop travelling, stop thinking, just…stop.’
�If I let you come, I don’t want you to take anything for granted,’ Gray warned, but she could see that he was relenting. �Jack will have to make a decision about Alice when he gets home. Nobody else can do it for him.’
�I know.’ Clare tried a smile. �Please…?’
�Oh, all right,’ he said almost irritably. �You can come—but on one condition.’
Clare would have agreed to anything just then. �What is it?’
�Alice’s relationship to Jack has to remain secret until he chooses to tell people about it. I don’t want him coming home to find that everyone knows that he’s supposedly a father except him. As far as anyone else you meet there is concerned, you’re just at Bushman’s Creek as a housekeeper. You rang me up last night to ask if there might be a job, and I’ve come in to pick you up.’
Clare thought about it. It seemed fair enough, under the circumstances. �All right,’ she agreed. It sounded a little grudging. She couldn’t blame Gray for being cautious and wanting to protect his brother’s interests, but at least he hadn’t rejected Alice out of hand.
�Thank you,’ she said gratefully, and she smiled at him.
Something flickered in the brown eyes, and he looked away as he put his hat on his head. �If you’re coming, you’d better come now,’ he said in a brusque voice. �I need to get back to the yards.’
Clare was too relieved at his agreement to object to his lack of enthusiasm. �I just have to pack a few things,’ she said hastily. �I won’t be more than a few minutes.’
Scooping Alice out of her chair, she sniffed at her cautiously. �At least she doesn’t need her nappy changing,’ she said in some relief. She glanced hesitantly at Gray. �It would be quicker if I could leave her with you,’ she suggested.
After the tiniest of pauses, Gray nodded, and Clare handed Alice to him. Her hands brushed against his and she had to resist the temptation to pull them away. �I hope she’ll be OK,’ she said, a little worried now as she stood back. �She’s getting to the stage where she doesn’t really like being handed over to strangers.’
She lingered, uncertain whether to leave them together or not, watching as Gray held Alice at arm’s length and man and baby regarded each other dubiously. Gray’s eyes were intent, and Clare wondered if he were searching Alice’s small, round face for signs of a resemblance to his brother.
She was about to suggest that she took Alice with her after all when, as if at some unspoken signal, the two of them broke into simultaneous smiles. Clare was used to the way Alice’s beaming smile twisted her heartstrings, but she was unprepared for the effect of Gray’s. It transformed him from a brown, expressionless stranger into someone younger and warmer, someone disturbingly, unexpectedly attractive, and Clare felt oddly jolted.
There was a strange expression on Gray’s face as he drew Alice into his chest and held her against him, his strong hands absurdly big on the little body. His gaze slid past the baby to Clare, who was watching them as if transfixed.
�Alice will be fine with me,’ he said.
CHAPTER TWO
THE hotel was the only two-storey building in town, but its refinements went no further than a serviceable flight of stairs. There was certainly no truck with any namby-pamby nonsense like lifts or porters. Clare dragged her heavy case along the corridor and paused for breath at the top of the stairs, looking down at the scene in the entrance hall below.
Alice was looking quite at home in Gray Henderson’s arms, and he was managing to carry on a conversation with the hotel manager while she explored his face with fascination, testing the texture of his skin and hair, patting his cheek and pulling at his lips.
Clare was conscious of a faint twinge of envy as she watched. It must be nice to be Alice, to be able to relax against a shoulder as firm as Gray’s and to feel his hands holding her safe and secure. What would it be like to run her fingers over his face, as Alice was doing, to lean against that lean, hard body?
A slow shiver snaked its way down Clare’s spine at the thought, and she swallowed, disconcerted by her own reaction. How odd, she found herself thinking, that the first man she should feel even a twinge of awareness for since Mark should be someone so completely different. Mark had been dark and intense and passionate. Gray didn’t look as if he even knew what passion meant!
Except…Clare’s gaze rested for a moment on his mouth. She was going to spend the next few weeks alone with this man, she realised, as if for the first time, and the shivery feeling intensified into a tight knot at the base of her spine.
Hastily, she bent to pick up the case. She was being ridiculous. There was no question of being physically attracted to Gray Henderson! Any amateur psychologist would tell her that his appeal was obvious. She was tired and vulnerable with the strain of coping alone for so long, and there was something very reassuring about his air of quiet strength. He might not have the looks to set her pulse racing, as Mark had, but right now the sense that he could deal calmly and competently with any situation that might arise was more appealing than any handsome face!
The hotel manager gave them a lift out to the airport in his truck. Clare was taken aback to see her things tossed unceremoniously into the back, while she was expected to squeeze into the front seat with Alice between the two men. �How far are we going?’ she asked nervously, remembering Pippa’s stories about long, bumpy drives across the outback.
