Heart Of The Outback, Volume 2

by Margaret Way

  “What if I told you that right this moment I am feeling the very opposite?” he said. He turned and leant his backside against the railing and folded his arms and stared his big sister down.

  “Well, kid, I would say thank the gods.” She stood and grabbed him by the arms, giving him a big kiss on the cheek.

  “Is there a particular woman who has brought about this change of heart?”

  One woman? Absolutely. But she was gone now. Not just gone from his life, but gone from all life. And it had taken a shock of that magnitude to knock him from the path of his life.

  “None in particular,” he said. His reasons were his to wrangle alone. “So what do you think? Should I go and give the Crabbe sisters the fright of their life by proposing to one of them right now?”

  The Crabbe girls were as sensible a choice as any. He knew from past experience of country-dance bottom-pinching, all instigated by one or the other of them, that they would not have been immune to such an idea. But no matter how hard he tried to picture himself in the role of doting husband with a good little country wife by his side, he found he in all good conscience could not. It felt like too much of the same. And what he craved so deeply was change. “No need,” Elena said, reaching into her purse for a pile of yellowed, creased A4 paper. “I’ve already signed you up to some dating websites, just in case.”

  “Websites?” Heath parroted back. “Aren’t they all just fronts for three-hundred-pound, sixty-year-old Russians looking to relocate?”

  Elena’s responding sigh was melodramatic. “I’ll have you know over half all new relationships forged by people in their thirties come from meeting over the Internet.”

  After a pause, Heath said, “You just made that up.” “I did. But it sounds good, don’t you think? Now I’ve found some girls I like, and some I know you’ll like. All are Melbourne women. Twenty-seven to thirty-five. Single. Looking for love, not just fun.” She glanced at him through narrowed eyes.

  He took the pages, skimming through pictures and vital statistics of a dozen perfectly attractive young women.

  One page about halfway through had stuck to another with a glob of baby food. It caught his eye for the fact that it had a big red cross through it. Why, he had no idea, for the woman in the picture looked absolutely worth investigating.

  She was laughing so hard he could almost feel the energy radiating from the page. Something about the angle of the photo made him feel kind of dizzy, as if he were about to tip over if he didn’t plant his feet.

  Behind the smile was English-rose skin. Huge jade-green cat’s eyes. Long curling eyelashes. A fine chin and a nice straight nose. And she had a seriously sexy stash of strawberry-blonde waves. She barely looked twenty but there was something steely behind her pretty green eyes that had Heath thinking that she was older.

  A bulleted list below the photo told him she hated chocolate, her favourite colour was yellow, she cooked a mean plate of fettuccini carbonara, and she lived for mascarpone.

  Considering he couldn’t go a day without chocolate, he wasn’t entirely sure he had a favourite colour, he couldn’t eat starch and didn’t even know what a mascarpone was, it seemed that they were likely the least-suited pair on the planet. Maybe that was why Elena had crossed her out.

  But there was something in those flinty green eyes that kept him staring at her picture. “What’s wrong with this one?” he asked.

  Elena glanced at the page and screwed up her nose. “That one wasn’t meant to be there.” She reached out to take it back, but Heath moved it just out of her way.

  “Why not?”

  “She is the star turn on a website called www.ahusbandinahurry.com. I don’t think that bodes well.”

  “Don’t you think that’s what many of these women are after? At least she’s honest,” he said. And if he was honest, it was what he wanted too. Now. As soon as possible. A wife. A partner. Someone else with whom to share his space, his time, his life. It was time for him to stop playing it safe. It was time for him to take a risk.

  Elena shrugged, obviously not pleased that it hadn’t gone all her way. Likely she had picked out a bunch of women who enjoyed cross-stitch and watching car racing on TV so that if all went well she could have a new friend as well as a sister-in-law.

  But that one, as Elena called her, was different. Behind the pretty green eyes Heath knew there was fire. And though all week he had been wishing for rain, suddenly fire held a heck of a lot more possibilities. Change was in the air. Barely there, but there all the same. Enough that he could taste it—sweet and welcome on his tongue.

