Gray’s gaze came back to rest on Clare. The straight dark hair that swung below her jaw was pushed wearily behind her ears, and there were shadows beneath the great silvery eyes. She looked bruised and exhausted, and when she looked up at him it was clear that only the stubborn strength of her will was keeping her going.
‘I think it would be better if you went back to England and waited for Jack there,’ he said gruffly.
Clare straightened from the rail. ‘I’m not going to do that,’ she told him quite simply. ‘Alice and I only arrived yesterday, and even if I could face turning round and getting back on that plane for another twenty-three hours, I wouldn’t. I couldn’t afford to bring Alice back to Australia again when Jack finally turns up, and if he does decide to accept responsibility for her, I’d want to be able to stay with her for a while until she settles.’
‘So what are you going to do?’
‘Can’t we come back to Bushman’s Creek with you?’
There was a pause. Gray looked down into pleading eyes the colour of pale smoke and ringed with black, as if someone had taken a dark pen to outline each iris, and turned almost abruptly away.
‘Bushman’s Creek isn’t a suitable place for you or the baby,’ he said brusquely.
‘Are you trying to tell me that there are no women or children in the outback?’
‘I’m trying to tell you that conditions on the station are very different to what you’re used to,’ said Gray with an edge to his voice. ‘It takes nearly forty minutes to fly there from here, and it’s over two hours by road. In the Wet, the only way you can get in and out is by plane. You’d be a very long way from shops and doctors and all the other things you probably take for granted, and, quite frankly, I haven’t the time to look after you at the moment. This is one of the busiest times of the year.
‘I’ve got fifteen thousand head of cattle out there,’ he went on, nodding his head at the distant horizon. ‘They’ve all got to be mustered in so that we can deal with them and draft out the sale cattle. The last cook-cum-housekeeper left several weeks ago, and nobody’s done any cleaning since. We’re taking it in turns to cook, and the kindest way to describe meals at the moment is “basic”.’
He shook his head. ‘I think you’d find the conditions too uncomfortable,’ he told Clare bluntly. ‘If you don’t want to go home, you’d be better off taking Alice to one of the resorts on the coast and waiting there until Jack gets back.’
‘I don’t think I can afford to do that, either.’ Clare flushed, humiliated at having to admit how precarious her financial situation was. ‘I’ve got a good job at home, but Pippa had never managed to save any money, and babies are expensive little things. And then when Pippa was ill, and I had to take time off to look after her and Alice, I used up the savings I had. I bought our ticket out here on credit as it was.’ She bit her lip. ‘I just don’t see how I could manage staying in a hotel or renting a house without knowing when Jack was going to get your message.
‘Besides,’ she went on bravely, ‘it sounds as if I could be useful to you.’
Gray’s unsettling brown gaze travelled from her earrings down over the stylishly simple dress to her strappy sandals. ‘Useful?’ he echoed, lifting one brow in a way that brought a flush to her cheeks. ‘In what way?’
His expression didn’t change, but she knew that he was amused. It was something to do with the deepening of a dent at the corner of his mouth, a creasing at the edges of his eyes, the faintest of glimmers in the unfathomable eyes. If he thought she was funny, she thought illogically, he might at least have the decency to smile properly!
She put up her chin. ‘I could be your housekeeper,’ she said with a shade of defiance. ‘I’m perfectly capable of cooking and cleaning.’
In response, Gray reached out and took hold of her hands. Turning them over, he ran his thumbs consideringly over her palms. ‘It doesn’t look as if you do very much rough work.’
His touch was quite impersonal, but Clare was disconcerted to feel her skin tingling. His hands were strong, cool and callused and very brown against the paleness of her English skin. It was as if his fingers were charged with electricity, sending tiny shocks shivering all the way up her arm, and she snatched her hands away, furious to find herself blushing.
‘Herding a few cows around is easy compared to looking after a baby for twenty-four hours a day,’ she snapped, to cover her confusion. ‘I’m used to getting my hands dirty.’
‘You’re not used to the heat and the dust and the flies and the boredom,’ Gray pointed out, apparently unperturbed by the way she had pulled her hands out of his. ‘I’m not sure you realise how tough things can be out there.’
Not quite sure what to do with her hands now that she had freed them, Clare folded her arms in an unconsciously defensive pose. ‘I’m tougher than I look,’ she said.
Gray was unimpressed. ‘I’m talking about physical toughness, and right now you don’t look very tough to me.’ He eyed Clare critically. ‘You look as if you’re about to collapse.’
‘I’ve got jet-lag,’ she said, wondering why she could still feel her hands burning where he had touched her. ‘We only arrived in Australia yesterday morning, and I haven’t been able to rest much since then. I’ll be fine after a good night’s sleep.
‘Look,’ she went on persuasively, seeing that Gray still looked unconvinced, ‘I may not be your ideal housekeeper, but you said yourself that you haven’t the time to find anyone else, and I’m prepared to work hard in return for accommodation. I won’t get in your way. To be honest, I’d rather have something to do to keep my mind off things.’
She hesitated. ‘You’ve been very frank about the conditions on the station. I can’t say I’m going to like it out there—I’m not like Pippa; I’ve never enjoyed roughing it—but I’ll do whatever I have to to get to Bushman’s Creek.’
‘Why are you so keen to get there if you don’t think you’re going to like it?’ he asked.
‘Because I can’t afford to do anything else,’ said Clare, pushing her hair wearily behind her ear. ‘Because I want to see the place that meant so much to Pippa. If conditions are as unsuitable as you say, it may be that I’ll have to take Alice home with me, but I need to see for myself. If, on the other hand, I think it’s somewhere she could grow up safely and happily, I could make sure that she’s settled by the time Jack gets back. And, to be perfectly frank,’ she finished, ‘because I just want to stop for a while. I want to stop travelling, stop thinking, just…stop.’
‘If I let you come, I don’t want you to take anything for granted,’ Gray warned, but she could see that he was relenting. ‘Jack will have to make a decision about Alice when he gets home. Nobody else can do it for him.’
‘I know.’ Clare tried a smile. ‘Please…?’
‘Oh, all right,’ he said almost irritably. ‘You can come—but on one condition.’
Clare would have agreed to anything just then. ‘What is it?’
‘Alice’s relationship to Jack has to remain secret until he chooses to tell people about it. I don’t want him coming home to find that everyone knows that he’s supposedly a father except him. As far as anyone else you meet there is concerned, you’re just at Bushman’s Creek as a housekeeper. You rang me up last night to ask if there might be a job, and I’ve come in to pick you up.’
Clare thought about it. It seemed fair enough, under the circumstances. ‘All right,’ she agreed. It sounded a little grudging. She couldn’t blame Gray for being cautious and wanting to protect his brother’s interests, but at least he hadn’t rejected Alice out of hand.
‘Thank you,’ she said gratefully,