Jess knew she shouldn’t be prying, but she couldn’t resist taking a closer look. She could see almost immediately that the clothes weren’t very suitable for a boy living in the outback. Reece had spent his days helping his dad in the stockyards or riding horses, but there wasn’t one pair of jeans or riding boots.
In one photo a young Reece was wearing a long multicoloured T-shirt over cord-style shorts with long tube socks and sneakers. In another he wore a knitted pullover in a totally impractical lemon and white diamond pattern.
There were other photos of Reece in lime-green Hawaiian-print board shorts, or ridiculously oversized jeans with an equally oversized black rock T-shirt. Perhaps worst of all was the photo of Reece in his teens, wearing a pale grey tracksuit with legs that were too short, so that the elasticated cuffs rode halfway up his calves.
What had his mother been thinking when she sent her son garments that were practically useless?
Jess looked intently at Reece’s face in each photo, recognising the gradual maturing of his handsome features. His mouth was always curved into a careful smile, but anyone who knew him well could see the questions in his eyes, as if he wondered if his mother really expected him to wear this stuff.
Her heart ached for the little boy who’d longed for toys, not clothes. Poor Reece.
No doubt he’d also longed for a mother who understood him and really cared about him. And yet he’d dutifully sent these photos back to her, no doubt hoping they’d please her.
With trembling fingers, she touched a photo of Reece in pale beige wide-legged trousers and a brown button-down shirt with palm trees printed across the chest. A city boy might have worn these clothes to church or to the movies or a party, but how often could Reece have worn this outfit? Any of these outfits?
Her face crumpled and a tear splashed the page. More tears followed. Tears for a little boy who’d been left behind. A boy who deserved so much more.
* * *
Up to his elbows in motor parts, Reece was wrestling with a tractor’s innards when he heard a sound behind him. He turned and blinked as a stooped silhouette appeared in the brightly lit doorway.
‘Is that you, Dad?’
Instead of answering, his father shuffled forward. ‘I thought I might find you in here.’
‘You’re supposed to be having a rest.’
‘I’ll rest in a minute. I wanted to talk to you first.’
‘Everything OK?’ Reece reached for a rag to wipe the black grease from his hands as his father shambled closer and slowly, stiffly, lowered himself onto an upturned oil drum.
The old man looked tired and grey, hollow-cheeked.
Reece frowned. ‘Are you sure you’re OK, Dad? Let me take you back inside. We can talk in there.’
‘Stop fussing. I want to talk out here.’
‘OK. That’s cool. What’s on your mind?’
‘You, Reece. You and Jess.’
He should have known this would crop up. Their kiss in the garden couldn’t have gone unnoticed.
His father’s eyes glinted. ‘This morning wasn’t the first time you’ve kissed her.’ It was a statement, not a question.
‘That’s my business,’ Reece said testily.
‘Thought as much.’
‘You got a problem with it?’
‘I just wanted to warn you to be careful this time.’
‘Excuse me?’
‘Jess is different, Reece.’ The old man raised a shaking finger. ‘She’s right for you, son. She’s a keeper.’
A shocked gasp escaped Reece. ‘What the hell are you talking about?’
‘You know bloody well. You and Jess, of course.’
‘Dad, calm down. You’ve no idea—’
‘No. You listen to me. If you play your cards right with this girl, you could be set for life.’
Reece groaned. The last thing he wanted was his father’s endorsement of a possible wife or a life partner. He was hoping to remain sensible about his feelings for Jess. He needed to be fine when he finally saw the end of her time here.
The old man was getting carried away. Just because he enjoyed Jess’s cooking. ‘You know damn well—if I was on the hunt for a wife, I wouldn’t be looking for a girl from the city.’
‘Jess might be a city girl, but she’s different,’ his father insisted again. ‘She likes it out here. She’s not pretending.’
Reece stared at him. For a second, the old man almost made sense. Jess did seem to like it here. She’d heaped praise on the place and he’d never heard a word of complaint from her.
