by Jessica Hart
They looked like a family, she realised with a sudden pang. A happy family. But of course they weren’t. If they were a family, she would be Cal’s wife instead of his boss, and she wouldn’t have to remember that she was supposed to be keeping him at a distance.
It wasn’t fair of Cal to laugh like that. How could she be expected to think of him as a hired hand, as a temporary employee, when he sat at the end of the table like that, relaxed and at home, pretending to ally himself with the laughing children, his eyes creasing with that devastating smile?
Juliet hoped it would be easier once the children were all in bed, but it wasn’t. It was worse. True, there were no twins to make him smile, but there was no Natalie to break the silence with her chatter either. For the first time since she had come to Wilparilla, she wished there was a television, something—anything—to distract her from Cal’s still figure.
It had seemed rude not to join him on the verandah after her shower, but now Juliet wished she hadn’t. She couldn’t think of anything to say. Cal was leaning forward in one of the cane chairs, resting his arms on his knees and turning a beer bottle absently between his hands.
Juliet couldn’t keep her eyes off those long, brown competent fingers. They had felt so strong around hers as they had sat by the creek. She remembered them on her arms, sliding to the nape of her neck to hold her head still as he kissed her that first night, and now she couldn’t stop wondering how it would feel if he kissed her again.
Would he drop her down to earth, as he had dropped her before, or would he let his hands drift over her, smoothing along her thigh, slipping under her top so that the warm fingers could curve over her breast? At the thought, an involuntary shiver snaked its way down Juliet’s spine, and she gulped, dry-mouthed, at her glass of wine, while the silence between them crisped and tightened, like a sharply indrawn breath.
Cal was very conscious of the silence, too. He had been very conscious of everything since Juliet had sat down in the next chair but one. He was glad she hadn’t chosen to sit right next to him. Her hair was still damp from the shower and he could smell the shampoo she used. She was wearing some kind of soft skirt and top. Cal hadn’t noticed the colour, but he had seen the skirt slither over her legs as she sat down, could almost swear that he had heard it whisper against her body as she shivered.
He had been trying not to look at her. He had been concentrating very hard on his beer. Her presence was tantalising, disturbing. Cal didn’t know why she unsettled him the way she did. All he knew was that something about the way she sat there made him think about the silky material lying against her bare skin.
And he knew that if he thought about it much more he would do something that he would regret, like pulling her to her feet and into his arms, like letting his hand smooth insistently over the silk, under the silk, pushing it aside, feeling her skin where the silk had rested…
Cal drained his beer and got abruptly to his feet. ‘I’m going for a walk,’ he said, in a voice so curt that Juliet looked at him, startled. But before she could ask what was wrong, he had gone, and she was left alone to tell herself that she was glad and to try and forget how he had kissed her once and for all.
Maggie arrived at the end of that week. She was a tall, gaunt woman in her sixties with a gruff, no-nonsense manner that daunted Juliet at first. Cal had picked her up in the plane and brought her straight to the house that Juliet had laboured so hard to clean and paint.
‘I hope you’ll like it,’ she said a little nervously as Maggie’s gimlet eyes swept around the pristine rooms.
‘It looks fine,’ said Maggie.
Fine? Was that all she could say after all her hard work? Indignation made Juliet forget the constraint of the last few days and glance at Cal.
‘That means she really likes it,’ he said in an undertone as Maggie inspected the kitchen.
Clearly effusiveness was not Maggie’s style, but Juliet forgave her everything when she saw her with the twins. She had expected that Kit and Andrew would be as intimidated by Maggie’s dour exterior as she was, but they adored her from the start.
‘I know,’ said Cal, interpreting Juliet’s expression without difficulty as they watched the little boys with his aunt. He smiled, and without thinking Juliet smiled back at him. ‘I don’t understand it either. It’s just a kind of magic she has with children.’
Then they realised that they were standing there smiling at each other, and stopped at the same time. Cal went over to join his aunt and Juliet made rather an unnecessary fuss about making some tea.
