Kitabı oku: «A Parisian Proposition», sayfa 2

But even as the questions lined up in her head, something in his face stopped her from voicing them.

Her experience of interviewing people from all walks of life told her that the door on this particular conversation had clanged shut. It was locked as securely as the gate to his property, and she sensed that to pry would be useless—even dangerous. She could alienate him completely if she pushed too hard.

But her job was in jeopardy if she didn’t.

‘I don’t think it’s possible for you to simply bow out,’ she told him. ‘We can’t retract you from the project now. Our readers are hanging out for the follow-up stories.’

‘Of course you can drop me. I might have fallen under a bus. Anything’s possible.’

‘But you’re one of our most popular bachelors.’ In actual fact he was the most popular, but she decided nothing was to be gained by pumping up his ego more than necessary.

He glared at her. ‘Too bad.’

As he drained his coffee, Camille’s mind raced. If only she knew who had set Jonno up. Was it a practical joker? Or someone in town who had a grudge against him? A rejected lover? A misguided secret admirer?

His voice interrupted her thoughts. ‘What’s your position at Girl Talk?’

Her shoulders squared. ‘I’m an associate editor.’

‘How much say do you have?’

‘In “The Bachelor Project”? It’s my responsibility.’ Now wasn’t the moment to add that she still had to report to Edith King, the editor-in-chief.

Jonno sat without speaking for a long, thoughtful stretch of time, then he looked straight at her. ‘Associate editor?’ Resting both elbows on the table, he leaned towards her and his face was transformed by a slow smile. ‘If you have enough clout as associate editor, I think we might be in a position to talk turkey, Camille Devereaux.’

Help! His smile was so wicked, so distracting, so devastating that she had to struggle to think straight. ‘I’m sorry, I’m not on your wavelength.’

‘I’m sure you are,’ he said smoothly.

Was he flirting with her? No, of course he wasn’t. Her brain had been short-circuited by that sexy smile and she was beginning to think like one of his groupies.

‘We’re both in an excellent position to help each other,’ he prompted.

‘We are?’ She dropped her gaze. It would be easier to think when she wasn’t trapped by that knockout smile. After a moment of staring at the remains of her abandoned sandwich, she felt the fuzz of foolishness clear. ‘Oh, oh, yes, of course.’ She looked up, suddenly worried. ‘You’re suggesting that if my magazine drops you from the bachelor project, you’ll help me out with my cattle problem.’

‘Exactly.’

Her thoughts flew to Edith. Girl Talk’s editor would have kittens if she heard that Jonathan Rivers was no longer part of the project. Then she thought of Paris. And of seeing her father. And of keeping her savings intact. ‘How could you help me?’ she asked, feeling her cheeks warm with growing excitement.

The smile lingered in his eyes. ‘If I take your cattle out to my property at Edenvale, I could raise them for the next few months and then sell them on when the price is right and we can split the profits.’

‘Profits?’ The last thing she’d expected was to profit from his suggestion. ‘You mean I could actually make some money from my little cows—I mean steers?’

‘That’s what we do to survive out here.’

‘Could I make more than if I left my savings in the bank?’

‘It’s always an educated gamble, but we’ve had good summer rain and follow-up rain in late autumn. There’s plenty of pasture in this district at the moment and, as long as the export prices continue to rise, we could make a tidy profit from your cattle.’

Her cattle. How weird that sounded. And yet Camille felt a little tremble of excitement, too, as if she was about to take the first tentative step towards a mysterious new adventure.

‘But of course,’ Jonno added, ‘you’d have to promise to drop me out of your magazine.’

‘Yes.’ She bit her lip as she thought of the battle she would face when she got back to Sydney. Edith would probably rupture something. And Camille would have to find a way to soothe her. But she sensed that Jonno had valid reasons for wanting to be dropped from the bachelor project, and finding an excuse to cover for him would be a darn sight easier than finding someone else to look after her cattle. ‘It’s a deal,’ she said, smiling back at him. ‘Can we shake on that?’

