Читать книгу: «A Bride At Birralee»

CHAPTER ONE

SOMEONE was coming.

Callum Roper slouched against a veranda post and glared at the distant cloud of dust. In the outback, dust travelling at that speed meant one thing—a vehicle heading this way.

He wasn’t in the mood for visitors.

Turning his back on the view, he lowered his long body into a deep canvas chair and snapped the top off a beer. He took a deep swig and scowled. Truth was, he wasn’t in the mood for anything much these days! Even beer didn’t taste the same.

‘Why’d you have to do it, Scotty?’

He hadn’t meant to ask the question out loud, but there it was, lingering like the dust on the hot, still air. Why did you have to go and die? Damn you, Scotty.

Taking another, deeper swig, he grimaced. How long did it last, this grief business? His younger brother had been dead for six weeks now and he still felt as raw and hurt as he had the day the helicopter crashed and he’d first glimpsed Scott’s lifeless body in the cockpit.

Slumping lower in the canvas seat, he reached for the cattle dog at his side and rubbed the soft fur between its ears, willing himself to relax. But a picture of Scott’s sun-streaked curls, laughing brown eyes and cheeky grin swam before him. It was the face of an irrepressible larrikin. And it had gone for ever.

Late afternoons like this were the worst. This was the time of day he and Scott used to sit here on the veranda, having a beer and a yarn. His brother had been such damn good company. Drinking alone without Scott’s humorous recounts of their day wasn’t any kind of fun.

He cast a bitter glance over his shoulder towards the encroaching vehicle. Entertaining visitors without Scott’s easy banter would be hell!

Luckily, cars didn’t foray into these parts very often. Birralee Station was beyond Cloncurry in far north-western Queensland, further outback than most people liked to venture.

But this particular cloud of dust was definitely edging closer down the rust-red track. He could hear the motor now and it sounded tinny, not the throaty roar of the off-road vehicles his neighbours used.

Surely no one with any sense would come all the way out here in a flimsy little city sedan? City visitors were even worse than well-meaning neighbours.

Scott had been the one for the city. He’d always been flying off to Sydney or Brisbane to seek out fun and female company. Callum was content to stick to the bush, restricting his socialising to picnic races and parties on surrounding properties. He’d never felt the urge to go chasing off to the city.

Almost never. His hand tightened around the beer can as a reluctant memory forced him to acknowledge that there had been one city woman he’d wanted to chase. A woman with crow black hair, a haunting, sexy voice and a gutsy, shoulders-back attitude. He’d wanted to chase her, catch her and brand her as his.

But his little brother had always had the happy knack of smiling at a girl in a certain way and rendering her smitten. Instantly. Accepting that the woman he’d desired had preferred Scott had been a bitter lesson.

Hell! What was the use of sitting here, thinking about all that again?

Callum jumped to his feet and frowned as he realised the car had stopped. He squinted at the stretch of bushland before him, searching for the tell-tale dust. Late afternoon sun lent a bronze glow to the paddocks of pale Mitchell grass, but there was no sign of movement. The cloudless sky, the trees and grass, even the cattle, were as still as a painting.

Crossing to the edge of the veranda, he stood listening. All he could hear now was the high, keening call of a black falcon as it circled above the cliff on the far side of the creek.

He frowned. By his calculations, the car had been close to the creek crossing. Perhaps the driver had stopped to check the water’s depth before fording the shallow stream.

Leaning forward, he rested his elbows on the veranda railing and listened, watched and waited.

A good five minutes or more passed before the engine started up again. But when it did, it screamed and strained. Then there was silence again, before another useless burst from the motor.

‘Silly sod’s got himself bogged.’ He listened for a few more minutes. There was more high-pitched whirring from the straining motor. More silence.

Shaking his head, he let out a heavy sigh. The last thing he felt like was playing hero to some uninvited city slicker, but he could hardly ignore the fact that someone seemed to be having car trouble so close to his homestead.

