To Lizzie’s dismay, his request had instant appeal. She told herself it was because she felt motherly towards the weaned calves. ‘What does it involve?’
‘I was hoping you could drive the truck. It’s only a matter of driving slowly along a track, and I’d be on the back pushing off bales of stock feed.’
‘I’ve never driven a truck.’
‘It’s a standard floor gear shift.’ Jack grinned. ‘And it’s perfectly harmless now.’
Her first thought was for her baby’s safety, but she was sure Jack wouldn’t put her in a dangerous vehicle. Then she thought about how slow this job would be for him if he had to do it on his own—stopping the truck, leaping out and climbing onto the back to push off a bale or two, then jumping down and driving on to repeat the job, over and over. ‘When do you want to do this?’
‘Late this afternoon? Say, about four o’clock?’
She refused to smile. ‘All right.’
For the rest of the day, an uncalled-for tingle of excitement zipped through Lizzie every time she thought about her late-afternoon assignment with Jack. It’s only work. It’s perfectly harmless.
She worked steadily, lunching on a sandwich at her desk, but promptly at four o’clock, dressed in blue jeans and a long-sleeved, blue and white striped cotton shirt, which she’d jokingly thought of as her country-woman shirt, she met Jack outside the machinery shed.
The sun was already slipping to the west and it sent a pretty, coppery-tinged light over the bales of hay on the back of the truck. Feeling only a little nervous, Lizzie climbed behind the driver’s wheel for a practice drive, while Jack swung into the passenger seat beside her.
To her relief, the truck’s motor started first go, and when she eased the vehicle forward there was only one kangaroo-hop and one teeth-clenching clash of gears before she got the hang of it and drove smoothly. Jack pointed the way via a dirt track that wound through paddocks of dry grass dotted with gum trees, and Lizzie drove on, appreciative of the quietness of the outback afternoon—the wide starch blue skies, the distant mauve hills and white-trunked gums, all bathed in soft, golden light.
It was such a very different world out here.
Having grown up in Italy, Lizzie still found herself marvelling at the sheer size of Australian properties. Savannah station was miles from Gidgee Springs, the nearest township, and it was a thousand miles from Brisbane, thousands more from Sydney, from Canberra and Melbourne.
Every so often they came to a gate, and this time it was Jack who got out to open them, and then close them behind her, but it wasn’t too long before they reached the huge paddock with the weaned calves.
‘OK. This is where I start dropping off the feed,’ Jack said. ‘All you have to do is drive on slowly and we’ll drop a line of feed across a couple of kilometres.’
Using the rear-vision mirrors as guides, Lizzie watched him swing up onto the tray-back of the truck with his customary ease. She drove slowly, watching him framed in the mirror, with his shirtsleeves rolled back over muscled forearms, using his pocket knife to cut the twine on the big bales of hay, then tossing them to the ground, as if they weighed no more than sugar cubes.
Young cattle came from everywhere, head butting each other like schoolboys tussling in a tuck-shop queue in their eagerness to get at the fresh sweet hay.
Too soon all the hay was dispersed and Lizzie stopped the truck, while Jack dismounted and got back in beside her. ‘Well done,’ he said with a smile. ‘I’ll make a country-woman of you before you’re through.’
They exchanged smiling glances.
Jack said, ‘You’ll be riding a horse next.’
‘Oh, no, I won’t.’ No way would she threaten her pregnancy on the back of a horse.
Again, she considered telling Jack about her baby. After all, he was very friendly, and he’d managed to thaw her frostiness despite her best efforts to remain remote.
Perhaps she might have told him if she was confident that he wanted no more than friendship, but she couldn’t ignore last night’s close call, and the inappropriate, two-way attraction that seemed to be getting stronger every minute. There was enough tension beween them already without adding her pregnancy to the mix.
When they reached the homestead and climbed down from the truck, Jack was surprised that Lizzie didn’t seem in any hurry to go back inside. Instead, she walked to the timber fence of the stockyard and leaned her elbows on the top rail, looking out across the plains.