�Only to the airport,’ said Gray, resting his arm along the back of the seat behind her head. �It’s quicker to fly than to drive, and there’s usually someone around to give me a lift in to town from there.’
�Oh.’ Clare was pleased to discover that she wasn’t going to have to spend the next two or three hours trying not to notice the strength of his thigh pressed against hers. Not that Gray seemed to find the situation at all uncomfortable. He was talking easily across her, and Clare might as well have been a bag of shopping on the seat between them for all the notice he took of her.
It was a relief when they reached the airport and she could move away from him, although she was not impressed by the single runway set for some reason in the middle of nowhere. Clare could turn around completely and see nothing but flat brown scrub stretching off to the horizon in every direction. It was like a toy airport, she thought disparagingly, with a windsock hanging limply in the midday heat and the �terminal’ no more than a hut offering shelter from the sun.
Gray seemed to know everybody. Even as they drove along the road, she had noticed the two men lifting fingers in greeting to the passing cars, and now, having exchanged words with the few passengers waiting for an incoming flight, he led the way across the tarmac to where a tiny plane with a propeller on its nose was parked.
�We’re not going in that?’ said Clare involuntarily.
�We certainly are.’ Gray patted the plane affectionately. �This old girl’s more reliable than any car over this kind of country, and she’s done this flight so often she could practically take herself home.’
Clare wasn’t sure that the great age and experience of the plane was that reassuring, and in spite of her belief in Gray’s competence she couldn’t help closing her eyes as they sped along the airstrip, propeller blurring, and lifted lightly off the ground. She felt the plane bank and continue climbing until after a couple of minutes they levelled off.
�You can open your eyes now,’ said Gray in a dry voice.
Very cautiously, Clare unscrewed her eyes. �I’ve never been in such a small plane before,’ she confessed. She touched the door as if afraid it would fall off. �There doesn’t seem to be much keeping us up here.’
�You’re safe as houses,’ he said. �Relax and enjoy the view.’
What view? Clare wanted to ask. Spread out below them, the land stretched out to the distant horizon, as flat and featureless as a piece of sandpaper, and almost exactly the same rusty-brown colour. The sky was a huge blue glare, arching over a vast expanse of nothingness. Clare looked down at it and wondered what on earth Pippa had found to love in such barren, intimidating country.
�Is it all this…’ she searched for a tactful word �…this empty?’
�It’s not empty at all,’ said Gray. �It just looks that way from up here. You’d be surprised how different things are when you’re on the ground. There’s lots to see—you just have to learn to look at it in the right way.’
�Oh, yes?’
Her voice dripped polite disbelief, but Gray was unperturbed. �You can tell you’ve never been outback before,’ he said.
�No,’ Clare sighed in agreement. This wasn’t her kind of place at all. �Municipal parks are the wildest places I usually see.’
�Not an outdoor girl, then?’
�Absolutely not,’ she said, smiling faintly at the very idea. �I’ve always been a city girl. Pippa was different. She couldn’t wait to bump along dusty tracks and pit herself against the elements, but I never saw the appeal. Cities seem much more interesting places to me. There’s always something happening, something to do, something to see.’
Gray glanced at her. �That’s what I feel about the bush.’
�It’s not the same,’ objected Clare. �When you finish work, you can’t go out for a meal, or a glass of wine with friends. You can’t go to the theatre or a concert or an art gallery. You can’t wander around the streets watching people and seeing how different they all are.’
�Is that what you do?’
She pushed her hair behind her ears with a sigh. �It’s what I used to do. I’ve had to put my life on hold for a bit.’
�Because of the baby?’
�Yes. She’s more important at the moment.’ Clare shrugged. �I’m lucky. I’ve got good friends, a great flat, a job I love and a wonderful boss who’s keeping my job open for me until I can go home. They’ll all still be there when I get back.’
There was a defensive, almost defiant undercurrent to her voice, as though she were trying to convince herself rather than Gray. He made no comment, asking only what she did as his eyes moved steadily between the instrument panel and the horizon and the ground below them.
�I work for an agency that represents singers and musicians,’ she told him. �I’m not musical myself—I wish I were—but I am good at organisation, so I deal with the administrative side of things. I love working with creative people…’
She trailed off, assailed by a rush of nostalgia. If only she were there now, in the clean, familiar office, with the gossip and the jokes and the constant, exciting buzz of activity! She was the sensible, practical one in the office, and she wondered if anyone at work would be able to imagine her now, suspended above an alien landscape in this tiny plane with a man whose stillness made her look edgy and frivolous in comparison.
�It sounds like being housekeeper on a cattle station is going to be a shock for you,’ said Gray, and Clare pushed her hair wearily away from her face.
�Yes,’ she agreed, too tired and homesick to make the effort to sound enthusiastic at the prospect.