He had no choice. Cursing softly, he loped down the front steps and across the gravel drive to his ute.

Stella knew she was bogged. She was down to her axle in loose pebbles and sand in the middle of the outback—the middle of nowhere—and she was sick as a dog, more miserable than a lost puppy.

Another wave of nausea rose from her stomach to her mouth and she sat very still, willing her stomach to settle. It probably hadn’t been very bright to stop in the middle of the creek, but she’d felt so ill she’d had no choice.

How hard was this going to get? She’d been in enough mess before she’d left home, but now she was stuck in this crummy little creek hundreds of kilometres from anywhere—and out of the mobile network. When she needed to phone Scott, she couldn’t!

It was her own fault, of course. She should have tried ringing him again before she’d left Sydney and told him she was coming. Then he would have given her detailed directions. He might have warned her about this creek crossing.

But if she’d rung him, he would have expected to know why she wanted to see him. And she hadn’t liked to explain about the baby over the phone.

After their breakup, she couldn’t have discussed her pregnancy over the phone. There was just too much to talk about and it was all too complicated. She wanted to work out the very best solution for their baby’s future, and to do that she needed to discuss it with him face to face.

And she hadn’t wanted to waste precious money on air fares when she might need it for the baby, so she’d spent five days—nearly a week—driving all this way from Sydney.

Sighing heavily, she looked at her watch and then at the reddening sky. It would be dark soon and, for the first time since she’d left home, she felt genuinely frightened.

Fighting off the urge to panic, she forced herself to consider her options. She couldn’t spend the night sleeping in the car in the middle of an outback creek; and trying to make camp under trees up on the bank had no appeal. No, she’d rather gamble on how far she was from the homestead and try to walk from here.

She reached into the back of her little car and groped for her shoes, but before she could find them the sound of a motor came throbbing towards her.

Her head shot up and she peered through the duststreaked windscreen. Silhouetted against the sun, a utility truck crested the low hill on the other side of the creek, then rattled effortlessly down the dirt- and gravel-strewn slope.

‘Thank you, God.’ Smiling with relief, she dropped her shoe and her spirits soared as she watched the ute rumble towards her over the loose, water-washed rocks in the creek-bed. Perhaps it was Scott driving. ‘Please, let it be Scott.’

There was a male figure at the wheel and a blue heeler cattle dog perched on the seat next to him.

The truck pulled to a halt beside her.

From her little low car, she looked up. The driver’s face was shaded by the brim of his akubra hat, but she saw black stubble on a resolute jaw and dark hair on a strongly muscled forearm.

Not Scott. Oh, dear, no. Not Scott, but the one man she’d hoped to avoid. His brother, Callum.

Stella’s breathing snagged and she lowered her gaze. Callum! This was a moment she’d dreaded, and she hadn’t expected to have to deal with it right at the start.

She wet her lips and looked up at him with her chin at a defiant angle. ‘Hi, Callum.’

He didn’t answer.

‘I—I’m afraid I’m stuck.’

The truck’s door squeaked as he shoved it open. With an excessive lack of haste, his well-worn, brown leather riding boots lowered into the shallow creek. The boots were followed by an endless pair of blue jeans, a faded blue cotton shirt that stretched wide across powerful shoulders and, finally, a dark unsmiling face beneath a broad-brimmed hat.

It was a face she hadn’t seen for twelve months. A face that still haunted her secret dreams. Dreams she never dared think about in the light of day.

For an agonisingly long moment, he didn’t speak. He stood still as a mountain, his thumbs hooked through the loops of his jeans. ‘What the hell are you doing here?’

What a beast! No greeting. No, How do you do, Stella? Long time, no see, or, Can I help? Not a trace of polite concern. Not even G’day.

For a heartbeat, she wondered if Callum Roper had forgotten her? That would be convenient but, short of his developing amnesia, she didn’t think it was possible for him to have forgotten that party. Nevertheless, she deserved a warmer greeting than this!

