My Fair Aussie

by Jennifer Griffith

  “So, you’ve flown over it now. What do you think of Cherrington Downs? You’ve seen it from the sky.” I led her away from the still-pounding sound of the chopper motor. “I would’ve come to pick you up myself, but it’s a two-seater, and Jonno’s the one with the current chopper pilot’s license.”

  Plus, I’d had several things I wanted to personally prepare before Eliza arrived.

  “Cherrington Downs is incredible. All my life I thought the Australian ranches I’d seen in films were nothing more than movie sets. But this is real, it’s…” She sighed, and a spot deep in my chest cavity unwound three knots. She liked the place—loved it.

  This was why Eliza was here, and not any other girl in the world.

  “You’re not put off by how far it is from…anything else?” We rounded the vegetable garden, passed the trout pond and made our way up the grassy hill to where the house sat overlooking the outbuildings. I wondered if she’d like its white paint and black shutters, or whether a wraparound porch appealed to her. Suddenly, I cared what she thought about all the details of the station house.

  “Oh, brother. That’s the best thing about it, if you ask me.” She heaved a sigh. “Before my job on San Nouveau, can you even imagine how sick of the city I was? Smog and noise were the two main components of being outdoors in L.A. That was a big reason I said yes to working for Monique-Noelle on San Nouveau, even though she was the Third-Worst Person Alive.”

  “There’s a lot of quiet on San Nouveau, and no air pollution.” The whole Mo-No situation started to make a little more sense. She’d longed to be outdoors. “Good golf course, too.”

  “Terrible golf course!” she cried. “The worst!”

  “I’ll give you that. It rivals my stable yard in terribleness.”

  “Tell me, though. How did Jonno get this helicopter to San Nouveau? No way did it cross the Pacific. That’s suicide.”

  “That? It wasn’t ours. He just arranged to rent one.” I couldn’t wait to show her the entire place, but first, I should be a little bit hospitable. She’d been on a long journey. “You tired?”

  “Not at all. I’m dying to see your ranch. Er, station.” At the word station, a deep blush reddened her cheeks, as if she was remembering the confusion the term had caused between us for several days. “I want to see every acre.”

  “That could take a while. There are twelve thousand—”

  “Acres?” she gasped. “Head of cattle?”

  “—square kilometers.”

  At this she looked like she might faint.

  “Whoa. I thought the Circle G was huge with a thousand acres and cattle.”

  Cherrington Downs was the last privately held station in the Victorian Alps, the rest of them being bought out and absorbed by the national forest and national park systems. When grazing was temporarily outlawed thirty years ago, somehow Cherrington Downs had its rights grandfathered in—probably due to lobbying by my grandfather, based on his insistence that his research into lower grazing acreage needs would eventually pan out. He could be convincing.

  I’d explain all this to Eliza later, at leisure. While we lay on our backs with a picnic and a vast view of the stars above, her head resting in the crook of my shoulder, her body curled next to my side.

  Well, a guy could fantasize, anyway.

  “You look hot.” I reached for her jacket, and when she laughed nervously, it dawned on me that my words could be taken another way. “I, uh, meant that literally.”

  Of course I meant it in the slang as well.

  She removed her jacket, and her long hair tumbled down over her shoulders like a waterfall, and I knew exactly where I wanted to take her first on the station today—whether it was jumping the gun or not. I’d waited six weeks, plus seventy-two agonizing hours to be in her presence again, and I wasn’t going to let the sun set without taking action like I should have done before I left that blasted rock off the California coast at Christmastime.

  “Do you want to see your bed?” Oh, great. Now I was throwing out bedroom references, too. How smooth could I get? Why didn’t I just… never mind. “We’ll tour the house, then I have some places upcountry I’d like you to see if you’re not too worn out from traveling.”