  “Heath, are you out here?” a male voice called from inside. His youngest brother, Caleb.

  “Out here, buddy.”

  “Someone knocked over the punch bowl and there’s pineapple pieces swimming all over the dining-room floor.”

  He let out a long slow breath and bit back the suggestion that Caleb could have cleaned the thing up himself. But the kid was spoilt. All of his siblings were. And it was his fault.

  But inside there were worse things afoot than pineapple on the floor. His brother Cameron was doing his best to keep himself from shattering into a million pieces while trying to help his two little daughters understand why their mummy was not coming home. And big brother Heath was hiding outside.

  Well, not any more. “I’m coming, Caleb.”

  “To save the day as always, bro,” Caleb said, slapping Heath on the back, but Heath was sure the kid had no notion of how true that was.

  On a balmy Saturday night, two weeks later, Jodie angled her beloved twenty-year-old car, aptly nicknamed Rusty, into an empty car park in a side street off Flinders. She threw a handful of coins into the parking meter as she spied a gap in Saturday-night traffic cruising the length of the grand old train station. She hitched her black sparkly halter an inch higher and tugged her tight jeans an inch lower and ran as fast as her borrowed high heels would carry her.

  She was late, as an hour before she could still have been found sitting on the couch with Louise in her pyjama bottoms, Chelsea Football Club T-shirt and slippers, as she hadn’t entirely been planning on turning up that night.

  Over the past two weeks, Jodie had met twelve different guys that she and Mandy had chosen from the responses to her website. An actor, a vet, a guy who sold mobile phone contracts door-to-door, and a funeral director whose massive Adam’s apple slid up and down in his throat with such vigour Jodie had found it hard to look anywhere else. And she would have put every cent she owned on the fact that most had come for a good time, not a long time.

  What was she doing interviewing prospective husbands? Really? When Jodie reached the safety of the footpath, she closed her eyes and visualised waving goodbye to Mandy and Lisa, getting on the jumbo plane, landing in Heathrow, catching the tube, knocking on the front door of the tiny flat she had shared with her mother for twenty-five years. No, if she was to have any sort of life, she had to stay the course.

  Jodie pushed open the heavy carved door nestled into the underbelly of the train station and rushed down the carpeted steps.

  Lisa, the maître d” at the popular restaurant, grimaced as she came into view. “Another minute and I would have given away your table.”

  “I probably would have thanked you if you had,” Jodie muttered. “Is he here yet?”

  Lisa shook her head. “But Mandy is prowling in your corner. Go settle her before she frightens away my customers.”

  Jodie gave her a quick pat on the arm before skimming through the tables to the private table for two in the corner. When she saw Mandy sitting in a chair, her stiletto tapping nervously against the floor, Jodie was torn between staying or making a run for it to the ladies” room, squeezing out the tiny window and dropping atop the Dumpster a floor below.

  “Nice of you to show,” Mandy said as Jodie slipped quickly into the cool seat across from her.

  Jodie took a steadying gulp of Mandy’s red wine before grabbing a bread roll and shoving nibble-size
d bites into her nervous mouth. “Yeah, well, it didn’t help that just as I was leaving Scott came over to propose to me.”

  “Scott?” Mandy said, her face paling. “Across the hall Scott? Predilection for leather pants and mesh shirts Scott? Not quite sure where his right eye is looking Scott?”

  Jodie nodded along with Mandy’s every query. “Somehow he had found your clever website. His exact words were: ‘So how about it? You and me—matrimonial bliss?’”

  “Please tell me you said no.”

  Jodie nodded. But in that brief split second, she had actually considered his offer. He lived across the hall, so she wouldn’t have to move far. He had a thing for her, which had been obvious since the day she had moved into the building, so he would do anything to help her out in her plight. But the very fact that he had a thing for her ruled him out even if his goofy oddness did not. It wouldn’t be fair.

  If she was going to do this thing, she had to do it right. No romantic connections. No complications from the start. The last thing she wanted was for it all to end in tears and broken promises. She’d lived through enough of that when her father had walked out when she was thirteen, so living it up close and personal was not on her agenda.