�I can see why you’re anxious to contact Jack,’ Gray went on with something of an edge. �The sooner you can hand over the baby, the sooner you can get back to your job.’
Clare cast him a resentful look. �You make it sound like I can’t wait to get rid of her!’
�Can you?’
Clare looked down at Alice on her lap. She was heavy with sleep, utterly relaxed as she lay in the curve of Clare’s arm, the ridiculously long baby lashes fanned over her round cheeks and her mouth working occasionally, as if she were dreaming about food. Clare could feel her breathing, and her heart ached with love for her.
�I always thought I didn’t want children,’ she said slowly. �I thought a baby would be too messy, too demanding, too difficult to adapt to my job. And Alice is messy, and she’s exhausting and all the things I was afraid she would be, but…somehow none of that matters when you’ve got a baby to look after. I can’t imagine my life without her now.’
�If you feel like that about her, why didn’t you keep her in England?’ asked Gray.
�Because Pippa made me promise that I would take her to her father,’ said Clare, turning in her seat to look at him. �And because, deep down, I think it would be better for Alice to be here with him. I couldn’t afford the childcare which I’d need if I wanted to look after her the way Pippa would want and continue to do my job.’
�You could give up your job,’ he suggested with a cool look.
�And live on what? Pippa never had a chance to make any financial provision for Alice, and I’ve used up all the savings I had. I love my flat, but it’s tiny. It’s OK for a baby, but it would be hopeless for a toddler, and there’s no garden, and I don’t see how I could afford to move unless I kept my job, which takes me back to square one.’
Clare sighed. �Believe me, I have thought about it! It’s going to break my heart to say goodbye to Alice,’ she said, stroking the sleeping baby’s head, �but I have to think about what’s best for her. I wouldn’t have brought her all the way out here unless I thought that the best thing for her was to be with her father.’
�And if Jack doesn’t accept that she’s his daughter?’
�Then I’ll think again,’ said Clare. �But I think he will, and so do you.’
Gray’s brown eyes rested briefly on her face. �Do I?’
�I don’t believe you would have agreed to let us come anywhere near Bushman’s Creek if you didn’t think that Jack was Alice’s father,’ she told him. �I’m right, aren’t I?’
Gray didn’t answer immediately. His gaze dropped to Alice, and then returned to the instrument panel. �She looks like Jack,’ he admitted after a moment. �She’s got the same eyes, the same sort of look about her.
�I was away the time you said your sister was working at Bushman’s Creek, so it could have happened the way you said,’ he went on, as if justifying his instinct to himself. �And Jack’s been different since then. He always used to be very laid-back, but if he felt strongly about your sister and she left, that might explain why he’s been moody and restless for the last year or so.’
�Didn’t you ever try asking him what was wrong?’ asked Clare.
�Jack’s a grown man, not a kid,’ said Gray repressively. �If he had wanted to tell me what the matter was, he would have.’
Exasperated at the typically male response to any suggestion that they might discuss anything even vaguely connected to emotions, Clare rolled her eyes. �He might just have needed you to show some interest!’
At least she had the satisfaction of provoking a reaction from Gray. His mouth tightened and the glance he gave her was distinctly unfriendly. �I know Jack a whole lot better than you do,’ he said in a curt voice. �I would have expected him to have at least mentioned your sister when I came back, and the fact that he didn’t means that I’m not prepared to make any commitment on his behalf. As far as I’m concerned, Alice is your niece, and not mine, and until such time as Jack comes home and can decide for himself, you are just a housekeeper. Is that understood?’
Clare put up her chin. �Perfectly,’ she said.
The propeller droned remorselessly on, but inside the cabin there was a tense silence. At least, Clare felt tense. Gray looked exactly the same. He was relaxed in his seat, his hands steady on the joystick, and she eyed him resentfully.
Just a housekeeper. She wasn’t sure why the comment had ruffled her. If she had to spend weeks stuck out in the middle of nowhere, she would much rather have something to do, even if it was just cooking and cleaning. Still, there was no need for Gray to make it quite so clear that he thought that was all she was good for, was there?
Why did he need a housekeeper, anyway? He obviously wasn’t a romantic type, and she would have thought he would have married long ago, if only to sort out his domestic arrangements. He must be nearly forty, Clare decided, studying him from under her lashes. Surely he could have found someone to marry him? It wasn’t as if he was bad-looking either, if you liked the rugged, outdoor type. His features were too irregular to be handsome, but his skin was weathered brown by the sun, and his eyes were very creased at the corners, as if he had spent long years squinting at a far horizon.
Clare’s gaze travelled speculatively over the planes of his face to rest on his mouth. Nothing particularly special about his mouth either, she told herself, but then she remembered how he had looked when he had smiled, and something stirred strangely inside her, and she jerked her eyes away to stare out of the side window, as if fascinated after all by the view.