The sun was low in the west now, tingeing the sky with pink, and a cool breeze stirred the grasses. Lizzie, in her blue jeans and striped shirt, looked amazingly at home in that setting. Her profile, softened by loosened strands of dark hair, was pensive as she looked out at the land.
Jack couldn’t resist going over to her. ‘A penny for your thoughts.’
‘I was thinking how very peaceful it is here.’ She lifted her face to the rosy sky and took a deep breath. ‘Especially now, at this time of day. The light’s so soft and the land’s all lovely and dappled by shadows.’
‘If you can’t relax here, you never will.’
She sent him a rueful smile. ‘Is it living here that makes you so relaxed? Is everyone in the outback easy-going?’
‘Not everyone. My father certainly wasn’t.’
‘I’ve been wondering about your family,’ she said. ‘Are they still on the land?’
‘No.’ Jack’s shoulders slumped and he leaned heavily on the rail beside her. ‘I’m an only child and my parents split up years ago. Mum went to Melbourne to live with her sister, and my father died of a heart attack about six months later.’
‘I’m sorry.’
Jack gave a dismissive shrug. ‘Mum’s remarried now, and very happy.’
‘And you stayed on the land, working for Kate?’
The breeze caught a strand of Lizzie’s hair, blowing it towards Jack. He contemplated catching it, letting it slide through his fingers like a satin ribbon, then he came to his senses and erased the thought, answered her question instead.
‘I ended up here eventually, but it wasn’t what I’d planned for my life.’ He dragged his gaze from Lizzie and watched a bird circling high above them. ‘My parents used to own a cattle property almost as big as Savannah.’
Lizzie turned to him, her face soft with sympathy. ‘Is it too nosy to ask what happened?’
‘We lost it thanks to my pig-headed father.’ Jack grimaced. ‘My old man argued with everyone—the local council, auctioneers, neighbours, bank managers. He completely ignored his accountant’s advice, made a stack of rash investments on the stock exchange, and lost all his money. The bank tried to foreclose on the property, and Dad had a whale of a time, arguing and resisting.’
‘Did they take him to court?’
Jack nodded. ‘The trial dragged on for ages, but the old man wouldn’t compromise and settle out of court. He wanted a fight. Stubborn as a broken bulldozer. In the end—’ he gave a shrug ‘—we lost the lot.’
‘Ouch,’ Lizzie said softly. ‘That must have been terribly hard for you and your mother.’
‘It was the last straw. Ended their marriage.’ Jack’s mouth thinned. ‘Dad died six months later, still furious with the world and everyone in it.’
It was a terrible story.
Lizzie almost wished she hadn’t asked. Jack’s eyes had completely lost their usual sparkle and they’d taken on a haunted look, as if he was seeing ghosts that still troubled him.
Surely it was a miracle he’d come through such an unhappy time without losing his cheerful and easy-going temperament. She wondered how much it had cost him to retain the ‘Jack-factor’ that she’d taken for granted.
‘At least you know you’re not anything like your father, Jack.’
‘I should bloody well hope not. I’ve gone out of my way to make sure I’m not even remotely like him.’
‘So you ended up working for Kate instead,’ Lizzie said to change the subject.
‘I got involve
d with Savannah after Kate’s husband died, and she had all sorts of trouble. Corporate cowboys tried to frighten her into selling this place for a pittance.’
‘But you were able to help her?’
‘I had to,’ he said with an offhand shrug. ‘Kate might be a tough old cookie, but at that time she was a grieving widow and she couldn’t stand up to those thugs on her own.’
So, Lizzie thought as darkness crept over Savannah and they left the stockyard and headed for the house, Jack had deliberately chosen to be different from his dad. Mr Nice Guy. But although he was easy-going, he wasn’t a push-over. He’d proved that when he’d stood up for Kate.
Even so, Jack had chosen well to stay here in the outback where the only stress came from the weather and the seasons and the market fluctuations.
The lifestyle here suited him. He would hate her frantic pace, and for the thousandth time Lizzie told herself she was pleased she’d called a halt to last night’s kiss.