  I let my eyes linger on her curvaceous, tall figure a little longer than was proper. This girl had every amazing, gorgeous quality a girl could possibly have. I knew she wasn’t perfect. But she was perfect—for me. When she’d agreed to drop everything and come to Cherrington Downs the minute I’d called her, I started believing she might feel the same, that she’d let my abandonment of her be forgotten, or at least forgiven.

  Instead of giving him permission to tell her my number, I’d just taken Eliza’s from David Smith. And no, I hadn’t waited a full minute to make that call.

  Taking her by the hand, I led her inside.

  “This is your house? How many people live here?”

  “Just me. It used to be my granddad’s back when.” It had history, if not proximity to the fast life so many girls clamored for. “It’s not Pickering Place, mind you, but it has some amenities, considering how far we are out of the city.”

  I led her all through the downstairs, popping open doors, giving her a glimpse of the place.

  “It’s not Pickering Place. It’s…bigger.” Wonder laced her words. She ran her fingertips along the wood trim of the wall, and looked a lot like she had when she rode that black horse Trafalgar—like she was in love. “It’s got more rooms than any other house I’ve ever seen.”

  Well, there was that. Cherrington Downs’s main house had eleven bedrooms: one for each of my granddad’s kids, plus one for him and grandma. The others had left the cattle business and gone toward Melbourne or Adelaide or the Gold Coast. My dad had let the station seep into his bones and built a house of his own down the way, where Frank lived now.

  “When do I meet your brother and his family?” she asked, seeing a photo of Matilda and Hollis I’d taped to the refrigerator in the kitchen as we passed through. For the first time, I was really glad I’d gone to the trouble of remodeling it two years ago. It didn’t have a hand pump at the sink anymore, like from Granddad’s day. Now it had everything from granite countertops to apron sinks to a built-in ice machine.

  Georgia had insisted I’d never get a wife to come here without it.

  But Eliza had come.

  “That’s Matilda and Hollis. Later on, I’ll introduce you to my brother Frank and his family. They live down the road. His wife Georgia is probably the most patient woman you’ll ever meet.”

  “You mean to put up with your brother?”

  “Exactly.”

  See, this woman could read my thoughts.

  I wasn’t usually nervous around women, but my fingers wouldn’t stop tapping against my thigh. They were itching to take her hand, to feel the strands of her hair between my fingertips, to caress her skin.

  “How’s Sylvie?”

  “Her father has her. He’s remarried. She’ll be fine.”

  “You’re relieved, I guess.”

  “That little girl deserves to be loved.”

  As did this one, I thought, looking over at Eliza, with her amazing blue eyes that made me think of fathomless sapphire pools I’d like to swim in forever and ever. My lips itched. I didn’t know how long I could hold out before kissing her again.

  I took her upstairs to the room where she’d be staying and showed her the bed, but then my thoughts started churning about all kinds of things that our future might hold. They were all beautiful.

  Whoa, pardner. Slow things down. She hasn’t said yes to anything yet, except a visit to the station.

  However, the way she was looking at me right now, with her chin down and looking up at me through half-lidded eyes fringed with the darkest lashes of all time, I was reading the word yes coming off her in every language.

  She wanted me.

  I coughed, discombobulated by her beauty and by the sheer pheromones coming off her. She made me fee
l like a boy. And a man. And everything in between.

  I wasn’t going to do anything to cheapen her. I was going to do everything right this time.

  “You’ll have the run of the house, since it’d be better if I took a flop in the bunkhouse while you stay.” If I had to sleep in the room next to her—not even separated by being in different guest cottages—I couldn’t vouch for what I’d do. Not when I’d already tasted that burning kiss.

  “Gypsy is down at the stables. Would you like to meet her? I had Jonno saddle Valiant for you, if you’re up for a ride.”

  We descended the staircase, and went outside to the stables near where she’d landed a half-hour before.

  “Only if you’ll show me the station—which you own.” She colored saying this. “I am such a dimwit, you know.”

  “Never. I should have explained everything to you more clearly.” We came downstairs and out into the burning late-summer sun. “But I did laugh when you told Monique-Noelle I owned the bus station.”