To her annoyance, the image of Gray smiling seemed to be burnt on her vision, shimmering between her and the aching blueness of the sky no matter how hard she tried to blink it away. She might as well have been staring straight at him, Clare thought crossly.
By the time she had managed to focus on the land below, she saw that the flat expanse of scrub had given way to a range of rocky hills. The little plane climbed over them and dropped down the other side.
�Are we almost there?’ she asked hopefully.
�Not yet, but we’re over Bushman’s Creek land now.’
To Clare’s consternation, Gray dipped the nose and let the plane drop until it was barely skimming the top of the spindly gum trees. �What are you doing?’ she squeaked, clutching at Alice.
�Just having a look,’ he said casually, as if it were the most normal thing in the world to take a nose-dive into the bush.
�What on earth for?’ said Clare, annoyed to find that her voice was still high and squeaky with alarm.
�I want to see how many cattle are up here. There are always a few that get away from the mob when we muster.’
�Oh, we’re looking for cows?’ she muttered sarcastically. �Great!’
Gray ignored her, banking the plane and swooping low over the trees. His hands were completely steady, and he seemed so in control that insensibly Clare began to relax and look around her.
At this level the featureless brown expanse resolved itself into dry, reddish earth out of which grew tussocks of grass, scrubby silver-barked gums and the occasional boab tree with its odd swollen trunk. Every now and then, a small group of cattle would blunder away at the sound of the plane, leaving clouds of dust to settle behind them, and Clare spotted several wallabies bounding effortlessly between the trees and the towering termite mounds.
�See how much more there is to see down here?’ Gray asked as they dipped down over a spectacular rocky outcrop.
Clare was unimpressed. �It’s still not exactly teeming with excitement, is it?’
�I guess that depends what you find exciting,’ he said. There was a faint undercurrent of amusement in his voice, and Clare looked at him suspiciously. �What does it take to excite you?’ he added with a sidelong glance.
His face was perfectly straight, but she was sure that he was laughing at her. Lifting her chin in an unconsciously haughty gesture, she met his eyes defiantly.
�More than a few lost cows and a couple of kangaroos,’ she said in a tart voice. �Is that the best Bushman’s Creek has to offer?’
�That depends what you’re looking for,’ countered Gray, and this time she definitely saw one corner of his mouth curl upwards before he looked away.
They flew on and on, until Clare began to wonder if they were ever going to get there, but at length Gray pointed out a line of trees snaking across the landscape, their leaves notably greener than the others. �That’s the homestead creek,’ he told Clare. �Even when it’s dry like it is at the moment you can still find a few waterholes. And that’s the homestead down there.’
Clare peered out of the window, but she couldn’t make out more than a jumble of tin roofs flashing in the harsh sunlight and shaded by a cluster of green plants and trees that looked a surprisingly lush set against the bare brown paddocks that surrounded them.
The plane dipped down over the nearby yards, where what seemed to Clare an enormous number of cattle were corralled. She could make out a couple of men who waved a greeting as the plane flew over and touched down at last, about half a mile from the homestead, bumping to a halt on the rough airstrip.
�Welcome to Bushman’s Creek,’ said Gray.
Having slept peacefully through the noise and vibration of the flight, Alice woke up the moment they lifted her out of the plane. She was fractious as they got into the inevitable ute that had been left standing in the shade of a boab tree, and cried all the way back along the rough track to the homestead.
�What’s wrong with her?’ asked Gray, eyeing the screaming baby uneasily.
�There’s nothing wrong with her,’ snapped Clare, her nerves frayed by Alice’s distress. �She’s hungry and she needs her nappy changed, that’s all.’
She was so concerned to make Alice more comfortable that she had little time to take in much of the homestead. �You’d better use my room,’ said Gray, carrying the case into the welcome coolness of the house. �It’s the only one that’s been used for a while. At least you won’t have to sweep the dust away before you can find somewhere to put her down.’
His room was dim and cool and plainly furnished. There was a wide bed with a cover loosely thrown across it, a chest of drawers and a sturdy chair. The effect was one of uncluttered masculinity, quiet, comfortable and practical. Not unlike Gray himself, Clare couldn’t help thinking as she laid Alice down on the bed and changed her nappy. She wished she could lie down herself, but she knew that once she did she would fall asleep. The excitement of the flight had somehow kept exhaustion at bay for a while, but now that they had finally arrived Clare felt it sweep back with a vengeance.
Bracing herself against it, Clare tucked Alice back into her clothes and picked her up. Alice’s sobs had subsided slightly, but she was still grizzly, and Clare kissed her and patted her back as she carried her in search of the kitchen. �I know, I know, you’re hungry. I’ll get you some lunch.’ Somehow she was going to have to get through until Alice’s bedtime, she realised wearily. There was no way she could sleep while Alice needed her.
