He’d tried his best to love and support Chelsea at Jabiru. When the twins arrived, he’d done everything he could to hold his little family together. He’d been a hands-on father, taking his turn at bathing and changing and walking the floors with the crying infants.
But the timing had been lousy. The babies’ arrival had coincided with a downturn in the cattle industry. Overseas markets had collapsed. Money had been tight and, before the babies were six months old, he’d been forced to lay off the fencing contractors and the mechanics he’d hired, and he’d taken on these jobs himself.
When these tasks were added to the usual demands of running a vast cattle property, his available time to help at the homestead had been minimal. He’d kept on his housekeeper, who’d also helped with the twins, but the toll on Chelsea had been visible.
Gray had been shocked to see her growing thin and drawn and faded, so he’d sent her to Sydney for short breaks. And, as he’d admitted to Holly, the times she’d spent away had become longer and longer.
When his wife had told him she needed to go home to New York, he’d let her go, taking the children with her, even though he hadn’t been free to accompany them. By then he’d known that to try to hold her was too cruel.
When she’d rung from New York to tell him she wasn’t coming back, Gray had been heartsick but not surprised. He’d agreed to the divorce, accepting that he’d had no other option.
He’d tried his hardest and failed, and he had no idea what else he could do. He would rather admit defeat than watch his wife become trapped and embittered the way his mother had been.
But his sense of failure was overwhelming, even worse now that Chelsea had passed away. He hated to think that his love had made any part of her short life unhappy and he was determined that he wouldn’t fail her children as well. He couldn’t, he mustn’t.
These next two months were critical. He would be guided by Holly and he wouldn’t be too proud to accept her advice. Sure, there were bound to be humiliating moments when his inadequacies were exposed once more, and Holly would probably be as disdainful of his home as Chelsea had been.
But he could face another woman’s scorn—as long as his kids still looked up to him—and as long as he didn’t let them down.
By the following afternoon, they were finally in Far North Queensland, barrelling over flat, pale grasslands in a big four-wheel drive which threw up a continuous plume of dust. The vehicle had a luggage rack on top, and bull bars protecting the engine—from kangaroos, Gray told them—and there were water tanks on board as well. To Holly it felt like an expedition.
Wide open plains sprinkled with straggly gum trees and silvery grey Brahman cattle stretched in every direction. Flocks of white birds wheeled in the blue sky like fluttering pieces of paper.
In the back seat, the children watched the panorama excitedly, waiting for their first kangaroo sighting.
‘This is my country,’ Gray told Holly and his emphasis on the word country seemed to instil it with special meaning.
Holly had to agree there was something primitive but almost spiritual about the vast stretch of empty space. She could feel an awareness of something greater than herself and, strangely, it wasn’t unlike the way she’d also felt the first time she’d walked into the huge book-lined silence of the New York City Library.
Every so often their vehicle would climb over a rocky ridge, giving a view of grasslands stretching for ever. At other times the road would dip downwards to cross a single lane wooden bridge over a stream. Some creeks only had a concrete ford disappearing beneath brown muddy water.
‘There’s no water here at all in the dry season,’ Gray told her.
They came to a wider river, so deep that when Gray pushed the vehicle through, the water threatened to seep under the doors.
He grinned at Holly. ‘This is where I did my ankle in, but the creek was flowing a lot faster then, of course.’
The tops of the banks were still covered in flattened grass and the small twisted trees were all leaning in one direction, clear evidence of how high and savage the floodwaters had been.
Holly hated to think what it must have been like to try to drive through it.
‘I thought you had an airstrip at Jabiru,’ she said. ‘Couldn’t you have flown instead of driving?’
Gray shook his head. ‘The ground was too boggy for a normal plane to land—and all the choppers were needed for emergency rescues. I waited for the water to go down a little, then took my chances.’
How scary. Holly shuddered, as she tried to imagine pushing a vehicle through a raging flood.
‘And that was when you broke your ankle?’ she asked.
