By now she should have collected her car, and she’d be safely installed in the Gidgee Springs pub. Tomorrow she’d probably be on her way. Out of the district.
Just as well. He had enough to deal with without being sidetracked by a passing female.
Of course he knew why he felt sidetracked by Lily, why he couldn’t get her out of his head. She was the first woman he’d been alone with in a long time. A very long time.
That explained why he was obsessed by memories of her hands fixing her hair. It was the only reason he was still thinking about her blue floral shorts. And her bare legs. The soft, touchable skin at her waist. And her eyes—the muted blue-grey of the sky when it was reflected in the Star River.
He let out a long, frustrated sigh. The fact that his mind clung to these details was proof of nothing—except the sad truth that he was a thirst-crazed man, emerging at last from the desert, and Lily Halliday had been his tempting oasis. That and that alone was why her smile haunted him, and why he couldn’t forget the way she’d looked at him with uncomplicated directness, making his heart leap.
But he was going to forget her. Now.
In prison he’d taught himself how to forget. It had been the only way to save himself from going mad. He’d learned to blank certain mind-crazing images from his thoughts.
And now he blanked out Lily.
He concentrated on the darkening sky. Night fell quickly in the tropics, and already there was only a thin river of ruddy gold clinging to the horizon. Above it the sky was deepening from light blue, through turquoise and purple, to navy. And in his head Daniel named each colour, and imagined each hue blanking out a little more of Lily.
The blue…got rid of her legs. Turquoise, and her shorts were gone. Yes, yes, they were gone, damn it. It was good to be free of them. No regrets.
Purple—goodbye, midriff. Navy blanketed her eyes.
Almost.
He concentrated harder on the navy, willing the sweet, questioning look in Lily’s eyes to disappear. At last. Mission accomplished.
Black took care of her hair…
And she was…gone.
He took a good long breath of warm summer’s-night air and let it out slowly, savouring the relief of seeing nothing but sky. The stars had already popped brightly into place, and a thin crescent of new moon was peeking through the silhouetted branches of a huge gum tree.
The sky was huge and clear—and so was the land. It was good to be surrounded by all this space, by the country he loved. Ironbark. His country. If he worked hard enough, if he exhausted himself day after day, perhaps in time he would find his way back to the peace he craved.
He lifted the beer to his lips, realised it was finished, and considered fetching another from the fridge. But before he moved his attention was caught by lights bobbing through the darkness. Car headlights coming his way.
Cursing harshly, he leapt to his feet. He didn’t want a visitor, but it was too late to turn out his house lights and try to pretend that he wasn’t home. The car was moving quickly, its lights dipping and reappearing as the rough track wound through the scrub. His hand gripped a veranda post as he watched its approach.
There was a good chance, of course, that the caller was a friend. Daniel still had quite a few friends in the district, and they’d kept in touch. He supposed he wouldn’t really mind if one or two of them wanted to visit. But he had enemies, too. And he was less certain of their identities.
The car was quite close now, and he could just make out its profile. Most people from around these parts drove trucks or four-wheel drives, but this was a small sedan.
Squinting against the glare of the headlights, he began to descend the short flight of timber steps and wished he could see the driver.
And then, as the car zipped up the last of the track to the house, he recognised its make. A Corolla. A white Corolla.
A slim bare arm waved from the driver’s window.
Daniel’s heart began a drumroll.
‘Hi, there,’ Lily called to him as she jumped out of the car.
Her hair was no longer bunched in a knot, but hung loose to ripple about her shoulders in pale waves that took on the colour of moonlight. She’d changed into skin-tight blue jeans, and a black knit top with a scooped neckline. She looked fabulous—so fabulous Daniel felt his throat constrict and his mouth go dry.
Stunned, he stared at her. ‘What are you doing here?’
‘I’ve come to thank you for your help this afternoon.’ She flipped him a dazzling grin, and then turned quickly to open the rear door of her car. ‘And I’ve brought you some supplies.’
Too surprised to think about manners, he said, ‘I don’t need supplies. I’ve got what I want.’
‘Daniel, you’ve got bread and cheese. And tea.’ She walked towards him with her arms full of shopping bags.