Finding herself in a large, open living area, Clare slowed and looked about her. The homestead wasn’t at all as she had imagined it. It was newer than she had thought it would be, and had an improvised air, as if rooms had been added onto this central area as and when they were needed, but the atmosphere was surprisingly cool, thanks to the deep verandah that went right around the homestead and kept out any direct sunlight. Every door and window was fitted with a fine mesh screen to keep out insects but to let any breeze into the house.
Clare hadn’t expected to find it such a restful house, but Gray had been right about one thing. It was badly in need of a clean. Dust lay thickly on every surface, and when she turned round she could see her own footsteps clearly marked on the floor.
�I did say it was dirty,’ said Gray, appearing with the last of Clare’s bags and reading her expression without any difficulty.
�I know,’ said Clare. �I just didn’t realise quite how dirty you meant! Don’t you possess a broom?’
�I’m hoping that you’ll find it,’ said Gray dryly.
�I think I’d better!’ She clicked her tongue as she looked around her in dismay. �How could you let it get into this state?’
He shrugged. �It’s a question of priorities. I only use the homestead to sleep at the moment. I’m out all day, I eat in the cookhouse with the stockmen, and if I do sit down it’ll be in the office or on the verandah, never in here.’
Alice was still grizzling, and Clare cast her a harried glance. �I’ll have to worry about the cleaning later,’ she told him. �I need to feed Alice first. Where’s the kitchen?’
�In here,’ said Gray, leading the way. �I’m not sure there’s much to eat in here, though.’
�That’s all right. I’ve got some jars of food for her. All I need is to be able to boil some water at the moment, and later I’ll have to set up the steriliser.’
�I expect we can manage that,’ he said, opening a door into a large room complete with fitted units, an enormous cooker and an array of steel fridges. �That’s where the beer’s kept,’ said Gray, seeing Clare’s eyes follow a trail of footprints through the dust to the fridge at the end. He didn’t actually smile, but the creases on either side of his mouth deepened in a way that made something shift inside Clare, and she turned away, suddenly brisk.
�Where would I find a kettle?’
�What about you?’ Gray asked as she opened a jar. �I could find you something to eat in the cookhouse,’ he offered, but she shook her head.
�I’m not really hungry. A cup of tea will be fine.’
Alice was a messy eater, even by the standards of most babies, and Clare wasn’t surprised when Gray left them to it after seeing what she did with the first few mouthfuls. He said that he would go and see how the men were getting on in the yards.
Clare didn’t expect to see him again that afternoon, but she was just removing Alice’s bib when he came back into the kitchen. �I think there might be an old highchair somewhere,’ he said, watching as Clare lifted Alice out of the backpack.
Clare’s face lit up. �Oh, that would be wonderful!’ she said eagerly, and smiled at him, surprising a strange expression in the brown eyes before they were quickly veiled. �I don’t suppose there’s a cot, too, is there?’
�There might be. As far as I’m aware, my mother never threw anything away, and all the stuff she used when Jack and I were small just got dumped in the unused quarters. I’ll get one of the men to look them out tomorrow.’
Having taken Alice out of the backpack, Clare realised that there was nowhere to put her down. �I think you’d better stay there until I find that brush,’ she said to the baby, settling her back into the seat. Alice looked puzzled to find herself back where she had started, but she made no objection, merely sticking her fingers in her mouth and sucking them as she regarded Clare thoughtfully.
Gray was watching Clare too. She was straightening her shoulders in a gesture of unconscious weariness, and he frowned. �You’re not going to start cleaning now?’ he asked sharply.
�That’s what I’m here for,’ she said, with a smile that somehow turned into a yawn.
�You can clean tomorrow,’ said Gray in a brusque voice, looking at the smudges of exhaustion beneath her eyes. �Right now you need some sleep,’ he added bluntly.
�I can’t.’ Clare tucked her hair behind her ears and wished Gray hadn’t even mentioned the word sleep. �Alice slept in the plane. She’ll be wide awake for hours now.’
�I’ll look after her.’
Clare had the feeling that Gray had taken himself by surprise as much as her. �You?’ she said blankly.
�Why not?’
�I thought you were busy?’
�Things seem to be going all right at the yards. I’ll need to go and check how they’re getting on, but there’s no reason why she shouldn’t come with me, and in the meantime I’ve got plenty of paperwork to catch up on. She can be in the office with me.’
�But…that wasn’t the arrangement,’ stammered Clare. �You don’t want to be bothered with a baby.’
�I don’t want to cope with her when you’ve collapsed with exhaustion either,’ said Gray roughly. �You’re no use to me as a housekeeper if you’re so tired you can hardly stand upright.’
