by Jessica Hart
Shutting the oven door now, she turned to smile a welcome at Brett, her hands still in the mitts. 'Busy day?'
'Frantic,' said Brett lazily. 'Mal doesn't seem to appreciate that there are only so many hours in one day.' He strolled over to the cooker and lifted the lid of a saucepan to sniff appreciatively. 'Where is the old slave-driver, anyway?'
'He's just putting Megan to bed.'
'Oh, good, so he's out of the way for a bit.' Brett brightened and slid an arm around Copper's waist. 'I never seem to get a chance to talk to you on your own. Mal's always hanging around and watching disapprovingly if I go anywhere near you. Have you noticed?'
Copper had. She noticed everything about Mal. He had made a point of never leaving her alone with Brett, although it must have been obvious that she was in no danger of taking his brother seriously. In another man, his behaviour might have looked like jealousy, but Copper had the nasty feeling that she was the last woman Mal would care about. She was too like Lisa for him to be jealous. He made no effort to charm her, as Brett did, and his eyes when they rested on her held no warmth but only an odd, speculative expression.
'He's got a lot on his mind,' she told Brett, even as she marvelled to find herself defending Mal.
'So have I,' said Brett. 'A pair of gorgeous green eyes that do terrible things to a man's blood pressure.' His hold tightened. 'Has anyone ever told you what an enchanting smile you've got, Copper?'
If Mal had put his arm round her, Copper would have been strumming with nerves, but she didn't even bother to move away from Brett as she laughed up at him. 'Now, why do I get the feeling that you've used that line before?'
Brett grinned. 'I've never meant it before, though! I swear, you're the prettiest girl we've ever had out here and I'm madly in love with you. Why won't you love me back?'
'I've just got no taste,' said Copper, shaking her head in mock sorrow. 'Sad, isn't it?'
'It does seem a waste,' agreed Brett, blue eyes dancing. 'A beautiful girl like you should be in love with someone. You haven't done anything silly like falling in love with Mal, have you? He's a hardened case, and you'd have much more fun with me!'
It was obvious that he was joking, but Copper sprang away from him as if he had jabbed her with a hot poker. 'In love with MalT she spluttered, with quite unnecessary vehemence. 'What a ridiculous idea! Of course I'm not in love with Mal!'
'Now that we've cleared that up, do you think you could come and say goodnight to Megan?' Mal's cool voice from the doorway made Copper spin round, her cheeks aflame. 'Then, if you're ready, we could have that talk-or are you and Brett busy?'
'No-no, of course not,' stammered Copper, but Brett only grinned.
'Yes, we are,' he said gaily. 'I'm extremely busy trying to persuade Copper to fall in love with me, but so far we've only established that she's not in love with you!'
Mal's expression was unreadable. 'So I heard.'
'I'll-um- I'll just say goodnight to Megan,' said Copper hurriedly. She tried to gather up her files from the kitchen table, but she was so flustered that she managed to drop most of them on the floor, and then had to scrabble around picking them up again.
Mal held the door open for her with ironic courtesy. 'I'll be in my office,' he said.
What did it matter if he had heard her tell Brett that she wasn't in love with him? Copper asked herself as she bent down to kiss Megan. It was perfectly true. OK, there had been Turkey, but that had been youthful infatuation, and anyway, he had been different then. He wasn't in love with her now and she wasn't in love with him.
Absolutely, definitely not.
So why are you lurking in here as if you don't want to face him? an inner voice enquired. Copper drew a deep breath. The whole future of Copley Travel was at stake while she was dithering in here. Stop being pathetic, she told herself. Just go out there and show Mal what you're made of!
'Come in,' said Mal as she knocked at the open door with an assumption of confidence. He came round his desk to shut the door behind her. 'Sit down.'
The formality was a little disconcerting, but Copper took it as encouragement. Mal was just making it clear that this was a business meeting like any other. Trying to ignore the undertow of tension in the room, she opened a file and drew out the plan of the waterhole site that her father had drawn and a sheaf of artists' impressions of what the camp would look like.
