Outback Bride. Jessica HartЧитать онлайн книгу.
no one else to see. You’ll have the most boring jobs to do and no one to help you. It won’t be at all romantic.’
‘I’m not in the slightest bit romantic,’ said Copper icily.
It was true. Copper liked life as it was, and didn’t believe in dreaming about the way things might be. Her friends would fall about with laughter if they knew she had been accused of being romantic, but then, she hadn’t told any of them about the three days she had spent with Mal in Turkey. That had been stepping out of time and out of character. For Copper, it had been too special to share with anyone else. Mal had been her secret, her aberration, her one brief encounter with romance.
‘That must be very disappointing for your boyfriend,’ said Mal, with something of a sneer.
Looking back, Copper thought that it probably had been disappointing for Glyn, but she had no intention of admitting as much to Mal.
‘It depends what you mean by romantic, doesn’t it?’ she challenged him. ‘I prefer to get on with things rather than mope around wishing they were different.’
Oh, yes? said an inner voice. So why did you never quite manage to forget about Mal, no matter how hard you tried? Why were you so hurt when he didn’t remember you?
‘Anyway,’ Copper went on, firmly squashing the voice, ‘all you need to know is that I’ll work hard and I won’t waste my time dreaming about your brother. As far as I’m concerned Birraminda is business, and I’m not interested in anything else up here.’
Mal studied her in silence for a moment. Copper would have given anything to know what he was thinking, but as usual he kept his reactions to himself. ‘OK,’ he said at last, straightening from the rail. ‘You can stay on as housekeeper—but only until the girl from the agency turns up. She should be here any day.’
‘That’s all right,’ said Copper, getting to her feet in relief at having passed the first hurdle. At least she wouldn’t have to drive back to Adelaide tomorrow! ‘And you will give me an opportunity to show you our proposal?’
‘As long as you don’t mention it the rest of the time,’ said Mal stringently. ‘I don’t want you nagging at me. You can bring out your financial plan and your proposals, but you’re only getting one chance to talk me round.’
Copper smiled. ‘One will be enough,’ she said.
CHAPTER THREE
BY LUNCHTIME the next day, Copper was exhausted. Mal hadn’t been wrong about the hard work. She had been up at five to cook breakfast for Mal and Brett, as well as the three jackaroos, and she seemed to have spent the whole morning since then running between the cookhouse and the homestead.
She had washed and wiped, swept and scrubbed. She had fed chickens and dogs and six men who had appeared for morning smoko and now lunch, and in the middle of it all she had had to deal with a lively and strong-willed four-year-old.
It hadn’t helped that she had spent most of the night lying awake and thinking about Mal—the one thing she had sworn not to do. Her body had craved sleep, but her mind had refused to settle. It had turned Mal’s image round and round, testing it from all angles, disconcerted to find him at once so familiar and yet a stranger. Did he really not remember? Had he forgotten touching her, tasting her with his tongue, tangling his fingers in her hair as they surrendered to the wild beat of their bodies?
Copper had struggled to bury the memories. She was at Birraminda on business, she’d told herself fiercely, gritting her teeth as she worked doggedly through the morning. It was the business that mattered now, and she had better not forget it.
She had had lunch with the jackaroos and all the other men except Bill in the cookhouse. It was a long, wooden building that didn’t look as if it had been decorated since the days when sixty thousand sheep had grazed at Birraminda and whole teams of men had moved in at shearing time and had to be fed at the two huge tables. Bill was an older man who was known as the “married man”. While the jackaroos slept in quarters he had his own house a mile or so from the homestead, and he went home at lunchtime. His wife, Naomi, prepared a meal for the men in the evenings, so that was one job she wouldn’t have to do, Copper thought. Dinner for three ought to be a cinch after all she had done this morning!
Mal had told her that cold meat and bread were all that the men wanted at lunchtime, so that had not been too difficult to get ready. Now Copper ticked ‘lunch’ off her list and studied her remaining chores, wondering if she would have time to explore around the homestead. She would need to take photographs and get the feel of the place if she was to put together an inspiring brochure.
‘What are you doing?’ asked Mal, craning his head to see as she pencilled times against ‘prepare vegetables’ and ‘bath Megan’. He raised his eyebrows derisively when he saw what she had written. ‘I never met anyone who had to have a timetable just to get through the day before!’
‘I like to be organised,’ said Copper, instantly on the defensive. ‘Otherwise nothing ever gets done.’
‘I hope you’ve given yourself time for breathing.’ Mal wasn’t actually smiling but she knew perfectly well that he was laughing at her.
‘I need to with this much to do!’ she retorted, more ruffled than she cared to admit by the amusement gleaming in the depths of his brown eyes. ‘I hadn’t realised slavery was still legal in the outback!’
Brett twitched the list out of her hand. ‘You’ve been working much too hard,’ he agreed. He had greeted the news that Copper was to stay with flattering enthusiasm, and now he edged along the bench towards her. ‘You deserve a break this afternoon,’ he went on, echoing Copper’s own thoughts. ‘Why don’t I take you out and show you the waterhole your father had in mind for a site?’
‘Possibly because you’ve remembered that you’re going to check those bores this afternoon,’ Mal interrupted, before Copper had a chance to accept. His voice was quiet but implacable. ‘Megan and I will take Copper out.’
Megan looked up, suddenly alert. ‘Are we going to ride?’
Mal glanced at Copper. She was more practically dressed today, in jeans and a fresh, mint-coloured shirt, but there was still something indefinably citified about her. Over lunch, all the talk had been about the forthcoming rodeo, and the expressive green eyes had been appalled at the thought of wrestling a steer to the ground, or trying to cling onto a bucking bronco.
‘I think Copper would probably prefer to go in the car,’ he said, but a smile lurked around his mouth.
Copper stiffened, well aware of how out of place she looked. ‘Not at all,’ she said, lifting her chin. She wasn’t going to give Mal the excuse of dismissing her proposals just because he thought she couldn’t cope in the outback! So what if she had never ridden before? It couldn’t be that difficult. ‘I’d like to ride.’
She regretted her bravado as soon as she laid eyes on the horse that Mal led towards her. It looked enormous, and as Copper edged closer it rolled its eyes and shook the flies off its mane with a snort. Backing rapidly away, she clutched her wallet file nervously to her chest. Maybe the car would be a better idea.
Mal nodded at the file. ‘What have you got there?’
‘Just a few things I want to check—Dad’s plan of the site, the measurements of the tent, that kind of thing—and I’m bound to need to take some notes.’
‘Where are you going to put it?’ he asked in exasperation. ‘Or were you planning to ride one-handed?’
Copper hadn’t even thought about it until that moment. ‘Isn’t there a saddle-bag or something?’
Mal sighed. ‘Here, give it to me. I’ll hold it while you get on.’
‘Right.’ She blew out a breath and squared her shoulders. ‘Right.’
The horse tossed its head up and down impatiently as Copper seized