For a moment he didn’t respond. He sat staring at the tabletop, his expression deadly serious. ‘Sure,’ he said at last.

His strong hand gripped hers and their eyes met. And there was something so suddenly fiery and disturbing in his glance that it stole her breath. Her stomach seemed to fall from a great height.

Jonno quickly dropped his gaze and crumpled the greaseproof paper that had wrapped his sandwiches. ‘OK. I’d better go and take care of the paperwork and I’ll have a word with one of the truckies about getting that pen run out to Edenvale this afternoon.’

He stood and she realised that this was the end of their conversation.

Feeling absurdly disappointed, she reached into her shoulder bag and pulled out a business card. ‘You’ll need this if you want to contact me directly—about the cattle or…or anything.’

He frowned at the small card as he held it in his big hands, and he seemed to take ages as he scrutinised every item of her contact details. ‘So you’re heading back to Sydney?’

‘I guess so,’ she said, jumping to her feet. ‘Although I probably won’t make it to Townsville before dark tonight.’

He tapped the card against the tabletop. ‘You should make it to Charters Towers. The road’s pretty good and at least it’s stopped raining. Then you could be in Townsville and catching a plane to Sydney by tomorrow morning.’

She nodded and hitched the strap of her bag over her shoulder. ‘Thanks for lunch.’

‘Pleasure.’ He reached inside his coat, unbuttoned a little flap on his shirt pocket and slipped her card inside. There was an awkward, shades-of-high-school moment while they stood staring at each other without speaking. While she remembered that look in his eyes. Oh, crumbs, he was gorgeous.

He had to be one of the hunkiest guys she’d ever met, and that was an opinion shared by half the women in Australia. But, putting all that aside, now that she was on the point of departure, the spectre of her editor-in-chief’s wrath loomed larger.

‘Was there something else you wanted to discuss?’ he asked when she didn’t walk away. ‘You’re not having second thoughts, are you?’

She sighed. ‘I can’t help feeling I’m letting you wriggle out of this too easily.’

With a shake of his head, he released a scoffing, disbelieving laugh. ‘How can you say that?’

‘Well…all you have to do is put those calves into a paddock and then you can relax with your feet up while they eat grass and grow fat and make easy money. Meanwhile, I have to face my boss and try to explain how I lost you from the project!’

To her surprise, he flushed dark red. His hands clenched and unclenched at his sides and he looked mad enough to grab her and shake her.

But he didn’t move. He stood rock still, while his face slowly regained its natural colour and set into hard lines. His cheekbones looked more chiselled than ever and his eyes grew cold as marble. ‘We struck a deal,’ he said quietly. ‘We shook hands. Maybe city folk haven’t heard of a gentleman’s agreement? But, sorry, there’s no going back on it now.’

‘I was afraid of that,’ she said.

‘How you keep up your end of the bargain is your problem.’

He marched out of the canteen without waiting for her response and without looking back.

Mullinjim was too remote for Camille’s mobile phone to pick up the network, so she called Sydney from a phone box in the sale yard’s car park.

‘Oh, my God!’ Edith shrieked. ‘It’s so good to hear from you, Camille. I’ve been fretting that we’d lost you in the outback! Did you make it to Mulla-what’s-its-name?’

‘Yes, I’m in Mullinjim, and I’ve been talking to Jonathan Rivers.’

‘You little star! I knew you’d pull us out of this.’

Camille grimaced. ‘Yeah—well—’

‘I’ve been so stressed about our reluctant cowboy. He’s the key to the whole project.’

‘Edith, I’ve got to tell you it hasn’t been easy. I’m afraid I’ve had to strike a kind of a—a deal with him.’

‘OK, OK. We’ll do whatever we’ve got to as long as we secure his story.’

‘But—’

‘No rampant cheque-book journalism, mind you. Don’t go overboard, Camille. If he wants big money, he’ll have to deal directly with me. Let me do the negotiating.’