At least when she found Scott and told him about getting bogged, he would be sympathetic.

She remained sitting in her car and held out her hand. It was about time this oaf was forced to remember his manners. ‘How are you, Callum?’

Their eyes met. His expression was so fierce and hard that she knew, even before he spoke, that he hadn’t forgotten her.

‘Stella.’ He nodded and grunted an incomprehensible greeting. After just a trace of hesitation, his big hand closed around hers.

It was the hard, callused hand of an outdoors man and she tried to ignore the goose-bumps that rushed up her arms in response to such simple contact. This was Scott’s brother, her baby’s uncle, and she really would have to learn to relax when he was around.

Easier said than done.

‘You’re asking for trouble if you stop in the middle of a creek,’ he said.

Damn him. ‘I didn’t deliberately get myself bogged, you know. You should have a sign warning people about this creek.’

‘If there was any sign, it would warn trespassers they’d be prosecuted,’ Callum growled as he circled her car slowly, hoping his shock didn’t show.

His heart was racing at a hectic gallop. The last thing he’d expected to find had been this particular woman stranded on his property. What the hell was she doing here?

Silly question. His stomach dropped like a leg-roped steer as he acknowledged there could only be one reason. She’d come to see Scott. Hell! She didn’t know.

His brother hadn’t shared details about his recent trips to the city, and Callum hadn’t asked. He’d never even known for sure if Scott and Stella had still been an item, and she wasn’t family, she wasn’t a close friend, so he hadn’t sent her word of the accident. At least that was the excuse he’d rationalised.

How the blue blazes could he tell her now?

He was uncomfortably aware of her cool grey eyes assessing him as he checked how far her wheels had sunk into the silty creek-bed. Only a class act like Stella Lassiter could look dignified in such a predicament.

Perhaps her dignity came from the way she kept her chin haughtily high as she sat quietly in her car. Or maybe it was an impression created by that broad, full mouth that made her look earthy rather than vulnerable. Maybe it was all that shiny hair, black as a witch’s cat.

‘How does it look? Am I salvageable?’ she called. Her voice was another problem. Smooth and low, it had a syrupy cadence that kicked him at gut level and conjured a host of images he’d tried so hard to forget.

Hell, maybe she was a witch. In a matter of moments, some soft segment of his brain seemed to be slipping under her spell. Just like last time!

He forced his thoughts to practicalities. Her ridiculous little toy car was well and truly bogged, but it would be easy enough to haul her out.

Reaching into the back of his ute, he grabbed the D shackle and snatchem strap. ‘Sit tight,’ he ordered sharply and bent to shackle the long strap to a low bracket on the front of her car. ‘I’ll give you a tow.’

Leaping high into the truck again, he backed it around until it was positioned in front of hers and then, out of the ute once more, he looped the other end of the strap over the ball joint on his tow bar.

She opened her car door and leaned out to watch what he was doing. And Callum found himself staring at her feet as she sat in her car’s open doorway with the skirt of her light cotton dress bunched over her knees and her bare feet propped on the doorway’s rim.

Her feet were exquisitely shaped. Each neat toe was topped by perfectly applied, sky-blue nail polish. A fine silver chain threaded with blue glass beads was secured neatly around one dainty ankle.

Callum couldn’t drag his eyes away. Her feet were as interesting and compelling as the rest of her.

Suddenly, she drew her legs into the car and pulled the door smartly shut. Had he been gaping? Perhaps he was more of a country hick than he realised. Through the window, she studied him and chewed her full bottom lip, showing a trace of vulnerability for the first time. ‘I’ve come to see Scott. I hope he’s home,’ she said.

Callum swallowed. He knew she’d come looking for Scott and he should have been thinking about that instead of gaping at her mouth and her hair and her feet!

