Outback Boss, City Bride

by Jessica Hart

  Hal’s words echoed constantly in her mind over the next few days. Change your mind…change your mind… The truth was that Meredith thought about changing it all the time, and no matter how often she reminded herself about Emma and Mickey, there was always that deep, dark tug of desire, that insidious voice whispering why not? and reminding her of that glorious exhilaration as she’d plunged into that cold water and surfaced into the glittering sunlight. She wanted to feel that good again, didn’t she?

  Meredith tried throwing herself into her work, but it was hard to concentrate. She would look out of the window and there would be Hal, crossing the yard with that loose, rangy stride, stopping to talk to the dog in the shade. Watching him bend down was enough to make the longing surge dizzyingly through her and when she forced her eyes back to the computer, the words on the screen blurred in front of her eyes.

  So when a big car pulled up in the yard, Meredith was delighted at the distraction. A visitor was just what she needed.

  A woman about her own age climbed down from the car and stretched. She smiled when she saw Meredith appear on the veranda. ‘Hi,’ she said. ‘I’m Lydia. I’ve come to take Emma and Mickey home.’

  ‘We weren’t expecting you back for a while,’ Meredith admitted as they went into the homestead. ‘Hal expected to have them for a couple of months.’

  ‘I know, that’s what we planned but…well, when Greg and I got there, we realised how much we missed the kids and wished that we had them with us. We decided that we’d made a mistake. We did need time alone together, but we needed to be a family together more, so I’ve come back to collect Emma and Mickey and Greg is cutting short his trip and is going to fly back to Sydney as soon as he can.’

  Emma and Mickey had been out with Hal to check the salt licks and were delighted to see their mother when they all came in together, but were typically now reluctant to leave. Since the day at the water hole, they had been spending more time with their uncle and had now quite forgotten how bored and homesick they had been at first.

  ‘Do we have to?’ they asked when Lydia told them they were going home, probably exactly as they had said it when she had told them about going to Wirrindago. ‘Can’t we stay a bit longer?’

  ‘Only a couple of days,’ warned Lydia. ‘We’ve got to return the car to Townsville, and then we’re going back to Sydney. Dad’s flying back early so we can all be together.’

  Meredith was envious of their closeness as a family. Although the children moaned, they obviously loved their mother and were excited at the thought of seeing their father again. She liked Lydia, who was more open than Hal and obviously loved Wirrindago while being realistic about the fact that she could never live there again.

  ‘Greg’s a businessman,’ she said, ‘and we have a good life in Sydney, but I will have to try and bring the kids back here more often. They’ve obviously loved it.’

  Lydia helped Meredith to get lunch the next day. ‘I wish Hal would have kids,’ she said, washing the lettuce she had brought with her as a treat from Townsville. ‘It would be so good for him to have a family of his own.’

  She glanced under her lashes at Meredith, who was annoyed to find herself flushing. ‘I gathered he didn’t want to get married,’ she said carefully.

  ‘Oh, that’s what he says, but it’s nonsense,’ said Lydia, dismissive as only a sister could be. ‘He needs a wife.’

  ‘I guess it’s not that easy to find someone suitable out here,’ said Meredith, trying to sound non-committal. ‘There aren’t that many opportunities to meet people.’

  ‘There’s you,’ Lydia pointed out slyly.

  ‘There’s nothing between me and Hal,’ Meredith said, firmly cutting the bread.

  ‘Isn’t there? I’ve seen the way you look at each other, especially when you think the other one isn’t looking. I don’t quite know what it is, but it certainly isn’t nothing!’

  ‘No, honestly,’ she insisted. ‘I’m just standing in for my sister. Didn’t Hal tell you? I don’t belong here.’

  ‘Funny,’ said Lydia, ‘you seem to me to belong perfectly.’

  Meredith looked up from the loaf, astounded. ‘Me? But I’m a city girl!’

  ‘Really?’ Lydia smiled as if humouring her. ‘You seem to have adapted very well then.’

  And it was true, Meredith thought. She was getting used to the outback in a way she would never have dreamed possible when she’d first arrived. It was ridiculous to say that she belonged, but, yes, she was learning to appreciate the stillness and the silence and the dazzling light.