‘I was testing the bottom before I drove across. Foot went down into a crevice.’
‘You weren’t on your own, were you?’
‘Sure.’
‘You mean you had to rescue yourself?’
‘It was either that or—’ He flicked a glance over his shoulder and dropped his voice. ‘Or this pair would have been orphans.’
Holly shivered, chastened to remember how she’d rolled her eyes and complained loudly when Gray had telephoned to say he was held up in Australia by floods and a broken ankle. Now that she was here, and could see where the accident had happened, she was appalled.
No wonder Gray gave off an aura of hidden toughness and competence.
As they cleared the creek and continued over flat land again, squawks from the back seat reminded Holly of her duties. Anna and Josh were pinching each other and poking out tongues. Clear signs of boredom. Very soon they’d start, Are we there yet?
She rummaged in her bag and produced a CD. ‘This might keep them entertained,’ she said, waving it at Gray.
‘Good idea. What is it?’
‘Winnie-the-Pooh.’
His brow wrinkled. ‘Never heard of them. Are they a new band?’
She laughed. ‘Oh, that’s a good one.’
He turned, sending her a puzzled grin. ‘Seriously, who are they?’
Her mouth dropped open. How could he ask? ‘You know Winnie-the-Pooh—the children’s story. You must have read it when you were little. The bear who loves honey.’
He pulled a face and shrugged. ‘Whatever. We’ve got about three-quarters of an hour to go, so if you think it will keep the kids happy, bung it on.’
Bemused, she slipped the CD into the player and soon the cabin was filled with the storyteller’s beautifully modulated English voice. The children stopped squabbling and listened. Gray seemed to listen attentively, too, and he actually chuckled at the antics of the famous characters as if the funny bits were a brand new experience for him.
How curious.
The CD hadn’t finished when they turned in at big metal gates beneath an overhead sign with Jabiru Creek painted in white.
‘We’re here!’ Anna cried enthusiastically. ‘This is your place, isn’t it, Daddy?’
‘That’s right, pumpkin, but we’re not at the homestead yet. It’s about another fifteen minutes.’
Resigned, the children slumped back in their seats.
‘I’ll get the gates,’ Holly announced, opening her passenger door.
Gray’s eyebrows shot high. ‘You don’t have to.’
‘It’s fine,’ she called over her shoulder as she jumped down from the vehicle. ‘I’m a farm girl.’
She turned, saw the surprise in his blue eyes.
‘When were you on a farm?’
‘I grew up on a farm in Vermont.’
Through the dusty windscreen she saw his smile and a new light in his eyes—keen interest, extra warmth. She blushed and felt flustered. Idiot. Abruptly, she turned and paid studious attention to the gates.
By the time the gates were shut once more and she’d climbed back in the cabin, Gray was closing his satellite phone. ‘I let them know at the homestead that we’re nearly home. Almost time to put the kettle on.’
Anna leaned forward as far as her seatbelt would allow. ‘Will we se
e the puppies? Are they borned yet, Daddy?’
‘Sorry, I forgot to ask.’ Gray grinned back at his daughter. ‘You’ll soon find out.’
They drove on and the CD resumed, preventing conversation or questions about Holly’s life on the farm. But Holly couldn’t stop thinking about the surprised delight in Gray’s eyes. Why should it matter where she’d grown up?
The bush was thicker now, and the gum trees threw shadows across the narrow wheel ruts that formed the rough track. Several times, Gray had to brake suddenly as a kangaroo appeared on the edge of the road, bounding unannounced from a shadowy clump of trees.
Each kangaroo sighting was a source of huge excitement for Holly and the children, but Holly could tell that the animals’ sudden arrival on the track was dangerous. In the fading light they were hard to see. She switched off the CD so Gray could concentrate.
‘That wasn’t a bad story,’ he said. Then he called over his shoulder, ‘Hey, kids, what do you reckon? Is that Pooh bear almost as good as Hector Owl and Timothy Mouse?’