‘Ah—’ a painful constriction dammed his throat ‘—I’m—er—I’m afraid you’re going to be disappointed. Scott’s—’ Stuff this! He avoided looking at her as he blinked stinging eyes. ‘Scott’s not here.’

‘What?’ She stared at him, her eyes wide with disbelief and despair. ‘Where is he?’ Her strength seemed to leave her suddenly. She looked crumpled and crestfallen. ‘I’ve—I’ve driven all the way from Sydney. I’ve got to see him.’

Callum shot a hopeless glance to the darkening sky. If it hadn’t been so late in the day, he would have considered breaking the bad news and sending her packing! But there was less than half an hour of daylight left.

Forcing her to go back down the rough Kajabbi track in the dark wasn’t an option. Chances were she’d get bogged again, or even worse she could hit a deep rut and turn this little death trap over.

‘I’ll tow you out of here and you’d better follow me up to the homestead,’ he said.

‘Thanks.’ Her reply came in a whisper and she looked very pale, as if the stuffing had been knocked right out of her. ‘But can I contact Scott from there?’

Callum cleared his throat. ‘It’ll be easier to explain about Scott when we get back to the house.’

Without waiting to see her reaction, he spun on his heel and climbed back into the ute, calling over his shoulder, ‘Let your handbrake off and don’t turn your engine on yet. Just leave it in neutral.’

He edged the truck forward and the creek-bed released her car easily. After towing her to the top of the small rise, he stopped while he unhitched the vehicles. ‘The homestead’s only a kilometre down the track. See you there.’ Without looking her way again, he accelerated around a bend and headed for Birralee.

Scott wasn’t here. It was more than she could bear. Stella fought to stay calm as she guided her little car over the last twists and turns of the bumpy track. She’d been keeping all her worries to herself for too long, but she couldn’t hold on much longer.

She had never been one for confiding in her friends and the events of the past few months had snowballed into an unbearable, secret burden. First, when she’d realised that Scott hadn’t been as committed to their relationship as she’d believed, there had been the unpleasantness of the breakup.

Then she’d discovered she was pregnant!

She’d almost lost the plot when she’d learned that, but after taking time to get used to the idea she’d tried to contact Scott. The message on his answering machine had said he would be out mustering the back blocks of Birralee for several weeks.

The final blow had fallen with a phone call from London and the job offer of her dreams! A British television network wanted to hire her skills as a meteorologist to head the research for a series of documentaries about global warming in Europe.

She couldn’t believe the bad timing!

She’d studied so hard and had worked her socks off in the hope of scoring a contract like this, but the amount of travel involved and the primitive living conditions required on location meant it wasn’t a job for a woman with a tiny baby.

If only she and Scott had been more careful! But there’d been too many laughs…too much country-boy charm…too many empty assurances that she really was the one and only woman for him…

Stella knew they were poor excuses. She was educated. She was a scientist! She knew better! But…for the first time in her life, she’d allowed herself to let go…

She’d let herself be just a little like her mother. And, just like her mother, her mistakes had caught her out.

She carried the consequences within her. The cluster of little cells, multiplying rapidly every day. Oh, God! She’d been carrying the secret burden of her pregnancy for four lonely months now and she couldn’t keep it to herself any longer.

She had to speak to Scott.

The job offer had been too wonderful to resist and so she’d accepted it, but she couldn’t fulfil her contract without Scott’s help. Scott, where are you? At the very least, I need to talk this through with someone.

Ahead of her, Callum had pulled up in front of a typical outback homestead. She’d never visited one before, but she was familiar with the image—a low and sprawling timber house with a ripple-iron roof and deep verandas set in the middle of an expanse of lawn and shaded by ancient trees.

So this was Scott’s home—Birralee. This was where the father of her baby had been born. He’d run on this grass as a little boy. He was at home in this wild, rough country with its rocky red cliffs, its haze of soft green bush and its vast wide plains, so flat you could see the curvature of the earth as you drove across them.

And of course this was Callum’s home, too.

