She wanted to go home.
‘You’re a big girl,’ she told herself, out loud so whatever it was on the roof would get the picture. ‘You need to get in there, front Jack Sexist Connor, find something to eat, get some sleep and then find a way out of this mess.’
The rain had eased for a minute, which was why she’d taken the chance and run out here. It started again, sheeting in under the door.
‘I want to go home,’ she wailed, and the thing on the roof stilled and listened.
And didn’t answer.
He was cooking sausages. Eight fat sausages, Wombat Siding butcher’s finest. He cooked mashed potato and boiled up some frozen peas to go with them.
He set the table with two knives, two forks, a ketchup bottle and two mugs. What more could a man want?
A woman might want more, he conceded, but she wasn’t getting more.
What did he know about what a woman would want? A woman who was supposed to be a man.
She pushed open the door, and his thoughts stopped dead.
She’d been wearing black pants and a tailored wool jacket when she arrived. Her hair had been twisted into a knot. She’d been wearing red ankle boots, with old-fashioned buttons. She’d looked straight out of New York.
Now …
He’d left a pitcher and basin in her bedroom and she’d obviously made use of it. She’d washed—the tendrils of blond curls around her face were damp—and her face was shiny clean with no hint of make-up. She was wearing jeans and an oversize sweater. Her curls hung free to her shoulders.
She was wearing thick, pink socks.
The résumé she’d sent said she was twenty-five years old. Right now she looked about sixteen. Pretty. Really pretty. Also … scared?
Daniel in the lion’s den.
Or woman in Werarra.
Same thing, only he wasn’t a lion. But she couldn’t stay here.
‘Sit down and wrap yourself round something to eat,’ he said roughly, trying to hold to anger.
‘Thank you.’ She sidled into a chair on the far side of the table to him, still looking scared.
‘Three sausages?’
‘One.’
‘Suit yourself.’ He put one sausage onto a chipped plate, added a pile of mash and a heap of peas and put it in front of her. He ladled himself more.
He sat and started eating.
She sat and stared at her plate.
‘What?’ he said.
‘I didn’t lie,’ she said in a small voice.
‘I have the documentation,’ he said, pointing to the pile of papers he’d left on the end of the table. ‘My son. That would be a male.’
‘Nothing in any of my emails to you said I was a guy.’
‘They didn’t have to. I already knew. Your father’s letter. The visa application. My son, the letter said. Plus Alexander. It’s a guy’s name.’
‘Yes,’ she said, and shoved her plate back. ‘It is.’
‘So?’
‘My father doesn’t get on with my older brother.’ She was speaking calmly, in a strangely dull voice, like she’d reached some point and gone past. ‘I’ve never figured why, but there’s nothing anyone can do to fix it. I have two older sisters, and by the time I arrived Dad was desperate for a male heir other than Matt. He was sure I’d be the longed-for son. He planned on calling me Alexander, after his dad, only of course I ended up being Alexandra. So Dad filled in the birth certificate. Maybe he’d had a few drinks. Maybe it was just a slip, or maybe it was anger that I wasn’t what he wanted. I don’t know, but officially I’m Alexander. My family calls me Alexandra but on official stuff, I need to use Dad’s spelling.’ She tilted her chin and tried to glare at him. ‘So … does it matter?’
‘Yes,’ he said flatly. ‘It does. Your father said you were his son. I want to know why he lied.’
‘He made a mistake.’
‘Fathers don’t make that sort of mistake.’
‘They do if they always wanted their daughter to be a boy,’ she said dully. She closed her eyes and clenched her fists. ‘They do if they have Alzheimer’s.’
Silence.
Whatever he’d expected, it wasn’t that. The word hung. She hadn’t wanted to say it, he thought. Admitting your dad was ill … It hurt, he thought. It hurt a lot.
Anger faded. He felt … cruel. Like he’d damaged something.
‘So why does it matter?’ she demanded, hauling herself together with a visible effort. ‘What have you got against women?’
‘Nothing.’
‘I applied for jobs after graduating,’ she said. ‘I want horse work. To work with horses, not ponies, not pets. You try and get a job on a horse ranch when you’re twenty-five and blonde and cute.’
And she said the word cute with such loathing he almost smiled.
‘I can imagine …’
‘No, you can’t,’ she snapped. ‘You’re six feet tall, built like a tank and you’re male. You know nothing at all about what it’s like to want to handle yourself with horses. This job … six months at Werarra Stud … is supposed to give me credibility with the ranchers back home, but you’re just the same as every redneck cowboy know-all who ever told me I can’t do it because I’m a girl.’
‘So you’re prepared to put up with an outhouse for six months?’ he demanded, bemused.
‘Not if it comes with an arrogant, chauvinistic oaf of an employer. And not if I have to eat grease.’ And she shoved her plate across the table at him with force.
He caught it. He piled the sausage and mash absently onto his plate. He thought cute was a really good description.
Don’t go there. This was a mistake he had to get rid of. He did not want to think any woman was cute.
‘So you’ll go home tomorrow,’ he said, and she looked around and he thought if she had another plateful she might just possibly throw it at him.
‘Why should I? I didn’t lie about this job. You did.’
‘I didn’t.’
‘Liar.’
‘I told you it’d be rough.’
‘I assumed you meant no shops. Living in the outback. The house … On the website it looks gorgeous.’
‘That picture was taken eighty years ago. Romantic old homestead.’
‘It’s false advertising.’
‘I’m not advertising my house,’ he said evenly. ‘I’m advertising my horses. I wanted the website to show a sense of history, that Werarra workhorses are part of what this country is.’
‘Show the picture of your outhouse, then,’ she snapped. ‘Very historic.’
‘You’ll starve if you don’t eat.’
‘I couldn’t eat sausages if you paid me.’
‘Don’t tell me—you’re vegan.’
‘I’m not.’
‘Then why …’
‘Because