Outback Boss, City Bride

by Jessica Hart

  ‘Aren’t you coming in?’

  There was no way Meredith was calmly stripping off her shirt and bra and putting on the T-shirt in front of him. It was hard enough staying upright with her heart thudding and thumping like this, let alone trying to swim. ‘I’ll watch for a bit,’ she said and settled on a rock. It was deliciously cool in the shade and she closed her eyes for a moment, willing the pounding to subside.

  ‘Look at Uncle Hal!’

  Meredith’s eyes snapped open to see Hal climbing sure-footedly up the rocks until he was standing on a ledge, high above the still surface of the pool. She was on her feet in a flash. ‘Hal, that looks dangerous,’ she said, her voice rising in alarm. ‘I think you should come down.’

  ‘It’s fine,’ he said. ‘We used to dive off here all the time, Jack and I.’

  And with that he dived into the pool, emerging after what seemed like a lifetime to flick the hair out of his eyes with a smile that clutched at the base of Meredith’s spine.

  ‘I’m going to do that too,’ said Mickey, heading up the rocks. Emma was more hesitant, but even she had a go in the end and was thrilled with herself.

  Meredith sat and watched them, torn between envy at their carefree enjoyment and disapproval of the risk involved. What if one of them slipped? What if the water wasn’t as deep as they thought?

  ‘Come on, Meredith,’ they called. ‘Get in here!’

  The water did look wonderfully inviting. ‘I’ll swim,’ she said, ‘but I’m not jumping anywhere!’

  Pulling off her shirt and bra behind the horses, Meredith slunk self-consciously back to the pool, tugging Hal’s T-shirt down as far as it would go to cover her thighs. Very conscious of Hal’s gaze, she dithered around by the edge of the pool, putting a toe in and then jerking it back, unprepared for quite how cold the water was.

  ‘You know, you’d find it much easier if you just jumped in,’ said Hal.

  ‘I don’t dare,’ she confessed.

  ‘Wait there,’ he said.

  He hauled himself, dripping, out of the pool and took Meredith’s hand. His fingers were cold and wet against her hot flesh, or at least that was the reason Meredith gave herself for the fact that her heart seemed to stop as the breath evaporated from her lungs. Shock, she told herself. Nothing to do with the water droplets gleaming on his shoulders. Nothing to do with the light reflected in his grey eyes or the nearness of his taut, wet body.

  ‘Come with me,’ he said and led her over to the rocks they had climbed. Close to, they didn’t seem quite as sheer and dangerous as they had from her side of the pool, but Hal still had to help her up with a mixture of pulling and encouragement, until at last Meredith stood over the pool. It probably wasn’t that high, she recognised, but she was terrified.

  ‘I can’t,’ she said.

  ‘You can,’ said Hal. ‘Be reckless for once,’ he said. ‘Do something that isn’t sensible. You can if you try.’

  ‘Jump!’ Emma and Mickey called from below, where they were treading water. ‘It’s fun!’

  Fun. Didn’t she deserve some of that? She spent her whole life being sensible, Meredith thought. Hal was right. Just for once, she could be reckless.

  Taking a deep breath, Meredith jumped. It felt as if she were falling through the bright air in slow motion, and when the cold water closed over her head she thought her heart was going to stop with the cold, but when she broke the surface she was so exhilarated that she couldn’t stop gasping and laughing.

  The next moment, Hal dived in behind her. He surfaced very close, as she was still treading water, smoothing the wet hair from her face, and Meredith could swear that she could see every pore in his skin, every crease around his eyes, every single one of the dark lashes that framed them.

  ‘Fun?’ he asked her and Meredith smiled back at him, completely unaware of how lush and vivid and desirable she looked.

  ‘Fun,’ she agreed.

  They splashed around with Emma and Mickey for a while, then Hal got out to make tea on the little gas burner that he had brought, tied to his saddle. He boiled some water in a battered billycan, and then tossed in some tea leaves, stirring the brew with a stick.

  ‘Tea’s up,’ he called.

