Outback Boss, City Bride. Jessica Hart

impressed.

      Why should she be? Hal wondered, annoyed with himself for even trying to give her a good impression of Wirrindago. Anyone would think he cared what she thought.

      He jerked the truck to a halt at the bottom of the steps and for a moment Meredith sat numbly staring at the house in front of her, unable to believe that they had actually stopped moving.

      It was a much bigger building than she had imagined, somehow. Bigger and older and more substantial in spite of the iron roof. The walls, almost hidden in the shadows of the veranda, were of solid stone and the door and windows hinted at a faded grandeur. This had once been a gracious home, she realised in surprise, but times had evidently been less gracious for a long time now. There were distinct signs of neglect—or perhaps of an ungracious owner, she thought, sliding a sidelong glance at Hal.

      He seemed to be in a bad mood again. Getting out of the truck, he slammed the door as he spotted two sulky-looking children on the veranda. The girl was slumped in the chair, while the little boy’s head was bent intently over a computer game.

      ‘Uncle Hal’s back,’ Meredith heard one of them shout inside the house, but neither of them made any move to come down and greet them.

      Bad move, thought Meredith as she saw Hal’s brows snap together in that forbidding frown.

      ‘You two can come and help take all this stuff to the kitchen,’ he snapped, moving round to the back of the truck.

      ‘Oh…do we have to?’ moaned the girl.

      ‘Yes, you do. You too, Mickey.’

      ‘I’m just finishing this game—’

      ‘Now!’

      Evidently Hal didn’t believe in reasoning with children. No wonder the children looked sulky, thought Meredith. It worked, though. Mickey put down his computer game and trailed down the steps after his equally reluctant sister, but both stopped dead and stared when Meredith got stiffly out of the truck and stretched.

      Hal followed the children’s glances. She looked decidedly the worse for wear. Her suit was rumpled, her hair a wild bush around her head and she was swaying with tiredness, but he had to admit that there was a certain style about her. Putting a hand to the small of her back, she stretched and winced at the soreness of her muscles.

      ‘Emma and Mickey, you’d better come and say hello to—’ he began, only to find himself interrupted by Lucy, who had come out of the door and was standing at the top of the steps, staring in disbelief at her sister.

      ‘Meredith?’ she said, astounded.

      ‘Hi, Lucy.’ Thousands of miles she had travelled, and that was all she could say!

      Shaken out of her trance, Lucy came hurrying down the steps to sweep Meredith into a warm hug.

      ‘I can’t believe it’s really you!’ she cried. ‘It’s so good to see you.’ Then she pulled back to hold Meredith at arm’s length as her beautiful blue eyes darkened with puzzlement. ‘But what on earth are you doing here?’

      CHAPTER THREE

      ‘POOR Richard!’ said Lucy again, shaking her blonde head as she tried to take in Meredith’s news. ‘I can’t believe it. And his poor parents! They must be worried sick.’

      ‘They are.’

      Meredith was sitting at the kitchen table, drinking a mug of tea and explaining what had happened. There had only been time to give Lucy the bare bones when she’d arrived. Hal, for all his grumpiness, had insisted that she have a shower and a sleep before she did anything else, and Meredith had to admit that she was feeling a lot better for it.

      Now she watched her sister preparing the supper and tried to think how best to raise the question of going home. Hal had warned her that Lucy was enjoying outback life and, much as Meredith had wanted to believe that he was wrong, it was obvious that her sister was very happy. She was going to have to lead up to the real reason she was here very gradually.

      Lucy was a good cook, but a notoriously messy one, and Meredith had to fight all her instincts to get up and start tidying up after her. But she knew it would annoy Lucy if she did, so she averted her eyes from the mess and sat, turning the mug of tea between her hands and wondering how to start.

      ‘Poor you, too.’ Lucy turned up the heat under a pan of potatoes and turned to lean back against the worktop, her blue eyes serious for once as she regarded her elder sister.

      ‘Me?’ Meredith looked up from her tea in surprise.

      ‘I know how you feel about Richard,’ said Lucy gently. ‘It must be awful for you too.’

      ‘I’m all right,’ said Meredith in a brisk voice, hoping to ward off any further questions, but Lucy patently wasn’t convinced.

      ‘Meredith, I’m your sister,’ she said. ‘You don’t have to pretend to be Superwoman with me.’

      ‘That pan’s boiling over,’ said Meredith, nodding to the stove beside Lucy.

      Lucy turned obediently to lift the lid and reduce the heat under the pan, but she cast a beady glance over her shoulder at Meredith as she did so. ‘Don’t change the subject!’

      ‘I’m not. I haven’t the faintest idea what you’re talking about. I’ve never thought of myself as Superwoman!’

      ‘You might not think you are, but you’ve never been prepared to admit that you might be lonely or scared or unhappy like the rest of us,’ said Lucy, adding salt to the pan. ‘I know you’re in love with Richard. What’s wrong with admitting that you’re heartbroken and sick with worry about him?’

      Unable to sit still any longer, Meredith got up and began clearing the dishes out of the sink where Lucy had dumped them as she’d gone along.

      ‘You always romanticise everything, Lucy,’ she said crossly. ‘I’m not heartbroken. Yes, there was a time when I hoped that Richard and I would get together…but it didn’t work out. He fell in love with you instead,’ she said, her voice carefully neutral. ‘I don’t blame him for that, and I certainly don’t blame you.’

      ‘Maybe you should blame yourself,’ Lucy suggested, and Meredith turned in surprise at the unexpected note of exasperation in Lucy’s voice, a bowl still in her hands.

      ‘Did it ever occur to you that if you had given Richard the slightest encouragement, he probably wouldn’t have fallen for me?’ Lucy went on.

      Meredith rolled her eyes. ‘Right, a man like Richard is going to think, Hmm, here’s someone plain and dumpy, but over there is a tall, slim beauty…I know! I’ll go for the short, fat one!’

      ‘He might have done if you’d ever let him close enough to find out what you’re really like,’ said Lucy. ‘And you are not plain! You’ve got beautiful skin and your eyes are gorgeous, and I know loads of women who’d give their eye teeth for your cleavage.

      ‘You should try showing off your body some time, not hiding it away,’ she scolded Meredith, who had turned back to the sink, having heard this argument many times before. ‘Richard probably didn’t know that you had a cleavage! You were so busy being careful and not letting him guess how you felt that he thought you were only interested in being good friends, and of course then he’s going to start looking around.

      ‘I just happened to be the first likely person he came across,’ she said, ‘and if you had told me, I would never have thought about going out with him, and we could have saved ourselves the whole mess!’

      Lucy stared in exasperation at her sister’s unresponsive back, but something about the set of those shoulders made her relent suddenly. With a sigh, she went over and hugged Meredith.

      ‘I’m sorry,’ she said guiltily. ‘I’m sorry. The last thing you need after that journey is me having a go at you. I just want you to be happy, as happy as I am now