She’d promised.
‘Coming?’ Luke said, and she looked up at this big, stern stranger, whose eyes were gentle but whose voice was inexorable. If she didn’t move he was quite capable of striding down the steps, lifting her up and carrying her to bed.
The thought was …
Unwise. She made herself walk up the steps, into the beautiful little house, then up the stairs, into the made-up spare room and into bed.
She was asleep in an instant.
How could he sleep?
He didn’t sleep much anyway. He lay staring into the night. So what was new?
Lily sleeping in his spare room was new.
He didn’t invite people to this house. Hannah had made it beautiful, but he only used his bedroom and kitchen. He’d made the bed up because last year when the local stock and station agent’s car had broken down a few miles from the house, he’d decided having the spare bed ready was sensible—but there was no question that this was his place.
To have Lily here was even more disconcerting than having her back at his apartment.
Why should it be disconcerting? She was a guest, a stranger in the next bedroom. A colleague. She was no different from the stock and station agent.
Or not.
Lily of the gaunt face. Lily who had been too thin even before the gastro. She seemed shadowed.
She needed this weekend. What harm was there in giving it to her? So what reason was there, then, to stay awake and be aware that she was just through the wall?
The whole hospital thought they were an item.
It’d been a spur of the moment deception but now … the thought seemed to be closing in on him. Deception or not, he didn’t connect with people. Especially with complicated women.
Lily.
Hannah.
‘Stand on your own two feet.’ His father’s voice seemed to boom from the darkness.
Luke’s father and also his paternal grandfather were wealthy, foul-mouthed bullies. Luke’s mother and grandmother were society gadflies, only interested in social standing. It was amazing they’d come together for long enough to produce children. Luke’s father certainly hadn’t wanted him. A son with a disfiguring birthmark had meant contempt from the day he was born.
What a family! His Uncle Tom had escaped Singapore as soon as he’d been old enough to emigrate, and Luke had been sent away at ten. Even though Tom had taken rough care of him since he’d arrived in Australia, Tom didn’t seem like family. Neither uncle nor nephew knew what that was about.
Stupidly, Luke had tried family with Hannah. He’d spent four years thinking it might work; knowing it wouldn’t. Then disaster.
Family was disaster. Emotional attachment was disaster.
‘I have my farm and my medicine,’ he told the darkness. ‘That’s enough.’
Whether Lily Ellis was his make-believe lover or not.
She woke and had to pinch herself to think she wasn’t dreaming.
The bed was high, cast iron, the kind you’d expect in your grandmother’s attic with a chamberpot underneath.
There was no chamberpot. There was a tiny bathroom right through the door. Lush towels hung from antique towel rails. Her patchwork quilt was gorgeous. The thick lemon carpet meshed beautifully with the soft blue walls.
This was no garret. This whole wee house was beautiful.
Had it been furnished by Hannah? Certainly there was a woman’s touch—this was a far cry from the cool greys of Luke’s city apartment.
She’d gone to sleep listening to mopokes and night owls.
Now there were kookaburras right by her window, their raucous laughter making her smile. How come they hadn’t woken her until now?
She rolled over and reached for her watch. And practically yelped.
Ten o’clock in the morning? What the …?
Where was Luke?
She glared at her watch like it had betrayed her. What sort of guest was she? He’d think … he’d think …
Why worry? He already thought she was loose and fast; why not let him think she was a total slob? The damage had been done. She could sleep until midday.
Or not. Kookaburras. Sunlight on her coverlet. Smells, pure country.
It was Friday. She was here until Sunday; three whole days of farm.
She was out of bed, heading for the shower before she finished the thought.
They needed to be independent. Luke decided this at dawn, when he woke, headed to the kitchen for his standard eggs and bacon, and then hesitated and thought he should wait for Lily to wake.
No. She needed to sleep. Independence was the go. He needed to ride the boundaries, head over to the big house, spend a bit of time with Tom, do what he normally did on his first day here.
Lily needed to sleep for as long as her body required.
So he headed for Tom’s but he made a phone call first. There was enough in what Lily had told him to think maybe some intervention might be needed. Without pushing the thought further, he called a lawyer mate in Adelaide. Then he left a note directing Lily to breakfast and headed out.
He found Tom, out with his dogs, eager to be doing things. Even though Tom was fiercely independent, he usually greeted Luke with a list of jobs the length of his arm. Today was fencing.
Excellent, Luke thought. Building fences, a man could get his thoughts together. Building fences, a man could forget about a woman with shadows, who’d melted into his arms and who’d …
No. Concentrate on fencing. He’d made the call to the lawyer. His conscience didn’t require he worry any further.
Funny things, consciences. They had a will of their own.
The horse was young, Lily thought, watching him skittering toward her. Full grown. A gelding—he wasn’t big enough, tough enough to be a stallion. He didn’t look tough but he looked … bad? He pranced toward her and she could almost see challenge.
‘Oh, you’re beautiful,’ she breathed as he came closer. She stood motionless against the fence, letting him assess her.
He was wearing a halter of tooled leather with a metal name-plate attached.
Glenfiddich.
He’d have been called Glenfiddich because he was pure spirit, she thought, and couldn’t resist reaching to touch.
Or not. The contact had him skittering back, rearing, then tearing round the paddock at full gallop. His coat gleamed in the morning sun, every muscle clearly delineated. He was glorying in his strength, in the morning, in the sheer joy of being alive.
Which was exactly how Lily was feeling. The sun was on her face. She was out of the city. For now her mother was the vicar’s responsibility. She felt like she’d shed a too-tight skin.
‘Did he rescue you as well?’ she whispered, and the big horse dashed past her once, twice, and then paused. Slowed.
Decided to investigate.
She stayed absolutely still. He reached her and touched her cheek with his nose. He blew against her hair.
She swung onto the fence-rail, slowly, but he didn’t shy away. He nuzzled her again, pushing his nose into her armpit.
She scratched him behind his ears and he threw back his head, backed away again, then tossed his head and came back for more.
He was a wild, beautiful thing.