The three of them squeezed into the front seat and, when Chase reappeared, they set off down a fork in the track. Bea could feel the dust gritting her skin already, and her hair felt awful. She couldn’t believe why anyone would choose to live out here. There was nothing but scrub, a few spindly trees and the bare earth, cracked and baking in the heat.
And then Chase swung off the main track, and they suddenly found themselves in an oasis of green. It was so unexpected that Bea actually gasped. Tall trees cast fractured shade over a lawn where a sprinkler flickered. There were lemon trees and great clumps of pink oleanders and purple bougainvillea, and set amidst it all the homestead, a solid, stone building with a deep veranda running around all sides and an air of gracious calm.
‘Oh, it’s beautiful!’ Emily cried.
Bea said nothing, but she had to admit to herself that things might not be quite as bad as she had feared.
Chase drove round the back to a big, dusty yard and parked the ute under a gum tree. From this view the homestead was less impressive. Nobody was wasting water on the working side of the house, with its collection of sheds, its water tanks and windmill.
Inside, though, the homestead was cool and quiet. The floors were of polished wood and the furniture was a comfortable mixture of the antique and the modern. Someone, thought Bea, had a lot of style.
And a lot of money.
Chase dumped their cases in a room with twin beds and looked at his watch. ‘I’ll show you the kitchen,’ he said to Bea, ‘and then leave you to get on with it.’
Leaving Emily to cope with Chloe on her own, he strode back down the corridor, with Bea forced to trot to keep up with him.
‘This is the kitchen,’ he said, opening a door into a large room equipped, to Bea’s relief, with what looked like the latest technology. He pointed through a door on the other side of the room. ‘We eat on the veranda through there.’
‘What, outside?’
‘It’s cooler out there.’
‘Yes, but what about the flies?’
‘It’s screened in,’ said Chase impatiently, as if she was supposed to know that everyone in the outback ate on their verandas. ‘Now, you should find everything you need over there,’ he went on, pointing at a wall of steel fridges and freezers. ‘There’s a larder and a cold store as well. I suggest you keep opening doors until you find what you need. The stockmen will come over for supper at seven o’clock, so you’ll need to have a meal ready by then. Any questions?’
‘“What am I doing here” springs to mind!’ sighed Bea.
Chase frowned. ‘I understood you were a qualified cook.’
‘I am. That doesn’t make me a mind reader!’
He glanced irritably at his watch, impatient to be gone. ‘What do you need to know?’
‘How many I’m cooking for, for a start.’
‘Oh.’ It was a reasonable enough question, Chase allowed grudgingly. ‘Nine of us, plus you two. Chloe eats separately in the evening. She should be in bed by seven.’
‘I’ll tell Emily,’ said Bea sweetly. ‘Any special dietary requirements?’
She was looking straight at him, and Chase saw her eyes properly for the first time. They were golden, the colour of warm honey, and very clear.
‘Meat,’ he said gruffly, annoyed with himself for even noticing. ‘Nothing fancy.’
‘Well, I should be able to cope with that.’
She didn’t even bother to disguise her sarcasm, and Chase shot her a look as he took a hat from the hooks by the door.
‘You’re not much good to me if you can’t,’ he said, and went out, letting the screen door bang behind him.
He didn’t reappear until six o’clock. Bea looked up as the screen door creaked and then went back to slicing carrots vengefully.
The door clattered back into place and Chase hung his hat on a hook. ‘Is everything OK?’
The casual note in his voice infuriated Bea.
‘Oh, yes, everything’s fine!’ she said, tight-lipped, her knife flashing dangerously as it demolished the carrots. ‘We’ve been dumped in the middle of nowhere, with no idea of where anything is or how anything works…and you disappear and just leave us to get on with it!’
‘I thought you wanted to come and work on a cattle station?’
‘Emily wanted to come. Personally, I appreciate a more professional set-up!’
Chase eyed her cautiously. She seemed tense, and he knew from past experience that the last thing you wanted was a tense cook at this stage of the evening. If they wanted to eat tonight, he would have to be careful not to provoke her.
‘You seem to have managed, anyway,’ he said pacifically. ‘Something smells good. Did you find everything you needed?’
‘Eventually,’ said Bea with something of a snap. If she had, it was no thanks to him!
There was a tiny pause.
‘Where’s Emily?’ Chase tried again.
‘Giving Chloe a bath.’
‘Has she been all right?’ Bea reached for another carrot, her edginess at the sight of Chase easing slightly. ‘She seems a bit…wary,’ she said.
There had been a definite sense of wills being measured and in Chloe’s case at least, some calculation as to how much she could get away with. It hadn’t taken her long to realise that the answer was ‘a lot’ as far as Emily was concerned.
Still, it wasn’t her problem, Bea told herself firmly. She had enough to do as it was. Finding your way around a strange kitchen and producing supper for eleven with no warning was problem enough for her!
She had changed, Chase realised. She had replaced those ridiculous shoes with flat sandals and the dress with cotton trousers and a sleeveless top beneath a practical apron. Her hair was pushed behind her ears, and her lashes were lowered as her eyes followed the rapid slicing movements of the knife in her hand.
For some reason Chase felt awkward. ‘She’s a nice kid when she gets to know you,’ he said after a moment. ‘She’s had to get used to a lot of different people passing through, and she tends to take her time before deciding whether she likes you or not. I don’t blame her.’
‘Nor do I.’ Bea looked up from her knife and he was struck again by how clear her eyes were. ‘I do exactly the same.’
Although that wasn’t quite true, was it? She had decided she didn’t like Chase straight away.
There was another pause. Bea reached for another carrot.
‘It must be difficult for Chloe with her mother being away as well as her father. When is she coming back?’
Chase had gone over to the beer fridge, but he stilled with his hand on the door and turned to face her, his brows drawn together. ‘Didn’t Nick explain the situation?’
‘I’ve never met him,’ said Bea. ‘I gathered from Emily that his wife was working in the States and that he’d gone to join her.’
Chase’s hand fell. ‘It’s a bit more complicated than that,’ he said slowly.
Bea paused in mid-slice, and something in his expression made her lay the knife down. ‘What?’
‘Georgie’s left Nick.’
‘Oh,