Marion Lennox - Rescued By A Millionaire

She caught herself. No.

She wanted to slap him. More than anything else she wanted to pierce that accusing harshness. And if she did…

Maybe it could work. Maybe. But Karli was on the other side of the dam. To resort to physical aggression was never appropriate, but how much more inappropriate now.

‘Fine,’ she said grimly and turned away to trudge out of the dam. ‘If that’s the way you want to think of me, then it’s okay by me. Karli and I are getting out of here as soon as possible, and you’ll never see us again.’

‘Do you want to catch the train tomorrow instead of flying out with me?’

That made her pause. The train.

Yes. She did want to catch the train. She desperately wanted to walk away. Her humiliation was threatening to overwhelm her and she could cope with a few reporters if the alternative was more humiliation.

But then her eyes flew to Karli.

Karli was starting to be happy again. The little girl had faced so much. How much more could she stand?

‘No,’ she whispered. ‘I…please.’ She’d risked too much. She’d risked Karli’s well-being just by being attracted to him. She’d forgotten how dependent they were on this man.

There was a moment’s loaded silence. She met his look and held it and something of what she was feeling must have come through. She saw his expression turn to rueful, as if he too was remembering what else she was facing.

‘I won’t put you on the train.’ His gaze shifted to Karli and there was suddenly a real remorse in his tone. ‘Hell. I’m sorry that I implied you’d put Karli at risk. It was a stupid thing to say and I had no right to say it.’ He hesitated. ‘But I need to put you away from me, Jenna. I don’t do relationships. I’m on my own. You’re with Karli and I’m here. There’s no meeting place. Not in a million years.’

Not in a million years.

Jenna nodded. Bleakly. Maybe Riley was right. He didn’t want her in his world and she had no right to ask to be included.

But it was so hard.

What she was feeling was love. She knew it. She’d never felt like this before, but now the sensation threatened to overwhelm her. Her love might be transient, she thought bleakly. It might be based on present need, but her heart swelled with pain at what he was saying.

There’s no meeting place.

She could do no more. She’d thrown her pride to the wind. She’d thrown herself at him and exposed herself to pain and to rejection as she’d done to no one in her life. There was nothing more she could do.

‘Thank you for our swim,’ she said dully. ‘We loved it. Maybe you’re right, though. Maybe it’s time to go back to the house.’

‘I’m sorry, Jenna.’

She looked at him then-really looked at him-and her chin tilted upward. He was sorry. ‘Coward,’ she whispered.

‘I’m not a coward. I don’t want to hurt you.’

‘You don’t want to be hurt yourself.’

‘Maybe.’ His face closed. ‘Whatever. You’re right. It’s time we went home.’

He turned and strode out of the water, up the bank and across to where Karli was offering mud-pie sandwiches to cows.

‘Are you ready to go home?’ he asked her and she raised her face to his and smiled.

‘Okay. Have you finished kissing Jenna?’

‘Yes, I’ve finished kissing Jenna.’

‘Good, ’cos it looked pretty yucky to me.’

‘Yep.’ He glanced across at Jenna and his face closed even further. ‘We never should have done it.’

THEY hardly saw him then until late the next afternoon. Riley drove them back to the house, grabbed his swag and a few supplies, and he was gone.

They were left to fend for themselves.

As they’d always fended for themselves.

‘Did you guys have a fight?’ Karli asked, and Jenna shook her head. She was making them dinner, fighting back tears; trying to make herself angry instead of desolate.

‘What makes you think we had a fight?’

‘Riley stopped smiling. You stopped smiling.’

‘Maybe it’s because we’re leaving tomorrow. It’s making us sad.’

‘Do you think we’ll ever see Riley again after tomorrow?’

‘Probably not.’

‘That’s really sad.’ Karli looked down at her precious rock. ‘I’d rather have Riley even more than my rock.’

Jenna tried to pull herself together. She sniffed and tried for a mature, adult approach to what was happening. ‘You shouldn’t call him Riley. His name’s Mr Jackson.’

‘He said I could call him Riley. He’s my friend. I think we should stay with him for longer.’

‘So do I,’ Jenna admitted sadly, abandoning mature as being just plain impossible. She and Karli seemed of an age. They surely thought the same. ‘But some things just aren’t going to happen.’

