Her Outback Rescuer

by Marion Lennox

  ‘I hated him,’ she said simply. ‘I went home every night to what he’d done to Rachel, and I wanted to make him suffer, too.’ She shrugged. ‘But that wouldn’t help anyone. Rachel needed to get away. If I’d applied for another company... Rachel knows I was dancing for the best. She’d know why I was changing and she’d loathe it. And then these teaching jobs came up in Darwin: a great university role for Rachel and a position I thought I could be happy with. I knew Rachel wouldn’t come alone. Her depression meant inertia and it was as much as I could do to make her apply. And she wouldn’t let me come with her if she thought I was sacrificing my dancing because of it. I set it out as a new life for us both.’

  ‘So you walked away entirely.’

  ‘Ballet’s not my life.’

  ‘From what Maud says, it was.’

  She shrugged. ‘You can get satisfaction in different things. This teaching job sounds good.’

  ‘But the waste...’

  ‘Don’t say it,’ she said, and the anger was still there. ‘It’s my life, Hugo. I can belong...somewhere else.’

  ‘And you’d make that sacrifice for Rachel?’ Involuntarily he placed his arm round her shoulder and tugged her close. He half expected her to pull away. For a moment she stilled. She didn’t speak for a long moment—and then she placed her hand over his. She leaned against him. The silence stretched out, and he knew something in her was letting go.

  ‘You see the sacrifice because you’re doing it, too,’ she whispered. ‘From desert isolation to the head of a financial empire... There are those who’d love it, but that’s not you. But you do what you must because the alternative is too awful to think about. For now, though... We both need somehow to find a way to belong to where we land.’

  More silence.

  It wasn’t an awkward silence, though. It was a silence that needed to happen, for them both to figure the next step.

  If there was a next step.

  ‘You must be cold,’ she said at last, and he thought about that, thought about the implications.

  ‘I’m tough.’ But he didn’t feel tough.

  ‘Tough but cold?’

  ‘I’ll go back to the house when I’m cold.’

  ‘This swag’s pretty big. You could...share.’

  There was another stillness then, but it was a different stillness. The parameters were changing.

  She was still leaning against him. The link suddenly seemed stronger. Stronger and more urgent.

  ‘I’m just offering,’ she said simply into the silence. ‘I know we can’t have anything long term, but we’re mature adults. Maybe for tonight...’

  ‘For tonight?’

  ‘For tonight, you’ve brought me blankets and heat and Tim Tams,’ she said simply. ‘Those things are wonderful—but I want more.’

  ‘Amy...’

  ‘But you know there’s something else we need.’ She sounded unsure then, as if suddenly doubting her own temerity. ‘I...I don’t carry them,’ she said. ‘I know I should but, believe it or not, I...I didn’t see this coming.’

  He didn’t say anything. He couldn’t. She’d taken his breath away. What he wanted too much...she was simply offering.

  ‘I don’t usually make this sort of suggestion,’ she whispered. ‘In truth, I never have. Maybe it’s crazy, maybe it’s immoral, maybe it’s both. But there’s something about this night. There’s something about you. Hugo, I’m not asking more of you than you want to give, but for now...if you happen to be a man who comes prepared...’ She took a deep breath. ‘Hugo, for now, for this night, I belong here. And I want you.’

  And what was a man to say to that?

  I don’t usually...

  He knew truth when he heard it. This was as out of character for Amy as it was for him.

  I didn’t see this coming.

  This need. This magnetic force. This coming together of two halves of a whole.

  Maybe he had seen it coming. Maybe this night had been in his head for two days.

  He’d brought condoms.

  I don’t usually...she’d said.

  There was nothing usual about this night.

  She’d tugged away, out of his hold, so she could read his face. She was meeting his gaze in the starlight, directly, honestly, her gaze telling him she wanted him as a woman wanted a man, with a need as ancient as time itself.

  He met her gaze and his heart twisted. A night under the stars. A woman as lovely as Amy. An offer he couldn’t believe she’d made.

  But maybe the offer had been inevitable. No matter which one of them had brought it up, that was how it felt. Inevitable and right.

  I belong here.

  He slipped his fingers into her tousled curls. He drew her tenderly towards him and he kissed her.

  This was a gift with a value beyond measure.

  He held her in his arms and his world shifted.

  He let himself fall in love.

  * * *

  Dawn crept over the horizon with a stealth and beauty that took her breath away.

  She was lying spooned against Hugo’s body. She was warm, sated and happy—as warm, sated and happy as a woman could be.

  The cat with the cream. That was how she felt.

  She could see Uluru in the distance, a great gilded glow, shimmering in dawn-tinged light. The desert between here and the horizon was vast and breathtaking.

  This was her grandmother’s country. It was her country. She belonged here.

  She belonged in this man’s arms.

  She’d never felt as whole as she’d felt last night. Making love with Hugo felt as if two halves of a whole had finally found their rightful place.

  He’d joined with her and her head had felt as if it must surely explode. She’d never known such joy. But now, afterwards, in the rising dawn, the peace she knew was profound and wonderful.