‘I like bread and cheese and tea. Besides, I’ve got beef. There’s a piece of beef in the oven right now.’
She thrust a bottle of red wine into his hand. ‘And here’s something fruity and mellow to wash it down.’
Tightness in his chest made breathing difficult. What the hell did she think she was doing? ‘This is crazy, Lily. You shouldn’t be here.’
She dismissed his protest with another stunning smile, breezed past him and up the steps. From the veranda, she called, ‘I told you. This is my way of saying thank you for rescuing me today.’
‘But I don’t need thanks. I don’t want to be thanked.’ With one leap, he was up the stairs and hurrying after her as she sailed into his kitchen and dumped grocery bags on the kitchen table.
‘Don’t look so scared, Daniel.’
Ignoring his protests, she carried a punnet of strawberries and a tub of rum-and-raisin ice-cream to his fridge. In two long strides he was across the kitchen, blocking her access.
‘Just hold it right there,’ he growled.
A soft gasp escaped her, and for the first time she faltered. She looked away, pressing her lips together. Then she took a quick breath, and when she looked at him again her expression was gentle and serious.
Daniel forgot to breathe. She was standing so close in front of him he could see the fine, clear perfection of her skin, the healthy and sensuous deep pink of her lips. The rosy scent of her perfume teased him.
‘Don’t panic, Daniel,’ she said gently. ‘I’m not here to stay. I don’t want to invade your privacy.’
‘Then you should go now.’
‘Sure.’ She sighed softly. ‘Sergeant Drayton warned me you’d be difficult.’
‘Heath?’ He frowned at her. ‘Heath Drayton? You’ve been talking to him?’
She nodded. ‘He was the one who gave me a lift back to my car.’
His chest squeezed tighter. If Lily had been talking to Heath, there was a chance she’d been told everything—the whole sorry business. He felt himself gulping for air. This made less sense than ever. If Lily knew all about him, why was she here?
And then light dawned.
She was sorry for him.
She was overflowing with do-good urges, and she’d rushed back to Ironbark to bring him provisions in the same way she’d rushed off to Sri Lanka to help villages there. Daniel’s shoulders sagged and he let his weight fall back against the refrigerator door. ‘You want to turn me into a charity.’
She looked mortified, and turned bright red. ‘No.’
‘Admit it, Lily. That’s why you’re here, isn’t it? It can’t be anything else.’ The last thing he needed was charity. From her. From anyone.
‘No,’ she said. ‘It’s just my way of saying thanks. I left you in a bit of a huff at Gidgee Springs.’
She sighed again, more loudly this time. ‘Look, my hand is turning blue from holding this ice-cream. Can I get it into your freezer?’
His smileless gaze flicked to her hand. Her fingers were indeed mottled and purple. Without comment, he stepped to one side and Lily hastily opened the door to the freezer section, dumped the ice-cream and then deposited the straw
berries in the refrigerator. As she slammed the door shut, she rubbed her cold hands on her jeans and her shimmering eyes confronted him again.
Her smile was tight, less certain. ‘You can relax, Daniel. I’ll get out of your hair now.’
Turning away from him, she gathered her dignity in the same way she had this afternoon when he’d dumped her on the side of the road, and she walked back across his kitchen with her head high.
In the doorway, she paused and looked back at him. ‘There was just one thing I wanted to ask you.’
He swallowed, trying to loosen the lump in his throat. ‘What’s that?’
‘There’s a rest area about two kilometres back. Just off the main road. Is it safe to camp there?’
He’d been braced for questions about his time in prison, and was caught out by the unexpectedness of her query. ‘Why would you want to camp there?’ He frowned. ‘It’s only a picnic table and a rubbish bin. There’s a pub in Gidgee Springs, you know.’
‘The pub’s completely booked out.’ She pulled a face. ‘I guess I should have checked before I came, but I couldn’t imagine an Outback pub being full to capacity. I mean, Gidgee Springs isn’t exactly a tourist attraction. But, just my luck, there’s a big rodeo in town this weekend.’
‘Yeah, of course. I’d forgotten. It’s always on this time of year. People come from everywhere.’