Karli slept, but there was little sleep for Jenna that night. She lay awake, staring out at the stars in the outback sky, trying to make sense of how she was feeling-of what she’d done. Of how she’d face the future.

There were questions everywhere. There were no answers.

The next day they woke to silence. They threw themselves into more work, fixing the bedrooms up, rigging a device so they could scrub higher than the original dust mark.

It wasn’t so much fun without Riley.

In the early afternoon they went outside and saw the far-off sight of the silver train they’d abandoned four days ago. They watched it slow to a stop at the siding to let the other train go through. They watched it leave.

Maybe they should have gone on the train regardless, Jenna thought. Maybe she shouldn’t trust Riley to do what he said he’d do.

But she did trust him. He was totally dependable, she knew. Totally dependable, but totally isolated.

He was breaking her heart.

At four she and Karli called it quits. The joyous enthusiasm with which they’d tackled their work over the last three days was completely gone and Jenna was bone-tired. It was as much as she could do to manage the pump.

There was no light-hearted singing of sea shanties.

They washed and they waited.

At five the Land Rover appeared from the south and Riley walked into the house looking worse than Jenna had ever seen him. She might be tired, but he looked exhausted to the point of collapse.

‘Riley,’ she whispered as he walked in the back door, but his look held her back. It stopped her saying anything else.

‘I’ve finished doing what needs doing,’ he told them, his voice drained of emotion. ‘Can you be ready to leave in fifteen minutes?’

‘We’re packed already,’ Karli told him, casting a dubious look from Riley to Jenna and back again.

‘That’s good,’ Riley said and smiled at her.

He didn’t smile at Jenna.

The plane bumped down the makeshift runway and rose into the sky, then banked and turned so they were facing south. Riley’s face was grim and he stayed silent. Karli was hugging her rock as if she needed its security.

Jenna put her face against the window and stared down at the receding dot that was Barinya Downs.

It was a dump.

She’d fallen in love with it.

She’d fallen in love with Riley.

They should talk, she thought dully. She should be talking to Karli. They should pretend this was exciting. They were flying in a tiny plane over a place as strange as she’d ever been in. They should be acting as if this were an adventure.

It wasn’t. Even Karli’s face was tight with strain.

Even Karli knew what they were losing, she thought bleakly.

The further they flew south, the greener the country grew and a little over half an hour’s flight saw them descend to a place that, after Barinya Downs, looked almost like paradise.

Munyering.

She couldn’t believe it. As the plane came in to land she cast a doubtful look across at Riley, but his face was still set and grim. Karli was gazing down with her mouth wide open and Jenna felt like doing the same.

Okay, she did do the same.

It was still dry country-there were no lush, closely fenced fields like home-but this was no dust bowl. The paddocks were dotted with dams, each much larger than the one they’d swum in at Barinya Downs, and most of them ringed by trees. The soil looked rich and red, and there were low blue mountain ranges in the far distance. The paddocks were wide swathes of green pasture. Crops? Even from this height Jenna could see flocks of cockatoos wheeling and squawking about the trees, and there were cattle resting in the shade.

And the house. It was a sprawling white weatherboard farmhouse, surrounded by outbuildings that looked substantial and well cared for. The house was ringed by a wide veranda and a lush garden. Some sort of vine covered the veranda with great looping clouds of purple blossom.

And there was a swimming pool. The pool was a magic blue teardrop nestled into the garden and from the air it looked like someone’s version of paradise.

‘It’s really pretty,’ Karli breathed, and Jenna could only agree. She glanced across at Riley and looked away again. His face was a rigid mask. He was fighting with himself, she thought.

‘Hey, lighten up,’ she told him, fighting her own misery to try and reach him. ‘How can you look miserable when you’re coming home to this? I know you’ll miss your dust, but this is ridiculous.’

He managed a smile, but only just.

‘I need to concentrate on landing,’ he said, and Jenna bit her lip.

‘Of course you do,’ she said cordially. ‘You need to concentrate on anything that isn’t us.’

Riley’s silence was made up for by Maggie. As the aeroplane rolled to a halt the lady was waiting and Jenna guessed at once who she was. She looked like a Maggie. A little, dumpy woman in her late fifties or early sixties, she had deep black, wild, frizzy hair, tugged into a knot on top of her head, but with curls escaping every which way. She was wearing a bright red skirt, a bright yellow blouse and a stripey pinafore that was liberally sprinkled with something that looked like flour.