She was torn between relief at being able to leave the twins in such competent hands, gratitude at having someone to share the housework and cooking, and a feeling somewhere between nervousness and anticipation when she realised that she no longer had an excuse not to spend all her time with Cal.
It had been easy to avoid him over the last few days. Juliet had thrown herself into finishing the house before Maggie arrived and Cal had been busy out on the station. When had met, they’d treated each other with stilted politeness and kept the conversation so strictly impersonal that Juliet was almost ready to believe that they had never held hands down by the creek, that she had never sat on the verandah and fantasised about Cal slowly taking off her clothes, or wondered if he would ever kiss her again.
Certainly Cal had never given her any reason to suppose that he would, she admitted half wistfully to herself. It was as if he had erected an invisible and impenetrable barrier between them, bristling with unspoken ‘Keep Out’ signs. It had been easy enough to convince herself that she had no interest in him other than as an efficient manager.
And now he had smiled at her again and spoilt it all.
Of course, it was ridiculous to feel nervous about spending her days with him. It was what she had hired Cal to do, wasn’t it? But it wasn’t Cal’s detachment that worried Juliet. It was the strange feeling that fluttered alarmingly beneath her skin whenever she caught sight of him, the warm, disturbing sense of something uncurling deep inside her if her eyes happened to stray to his mouth or his hands or to the creases fanning out from the edges of his eyes, as they had a nasty habit of doing.
Cal was finding the prospect of spending all his time with Juliet equally unsettling. He had been horrified at how much he had wanted her that evening on the verandah, and had walked for hours before he could trust himself to go back. Cal didn’t want to think what he might have done if Juliet hadn’t gone to bed, if she had still been sitting there in that damned silk.
He’d wanted to think that it was just the outfit, but when he’d seen Juliet the next morning, dressed simply in jeans and a shirt, he’d realised with a sinking heart that it was more than that. He had to take himself well away, where he couldn’t notice the way her lashes tilted when she smiled at one of the children, or the fragrance that lingered in the air long after she had gone.
In the evenings, they had eaten their meal in constrained silence, and then he had made an excuse and disappeared into the office to deal with the paperwork. Or pretend to deal with it, while he sat and pictured Juliet, sitting outside in the quiet night, her legs curled up beneath her in the chair and her hair curling below her ear.
It would be easier when Maggie came, Cal had told himself. Maggie might not be the chattiest of people, but at least she would be there, and there would be someone else to look at, someone else to talk to, someone to stop him making a complete fool of himself over Juliet.
Only now Maggie was here, and Cal realised for the first time that while the evenings might be easier, getting through each day was going to be a lot, lot harder.
None of his doubts showed in his face that first morning. To Juliet he looked intimidating and unapproachable as he drove her out to the airstrip. ‘If you want to learn how to run Wilparilla, you’d better see exactly what you’ve got,’ he said brusquely, to hide the disconcerting lift of his heart as she walked out to join him by the ute, trim in jeans and a dark blue shirt that echoed the colour
of her eyes.
He took her up in the little single-engine plane that had once been Hugo’s. Juliet had been up with Hugo on a couple of short trips to the nearest town, but she had never felt safe with him the way she felt instantly safe with Cal’s hands at the controls. He showed her a Wilparilla she had never seen before as they flew over the vast brown paddocks with their spindly scrub and towering termite mounds, along the tree lined creeks and inaccessible gullies, and across to the wild rocky range where the horizon blurred into a purple haze.
Juliet was intensely aware of Cal sitting so close beside her, of his hands on the joystick, of his eyes narrowed against the glare, of his arm reaching past to point down at a scattered group of cattle that blundered out of the way of the swooping plane. It was all impossibly big, impossibly wild, impossibly beautiful, and she exclaimed in awe and delight as the plane soared up into the dazzling light once more.
‘You sound as if you love Wilparilla already,’ she said impulsively, constraint forgotten in the sheer exhilaration of the moment. ‘How is it you know your way around so well?’