‘So I thought I’d try the rest area. I can sleep in my car. I’ll be quite comfortable. It should be OK, shouldn’t it?’
Daniel scratched nervously at the back his neck. A pretty young thing like her, alone in the scrub with no proper camping gear. It didn’t seem right.
‘It won’t be the first time I’ve roughed it,’ she said. ‘When I first went to Sri Lanka our accommodation was very primitive.’
He shook his head. ‘You shouldn’t camp out in the bush on your own.’
‘I wouldn’t be completely on my own.’ Daniel frowned, and she explained, ‘I’ve got a dog.’
‘A dog?’ He stared at her blankly. ‘Don’t tell me you left a dog in your car all the time it was stuck out on the road?’
She rolled her eyes at him. ‘Of course not. Heavens, Daniel, you’re determined to have a poor opinion of me, aren’t you?’
He shrugged. ‘What else am I to think? You didn’t have time to acquire a dog while you were in Gidgee Springs.’
Lily grinned at him. ‘Of course I did. She’s in the car now. Why don’t you come and meet her?’
Without waiting for Daniel’s response, she turned and headed back along the veranda and down the front steps to her car.
Scratching his head, Daniel cast a helpless glance at the grocery bags sitting on his kitchen table and then, reluctant but curious, followed her outside. At the bottom of the steps, he paused.
Lily had opened the rear door of her car and was bending inside, making coaxing noises. And then a skinny dog emerged. A kelpie cross, by the look of it.
‘She’s a stray,’ Lily explained. ‘She’s been hanging about the pub for the last week, and the receptionist was in the process of calling the shire council to impound the poor darling. I acted on the spur of the moment and said I’d take her.’
The dog was looking up at Daniel with scared, almost pleading brown eyes. By contrast Lily, with her thumbs hooked through the belt-loops of her jeans, watched him from beneath lowered lashes.
‘I have to admit, I thought she might suit you,’ she admitted rather shyly.
‘Me?’
He looked at the dog again, paying closer attention. Her thin sides were concave, and he could see that she was trembling. Her nose quivered nervously, and as she looked at him she made a soft, plaintive, pitiful sound, somewhere between a whine and a yap. Daniel felt his resistance crumble.
How had Lily guessed his fatal weakness?
How could she know that he’d be a total push-over, unable to resist this cowed and anxious, skinny mutt of a dog with huge, pathetic eyes?
‘You were so good with the cow and her calf this afternoon,’ she said, with a defensive shrug of one shoulder. ‘And you don’t have a dog. You’re a cattleman. You should have a dog, shouldn’t you?’ Speaking quickly, like a telemarketer, she hurried to add, ‘This one’s very sweet, even though she’s timid. But there’s absolutely no pressure, Daniel. I thought you might like her, but if you don’t want her I’ll keep her. As I said, she can be my guard dog while I’m camping, and—’
Daniel held up a hand to silence her. ‘You can’t camp out there.’
‘Oh?’
She looked suddenly worried, and he knew he had no choice. She’d brought him food to thank him for helping her, when in fact his assistance had been minimal and begrudging. She’d apologised for walking off in a huff, when she’d had every right to after he’d so ungallantly abandoned her on the edge of town. She’d brought him a dog, for heaven’s sake.
How could he kick her off his property again and leave her to camp out on the edge of the road? If he was half-decent, he’d apologise for his behaviour.
‘I can give you a bed here,’ he said.
‘Really?’ Lily stood very still, looking at him with a wide-eyed yet careful expression.
Remembering that she’d been talking to Heath Drayton, he felt suddenly embarrassed and dropped his gaze. ‘If you’ll risk a camp-bed in my kitchen, that is.’ And then, ‘This is the only habitable space. The rest of the house is still a mess.’
He looked up, and she sent him a shy smile.
‘Don’t give the mess another thought. It’s awfully kind of you to put me up. The kitchen would be perfectly fine. Thank you so much.’
Discomfited, he dropped to his haunches and fixed his focus on the dog. It bristled with tension, and he suspected it had been mistreated in the past. Holding his hand low, he patted the grass, but the dog stood her ground, trembling, watching him warily.