  She had thanked him for his kind offer, but declined. Though compared to her other dates that week he wasn’t the bottom of the totem-pole.

  “He had settled in to watch Beach Street when I left so I had to leave poor Lou behind. I don’t trust him not to sneak into my room and try to steal a pair of my underpants again.”

  “Right. Good point.”

  “So who’s the lucky contestant tonight?” Jodie asked on a sigh.

  “First up we have Heath.” Mandy flipped through her colour-coded sheets clipped in a neat folder. “Heath Jameson. The farmer.”

  Jodie winced. A farmer, for goodness” sake! The fact that he didn’t send an email in the form of a dirty limerick or attach a photo of himself in Speedos put him in the maybe pile. But the thought of moving to a farm for two years was uninspiring to say the least. She was a city girl, born and bred. She loved the seasons in Melbourne, the food, the culture, the window shopping, the architecture and the friends she had made there. But most of all she liked herself in Melbourne.

  But a farm? In the outback? She pictured a barn with a leaking tin roof. A wood-burning fireplace with old copper pots the likes of which she had seen in old Western movies. A mangy work dog sleeping on the end of the double bed that had lumps and bumps worn into it by past generations. And wouldn’t she have to get one of those hats with corks hanging all around it to ward off flies?

  “Ready?” Mandy asked.

  “Ready as I’ll ever be.”

  “Excellent. After this one, there’s two more tonight.”

  Two more? She let out a long groan. Suddenly, despite the living distance from the city she loved, so long as the guy was a gentleman and said yes, she decided she would marry him then and there. So long as she could stop all this dreadful dating and see a way to a future down under.

  Mandy slipped away into the crowd and Jodie was left sending glances towards the bar. Which one would farm boy turn out to be? The guy in all black flicking lint off his double-breasted jacket? Unlikely. The balding blond in the plaid shirt and jeans picking crumbs out of his teeth with his butter knife? Oh, please, no.

  Jodie couldn’t help checking her teeth for sesame seeds in the reflection of her bread knife when the front door swished open letting in a flush of warm night air and, with it, a man.

  A man with a to-die-for tan, the likes of which Jodie had only ever seen on school friends just back from the Greek Islands, subconsciously pushing his wind-mussed, dark blond hair somewhat into place. A man with the kind of natural highlights other guys would pay a fortune for. A man in an untucked white shirt over dark denim who gave a friendly half-smile as he caught Lisa’s eye at the door.

  Jodie knew that second he was hers.

  Lisa tossed her long blonde hair as she turned and, with a little finger wave, beckoned the man to follow. And follow he did with a lean, long-legged stride.

  “Not bad,” Lisa mouthed as she neared.

  As he came closer Jodie saw that this man was just the way she imagined Australian guys ought to be—permanent creases at the corners of his eyes from too much smiling or too much sun, a strong jaw covered in sexy stubble as though he had shaved many hours before, and eyes so blue they made her heart ache.

  But she wasn’t in this game for heartache. This was to be a purely heart-free and ache-free endeavour.

  Jodie scrunched her toes in her high-heeled sandals to force the blood away from her burning cheeks to other parts of her body. The whole “blushing English rose” thing could be pretty on some girls, but with her auburn hair she felt like a big red blotchy tomato. And the more she panicked about it, the more she blushed.

  Suddenly the ladies” room, the tiny window and the Dumpster seemed unreservedly the right choice.

  “Can I get you a drink?” Lisa asked as they reached the table.

  “Thanks,” he said, his voice a rich, resonant bass. “A beer would be great.”

  Lisa gave him a beaming smile, turned it into a frown for Jodie, then spun on her heel and left. Jodie managed to drag herself to her feet on wobbly knees that almost gave way.

  Her companion leaned over and offered her a large, long-fingered hand to shake. “Good evening, Jodie. I’m Heath Jameson. It’s a pleasure to finally meet you.”

  CHAPTER TWO

  “NICE to finally meet you too, Heath,” Jodie said.

