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‘Can I show you the surprise now?’
‘I thought the surprise was you being bathed and ready for bed?’ he teased, but Megan shook her head solemnly.
‘No, this is a proper surprise.’
Mal lifted his brows in silent enquiry at Copper, but she just smiled blandly. She was saving the real surprise until later.
Megan dragged her father into the kitchen. Through the screen, Copper could hear the counterpoint between the two voices, one high and excited, the other calm and deep, and she smiled to herself as she listened, content for once to sit quietly and watch the sunset. It had been a long day and tiredness was buzzing along her bones.
It was some time before Mal reappeared, carrying two bottles of beer. He handed one to Copper and the wicker creaked as he sat down on the chair next to hers. The beer was so cold that condensation ran down the outside and Copper had to keep shifting it from hand to hand.
‘Where’s Megan?’ she asked.
‘In bed.’
‘And Brett?’
‘Having a shower.’ Mal had showered too. His hair was damp and she could smell the soap on his clean skin as he leant forward, resting his arms on his knees, and turning the beer bottle thoughtfully between his hands.
Copper found herself watching them as if mesmerised. She had loved Mal’s hands. They were strong and brown, with long, deft fingers that had traced slow patterns of fire over her skin. They had curved around her breast and smoothed the long length of her thigh, possessing her with a sureness and a hunger that had left her gasping his name.
Wrenching her eyes away, Copper took a desperate pull of beer and forced the memories back into that box labelled ‘Forgotten’. She was not going to think about his hands or his mouth or anything about him at all. She was going to think business.
It had grown dark while Mal had been inside, and the only light came from the blue lamp that was set below the verandah to attract flying insects. At regular intervals it would fizz and crackle as one got too close and was zapped out of existence. Copper watched it in silence and tried to think how to bring the conversation round to her new proposal.
In the end it was Mal who spoke first. ‘You’ve been busy,’ he said. ‘It must have taken you a long time to clean that kitchen.’
Copper shrugged. ‘Megan helped me.’ In fact, Megan had been more of a hindrance than a help, but she had been so thrilled to be in on the surprise that Copper hadn’t had the heart to discourage her. Together they had tidied the clutter off the table and washed the huge pile of dishes. Then they had swept the floor and wiped the surfaces until everything gleamed. There had been no time to clean the fridge or sort out the cupboards, but Copper felt that the contrast with the earlier mess would be enough to make an impact.
Mal was still turning the bottle slowly between his hands. ‘I don’t want you to think I don’t appreciate it,’ he said, ‘but a clean kitchen isn’t enough to make me change my mind.’
‘I’m not asking you to,’ said Copper, and his gaze narrowed as he looked at her.
‘You’re not expecting me to believe that you did all that out of the goodness of your heart? You must want something!’
‘I do,’ she said evenly. ‘I want you to give me a job.’
Mal’s fingers stilled abruptly and he sat up in surprise. ‘What kind of job?’
‘You need a housekeeper, don’t you? I’m suggesting that you let me take over until this girl from the agency turns up.’
Copper was pleased with how cool and business-like she sounded, but Mal didn’t seem particularly impressed. ‘What do you know about being a housekeeper?’ he asked suspiciously.
He could have sounded a bit more grateful! ‘What is there to know?’ said Copper. ‘You don’t need any qualifications to clean a house—or do you only take girls with higher degrees in vacuuming and washing dishes?’
Mal ignored her sarcasm. ‘Perhaps I should have asked why you suddenly want to be a housekeeper,’ he said. ‘You looked pretty offended at being mistaken for one earlier on.’
‘I don’t want to be a housekeeper,’ she said, ‘but I do want to stay at Birraminda. And if it means spending a few days working as hard as I did this afternoon, then I’m prepared to do that.’
‘And in return I have to agree to let you and your father set up this mad scheme of yours?’ Mal set his beer on the floor and shook his head. ‘I can’t deny I need a housekeeper, but I don’t want one badly enough to commit Birraminda to an enterprise that could involve us in a lot of disruption and hassle. Even if it’s a wild success, the financial return isn’t likely to be enough to make it worth our while.’
Copper took a steadying breath. This was not the time to prove to Mal that he had quite the wrong idea about the project. ‘I’m not asking you to agree,’ she said. ‘At least, not yet. All I’m asking is for you to put aside some time to just listen to our proposals before I leave. I’m sure that if I showed you our plans I’d be able to convince you that they could be good for you as well as for us, but I’d rather wait until you can give them your full attention. In the meantime, I’ll keep house for you.’
She glanced at him, wishing that she could read the expression on his face. ‘It’s a good offer,’ she assured him. ‘An hour of your time in return for free housekeeping.’
‘You mean you wouldn’t expect any payment?’ Mal raised his brows in disbelief.
‘All I’d ask is a chance to see a bit more of Birraminda. There are still a lot of practical details we have to sort out and I really need to see the sites my father chose for myself.’
There was a pause. Mal picked up his beer again and took a pull, his eyes on the crackling blue light. ‘This eagerness to stay wouldn’t be anything to do with my brother, would it?’ he asked at last.