  Just in time to go back to the greyness and the dampness and the crowds of London.

  Meredith returned to cutting the bread. ‘I’m leaving soon,’ she told Lydia. ‘Just as soon as my sister comes back.’

  ‘Shame,’ said Lydia lightly. ‘Well, I’ll just have to find someone else for Hal. He’s been on his own too long.’ She started slicing tomatoes. ‘The trouble is that he’s never got over the way our mother left.’

  ‘He told me,’ said Meredith and Lydia looked at her in surprise. ‘Did he? He doesn’t normally talk about it. Did he tell you about Jack too?’

  Meredith nodded and Lydia’s gaze rested on her thoughtfully.

  ‘It was worse for Hal,’ she said. ‘To be honest, I don’t remember much about that time, but Hal was older. He remembers everything, and I think he feels responsible, as if he should have somehow known what Jack was going to do. Dad was broken up and it was Hal who had to hold everything together until our aunt arrived.’

  ‘It must have been hard for him,’ said Meredith. ‘For all of you.’

  Lydia shrugged practically. ‘We did all right. And you have to move on. It’s such a pity Hal’s engagement to Jill didn’t work out. It made him think that no woman would ever stick it at Wirrindago, and that if he did get married, history would repeat itself, but lots of people have very happy marriages out here, and you can have unhappy marriages in a city. It’s nothing to do with the place.’

  ‘Still, you’d have to love somebody a lot to be prepared to live somewhere like Wirrindago all the time,’ said Meredith.

  ‘Yes,’ said Lydia, looking at her seriously. ‘You would.’

  Meredith was sad to see them go the next day. ‘It’s going to be quiet without you,’ she told Emma and Mickey as she hugged them goodbye.

  ‘I wish we could stay,’ said Emma, clinging to her.

  ‘Now, don’t start that again,’ said Lydia briskly. ‘You know you’re looking forward to getting home and seeing Dad and it’s not as if it’s goodbye for ever. We’ll come out and see Uncle Hal again next year.’

  ‘And you,’ said Emma loyally to Meredith, who found that her throat was suddenly tight.

  ‘No, I won’t be here,’ she said, but she couldn’t imagine not being there. She couldn’t imagine being back in her London house, with no galahs screeching in the trees, no fierce blue sky, no red earth.

  No Hal.

  But she couldn’t imagine staying here for ever either. She would go nuts with boredom. OK, she hadn’t had time to be bored yet, but if she was here all the time…of course she would get bored.

  Wouldn’t she?

  Not that there was any question of staying for ever. Even if Lucy hadn’t been coming back, Hal had made it clear that any relationship would be a strictly temporary one, so getting involved would be pointless.

  Wouldn’t it?

  Completely pointless, Meredith told herself, but she was very aware of Hal standing next to her as they waved off Lydia and the children. When the car had disappeared and the dust had settled, they still hadn’t moved. They weren’t even looking at each other, but the air around them was so taut that Meredith had to suck in extra oxygen. Funny to be standing out here with hundreds of miles of space around them and to feel that there wasn’t enough air to breathe.

  ‘Well,’ she said, as the silence threatened to smother them.

  ‘Well,’ said Hal.

  He turned and
looked at her for a moment. Her hair had grown out into a softer style since she’d arrived. It was curling now around her face, the sun picking up gold at its tips, and she had a hand to her forehead to shade her face. She was wearing the old shirt that he had given her for cooking, and she looked warm and alluring and somehow right standing there beside him.

  I won’t be here, she had told Emma.

  Hal tried to imagine how it would be when she had gone, when he wouldn’t be able to walk inside and find her in the kitchen, or hard at work in the study, or quiet and still on the veranda at night, but his mind shied away from the image of emptiness and loneliness.

  Which was ridiculous. He’d never been lonely before, and he certainly wasn’t about to start now.

  ‘We’ll be back for lunch,’ he said gruffly and strode off.

  Meredith watched him go and felt the familiar roil of desire in her entrails before she made herself go back inside. And be sensible.

