‘Really?’
‘Does that surprise you?’ he asked, sliding a quick glance her way.
‘I was expecting you to say that you moved here from another cattle property in Queensland.’ Bustling, metropolitan Sydney was as alien to this environment as her own home in Melbourne. ‘Coming here must have been a big change for you.’
Seth nodded. ‘I came after my father died, to live with my uncle.’
‘So it was a very big change,’ Amy said quietly, and she was unexpectedly moved by the thought of him as a grieving, lonely boy, on the cusp of adolescence, leaving his friends in the city to live so far away.
She wanted to ask him about his mother. Why hadn’t she been able to look after him when his father died? Why had he been moved into an uncle’s care?
A glance at the set lines in Seth’s face, however, silenced further questions.
The rain continued as they drove on.
The relentless downpour and Seth’s rather grim silence were enough to make Amy feel sorry for herself. It wasn’t her habit to be self-pitying, but the weeks since Rachel’s accident had been rough and she wasn’t quite sure how she’d managed, actually.
She’d made the decision to care for Bella swiftly. On the night of the accident she’d gone to Rachel’s house, numb with shock, and paid the sitter, then tiptoed into the little room where Bella lay innocently asleep.
She’d looked down at the little girl’s soft, chubby-cheeked face, at her closed eyes and her soft, dark eyelashes and her heart had almost broken.
There’d been no question. She had to devote herself to caring for Rachel’s daughter. A succession of babysitters could never provide the round-the-clock security and stability a two-year-old needed.
But the transition from marketing to motherhood hadn’t been easy, especially when in the midst of it all, Amy’s boyfriend, Dominic, had suggested that they both needed time out…to give each other some space.
Amy had known it was the thin edge of the wedge that would crack their relationship irreparably apart. Dominic was jealous of the closeness she’d quickly developed with Bella. He’d started to snap at the little girl when she’d innocently interrupted his computer games. Being upfront as usual, Amy had told him that things had to change now that Bella had arrived.
In the end they’d had the most appallingly ugly and bitter row over Bella. Dominic couldn’t see why Amy should automatically assume responsibility.
The fact that she’d been named as Bella’s guardian was a mere technicality, he said. It didn’t mean she had to care for the child day in, day out—which proved that, after almost twelve months together, he didn’t really know Amy at all.
She’d reminded him that he was living in her house, that she always had to jog his memory to get him to pay for his share of the food, the phone and the electricity, and she’d also let him know how annoying it was when he disappeared into the spare room and spent hours on computer games, racking up a huge Internet bill as well.
Whether Dominic had left her or whether she’d finally shown him the door was academic now. The whole catastrophe had been draining, and Amy might have collapsed in a complete heap if Bella hadn’t been so resilient and such an utter darling.
It was amazing how quickly the little girl had transferred her trust to Amy, and the nights when she’d cried for her mummy had gradually lessened, but it still cut Amy to the core that she was now the focus of the little girl’s love, the love that rightly belonged to Rachel.
She’d get weepy, though, if she thought too much about that.
For much of the journey the vehicle rattled down a long straight track, which every so often climbed a low hill, then dipped down again to cross a rising creek. Yesterday, on her journey north to Tamundra, the creeks had been mere trickles, but already these gullies had begun to swell with fast-flowing muddy water.
Seth drove in silence and Amy felt the beginnings of a tension headache. She let her head fall back and tried again to relax as she watched the rain slide down her window. Every so often she caught the blurred outlines of cattle hunched together in mobs, looking desolate. A stalwart few continued to graze, apparently untroubled by the driving rain.
Bella woke up and was immediately chirpy and eager.
‘Moo cow!’ she announced importantly. And then ‘Moo! Moo!’ over and over.
Amy stole glances in Seth’s direction and she was quietly pleased to catch him smiling at Bella’s enthusiasm.
He looked incredibly gorgeous when he smiled.
Amy wondered if he’d been infatuated by Rachel. Most guys had been. Had there been other girlfriends since? She supposed there wouldn’t be too many available women here in the wilderness, but perhaps there was a beautiful girl who waited impatiently in Cairns for Seth’s visits.
‘How long were you and Rachel friends?’ Seth asked suddenly, much to Amy’s surprise.
At first she was nervous that he’d guessed the direction of her thoughts, and almost as quickly she worried that he’d somehow made the link between Bella and Rachel. But he looked too relaxed, and Amy let out a huff of relief.
Actually, she was really pleased that he wanted to talk, especially to talk about Rachel. It would pave the way for the news she had to share.
‘Rachel and I were both fifteen when we met,’ she told him, ‘and we were in hospital, having our appendixes out.’
‘Ouch. I suppose you cheered each other up,’ he suggested with a smile.
Heavens. A smile and conversation. Things were looking up.
Amy returned his smile. ‘We had a great time. We were in a small hospital run by nuns and we had beds side by side in a room to ourselves. We soon discovered we were in the same year at school, so we had tons to talk about.’
‘And you stayed in touch afterwards?’
She nodded. ‘Rachel went to a very snobby, private girls’ college and I went to an ordinary co-ed state school, so we didn’t see much of each other, but we kept in email contact. And we got together on weekends sometimes. Rachel even came away with my family to the beach for the summer holidays.’
‘You really clicked,’ Seth said quietly.
‘We did, and then we ended up at Melbourne University, and that’s when we truly became best friends.’
She took a packet of butterscotch from her bag. ‘Would you like one of these?’
‘Thanks.’
‘I’ll unwrap it for you.’ Carefully, she untwisted the ends of the paper and as she offered him the sweet his hand bumped hers. She felt a zap of electricity that made her gasp. Good grief. She shouldn’t be getting the hots for this guy.
To cover the reaction she said quickly, ‘I suppose you went to a boarding school.’
Seth nodded, and finished chewing before he said, ‘I used to fly down to school in Townsville.’
‘I’ve always thought boarding school would be great fun.’
‘Yeah. We had plenty of fun.’ He looked genuinely happy as he said this.
‘And what about after school?’ Amy prompted, more tentatively. ‘Did you go straight back to your uncle’s property?’
An almost imperceptible sigh escaped Seth. ‘I spent a year in England, playing rugby.’
She was so surprised she almost cried out. She struggled to picture Seth Reardon in a rugby jersey on a soft green English playing field, surrounded by his teammates. He was athletic, certainly, but was he a team player?
She’d