  She was home, in the arms of the man she loved.

  Loved?

  She’d known him for less than a week.

  But she did know him, she thought, as she felt him stir and his arms tightened around her. Skin to skin...nothing could feel this wonderful. If this was all there was, she thought, if he walked away from this moment, she could never regret this night. She’d walked into this with her eyes wide open.

  He was her outback warrior and she gloried in it. She gloried in him. He was about to be thrust into a life he loathed, but he’d enter that life with strength and with honour.

  And somehow... Somehow he’d fed her strength. She had a new life, too, that she was about to step into. It terrified her—life without her dancing—but if this man could do what he must alone, then so could she.

  She’d taken strength from him, she thought, and she smiled.

  ‘What’s funny?’ He was cradling her, holding her with such tenderness... He’d heard her smile?

  ‘I was just hoping I’m not Delilah,’ she whispered into the dawn. ‘Taking your strength for my own.’

  ‘You haven’t,’ he murmured in mock horror. He raked his hair, flinching with pretend horror. ‘My ponytail...woman, where is it?’

  ‘Eat Tim Tams,’ she said equably. ‘Food to make it grow back. It’s the only thing to do.’

  ‘No,’ he murmured, nuzzling her ear. ‘It’s not the only thing to do. If I can just gather my failing strength...’

  ‘Try,’ she said, and he did.

  With joy.

  * * *

  You’d think, Hugo decided wryly,
that at six o’clock in the morning a man could have a bit of privacy in his own house. Instead, as he and Amy slipped in the back entrance, hoping to make it to their respective bedrooms unnoticed, they found the entire household assembled in the kitchen. Maudie, Rachel, Wendy, Scott, Scott’s two kelpies and Buster.

  That made seven sets of eyes. Hugo ushered Amy in from the back porch and every set was on them.

  ‘About time,’ Maud said. ‘I was about to send Wendy down with pancakes.’

  Pancakes. He checked the kitchen table and saw a mound that’d do a battalion credit.

  ‘We thought you might be hungry,’ Maud said. ‘We all are.’

  Wendy and Scott were dressed. Rachel and Maud were in dressing gowns.

  They were all—including the dogs—looking pleased with themselves.

  Wendy was pouring coffee, as if finally they’d arrived for a scheduled breakfast.

  They were expected to calmly sit down at the breakfast table and drink coffee?

  What else to do?

  Amy grinned and sat. She’d worn her customary leggings and baggy sweater out to the waterhole and she was wearing them again now. She looked, though...well, rumpled wouldn’t begin to describe it.

  She looked loved, Hugo thought, watching the faint colour tinge her cheeks as she concentrated fiercely on spooning sugar into her mug.

  He didn’t remember her having sugar.

  ‘The stars were great,’ she said, sounding a bit breathless. ‘It was an awesome night.’

  ‘I’m glad my grandson was able to share it with you,’ Maud said, and her satisfaction was unmistakable and profound.

  Uh oh. Maudie in full cry. He might just as well have produced a diamond.

  He glanced at Amy and caught her glancing back at him. She looked away fast and started stirring her coffee. She was starting to lose her glow.

  Woman caught after a one-night stand?

  ‘It was an awesome night,’ he repeated, solidly and surely. He sat and loaded a plate with pancakes, then looked across at Amy and kept on looking until finally she looked up and met his gaze. ‘It was pretty much the most wonderful night of my life,’ he said. ‘I never knew star-gazing could be so amazing.’

  She blushed—but he saw the beginnings of a smile. She wasn’t being treated as a one-night stand. What had happened between them had been momentous and he was acknowledging it.

  ‘Scott offered to take Rachel bird-watching at dawn,’ Maud said to the room in general. ‘But they decided it was too cold.’

  And the birds would be around the waterhole, Hugo thought. Good one, Scott.

  Scott was grinning. He was a weather-beaten, taciturn farm manager. Hugo had never seen him grin in his life.

  ‘It wasn’t a good morning for disturbing the wildlife,’ he said. ‘Rachel decided to sort a few rocks instead.’

  And Rachel smiled at Amy, took pity on her and launched into her best professorial tone. Yes, she’d been sorting rocks. They were amazing samples. Did they know Uluru and Kata Tjuta were built from sandstone, deposited when Australia was an inland sea, but some seismic event had tipped and changed their structure? She was trying to work out if it was the one event or many. There was controversy. Did they know Professor Ernest Mathison of the University of...

  She kept going happily, trying not to grin.

  Amy’s colour finally subsided. She drank her coffee—though Hugo saw her wince as she realised how much sugar was in it.

  She glanced up and he grinned at her and winked, and she blushed all over again.

  ‘Tell me about Professor Mathison,’ Hugo said encouragingly to Rachel. ‘Is he a rival?’

  Rachel glanced again at Amy and her smile widened. Was this the depressed Rachel of only days ago?

  ‘Yes, he is,’ she said. ‘Do you want to hear the stupidity of his thesis?’

  ‘Yes,’ Hugo said. ‘I believe we do.’

  ‘Of course you do,’ Maud said. ‘And then you can tell us all about what happens at an outback waterhole at dawn.’