Camille heard the faint click of a cigarette lighter on the other end of the line. Edith scorned rules about smoking in the office and Camille could picture her boss’s long white fingers with their bright red nails lifting a cigarette to her painted lips.

‘Edith, you don’t understand. It’s nothing to do with money.’

‘Oh, my God, he wants to sleep with you?’

‘No!’ Camille sank against the side of the phone box and pressed a hand to her forehead. This was going to be even harder than she’d feared. ‘He’s simply not available.’

‘He’s already married?’ Edith screeched.

‘No, listen to me. It’s all been a mistake.’

‘He’s not gay.’ Edith groaned. ‘Camille, tell me our cowboy’s not gay.’

‘He’s not gay.’ That was one thing she was sure of. Jonno had shown too much interest; she’d caught him checking her out too many times. But Camille almost flinched as she added, ‘The mistake was that he never agreed to be part of the project in the first place.’

This was greeted by silence. Stony, bristling silence. Camille could picture Edith drawing deeply on her cigarette as the news sank in. She fancied she heard her exhale.

‘Repeat that very slowly,’ Edith said, her voice dropping several decibels but sounding twice as threatening. ‘I hope I misheard you.’

Camille gulped. ‘The bottom line is he wants out and I don’t know if we can hold him.’

Suddenly she wished she could offer Edith a definite, valid reason. If only she’d forced Jonno to give her concrete evidence that he’d been framed.

‘I’ll explain when I’m back in Sydney, but he’s completely uncooperative, Edith. I’m sorry. I did my best. You know I don’t give up easily, but I hit a brick wall. We’re not going to get anything out of him, so I’m on my way back. I should be home by tomorrow night.’

‘Camille,’ Edith thundered, her voice at full throttle again, ‘you’re not going anywhere. You’ll stay right there, my dear, and you’ll get me the Jonathan Rivers story.’

‘But I told you—’

‘I don’t care what you have to do.’ There was a brief pause while Edith let out a deep, noisy breath. ‘You know I don’t like making wild threats. Our relationship’s above that. But there’s more going on with the publishers than you realise and it’s vital—you’d better believe me when I say it’s vital, honey—that we pull this one off. Now, you get back to work on this lonesome cowboy. I’ll expect a call tomorrow night with an update.’

She hung up.

Oh, help! I’m dead meat.

Camille dropped the receiver into the cradle and covered her face with her hands. She was toast. She’d already struck her bargain with Jonno, her gentleman’s agreement, and her parting attempt to renegotiate had made him so furious she’d left herself no room to manoeuvre.

How on earth could she accommodate Jonathan Rivers’s insistence on privacy and satisfy her editor?

Pushing the door of the phone box open, she stepped outside. Despite bright sunshine, a chill, wintry gust whipped at her coat and she dug her hands deep into her pockets and began to pace. She often thought better when she was walking.

What could she do? Dig until she found the truth behind Jonno’s entry into the project? Would that really help? Perhaps her only hope was to come up with a great alternative story. If she could write a top piece of journalism…about life on a cattle station, perhaps…a woman’s perspective about a cattleman’s world…

She’d include thoughts about romance and marriage…a ‘City Girl in the Bush’ story…

Her enthusiasm warmed a little as her imagination kicked in. She’d have to make it good. She’d have to knock their socks off.

Hands deep in his coat pockets, Jonno stomped through the parking area next to the sale yards, trying to shake off his anger. Camille Devereaux’s parting comment about the laid-back, effortless life of a cattleman had him riled. Easy money be damned!

He knew he shouldn’t let anything she said bother him. She didn’t have a clue about what was involved in raising cattle. She was an airhead from the city who didn’t know squat about the way he earned a living—couldn’t even tell a cow from a steer.

And she called herself a journalist?

But he shouldn’t have let her go without setting her straight. He should have taken her outside that canteen and given her an earful…

Or kissed her senseless.

