The Australians Convenient Bride

by Lindsay Armstrong

  Chattie felt herself bridle instinctively. Whoever she was, this Harriet was a tall girl with an attitude. She had cropped chestnut hair, freckles, piercing blue eyes and her hands-on-hips stance indicated a belligerent nature, causing Chattie to feel some sympathy for the unknown Jack.

  ‘This is Chattie Winslow,’ Steve said. ‘She’s just passing through. Harriet—’

  But Harriet burst into tears.

  Steve Kinane raised his eyes to the ceiling and walked over to the liquor cabinet where he poured a tot of brandy.

  ‘Here.’ He led Harriet to a chair at the dining table. ‘Drink this,’ he said, not unkindly.

  Harriet took a sip, then proceeded to pour out a disjointed tale of woe.

  Chattie found herself rooted to the spot by the whole extraordinary rigmarole and the contradictions that emerged. For, at the same time as Harriet hated Jack Barlow passionately, she appeared to be devastated at the thought of losing him. At the same time as he could be the most frustrating husband and Harriet the most misunderstood wife in the world, there was no way any other woman was going to get her hooks into him…

  Brett slept through it all but finally the flow was stemmed somewhat and Harriet raised drenched blue eyes to Steve. ‘You do see that I have to go after him, don’t you?’ she said intensely.

  He paused, and Chattie got the feeling Steve Kinane didn’t see that at all but knew when he was fighting against thunder. ‘Not right now, tomorrow morning will do,’ he said finally.

  ‘But—’

  ‘No, Harriet,’ he overrode her. ‘If you want to leave Brett with me and Slim, that’s the condition.’

  Harriet hesitated, then got up and flung her arms around her him. ‘You’re a brick, Steve,’ she told him. ‘Mind if I sleep here tonight?’

  He shook his head.

  And, completely ignoring Chattie, Harriet scooped her offspring off the settee and waltzed out with him.

  Chattie watched her go and blinked several times.

  ‘I know, it’s like being visited by a tornado.’ Steve looked wry.

  ‘I’m not sure if she loves him or hates him,’ Chattie said involuntarily, then put her hand to her mouth as Slim came in with a tray of coffee. ‘Pardon me, it has nothing to do with me.’

  ‘She’s besotted,’ Slim said severely, ‘but I’ve never known anyone with less tact or more capable of picking a fight than she is and the only way Jack can handle it at times is to run away. Excuse me, I’ll go and make sure she has all she needs.’

  Steve Kinane grimaced as his housekeeper departed, and Chattie had to chuckle at his expression.

  ‘I would say Slim knows you all very well,’ she said humorously.

  For the life of him, Steve Kinane couldn’t resist the glint of humour in those lovely grey eyes. ‘He’s the ultimate authority,’ he replied ruefully, then shrugged. ‘Harriet is a cousin but she lived with us after her parents separated so she’s more like a sister. Jack is the station foreman and they have their own house on another part of the property.’ His gaze narrowed on her then. ‘Obviously Mark didn’t tell you about her?’

  Chattie shook her head as she got the feeling that the brief respite in their hostilities was over.

  She was right. Steve Kinane joined his hands behind his head and studied her expressionlessly but comprehensively.

  To cover her nerves, she murmured, ‘Why don’t I be mother?’ She picked up the silver coffee pot.

  He let her pour the coffee, then added sugar but no milk to his.

  Chattie did likewise and inhaled the fragrant aroma appreciatively.

  ‘There’s no way you can stay here against my wishes, Miss Winslow,’ he said grimly.

  ‘What about Mark’s wishes?’ she murmured. ‘Do you ignore them entirely?’

  ‘Since Mark neglected to advise me of any wishes at all in regard to you, I feel quite entitled to ignore them, whatever they are. I’m not even sure any exist,’ he added.

  ‘Look, I do know your brother and I’m perfectly entitled to…want to look him up,’ she said evenly.

  ‘How old are you?’ he shot back.

  She blinked. ‘Twenty-two but why do you need to know?’

  ‘I get the feeling you’re too old for Mark,’ he drawled.

  ‘Well, as you now know, I’m not. We’re the same age.’