Clare tried to push aside the tantalising prospect of being able to lie down and close her eyes. �I don’t know,’ she said, worried. �Alice can be difficult…’
�I manage four thousand square kilometres out there,’ said Gray, nodding his head in the direction of the window. �Are you telling me I can’t manage a baby?’
�One baby takes just as much attention as a cattle station,’ Clare pointed out. �If not more! You can’t just prop her on a fence and forget about her while you get on and do whatever you do to all those cows! You won’t be able to take your eyes off her for an instant.’
�You’ll have to trust me,’ he said, putting an end to argument by calmly lifting Alice out of her seat once more. Then, when Clare just stood irresolutely chewing her lip, he took her arm in a firm grip with his free hand. �Come with me.’
Clare found herself propelled back across the living area to his bedroom. �Maybe just for an hour,’ she mumbled, succumbing to temptation and the force of his will. She had held out against the exhaustion for so long that no sooner had her resistance cracked than she was overwhelmed by a great, crashing wave of tiredness, so that she stumbled and would have fallen if Gray hadn’t held her up.
Beyond thinking up any more objections, or even thinking at all, she let him pull back the cover and sit her down on the bed before he carried Alice over to the window to pull the blinds.
�Get some sleep,’ he said gruffly, but when he turned to close the door behind him, Clare was still sitting there, watching him in a daze, too tired even to lie down.
Gray hesitated, then went back and set Alice down on the bed beside her. He bent and took off Clare’s sandals before easing her back onto the pillow and lifting her legs up onto the bed. Covering Clare with the sheet, he picked up Alice once more and for a moment they looked down at her as she lay there like a child, looking back at them with great, blurry grey eyes.
Dimly, Clare knew that she ought to thank him, but all she could manage was a wavering smile, and by the time Gray and Alice had reached the door she was asleep.
When Clare woke, several hours later, it was to find herself lying in a strange room and a strange bed. Disorientated, she lay for a while, blinking at the unfamiliar ceiling and trying to disentangle dreams from reality in the swirl of unconnected images in her head. She was in Australia, she remembered eventually. She was at Bushman’s Creek, in Gray Henderson’s bed.
Gray…It was disconcerting to discover just how clearly she could picture a man she had only met for the first time that morning. Clare turned her head on the pillow as if to dislodge the memory of the creases around his eyes, the brown, competent hands, the way his uncompromising mouth had relaxed into such an unexpected smile. She had a nasty feeling Gray’s smile had played an overlarge part in her dreams.
Frowning slightly as reality returned, Clare pulled herself up on the pillows. Gray hadn’t wanted her to come, but he had accepted Alice in the end. He had even been kind, offering to let her sleep, closing the blinds, even taking off her shoes.
She had a vague memory of smiling up at him and seeing the oddest expression in his eyes, but that was probably a dream, she decided. Gray wouldn’t have been looking down at her with a mixture of tenderness and desire. No one would look at a housekeeper like that, and a housekeeper was all she was and all she would ever be as far as Gray was concerned.
As far as I’m concerned too, said Clare firmly to herself as she pushed back the sheet and swung her legs to the floor. She wasn’t here to wonder about Gray Henderson and how he would look at a woman he really wanted to be lying in his bed. She was here for Alice, and if that meant being a housekeeper, that was what she would be.
CHAPTER THREE
CLARE was horrified to discover when she looked at her watch that she had slept for nearly five hours. Her first impulse was to rush out and find Alice, relieving Gray of the responsibility, but one look in the mirror was enough to make her change her mind. Her hair was tangled, her skin puffy and pasty and her linen dress irretrievably crushed. If Gray had coped with Alice all afternoon, he could surely cope for ten minutes longer. She had to have a shower!
Dressing quickly in narrow stone-coloured trousers and a white shirt, Clare felt able to face Gray Henderson once more. That sleep had done her the power of good. She felt much more like herself, she decided as she combed her wet hair behind her ears and fastened the belt of her trousers. It was time to show Gray the real Clare Marshall, crisp and capable and very different from the exhausted woman who had been too tired to take off her own shoes.
Outside, all seemed very quiet, but when Clare walked into the living area she could hear Alice’s incomprehensible chatter, and she followed the sound to a room on the far side, where a door stood open. Through it, she could see Alice sitting on the floor, surrounded by an assortment of objects, as if Gray had ransacked the homestead to find anything safe that she could play with only to find his offerings discarded out of hand.
Gray himself was hunkered beside Alice, proffering a wooden spoon, and Clare was amused to note that he was looking a lot less imperturbable after five hours with his small niece. He wasn’t exactly pulling his hair out, but she thought that there was a distinctly frazzled edge to the way he smiled at Alice. Unnoticed in the doorway, she watched as Alice grasped the spoon and stuck one end straight in her mouth.
