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Suddenly, she drew her legs into the car and pulled the door smartly shut. Had he been gaping? Perhaps he was more of a country hick than he realised. Through the window, she studied him and chewed her full bottom lip, showing a trace of vulnerability for the first time. ‘I’ve come to see Scott. I hope he’s home,’ she said.
Callum swallowed. He knew she’d come looking for Scott and he should have been thinking about that instead of gaping at her mouth and her hair and her feet!
‘Ah—’ a painful constriction dammed his throat ‘—I’m—er—I’m afraid you’re going to be disappointed. Scott’s—’ Stuff this! He avoided looking at her as he blinked stinging eyes. ‘Scott’s not here.’
‘What?’ She stared at him, her eyes wide with disbelief and despair. ‘Where is he?’ Her strength seemed to leave her suddenly. She looked crumpled and crestfallen. ‘I’ve—I’ve driven all the way from Sydney. I’ve got to see him.’
Callum shot a hopeless glance to the darkening sky. If it hadn’t been so late in the day, he would have considered breaking the bad news and sending her packing! But there was less than half an hour of daylight left.
Forcing her to go back down the rough Kajabbi track in the dark wasn’t an option. Chances were she’d get bogged again, or even worse she could hit a deep rut and turn this little death trap over.
‘I’ll tow you out of here and you’d better follow me up to the homestead,’ he said.
‘Thanks.’ Her reply came in a whisper and she looked very pale, as if the stuffing had been knocked right out of her. ‘But can I contact Scott from there?’
Callum cleared his throat. ‘It’ll be easier to explain about Scott when we get back to the house.’
Without waiting to see her reaction, he spun on his heel and climbed back into the ute, calling over his shoulder, ‘Let your handbrake off and don’t turn your engine on yet. Just leave it in neutral.’
He edged the truck forward and the creek-bed released her car easily. After towing her to the top of the small rise, he stopped while he unhitched the vehicles. ‘The homestead’s only a kilometre down the track. See you there.’ Without looking her way again, he accelerated around a bend and headed for Birralee.
Scott wasn’t here. It was more than she could bear. Stella fought to stay calm as she guided her little car over the last twists and turns of the bumpy track. She’d been keeping all her worries to herself for too long, but she couldn’t hold on much longer.
She had never been one for confiding in her friends and the events of the past few months had snowballed into an unbearable, secret burden. First, when she’d realised that Scott hadn’t been as committed to their relationship as she’d believed, there had been the unpleasantness of the breakup.
Then she’d discovered she was pregnant!
She’d almost lost the plot when she’d learned that, but after taking time to get used to the idea she’d tried to contact Scott. The message on his answering machine had said he would be out mustering the back blocks of Birralee for several weeks.
The final blow had fallen with a phone call from London and the job offer of her dreams! A British television network wanted to hire her skills as a meteorologist to head the research for a series of documentaries about global warming in Europe.
She couldn’t believe the bad timing!
She’d studied so hard and had worked her socks off in the hope of scoring a contract like this, but the amount of travel involved and the primitive living conditions required on location meant it wasn’t a job for a woman with a tiny baby.
If only she and Scott had been more careful! But there’d been too many laughs…too much country-boy charm…too many empty assurances that she really was the one and only woman for him…
Stella knew they were poor excuses. She was educated. She was a scientist! She knew better! But…for the first time in her life, she’d allowed herself to let go…
She’d let herself be just a little like her mother. And, just like her mother, her mistakes had caught her out.
She carried the consequences within her. The cluster of little cells, multiplying rapidly every day. Oh, God! She’d been carrying the secret burden of her pregnancy for four lonely months now and she couldn’t keep it to herself any longer.
She had to speak to Scott.
The job offer had been too wonderful to resist and so she’d accepted it, but she couldn’t fulfil her contract without Scott’s help. Scott, where are you? At the very least, I need to talk this through with someone.
Ahead of her, Callum had pulled up in front of a typical outback homestead. She’d never visited one before, but she was familiar with the image—a low and sprawling timber house with a ripple-iron roof and deep verandas set in the middle of an expanse of lawn and shaded by ancient trees.
So this was Scott’s home—Birralee. This was where the father of her baby had been born. He’d run on this grass as a little boy. He was at home in this wild, rough country with its rocky red cliffs, its haze of soft green bush and its vast wide plains, so flat you could see the curvature of the earth as you drove across them.