  Meredith’s exhilaration faded as she sat on a warm smooth rock and tried not to look at Hal’s lean brown body. She felt pale and fat in comparison and she was embarrassed by the way Hal’s T-shirt was clinging to her. It was horribly obvious that she had taken off her bra, and she pulled up her legs and clutched her mug of tea to hide as much of herself as possible.

  To her relief, Hal didn’t seem to be paying her much attention. He was chatting with Emma and Mickey, and every now and then Meredith judged it safe to risk a glance, only to find her eyes snagging inevitably with Hal’s, who had looked over at the same moment, until the air was twanging with tension.

  When Emma and Mickey wandered off to explore, Meredith watched them go in dismay. Now what was she going to do?

  Be sensible, she told herself sternly, and stop being so silly. You’re a grown woman and there’s absolutely no reason why you can’t have a normal conversation with Hal.

  Apart from the fact that she was sitting here with virtually no clothes on, and the mere thought of touching him was enough to dissolve her bones and hollow her lungs.

  ‘More tea?’

  ‘Thanks.’ Meredith cleared her throat as she held out her mug. There had been enough exhilaration this afternoon. It was time to go back to being sensible. Somehow, she had to find a way to deflect the terrible tension that was threatening to overpower her.

  ‘It’s strange to be sitting out here drinking tea when Richard’s so ill,’ she said.

  ‘I thought you’d heard from Lucy that he was out of the coma?’

  It was probably a good thing she had made a move to steer the conversation into safe channels, Hal reflected. She must have been aware of the simmering awareness between them, too. He had been finding it hard to cope with all week.

  In spite of the fact that Meredith had vanished into the office every evening, he had been disturbingly aware of her all the time. He hadn’t been able to get the feel of her out of his mind. One brief hug that was all it had been, but he could still smell her perfume, still feel the softness of her hair and the yielding warmth of her body.

  Meredith was still valiantly trying to steer the conversation on to neutral ground. ‘He is, but he’s still very ill.’

  ‘You’re worried about him, aren’t you?’

  ‘Of course I am,’ said Meredith, even though the truth was that she hadn’t spent nearly as much time worrying recently. London seemed so far away out here. ‘Richard is a good friend.’

  ‘Is that all he is?’

  The look Hal gave her was deeply sceptical, and she stiffened.

  ‘What do you mean?’

  Hal finished his tea and lay back on the warm rock, linking his hands behind his head. ‘You seemed much more concerned about him than Lucy was,’ he pointed out in a neutral voice. ‘You’re the one who went to all the trouble for him. Lucy went back for you, not for him.’

  Meredith opened her mouth to deny it, but the words dried in her throat. There didn’t seem any need to save face out here, where there was just light and space and silence. She glanced at Hal, stretched comfortably out beside her. There was a smooth rock behind her and she shifted so that she could lean against it and tip up her face to the dappled sunlight.

  She told him the truth. ‘I was in love with him,’ she said.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  ‘WAS? Or still are?’

  ‘Was…I think,’ said Meredith. ‘I hope,’ she added after a moment. She certainly didn’t want to be in love with Richard.

  ‘It’s not like you not be sure,’ said Hal. ‘But then, I wouldn’t have thought it was like you to fall in love with your sister’s boyfriend either.’

  Meredith rested her head against the rock. ‘It wasn’t like that,’ she told him. ‘I met Richard first, at
a party, and I fell for him pretty heavily. I thought he was wonderful-charming, intelligent, attractive, interested in the same things as me…and just…nice.’

  ‘Mr Perfect, in fact.’ Hal couldn’t quite keep the edge from his voice and he hoped Meredith didn’t think it sounded as much like jealousy as it did to him.

  ‘Yes,’ she agreed. Of course, there hadn’t been that frisson of physical awareness with Richard, but that had only made him more perfect. She had been instantly comfortable with him. He’d never made her feel jangly and unsettled the way Hal did.

  ‘We clicked straight away and talked all evening about France and Italy and food and music…I couldn’t believe it. I’d never met anyone I liked that much who seemed to like me back, and when he suggested meeting for a drink I was over the moon. It was too good to be true.’

  ‘So what went wrong?’

  ‘Nothing,’ said Meredith. ‘We had a drink and got on just as well again, and then we arranged to go to a concert, and that was nice, but Richard never gave any indication that he wanted any more than to be friends.’