  He ignored that. ‘How come you’re sashaying around the countryside when you should be teaching little girls to cook and sew? Unless you’re masquerading as a domestic science teacher?’

  Chattie took a deep breath. ‘I don’t only teach girls, it’s a TAFE college, adult education in other words, and we’re on holiday at present.’

  Steve Kinane formed one hand into a fist and laid it on the table. ‘That’s the other thing—you just don’t seem to be his type. Level-headed and domesticated are not what he usually goes for.’

  ‘If that’s a diplomatic way of saying I’m—’ she paused and amended herself, Make that my sister! ‘—not good enough for your brother—’

  ‘I didn’t say that,’ he broke in.

  Chattie plaited her fingers and reproved herself for starting to lose her temper. She also found herself almost unbearably tempted to come clean with Mark’s brother before this got any further out of hand.

  However, he said then, musingly, ‘No, if anything you’re too good to be true. Because Mark, to date anyway, has always fallen for models, aspiring actresses or glamorous young things who would be totally at sea out here with no shops, no restaurants, no hairdressers and so on.’

  Chattie bit her lip and felt her stomach sink. Despite the Rockingham, the Stuart crystal and the fortune on the walls, from what she’d seen of the countryside she couldn’t doubt it would be an isolated lifestyle devoid of—as he’d just catalogued—just about everything that made up Bridget’s life.

  On the other hand, if Mark and Bridget decided they had a future together, would it have to be at Mount Helena? His own brother had, not that long ago, made mention of the fact that Mark and the station only went together in small doses.

  ‘Got you there, Miss Winslow?’

  Chattie came out of her reverie to find him smiling lethally at her.

  ‘What you seem to misunderstand, persistently, is that Mark is a friend I’m trying to look up.’

  ‘Bulldust,’ he said softly. ‘You’re worried about something, Miss Winslow. You got much more of a shock than a mere acquaintance would have got to find he’d gone.’

  Chattie cursed herself inwardly for being so transparent. At the same time, all desire to come clean with Steve Kinane left her as she made the decision that she would do anything she had to do to get her hands on his brother and not only for her sister’s sake but just to annoy him…

  ‘All right.’ She shrugged. ‘Let me put my cards on the table. Not quite in the backhanded way you’ve put it but, all the same, we seem to be in some agreement. I think I’d be good for Mark. And—’ she looked around ‘—I prefer a challenging lifestyle over restaurants, hairdressers, shops and so on.’

  For a moment his expression defied description.

  ‘Got you there, Mr Kinane?’

  What he would have said and done, she was never to know because Slim, with Rich pattering along behind, came into the room.

  The dog grinned widely at Chattie, accorded Steve a brief glance and sat down at her feet to lay his nose adoringly on her knee.

  ‘This is quite some dog, Miss Winslow,’ Slim said. ‘He’s very well-mannered.’

  ‘But just as capable of eating anyone alive,’ Steve remarked acidly.

  Slim laughed. ‘You’re not wrong. Had one myself years ago that nearly landed me in jail. Tore the pants off a policeman, he did! By the way, Mrs Barlow and young Master Barlow are asleep.’

  ‘Thank you, Slim,’ Steve said. ‘I’m about to turn in myself. Two nights at the bore camp, not to mention Miss Winslow’s company, have quite worn me out.’ He stood up. ‘Please feel free to do whatever you would like to
,’ he said to Chattie, ‘bar nicking any of the silver, and please be ready to depart straight after breakfast tomorrow. Goodnight.’

  Slim watched him go with his hands on his hips, then began to clear the table. ‘I wouldn’t take that too much to heart,’ he said to Chattie, still frozen to her chair. ‘He has a lot of responsibilities.’

  ‘I don’t intend to,’ she replied, ‘but I’ve never met anyone as…’ She paused, lost for words.

  ‘Well, Mark flitting off into the wild blue yonder obviously hasn’t improved his mood. There’s a muster coming up, there’s all sorts of things coming up, guests and what not, and not only has Mark done a bunk, so has Jack Barlow.’ Slim shook his head. ‘But Steve’s OK, you know.’

  Chattie rose. ‘I’m not in the position to agree with you but I’d like to thank you for your hospitality, Slim. Can I give you hand?’

