‘No.’
‘What’s he waiting for, then?’ Dot demanded, and Jenna tried to haul herself away-but not very hard. She tried to make some sense of what was happening. ‘Who…?’
‘These are Dot and Bill, our neighbours at Barinya Downs,’ Riley told her, but his eyes didn’t leave hers. His hands were tight on her waist, and he was looking down at her with an expression that made her heart twist. That made her world twist. ‘You know Maggie, of course. Good old interfering Maggie. And this is Enid, who I gather you met on the train. Oh, and Harold who’s her…her…’
‘Her lover,’ Enid finished briskly, taking right over from a man who was clearly incompetent to explain anything. ‘Jenna, we’ve fixed up that business about the will. You and Karli now should inherit all your mother’s money. I gather there’s a lot. You stand to be very wealthy women.’
She’d be a wealthy woman. Harold was Enid’s lover. Maggie was here.
Riley had Karli’s rock.
It was all very confusing. She should think about all these things, Jenna decided. She couldn’t. Nothing mattered except the way Riley was looking at her and the feel of his hands on her waist and…
‘Why are you here?’ she whispered and his hands tightened still further.
‘Because I’ve been a fool.’
‘Yeah, that’s a good reason to sit in a cargo hold full of fertiliser for three hours,’ Bill retorted. ‘You’ve done that because you’ve been a fool? You’re going to have to do better than that.’
‘Because I love you?’ Riley said.
That was better. Everybody seemed to think that was better.
Especially Jenna. Jenna let herself look up into Riley’s face and what she saw there was very, very satisfactory indeed.
‘Really?’ she asked.
‘Really,’ he said.
‘But how can you love me? You don’t even like your dog.’
‘If Bustle could have fitted in the cargo hold he’d be here right now,’ Riley told her. His eyes didn’t leave hers and his smile was making her heart perform cartwheels. ‘I love my stupid dog. I’ve fallen really hard for a cute little button of a kid called Karli. But most of all, I’ve fallen for you, Jenna Svenson. I’ve fallen so hard I don’t think I can ever recover. I’ve been a dope. But between them, these guys have made me see sense. And you’ve made me see sense. My wonderful, darling Jenna.’
She took a deep breath. She searched his face for evidence that he was joking.
She forgot about breathing entirely.
‘Really?’ she whispered.
‘Nope,’ he told her, smiling that gorgeous, heart-stopping smile before he hauled her into him again to hold her hard against his chest. ‘But Enid tells me you’re a very wealthy woman and I’m a gold-digger from way back.’
She ignored the superfluous and concentrated on the necessary. ‘You love me?’
He stopped smiling. He held her away from him-just a little-so that she could look into his eyes and see exactly what was in his heart.
‘I do,’ he said softly. ‘I love the way you look. I love the way you smile. I love your spirit and your courage and the way you look when you tie your hair in rags and you have dust on your nose. I love the way you giggle and the way you hold Karli and I love the way you face life with so much courage and with so much love. Jenna, I can’t believe that you could possibly love me, but you told me-back there in the waterhole-that you could love me. I want to know if I’ve blown it. I need to know if I’ve stuffed it entirely or if I’ve got a chance. If…’
He could go no further. She’d stood on tiptoes and her lips had reached his.
‘Oh, Riley,’ she whispered ‘Oh, Riley, my love. How can you doubt it?’
He kissed her. He kissed her then as she deserved to be kissed. As she needed to be kissed. As she’d wanted to be kissed for ever and for ever but she’d never known it-because how could a girl know that a kiss could feel like this? That a body against hers could feel this good? That two hearts could merge into one just like this?
He kissed her and kissed her and kissed her-and then the tables turned and she kissed him right back.
Over and over.
Life started-until death did them part. It started right there. When finally they pulled away from each other, the rest of their lives had already begun.
‘Yuk,’ said Karli.
‘Don’t you like kissing?’ Maggie was smiling and smiling.
‘No,’ Karli retorted. ‘But I said yuk ’cos Riley smells disgusting.’
‘So does Bill,’ Dot said cheerfully. ‘But still I love him.’ She looked doubtfully at her disreputable husband. ‘Or I think I do. Mostly. As long as he buys us a new aeroplane.’ Then she turned back to Karli. ‘You know, if Jenna’s kissing Riley when he smells as bad as he does now, then it’s definitely serious.’
‘You mean they might get married?’
‘Of course they’re getting married,’ Enid said briskly. ‘I’m qualified to perform a marriage ceremony and there are at least seventy people I know from a certain train ride who are just aching for an invitation.’
‘Oh, I’ll be able to plan the best wedding at Munyering,’ Maggie said dreamily.
‘What about having it at Barinya Downs?’ Dot retorted. ‘That’s where it all started.’ She grinned. ‘We could have a waterside ceremony by that awful dam on Riley’s place. Now there’s romance for you.’