  But, no matter how hard she concentrated on all the reasons why it would be stupid-more than stupid, ridiculous-to get involved, Meredith couldn’t stop her heart crashing into her throat when she heard Hal’s boots on the wooden steps at lunch time. All the men came in for lunch, but she was only aware of him. She felt as if her whole body was charged with electricity, and kept waiting for him to stare at her and ask her why she was buzzing and humming.

  He wasn’t handsome. He wasn’t Richard. He wasn’t perfect. But she wanted to touch him more than she could ever remember wanting anything before. She wanted to be able to go round to the end of the table, to put her arms around him from behind and bend down to kiss the side of his neck. She wanted to run her hands over his back, under his shirt, to whisper that she didn’t care if they both had work to do and that it was the middle of the day, she just wanted him to take her to bed…

  Meredith swallowed hard and wondered if she was actually running a fever. That would account for the heat that kept washing through her, the light-headedness, the churning in her stomach, the way her bones had turned to liquid. She needed to lie down.

  Or she needed to sort herself out.

  Think of it as a fever, she told herself. It just needs to work its way through your system. And you can help it on its way. All you have to do is tell Hal that you’ve changed your mind.

  The more Meredith thought about it, the more she thought that was exactly what she needed to do. Why was she even hesitating? She was twenty-eight, for heaven’s sake, and she had never had a passionate physical affair. At this rate, she was never going to have any kind of affair, and she would dwindle into a sensible, practical middle age knowing that she had never been wild or reckless or simply taken what had been offered.

  It wasn’t a big deal. It wasn’t going to last with Hal-they both knew that-but surely that made it even better? Meredith persuaded herself. Neither of them would have any false expectations. It would just be…a physical thing.

  At the thought of just how physical it might be, a shiver of pure desire snaked down Meredith’s spine. She was supposed to be working but the words on the screen kept blurring as she pictured Hal instead, settling his hat on his head, the way the stern mouth relaxed into a smile, the unself-conscious grace with which he swung himself into the saddle. And she remembered his face as he had turned to her and said that he wanted her-the creases around those strangely light eyes, the planes of his face, the line of his mouth, the faint stubble on his jaw-and the mere memory was enough to turn her entrails into a churning, molten mass.

  She could do it. Meredith was half scared by her own daring, by acting so out of character. All she had to do was say it, and she could give in to this longing to press her lips to his throat, to kiss her way along his jaw, to taste his mouth and feel his body, lean and hard beneath her hands…

  If you ever change your mind, Meredith, all you have to do is let me know.

  There was something about the light here, something about the space that made her want to cast off the shackles that usually held her, made her want to do something different, be different. She was sick of being sensible, sick of thinking about the long term. She wanted to be rash and impulsive. She wanted to follow her heart instead of her head for once.

  Maybe it would be a mistake. Maybe it would be humiliating. Maybe she would be hurt, but she didn’t care. She was going to try.

  If she could find the words.

  By the time supper ended, Meredith was so jittery and jangly with nerves that she couldn’t eat-and that was a first!

  ‘Not hungry?’ asked Hal as she pushed her plate aside.

  Her eyes, which had been skittering around looking everywhere except at him, met his, and her heart lurched. ‘No,’ she said huskily.

  It seemed an age before the stockmen got up to go. They had all wanted second helpings of the apple pie she had made, which would have been flattering if she hadn’t wanted to scream at them to eat up and go away!

  But at last they were gone. Meredith’s pulse was booming and thumping so loudly that she could hardly hear the clink of dishes as she gathered them up.

  ‘I’ll do this,’ said Hal. ‘Why don’t you have a night off? Go and sit on the veranda and I’ll bring you some coffee.’

  Meredith didn’t want any coffee, but she thought it might be a chance to compose herself and think about what she was going to say. And there was no doubt it would be easier in the dark than in the harsh fluorescent light of the kitchen.

  I want you? Too bald.

  Kiss me? Too presumptuous.

  I’ve been thinking and…oh, God, no, she would dither on for hours if she started on that track.

  She still hadn’t decided by the time Hal came out, kicking open the screen door as he had a mug in each hand.