She talked for nearly an hour. And all the time she was excruciatingly aware of Mal leaning over the plans, of the taut power of his body close to hers, the brown finger running down a list of figures and the hard, exciting line of his cheek tugging at the edge of her vision.
At length Copper talked herself to a standstill. She had done the best she could and now all she could do was wait for Mal's decision. 'I'm not sure that there's anything else I can tell you at this stage,' she said carefully as she began to stack the papers back together. 'Obviously there are still a lot of details to be worked out, but at this stage we'd really just like to reach an agreement with you in principle.'
There was no way of telling what he thought of her arguments. His face gave nothing away as he straightened from the desk and walked over to the window. 'This project means a great deal to you, doesn't it?' he said, turning back to face her at last.
'Yes, it does,' she said honestly.
'I'm just wondering how much you're prepared to do to get me to agree to it.'
'Well, the figure I suggested is open to negotiation,' Copper began with caution, but Mal waved that idea aside.
'I'm not talking about money. I'm talking about what you personally are prepared to do.'
'Personally?' What was he driving at? Copper gave a rather uncertain laugh. 'I guess it rather depends on the sort of thing you've got in mind.'
'Let's say marriage, for instance.'
She froze in the middle of shoving papers back into their file, wondering if she had misheard. 'Marriage! Whose marriage?'
'Yours and mine,' said Mal calmly.
Copper had the oddest feeling that the floor had tipped beneath her feet, and she sat down abruptly on her chair, still clutching the file. 'Is this some kind of joke?' she asked, in a voice that sounded quite unlike her own.
'Believe me, I've never felt less like joking,' said Mal. 'I'm offering you a straight deal. Here it is: you can use the waterhole to do whatever you want with your tourists if you agree to marry me. I'm not talking about a lifetime commitment,' he went on when Copper just gaped at him. 'I'm thinking of an agreed period of three years- but that figure is open to negotiation, as you would say.'
Copper moistened her lips surreptitiously. She couldn't get rid of the feeling that she had blundered into a play to discover that she had no idea of her own lines. 'But-but this is crazy!' she stuttered. 'You don't even want to get married. You said so!'
'I don't want to, but I will. I need a wife.' Mal picked up a fax message from a pile on his desk. 'I got this from the agency today. They've found a girl who's prepared to come out on a short-term contract, but I can see already what's going to happen. She'll be keen for a week or so and then she'll get bored, and Brett will think it's his duty to entertain her, and before we know where we are she'll be in tears and booking herself on the first bus back to Brisbane. Meanwhile Megan is left, abandoned by yet another stranger just when she's got used to her.'
He dropped the fax wearily back onto the desk. 'I've been thinking about what you said at the waterhole that day, and I've decided that you're right.'
'Something I said?' echoed Copper, surprise helping her to find her voice. 'What did I say?'
'You said that marriage didn't have to be the way it was with Lisa, and the more I think about it, the more I think you're right. A business arrangement where both sides know quite clearly what's involved would be a different sort of marriage altogether.'
'That wasn't exactly the different kind of marriage I had in mind,' she said with a tiny sigh, but Mal wasn't listening.
'It makes sense,' he said, getti
ng up to prowl around the room as he ticked the advantages off on his fingers. 'Even Brett would draw the line at seducing his brother's wife, so I get a permanent housekeeper and Megan gets a mother figure. Three years isn't ideal, but it's more security than she gets at the moment, and-who knows?-the marriage might be a success and we could renegotiate terms for a longer period.'
'I don't believe this!' said Copper incredulously. 'You're not seriously asking me to marry you just to solve your housekeeping problems?'
'Why not? You're perfect.' Mal stopped striding and came to prop himself against the desk beside her so that he could study her dispassionately. 'The first and most important thing is that you're good with Megan and she likes you.'