Then again, she was being paid to live here and he knew she really needed the money, and she was too smart to bite the hand that fed her.
But he didn’t want to stir his father. ‘Well...thanks for your advice, Dad. I’ll bear it in mind.’
‘I hope you do, Reece. I’m dead serious.’
Reece stepped closer, touched his father on the shoulder. ‘Now that you’ve sorted my problems, I’m actually worried about you, old fella. I’m glad you’ll be seeing Doc Campbell again next week.’
His father gave a grunt of disapproval. ‘Bloody doctors.’ But when he tried to stand, he swayed dizzily.
Reece was instantly at his side with an arm around him. ‘Easy does it. Lean on me.’
‘I’m all right.’
‘Yeah, sure you are, but let me walk with you back to the house.’
To Reece’s surprise and concern, his father acquiesced, clutching his arm all the way to the house, up the steps and then down the passage to his bedroom. He even let Reece help him to remove his boots, and to assist him onto the bed, accepting the assistance without a word of complaint.
As Reece closed the bedroom door he was recalling the strong, tall hero of his youth. He could so clearly remember his father riding a bucking bronco, or leg-roping a steer, carrying an orphaned calf home on his broad shoulders.
Actually, the day the calf came home was emblazoned on Reece’s memory. He’d been so excited as his father put the little fellow down on a bed of hay and then took Reece to the kitchen to mix up a bottle of formula.
‘Where’s the calf’s mother?’ Reece had asked.
‘She’s gone, son. Passed away.’
‘Like my mother?’
‘Near enough. But don’t worry, Reece. The calf will be OK. He’s got us.’
As a little kid, Reece had been relieved and reassured to see that the calf had turned out fine, growing big and strong and playful, and eventually joining the herd. He supposed he’d identified with it to an extent. He and the calf could both manage without their mothers. He’d certainly believed in his father’s knowledge of how things worked in the world.
Now, he thought again about the message Michael had struggled all the way to the machinery shed to deliver.
If you play your cards right with this girl, you could be set for life.
It was an arresting thought and for an instant Reece felt the possibility glow inside him, filling his head and his heart with brilliant hope. But he had to dismiss it.
He’d lost his naïve faith long ago. He knew that when it came to romance and marriage and happily ever after, his old man didn’t have a clue.
* * *
Their evenings had fallen into a new pattern. After dinner, if they weren’t playing cards with Michael, Jess stretched on the sofa and Reece sat in a nearby armchair. Often they were both reading, as they were this evening—or at least, Reece was reading and Jess was trying to concentrate on her novel. But any minute now, they’d probably go to bed. In their separate rooms.
It was a new form of torture, Jess decided. Each night she wrestled with the stupid fantasy that Reece would make a move again—that she would end up in his lap, or he would tumble onto the couch with her.
Tonight it wasn’t just physical yearning. She felt quite emotional too. She couldn’t stop thinking about Reece’s photo album and she longed to take him in her arms, to give him a thousand kisses and hugs to make up for every o
ne of those unsatisfactory birthday gifts.
As she turned another page of her book she realised she hadn’t taken in a single word of the last three pages. She set the book aside with a deliberately noisy sigh.
Reece looked up from his cattlemen’s journal. ‘Had enough?’
‘Just about.’ But before he could jump to his feet she quickly asked, ‘Do you mind if I ask you a personal question?’
He looked mildly amused. ‘I guess that depends on the question.’
‘I don’t think it’s too probing. I’ve been wondering what it must have been like for you when your parents split up. You were only little, weren’t you?’
‘I was five. Why?’
‘That’s a long time for you and your father to be living out here on your own.’
‘We weren’t completely on our own the whole time. We had a succession of housekeeper-governesses until I was twelve. And then I was away at boarding school for six years. After that, agricultural college. But since then it’s pretty much been the two of us.’
Jess rolled onto her stomach so she could see Reece properly, and for a moment she simply lay there, admiring his dark hair, his dark brown eyes, the strong lines of his face. ‘Can you remember your mother?’