‘Hey, girl, how’re you doing?’ He forced the gentle words past the continued tightness in his throat and clicked two fingers softly. ‘Come on here. Come and say hello.’
The dog whined pitifully, and backed away two steps. But Daniel was prepared to be patient. He remained squatting, his hand outstretched but perfectly still, and he kept the soothing sweet-talk going until, eventually, the dog began to edge forward by cautious degrees.
‘That’s the girl,’ he murmured gently. He glanced at Lily, who was watching him with a kind of heart-in-the-mouth intensity, as if this were a life-and-death moment.
Slowly, the dog closed the gap and stood trembling before him, letting him pat her skinny back and then rub her head. Her tail wagged, and Daniel looked again at Lily, who hadn’t left her post beside the car.
‘Looks like you have a new friend,’ she said. ‘She likes you.’ Her smile was tentative. ‘I had a feeling you’d be a great dog-whisperer.’
‘Thanks.’ He said this sincerely. ‘Thanks for bringing her. My old dog died while I was—away.’
He stood slowly. Across the metres that separated them, his and Lily’s gazes met, and he felt again that involuntary connection, a tug of attraction, worse and deeper than before. He tried to think of something to say, but the right words evaded him. The dog pressed her nose against his leg, but Daniel couldn’t drag his eyes from Lily.
Yellow light spilled from the veranda, across the tangled garden and over her, lending a pretty glow to her hair, her eyes and her lips. The deeply scooped neckline of her T-shirt accentuated her breasts. He almost had to close his eyes as an aching throb of longing took hold of him.
‘Does she have a name?’ he asked at last.
‘At the pub they’ve been calling her Orphan.’
‘Orphan? That’s not much of a name.’
‘She likes scrambled eggs.’ Lily’s expression was serious, but her eyes were bright now, almost smiling.
‘Scrambled eggs?’
‘Yes, she loves them.’
‘Really?’ His lips twitched and pulled up at the edges, trying to smile.
>
‘I bought some eggs.’ She nodded towards the kitchen. ‘They’re in one of those grocery bags.’
At last he smiled. ‘You seem to have thought of everything.’
To Lily’s disappointment, Daniel wasn’t keen to investigate the groceries she’d bought, and they shared another simple meal—roast beef between slices of bread at the kitchen table. As they ate, Daniel’s conversation was careful, skirting around any personal topics. In fact, they mostly talked about Orphan and other dogs they’d either owned or known. Beautiful dogs, ugly dogs, stupid, clever.
After their meal, Lily washed the dishes while Daniel unearthed a camp-bed from a storeroom at the back of one of the machinery sheds, and found bedding for her from a linen cupboard in the bathroom. Then, although it was still quite early, he said goodnight and retired to his bedroom. Orphan, who seemed hopelessly smitten by Daniel, followed him.
Left alone in the kitchen, Lily wondered if she’d ever get to sleep. The camp-bed was comfortable enough, but she felt too restless to settle. She could hear a bird calling mournfully outside, and every so often there were scratching and thumping noises on the roof which she guessed were made by possums.
But the strange sounds weren’t the cause of her sleeplessness. Her mind was crowded with too many thoughts that chased each other like pieces of paper tossed about in a whirlwind.
She thought about the pain her poor mother endured—about Fern, waiting, patient and uncomplaining, as she hobbled about her little house at Sugar Bay. She sighed with frustration as she recalled the phone call she’d had when she’d finally got through to Audrey Halliday’s housekeeper.
‘Audrey’s gone away. She’s off on a shopping spree in Cairns, love.’
‘But when I telephoned last week, you said she’d be home.’
‘Yes, dear. I’m sorry, but Audrey can be so impulsive I have trouble keeping up with her. She’ll be back on Friday.’
On Friday? Almost a week away!
It was so maddening. Lily hated the thought of going back to Fern empty-handed. Fern wouldn’t mind, of course. She didn’t actually know Lily’s real reason for heading off into the Outback. But that wasn’t the point. Lily was convinced that she could solve her mother’s problems by approaching Audrey, and she’d been so excited by the thought of her mother’s surprise and delight when she returned with the money.
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