‘It’s clear that I’m making you unhappy,’ he’d said in a cold, clipped voice she’d never heard before.
And how could Ellie deny it? She had been unhappy, and she’d taken her unhappiness out on Joe, but that hadn’t meant she wanted to be rid of him.
‘Do you really want a divorce?’ she’d asked him and, although she’d been crying on the inside, for the sake of her pride, she’d kept a brave face.
‘I think it’s the only solution,’ Joe had said. ‘We can’t go on like this. Maybe you’ll have better luck with another guy.’
She didn’t want another man, but why would Joe believe that when she’d been so obviously miserable?
‘What would you do?’ she’d asked instead. ‘Where would you go? What would we do about Karinya?’
He’d been scarily cool and detached. ‘You can make up your mind about Karinya, but I’ll apply to join the Army.’
She hadn’t known how to fight this. ‘The Army was what you wanted all along, wasn’t it? It was what you were planning before we met.’
Joe didn’t deny this.
It was then she’d known the awful truth. Falling for her had been an aberration. A distraction.
If she hadn’t been pregnant, they wouldn’t have married...
The bitter memories wrung a groan from Ellie and, beside her in the darkness, Jacko stirred, throwing out an arm and smacking her on the nose. He didn’t wake up and she rolled away, staring moodily into the black night, thinking about Joe lying in his swag on the study floor. He’d insisted on sleeping there rather than in Nina’s room.
‘It’s only for one night,’ he’d said. ‘Not worth disturbing her things.’
Ellie wondered if Joe was asleep, or whether he was also lying there thinking about their past.
Unlikely.
No doubt he was relieved to be finally and permanently free of her. He certainly wouldn’t be as mixed-up and tied in knots as she was.
* * *
Joe didn’t want to think about Ellie. She was part of his past, just as the Army was now. Every time visions of her white nightdress arrived, he forcibly erased them.
He’d signed the final papers.
Ellie. Was. No. Longer. His. Wife.
And yet...
Annoyingly, he felt a weight that felt like grief pressing on his chest. Grief for their loss, and for their failure, for their past mistakes and for how things used to be at the beginning.
And, despite his best efforts, he couldn’t stop the blasted memories.
He’d been a goner from the moment he first saw Ellie, which was pretty bizarre, given that his first sighting had been at long distance.
Ellie had been walking with her back to him at the far end of their tiny town’s one and only shopping street. And, from the start, there’d been something inescapably alluring about her. The glossy swing of her dark hair and the jaunty sway of her neat butt in long-legged blue jeans had completely captured his attention.
Of course, it was totally the worst time for Joe to become romantically entangled. He’d been on the brink of joining the Army. After struggling unsuccessfully to find his place in the large Madden family, overrun with strapping sons, he’d been lured by the military’s promise of adventure and danger.
So, on that day that was etched forever in his memory, he should have been able to ignore Ellie’s attractions. He should have finished his errands in town and headed back to their cattle property. And perhaps he would have done that if Jerry Bray hadn’t chosen that exact moment to step out of the stock and station agency to speak to Ellie.
Jealousy was a strange and fierce emotion, Joe swiftly discovered. He hadn’t even met this girl, hadn’t yet seen her front-on, hadn’t discovered the bewitching sparkle in her eyes. And yet he was furious with Jerry for chatting her up.
To Joe’s huge relief, Jerry’s boss interrupted his employee’s clumsy attempts at flirtation and called him back inside.
Alone once more, Ellie continued on to the Bluebird Café, and this was a golden opportunity Joe couldn’t let pass.
After a carefully calculated interval, he followed her into the café, found her sitting alone at one of the tables, drinking a milkshake and engrossed in a women’s magazine.
She looked up when he walked in and Joe saw her face for the first time. Saw her eyes, the same lustrous dark brown as her hair, saw her finely arched eyebrows, her soft pale skin, the sweet curve of her mouth, her neat chin. She was even lovelier than he’d imagined.
And then she smiled.
And zap. Joe was struck by the proverbial lightning flash. His skin was on fire, his heart was a skyrocket.
‘So what d’ya want?’ asked Bob Browne, the café’s proprietor.
Joe stared at him blankly, unable, for a moment, to think. It was as if his mind had been wiped clean by the dark-eyed girl’s smile.
Bob gave a knowing smirk and rolled his eyes. ‘She’s not on the menu.’
Ignoring this warning, Joe shrugged and ordered a hamburger and a soft drink. Unable to help himself, he crossed the café to the girl’s table. ‘Hi,’ he said.
‘Hello.’ This time, when she smiled, he saw the most fetching dimple.
‘You must be new around here. I don’t think we’ve met. I’m Joe Madden.’
‘Ellie Saxby,’ she supplied without hesitation.
Ellie Saxby. Ellie. Had there ever been a more delightful name?
‘Are you staying around here?’ he asked super-casually.
‘I’m working for the Ashtons. As a jillaroo.’
Better and better.
There was a spare chair at Ellie Saxby’s table. ‘OK if I sit here?’ Joe was again carefully, casually polite.
Ellie rewarded him with another dazzling smile. ‘Sure.’
Her eyes were shining, her cheeks flushed. The atmosphere was so electric, Joe felt as if he was walking on clouds.
And yet there was nothing remarkable about that first conversation. Joe was too dazed to think of anything very clever to say. But he and Ellie chatted easily about where they lived and why they’d come to town.
By the time his hamburger arrived, he was halfway in love with Ellie and she was giving out all the right signals. They left the café together and Joe walked with her to her vehicle.
They exchanged phone numbers and Ellie remained standing beside her car, as if she wasn’t ready to drive away.
She looked so alluring, with her sparkling eyes and shiny hair, her soft skin and pretty mouth.
Joe had never been particularly forward with girls, but he found himself saying, ‘Look, I know we’ve just met, and this out of line, but I really need to—’
He didn’t even finish the sentence. He simply leaned in and kissed her. Ellie tasted as fresh as spring and, to his amazed relief, she returned his kiss with just the right level of enthusiasm, and a simple hello, exploratory kiss became the most thrilling, most electrifying kiss ever.
It was the start of a whirlwind romance. Before the week was out, he and Ellie had found an excuse to meet again and, within the first month, they drove together to Rockhampton for dinner and a movie, followed by a night in a motel, which proved to be a night of blazing, out of this