  Although Slim looked gratified, and for a moment almost assessing, as if something had popped into his mind that had surprised him, he didn’t reveal it and declined her offer.

  ‘You pop off to bed,’ he advised, ‘but thanks all the same!’

  CHAPTER THREE

  AT TWO o’clock, the next morning, Chattie was wide awake beneath a sea of red silk quilt.

  Rich was asleep on his favourite rug beside the bed and the house was quiet apart from the roof contracting in the cool night air with a series of creaks.

  Not only was she wide awake but she was far from feeling serene as her mind’s eye presented her with a recap of the previous day. In fact, her stomach was in knots as she contemplated all that had led up to her looking down the barrel of being booted off Mount Helena station.

  Somehow or other, she had to discover Mark Kinane’s whereabouts before that happened, but she had not the faintest idea how to go about it. If they didn’t know where he was what hope did she have?

  Also, it was all very well to, in the heat of the moment, take Steve Kinane head-on, but it was playing havoc with her nerves and her digestion. It had a distinctly ‘playing with fire’ feel to it, she acknowledged, and if it weren’t for Bridget to fuel her defences and ingenuity, she would probably be only too grateful to be removed from his line of sight.

  One thing she was sure of—that the curious frisson she’d experienced a couple of times beneath the onslaught of his looks and masculinity had been hammered to death by so many things he’d said or implied but the final blow had to be the ‘nicking the silver’ taunt.

  She flinched as she recalled the mockery in his dark eyes as he’d said it, and anger started to seep through her veins again. Anger plus some of her famed—or would that be notorious? she wondered—level-headedness. Did they really not know Mark’s whereabouts? Or was it a front?

  Then it occurred to her that she had some sort of an ally in Slim. At least, she got the feeling that, for reasons best known to himself, Slim didn’t share his boss’s outright disapproval of her and, not that it came naturally to her to snoop, might she be able to get more information from the housekeeper?

  After all, she told herself, she had been virtually pilloried as a girl on the make; a girl who’d deliberately got herself pregnant to trap Mark; a girl dubious enough to be warned against pinching the silver, so why should she bother about observing the niceties towards Steve Kinane?

  It was also the only thing she could come up with, she thought forlornly.

  By the time Chattie got up the next morning and presented herself for breakfast, there was no sign of Harriet or Steve.

  Breakfast, she discovered, was served in the vast kitchen. A bright, airy room, it overlooked the water tanks with their cloak of pink, purple and rusty bougainvillaea and yellow allamanda. It was also a cook’s delight with cork-tiled floors, a wrought-iron pot-holder hanging from the ceiling and a butcher’s chopping block on wheels.

  There were herbs in pots on the window sill, a scullery that led off it and a big round table in an alcove set with chunky, colourful china.

  Her companion at the table was Brett, stirring a bowl of oatmeal with little enthusiasm and swinging his legs at the same time.

  Slim looked over his shoulder from the wood fire stove. ‘Morning, miss. Sleep well?’

  Chattie tipped a hand. ‘On and off. Then I fell into this deep sleep and that’s why I’m a bit later than normal.’

  ‘Never mind! Sit down. What’s your preference? Help yourself to juice, by the way.’

  Seeing that he was tending bacon, sausages and eggs, she asked for one sausage and an egg, and poured herself some orange juice.

  ‘Who are you?’ Brett enquired. ‘And why don’t you have to have porridge?’

  ‘Because I’m all grown up,’ Chattie replied. ‘When you’re growing, porridge is an excellent body-builder.’

  Brett rolled his eyes. ‘That’s what they say about nearly all the things I don’t like. Are you Steve’s girlfriend?’

  ‘I am definitely not Steve’s girlfriend,’ Chattie said with emphasis at the same time as Steve Kinane appeared in the back doorway.

  He pulled his boots off, tossed his broad-brimmed hat onto a hook on the wall and strolled over to the table in his socks. He looked big and there was something bracing about his presence. There was also something a little breathtaking about the width of his shoulders, his height and the way his dark hair flopped onto his forehead.

  ‘That would be a fate worse than death,’ he commented to Brett. ‘Morning, Chattie.’ Their gazes clashed and his was full of mockery but a different kind of mockery as once again he mentally stripped her.

