She looked cool and capable and utterly ridiculous. If she were holding up a card screaming ‘city girl’ in glaring letters, she could hardly have made it clearer that she was completely out of place.
Hal had no time for city girls.
He settled his hat on his head. ‘Is that it?’ he asked.
Meredith’s head jerked up at that and she stared at him. Her eyes, Hal realised with an odd jolt, were a deep, dark blue and very beautiful.
‘I’d hardly have come all the way out from England to ask one question, would I?’ she said tartly before she could stop herself. ‘Of course that’s not it!’
Hearing the irritation in her voice too late, Meredith made herself stop and draw a breath. She had to ask him a favour and she wasn’t going the right way about it, but honestly! It must be perfectly obvious she needed more than to hear that Lucy was OK.
She had been travelling for what seemed like days and she was hot and worried and woozy with jetlag. Why couldn’t he just be nice and offer to take her to Lucy, preferably on a magic carpet that would transport her there in an instant because if she had to travel an inch more she was going to crumple into a heap and cry with exhaustion?
But crumpling wasn’t an option and nor was crying. It never was, in Meredith’s experience, although other people she knew seemed to get away with both on plenty of occasions.
So she straightened her shoulders, folded her sunglasses and pinned what she hoped was a conciliatory smile on her face.
‘The thing is, I need to see Lucy,’ she said. ‘I’d hoped to hire a car to get me to Wirrindago, but Bill tells me that’s not practical.’
‘It’s more than not practical. It’s irresponsible and stupid,’ said Hal flatly. ‘You weren’t seriously planning to set off on your own into the bush?’
‘I presume there are roads,’ said Meredith, hating the fact that she sounded defensive.
‘Not the kind of roads you’re used to,’ he said. ‘There aren’t a lot of signs either. You wouldn’t last five minutes.’
Meredith stiffened. If there was one thing she hated, it was being told that she couldn’t do something, but she folded her lips on a snappy retort just in time. She couldn’t afford to alienate him any more than she had apparently done just by standing there, or she would be stuck here in Whyman’s Creek, and that was the last thing she wanted.
‘No, well, that’s more or less what Bill said,’ she conceded. ‘Which is why I need your help.’ She drew a breath. ‘I was wondering if you could take me with you when you go back to Wirrindago.’
‘You want to come to Wirrindago?’ His hard grey gaze swept dismissively over her and Meredith stiffened. There was no need for him to make it quite that clear what he thought of her. ‘I don’t think it’s your kind of place,’ he said.
‘I don’t think it’s likely to be my kind of place either,’ she retorted sharply, given that conciliation didn’t seem to be getting her anywhere. ‘That’s not the point. The point is that I need to talk to my sister, and unless I want to hang around here until the weekend on the off-chance that she’ll come in to town, I’ll just have to get myself there, and you seem to be my best chance.’
She stared down at him with angry blue eyes. ‘I’ll pay for petrol if it helps,’ she told him, and Hal’s black brows drew even closer together at the thinly veiled contempt in her voice.
‘There’s no question of payment,’ he snapped. ‘Of course I’ll take you back with me, since you insist, but you’re going to have to wait. I’ve got several jobs to do while I’m here.’
‘Perhaps I could help you?’ suggested Meredith, not much liking the idea of yet more waiting. She had been hanging around Whyman’s Creek long enough. ‘Jobs are usually quicker with two,’ she pointed out. ‘If you’ve got a list, I could do your shopping, or—’
‘I don’t think so.’ Hal cut her off.
He could think of nothing worse than trying to get through everything he had to do with this woman trotting along beside him in her stupid shoes and no doubt trying to organise him with that English voice. She looked the bossy type, and Hal didn’t like bossy women any more than he liked city girls.
‘You stay here,’ he ordered. ‘I’ll come and get you when I’ve finished.’
‘Well, then, could we arrange a time for you to pick me up?’ suggested Meredith, who liked to have a plan.
‘No, we couldn’t,’ said Hal as he turned to go. ‘If you want to come back to Wirrindago with me, you’re just going to have to wait.’
Charming.
Huffily, Meredith watched him stride off. It wouldn’t have killed him to give her some indication of how long he was going to be, would it?
She turned back to the veranda with a sigh. It looked like being a long wait.
And it was. Meredith couldn’t believe how one man could contrive to spend so much time in Whyman’s Creek. Five minutes had been enough for her, but Hal Granger seemed capable of keeping himself busy there for hours.
It felt like hours anyway.
Anxious in case he forgot about her, Meredith brought out her suitcase and stayed on the pub veranda to keep a vigilant watch on the street. It wasn’t hard to follow him as he moved between the store and the bank and what Bill had told her was the stock agent’s office. Whyman’s Creek wasn’t the kind of town where crowds thronged the streets. In fact, sometimes Hal Granger was the only person in sight and Meredith was sure he was deliberately taking his time to keep her waiting.
Irritably, she waved the flies from her face. It was incredibly hot, even in the shade, and she wanted nothing more than to lie down somewhere cool and go to sleep for a week. In spite of the discomfort, her eyelids kept closing and she had to jerk herself awake. The moment she fell asleep she knew Hal Granger would have driven off to Wirrindago without her, claiming that she ‘wasn’t ready’.
So she took out her laptop and tried to concentrate on some work, but it was hard when Hal’s tall, austere figure kept catching at the corner of her eye as he crossed the street or came out of the store, and his grim features seemed to shimmer between her eyes and the computer screen. Those pale, almost silvery eyes were definitely striking and while Meredith didn’t think that she had noticed the angular planes of his face or the set of his mouth particularly, it was amazing how clearly she could picture them now.
Amazing and more than a little disturbing.
She had managed to download her emails in Brisbane the night before, but she was so tired that the words blurred on the screen and she was very close to dozing off in spite of everything when Hal came out of the store opposite and got into the truck.
Jerking upright, Meredith got ready to run after him, but it turned out that he hadn’t forgotten her after all. He threw the truck into a wide U-turn and stopped at the bottom of the pub steps.
Hastily, Meredith shoved her laptop into its case and reached for her suitcase but, to her surprise, Hal Granger was already there.
‘I’ll take it,’ he said abruptly.
‘Really, I can manage perf—’ she began, but he ignored her, carrying the case down the steps and tossing it into the back of the truck with insulting ease.
‘—fectly well,’ Meredith finished under her breath as she followed him. She had already taken a fond farewell of Bill, who was delighted to hear that she expected to be back again very soon. She would be back with Lucy or she would be on her own, but either way she didn’t intend to spend any longer in the outback than she had to.
‘Do you want me to take that?’ Hal nodded at her laptop.
Meredith eyed the back of the