Outback Bride

by Jessica Hart

  'Of course he is,' said Brett. 'He must have decided to stay another night, that's all.'

  'Wouldn't he have let me know?'

  'Perhaps he forgot,' Brett said casually, sinking down onto a chair and clutching his head. 'God, I feel awful!'

  Copper ignored the state of his head. Mal would come back when he was good and ready, and not before, but it wouldn't kill him to let her know when to expect him, would it? He had probably written into his wretched con-tract that she was to wait dutifully and be prepared to serve him a meal whenever he deigned to appear!

  She banged the oven door shut crossly and went to sit down at the kitchen table next to Brett. 'Do you think another bottle of wine would make us feel better?' he said.

  'Would Mal approve?' she asked, and he grinned.

  'No.'

  Copper smiled brilliantly back at him. 'In that case, I'll get the corkscrew!'

  They had just started on their first glass when they heard the sound of the plane overhead, and they exchanged glances of ludicrous dismay. 'Hadn't you better go and meet him?' she suggested, but Brett said that he was feeling brave.

  'He's got the pick-up truck at the landing strip,' he pointed out. 'Let's brazen it out!'

  'You're right.' Copper straightened her shoulders. 'There's no reason why we shouldn't have some wine if we feel like it, is there?'

  'Absolutely not.'

  The situation was so ridiculous that they both began to giggle nervously like naughty children, egging each other on with their bravado. When Mal walked in, it was to find his wife and his brother sitting at the kitchen table, convulsed with laughter.

  Copper's giggles stuck in her throat as soon as she saw Mal, and her heart constricted inexplicably. Her first impulse was to throw herself into his arms and beg him not to go away and leave her again, but somehow she forced her voice to a nonchalance she was far from feeling. She wasn't the one who had swanned off to the city without bothering to let anyone know when she would return, was she?

  'Oh, you're back.'

  'Yes, I'm back.' Mal looked grimly from one to the other. 'What do you two think you're doing?'

  'We've been consoling each other for your absence,' said Copper acidly.

  'Well, I didn't mind you not being here,' Brett put in, 'but I thought it was my duty to comfort Copper.'

  'It doesn't look to me as if she's in much need of comfort,' Mal bit out. 'If I'd known you were going to be like this, I would have come back on my own.'

  'What do you mean?' she said, puzzled. 'You are on your own.'

  'No, I'm not. I've brought you a housekeeper. Although I don't think she's going to be very impressed when she sees what kind of state you get into as soon as I leave you alone!'

  Copper exchanged a baffled glance with Brett. 'You've brought a what?'she said stupidly.

  'A housekeeper,' Mal confirmed, and then turned at the light step on the verandah outside. 'Here she is now.'

  Even as he spoke a very slender, very neat girl with honey-coloured hair and intensely blue eyes stepped into the kitchen and smiled at Brett and Copper, who were staring at her, slack-jawed with surprise. 'Hi,' she said.

  'This is Georgia,' said Mal.

  Copper could hardly wait for Mal to close the bedroom door before she rounded on him. 'How dare you bring that girl here without consulting me?' she stormed. 'I thought you were going to Brisbane on business?' Mal's jaw tightened ominously. 'I was.'

  'And you just happened to find a pretty girl to bring home with you, is that it?'

  'I explained all this when I introduced Georgia,' he said impatiently. 'I had to go and see our accountant, who's an old friend. He told me about a friend of his daughter's who was looking for a job in the outback and asked me if I knew of anyone who might need someone.'

  'So you said you did?' said Copper with a withering look, and he clenched his teeth, keeping his temper with difficulty.

  'No, I said you did. You were the one who was complaining that you had too much to do. It seemed a good opportunity to find a girl to help you, if only to prevent any more accusations of treating you like a slave! And Georgia's an outback girl. She should be really useful.'

  'Oh, yes, she's ideal,' said Copper jealously.