'I'm not being asked to marry Megan, though, am I?'
'Second,' he said, ignoring her sarcastic interruption, 'you don't seem to take Brett too seriously. And third, as you were so busy telling Brett, you're not in love with me.'
Copper looked down at the file in her lap. She was very aware of the soft material of her skirt hanging against her bare legs and there was a cold knot gathering deep inside her. 'Most husbands would think of that as a disadvantage,' she said, amazed that she could sound so composed when her blood was still booming at the shock of his proposal.
'It's not as far as I'm concerned,' said Mal. 'I've had one wife who said she loved me, and I don't want another. No, you've told me that you're not romantic, and that suits me fine. I want someone who'll treat the marriage like a business deal, with no messy emotions or false expectations of what it'll be like.'
'And what do I get out of this deal?'
He looked at her in surprise. 'I would have thought that was obvious. You get the chance to run your business at Birraminda. You can say what you like about group leaders and logistical operations, but when it comes down to it, a project that size is going to have to have someone permanently on the spot. Just organising supplies is going to be a full-time job, and who's going to deal with your people when they turn up at Birraminda wanting gas or a telephone or someone to mend a tyre? You can't do any of that from Adelaide, so you might as well be up here yourself, keeping an eye on everything.'
'It's a big step from administrator to wife,' Copper pointed out, still hardly able to credit that they were actually talking about the crazy idea.
'You can look on it as doing two jobs at the same time,' said Mal. 'It's not even as if I'm asking you to choose between your husband and your business, am I?' He folded his arms across his chest, about at Copper's eye level, and she found herself staring at the dark hairs on his forearms where his blue checked shirt was rolled up from his wrists.
'Look,' he went on, as if talking about the most reasonable thing in the world, 'I wouldn't have thought of suggesting it if you hadn't told me how things were in Adelaide. As it is, you're alone, your boyfriend's gone off with someone else and your friends are feeling uncomfortable. Marrying me would be the perfect excuse to move away for a while.'
'You don't think marriage is rather an extreme solution to a bit of awkwardness?' Copper asked, her tone edged with irony. 'I could get a job in another state if I was that desperate to get away.'
'I'm offering you that job,' he said. 'You don't have to be madly in love to work successfully with someone.'
'No, but it helps when you're married to them!'
'Not in my experience.' The corners of Mal's mouth turned down. 'You've said that all you're really interested in is your business. Well, that's fine by me-I'm offering you the chance to prove it. You can stay here as my wife and make sure that your project is a success or you can find some other station owner willing to put up with all the hassle. Either way, I'd bet that you're going to spend most of your time sorting out problems on site, so you might as well be here at Birraminda where you'd have a lot more influence.'
Copper sat bolt upright. 'Can we get this quite clear?' she said coldly. 'You'll let Copley Travel use Birraminda if I agree to marry you, but if not, the whole project's off?'
'That's it,' he agreed, as if pleased with her quick comprehension.
'But that's blackmail!'
Mal shrugged. 'I prefer to look on it as a question of priorities. I've already decided mine-Megan. All you have to do is decide what yours is.'
It was a challenge. Angry green eyes stared into impassive brown in an almost audible clash of wills, while the air between them jangled with tension. Copper didn't know whether she wanted to laugh or cry or simply haul off and hit him for standing there so coolly while she felt as if the whole world was reeling. All she knew was that if her father's dreams weren't to fall apart there and then, she couldn't throw Mal's offer back in his face with the contempt it deserved and stalk out of the room.
Her gaze dropped and she lurched to her feet. 'I-I'll have to think about it,' she said, gathering the rest of her files from the desk with fumbling fingers.
'All right.' Mal levered himself upright as well and walked over to open the door for her. 'Let me know when you've made a decision,' he said, and shut the door behind her.