There was no suspicion in her voice, but Juliet’s innocent question brought Cal up short. ‘I told you, I was brought up not far from here,’ he said after a moment. ‘I’ve flown over Wilparilla many times.’ It was the truth, but not the whole truth.
Frowning, he banked the little plane until Juliet could look straight down at the red Australian earth below through her side window. He was furious with himself for forgetting everything in his enjoyment of Juliet’s pleasure at her first real sight of Wilparilla. He was only here because he wanted Wilparilla back from this woman who sat next to him with her skin warm and glowing in the sunlight and her blue eyes shining. He should be remembering that, not wanting her to see the land as he saw it, not hoping that she understood what it meant to him.
He should be remembering that he had lied to her. That he was still lying. That he had to carry on lying until she was gone.
‘We’d better go back,’ he said almost curtly.
Juliet didn’t want to go back. She wanted to fly on and on with him, high in the sky, where all her doubts and worries evaporated into a tingling sense of happiness, but when she glanced at Cal to tell him how she felt, she saw that his face was set in grim lines that dried the words on her lips.
Puzzled, and obscurely hurt by his abrupt withdrawal, Juliet lapsed back into silence. Cal continued to point out creeks and paddocks as they flew over, but the warmth had gone from his voice, and with it all her pleasure from the flight.
Cal was having to remind himself of all the reasons why Juliet had to be persuaded to leave. Yes, she had had a hard time. Yes, she was a loving mother and kind to Natalie. Yes, she had worked harder than he had expected on Maggie’s house. Maybe she wasn’t quite as selfish as he had thought at first…but she still didn’t belong at Wilparilla.
Cal seized on the thought as he brought the plane into land on the bumpy airstrip. Juliet would be much better off back in London. It wasn’t as if he was trying to swindle her. He had already offered her a price for Wilparilla well above its real value. If she took it, she could give her sons a comfortable and secure life without wearing herself out on this unforgiving land. He would be doing her a favour if he persuaded her to leave.
No, Juliet would never belong here. So what if she looked just right in a plane, or curled up in one of the verandah chairs, or riding slowly along the creek with Kit perched up on the saddle before her? Those were just the perks of living on a cattle station. Cal prepared to show Juliet the harder side of station life. A week of working with the men would be enough to convince her to give up this perverse idea she had of staying at Wilparilla.
A week later, he had to admit that Juliet had showed no signs of giving up. She had helped with branding and dehorning, been introduced to bull-catching by a wild ringer called Bill, learnt how to drive a tractor and reverse it with trailer, and struggled to mend a fence. Cal had let her stagger under the weight of the wire, and catch her fingers on the barbs until her gloves were torn and her hands bleeding, but not once had Juliet complained.
There had been a stormy look in her eyes now and then, and a decidedly mutinous set to her mouth, but she had known that Cal was testing her, and just when he was sure she was ready to admit defeat, she would press her lips together, grit her teeth and carry on. Cal didn’t know whether he admired her spirit or was frustrated by her stubbornness. All he knew was that sometimes—too often—she was close enough for him to be distracted by the smell of soap on her skin, or the pulse beating in her throat, and that Wilparilla seemed to be receding further and further out of reach.
That Sunday, Cal took Natalie riding, as usual, but Juliet and the boys stayed at home. ‘I want my daughter to myself,’ he said, when Natalie wanted them all to go together.
It struck him as Natalie rode beside him with her bright, animated face how much she had changed since they had come back to Wilparilla. In Brisbane she had been very quiet—polite, but so reserved with the housekeepers that he had employed that he had worried that the time she had spent with only him and the stockmen for company had turned her into too much of a tomboy. Juliet was the last person he would have expected Natalie to admire, but she had attached herself to her from the start.
‘She talks to me properly,’ Natalie explained. ‘And she smiles with her eyes as well as her mouth.’
Cal could picture exactly what she meant.
‘And she smells nice.’
Cal knew that too.