  Over dinner, Georgia had told them that her father had been manager of a station very similar to Birraminda, so she had grown up in the outback. Once he had retired, she had gone to the city to find work, but she hadn't been happy and had jumped at the chance to come back. She was friendly and pretty and obviously competent, judging by the way she had rescued the disaster Copper had made of dinner, and the more she had talked, the more inadequate Copper had felt. Georgia could ride and lasso a calf and fly a plane…and she was a good five years younger than Copper.

  'What a pity you didn't visit your accountant before I turned up here,' she added nastily as she began to get undressed. Mal was stripping off his clothes too, both of them too angry to feel any of the awkwardness that had existed in the past.

  'Look, what's the problem?' he demanded. 'You said you had too much work to do and I've found someone to help you. Georgia was free this afternoon, so it made sense to bring her back straight away. I thought you'd be grateful!'

  'We do have a phone,' snapped Copper, stepping out of her jeans. 'You might have asked me if I wanted some help!'

  Mal swore under his breath as he tossed his shirt aside. 'It never occurred to me that you'd be this unreasonable!'

  'I would have liked to have been consulted,' she said stubbornly. 'I am supposed to be your wife.'

  'Only when you feel like it!'

  'Only when I feel like it?' Copper echoed incredulously. 'You're the one that treats me like a housekeeper, and not a very satisfactory one at that!'

  He restrained himself with an effort. 'I wouldn't have gone to such lengths to find a housekeeper if I thought that's all you were, would I?'

  'I don't know.' She peeled off her top and shook her hair irritably out of her eyes. 'It doesn't leave me much to do as a wife, does it? I don't even get to be a wife in bed.'

  'And whose fault is that?' said Mal unpleasantly. 'You made it very plain at the time that you only wanted me for that one night. I agreed that I wouldn't touch you unless you asked me to, and you certainly haven't done any asking.'

  'A real wife wouldn't have to put in a request,' said Copper, unclipping her bra and reaching for her nightdress. 'Why can't we just behave normally?'

  'All right.' Mal walked naked round the bed and twitched the nightdress from her fingers. 'Let's go to bed.'

  'What?'

  'Let's go to bed,' he repeated. 'You want us to be a normal couple. Normal couples make up in bed.'

  'Don't be ridiculous,' said Copper tightly, and tried to snatch back the nightdress.

  'Oh, no!' said Mal, chucking it out of reach and sweeping her up into his arms to carry her over to the bed, where he dumped her unceremoniously.

  The electric shock of his bare flesh against hers had momentarily deprived Copper of speech, and she could only sprawl there as she struggled for breath. Before she could roll away, Mal had pinned her beneath him, her arms outstretched and her green eyes stormy.

  'You're the one who wants to be normal,' he reminded her. 'I'll start, shall I?'

  The feel of his flesh was indescribably exciting, and Copper's feeble attempts to wriggle out from underneath him only snarled her further in a treacherous tangle of desire. Mal must have felt the instant response of her body, for he released her arms and lifted one of her hands to his mouth instead.

  'A normal husband would apologise with a kiss,' he murmured, planting a warm kiss in her palm and then letting his lips move lovingly to her wrist. 'I'm sorry I didn't consult you about employing a new housekeeper,' he went on as his mouth traced a delicious path over the soft skin of her inner arm, nuzzling into the shadow of her elbow before drifting on along her shoulder, lingering at the wildly beating pulse at the base of her throat and reaching her lips at last. 'I'm very sorry,'
he breathed against them, and then he had captured her mouth with his own and there was no more need for words as everything exploded into intoxicating delight.

  Copper had forgotten that she had meant to resist. She had forgotten the anger and the jealousy and the terrible tension of the last few weeks. Nothing mattered now but the fire that sparked along her veins and gathered into a flame that melted her bones and ravished her senses, consuming everything but the hunger. She wound her arms around Mal's neck and her lips opened to the sinfully seductive exploration of his tongue as she stretched voluptuously beneath him.

  'Now it's your turn,' Mal whispered, smiling against her skin.

  It was so wonderful to be able to touch him again, to ran her hands over the powerful muscles and luxuriate in the warm, taut flesh. Copper's eyes gleamed greenly and she rolled onto him, exhilarated by her own power over the lean, brown body that lay deceptively quiescent beneath her. 'I'm sorry for being so grumpy and ungrateful,' she said obediently as she began to tease kisses along his jaw.