He stopped pacing. Was that his problem? Would he have cared two hoots what Camille thought if he hadn’t found her so damned attractive? Was he angry because of what she said, or because of the way she looked?

Because he’d wanted her and couldn’t have her?

Damn. He couldn’t stop thinking about her dark hair and dark eyes. She had the intriguing allure of a beautiful stranger. Someone from another world. So exotic…

So what?

She was on her way back to Sydney. She was heading back to the city, full of her smug assumptions, and he’d missed his opportunity to set her straight, to let her know in no uncertain terms just how misinformed she was about a cattleman’s life.

Camille rounded a mud-splattered four-wheel-drive vehicle and came to a halt as she saw Jonno pacing just a few metres away. He’d turned up the collar of his coat as protection from the wind and his dark hair was ruffled. Her heart thudded painfully as he looked up, saw her and stared fiercely.

His face was so dark and intimidating that she almost mumbled a quick hi-and-goodbye and hurried away, but Edith’s commands were still ringing in her ears.

Sidestepping a puddle, she walked towards him. ‘I was hoping I’d find you.’

He continued to scowl. ‘Why? I thought you were leaving.’

‘I’ve realised that I should make the most of my trip and do a story about outback life while I’m out here.’

His upper lip curled. ‘And how are you going to do that? By describing the view from your motel window?’

‘Of course not. I want to do an in-depth feature about the real outback.’

Jonno muttered what sounded like a curse and plunged his hands deep in his pockets. ‘You’d be the last person to write about anything that resembles real life in the bush.’

‘And what would you know? I’m a damn good journalist.’

‘Don’t kid yourself, Ms Devereaux. You turn up here. You stumble around a sale yard all starry-eyed and woolly-headed—and accidentally buy a pen of steers. Then you lump your mistakes on me and have the effrontery to talk about cattle-raising as easy money.’

Ah, she thought. I’ve dented that gigantic ego of his. ‘I’m sorry. That was a thoughtless comment.’

He seemed surprised by her apology. For a moment his unsmiling eyes rested on her and they seemed to focus directly on her mouth. Her heart nearly stopped. Then he pulled his gaze upwards and looked her squarely in the eye. ‘From what I’ve seen of your fancy magazine, you prefer fluff and nonsense. I don’t recall an ounce of realism.’

Her chin lifted. ‘Then give me realism.’

‘In what form?’

‘Give me a story, Jonno. Show me what your life is really like.’

He glowered at her. ‘I don’t want to be featured in any story you write.’

‘I’ve promised I won’t do a story about you as an eligible bachelor, but let me write one about your life out here. If you like I can emphasise how un-romantic the bush is for women.’

Holding up her hands as if to stop his flow of protests, she said, ‘You won’t be mentioned. I’ll keep it anonymous—a general story about real life on a cattle property, a picture of what’s expected of a woman or a wife in the bush from a city girl’s point of view.’

‘Which means a patronising, naive point of view.’

She gasped, stung by his words. How could someone so gorgeous be such an arrogant, chauvinist pig? ‘OK, you win! Forget I ever asked! I’ll find someone who doesn’t have a huge grudge against the world beyond his doorstep!’

Swinging away from him, she stormed across the car park.

‘Camille!’

A hard hand gripped her elbow, but she jerked her arm free and hurried on.

‘Camille, wait, damn it!’

The grip was stronger this time and she was forced to stop and turn around.

‘What do you want?’

To her surprise, Jonno was looking just a little shamefaced. ‘I guess you weren’t to know I was conned into that bachelor business, so I do owe you some kind of a story.’

‘Don’t trouble yourself. I can find any number of friendly, co-operative people. You seem to be the only person out here lacking in the famous bush hospitality we hear so much about.’

‘Listen! If you want to do a story about a cattle property, you’d better come out to Edenvale.’

‘To your place?’ She knew her mouth was hanging open as his suggestion sank in.