�There you are,’ said Gray, levering himself cautiously to his feet. �You play with that for a while, and I’ll—’ He broke off as Alice, having given the spoon a cursory suck, dropped it disdainfully.
�Gah!’ she said in no uncertain terms.
�And I’ll find you something else to play with,’ he finished with a sigh.
Alice’s eye fell on Clare just then, and her face split into a huge, welcoming grin. Gray had been bending to retrieve the spoon, but at her smile he glanced behind him, to see Clare standing in the doorway, looking trim and pretty. The strange, silvery-grey eyes were clear, and she was smiling lovingly back at Alice.
There was an odd little silence as he straightened and turned. �Hullo,’ he said, and there was a note in his voice that Clare couldn’t identify. �You look better.’
�I feel better,’ she told him honestly, but for some reason she found she couldn’t look at him directly, and it was a relief to be able to turn her attention to Alice, who was holding up her arms and babbling a greeting. The words might not make any sense, but it was clear that she wanted Clare to pick her up now!
Swinging her up into her arms, Clare gave her a kiss. �Have you been good?’ she asked.
�She’s been…fine,’ said Gray with a little reserve.
Clare glanced down at the objects scattered across the floor, and then at the desk, where an area out of the reach of baby arms had obviously been cleared. �How much paperwork did you get done?’ she asked innocently.
�Not a lot,’ he admitted, and then, when Clare lifted her brows, he gave a reluctant smile. �All right, I didn’t get any done! I didn’t realise one small person could restrict your activities so much!’
�Oh, Alice!’ said Clare, trying not to smile. �Have you been keeping him busy?’
�She’s been busy,’ he told her. �I put her in the backpack and took her down to the yards, so she’s met the men and seen her first cattle.’
�Wasn’t she frightened?’ Clare asked a little dubiously. Alice had never seen anything like a cow before, she realised, and she would have thought it would be quite alarming to be introduced to a thousand at once.
�We didn’t get that close,’ Gray reassured her, �but she didn’t seem to be. She never stopped talking the whole time!’
Clare tickled Alice on the nose. �Yes, she’s chatty, isn’t she?’
�Can you make any sense of it?’ he asked curiously.
She laughed. �No, it doesn’t mean anything. She’s just making sounds—but she can usually make herself understood when she wants something! It looks as if she managed to convince you that she didn’t want to sit quietly in her chair all afternoon, for instance,’ she added, amused.
�Oh, yes, she got that message across all right,’ said Gray with feeling. �I tried doing some work with her sitting on my lap, but she kept throwing papers on the floor, and in any case it wasn’t that easy to concentrate on figures with her chatting away, so I gave up after a while. I wasn’t sure where you had packed her toys so I had to see what I could find around the homestead, but she didn’t seem to be interested in anything for more than two seconds.’
�I only brought a couple of toys with me,’ said Clare. �She doesn’t really play with anything at the moment. Everyday objects are just as fascinating to her right now, but she was probably enjoying your attention more than anything else.’ She hesitated, then said almost shyly, �I’m sorry you had to give up your afternoon when you’re so busy, but I really am grateful. That was the best sleep I’ve had in a long time. Thank you so much for looking after her.’
�That’s all right,’ he said gruffly. �It was quite an education. I’ve done a lot, but I’ve never had to change a baby’s nappy before.’
Clare stared at him. �You changed her nappy?’
�With some help,’ he confessed, a little shame-faced. �I had to get Joe to show me how to do it. He’s got children, but they’re grown up now, and I don’t think he was much of a hands-on father anyway, so he wasn’t much help. In the end there were four of us standing around the bed, scratching our heads and looking from the baby to the nappy and back again. We worked it out in the end, though,’ he added. �Or we think we did! You might have to check.’
Clare couldn’t help laughing at the idea of four grown men puzzling over such a simple task. �You could have told them, couldn’t you, Alice?’ she smiled, swinging Alice up until she laughed too with glee.
Her laughter was so infectious that after a moment Gray gave in and laughed too. Clare’s smiling glance went from Alice’s merry face to his, and her heart seemed to stumble, and when her eyes met his she found her laugh faltering for some reason.
It was as if they had both realised at the same time that they were relaxed and laughing together like old friends, when they ought to be remembering that they were virtual strangers with conflicting interests and nothing in common but one small baby. Their smiles faded simultaneously, and Clare’s gaze slid away from his face.
�You should have woken me,’ she said awkwardly, settling Alice on her hip.
�I looked in on you after an hour, but you were sound asleep, and I thought it would be better to leave you,’ he said.
Clare didn’t know whether to be glad or sorry that the impersonal note was back in his voice. It was impossible to tell what he had thought as he’d looked down at her, sprawled in sleep in the middle of his own bed.