‘Sure.’ His expression grew serious. ‘I’ve seen her a few times since she left.’
‘Do you look like her?’
His eyebrows lifted. ‘I doubt it. When she was young, she had long red hair. She was quite beautiful, actually.’ His mouth tilted in a rueful smile. ‘When I was little I thought she was the most beautiful creature on earth. Beautiful, but unhappy.’
‘Did you know she was unhappy even then? When you were only five?’
‘Wasn’t hard to work out. There were plenty of tears. Especially towards the end, after my brother, Tony, was born.’
Jess hadn’t known about a brother. ‘Tell me to shut up if I’m getting too nosy, but what happened to Tony? Where is he now?’
‘Sydney. My mother took him with her.’
And left you behind?
Could this story get any sadder?
‘Don’t look so worried, Jess. I was fine here.’
‘Of course you were.’ She hoped she hadn’t looked too appalled, and she tried to cover her reaction with another question. ‘Have you seen much of Tony?’
‘Once or twice at Christmas. I went to his wedding, and to his son’s christening.’ Reece had been picking at a loose thread on the arm of his chair, but now he looked up and smiled at her. ‘Stop looking at me like that.’
‘Like what?’
‘Like I’m an orphan out of a Charles Dickens novel. I’m OK. I’m cool about everything. You don’t really miss what you’ve never had.’
Jess nodded. ‘That’s certainly very true.’
Perhaps she agreed a little too wholeheartedly. Reece sent her a rather searching look. ‘So how about you? What’s your family like? Do you have brothers or sisters?’
She shook her head. ‘It was only ever me and my mum. Not all that different from you, I guess—except we lived in towns along the coast. Mackay, Townsville, Cairns.’
‘What about your father?’
‘I’ve never met him.’
Now it was Reece’s turn to look surprised. ‘He took off?’
‘I guess he must have. That or Mum chased him away. My mum was vague about the full story, but knowing her, there’s a good chance she never told him about me.’ Before Reece could ask, she added, ‘My mum died two years ago.’
‘Jess, I’m so sorry.’
For a moment, he looked as if he wanted to leap out of his chair and take her into his arms, and she certainly wouldn’t have minded. But if that was his intention, he restrained himself.
A small silence passed before he asked, ‘Do you know where your father lives now?’
‘In New York, apparently.’
Actually, there was no apparently about it. Jess knew exactly where her father was. In recent years, she’d kept tabs on him via the Internet. ‘His name’s Richard Travere and he’s a chef.’
Reece grinned. ‘So you inherited his talent for cooking.’
‘I guess I must have.’ She gave a shrug, as if it were no big deal, but then she felt compelled to confess. ‘When I was little, I used to have dreams about him—that he came looking for me—but I can’t honestly say that I miss him.’
‘At least you’ll have photos of Rosie’s father to show her.’
‘That’s true.’ Jess grimaced guiltily as she realised how infrequently Alan entered her thoughts these days. But Reece had raised a good point. She must make an album for Rosie with photos of her father, and she should collect and save any other mementos she could find. She knew what it was like to grow up always wondering, and she didn’t want those sorts of questions haunting her daughter.
She would leave out the bad bits. Rosie needn’t know about the trouble Alan had left behind.
‘I’m in the mood for a nightcap,’ Reece said out of the blue, and he jumped to his feet, a frown firmly in place. ‘Want to join me? There’s not a lot of choice, I’m afraid. It’s Scotch or Scotch.’
‘Oh.’ Jess smiled. ‘I wouldn’t mind a small Scotch.’
He smiled back at her and returned a few moments later, ice cubes clinking in two tumblers, a bottle hooked in one elbow.
To her surprise he came to the sofa. ‘Move over.’
A ripple of excitement eddied through her. Sharing Scotch on the sofa was so unlike Reece. Was he letting down his guard again?
Should she be wary?