  I reached for her hand her fingers interlaced with mine, like an automatic reaction. The contact sent an electric tremor up my arm.

  “Yeah, about that.” Her embarrassed smile might be my favorite, it was so cute. “I’m sorry I assumed you were…er…”

  “Barking mad?”

  A new smile broke out across her face, like the dawn—bright and rosy. It sent me into the stratosphere. From the looks of things, Eliza wasn’t angry with me after all, and she hadn’t agreed to this trip just so she could have a yarn face to face and tear me to pieces for leaving her stranded on that island.

  If she wasn’t holding a grudge against me, maybe I should let it go against myself, too.

  We walked into the dim air of the stable, and after our eyes adjusted we found where Gypsy and Valiant stood saddled and waiting.

  “It smells so good in here.” She inhaled deeply and shut her eyes. “The smell makes me feel like I’m home and not however many thousand miles away.”

  It could be your home, I wanted to blurt like a besotted fool.

  “Thank Jonno for getting this ready, would you?” Eliza examined Valiant. “I could have done the saddling and prepping myself, you know. Jonno didn’t have to.”

  I knew that. It was yet another thing I liked about her.

  “He really is useful sometimes. Even if it does take him a full three days to get you here. I mean, it’s only an ocean away. Shouldn’t take three full days.”

  She introduced herself to Valiant, rubbing his neck and talking softly to him. Smart girl. Every single thing she did—magic, casting a web of spells over me so thick I might never escape, whether she wanted me to or not.

  “Now you’re the Horse Whisperer.”

  “Keep it coming with the movie references, pal.”

  “I’ve got plenty more.” I would have lifted her onto Valiant, but she didn’t need any help. She took to it like a frog to water, and we headed out onto the flat behind the stable before heading into the foothills.

  “There’s something I want to show you.”

  “Just one thing? But I seriously want to see the whole ranch. I mean, station.”

  “That could take several days. Cherrington Downs is the eighth largest station in Australia.”

  “I’ve got several days.” She shot me a flirtatious look. My skin tingled. I wanted her for more than several days. I’d spent the last seventy-two hours making plans of how to let her know just that. “Tell me, is this place called the Alps?”

  “The Victorian Alps. Melbourne is in the state of Victoria. These mountains are nothing like the European Alps, but they’ll do for me.”

  “That suddenly makes a lot of things clear.” She shook her head again, with that cute, embarrassed smile, and I fell for her harder with every step of our horses.

  Riding along, we picked our way through some brushy area, up over the rise of the first hill. She took them like they were nothing at all, and so I kept pulling her higher, until we came to a wider place where we could ride side by side for a fair bit.

  “I hope by the end of the day everything is clear, Eliza, and all the mysteries are solved—from why is the sky blue, to how much chocolate should I put on my ice cream sundae. You will be a living, breathing internet search engine.”

  “Henry.” Her laugh rang high into the treetops like the call of a sweet bird, and I wanted to hear it again and again. “No, I meant to ask, why am I here?”

  “Besides the fact I didn’t want to go another day without seeing your gorgeous blue eyes?” I glanced over at her and watched to see how she’d take this, gauging what kind of a reaction my forwardness with her would get.

  “You think my eyes are gorgeous?” She blinked a few seconds, as if taking in the compliment and then refocusing on her questions. Good, I’d made an inroad, I could tell. I had to get her to know I was serious about her.

  “Come on, that’s another thing that should be pretty obvious by now.”

  “It took a lot of courage for me to get in touch with Dr. Smith, since I didn’t know how you’d react, considering what went down on San Nouveau.”

  “Are you talking about that mind-blowing pash we shared on the cliff by the breakers?” Would she know that a pash was a make-out? As far as I was concerned, our kiss was the main thing that went down on San Nouveau. I’d like to recreate that event as soon as possible. “Because if that was the event you had in mind…”

  “No. I mean, while I held you hostage, your family had to be worrying about you. I didn’t think about them or their feelings. They probably hate me.”