He stood waiting, his blue heeler squatting obediently beside him. His face remained fierce and unsmiling as she parked her car on the grass next to his truck. He’d taken his hat off and she saw the tangle of his dark, rough curls and the golden brown lights that might soften his eyes if he’d let them.

Callum had never looked very much like Scott. Where Scott was blond and boyish, full of sunshine and laughter, Callum was darker and older, more stormy and grim. OK…she had to admit he was still good-looking in his own hard way.

Who was she trying to kid? Callum was incredibly good-looking. Heaven knew, she’d been attracted to him from the very first moment she’d laid eyes on him. But he had a dangerous brand of good looks that fascinated yet unnerved her. There was a magnetic fierceness about Callum that pierced hidden depths in her and threatened her inner peace.

She’d recognised a perilous intensity in him on the night they’d met…

Get a grip! You’ll be a complete mess if you think about that now!

Hopefully, she wouldn’t have to spend too much time around him. She needed inner peace more than ever now. She needed cheering up.

She needed Scott.

Where was Scott? Why hadn’t Callum told her straight away where he was? Her stomach churned and her smile was grim as she climbed out of her little car and stretched cramped limbs.

‘Do you have much gear?’ Callum asked.

‘Just one bag and a bird cage.’

‘A bird cage?’ He didn’t try to hide his surprise.

Her chin lifted. ‘I had to bring my bird. My flatmate’s absolutely hopeless about remembering to change Oscar’s seed or water. Last time I left him with her, the poor darling nearly dehydrated.’

Carefully, she extracted the cage from the back of her car and eyed his cattle dog warily as she made introductions. ‘This is Oscar.’

Callum scowled at the little blue budgerigar.

‘What’s your dog’s name?’

Her question seemed to surprise him. ‘Mac,’ he muttered.

At the sound of his name, Mac’s ears pricked and he sprang to his feet, tail wagging madly.

‘Hi, Mac.’ She shot Callum a cautious glance. ‘He doesn’t like to nip at small birds, does he?’

He cracked a brief smile. ‘He’s a true blue heeler. From when he was a pup he knew that his mission in life was to nip at the heels of cattle. I doubt he’s ever paid any attention to birds.’

‘That’s a relief.’

Callum scruffed the top of the dog’s head. ‘Poor old fella’s retired to home duties these days.’

Stella saw Callum’s genuine affection for his dog and she felt a tiny bit better. Somehow it helped to know that the grim Callum Roper was as fond of his pet as she was of hers.

His smile faded as he nodded his head towards the house. ‘You bring the bird cage. I’ll grab your bag.’

‘Thanks.’ Reaching back into the car, she fished out her shoes and slipped her feet into them. Then, puzzled and curious, she followed the dog and his master up three wide wooden steps.

As Callum led her along the veranda, she couldn’t help noticing that he made an art form of the loose-hipped, long-legged saunter of the outback cattleman.

With an easy dip of one broad shoulder, he pushed a door open. ‘You’ll have to stay here tonight, so you’d better have this room.’ He stepped aside to let her enter, then placed her bag with surprising care on top of a carved sandalwood box at the foot of the bed.

She dragged her attention from him to the room. It was old-fashioned and simply furnished. There was no personal clutter and it was very clearly a guest room. The floorboards were left uncovered and the big double bed had brass ends and was covered by a patchwork quilt in various shades of green and white.

On the wall was a painting of a stormy sky and horses galloping down a steep mountainside with their manes and tails flying.

‘I’m afraid I’m imposing on your hospitality.’

He didn’t answer, but his gaze dropped to the bird cage she was still holding.

‘I’ll put this out on the veranda,’ she suggested.

‘You’d better bring it through to the kitchen. Mac won’t touch it, but if you leave it outside the possums might knock it over during the night.’

‘Really?’

A hint of mischief danced in his eyes. ‘Or a carpet snake might fancy a midnight snack.’

