To learn how to do a task, a person needed no more than a good set of eyes and ears. Learning courage was another matter. She had never been intrepid, and Papa’s fears had become hers. She screwed up her face as she carefully placed the plates on the long outdoor table. A woman brought up on a sheep station ought to be able to swim or at least be willing to wet her feet. Surely being brave was only a matter of trying?
Sighing, she strode to the woodpile, where she chopped the kindling, which she then delivered to the washhouse. After clearing the ashes from beneath the copper and resetting the fire for the next day, she folded the clean laundry, sorted the dirty, and hurried to the stable paddock to fill the trough. When she found the task already done, she raced into the stables and doled out the chaff. Leaving a measure in three stalls, she refilled the water buckets, ran to the kitchen for scraps for the flustering hens, and flustered a little herself.
A quick glance at the sun, already on the downward dive into the glistening sea on the horizon, told her she just had time to prepare the table in the dining room for the evening meal. Rose was nowhere to be seen, possibly napping. Ella’s courage stiffened by the clench of her jaw, she dashed through the courtyard and past the woolshed. Not once in her twenty-one years had she stepped into the sea, a river, or a creek. Not once. Today she would conquer her fear.
A short time later, she reached her destination, the dappled billabong that fed from the river bordering the property. Her feet slowed. The sweat on her face cooled as she contemplated the water, the gracious red gums, and the delicate undergrowth surrounding the area. Despite the heat of the late afternoon sun, she shivered. Drawing a deep breath, she lowered herself onto the withered grass to remove her shoes and stockings.
She stayed, staring at her toes, knowing Mama’s drowning had been an accident and not a foregone conclusion. Before she could convince herself she had no need to prove herself to herself, she rose to her feet, scooped her crinoline to hip height, and stepped in. Yellow mud oozed between her toes. Within the next few moments, the woman who didn’t know her paddocks had been overgrazed and her sheep didn’t produce the finest quality wool would overcome an even greater obstacle. Abject cowardice. Holding her breath, she studied the pale ocher gleam of the water. Her feet hesitant on the slimy pebbles, she waded two paces, reaching ankle height. Her breath ached in her throat.
From behind, she heard a crackling of leaves. A small branch split and dropped. Two white cockatoos flew overhead, screeching, and a dark shape launched at her. She screamed, flailed, and fell backward.
The water dragged at her heavy skirts. She skidded straight into the deep center of the pool. Bubbles burst around her face and into her nose and mouth. Her inverted crinoline floated over her head, caging her. Water rushed past her ears and she saw nothing but the blurred white of her arms. Time stood still. She would drown, just like Mama.
A sudden shadow, a clamp on her wrist, and her arm was caught.
The fabled bunyip did exist. She would die, torn and bloody.
Terror galvanized her. She thrashed out, gouging at the slimy black shape. With inexorable strength, the bunyip forced her upward. She gulped in fresh air, spluttering, fighting to evade its flesh-tearing teeth.
“Keep still!”
She blinked the gritty water from her eyes, gasping, swiping at the new shearer, unable to believe she didn’t see a bunyip.
“Stop hitting me, and I’ll get you to the bank.” He scooped one iron-hard arm around her shoulders.
She clenched her elbows around his neck, and he hauled her until he found a footing. Then, with her pasted to him like a sodden leaf, he staggered to the sandy edge. “The bunyip,” she said, her throat constricted. “The bunyip tried to drown me.”
“You fell.” His lashes were thick, wet, and dark.
Latched to him, afraid to let him go, she glanced into his grayish-green eyes, the same color as the hills in the distance, her mind a blank. Water streamed off his dark hair and a trickle ran from his cheekbone to his set jaw, sliding onto a firm, tanned neck.
“Girl only wanted to play with you.”
“Girl?”
His strong hands held her at the waist, and his large frame supported her. The thud of his heart beat against her chest. With his head, he indicated his drenched and chastened dog sitting on the bank. “Girl.”
“Your dog.” Numbly, she eased her stranglehold of his neck. Stepping back, she huddled in her own arms. She couldn’t cling to a man she didn’t know, a man who stood tall, wide-shouldered, and sternly handsome, gazing at her with concern. “What are you doing here?”
He flicked back his soaked hair. “This is the direct path to the homestead. I took a swim in the river to freshen up before supper.”
“You can swim?”
His wet blue shirt clung to his manly chest. She quickly averted her gaze.
“I would have been a very brave man to pull you out of the billabong if I couldn’t.”
Hearing the lightness of his tone, she set her quivering jaw. “Your stupid dog almost drowned me. That wretched animal shouldn’t be roaming free, as I...” Suddenly aware of her skirts hitched over her crinoline, she shook the drenched black fabric to her ankles, shamed by the display of the cage and most of her wet underwear. Mortified that more than her fear showed, she hauled in a shuddering breath. “I’m sure I can have you arrested for trespass and willful destruction,” she muttered, wanting to weep.
He stepped back, his expression amused. “Destruction? I don’t suppose you noticed I saved your life.”
“After your dog attacked me.” Pushing back the curtain of hair dripping over her nose, she began to shiver, a reaction she couldn’t control. “I thought she was a bunyip.”
“A bunyip?” He raised his eyebrows at Girl, who shook off a halo of water droplets, stretched full length, and grinned at him. “A mythical monster?”
She glanced at the hills, backlit by the endless blue sky. “If a jet-black, hairy creature attacked you in a billabong, you might believe in mythical monsters, too.” She swiped her wet sleeve under her nose.
“You weren’t expecting Girl. So you have an excuse.”
Her mind clutching at this justification for her craven behavior, she stared at her lily-white toes. “Nevertheless, please make sure you pen that dog this time.” She kept her tone firm, hoping to reclaim a modicum of dignity.
With his long fingers, he lifted the front of his shirt, finally masking his chest. “She never leaves my side.”
“However, she did leave your side, moments ago, to spring at me.” Ella made contact with his eyes and lost her breath again.
“You gave her such a fright that she won’t again.”
“I gave her a fright?”
“She has expectations of being caught when she leaps. She didn’t expect to sink her ship. Now, since you have fully regained your feet, I will take my leave.” He turned and collected his leather hat from the grass.
Glancing quickly at her bodice, she breathed with relief when she saw the black fabric had remained rigid and opaque. If not her dignity or her feet, at least she had maintained the upper part of her wardrobe.
He jammed his hat on his head, gave a courteous nod, and walked away. Bedraggled and humiliated, she watched him stride off, square-shouldered and lean-hipped, with his jaunty dog trotting at his heel.
Chapter 2
Just