‘I’m sorry,’ she managed. ‘You have enough troubles of your own without landing you with mine.’

‘Maybe I can help.’

‘You already have. But from now on I’m on my own. Mr Jackson…’

‘Riley.’

‘Riley, then,’ she whispered, and the word sounded wrong on her lips. It was as if it were the embrace she so desperately wanted to give him. Wanted him to give her.

‘What’s your biggest worry?’

‘Karli,’ she admitted. ‘To make her face reporters. If there’s media on the train and we’re stuck on board for two days…’

‘I can fly you out of here.’

‘You said you couldn’t.’

‘I said I couldn’t immediately,’ he told her. ‘Which was true. My job here is to get the bores operational and to make the house habitable enough for a couple of men to use as a base for muster.’

‘Muster?’

‘We’ll bring in trucks and take the surviving herd south where they can graze on some decent feed. These poor beasts won’t know themselves. But getting men to stay here before the place was liveable was impossible. You’ve saved me a couple of days’ work. I’ve fixed the most urgent water problems. If I spend tomorrow making your repairs permanent-putting wood where you’ve stuffed newspapers-and spend another day south of here doing a head count, then I can fly out. That makes it Tuesday. You’re welcome to come with me.’

‘But…where will you go?’ She gave a futile tug to her hands.

‘Munyering. My home farm.’

‘Another farm?’ She forced her emotions to one side-sort of-and made herself concentrate. ‘Like this one?’

He smiled at that. ‘No, Jenna, not like this one. Munyering’s isolated, but we have decent bore water and it’s in much better condition.’

It’d have to be, she thought, but it was hard to think it. Hard to think anything, really, with this man’s hands holding hers.

‘Then…how could I reach civilisation from Munyering?’

‘I’ll take you.’ And his fingers moved through hers in a gesture of reassurance.

It was strange, Jenna thought desperately. Riley was talking-he was touching her-as if he was unaware of the effect he was having. As if he didn’t feel what was running through her hands. It was like an electric current, bringing warmth and strength and…

And nothing. Make yourself think, she told herself harshly. Cut it out with the hormones. Just because this guy makes you feel like you want to jump him…

Jump him? What was she thinking?

She knew exactly what she was thinking.

‘I’ll refuel at Munyering and fly you on down to Adelaide,’ he was saying. ‘You can take a flight from there to wherever you want to go.’

Where did she want to go?

Home is where the heart is. The saying drifted through her mind with awful bleakness. According to that criterion she’d never had a home. Somehow she had to create one for Karli.

But at least she had a start. Riley would save them from the train. He’d fly them to Adelaide and then…

She looked up into his concerned face and felt her foundations shift.

This was crazy. What on earth was she thinking?

With a gasp she jerked her hands back and this time she was released. She stepped back as though fending him off, but Riley didn’t follow.

‘I’ll pay you.’

‘You’ll do nothing of the kind.’

‘I don’t accept help without payment.’

‘Then learn to do so. If not for you, then for Karli.’

‘But you can’t afford-’

‘I can afford. Believe me, Jenna. Just accept.’

She sighed. It was all too hard. She didn’t want to be beholden to this man. Not like this. But it seemed she had no choice.

She wasn’t on her own any longer. Choices were out of her control. She had to think of Karli.

‘I…thank you,’ she whispered.

‘Think nothing of it,’ he said gently. ‘And you don’t need to thank me. You and Karli have worked long and hard making this place liveable. It’s me who’s grateful and I pay my debts.’

He was grateful? He was offering to fly them out of here because he felt grateful? Was that the emotion she wanted him to feel?

No. Not one bit.

‘Go to bed, Jenna,’ Riley said softly. ‘You’ve done a hard two days’ work.’

‘So have you. Saving your cattle.’

‘While you saved my house.’ He stared around again as if he still couldn’t believe what he was seeing. ‘I’m aching to see it in the morning.’

‘If it’s still standing,’ she said and she heard a note of asperity enter her voice. She couldn’t help it. Was the man totally insensitive? Here she was practically aching for him to touch her-kiss her senseless and make her forget every darned thing she’d ever taught herself about keeping her distance-and he was talking about housekeeping.

She glared up at him, aware that it was crazy to glare, but she couldn’t help herself.

He gazed back at her and his expression was inscrutable.