‘Oh, no!’ Horrified, she clutched the cage to her. ‘I’d be grateful if he could stay in the kitchen, thank you.’

Once again, she followed Callum’s long strides. This time down a long hall with polished timber floorboards and rooms opening off its entire length.

Where was Scott? An uneasy tension coiled in her stomach. She hoped she wasn’t going to be sick. The hardest part of her journey was still ahead of her.

When she found Scott, not only did she have to tell him he was going to be a father, she had to convince him that the plan she’d agonised over really was the best solution.

Best for him and the baby and for her.

It was a straightforward plan. She would resign from her current job, have the baby and then Scott would look after it while she went to London. Luckily the television project was so big that the company did their recruiting well in advance. She was due to give birth several weeks before her contract started and after twelve months she would come back and take over her responsibilities as a mother.

As she headed down the hall, she prayed that Scott would see the beautiful simplicity and fairness of what she was asking. If only she didn’t feel so scared!

The rooms she glimpsed as she hurried after Callum were a little shabby, a little untidy, decidedly old-fashioned, but she had an impression of tasteful decor and comfort and an easy, unpretentious air that made them welcoming. Easy to live in.

Easy and charming like Scott had been. She could imagine him here. But could she imagine leaving his baby here at this house? Could she really leave a tiny baby way out here in the never-never while she spent a year overseas?

Everything depended on Scott’s reaction.

And maybe Callum’s.

They reached the kitchen at the back of the house. It was huge and cluttered and Stella fell in love with it at first sight.

The reaction was so unexpected. All her life, she’d been walking into other people’s kitchens. There’d been a bewildering series of them during her childhood—dingy council flats, women’s shelters and foster homes. Until she’d moved into the little flat she shared with Lucy, she’d never lived in one place for very long. Their kitchen was neat and trendy, but she’d never felt an immediate rapport with a room the way she did now.

She loved it. Loved the long wall of deep, timber-framed windows of clear glass with dark green diamond panes in the middle, pushed wide open to catch the breeze. Loved the spellbinding views of the twilight-softened bush as it dipped down to the creek and climbed on the other side to majestic red cliffs in the distance.

She loved the huge scrubbed pine table in the middle of the room, home to a wonderful jumble of odd bits and pieces—a flame-coloured pottery bowl overflowing with dried gum nuts, a pile of Country Life magazines, a horse’s bridle and several bulging packets of photographs.

The collection of unmatched chairs gathered around the table enchanted her. With no effort at all, she could picture these chairs seating a party of happy, chatting friends or family. She could almost hear their bright, laughter-filled voices.

Standing in the kitchen’s corner, was an old timber high chair with scratched red paint. Stella couldn’t help staring at it, wondering…

‘You can park the bird cage on that high chair if you like,’ Callum said. ‘We only use it when my sisters bring their tribes to visit.’

She did as he suggested. ‘There you go, Oscar. You can have a lovely view of the gum trees and talk to all the other birds outside.’

Callum’s mouth twitched. ‘You don’t think he might get ideas about escaping?’

She glanced again at the bush and couldn’t help wondering if Oscar craved for freedom to explore that vast sky and all those trees, but then she shoved that disagreeable thought aside. ‘I look after him too well,’ she assured Callum primly.

He walked to the fridge. ‘Would you like a beer?’

‘No. No, thanks.’

‘Scotch, sherry, wine? I’m afraid I can’t manage any fancy cocktails.’

‘I won’t have any alcohol, thank you.’

He seemed surprised. ‘Cup of tea?’

‘Yes, in a minute. That would be nice, but first, please, you must tell me about Scott. How can I contact him?’

He stiffened and she felt a stab of panic. His face seemed momentarily grey and he turned quickly away from her and snatched a beer out of the fridge.

What’s the matter? What’s wrong? Her heart began to thud.

‘You’d better sit down,’ he said without looking at her. ‘I’m afraid I’ve got bad news about Scott.’