  ‘And you did?’ said Hal, raising his head slightly to squint up at her.

  ‘Well, yes, I was hoping…but I don’t have much confidence when it comes to men. I could understand that Richard might not find me attractive.’

  Meredith pleated the bottom of the T-shirt between her fingers while Hal looked at her and wondered whether Richard had ever seen her in a damp top.

  ‘I thought he needed more time,’ she said, ‘and I was terrified of spooking him by letting him know how I felt-he would have run a mile!’

  ‘Why do you think that?’

  ‘Because it’s what any normal guy would do if faced by some woman he liked enough to have a drink with telling him that she’d decided he was perfect and that she wanted to spend the rest of her life with him and have his babies,’ said Meredith dryly. ‘You would have run too.’

  ‘When you put it like that…’ Hal acknowledged. ‘But you didn’t have to phrase it quite that way, did you? You could have just let him know that you found him attractive and wanted to take things a bit further.’

  Meredith sighed. ‘I was afraid to do that,’ she admitted. ‘I thought he would have to tell me then that he didn’t want that, and then it would be too awkward for us even to be friends. So I tried to get him used to the idea. I invited him round to dinner, but told him it would be very casual, with just a couple of old friends and my sister and her boyfriend, so he wouldn’t think it was a big deal.

  ‘And he came and it was all fine,’ she said, ‘except Lucy was late, as usual. She arrived at last and…well, you know what Lucy’s like. She lights up a room. She was laughing and saying that she had just broken it off with her boyfriend after some stupid row. They hadn’t been going out for very long and it wasn’t serious, but I’ve often wondered what would have happened if she hadn’t argued with Tom that night. Because Richard took one look at Lucy and fell in love with her.

  ‘I saw his face,’ Meredith remembered. One look at him, and her heart had cracked. She had been so sure that Richard was The One. ‘He looked…dazzled. It’s the only word for it. And of course I’d been so careful not to tell anyone how important he was to me that I hadn’t warned Lucy. She would never have flirted with him if she’d known how I felt. But she couldn’t help herself. He was completely smitten and when he asked her out, she said yes.’

  Hal raised himself on to one elbow and turned towards her. ‘Why didn’t you say anything then?’

  ‘What would have been the point? Nothing was going to change how Richard felt once he’d seen her, and all I’d have done was make Lucy feel uncomfortable.’

  ‘So Mr Perfect was right there, just as you’d imagined him, and Lucy walked off with him.’ Hal frowned. ‘How did you deal with that?’

  ‘Well, there was no point in getting upset about it,’ said Meredith briskly. ‘I didn’t want to lose my sister, or my friend, so I told myself that it had probably worked out for the best. At least I hadn’t been tempted to make some embarrassing declaration before Richard met her.’

  ‘And Lucy never guessed?’

  ‘Not immediately. But she came round about a month later, and it was obvious that she was getting bored. Richard was too adoring, I think. Lucy needs someone who’s a bit more of a challenge. Anyway,’ Meredith went on, smoothing out the wrinkles in the T-shirt, ‘she was talking about him and…I don’t know how I betrayed myself, but there must have been something in my expression because she suddenly stopped and stared at me, and she knew.’

  ‘It must have been difficult for her too, when she realised,’ Hal commented.

  ‘She was furious with me for not telling her. And then, being Lucy, she went off and told Richard she was going to Australia in some big, melodramatic gesture because she felt so bad about what she’d done!’

  Meredith sighed. ‘It didn’t really help. Richard was devastated, and he’d come round all the time and want to sit and talk about Lucy and why she had suddenly gone. Of course, I couldn’t tell him it was because of me. I felt awful for him. He really loved Lucy and he didn’t deserve to lose her like that. I’d accepted it by then anyway,’ she said. ‘I just wanted him to be happy, and he wasn’t.’

  ‘So when he had that accident, you tried to make everything right for him.’

  ‘What’s wrong with that?’ she asked defensively.

  ‘It doesn’t work like that,’ said Hal. ‘You spend too much time trying to make everyone else’s life better, Meredith. You decide what they need and you make it happen, but they have to work it out for themselves.’