  'How sorry?' said Mal indistinctly.

  Her lips moved lower and she smiled. 'I'll show you.'

  CHAPTER NINE

  Copper shaded her eyes with her hand and squinted across the yard. Yes, there they were, Megan bobbing up and down beside her father, her small face animated, and Mal, head bent to listen to her, slowing his rangy stride to her short little legs. His expression was hidden beneath his hat but, as if sensing Copper's presence, he glanced up and saw her standing there, and their eyes met with an instinctive smile. He was too far away for Copper to hear what he said, but he must have pointed her out to Megan, who spotted her with a cry of pleasure and came running towards her. Mal followed, still smiling, and Copper's heart turned over as she caught the little girl in a hug.

  The last few days had been good ones. The terrible tension between her and Mal had crumbled in the face of the mutual need that had set them afire the night he had brought Georgia home. By day, Mal was as coolly self-contained as ever, but something in him had relaxed and, although he rarely touched Copper in front of the others, when the door closed behind them at night the quiet reserve dropped and he would pull her into his arms and make love to her with a tenderness and a passion that left her vibrant and glowing with joy.

  He hadn't said that he loved her, but for the time being Copper was content to leave things as they were. It was hard to believe that Mal could make love to her like that without feeling anything, and she saw no need to force a commitment out of him that he was not ready to give. He had three years to fall in love with her, after all, and if the nights passed as the last ten had done, then he must surely find it hard to resist. Copper was still tingling with the memory of the previous night and her mouth curved in a reminiscent smile as she set Megan down.

  'You look very pleased with yourself,' said Mal with mock suspicion. 'What are you thinking about?'

  Copper's eyes shone warm and green as she smiled at him. 'Tonight,' she said honestly, and rejoiced to see the blaze of response in his face.

  'You're a bad woman,' he said softly, but he smiled too as he drew her towards him for a kiss that was warm and sweet with promise.

  It was such a natural gesture that Copper's heart cracked with love for him. Could he be coming to love her already? She felt almost giddy with happiness. Everything was working out perfectly. Mal might not love her yet, but he would, and Megan was blooming into a happy, loving child.

  Even Georgia was enjoying her new life. The resentment that Copper had felt at the other girl's arrival had been quickly replaced by real liking. Georgia was natural and friendly and a hard worker. She cheerfully took on the cooking and the more humdrum household tasks, which left Copper more time to spend with Megan or working in the office. She still had plenty to do on the project, but she was waiting for the contractors to set a date, and in the meantime she had taken on more and more of Mal's paperwork. Her business experience stood her in good stead and at least she felt that she was being useful.

  Only Brett seemed discontented. Oddly, he had made no attempt to flirt with Georgia, and even seemed to actively dislike her. 'She's too perfect,' he told Copper a few days later when she found him sitting moodily alone on the verandah.

  'I thought you'd like her,' said Copper, trying to cajole him out of his mood. 'We're worried about you, Brett! A pretty girl with no attachments and you've hardly said a word to her!'

  Brett hunched a shoulder. 'She's not that pretty,' he said sullenly. 'I don't like those cool, competent types.'

  'Georgia may be competent, but nobody could call her cool,' Copper objected. 'She's a nice, warm, friendly girl, and I wouldn't blame her if she felt hurt at the way you ignore her. It's not as if there are lots of other people out here for her to talk to.'

  'She's the one who's ignoring me,' said Brett. 'She always makes me feel as if I've crawled out from under a stone.' He brooded silently for a moment. 'I don't want her approval anyway,' he went on unconvincingly, but with a flicker of his old self. 'She's not nearly as much fun as you, Copper. And have you noticed how chummy she and Mal are?'

  After that, of course, Copper did notice. Georgia behaved quite naturally, but Copper's jealous eye discerned rather too much approval in Mal's expression when he looked at the other girl. Georgia's knowledge of station life meant that she always knew what Mal was talking about, too, and she could discuss station matters and breaking horses. She knew about musters and how to make billy tea. She could castrate a calf and rope a cow as easily as she could cook a perfect roast, and it wasn't long before Copper began to feel excluded from their conversations. All she could talk about was settling invoices and checking accounts, and nobody was interested in that.