The little niggle of regret that squirmed in her chest would disappear in time. Surely?
‘You can cook a mean steak,’ she declared at dinner.
Jack sent her one of his trademark smiles. ‘Just as well you like it. I don’t have a very wide repertoire.’
‘Doesn’t matter. This will do me.’
The steak was cooked to perfection, blackened and seared on the outside and rosy pink in the middle, and the accompanying lettuce, tomatoes and radishes were wonderfully crisp, straight from the garden.
They didn’t talk a great deal as they ate. Lizzie wondered if Jack regretted having shared so much about his family. He didn’t seem particularly upset, but perhaps he was good at hiding his feelings beneath his easy-going exterior.
Or perhaps she was thinking about him far too much.
‘Would you like ice cream for dessert?’ he asked as he cleared their dishes.
‘Oh, no dessert for me.’ Lizzie patted her stomach, aware of the bulge below her navel that seemed to be growing exponentially.
‘It’s chocolate-fudge ripple.’ Jack sent her a cheeky wink as he opened the freezer door.
Her taste buds leapt. ‘No, I really shouldn’t.’
He shrugged. ‘Your loss.’
Didn’t he worry about triglycerides? She supposed he could offset his eating habits with plenty of outdoor exercise.
Watching Jack fill a bowl with rich creamy scoops of vanilla and chocolate, she folded her arms and resisted the temptation to lick her lips. To her surprise, when he sat down again he handed her a spoon.
‘In case you change your mind.’ A slow smile unravelled, lighting his green eyes. ‘I’m happy to share.’
Share?
Lizzie flashed back to her student days with Mitch and the way he’d so easily charmed and enslaved her. She’d made more mistakes over guys since then, especially with Toby. Hadn’t she finally learned her lesson? Shouldn’t she reject such easy familiarity from Jack?
But she was ridiculously relieved to see him looking happy again, and, after all, what was the harm in a spoonful of dessert? Lizzie lasted almost no time—perhaps, oh, all of twenty seconds—before she reached across the table and took a spoonful of ice cream from Jack’s bowl.
It was cool and creamy against her tongue and it tasted sinfully luscious.
‘Good, isn’t it?’ Jack said, pushing the bowl closer.
‘Mmm.’ She helped herself to a second spoonful.
‘Not quite as good as Italian gelato, I guess.’
‘Oh, I think this ice cream could hold its own.’
Jack grinned. ‘So you don’t feel compelled to stick up for everything Italian?’
‘Why should I? I’m half Australian. My father’s Australian.’
‘I guessed with a surname like Green that he wasn’t Italian. Does he live in Australia or Italy?’
‘In Australia. In Sydney.’
Jack looked as if he wanted to ask another question, but was holding back.
It seemed only fair to expand her story, after he’d told her so much about his family. ‘My mother was a fashion model,’ she said. ‘She travelled a lot when she was young, and she met my father when he was a dive master at a resort on the Great Barrier Reef.
‘And no,’ Lizzie added, guessing the direction of Jack’s thoughts. ‘My parents didn’t marry. My father stayed here in Australia and my mother went back to Italy. I lived with her, mostly in Monta Correnti, until I started university. By then, my father had a boat-building business in Sydney, and I wanted to study English literature, so I decided to come out here to study, to be near him and to get to know his family and his country.’
‘He must have been pleased about that.’
‘Yes, he was. Very pleased.’ Lizzie smiled, remembering their wonderful, emotion-filled meeting. It had been such a shock to discover how very deeply her father loved her, and how much he’d missed her.
Jack was watching her closely. ‘And you’ve stayed on,’ he said, ‘so you must have liked it here.’
‘Yes,’ she said simply.
She helped herself to one last spoonful of ice cream, tipping her head back and holding the icy sweetness in her mouth until it began to melt, slipping slowly, languorously down her throat.
Out of the corner of her eye she caught Jack staring at her, and the unmistakable desire in his eyes sent flames shooting under her skin. Ribbons of heat formed knots in the pit of her stomach.