  ‘It’s better than not doing anything to help, surely?’

  ‘But you’re so busy looking after everyone else, you’re not living your own life properly.’

  With a gasp of outrage, Meredith sat bolt upright. ‘How can you say that?’ she demanded furiously. ‘I’ve got a great life, thank you very much! I’ve got my own house, lots of friends, a successful career…’

  ‘Maybe you have,’ said Hal calmly, ‘but you’re too scared to take a risk where it matters.’

  ‘Oh, yes?’ Her voice dripped scorn. ‘Like what?’

  ‘Like telling Richard how you felt,’ he said. ‘It would have saved everyone a lot of trouble if you had just been honest about what you wanted. Maybe Richard didn’t want you as more than a friend, but you never gave yourself the chance to find out if he did. Maybe he thought you weren’t interested in him.’

  ‘Now you sound like Lucy!’ said Meredith sulkily, sinking back against her rock.

  ‘Lucy’s a lot smarter than she looks.’ Hal’s glance was pointed. ‘At least she’s not afraid of life.’

  ‘I’m not afraid!’

  ‘Yes, you are,’ he said. ‘You’re always sensible, always careful, always worrying about what might go wrong if you reached out for what you wanted. You don’t have to be like that, Meredith,’ he went on more gently. ‘You could be like you were just now, when you jumped off that rock. You wanted to do it and you did, and it felt good, didn’t it?’

  ‘Yes,’ she admitted, ‘but life’s not just about jumping off rocks. You can’t always have what you want.’

  Hal pulled himself up into a sitting position and turned to face her. ‘The trouble is, Meredith, you might never get what you want if you’re too afraid to ask for it.’

  ‘Oh, and I suppose you do?’ she said in a bolshie voice, not enjoying the way this conversation was going.

  ‘I know what I want, yes,’ he said. ‘Right now, I want you.’

  There was a reverberating silence while his words seemed to ring around the water hole, bouncing off the rocks and echoing out into the vastness of the outback. I want you…want you…want you.

  Meredith swallowed hard. ‘Because I’m convenient?’ she managed at last.

  ‘No,’ said Hal. ‘Because I think you’re beautiful and sexy and brave and true.’

  Nobody had ever said anything like that to Me
redith before, and for a long, long moment she could just stare at him, the breath clogging in her throat. She didn’t know what to say. She longed to believe him, but how could she? She had never been beautiful, never been sexy. She was brisk and bossy and sensible.

  Ah, yes, remember sensible?

  ‘You don’t want me for ever, though,’ she pointed out.

  ‘No,’ Hal agreed. ‘You know how I feel about commitment. Forevers don’t last. You’re too much of a city girl ever to stay in a place like Wirrindago, even if you wanted to. I know you’ll go back to London sooner or later, probably sooner, but that doesn’t mean I don’t want you very much while you’re here.’

  He paused, his eyes on Meredith’s face. ‘The question is, are you brave enough to admit that you want me too? Will you let yourself enjoy some fun and some excitement while it lasts? You never know, it might feel as good as jumping off that rock!’

  Meredith looked away at the water. She was tempted-of course she was-and it was no use pretending that she didn’t want him. But…

  ‘Why don’t you take a risk for once, Meredith?’ Hal’s voice was deep and low, and it sent tiny shivers over her skin. How could he do that when he wasn’t even touching her? ‘Or are you really that afraid?’

  ‘It’s not that,’ she said at last. Her mouth was dry and she was desperately hanging on to the shreds of self-control. In the distance, she could hear Emma and Mickey’s voices echoing over the rocks and she remembered at last one good reason to be sensible.

  ‘It’s not that I don’t want to,’ she admitted at last. ‘I just…don’t think it would be appropriate while the children are here.’

  There was a pause and then Hal smiled, accepting defeat. ‘Well, at least “not appropriate” is a better reason to say no than “not sensible”,’ he said. ‘And you’ve got a point,’ he conceded as he hoisted himself to his feet and looked down at Meredith, still sitting against her rock. She was looking up at him, violet eyes wide and dark with what he hoped was temptation. ‘But if you ever change your mind, Meredith, all you have to do is let me know.’