That was it? Copper stared incredulously at the closed door, her files clutched in her arms. No word of encouragement, no suggestion of reassurance, no attempt at persuasion. Would it have killed him to show a little more interest in her? Mal was obviously never going to declare undying love after his first marriage, but he could have said that he found her attractive or that he liked her, or even just that he felt they would get on together. That would have been better than nothing. At least it wouldn't have left her feeling as if her most important attributes in his eyes were availability and a susceptibility to blackmail!
Anyway, the whole idea was ridiculous. She would say no, of course. Of course she would.
Copper was distracted through dinner, oblivious to Brett's teasing comments about what she and Mal had been up to in the office for so long, and aware only of Mal sitting at the head of the table. If he was worried about her decision, he gave absolutely no sign of it. He must have known that she would still be reeling after his extraordinary proposal, but did he make the slightest effort to make her feel as if he cared one way or the other? A smile, a reassuring look, even an effort to include her in the conversation was all it would take, but no! He just sat there and talked about cows. She wasn't even going to think about marrying him!
The trouble was that she was thinking about it, Copper realised as she tossed and turned in futile search of sleep that night. On her way to bed, she had checked automatically on Megan. A restless sleeper, she always ended up sprawled half-in and half-out of bed. Copper straightened her and tucked the bedclothes around her, stroking the soft curls away from the child's face. Megan mumbled in her sleep and sighed and Copper felt her heart contract. Maybe there were worse ways to spend three years than in making sure that a child was loved and secure.
She had thought, too, about going back to England to work for a couple of years once the Birraminda project was up and running. They had recently recruited a promising new member of staff to run the agency office, so she would hardly be abandoning her father. It would give her a break from Adelaide and the humiliating sympathy of friends. Why shouldn't she spend those years at Birraminda instead? What difference would it make?
Mal would make the difference. The very thought of marrying him clutched at the base of Copper's spine. You couldn't live with someone for three years and not become part of their life. 'A business arrangement', Mal had said, but just how business-like did he intend their marriage to be? Would they calmly go off to their separate rooms at night, as they did now, or would they share a room? Would he expect her to go to sleep lying next to him every night, to wake up next to him every morning? That was what a real wife would do-but then, Mal didn't want a real wife, Copper remembered bleakly.
Or did he? Housekeeper or wife-which did he really want? And which could she bear to be?
Copper fell into an exhausted sleep at last, surprised to find when she woke that she felt much calmer. She was even ab
le to have a cool discussion with Mal about what time they would be back from the muster that evening and whether or not Naomi would provide sandwiches for their lunch. The really important issue, she had woken up realising, was not whether Mal would sleep with her or not, but the effect on her father if she refused to marry him and he carried out his threat to deny them access to Birraminda.
Dan would be bitterly disappointed at losing what he considered the perfect site. He would be frustrated at the delay in getting the project off the ground, and depressed at the thought of starting again and finding somewhere else. Already desperately worried about the future of Copley Travel if they couldn't break into a new market, the last thing her father needed at the moment was the additional stress of seeing his beloved project crumbling before his eyes. If she went home without Mal's agreement, Copper would feel that she had failed him miserably, and she already knew what that felt like.
Once before, fresh out of college, she had had a choice between spending two years working and travelling in Europe, or helping her father out at the agency during a particularly difficult period. Dan had urged Copper to go while she had the chance, and it had been the best time of her life, but her father had soldiered on alone and when he had had his first heart attack everyone had been surprised that it hadn't happened sooner. Copper, though, just back from England, had never forgiven herself. It wouldn't have killed her to have put off her trip for a few months, but it had nearly killed her father, who had loved her and protected her and cared for her, just as Mal did his own daughter.
No, she had failed her father once, but she wouldn't do it again.
Megan was ensconced at the kitchen table, breathing heavily over a work of art provisionally entitled 'Two Horses in a Paddock'. An identical scribble, which Copper had assumed was a third horse, was scornfully described by the artist as 'a house-no, a crocodile-no, it's Dad', which just went to show how much Copper knew.