Hell, no, she decided a second later as he handed her a glass. She wanted to relax and enjoy this close-up view of lamplight on his dark hair and the warm glow in his eyes, not to mention the tempered strength of his body and long, long legs.
By the time she took her first sip of the smooth, fiery liquid, desire was buzzing through her. She was remembering the taste of passion in his kisses, the taut satin of his skin beneath her hands.
Oh, God. She had absolutely no will power. She would be back in his arms in a blink.
CHAPTER NINE
JESS took another, deeper sip of her drink. ‘Reece, I hate to ask, but are we ever going to talk about...that night?’
Despite the leap of desire and the warnings clamouring in his head, Reece managed to speak calmly enough. ‘I was wondering the same thing. I know it’s dangerous ground.’
Jess pursed her lips as she considered this. ‘It would only be dangerous if we got too serious.’
‘That’s a concern, yes.’ He couldn’t believe how formal he sounded, but discussing this sort of thing was difficult for him. He was a man of action, not semantics.
But while he couldn’t allow himself to believe his father’s claim that he could have a happy, long-term future with Jess, he knew there were things that needed settling between them.
Right now, she was sitting with her legs curled, keeping her thoughtful gaze fixed on the ice swirling in her glass. She was wearing pale grey trousers and a sleeveless top in a shade of lavender that was perfect for her pale skin and her dark hair. She looked so lovely he was going mad.
‘If you’re worried about me getting serious, you can relax,’ she said. ‘I have no intention of getting in deep with any man. Not for ages. I simply can’t afford to get serious.’
She looked up then, and her green eyes were clear as glass. ‘And to be totally honest, that’s not because I’m grieving, Reece. It’s a matter of practicality. I have to plan for the future for Rosie and me, and I can’t be sidetracked by relationships.’
‘Yes...that’s understandable...’ He swallowed to relieve the awkward tightness in his throat. ‘I need to be practical too. I couldn’t get serious about a girl from the city.’
‘Of course,’ Jess said quickly, perhaps a little too quickly. But then she shrugged. ‘Something casual could be another matter. With no strings attached—’
Her self-assurance seemed to desert her suddenly and she dr
opped her gaze to her glass as colour rose high in her cheeks.
Reece drew a very necessary breath. ‘Maybe we’re on the same page,’ he suggested quietly.
Jess was still staring at her glass, but he knew that her eyes had widened. ‘Do you think so?’
‘If we both want to keep things casual.’
‘No strings.’
‘Absolutely no strings. No expectations.’
‘So no one will get hurt.’
‘I’d hate to hurt you, Jess.’
She looked up again, a small smile shimmering. ‘Maybe we are on the same page, then.’
Almost in unison they downed the last of their drinks, set the glasses aside. Eyed each other.
Smiled.
Reece reached for her hand, smooth and pale and fine-fingered, and held it in his splayed, callused palm. ‘Look at that.’
‘Vive la différence.’
It became amazingly simple then. A matter of being with the right person in the right moment. When he leaned in and touched his lips to Jess’s, she melted against him and she kissed him back. She tasted faintly of Scotch and she smelled fresh as flowers. As she linked her arms around him he slid his fingers into the dark silk of her hair.
Need met need.
His need and hers. And everything was OK because they had it all planned. No one would end up being hurt. They were OK. And they were so good together.
They kissed with a comfortable kind of urgency, lips and tongues and hands eagerly exploring, removing clothes, rediscovering.
They made love on the couch and then later, after gathering their scattered belongings, they retired to Jess’s bedroom where they made love again at a more leisurely pace this time. Lingering. Slow heat building to blissful oblivion.
And Reece thought: This is how it can be.
This was how it should be. No pressure. No expectations. No guilt. He’d felt many emotions after making love, but never this uncomplicated happiness.
And Jess seemed happy too as she lay beside him, relaxed and easy, her cheek tucked against his shoulder. Their plan was working.
‘Just had a thought,’ she said sleepily.
‘What’s that?’
‘Is casual sex usually this good?’
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