  “Hate you! Ha. Hardly. You rescued me from the bus stop.” And she hadn’t even known they existed, assuming I was a vagrant of some kind, penniless and devoid of family connections. “They were furious with me, but they’ll get over it, especially once they’ve met you.”

  “And that will be…when?” She sounded nervous.

  “After I’ve had you to myself for a while.” I pulled Gypsy to the side to avoid getting a tree branch in my face. It put me closer to Eliza, and I reached over and ran the back of my fingers down the soft skin of her arm. What if I pulled her off Valiant’s saddle and we shared this one instead? “Besides, they weren’t that upset. They’re used to my being gone for long stretches at a time with no contact.”

  “My dad does that.” The harsh realities of the cattle grazing life didn’t seem like they fazed her. Again, points for Eliza.

  “This is breathtaking,” she said as we came up over the next rise and the whole expanse of the station came into view. Trees and mountaintops stretched as far as the eye could see. The house itself was near the summit, but you had to ride up another thousand feet to get the full effect. Chills went up my spine, seeing how much she appreciated what I considered to be the best view in all the world. “You come up here every day? I would. It’s beautiful.”

  “You’re the beauty, Eliza.” She was looking more and more perfect to me with every passing moment.

  She laughed, saying, “You probably bring all the girls here so they can have their Pemberley moment.” Another movie reference. We were starting to have a thing between us that was our thing. Luckily, Frank’s wife had forced us all to watch Jane Austen a few months back so I caught it, knowing that a girl saw a beautiful piece of property owned by a guy she wasn’t sure she liked, and then her doubts fled.

  Was Eliza having a Pemberley moment as she overlooked the Alpine Ash forests of Cherrington Downs? My stomach did a full-on gallop and took a steeplechase hedge at the thought of her deciding I was all right and a good catch.

  “Actually, you’re the first girl I’ve brought here.”

  Eliza whipped around, looking at me as if she didn’t believe me. But it was true. And the place I was taking her next, I’d never brought anyone outside the family to see, not even Jonno.

  “Why me?”

  “I should think that, too, should be more than obvious.”

  Color rushed up into her face. She stared at m
e and then pressed her heels into Valiant’s flanks. I followed suit, and I led her down the rise to a stand of close trees that hid a ravine. I’ll admit I rode a little behind her part of the way up here so I could take a nice long gander at the length of those legs of hers. Eliza did have great legs.

  “Now I have a question of my own. Why’d you say yes when I called?” I had to turn it around on her—before I went blabbing on about any feelings I might be having for her. I didn’t want to put her in an awkward situation if she wasn’t feeling it. She looked like she was feeling it, but I needed to be smart. Eliza frankly held a lot of power over me at this point. She could hurt me pretty badly. I had to be the tiniest bit careful.

  “It all happened so fast. You called, and I was on a plane before I knew it.”

  “So you leaped before you looked. Any regrets?”

  “None yet.” A sparkle lit the sapphire of her eyes. I reached out and touched her again, my fingers testing the silken strands of her hair. “But you still didn’t tell me why I’m here.”

  All in good time.

  We hit the next descent in the trail. Ahead a hundred meters or so, I spotted the little notch between the hills that led to the place few had seen since the Lyon family took over Cherrington Downs in the 1870s, a secret location not even visible on satellite maps. It was where my dad had proposed to my mom—and where Frank had begged Georgia to marry him.

  The waterfall.

  And, throwing caution to the wind, I was taking Eliza there, after she’d been in my presence for less than three hours out of the last two months.

  It might make me the biggest, rashest fool on the Australian continent, but I didn’t care. There was a fair chance she’d reject me, but despite that fact, I wasn’t going to let a chance slip away. If she didn’t say yes to me today, I’d bring her up here again and again until I wore her down with my ardent love.