And of course this was Callum’s home, too.
He stood waiting, his blue heeler squatting obediently beside him. His face remained fierce and unsmiling as she parked her car on the grass next to his truck. He’d taken his hat off and she saw the tangle of his dark, rough curls and the golden brown lights that might soften his eyes if he’d let them.
Callum had never looked very much like Scott. Where Scott was blond and boyish, full of sunshine and laughter, Callum was darker and older, more stormy and grim. OK…she had to admit he was still good-looking in his own hard way.
Who was she trying to kid? Callum was incredibly good-looking. Heaven knew, she’d been attracted to him from the very first moment she’d laid eyes on him. But he had a dangerous brand of good looks that fascinated yet unnerved her. There was a magnetic fierceness about Callum that pierced hidden depths in her and threatened her inner peace.
She’d recognised a perilous intensity in him on the night they’d met…
Get a grip! You’ll be a complete mess if you think about that now!
Hopefully, she wouldn’t have to spend too much time around him. She needed inner peace more than ever now. She needed cheering up.
She needed Scott.
Where was Scott? Why hadn’t Callum told her straight away where he was? Her stomach churned and her smile was grim as she climbed out of her little car and stretched cramped limbs.
‘Do you have much gear?’ Callum asked.
‘Just one bag and a bird cage.’
‘A bird cage?’ He didn’t try to hide his surprise.
Her chin lifted. ‘I had to bring my bird. My flatmate’s absolutely hopeless about remembering to change Oscar’s seed or water. Last time I left him with her, the poor darling nearly dehydrated.’
Carefully, she extracted the cage from the back of her car and eyed his cattle dog warily as she made introductions. ‘This is Oscar.’
Callum scowled at the little blue budgerigar.
‘What’s your dog’s name?’
Her question seemed to surprise him. ‘Mac,’ he muttered.
At the sound of his name, Mac’s ears pricked and he sprang to his feet, tail wagging madly.
‘Hi, Mac.’ She shot Callum a cautious glance. ‘He doesn’t like to nip at small birds, does he?’
He cracked a brief smile. ‘He’s a true blue heeler. From when he was a pup he knew that his mission in life was to nip at the heels of cattle. I doubt he’s ever paid any attention to birds.’
‘That’s a relief.’
Callum scruffed the top of the dog’s head. ‘Poor old fella’s retired to home duties these days.’
Stella saw Callum’s genuine affection for his dog and she felt a tiny bit better. Somehow it helped to know that the grim Callum Roper was as fond of his pet as she was of hers.
His smile faded as he nodded his head towards the house. ‘You bring the bird cage. I’ll grab your bag.’
‘Thanks.’ Reaching back into the car, she fished out her shoes and slipped her feet into them. Then, puzzled and curious, she followed the dog and his master up three wide wooden steps.
As Callum led her along the veranda, she couldn’t help noticing that he made an art form of the loose-hipped, long-legged saunter of the outback cattleman.
With an easy dip of one broad shoulder, he pushed a door open. ‘You’ll have to stay here tonight, so you’d better have this room.’ He stepped aside to let her enter, then placed her bag with surprising care on top of a carved sandalwood box at the foot of the bed.
She dragged her attention from him to the room. It was old-fashioned and simply furnished. There was no personal clutter and it was very clearly a guest room. The floorboards were left uncovered and the big double bed had brass ends and was covered by a patchwork quilt in various shades of green and white.
On the wall was a painting of a stormy sky and horses galloping down a steep mountainside with their manes and tails flying.
‘I’m afraid I’m imposing on your hospitality.’
He didn’t answer, but his gaze dropped to the bird cage she was still holding.
‘I’ll put this out on the veranda,’ she suggested.
‘You’d better bring it through to the kitchen. Mac won’t touch it, but if you leave it outside the possums might knock it over during the night.’
‘Really?’
A hint of mischief danced in his eyes. ‘Or a carpet snake might fancy a midnight snack.’
‘Oh, no!’ Horrified, she clutched the cage to her. ‘I’d be grateful if he could stay in the kitchen, thank you.’
Once again, she followed Callum’s long strides. This time down a long hall with polished timber floorboards and rooms opening off its entire length.
Where was Scott? An uneasy tension coiled in her stomach. She hoped she wasn’t going to be sick. The hardest part of her journey was still ahead of her.