‘Nah. Winnie-the-Pooh’s for babies,’ Josh replied, even though he’d spent the best part of an hour listening to the CD quite happily. ‘Hector Owl’s much better. Hector Owl’s awesome. He killed the Bad Bush Rat.’
Holly smiled. How could poor Winnie compete with a murderous owl?
But it still puzzled her that Gray spoke as if he’d never heard of Winnie-the-Pooh. How could that be? Surely almost every child in the US and Australia was familiar with the honey-loving bear.
Should she be dreading what lay ahead? Would Gray’s house be as stark and unappealing as that lonely homestead on the back of the playing cards he’d bought?
She was about to find out.
Ahead of them, the track rounded a corner and they emerged into open country once more. Holly saw tall corrals and stockyards, home paddocks fenced with timber instead of the barbed wire she’d seen everywhere else. Then, ahead, more buildings began to appear—machinery sheds, silos, bunk houses, barns, even an aircraft hangar—it was almost a small village.
Clearly Jabiru Creek Station was a much bigger concern than the farms she was used to.
‘Which one is your house, Daddy?’ Anna wanted to know.
‘That place straight ahead with the silver roof.’ Gray pointed to a long, low, white timber building surrounded by surprisingly green lawns.
To Holly’s relief, Gray’s home looked inviting. It was a simple homestead, but it was large and rimmed by verandas. Across the front of the house a deep shady veranda was fringed with hanging baskets filled with ferns, while the verandas on either side were enclosed from floor to ceiling with white timber louvres.
The lawns in front of the house were divided by a gravel path and on either side stood massive shade trees with deep glossy foliage.
‘I can see a swing,’ Anna shouted, pointing to a rubber tyre hanging by thick ropes from the branch of one of the trees.
‘It’s waiting for you,’ Holly told her, and already she was picturing Anna and Josh playing on this smooth sweep of lawn, swinging in the tyre, riding bikes, throwing balls, chasing puppies…
The front door opened and a woman came out with a beaming smile, wiping her hands on an apron. She was aged somewhere beyond sixty and was dressed in a floral cotton dress, with wisps of grey hair escaping from a haphazard knot on top of her head.
‘My housekeeper, Janet,’ Gray said as he turned off the engine. ‘She helped us to look after the twins when they were babies and she can’t wait to see them again.’
Janet looked perfect, Holly thought, watching the woman’s happy face glow pink with excitement as she waved to the children.
‘Come inside where it’s warm,’ Janet said when they’d clambered from the car and she’d given them all, including Holly, huge hugs. ‘The chill starts early on these winter afternoons, and I’ve got a heater on in the kitchen.’
As they followed her into the house, which was warm and fragrant with baking smells, Holly thought everything about Gray’s home seemed comfortable and welcoming. Her fears, it seemed, were unwarranted.
Of course, first impressions could be deceiving. No doubt Jabiru Creek Station would soon reveal its downside. There had to be a downside. Right now Holly couldn’t imagine what it might be, but something had driven Chelsea away from here.
CHAPTER SIX
THAT evening the sky put on a show, as only Outback skies could. A mass of brilliant crystal stars blazed in the vast black dome that arced from one distant horizon to the other. Gray stood on the front steps, drinking in the silence and the grandeur.
After the non-stop pace of New York, the crowds in the busy airports and the bustle of Sydney, it was good to let the tranquillity of his home seep into his veins. Since Chelsea’s passing he’d been on a constant roller coaster of worry and despair, but tonight he felt calmer than he had in a long time.
Behind him, in the house, Janet was pottering about in the kitchen and he could hear the clink of cutlery and china as she stowed things away in the big pine dresser. Holly was in the bedroom down the hall, putting his children to bed, calming them after the excitement of their arrival, and the discovery of a basket of tiny three-day-old puppies in the kitchen by the stove.
Gray chuckled, remembering the shining adoration in Anna and Josh’s eyes as they’d knelt by the basket, begging permission to pat the little pups that wriggled and squirmed against their mother.