‘Yeah.’

‘You mean you’re actually inviting me through that locked gate to the inner sanctum?’

The shadow of a smile lightened his features, but then it was gone again as if whipped away by the wind.

‘Are you sure?’ she asked. It seemed impossible that the intransigent Jonno should make such an about-face.

He shrugged. ‘If you’re my business partner, you should take an interest in the well-being of your livestock.’

She’d never thought of that angle. ‘I guess I should.’

‘You can see how the steers you’ve bought settle in.’

‘Great.’

‘They’ve just been weaned. They were still with their mothers yesterday, so they’ll be highly stressed and they’ll need gentle handling when they arrive.’

‘Really? The poor babies.’ Cocking her head to one side, she hid her surprise behind a teasing smile. ‘I hadn’t realised you were such a Sensitive New Age Cowperson, Jonno.’

His jaw stiffened, but apart from that he ignored her dig and asked smoothly, ‘Are you interested in my offer?’

‘Yes, yes, of course I am.’ She could write about her cattle. Already she could see her story taking shape. ‘From City Girl to Cattle Queen in 5 Easy Steps.’ Resisting the temptation to smile coyly, she kept her face deadpan as she added, ‘I’d be fascinated to learn more about your techniques for gentle handling.’

CHAPTER THREE

JONNO’S brother, Gabe, rang about an hour after he arrived home with Camille.

‘I thought I’d better warn you there’s a journalist from that Sydney magazine snooping around town. She was in our office this morning looking for you.’

‘Yeah. I know about her.’

‘Did you know she tried to get me to chopper her into Edenvale?’

‘Look, thanks for the warning, big brother, but actually you’re too late. She’s already found me.’

There was a beat of silence on the other end of the line. ‘I hope you weren’t too tough on her.’

Jonno cleared his throat. ‘Course I wasn’t. We—uh—worked things out—uh—more or less amicably.’

‘Glad to hear you behaved yourself,’ Gabe said. ‘You’ve been so uptight about this magazine caper I had visions of a full-on brawl. It’s a relief to hear she’s still in one piece.’

Jonno winced. What would Gabe think if he knew that not only was Camille Devereaux in one piece, she was relaxing in a deep cane lounger on his back veranda, watching the sunset while Megs, his ginger tabby, purred on her lap and Saxon, his golden Labrador, sprawled across her feet?

He’d been crazy to bring her back here, but he blamed his upbringing. His mother had instilled in both himself and Gabe an innate sense of courtesy.

Only a shabby barbarian could have continued with the sustained rudeness he’d extended towards this woman. He’d never behaved that way before and he’d felt compelled to compensate.

But too late he was realising what a big mistake he’d made by inviting her to Edenvale.

‘It’s a pity you couldn’t have met that girl under more pleasant circumstances,’ Gabe commented. ‘Even a safely married man like me noticed that she’s rather easy on the eye.’

‘You reckon?’ Jonno muttered, and felt his face heat. Not noticing how attractive Camille was had become the major challenge of the day.

He should have followed his initial instincts and refused to have anything to do with her. But he’d made mistake after flaming mistake.

And now she was home with him and had exchanged her tailored city suit for an old pair of jeans and a crimson, super-soft woollen sweater that outlined all too clearly the shapeliness of her breasts, and not looking at her had zoomed to an even higher level of difficulty.

‘By the way,’ Gabe said, ‘Jim Young, the truckie, asked me to pass on a message. He says he’s been held up at Piebald Downs and he won’t get those steers through to you till later this evening.’

‘OK. Thanks.’

‘I didn’t realise you were buying today,’ Gabe commented. ‘I thought you were selling. The prices weren’t too good for buyers this week.’

‘Yeah, well—slight change of plan.’ Jonno sighed. It wasn’t worth trying to keep secrets from his brother. He and his wife, Piper, lived right next door on Windaroo Station and, knowing the way gossip spread in the bush, it wouldn’t be long before they found out about Camille’s purchase. ‘Camille bought one pen of steers.’