  Unable to compete when it came to discussing the day, Copper turned more and more to Brett, who kept pointedly aloof from such station conversation and was more than willing to flirt outrageously with Copper instead. Once or twice Copper caught him watching Georgia with an expression that made her suspect that he had been protesting too much about his dislike of the other girl. She was pretty sure that Brett was harder hit than he wanted to admit. His flirting had a desperate edge that she recognised from her own doomed attempts to disguise how she felt about Mal, and a sense of fellow feeling drew them increasingly together.

  Mal didn't say anything at first, but as the evenings passed, and the division between the conversations grew more and more obvious, his jaw acquired a set look, and whenever he glanced at Brett and Copper his mouth turned disapprovingly down at the corners. Copper pretended not to notice. Who was Mal to complain about the way she laughed with Brett, when he spent his whole time monopolising Georgia?

  Copper could never put her finger on the moment when the warmth and the fire in her relationship with Mal faded. One day it seemed as if they fell laughing into bed together every night, and the next that the following three years would be spent undressing in tense silence.

  'Why are you encouraging Brett to make such a fool of himself over you?' Mal asked one night, after Brett had been particularly obstreperous. They were lying stiffly apart in the dark and the words sounded as if they had been forced out of him.

  'I'm not encouraging him,' said Copper. 'I'm just talking to him, which is more than you and Georgia ever do.'

  Mal snorted. 'You call that display "just talking'', do you? It doesn't look much like talking to me!'

  'I'm surprised you notice,' Copper snapped back. 'You're always nose to nose with Georgia. I thought you'd forgotten who you were married to!'

  'I'm not the one who seems to have forgotten,' he said grimly. 'You and Brett are the ones who have decided that you needn't bother about a little thing like a wedding ring!'

  Exasperated by his obtuseness, Copper struggled up into a sitting position and snapped on the bedside light. If they were going to argue-as they obviously were- they might as well be able to see each other! 'Brett's not interested in me,' she said. 'It's perfectly obvious that he's in love with Georgia.'


  'Brett?' Mal sat up too, at that, and turned to her incredulously. 'Brett's never been in love in his life!'

  She gritted her teeth and tried not to let the sight of his bare chest distract her. 'I think he is now.'

  'And I suppose being in love with Georgia explains why he spends his whole time hanging over you?' he said, not bothering to hide his sarcasm.

  'Of course it does,' said Copper impatiently. 'Georgia hasn't shown any interest in him, so Brett doesn't want her to think that he cares about her, that's all.'

  'All this amateur psychology doesn't sound very convincing to me,' sneered Mal. 'What makes you such an expert on love suddenly?'

  'I know more than you, anyway,' she retorted. 'You wouldn't recognise love if it got up and punched you in the face!'

  'Whereas you have all your experience with Glyn to go on!' he snapped back.

  'Yes, I do,' said Copper defiantly. 'It's more than you have, anyway! Glyn and I loved each other.'

  'Some love when he couldn't wait to dump you for someone else!'

  'At least Glyn was honest about what he felt,' she said furiously. 'He's kind and he cares about me, which is more than I can say for you!'

  'Why didn't you fight for him if he was so great?' sneered Mal, and Copper's green eyes flashed.

  'I wish I had!'

  'Just think,' he taunted her, 'if you'd waited a few more weeks, you could have had him back!'

  'It's not too late,' Copper pointed out, so angry by now that she hardly knew or cared what she was saying. 'Ellie's still with her husband.'

  Mal's brows snapped together. 'How do you know that?'

  'There is a world outside Birraminda, you know,' she said sarcastically, 'and I still communicate with it occasionally!'

  'You've been in touch with Glyn?' Mal shot out a hand to grasp Copper's arm and pull her round, but she jerked herself out of his grip, terrified in case the mere touch of his fingers against her skin should be enough to defuse her anger. After the numb misery of those endless tense, silent nights, it was oddly invigorating to feel the fury churning through her.