Bazza’s drawl and thick accent forced her to listen hard to understand his words. Aware of Luke standing slightly behind her, waiting, she searched for a tactful remark. “I don’t get to a lot of movies.”
Len spoke. “You’re Anne Hafford’s daughter.”
“Yes,” she said, happily seizing on a link with reality. “Mom told me about you. Well, she didn’t actually tell me anything. Just that I should say hello if I saw you. It’s so cool to meet someone from her childhood. Did you know her very well?”
He smiled blandly. “A little. For a while.”
She couldn’t read his face so she just babbled on. “She’ll be so pleased I met you. And on my very first day, too. I’ll tell her you said hello, shall I?”
There was a long pause. “If you like.”
Behind her, Luke cleared his throat. She glanced back and he nodded toward the four-wheel-drive. Sure, Sarah thought, as she turned to follow him, why waste words? She’d used enough for all four of them. “Nice meeting you,” she said again over her shoulder to Bazza and Len.
When she was a few steps away she heard Bazza say in a low voice obviously not meant for her ears, “Not hard on the old peepers, but a bit of a dag, don’t you reckon?”
Sarah couldn’t make out Len’s softly spoken reply. Dag? she thought, and strode after Luke. What the heck was a dag? Or had he said dog? She’d never been called a dog before.
Luke was placing her bags in the back of the Land Cruiser. “Is he for real?” she asked.
“Bazza?” Luke smiled. “Ever since he got a bit part in that movie he’s been waiting for a call from Spielberg. Thinks he’s bloody Crocodile Dundee. Don’t pay any attention.”
“He doesn’t bother me,” she said. It was Len she found unsettling. She’d give anything to know what had gone on between him and her mother.
She climbed in on the passenger side and strapped herself in, noticing with dismay that her top and skirt were dusted with fine red earth. So much for first impressions. She tried to brush the earth off and it smeared, staining the pale fabric. Perfect.
She caught Luke staring at her. “It’s okay. Rust is my color. What’s a dag?”
One corner of his mouth lifted. “Don’t worry about it.”
He started the vehicle and drove through town—a trip that took all of ten seconds.
Sarah flipped down the sunshade to reduce the glare and kept her gaze firmly fixed on the truck’s interior. Her discomfort at being surrounded by the wide-open spaces was increasing instead of easing. After this, Burrinbilli had better be good.
Be positive, she chided herself. Be the little Aussie battler your mother taught you to be.
After this, Burrinbilli would be damn good.
LUKE DROVE in silence, thinking about poor Wal, who’d been left at home in case Sarah Templestowe was afraid of dogs, and how pathetic his life must be if he felt less comfortable with a woman seated beside him instead of Wal. He rubbed his jaw, unused to being smooth-shaven in the middle of the day.
“Mustering is like a roundup, right?” Sarah asked.
Damn, he’d forgotten to put up the notice in Len’s store advertising for a muster cook. “That’s right. Normally we muster during winter, when it’s cooler. Cattle don’t like working in this heat.”
“Why the delay?”
“I broke my leg in a tractor accident a couple months back. Took a while to heal.”
“Oh, I’m sorry. What kind of cows do you—we—own?”
“Santa Gertrudis.”
“Oh.”
He glanced sideways and caught her mild frown. No doubt cows were like cars to a city-bred woman—identified by color rather than breed or model. “They’re the solid reddish-brown ones. Originated in Texas.”
“Oh. And the cattle yards you mentioned on the phone are…?”
“Where we hold the cattle after we bring them in from the run—for branding, drenching, cutting out the yearling bulls—whatever needs doing.” He realized she was actually listening. Maybe she was interested in the station. Well, it would justify her father’s hanging on to it all these years, but it didn’t bode well for him buying her out. “Do you ride?”
She hesitated, casting a lightning-swift glance out the window. “Er, once or twice at summer camp. I don’t suppose that counts.”
“I could find you a gentle mount.”
“You don’t have to worry about entertaining me,” she added quickly. “I’m only here for a short time and I’m sure I’ll have way too much to do to be a tourist.”
“Fine.” It was all he could do just taking care of the station and dealing with Becka.
“How far is it to Burrinbilli?” she asked.
“Eighty kilometers or thereabouts. This grassy plains country we’re driving through is called the Downs.” His gaze slipped sideways again, to see her lightly freckled nose wrinkle as she engaged in mental calculations. Her cheek was smeared with dust and her clothes a disaster. Her auburn hair was twisted up at the back, but the ends sprayed out in a spiky arc from the plastic thing that clamped it in place.
He smiled. Bazza was right. She did look a bit of a dag. Still, clean her up and she’d be bonza—tall, with long, strong limbs. He liked a woman who didn’t look as if she might snap in a stiff breeze. She had the warm coloring that went with auburn hair and the clearest green eyes he’d ever seen.
“Why, that’s…fifty miles!” she exclaimed. She whipped her head around to look through the rear window at the road down which they’d come. “Please don’t tell me Murrum is the nearest town.”
“Didn’t you know that?”
“I knew it was a long way from Burrinbilli to the town, but from what my mother said, Murrum was a bustling place.”
“Things have changed since your mother’s day.” He couldn’t keep the trace of bitterness out of his voice. “First the train stopped coming through. Then the banks pulled out. Then we lost the post office and the government offices were relocated. Wasn’t much left after that except the pub, the petrol station and the general store. Oh, and the church. They share that around the various religions.”
She shook her head sympathetically. “Economic rationalism strikes again.”
She was right, but something in him didn’t want her feeling sorry for the place he called home. “Some folks say Murrum’s picking up again. Tourism and such.”
There was the briefest pause. “I’m sure it is.”
Luke had spent enough time in cities to know what she must be thinking: why would anyone live out here? It wasn’t something city folk understood. Not many people who came from the “big smoke” stayed long to discover the attraction. Rose had stayed. But Rose had married Tony, the owner of the pub. Luke couldn’t see someone like Sarah settling down with anyone around here.
“How long did you say you were here for?”
“I’ve taken my two weeks’ annual leave. I’ve also got a few weeks’ worth of flextime owing me, but I’m hoping to be home before the end of the month.”
He reckoned she’d be long gone before that. Bazza and Len each had five dollars on the departure date. They’d wanted to cut him in, but seeing as she was staying at his house, he didn’t think it right to participate.
But it wasn’t just his house, he realized.