‘Who’s Camille?’

‘The journalist. It’s a long story, mate, but she bought them this morning and she’s putting them here on agistment.’

‘You’re joking?’

‘’Fraid not. And you might as well know, she’s staying here for a day or two.’

This was greeted by stunned silence from Gabe.

‘It’s part of a deal—a business deal we’ve struck,’ said Jonno.

‘That’s—that’s—fascinating.’

Jonno groaned. He knew Gabe was itching to ask a load of questions, so he rushed to explain. ‘There’s nothing fascinating about it, but she wants to write a piece for her magazine and I don’t want her to sail back to Sydney telling the world that all I have to do is stick her steers in a paddock and then put my feet up. I’m going to show her a thing or two about the realities of country life.’

‘Excellent.’ Gabe chuckled. ‘They’re fine, noble motives, mate.’

‘Motives? What do you mean?’

‘Oh, nothing.’ Gabe’s voice rippled with suppressed laughter. ‘After you’ve spent so long giving women the brush-off, I’m glad to hear your red blood’s flowing at last.’

‘Pull your head in, Gabe. I’m not planning to make a pass at her. In fact,’ he added, raising his voice for emphasis, ‘I’m planning to show her that there’s nothing romantic about life with a cattleman.’

Gabe chuckled again. ‘All I can say is, don’t let her near Piper. My wife might shoot your argument down in flames.’

Camille was talking to Megs the cat when Jonno prowled back through the house to the veranda. Her head was bent forward as she scratched the ginger tabby gently between the ears and her dark hair fell in a tumble of curls that caught fiery-red lights from the setting sun.

At the sound of his footsteps she looked up, her dark eyes shining, and he felt a startling jolt of desire.

Hell! Every time he saw her he was caught afresh by how unexpectedly lovely she was.

And his reactions weren’t his only problem. Camille was acting as if everything about his place was fascinating and fun. She was supposed to be looking for gritty realism. How the hell could he impress on her that life on the land was hard for a woman, that it wasn’t the slightest bit romantic, when she was determined to be delighted by everything?

From the minute they’d left her hire car at a garage in Mullinjim and she’d driven home with him in his truck, she’d carried on a treat about the countryside—the rolling pastures, the wide skies and the distant hills.

As for the wildlife, every kangaroo, emu, or plains turkey excited her.

‘Now that I’m not having to risk my neck in the driver’s seat, I can appreciate all this,’ she’d said in an attempt to justify her enthusiasm.

The problem was, her delight wasn’t over-the-top or insincere. It seemed to be genuine and spontaneous and that bothered Jonno, but he was hanged if he knew why.

Right now she was becoming best friends with his cat.

‘She’s gorgeous,’ she said, running an elegant hand along Megs’s spine. ‘I’ve never had a pet.’

‘Not even when you were a kid?’

‘No. And now we have pet-police running my apartment block and they won’t let me have anything, not even a goldfish.’

He resisted the urge to ask why she hadn’t had a pet as a child. Getting to know her life history wasn’t part of his game plan. She was here on business.

‘You’re comfortable there, so you stay where you are,’ he said gruffly. ‘I’m going to get a yard ready for the steers.’ He headed for the steps.

‘Don’t go without me.’ She lifted the purring cat from her lap and leapt to her feet. ‘I want to experience as much as I can.’

Her face was glowing and he looked away and glared at the low blaze of sunlight on the horizon. He sighed. ‘Let’s go, then.’

Edenvale’s homestead and stock yards had been built on a rise and from here they had a view right down Mullinjim Valley. The grey clouds that had threatened more rain this morning were transformed now, under-lit by pink and gold from the setting sun, and the whole landscape was tinged with a bronzed glow.

