She sighed. ‘Gracie told me about the old men who dreamed about me coming back to Warrapinya. Looks like they were wrong.’
Nails frowned. ‘That’s not the way I heard it. They didn’t say you were coming back to Warrapinya. Just back to the Boss.’
Erin drew a deep breath. She mustn’t think about Luke or she’d have some kind of breakdown.
She tried to remember the meditation exercises she’d learned in yoga class, but before she could properly begin the first of them, she heard the whine of a motor, different from the ute’s throaty growl. It came from somewhere behind her.
‘What’s that noise?’
Squinting through the windscreen, Nails ducked his head to get a better angle. ‘What the blue blazes is he up to?’
‘Who? What’s happening?’
Nails slowed the ute and a small plane sailed over them, unusually low. ‘Reckon it’s the Boss,’ he said.
Luke? Her heart leapt to her throat. ‘What’s he doing?’
‘Looks like he’s going to land.’
Astonished, Erin watched through the windscreen as Luke’s plane shot over and in front of them. ‘But there’s no landing strip.’
‘Doesn’t matter out here.’ Nails brought the ute to a complete stop and they both watched as the plane banked in a wide arc and then zoomed back towards them, dropping lower and lower.
Erin’s jaw gaped. Nails was right. Luke was going to land right on the dirt road in front of them.
Nails was shaking his head and chuckling softly, but Erin sat very still as the little plane touched down with surprisingly few bumps. She couldn’t let herself try to think what this meant, wouldn’t allow any of her wild and scattered thoughts to take hold.
Luke’s plane taxied closer, its twin propellers whirling. What had happened? Did he have bad news from home?
‘He’s got the little fella with him,’ Nails said.
And, sure enough, Erin could make out the small shape of Joey sitting in the cockpit beside Luke, waving madly through a cloud of red dust.
And then her vision blurred, but she managed to see Luke getting out of his seat and moving to the cabin door. She saw his long legs emerge and then he was on the track and jogging towards them.
She fumbled frantically with the door handle. At first it wouldn’t open and then it swung free and she stumbled out. ‘What is it?’ she called to him. ‘What’s the matter?’
He stopped a few feet away from her. His face was flushed, his eyes fiercely intent.
‘What is it, Luke?’
‘You can’t run away again, Erin. I won’t let you.’
She stared at him. Can’t? Won’t let you? What did he mean? Was he going to demand that she come back to Warrapinya? Had Joey thrown a tantrum?
‘I’m going to Byron Bay, Luke,’ she said with quiet but grim determination. ‘You mustn’t try to stop me.’
‘But I must.’ Luke’s throat worked and his eyes shimmered in a way that set her heart racing. ‘Remember that day we met in New York? I blocked your way then. I made sure I didn’t lose you in the crowd. I was crazy to ever let you go. I’m not going to make that mistake again. This time if you go, I’m coming with you.’
Her heart gave a wild little skip, but she tried to ignore it.
‘But—Joey wants to be here,’ she said.
‘Joey wants to be wherever we are, Erin.’ Luke tried to smile and failed. He looked suddenly vulnerable, impossibly young and lost. ‘I can’t bear to lose you again. I love you too much.’
Oh, Luke.
She opened her mouth to tell him that she loved him too, but the sound that emerged was somewhere between a sob and a cheer.
She held out her arms and in the next instant they were together, hugging tight, wondrously tight, as if they were both afraid to let each other go.
Erin could feel their hearts pounding together as they kissed. And between kisses they exchanged thrilled, excited smiles. They laughed, cried a little, kissed again and they held each other with the kind of ecstatic relief that came when a most treasured possession had been lost for too long but was found at last.
With her head against his shoulder, she said at last, ‘I love you.’
‘I know.’
‘I don’t think I’ve ever stopped loving you, Luke. But I haven’t been brave enough to tell you.’
‘But you have, Erin.’
‘Have I?’ She lifted her head and looked at him. ‘When?’
‘It’s been there in your eyes. And in your kiss. And just now it was there in the wonderfully plucky way you offered to leave Joey with me.’
‘But I should have been brave enough to tell you.’
Luke smiled. Beautifully. ‘I should have been brave enough to ask you.’
He kissed her again.
‘How can we make this work?’ She looked steadily into his eyes. ‘I’m not sure I should offer another promise that I could live here at Warrapinya and be happy ever after.’
‘I don’t expect you to, but I can promise I’d be happy to live with you and Joey in Manhattan, Erin. And I’m free enough to do that now.’
‘Are you sure? Would you really be happy there?’
‘No doubt about it. I love New York. It’s the most exciting city in the world.’
‘You’d be able to hassle your agent on a regular basis.’
‘That’s a bonus I hadn’t thought of.’
She smiled wryly. ‘But meanwhile, back at the ranch, Joey’s learning to love it here.’
‘We’ll bring him for summer vacations.’
‘And you, Luke. You can’t just walk away from everything here. I know what it means to you.’
He dropped a kiss on the tip of her nose. ‘It’ll take time to find the perfect balance, but we will, Bright Eyes. The important thing is that we’ll be a family again and we’ll work it out together.’
‘Yes,’ she agreed happily and she released a deep sigh of utter contentment, because at last she knew with absolute certainty that, as long as she and Luke and Joey stayed together, they would find a way to make this second chance work.
Luke drew her close for another kiss, but an excited cheer from behind brought them spinning around.
Their son had climbed down from the plane while they’d been lost in a world of their own and now he was standing near the ute with Nails.
‘Hey, Dad,’ Joey shouted, with a grin that stretched from ear to ear. ‘Mommy does like kissing you after all.’
Ah, yes…they were a family again.
* * * * *
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HER CATTLEMAN BOSS
© 2009 by Barbara Hannay
Australian Copyright 2009
New Zealand Copyright 2009
First Published 2009
ISBN 978 148922324 1
CLAIMING THE CATTLEMAN’S HEART
© 2006 Barbara Hannay
Australian Copyright 2006
New Zealand Copyright 2006
First Published 2006
ISBN 978 148922324 1
CLAIMING HIS FAMILY
© 2006 Barbara Hannay
Australian Copyright 2006
New Zealand Copyright 2006
First Published 2006
ISBN 978 148922324 1
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