‘It’d be cheap,’ Bill said reflectively. ‘There’s always that.’
‘Yeah, we could feed all the guests baked beans and beer,’ Maggie retorted. ‘A wedding with a difference. I don’t think so.’
‘Can I be a flower girl?’ Karli asked, and Maggie hauled her up into her arms and hugged. Maggie’s role as Grandma-elect was about to start right now.
‘Of course you can be.’ She beamed. ‘We’ll make you the prettiest dress. All pink and white with a huge pink bow.’
‘But what would a wealthy woman like Jenna do at Munyering?’ Enid asked thoughtfully. Her forte, it seemed, was planning for the future.
‘She’s a nurse,’ Maggie said. ‘Jenna could run the remote clinics for the Flying Doctor. They’d think that was great. And Karli could do School of the Air. We could have such fun.’
‘They’d both have to learn to ride a horse,’ Dot added. ‘I could help there. I’ve got a couple of quiet old nags I could let you have, Jenna, and it’d be great to have another woman to help with the muster.’
‘Hey, Jenna, you could learn to fly,’ Bill said, catching the spirit of the future and joining in with enthusiasm. ‘Then you’d need another plane so you can go shopping in Adelaide any time you want. What with all your money and that. And…’ he assumed an air of innocent nonchalance ‘…I just happen to know where you can get a really reliable plane at a very reasonable price. One owner from new.’
‘Yeah, right, only driven by a little old lady to church on Sundays,’ Dot said dryly and Jenna choked.
‘But he hasn’t asked her to marry him yet,’ Harold observed, and they stilled.
‘Neither he has,’ Bill said. ‘There’s still a chance, mate. Ouch!’ Dot jabbed him hard in the ribs and he shifted sideways and looked wounded. But then he grinned.
‘You are going to, aren’t you, Riley?’ Maggie asked.
‘Indeed you must,’ Enid said. ‘You don’t get an offer of a free marriage celebrant every day of the week.’
‘Will you marry Jenna?’ Karli asked.
There was a note of panic in her voice. It was a sudden jolt that stopped the laughter. Karli knew this world was serious. She knew good things didn’t necessarily happen.
Life was tough and happy endings were for story books.
But life wasn’t too tough. Not here. Not now.
‘You know, it seems to me that bad things have happened to us in the past,’ Riley said seriously. He let Jenna go-with reluctance-and lifted Karli from Maggie’s into his own arms. He held her and smiled at her and Jenna felt her hea
rt twist all over again. ‘Your mum died,’ he said softly. ‘Jenna and I have been lonely. There’s been bad stuff. But good things happen, too. So it seems to me that we’ve done our bad stuff. We’ve been lonely for long enough. It’s time we had the good stuff.’
‘The happy ending,’ she said, echoing Jenna’s thoughts.
‘No,’ Riley told her. ‘No happy endings. I don’t like happy endings.’
‘What do you like?’ Karli whispered.
‘How about happy beginnings? What do you think about that?’
‘I think I like them,’ she said seriously, thinking about it. As a concept it seemed pretty good. ‘Happy beginnings. You and me and Jenna and Maggie and your puppy.’
‘It’s a ready-made family,’ Riley told her. ‘As soon as Jenna agrees to marry me.’
‘Will you marry him?’ Karli asked and turned to face her.
Would she marry him?
‘I would,’ Enid said. ‘Marriage is a very sensible arrangement.’
‘Hey, that means you ought to marry me,’ said Harold.
‘Give me Karli,’ Maggie ordered, and lifted Karli back so that Riley had a clear track to Jenna. ‘Ask her again.’
‘Think carefully,’ Bill said.
‘What’s there to think about, stinky?’ Dot demanded and hugged her husband.
What was there to think about?
Nothing. Not very much.
Riley smiled and smiled. Then, realising that the entire world was watching-the whole disreputable cast of this comedy of manners, plus the entire terminal staff-he rose to the occasion.
Or, rather, he dropped to the occasion. He fell to one knee.
‘Will you marry me, Jenna Svenson?’ he asked.
And what was a girl to say to that?
‘Yes,’ she said promptly, and she fell to her knees as well. ‘Yes, I will.’
There was simply no other answer to give.
Marion Lennox
Marion Lennox is a country girl, born on a southeast Australian dairy farm. She moved on-mostly because the cows just weren’t interested in her stories! Married to a “very special doctor”, Marion also writes hugely popular Harlequin® Medical Romances™. In her other life she cares for kids, cats, dogs, chooks and goldfish, she travels, she fights her rampant garden (she’s losing) and her house dust (she’s lost!)-oh, and she teaches statistics and computing to undergraduates at her local university. Marion has won major awards for her romance writing in both North America and Australia.
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