At the bottom of the slope lay the billabong, home to various wild ducks and geese, and beyond that stretched long, rolling, grassy paddocks, pale yellow and dotted with clumps of trees and cattle. On the far horizon a low line of purple-pink hills sprawled.

‘It’s so beautiful here,’ Camille said yet again.

Jonno scowled and strode faster, so that she had to almost run to keep up. At the barn, he pulled three bales free from the haystack. ‘Can you carry one of these?’

‘Sure.’ She held out willing arms to take it. ‘So what happens now?’

‘We spread this in the yard so the calves will have something to eat when they get here. They won’t have been fed at the sale yards and, as they’re coming off their mothers’ milk, we don’t want them to lose too much condition.’

As they broke up the bales and laid the hay around the stockyard’s fence line, she asked, ‘Why don’t we spread it all over the pen?’

‘It’s a waste of time putting hay in the middle—the cattle will only trample it into the mud.’

‘That makes sense,’ she said, standing with her hands on her hips and admiring their handiwork.

Jonno frowned. ‘It’s only a stock yard, Camille. Not a work of art.’

Things went from bad to worse when she insisted on cooking their dinner.

‘I’m handy in the kitchen,’ she said. ‘And you must be sick of having to cook for yourself.’

‘Actually, I cook a mean steak,’ he muttered. ‘And I have a cleaning woman who makes a big casserole each week. That lasts me for several days.’

‘But you’d like a change, wouldn’t you?’ she insisted. ‘And there’s something about being out in the country with animals and hay and gum trees and sunsets that brings out my domesticated instincts.’

He must have looked thoroughly alarmed because she rushed to add, ‘Don’t worry, Jonno. I only get very occasional doses of domestication. I’m not dangerous. I don’t step up to a stove and immediately have visions of a slim gold band and a trip to the altar. Cooking is as far as I go.’

‘Glad to know I’m safe,’ he said with a wry grin. If only he could be as casual about this as she was. But somehow, letting Camille Devereaux into his kitchen felt more dangerous than entering a bull ride at a rodeo.

Rummaging around in Jonno’s kitchen and concocting a meal from what she found was fun. Thinly sliced beef, onions, capsicum, carrot and celery combined with a sweet chilli sauce quickly became a tasty Asian-style stir-fry, but when they sat down to eat at the round pine table, Camille’s sense of fun turned edgy.

What was she doing here, alone and sharing an unnatural cosiness with this puzzling, gorgeous man? She’d spent the best part of the day at war with him and yet here they were—just the two of them in his whopping great empty homestead, with a meal to share and a long night ahead.

With Jonno’s self-conscious glances and her screaming hormones!

They ate in conspicuous, restless silence. Camille would have liked to interview Jonno but suddenly the usual getting-to-know-you type questions made the meal feel too much like a date. Heaven forbid. Jonno was so touchy about husband-hunting women. Any sign that she was attracted to him and he would have her out on her ear and she’d miss out on her story.

And even if he wasn’t so hostile, what the heck was the point of being attracted to Jonno Rivers anyhow? They belonged in different worlds.

But she’d never felt so much chemistry. The kitchen was sizzling with it. And a dark, secretive fire burned in Jonno’s eyes whenever he looked at her. She’d never been so tongue-tied, so out of her depth…

It was a relief when his chair scraped on the timber floor and he jumped to his feet. ‘I can hear the cattle truck bringing your steers.’

He crossed quickly to the row of hooks near the back door where his heavy outdoor coat was hanging. ‘You don’t have to come outside now. It’s cold and you won’t be able to see much in the dark.’

‘Don’t even think about leaving me behind,’ Camille cried. ‘I have to watch my babies arrive. Just wait while I grab a warm coat from my room.’

Outside it was very cold and very dark. Clouds hid the moon and the lights of the huge cattle truck blazed as bright as meteors as it reversed slowly along the dirt track to the stock yards. Camille couldn’t help but admire the driver’s skill as he backed his huge double-decker vehicle in line with the relatively narrow loading ramp.