�Well…thank you,’ she said, �and don’t worry, I won’t ask you to do it again!’
He shrugged slightly. �We managed.’
�I know, but…well, the idea wasn’t that you would spend your time looking after Alice while I caught up on my sleep.’ She paused, choosing her words with care. �I do appreciate what you’ve done today, Gray. This isn’t an easy situation for you either. You’ve got no way of knowing whether Alice really is your niece or not, and I would have understood if you’d refused to let us come here at all, let alone give up an afternoon to entertain Alice.’
Clare took a breath and went on. �I just want you to know that I’m grateful, and that I won’t take anything for granted. You’ve been very kind to Alice—and to me—this afternoon, but I know it doesn’t mean that you’ve accepted Alice as your niece. From now on, we’ll try not to interfere with you.’ She wished she could gauge how Gray was reacting. He was just standing there, watching her with that unreadable expression, and she could feel herself babbling like Alice, and probably making just as much sense. �With any luck, you’ll forget we’re here,’ she finished with a bright smile.
Gray looked at her. �I don’t think that’s very likely, somehow,’ he said in his slow voice. �I’m not sure how much use you’ll be as a housekeeper if you spend your time keeping out of my way!’
�I didn’t mean that.’ Clare pushed her hands through her hair in frustration. At home, she was a calm, articulate administrator, with a reputation for sorting out communication problems in the office, but there was something about Gray’s brown dispassionate gaze that turned her into a stammering idiot. �I just meant…well, that I won’t make any more demands on you.’
�Fine.’
Gray was straight-faced, but there was an unsettling gleam of mockery in his brown eyes and Clare’s lips tightened. She was only trying to be polite and reassuring. He might at least make the effort to pretend that he took her seriously in return!
�It’s getting late,’ she said coldly. She was obviously going to have to work a little harder to convince him of her coolness and competence. �I should give Alice some supper and then put her to bed. Is there a spare room we could have?’
�This way.’
He led her down the corridor and opened the door of the room opposite his own.
�But…it’s clean!’ said Clare stupidly as she looked around her.
�Alice and I gave it a sweep while you were sleeping,’ said Gray. �I wasn’t sure what to do about Alice, but I made up the bed for you.’
She looked at the bed and had a sudden picture of Gray bending over it, his brown hand smoothing over the sheet, and colour stole up her cheeks. �You shouldn’t have bothered,’ she said.
�I assumed you wouldn’t want to stay in my bed,’ he said in a dry voice, and her blush deepened.
�Of course not,’ she said almost sharply. �I could have made up my own bed, though.’
Gray ignored that. �Like I said, I wasn’t sure what to do about Alice. She’s too small to sleep in a bed, isn’t she?’
�I put her in a drawer last night.’ Clare was glad of the change of subject. �One from that chest of drawers will do fine until we can find her a cot.’
In fact, by the time Alice had been fed and bathed, she was ready to sleep anywhere, and she let Clare tuck her up in the drawer without protest. Clare pottered around the room until she was sure Alice was asleep, and then went in search of Gray.
She found him on the verandah with a shy, lanky youth introduced as Ben. Ben, it appeared, had offered to listen out for Alice while Gray took Clare over to the cookhouse for a meal.
�If you’re going to do the cooking, we’ll all eat in the homestead tomorrow,’ said Gray as they walked over to the long, low building set a little way from the house.
Darkness had fallen with disconcerting speed while Clare had been putting Alice to bed, and she felt rather disorientated to find herself suddenly walking through the night. It was very dark, and the air was shrill with the whirring, clicking sound of invisible insects. They sounded alien to Clare, used to a background noise of traffic and sirens and voices in the street, of music played too loud in the house next door and the ticking sound of waiting taxis and the subdued roar of the planes coming in to land at Heathrow.
She imagined the eerie, empty outback stretching out all around them, and she shivered slightly, glad of Gray’s tall, solid, immensely reassuring presence beside her. Clare was furious to find herself thinking that it would be even more reassuring if she could slip her hand into his and feel his long fingers close securely around it, and, terrified that one might steal over of its own accord, she hugged her arms together.
�How many will I be cooking for?’ she asked, hoping that her voice didn’t sound as high and tight to Gray as it did to her.
�At the moment we’ve got two ringers—they’re the more experienced stockmen—and four jackaroos,’ he told her. �Then, tonight, there are two truck drivers. They’re taking the sale cattle out first thing tomorrow morning so they can get to the sealed road before it gets too hot. We get government inspectors occasionally, roo shooters, contractors who come in to do specific jobs…you think a place like this is isolated, but you’d be surprised how many people pass through.’
Clare had been calculating on her fingers. �You mean I’ll be catering for at least eight every night?’ she said, taken aback.
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