The Unexpected Husband

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“‘Any man smart enough to understand women is also smart enough to keep quiet about it.’”

Lydia smiled. ‘Do you?’

‘Understand women? I would have thought so,’ he murmured thoughtfully. ‘Until I met you.’

‘Oh, come now. This is only the second time we’ve met, and I’ve got an early start tomorrow, so…’ She drained her glass and handed it to him.

But he merely reached for the bottle on the grass beside him and refilled it. ‘One more won’t hurt, surely? Besides, I got the feeling it was loosening you up, Ms Kelso.’ He put the glass back into her hands.

‘Is that how you do it? Ply them with alcohol?’

‘Not at all,’ he denied. ‘But I thought you were uptight, feeling less than restful, and it might help.’

Lydia hesitated, then settled back. ‘If you hadn’t been the first person I bumped into on Katerina I might be feeling a lot more restful. If I didn’t think my sister Daisy was—’ She broke off.

‘I told you what happened.’

‘I know. You also told me you had this curious desire to see me without my clothes. As if I might be some sort of circus freak.’ As soon as she’d said it Lydia regretted the words, and was amazed to discover that she had subconsciously taken umbrage at that particular word.

‘Ah.’ Joe Jordan drained his glass and refilled it. ‘That wasn’t what I meant at all, but I apologise for phrasing things awkwardly. What I meant was, if I’d thought you were some sort of circus freak, the last thing I’d want is to see you undressed. Do you perceive the difference, Lydia?’

‘I perceive that you’re getting yourself tangled up in technicalities, Joe! But, no, you don’t have to explain further. I know exactly what you meant.’

‘You do? Would you be so kind as to tell me what I meant?’ he asked, with some chagrin.

Lydia grinned fleetingly. ‘That at first you didn’t find me feminine and to your taste, especially compared to my sister Daisy. You know, I would have had to be particularly dense not to have got that message loud and clear, Joe.’

She could see enough to see him flinch, and had to laugh softly. ‘Look, don’t let it come between you and your sleep,’ she advised. ‘I grew up in Daisy’s shadow; I’m quite used to it.’

‘And once again I’m speechless.’

‘Good,’ she said unfeelingly. ‘Because I’m getting tired of this conversation and I am going to bed.’

‘Mind you, I’m relieved it’s not because of some of the things Sarah said—the other things about mixed up genes and being able to cook,’ he said humorously.

‘I wouldn’t hold that against a man,’ Lydia replied. ‘My husband was a fantastic cook, although disastrously messy.’

Joe Jordan stared down at the wine glass cradled in his hands, and said at last, ‘Is that it, Lydia?’

She stood up in one lithe movement. ‘Yes, Joe, that’s it. You see, it was so wonderful I…can’t forget him or believe it could ever happen that way for me again.’

He stood up, and Meg rose like a wraith in the dark to stand patiently beside him. ‘Then Daisy is not part of it?’

‘Daisy is part of it,’ she contradicted. ‘If…’ She paused and chose her words with care. ‘You are at all serious about an interest in me, then you’ve run into a double whammy, so to speak. My memories of Brad and the impossibility of having anything to do with a man my sister may love. Goodnight.’

This time she took her glass with her as she walked inside.

Joe Jordan sat down again after a moment and took his dog’s face into his hands. ‘My dear Meg,’ he murmured, ‘who would have believed I could have been such a fool? Not that I was to know—all sorts of things—but I’ve been about as heavy-handed as a bull in a china shop—if you’ll forgive my mixed metaphors. However, it would be fair to say I’m all the more intrigued. You do like her, don’t you?’

Meg gazed lovingly up at him and wagged her tail.

‘Good. As they say, tomorrow is another day. And another strategy is obviously called for. We shall see!’

About a week later, Lydia got up at the crack of dawn, then remembered it was a Sunday, so she got back into bed and fell asleep until ten o’clock.

There seemed to be no one about as she padded into the kitchen then and made herself some tea and toast. She took it back to her bedroom and spent the next hour leisurely engaged in doing the things she’d hadn’t had much time for over the previous week.

She washed her hair, left the conditioner on and wrapped her head in a towel. She attended to her nails and smoothed moisturiser all over herself at the same time as she checked herself for bruises and saddle sores; there were no sores but a few colourful bruises. She paused to wonder whether her skin and hair would ever be the same again, despite this treatment, and sat down to write a long letter home.

Finally, she unwound the towel, rinsed her hair and dressed in a pair of cool pink linen shorts with a pink and white floral cotton blouse, luxuriating as she did so in clothes that were not khaki or definitely working clothes, and slid a pair of light sandals on.

She wondered again why the homestead was so silent, then shrugged. A week at Katerina had been long enough to discover that one day was very much like another, although she’d been told firmly to take Sundays off. Sarah would most likely be with her horses, and Rolf and Joe, if they weren’t working on the road or the cattle yards or the airstrip or the maintenance of some vehicle or another, could still find a hundred other tasks.

She went out onto the verandah and pulled a chair into the sunlight so she could dry her hair, and ran a mental review of the week as she closed her eyes and lifted her face to the sun.

A faint smile curved her lips at the memory of how stiff she’d been for the first few days, and was still stiff at times. This was despite begging a friend in Sydney, as soon as she’d decided to come to Katerina, to let her exercise his polo ponies every day to get herself fit for what was to come. Although she’d ridden since she was six, and although horses were by no means the only way to get around Katerina, she’d done more riding in a week than she’d done in the past year. But it had been exhilarating and more.

She’d read respect in the eyes of the Simpsons when she’d refused to complain about her aching muscles or to take to the ‘bull buggy’, an open four-wheel drive vehicle suitable for getting around rough terrain with fearsome bars on the front capable of repelling charging bulls.

But Joe Jordan had surprised her. There had been no more overtures of a personal nature. In fact he’d treated her exactly as he treated his sister.