Then, finally, Riley touched her cheek lightly, as if he was touching something that was almost infinitely precious-and totally beyond his reach.

‘It’s late,’ he said flatly, and his voice was solid and uncompromising. ‘Go to bed, Jenna.’

Her glare faltered. Her hand lifted and caught his. Her eyes held his for a long moment. Asking questions she knew he couldn’t answer.

Go to bed?

She had to. She must.

A girl had some dignity.

She dropped his hand as if it burned-then turned and fled before she did something she might regret for the rest of her life.

Maybe.


For a long time after Jenna left, Riley didn’t stir from the kitchen. He sat over a can of beer-and then another and then another. He was weary beyond belief, but there was an inertia hanging over him that wouldn’t let him move.

Or was it inertia? Maybe it was the unbearable thought of going out to the veranda and walking past the place where Jenna lay.

She was so beautiful. So lovely. A slip of a girl who’d fought her way in life, who reacted like a terrier who’d defend herself and her own to the death. He thought of what she’d faced as a kid, on the streets of London, fighting for a living, and he thought of her parents’ privileged backgrounds, and he felt an anger surging through him that was almost overwhelming. No wonder she was prepared to fight for Karli’s future. If she felt about Karli as he felt about her…

What sort of low-lifes were these people? Brian? Charles? The dead Nicole?

They needed to be shot, he thought, and then he remembered Nicole was already dead and caught himself in a half-smile. Maybe not. But damn, if he hadn’t been here to help… He found himself squeezing his beer can so hard it crushed beneath his fingers. He stared down at the mangled metal in confusion.

‘What the hell has this mess got to do with you, Riley Jackson?’ he demanded of himself. ‘You don’t get involved. Remember? You know what you should do? Get in the plane and take the pair of them to Adelaide tomorrow. You’ve got the worst of the bore problems solved. You could take them and come back-it’d be only an extra day. So do it. Get rid of them fast. Get rid of trouble.’

Trouble.

The word drifted round and round the kitchen.

If he took them now he’d have to come back, he acknowledged, looking round the gleaming little kitchen with eyes that saw just how much work the pair of them had put in to get it the way it was. And, strangely, that was the problem. Take them to Adelaide and come back here? The thought was unbearable.

Why?

‘What on earth are the pair of them doing to you?’ Riley demanded. He lifted one of Karli’s make-do birthday candles and stared at its dead wick as if it might give him answers. ‘They’re making you feel like you swore you’d never feel again.’

‘I’ve never felt like this before.’

‘Yeah, but you know what you’re feeling, boy. Desire. Pure and simple.’

And yet it wasn’t. He knew it wasn’t. The vision of Jenna floated before him, and although Riley’s hand clenched hard on his candle he knew it wasn’t just lust that was making him feel this way. It was so much more.

It was the overwhelming need to make Jenna smile. To take the look of distrust from her eyes. To make Karli chuckle. To take away the hurt…

‘Stop it right now!’ He hurled the can savagely across the kitchen-and then, thinking better of it as it lay untidily on the newly scrubbed floor, he rose, retrieved it and carefully placed it in the waste. It lay on top of the remains of the chocolate cake.

It was a crazy chocolate cake. It had been one crazy birthday.

It had been wonderful.

‘They’re getting to you,’ he told himself savagely. ‘Watch out. If you’re not careful you’ll be caught up in the whole damned web again.’

He took a deep breath, steadying, then walked through the darkened house to the veranda.

Jenna was already in bed. There were two humps in the big bed, Jenna’s body curved protectively around the child beside her.

Was she asleep? He wasn’t sure. Her sheet moved almost imperceptibly in the moonlight with her deep, even breathing.

He wanted her. The ache was a fierce physical pain that threatened to overwhelm him. He could just walk forward to say goodnight, lean over, lift the sheet and kiss…

He did no such thing.

Instead he swore savagely under his breath, then walked back into his newly cleaned sitting room and threw himself onto the old settee. There was no way he could sleep on the veranda. Not feeling how he was feeling.

He’d do the house maintenance tomorrow and then he’d get the hell out of here. Back to his bores. Outback, where the only thing to concentrate on was sheer hard work.

Where a man could forget about women.


She heard him go.

She knew what he was doing. He didn’t want to sleep on the veranda.

She knew how he was feeling.

She turned on her side and stared out into the starlit sky and tried to think why life had suddenly become more bleak.