When she found Scott, not only did she have to tell him he was going to be a father, she had to convince him that the plan she’d agonised over really was the best solution.
Best for him and the baby and for her.
It was a straightforward plan. She would resign from her current job, have the baby and then Scott would look after it while she went to London. Luckily the television project was so big that the company did their recruiting well in advance. She was due to give birth several weeks before her contract started and after twelve months she would come back and take over her responsibilities as a mother.
As she headed down the hall, she prayed that Scott would see the beautiful simplicity and fairness of what she was asking. If only she didn’t feel so scared!
The rooms she glimpsed as she hurried after Callum were a little shabby, a little untidy, decidedly old-fashioned, but she had an impression of tasteful decor and comfort and an easy, unpretentious air that made them welcoming. Easy to live in.
Easy and charming like Scott had been. She could imagine him here. But could she imagine leaving his baby here at this house? Could she really leave a tiny baby way out here in the never-never while she spent a year overseas?
Everything depended on Scott’s reaction.
And maybe Callum’s.
They reached the kitchen at the back of the house. It was huge and cluttered and Stella fell in love with it at first sight.
The reaction was so unexpected. All her life, she’d been walking into other people’s kitchens. There’d been a bewildering series of them during her childhood—dingy council flats, women’s shelters and foster homes. Until she’d moved into the little flat she shared with Lucy, she’d never lived in one place for very long. Their kitchen was neat and trendy, but she’d never felt an immediate rapport with a room the way she did now.
She loved it. Loved the long wall of deep, timber-framed windows of clear glass with dark green diamond panes in the middle, pushed wide open to catch the breeze. Loved the spellbinding views of the twilight-softened bush as it dipped down to the creek and climbed on the other side to majestic red cliffs in the distance.
She loved the huge scrubbed pine table in the middle of the room, home to a wonderful jumble of odd bits and pieces—a flame-coloured pottery bowl overflowing with dried gum nuts, a pile of Country Life magazines, a horse’s bridle and several bulging packets of photographs.
The collection of unmatched chairs gathered around the table enchanted her. With no effort at all, she could picture these chairs seating a party of happy, chatting friends or family. She could almost hear their bright, laughter-filled voices.
Standing in the kitchen’s corner, was an old timber high chair with scratched red paint. Stella couldn’t help staring at it, wondering…
‘You can park the bird cage on that high chair if you like,’ Callum said. ‘We only use it when my sisters bring their tribes to visit.’
She did as he suggested. ‘There you go, Oscar. You can have a lovely view of the gum trees and talk to all the other birds outside.’
Callum’s mouth twitched. ‘You don’t think he might get ideas about escaping?’
She glanced again at the bush and couldn’t help wondering if Oscar craved for freedom to explore that vast sky and all those trees, but then she shoved that disagreeable thought aside. ‘I look after him too well,’ she assured Callum primly.
He walked to the fridge. ‘Would you like a beer?’
‘No. No, thanks.’
‘Scotch, sherry, wine? I’m afraid I can’t manage any fancy cocktails.’
‘I won’t have any alcohol, thank you.’
He seemed surprised. ‘Cup of tea?’
‘Yes, in a minute. That would be nice, but first, please, you must tell me about Scott. How can I contact him?’
He stiffened and she felt a stab of panic. His face seemed momentarily grey and he turned quickly away from her and snatched a beer out of the fridge.
What’s the matter? What’s wrong? Her heart began to thud.
‘You’d better sit down,’ he said without looking at her. ‘I’m afraid I’ve got bad news about Scott.’
CHAPTER TWO
CALLUM fiddled with his unopened beer. His guts crawled with dread as he imagined Stella’s reaction to his news.
Scott’s dead. The words were so hard to get out.
Telling his parents had been the worst, the very worst moment of his life. Scott had been the baby of the family—everybody’s favourite. To tell his mother and father had meant inflicting unbearable pain.
If Stella was in love with his brother, she was sure to burst into noisy tears. What the hell would he do then?
‘Callum,’ she said, and her voice vibrated with tension, ‘I need to know what’s happened to Scott.’
He realised he was still holding the beer, rolling it back and forth between anxious hands. The last thing he needed on this night was another beer. Hastily, he shoved it back in the fridge and cleared his throat.
‘There was a mustering accident a few weeks back. Scott was flying a helicopter.’
She looked pale. Too pale. And she sat stiffly, without speaking, staring at him. Waiting.
