The station headquarters came into view then, just a dot on the horizon that grew steadily larger with every passing mile. Long moments later, the mailman Russell had hitched a ride with just outside of Roo Springs pulled up before the main house in a swirl of dust. “Here you are, mate,” he said, frowning at the house. “The place looks deserted.”
Russell had to agree. Set in the middle of the barren plain without so much as a single tree to offer shade, the large, two-story frame house appeared empty. There were no cars in sight, and nothing moved but the dust stirred up by the wind.
Shooting him a frown, the mailman arched a dark brow at him. “You sure you’re expected? Lise usually sticks close to the house when company’s coming. She doesn’t get many visitors way out here in the bush.”
If anyone would know Lise’s schedule, Russell figured it would be the mailman. Roo Springs was the closest town to the station—if you could call a wide spot in the road with fifty inhabitants a town—and there was only one mailman to deliver the mail. There was probably little that went on within a two-hundred-mile radius that the older man didn’t know about.
“I didn’t know exactly when I would be arriving,” Russell replied, which was the truth. “I’ll just unload my stuff and wait on the front porch until she gets back.”
The postman, who was as thin and scrawny as the scraggly bushes planted in the dust in the yard, looked anything but convinced. “I don’t know, mate. It’s a warm day, and you being a Yank and all, you should be inside out of the heat. Let me see if I can raise somebody.” And with no more warning than that, he laid on the horn.
Wincing, Russell swore. Damn idiot! He’d hoped he’d have a chance to look around the place without being observed, but then again, he hadn’t expected to arrive with horns blaring like the leader of a damn parade, either! This was great. Just great!
Muttering under his breath, he started to tell the old man to lay off, but then his eyes fell on the corral next to the barn on the far side of the house. His heart stopped dead in his chest at the sight of a woman nearly under the hooves of what appeared to be a wild mustang rearing on its hind legs. Frightened by the horn, its eyes wide, the horse looked ready to stomp her into the ground.
Later, Russell never remembered moving. One second, he was all set to chew out the mailman and the next, he was out of the vehicle and charging across the compound at a dead run toward the corral.
If someone had asked him then what she looked like, he couldn’t have said. All he saw was a woman in trouble. Hopping the fence, he swept her up into his arms like she weighed no more than a feather and set her out of harm’s way on the other side of the corral fence.
Only then did he take a good look at her, and what he saw infuriated him. She was a big girl, five feet eleven if she was an inch, with a cloud of auburn hair that fell nearly to her waist and skin that was rose-petal soft under his hands. Tanned from working outside, her eyes as blue as the sky, she was trim and fit and had the kind of fresh-faced, subtle beauty that a lot of men often overlooked. Not Russell. In the stark barrenness of the outback, she was an unexpected treasure…that had almost been stomped into the ground by a horse that was no doubt as wild as a March hare.
Infuriated at the thought, he released her abruptly, but only to snap, “What the hell do you think you’re doing, woman? Trying to get yourself killed? Don’t you have any better sense than to step into a corral with a monster like that? You could have been killed!”
Her heart still pounding from the shock of being swept off her feet by a giant of a man who’d appeared out of nowhere, Lise could only stare at him like a starstruck teenager who’d lost her tongue. For most of her life, she’d been at least eye level with every man she met—it wasn’t often that she had to look up to one. But this one towered over her by at least five inches and had the broadest shoulders she’d ever seen. In a matter of seconds, he did something to her that no man had ever done before…he made her feel small and delicate. It was a heady feeling.
Then his words registered.
Outrage sparked in her eyes like a summer thunderstorm. The nerve of the man! This was her station, dammit, and if he thought she was going to stand there and let him yell at her like she was a two-year-old who didn’t have the sense to come in out of the rain, he could think again!
“Hold it right there, mister! I don’t know who the hell you think you are, but for your information, I had everything under control until you came charging in here like Indiana Jones!”
“The hell you did!”
“And Thunder’s not a monster! He was just startled. If you hadn’t blown your damn horn—”
“I didn’t! That was the mailman’s idea. But don’t go blaming him. He thought the place was deserted. If you hadn’t been in the corral in the first place, this never would have happened. Anyone with eyes can see that that horse is wild, and you’ve got no business going anywhere near him!”
That was the wrong thing to say. Lise considered herself an easygoing woman, but no man was going to tell her where she could and couldn’t go on her own station. Her blue eyes narrowing dangerously, she almost purred her words. “Oh, really? We’ll see about that!” And before he could stop her, she slipped through the wooden rails of the corral fence and approached the still spooked horse without an ounce of fear.
Behind her, she heard her rescuer swear and start to follow her into the corral, but she never took her eyes off the mustang. Still half wild, he could, if he chose, pound her into the dust if she made one wrong move. She didn’t. Talking to the animal soothingly, she sweet-talked him into letting her touch him, and before he knew what she was about, she had him bridled.
Triumphant, she turned to her visitor with an arch look. “You were saying?”
Russell couldn’t help but be impressed, and too late he realized he may have stepped over the line. This had to be Lise Meldrum, Simon’s daughter and the manager of the place. He’d planned to charm her into liking him so he could get on her good side and pump her for everything he could about her father, and here he was yelling at her, instead! Talk about a bonehead move. What the devil was wrong with him? He was good at what he did—he didn’t usually make those kind of mistakes. But then again, he didn’t usually come across a beautiful woman caught under the hooves of a frightened horse, either.
Which has nothing to do with anything, a voice in his head growled. Remember your mission.
Silently cursing himself for the reminder he shouldn’t have needed, he forced himself to relax and step into the cover of Steve Trace. For the rest of his stay in Australia, he would answer to nothing but Steve. And it would help him assume his new identity by convincing himself that his name was Steve—not Russell.
Giving her a teasing smile, he said wryly, “Did I say what I thought I just did? It must be the heat—it’s fried my brain. Can you forgive me? Obviously you know what you’re doing. Of course, I would have won Thunder’s trust with some sugar before I took a chance on stepping back into the corral when he was still so skittish, but I know women like to do things their own way. And that’s okay,” he said, grinning when steam practically poured from her ears. “You’re the boss.”
Stepping over to the corral fence, he extended his hand to her over the top rail, his gray eyes glinting devilishly. “You must be Lise. Your father told me you’d be running the place. I’m Steve Trace, your new cattle drover. Or at least, I am if you don’t can my hide for this stunt. You just scared the hell out of me, and I overreacted. Can you forgive me?”
Gritting her teeth, Lise looked him over, taking in his chiseled good looks, the long chestnut hair worn in a ponytail, the bold glint in his gray eyes and told herself she shouldn’t forgive him. She knew his kind. He was a charming flirt who’d been talking his way out of tight situations from the time he was a little boy and he’d first learned he could