Of course the children had begged to be allowed one puppy each to keep as a pet, and of course Gray had said yes, they could choose their pups as soon as their eyes were open. But no, they couldn’t both have the all black one, and if there was any fighting neither child would have a puppy.
Holly had been a major help, backing him on this ruling and then diverting the children by offering to read them one of their favourite stories about a runaway cocker spaniel.
Already, he owed a great deal to Holly.
She’d been fabulous while they were travelling, keeping Anna and Josh entertained and comfortable, and remembering to tell them what to expect on each leg of the journey. Gray couldn’t help noticing that she wasn’t just capable—she was genuinely fond of his children—and he was beginning to suspect that it would be a real wrench for her to finally be parted from them.
She was quite a surprise package, actually. He’d assumed she was like Chelsea, a city girl born and bred.
Today, however, in her simple T-shirt and jeans, she’d deftly unhooked the notoriously tricky rural gate, and she’d looked every inch the country girl she’d claimed to be.
He recalled the cheeky smile she’d tossed over her shoulder when she’d told him that she’d grown up on a farm. Her dark eyes had sparkled and her lips had curled and—
‘Gray.’
Holly’s voice brought him swinging round.
She was standing in the doorway and she smiled shyly. ‘Two little people are waiting for their goodnight kiss.’
‘Right.’ He spoke a little too gruffly because she’d caught him out. ‘Thanks.’
He crossed the veranda to where she stood, backlit by the light spilling down the hall. Her dark eyes were shining and her pretty lips were pink and soft and wonderfully inviting…
It would be so easy, so tempting to ask his children’s nanny if she’d like a goodnight kiss, too. She was kissing close and she smelled of flowers and—
And the last thing Gray wanted was to start flirting with Chelsea’s young cousin when she’d come to his home as an especially kind favour to his kids.
I must be one post short of a fence.
Relieved that he’d come to his senses in time, he strode on past Holly, down the passage to the room where Anna and Josh were waiting.
Holly lay snuggled beneath a soft, warm duvet in a pretty room that had one doorway leading to a hallway and another onto a veranda. She listened to the night sounds of the Outback, which amounted to silence mostly, punctuated by the occasional owl hoot or the soft, distant lowing o
f cattle. She thought how amazing it was that she could be so far from Vermont and still hear the same sounds she’d grown up with.
After the long journey she was dog-tired and tonight she’d broken the habit of a lifetime and left the book she was currently reading unopened on her nightstand. Right now, she simply wanted to take a moment, before sleep claimed her, to relive her first evening at Jabiru.
Already, to her surprise, she’d found much to like—this pleasant bedroom, for example, and its old-fashioned double bed with gorgeous brass ends, and the big homey kitchen filled with timber dressers and tempting aromas. The children’s room was similar to hers, but was cheery with matching multi-coloured duvets, and Holly really liked the inviting verandas scattered with cane loungers, not to mention the cuter than cute puppies that had so enchanted the children.
She even liked the scents of grass and animals and dust that filtered in from the outdoors. She felt amazingly at home here and, despite the flight inland to Normanton and the long car journey, she found it difficult to remember she was miles and miles from anywhere. She’d expected to feel lonely and isolated, but she only had to look out of her window to see the lights of the stockmen’s cottages twinkling in the darkness like friendly stars.
She thought about Chelsea and wondered how she’d felt on her first night in Gray Kidman’s home. As a born and bred New Yorker, she might have found it all very strange. The children seemed to have settled in happily enough, however, although Gray wasn’t as relaxed as she’d expected. Actually, there was something about him that puzzled her.
Most of the time, he had an air of quiet confidence and competence that was very reassuring. But every so often she caught a hint of his vulnerability, lying surprisingly close beneath his strong exterior. She’d glimpsed it at times when she’d least expected it—like tonight when she’d called him in to say goodnight to Anna and Josh.
Rancher's Twins: Mom Needed Page 6