  ‘It’s quiet without the kids,’ he said as he sat down in the chair next to hers.

  ‘Yes, the house feels a bit empty.’ She swallowed. ‘It’s just us now.’

  ‘Just us,’ Hal agreed.

  In the dim light, Meredith could see his fingers curled around the mug and she let her eyes drift up his shirt to where it was open at the neck. She had left her own mug untouched, knowing that her hands were trembling too much to hold it properly, and her fingers tingled with the need to reach out and touch him, to lay her hand on his thigh, perhaps, or on his wrist where his sleeve was rolled casually back to reveal strong forearms with fine dark hairs. She knew suddenly that if she didn’t say something right now, she was going to explode.

  ‘Do you remember that day at the water hole?’

  He turned to look at her, that almost-smile denting the corner of his mouth. ‘When I told you I wanted you?’

  ‘Yes,’ she said, the breath leaking out of her.

  ‘You said that it wouldn’t be appropriate for us to sleep together when Emma and Mickey were around,’ Hal reminded her, and then paused. ‘Emma and Mickey aren’t around any more,’ he pointed out softly.

  ‘No.’ Meredith’s throat was so dry that she could hardly speak, and the word came out as little more than a croak. ‘No.’

  Hal put down his coffee very carefully. ‘Do you still think it’s a bad idea?’

  ‘Probably,’ said Meredith. ‘It’s probably not very sensible, but I don’t want to be sensible. I’ve had enough of being sensible.’

  ‘Good.’ A real smile curled Hal’s mouth at last. ‘So what do you want, Meredith?’

  ‘I want you,’ she said, as baldly as he had said it at the water hole. ‘Not for ever,’ she added quickly before he could object. ‘Just for now.’

  His smile deepened. ‘Sounds good to me.’

  There was a pause while they looked at each other. Meredith hadn’t thought this far. She had assumed that once she’d got the message across that she’d changed her mind, Hal would take over.

  ‘So,’ she said nervously.

  ‘So,’ said Hal. ‘What do you want to do with me?’

  ‘Do with you?’ she echoed with a blank look.

  ‘You said you
wanted me, and I’m all yours. Stop being careful and sensible, Meredith. Do what you want for once.’

  So Meredith got up and made to slide on to his lap, only to hesitate at the last moment. ‘I’ll be too heavy for you,’ she worried.

  ‘No, you won’t…come here.’ Hal pulled her down so that she fell against him, but he dropped his hands almost immediately to show that she was in control.

  ‘That’s better,’ he said. ‘Now, do what you like!’

  It felt scarily wonderful and thrilling and curiously right to be so close to him. Meredith stopped worrying about whether he had pins and needles in his leg from her weight. She stopped thinking about anything other than the fact that he was there, and she could do what she had been dreaming about for so long.

  So she pressed her mouth to his throat, where she had watched the pulse beating below his ear, then slowly, slowly, she kissed her way along his jaw, revelling in the feel of his rough skin beneath her lips, tantalising, taking her time…

  ‘Is it OK if I do this?’ she whispered.

  ‘It’s very OK.’ Hal’s voice was ragged with the effort of self-control as Meredith kissed her way onwards, a blizzard of light kisses, until she reached his mouth. She could feel its corner curling into a smile and she smiled back, her lips on his.

  At last-at last!-his hands came up to secure her against him, putting an end to the teasing as they kissed-a long, deep, hungry kiss that went on and on until Meredith thought that she would shatter with the sheer pleasure of it.

  She sank into the rush of warmth and sweetness, into the absolute certainty that her lips had been made to kiss his mouth. It was slightly worrying, that, she thought hazily. It shouldn’t feel this good, shouldn’t feel this right, but the brief tug of practicality was swamped beneath a gathering excitement as his hand slid up her thigh, warm and insistent, rucking up her skirt.

  ‘You don’t know how much I’ve wanted to do this,’ he murmured. ‘Every time you put on one of your skirts, I wanted to do this.’

  ‘I thought my skirts were impractical?’ she said, breathless beneath the wickedly pleasurable onslaught of his hands and his mouth.