  A lively smile lit his eyes. They were so stunning they’d give even Paul Newman a run for his money.

  She shook hands. His were work-roughened, but warm. She glanced down, mesmerised by how large and brown his hand was wrapped around her skinny pale fingers. And it was then that she noticed he had a hint of dirt beneath his fingernails.

  Of course there was dirt. He was a farmer. Not a city guy. Not a straightforward man looking for a wife to accompany him to work dinners, to get his parents off his back, or to marry quickly to get himself lined up for that work partnership, which was what she figured would bring a man around to her plan. So what on earth was she doing still hanging onto the poor guy’s hand?

  She let go, and quick, running her hand down the side of her jeans to rub away the tingles. She sat, and her wobbly knees thanked her.

  Having broken the ice enough times already that fortnight, she knew how. But while with the others she’d wanted to get down to brass tacks, to lay out the ground rules and find out their motives before even bothering with small talk, with this guy, with this long, lean length of pure and unadulterated gorgeousness, it felt ridiculous forming the question: why do you want to marry me?

  Instead she caved and settled on, “You found this place okay?”

  “I did. I drove here directly from the farm and found it a lot sooner than I had expected to.”

  “But I just saw you come in the front door.”

  A knowing smile in his eyes lit brighter, and she bit her lip. Jodie felt her horrid blush threatening again, so she turned her eyes determinedly to the residual drops of wine in her glass. Red wine, which would only make her feel warmer. She pushed it out of reach behind the tray of bread rolls.

  “I’ve been walking the streets of Melbourne for an hour and a half,” he explained. “I’m not terribly good at sitting on my hands, and the last thing I wanted to do was wait and have you not show. And now I’m here, I’m really glad you did. Show.”

  “I take it I’m not your first blind date,” Jodie said, the unstoppable blotchy blush heating her face another degree.

  “Well, actually, no,” he said, a slight hint of pink warming his tanned neck too. She was hard pressed not to sigh. “And though in the past they have been mostly disastrous, I figured I would try one more time just to find out what the heck mascarpone is.”

  She blinked. “Mascarpone?”

  “On your website it said that yo
u lived for it. I knew I couldn’t go any further without knowing.”

  “Oh. Right. Well, it’s a type of Italian cream cheese. In my opinion, a sandwich is simply not a sandwich without mascarpone to hold it all together.”

  “Okay, then.” He blinked a few times as he let the info settle and then he laid a huge grin on her. “I guess I can now go on.”

  After the previous candidates, this guy wasn’t just a honey to look at, he was polite and nice and saying all the right things. She would be hard pressed to find better. Maybe he was the one.

  She flinched so hard at that thought that her elbow slid off the table. Heath even lifted himself off the chair and reached out a hand to her to make sure she was okay. Thankfully at that moment a waitress came over with Heath’s beer and another glass of red wine for Jodie so she was saved from extended humiliation.

  “So, you’re English,” he said once the waitress left.

  Feeling more than a little off kilter, Jodie wrapped her fingers around the stem of her wineglass. “Is that a concern?”

  “No, not at all. It’s just that from the few details on your website I had sort of built up an image of how you would sound, how tall you’d be, that sort of thing.”

  Jodie felt herself deflating with every word he spoke. She’d spent years being told by her mother that if only she were taller and not quite so pale she might be pretty. To hear this guy say the same would seal it for sure. “So how am I different?” she asked, being as she was a glutton for punishment.

  Heath blinked, his eye crinkles deepening, as though giving himself a moment to tie all of the pieces in his imagination into a new whole.

  “You’re smaller somehow. More delicate. And I can’t get over that plummy accent.”

  Jodie bit at her inner lip, wishing, and not for the first time, that she were a blonde glamazon like Lisa. Or a brunette sex kitten like Mandy. Or serenely elegant like her half-sister Louise. Not wan, wispy, little old her. “Sorry to disappoint,” she said.

  “Not at all,” he said, resting contentedly against the back of his chair as his eyes remained locked onto hers. “You’re lovely.”