  ‘In your dreams,’ Hugo said and everyone laughed.

  Even Amy.

  * * *

  Too soon, it was time to leave, time to drive back to Alice Springs and catch the Ghan again.

  Amy sat in the back of the car with Rachel and Buster and let the others do the talking.

  Maud and Rachel were chattering like new best friends. Hugo was responding every now and then, his lovely deep voice making her toes curl.

  Amy was trying to figure how to get on with her life.

  She had to get her toes uncurled. No matter that Hugo had loved her as much as she’d loved him, no matter that he’d treated her with respect, this had to stop. They were poles apart.

  They had twenty-four more hours on the train and then it was over.

  Hugo and Maud had tickets on a cruise boat travelling from Darwin to Broome. She and Rachel had an apartment booked in Darwin. She’d start her new job. Life would resume a new normal.

  But...but...

  She felt loved.

  Every time Hugo spoke she felt loved. Even when he was talking rocks to Rachel... Even when he was talking business with Maud...

  He feels like mine, she thought, and for a little, for just a little, she hugged Buster and she let herself dream. She let herself believe that this was a fairy tale where a wand could be waved and somehow a billionaire warrior could want an out-of-date ballet dancer and there’d be a happy ever after.

  In her dreams.

  Right, she thought, but the drive was long and she was weary and there was nothing wrong with curling up in the back of the gorgeous car and letting her dreams take her where they willed.

  She’d wake up soon enough.

  She did.

  CHAPTER TEN

  WAKING from dreams was never easy. Waking was not, however, usually so hard.

  They arrived at Alice Springs Railway Station. An official from Hugo’s company was there to collect the car. He smiled a formal greeting to Maud and to Rachel, but when he saw Amy he grinned.

  ‘I’m very pleased to meet you,’ he said, and it was as if he knew all about her and had been hoping to meet her for some time.

  His greeting made her uneasy.

  The station was busy. The Ghan had arrived earlier in the day. Passengers going all the way through to Darwin had left the train and spent a few hours exploring Alice Springs. Others, like them, were rejoining the train after a break. There were people everywhere.

  Most of them were glancing, covertly or not so covertly, at Amy.

  Why?

  Had Buster stuck his head out?

  No.

  The little dog was safely back in her purse, and he shouldn’t be a problem this time. She and Rachel would be in one of the sumptuous Platinum carriages. And as well as that... ‘If we need to grease palms we’ll grease them,’ Hugo had said. ‘No more midnight dashes in your pyjamas.’

  She’d arrived at the station thinking this was going to be easy. Now, though...

  Why was everyone looking at her?

  People were also looking at Hugo, but she could understand that. As one of Australia’s mega-rich, he’d command attention even if he wasn’t drop-dead gorgeous, and his picture had been in the tabloids recently as speculation grew about Thurstons.

  People were looking at Maud, too. Maud was known and respected throughout the country.

  But Amy...

  ‘Have I
got a hole in my tights?’ she muttered to Rachel and Rachel shook her head, clearly as puzzled as she was.

  Hugo’s associate—Raymond—was helping them with the suitcases. Their little group was the centre of interest for the entire precinct.

  And then all was explained. Inside the station doors was a news-stand, and in front were billboards. Big billboards. Three billboards for three different publications.

  The same photograph on each.

  Five nights ago. Amy and Hugo, on the train.

  Hugo was holding her shoulders. Her face was tilted to his, he was looking at her, and the way he was looking at her... A kiss was inevitable. His look was a kiss in itself.

  At least Hugo was dressed, Amy thought, feeling appalled. She was wearing her pink pyjamas. Her hair was tousled. She looked as if she’d just stepped out of the bathroom—into the arms of her lover?

  ‘Mystery Pyjama Girl,’ the caption blazed. ‘Capturing the Thurston Billions?’

  She felt sick.

  Hugo’s arm came round her, moving his body between her and the crowd. ‘Get back.’

  But it was too late. ‘You’re the pyjama girl,’ someone yelled at her, and cameras appeared from everywhere. The press had obviously been waiting. Every passenger seemed to have their cellphone camera.

  Hugo had no hope of hiding her.

  She felt every vestige of colour drain from her body. She pushed back from Hugo, thinking no, she wanted no part of this.

  But then...

  Then it wasn’t up to her. He let her go, no, more than that, he was putting her away, propelling her towards Rachel.

  ‘Shield your sister and move away from us,’ he told Rachel in a voice she didn’t recognise. It was a commander voice, clipped and harsh. ‘Hide your faces. If we stay together it’ll get worse. Move your hands back and forth so photos will blur. Raymond, look after them. Maud, come with me. Get on the train, fast.’

  And he was gone, striding roughly through the crowd, propelling Maud in front of him.

  With Hugo gone, the photographers weren’t sure what to do, but they kept on clicking as the reporters moved in.

  ‘Can you tell us your name? Are you and Major Thurston an item? How long have you been seeing him? Is he taking over Thurston Holdings? He’s booked from Darwin on a cruise with his grandmother. Are you going, too?’