  ‘What does that mean?’ Brett asked immediately.

  Chattie had looked away in some confusion but she now turned back to Steve and surrendered the floor to him with a touch of malice in her eyes.

  ‘It means…’ Steve poured himself orange juice ‘…that—’

  ‘It means,’ Slim said severely as he placed a plate in front of Chattie, ‘that these two don’t quite see eye to eye, that’s all. Brett, old son, if you don’t finish that soon I will…’ He paused, placed a hand over his heart, and keeled over onto the floor.

  In their scramble to get to him, Steve knocked over his juice and Chattie’s plate of sausage and egg went flying.

  ‘What? What’s wrong with him?’ Chattie breathed, taking in the blue tinge to Slim’s skin as she knelt beside him.

  ‘He’s got a dicky heart. Bring me the phone!’ Steve commanded.

  She glanced around wildly then spied what looked like a remote phone with an antenna on the kitchen counter. ‘Here.’ She pushed it into Steve’s hand. ‘Look, I know how to do CPR—’

  ‘Good, you start it while I raise the flying doctor.’

  An hour and a half later the three of them, Steve, Chattie and Brett, watched the flying doctor take off from the station’s airstrip with Slim on board.

  ‘Is he going to die?’ Brett asked tearfully.

  ‘Don’t think so,’ Steve said, ‘but anyway he’s in really good hands now.’ He picked Brett up and put him on his shoulders for the short stroll back to the house.

  ‘I don’t like what happened, it made me really scared,’ Brett said in his high, piping voice—and they stopped as an excited bark came from the direction of the house.

  Chattie put a hand to her mouth. ‘Rich! I forgot about him. Apart from a walk earlier he’s been locked up on the veranda.’

  ‘You’ve got a dog?’ Brett queried alertly.

  ‘Yes. Would you like to see him?’

  Steve changed direction towards the guest bedroom veranda and put Brett down. He immediately raced towards the veranda.

  ‘Rich adores kids,’ Chattie said. ‘And he might just distract Brett.’

  Events proved exactly that. Rich streaked down the veranda steps as Brett opened the gate, flung himself up at Chattie briefly, ignored Steve totally, and then raced back to Brett with obvious delight.

  ‘I see what you mean,’ Steve commented.

  ‘It makes my blood boil all over again, to th
ink that anyone could have done that to a dog who gives so much pleasure,’ she said.

  He looked down at her with a faint frown, as if something was puzzling him about her, but in the end all he said was, ‘It is hard to understand. Do you think we deserve a cup of coffee?’

  She nodded after a moment.

  ‘Stay here, I’ll get it.’

  Chattie stared after him, prey to some conflicting emotions. Thanks to his cool control and meticulous following of the flying doctor’s instructions before the plane had arrived, Slim had had the best treatment he could have had in the circumstances and now had a good chance of recovery.

  And it slid into her mind that Steve Kinane was a good man to have beside you in crisis—unless you happened to hate his guts.

  He brought, not only coffee, but also buttered raisin toast to her veranda. Brett and Rich were now playing with a ball on the lawn.

  It was a beautiful morning, clear and sunny, not a cloud in the sky and not too hot. She suspected that midsummer would be very hot at Mount Helena but at the moment, as April slid into May, autumn was a pleasure and the gold-cloaked hills behind the house stood out in such clarity, Chattie longed to have a paintbrush in her fingers.

  ‘That’s one problem in hand,’ he said as he poured the coffee.

  Chattie brought her mind back from the landscape. ‘Brett?’ she hazarded. ‘I gather Harriet has already left?’

  ‘At the crack of dawn.’

  ‘What will you do?’

  He studied her over the rim of his cup. She wore jeans and a blue blouse and her hair was plaited to one side. After her initial shock, she’d been both practical and very helpful with Slim and in dealing with Brett. Was that any reason to be contemplating what he was contemplating out of the blue, however? It just didn’t make sense to ask her to stay on for a while—or, on one level, at least, did it? The level that this mysterious girl intrigued him…

  ‘My life,’ he observed carefully after a long moment, ‘has suddenly become extremely complicated. I have no housekeeper, Brett has no parents, I’m minus a station foreman as well as my brother and all in the space of less than twenty-four hours.’