‘She’s fun.’ Natalie peeped a glance at him, and then confessed in a burst of confidence, ‘She let me try on one of her lipsticks once.’
‘Did she?’ Cal’s brows rose. He would never have thought Natalie would have the slightest interest in lipstick!
Natalie nodded. ‘She gives Kit and Andrew lovely cuddles,’ she added after a moment.
Cal heard the unconsciously wistful note in Natalie’s voice and his heart cracked. He had done his best for his daughter, but she needed her mother. She had lost more than he had when Sara had died. ‘Mum cuddled you when you were little,’ he said gently.
She brightened slightly. ‘And you did,’ she reminded him loyally
‘Yes, I did too.’
There was a pause. ‘Dad?’
‘Yes?’
‘Do you think you’ll ever get married again?’
Cal stilled. ‘Why do you ask that?’
Natalie looked straight ahead, between her pony’s ears. ‘I just wondered—if you did—if you’d marry someone like Juliet.’
He didn’t answer immediately. He had the oddest feeling, as if someone had punched him in the stomach, making it difficult to breathe, let alone talk. ‘I don’t think Juliet wants to marry anybody,’ he said carefully at last.
Natalie looked a little disappointed. ‘I think she’s sad sometimes,’ she confided, and Cal looked down into his daughter’s brown eyes and wondered how much she understood.
‘I know,’ he said. He hesitated, sensing that Natalie’s loyalties were torn. He wished that he knew how to explain how he felt about Juliet and Wilparilla. But how could he do that when he wasn’t sure how he felt himself? ‘I will tell Juliet that we used to live here, Natalie,’ he said eventually, choosing his words with care. ‘But it might hurt her if I just blurted it out without any warning. I’ll tell her when the time is right, I promise.’
Natalie was silent, but Cal thought that she looked relieved. ‘Do you wish Wilparilla was still ours?’ she asked after a little while.
‘Yes,’ he said honestly. ‘I do.’ He ducked to avoid a low branch, remembering how desperately homesick Natalie had been in Brisbane. ‘Don’t you?’
‘Ye—es,’ said Natalie hesitantly, ‘but if we owned Wilparilla again, Juliet and the twins wouldn’t live here, would they?’
Cal felt as if he had walked abruptly into a wall. He had told himself that he just had to think about getting Wilparilla back. He knew that that would
mean Juliet leaving, but he hadn’t allowed himself to think beyond that, to imagine what it would be like without her, without her smile and her scent and the blueness of her eyes.
‘No,’ he said slowly, ‘I don’t suppose they would.’
Natalie would be devastated if Juliet took Kit and Andrew back to London, Cal realised, but what was the alternative? He couldn’t stay here as Juliet’s hired hand, managing the land that had once been his but with no place in its future, dependent on Juliet’s approval. Every sense of pride and independence rebelled at the thought.
If Juliet wouldn’t go, then he would give up on Wilparilla, Cal decided as they rode slowly back to the homestead. When the three-month trial was up, he would tell Juliet he didn’t want to stay. He would buy another property, start again, give Natalie a new life and a secure future before she got too attached to Juliet and the boys. It wasn’t fair to let her hope that they could all stay as one happy family. Even if he had been in love with Juliet—and he certainly wasn’t—judging from what she had told him about her marriage, she was unlikely to want to repeat the experience, and he wouldn’t risk Natalie’s happiness with anyone who wasn’t prepared to commit herself completely to him and his daughter.
Or anyone as unsuitable as Juliet, Cal added as an afterthought, with the uneasy feeling that that should have been the first reason he would never even consider marriage with a woman who was—for the time being, at least—his employer.
No, he would give Juliet one more chance to accept how hard the life out here was, one more chance to give in gracefully and leave before it was too late for all of them. He would take her on a muster. There would be no showers or disturbing silk outfits to change into out in the bush. She would be hot, dusty and saddle-sore, and surely after two nights of sleeping in a swag on the ground she would be ready to accept the inevitable.