‘Like lasso a calf. Like mend a fence or fix a water pipe. Like brand a cow without passing out. Like remembering to check the fuel before setting out to drive to town!’ She folded the shopping list sadly in her lap, turning it over and over until it was no more than a tiny square. ‘I’m a liability the moment I step outside the homestead!’
‘You’re just getting used to a different way of doing things,’ said Nat, but Prue refused to be consoled.
‘I’ve already been here three months,’ she grumbled. ‘How much longer is it going to take?’
‘Why does it matter?’ he asked. ‘You can’t help what you are.’
‘But that’s just it! I don’t want to be like me! I was born and brought up in London, but that doesn’t mean I’m condemned to be a city girl my whole life, does it? I don’t want people to think of me as a prissy Pom mincing around the outback, no good for anything except peeling a few potatoes or making a cake. I want to be…’
The kind of girl Ross would fall in love with. The kind of girl he would marry.
She could hardly tell Nat Masterman that, though, could she?
‘…I want to belong,’ she finished instead. She turned to Nat, and he was very aware of the intense, silver-grey gaze on his face. ‘Do you think that’s possible?’
Nat kept his eyes firmly on the track ahead. ‘Why not?’
‘Ross doesn’t think it is.’ Prue dropped her eyes and concentrated on unfolding the shopping list. ‘He thinks you have to be born here to belong. I’ve been trying so hard to prove him wrong, and now I’ve gone and made a fool of myself all over again by forgetting to check the fuel in the car! If you hadn’t come along, it would have looked as if I couldn’t even manage to go into town and pick up a few groceries without them having to come out and rescue me. I know they wouldn’t have been angry, but they’re all so busy at the moment and it would have been a real nuisance…’
She trailed off, imagining the scene if Ross or one of the stockmen had been sent out to find her, and her eyes lifted to Nat’s calm profile once more. ‘That’s why I said you’d saved my life,’ she told him.
‘You know, you’re worried about nothing,’ said Nat. ‘The Grangers like you. They’ve told me so, and they’re not the kind of people who pretend. You’re fun for them to have around and, more importantly, you’re a good cook. They’ve got stockmen to help them outside. What they really want is someone to produce meals for everyone on time, and you can do that. If they don’t want you to be different, why should you?’
‘Because Ross wants me to be different.’ The words were out before Prue could stop them and she bit her lip, turning her head away and letting her hair swing forward so that when Nat glanced at her he could see only the curve of her jaw and the long line of her throat.
‘Are you sure about that?’ he asked dryly after a moment. ‘When I saw the two of you together at Ellie Walker’s wedding, it looked as if he liked you just the way you were.’
Surprise brought Prue’s head round. ‘You were at the wedding?’ She frowned slightly. ‘I didn’t notice you.’
There had been no reason for her to have noticed him, Nat thought without resentment. He didn’t have Ross Granger’s famous looks or charm. He had only noticed her because of the way her eyes had shone that night. It was as if a light had been switched on inside her. She’d seemed to be literally glowing with happiness. Nat remembered wondering what it would be like to have a girl look at him the way Prue had looked at Ross.
‘I got the impression you didn’t notice anyone except Ross,’ he said with a wry sideways look.
It was true. Prue had had eyes only for Ross that night. The other guests, even the bride and groom, had been no more than a background blur to the wonderful, glorious fact that she was with him. It had been a perfect evening. Ross had ignored all the other girls there. He had flirted only with her, danced only with her, and then he had driven her back to Cowen Creek and kissed her in the car outside the homestead.
Prue had been so certain that that night was to prove the beginning of the rest of her life. Ross was everything she’d ever wanted, and for a while she had floated dreamily through the days, imagining how happy they would be together, writing home to tell her family that she had at last found the love of her life.
And she had. It was just that Ross didn’t seem to think that he had found his.
She smoothed the shopping list in her lap. ‘I’m in love with Ross,’ she said in a low voice, unable to resist the urge to talk about him, not quite sure why she had chosen Nat to confide in other than the fact that he seemed so solid and dependable. There was something steady about him, something strong and sure about his hands on the steering wheel.
She had been longing for someone to talk to. The only other woman at Cowen Creek was Ross’s mother, who was very kind but not the sort you could pour your heart out to, and although the jackaroos were more or less her own age, Prue’s mind boggled at the idea of trying to discuss emotions with them. Nat might not be the ideal confidant, but he wouldn’t sigh or sneer or roll his eyes the way the others would. And he wouldn’t gossip. You could tell just by looking at him that gossip, like haste, was an alien concept.
‘I’ve never felt like this about anyone before,’ she went on without looking at him, and now that she had started talking she couldn’t stop. ‘I fell in love with him the moment I saw him, just like in all the books. He was waiting to pick me up when I got off the bus from Alice Springs, and that was it. He’s like a dream come true.’
Prue looked out at the heat shimmering over the saltbush, but she was seeing Ross as he had been that day, with his dancing blue eyes and his devastating smile and that body…
She swallowed at the very thought of him. ‘It’s not just the way he looks,’ she said. ‘He’s funny and he’s charming, but he’s down to earth at the same time…oh, I can’t explain,’ she confessed helplessly, the tumbling words slowing at last. ‘He’s just…the only man I’ll ever want.’
Nat’s gaze flickered to Prue’s face and then back to the track. What was it about Ross? he wondered. He was a good-looking bloke, of course, but there must be something else to reduce a girl like Prue to this kind of state. She was obviously besotted, the way every other girl in the district under the age of thirty seemed to have been besotted with him at one stage or another.
‘What’s the problem?’ he asked.
Prue was taken aback by the sudden question. Thinking about Ross, she had almost forgotten that she was talking to Nat. ‘Problem?’
‘I guess you wouldn’t be telling me this if Ross felt the same way.’
‘No.’ Her shoulders slumped and she sighed. ‘He likes me, I suppose, but he doesn’t love me. As far as Ross is concerned, our relationship will only last as long as my visa. The Grangers get a girl in to cook during the dry season every year, and Ross probably flirts with all of them.’ It was hard to keep the bitterness out of her voice. ‘I’m just the current model.’
Knowing Ross, and the succession of girls who had worked at Cowen Creek, Nat thought it was more than likely, but he didn’t think that Prue would want to hear that.
‘Ross is all right,’ he said uncomfortably. ‘He’s just young.’
‘He’s twenty-seven, two years older than me. It’s not that young.’
‘It’s not that old either. There’s plenty of time before Ross needs to think about settling down.’
‘And when he does, he’s going to pick a good outback girl who’ll make him a practical wife,’ said Prue miserably.
Nat thought that was more than likely, too. For all his charm of manner, Ross had always struck him as having a hard head