Caro Dio. She reached for her glass of mineral water and took a deep swig, and then another, draining it. ‘I—I’ll do the dishes,’ she muttered, jumping to her feet.
Slowly, Jack scooped the last of the ice cream from the bowl and then even more slowly he licked the spoon. When he stood, at last, and came lazily towards her, she realised she hadn’t done a thing about the dishes. She was still standing there, watching him.
He set the bowl on the sink and his arm brushed hers. Another flash of heat engulfed her. He didn’t move away.
It was a breathless age before he said in a low, lazy drawl, ‘I’m invading your personal space.’
‘Yes.’
It was no more than a whisper. Tonight she couldn’t dredge up the right level of frostiness.
Jack placed a hand on the bench on either side of her, trapping her against the cupboards. ‘I’d like to stay here, Lizzie.’
No. No. No. No. No. This was where she had to tell Jack, again, to step back, to stop saying such things.
She tried to speak. Couldn’t summon the words. Heaven help her, she was too enchanted by the gathering storm inside her, and, already, she could feel the heat of his body surrounding her.
Already he was touching her. His hands slid lightly up her arms. She was shivering. Melting. His arms were closing around her…while his lips explored the curve of her neck.
She closed her eyes, savouring the astonishing, sweet pressure of Jack’s mouth on her skin.
There was no way she could stop him. It had been so long since she’d experienced this gentle intimacy. Too long. She could feel her skin smiling wherever his lips touched her.
Her skin grew greedy and she arched her neck, seeking more. Jack obliged beautifully, letting warm, lazy kisses trail over her neck to her jaw, while his hands traced the shape of her shoulders through the thin fabric of her T-shirt.
At any moment now their mouths would touch, and all chance of stopping him would fly out of the window.
It was already too late.
She was filled with a sweet, aching need that deadened all thoughts but her deepening yearning to be touched and kissed… She was desperate for the moment when Jack’s mouth finally reached hers…
When it happened, her lips were already parted.
Breathlessly, he whispered her name. ‘Lizzie.’ Just once, brushing the soft syllables over her open lips. Then his tongue traced the rim of her parted mouth, and her knees turned to water.
Jack caught her, and she was instantly lost, drowning in the perfect taste and smell of him, in the hint of
sun-drenched outdoors that clung to his skin.
Everything about his kiss was perfect—the texture of his mouth, and his grainy skin, and the muscly strength of his body pressing against her.
She felt rosy and warm and insanely happy.
When Jack broke the kiss, she was devastated. She’d wanted it to go on for ever.
Clearly, Jack had much more control than she had. With one last gentle kiss on her forehead, he released her.
He smiled. ‘You taste delicious. Of ice cream.’
‘So do you.’
She was smiling goofily when, without warning, common sense returned like a cold slap. What on earth was she doing? How could she have been such a fool? The kiss was a mistake, and the way she’d responded was an even bigger mistake.
Jack would think she was available for further seduction. She wasn’t available. She was here for a brief stay. She was years older than he was, and she was pregnant, while he was young and fit and virile.
‘We shouldn’t have let that happen,’ she said.
Jack smiled easily. ‘Of course we should.’
‘But—’ Her mind skidded and slipped as she tried to think sensibly. She couldn’t start a relationship with this cowboy. The press would have a field day.
With an air of desperation, she said, ‘We hardly know each other.’
Jack stared at her for long, thoughtful seconds. ‘I suppose I should have asked if there’s a man in your life.’
‘Yes, you should have.’ Lizzie knew she had to take control. ‘We need to talk about this, Jack. To set some ground rules.’
When he didn’t object she was relieved that he was being reasonable. Now that they’d broken the spell, she couldn’t believe she’d let things get so out of hand without asking all kinds of questions. The kinds of questions nearly every sane man or woman asked before leaping into each other’s arms.
But the questions were also the sort that would lead to informing Jack that she was pregnant, and already she could picture him reeling back with shocked dismay, could feel the chill of isolation as he retreated from her.
She knew it was appallingly wrong of her, but in that moment she wished they’d both stayed crazy for just a little longer.
Executive: Expecting Tiny Twins Page 6