Scandalous Secrets. Michelle Douglas

it. It was simply the way she made him feel.

      She was little and blonde and cute. She played Abba on her sound system while she worked and she sang along. This morning he’d come in to help her cart food over to the shed and found her spinning to Dancing Queen while balancing a tray of blueberry muffins. She’d had flour on her nose, her curls had escaped the piece of pink ribbon she’d used to tie them back and Samson was barking at her feet with enthusiasm.

      He’d stopped at the door and watched, giving himself a moment before she realized he was there. He’d watched and listened and he’d felt...

      It didn’t matter how he’d felt. He didn’t do women. His mother and then Darrilyn had taught him everything he needed to know about the pain of relationships and he wasn’t going there again. Especially with an indulged society princess.

      The label wasn’t fair, he told himself, and he knew it was the truth. Penny had proved she was so much more. But past pain had built armour he had no desire to shed, and right now he felt his armour had to be reinforced. Yet here he was asking her to stay.

      ‘Why would I stay?’ Penny asked cautiously and he tried to think of an answer that was sensible.

      ‘I... This place...I was thinking maybe I could open it up a bit. Get rid of a few dustcovers. There’s a possibility my daughter might come and visit.’ That was the truth, though he wasn’t sure when. ‘I wouldn’t mind if it looked a bit more like a home when she came. Maybe you could help. I’d pay.’

      ‘I don’t need...’

      ‘I know you don’t need to be paid,’ he said. ‘But I pay for services rendered. The shearers will move on, but I’d need you for another two weeks in total—a few days’ slack then getting the house in order. Of course—’ he grinned suddenly ‘—cooking would be in there as well. Donald and Ron and Harv would kill me if I didn’t say that. They’ve been in heaven for the last ten days.’

      And then he paused and tried to think about why he shouldn’t say what came next. There were reasons but they weren’t strong enough to stop him. ‘And so have I,’ he added.

      * * *

      Heaven...

      That was pretty much what she was feeling.

      She was breathing in the scents from the garden, watching the moon rise over the distant hills, listening to the odd bleat of a sheep in the shearing pens and the sound of a bird in the gums at the garden’s edge.

      ‘What’s the bird?’ she asked. It was an inconsequential question, a question to give her space and time to think through what he was proposing. There was a part of her that said what he was suggesting was unwise, but she couldn’t figure out why.

      Or maybe she knew why; she just didn’t want to admit it. The way he made her feel... The way his smile made her heart twist...

      ‘It’s a boobook owl,’ Matt said, quietly now, as if there was no big question between them. ‘It’s a little brown owl, nocturnal. He and his mate are the reason we don’t have mice and places like Malley’s do. Malley’s stupid enough to have cleared the trees around the hotel and he’s probably even stupid enough to shoot them. They’re great birds. Listen to their call. Boobook. Or sometimes people call them mopokes for the same reason. So there’s a question for you. Do you side with mopoke or boobook?’

      It was an ideal question. It gave her time to sit and listen, to settle.

      ‘Mopoke,’ she said at last. ‘Definitely mopoke.’

      ‘I’m a boobook man myself. Want to see?’

      ‘You need to go to bed.’

      ‘So do you, but life’s too short to miss a boobook.’

      ‘A mopoke.’

      He grinned. ‘That’s insubordination,’ he told her. ‘I believe I’ve just offered you a job for the next two weeks. Therefore I demand you accept your boss’s edict that it’s a boobook.’

      ‘I haven’t agreed to take the job yet.’

      ‘So you haven’t,’ he said equitably. ‘But you are still employed for four more days. So it’s boobook tonight.’ He pushed himself to his feet and held out his hand to help her up. ‘Come and see.’

      She looked at his offered hand and thought...I shouldn’t.

      And then she thought: Why not? There were all sorts of reasons, but Matt was smiling down at her and his hand was just there.

      She shouldn’t take it—but she did.

      * * *

      What was he doing?

      He was more than tired. By this stage in shearing he was operating on autopilot. He’d averaged about five hours of sleep a night for the past ten days and, apart from the tiny window of time on the veranda at night, every minute he was awake was crammed with imperatives. Most of those imperatives involved tough manual labour but he also had to be fine-tuned to the atmosphere in the shed. One flare-up could mess with a whole shear. Angry shearers usually meant sloppy shearing and the flock suffered.

      So far the tension had been minimal. The shearers had worked through each run looking forward to Penny’s next meal, bantering about the last. This shear was amazing and it was pretty much thanks to the woman beside him. So surely he could take a few minutes to show her a boobook?

      Besides, he wanted to.

      He had a torch in his pocket. It was strong but it was small, casting a narrow band of light in front of them as they walked. They needed to go into the stand of gums behind the house. The ground was thick with leaf litter and fallen twigs so it was natural—even essential—that he keep hold of her hand. After all, she was a vital cog in his business empire. He needed to take care of her.

      Even though it made him feel... How did he feel?

      Good. That was too small a word but his mind wasn’t prepared to think of another. Her fingers were laced in his and her hand was half his size. His fingers were calloused and rough, too rough to be holding something as warm and...trusting?

      That was what it felt like but that was dumb. He’d figured enough of Penny by now to know that she could look after herself. One move that she didn’t like would have her screeching the farm down, and an inkling of Penny in peril would have the entire shearing team out in force.

      He grinned at the thought and Penny must have heard his smile. ‘What’s the joke?’

      ‘I just thought...if I tried a bit of seduction you’d have the team out here ready to defend you. Shears at the ready. Ron was watching you go back to the house yesterday and said you had a nice rear end. Margie told him where he could put his sexist comments and suddenly we had the whole shearing shed coming down on Ron like a ton of bricks. The poor guy had to bury himself packing fleeces into the wool press for the rest of the afternoon. You have an army at your disposal, Penelope Hindmarsh-Firth.’

      ‘Excellent,’ she said and smiled and was it his imagination or did her hold on his hand tighten a little? She paused for a moment as if she was thinking of something important—or trying to find the courage to say something—and finally out it came.

      ‘Do you think I have a nice...rear end?’

      Whoa. ‘You have a very nice rear end,’ he admitted. Who could argue with the truth?

      ‘Thank you,’ she told him. ‘Yours isn’t so bad either.’

      That set him back. A woman telling him he had a good butt?

      ‘But don’t let it go to your head,’ she told him. ‘And I’ll try and swallow my conceit too. Where did you say these owls are?’

      The calls had ceased. That was because they were standing right under the trees the birds were nesting in.

      It took him a moment to collect himself and direct his torchlight up.