‘With Brett?’ Copper stared at him. ‘What would it have to do with him?’
Mal shrugged. ‘He can be very charming.’
‘I realise that, but if you think I’d be prepared to spend my days cooking and cleaning just to be near him. you must be out of your mind!’
‘You wouldn’t say that if you’d seen as many girls make fools of themselves over him as I have.’ Mal rubbed a weary hand over his face. ‘Brett, as you’ve probably gathered, is physically incapable of being in the same room as a woman without flirting with her. He doesn’t take it seriously—Brett doesn’t take anything seriously—but the agency keeps sending us girls who think they’re the only one he’s ever kissed. They fall madly in love with him, he gets bored after a week or so, and it all ends in tears. The next thing I know, they’re on the bus back to Brisbane. Once the passionate affair is over, there isn’t any way of avoiding each other out here,’ he added in a dry voice.
Was that some kind of hint? Copper looked at him sharply. She had the best of reasons for knowing that it was true, but did Mal realise? Not for the first time, she cursed the impossibility of ever knowing just what he was thinking.
‘I can imagine it’s rather difficult,’ she said after a moment. Her voice held a slight chill. If Mal remembered their own passionate affair, he could come right out and say so. She certainly wasn’t going to mention it! ‘Why don’t you ask the agency to send an older woman?’
‘Do you think I haven’t thought of that?’ Mal sighed. ‘It isn’t that easy. There aren’t many middle-aged women who are prepared to give up comfortable lives to come and live somewhere like this. It’s not exactly a career opportunity. Even the younger girls will only come out on short contracts. There isn’t anything for them to do and they get bored, so none of them are going to stay permanently, but they might stay a bit longer if it wasn’t for Brett.’
‘Can’t you ask him to leave them alone?’
Mal smiled but there was no humour in it. ‘Sure—and I could ask him to stop breathing while I’m at it!’
‘It must make it very difficult for Megan with all these girls coming and going,’ said Copper, and he frowned.
‘I know, but what can I do?’
‘If Brett won’t stop flirting, you could always tell him to leave,’ she suggested.
‘And go where?’ Mal got irritably to his feet and walked over to lean against the rail. ‘Brett grew up at Birraminda and it’s part of his inheritance. Oh, I know he can be absolutely infuriating at times, but I can’t just turn him off. He’s my brother.’
‘Doesn’t he realise how difficult he’s making things for you?’ asked Copper curiously.
At the rail, Mal shrugged. ‘He’s always sorry when I explain why yet another housekeeper has left, but you’ve seen what he’s like. Criticism just runs off his back, and somehow it’s impossible to stay cross with him for very long. He’s nearly ten years younger than me, so he was always the baby of the family. That’s probably why he’s never learnt any responsibility.’
Turning round to face Copper once more, he leant back against the rail and crossed his ankles. ‘It doesn’t help that I run things here at Birraminda. Brett would soon learn responsibility if he had his own property to run, but property doesn’t come cheap, and we’ve been working flat out to make enough to invest in more land. That’s one of the reasons I was prepared to listen to your father when he was here. I’d hoped that there might be some money for us in his project, but once I heard what he was planning I soon gave that idea up!’
‘Well, maybe I’ll be able to change your mind about that,’ said Copper with a tight smile. ‘I won’t try and persuade you now, though. I’ll wait until you let me have that hour—if you accept my offer, of course.’ She lifted her chin at him. ‘I think I can safely promise you that I won’t fall in love with Brett!’
‘You seem very sure of that,’ said Mal, eyeing her speculatively.
‘I am. I like your brother very much, but he’s really not my type. Besides,’ she hurried on, before Mal decided to ask her just what her type was, ‘I happen to already be in love with someone else.’
Mal didn’t move, and his expression didn’t change, but Copper had the feeling that the air had tightened somehow. ‘Someone in Adelaide?’ he said, without any inflection in his voice at all.
‘Yes.’ Mentally she crossed her fingers, thinking of Glyn who had been her boyfriend until a month ago. They had had some good times together, and in spite of the way it had ended Copper knew that she would always be fond of him. She wasn’t in love with him now, but there was no need to tell Mal that. All Mal needed to know was that she was serious about staying at Birraminda until she had had a chance to convince him that Copley Travel meant business.
‘I see,’ said Mal.
‘So, do we have a deal?’ she asked with forced brightness.
‘It’ll be hard work,’ he warned. ‘This won’t be like working in an office. You and your father seem to have some romantic ideas about the outback, but it’s a tough life. The days are long and hot and dusty, and at the end of them there’s nowhere to go and no one else to see. You’ll have the most boring jobs to do and no one to help you. It won’t be at all romantic.’
‘I’m not in the slightest bit romantic,’ said Copper icily.
It was true. Copper liked life as it was, and didn’t believe in dreaming about the way things might be. Her friends would fall about with laughter if they knew she had been accused of being romantic, but then, she hadn’t told any of them about the three days she had spent with Mal in Turkey. That had been stepping out of time and out of character. For Copper, it had been too special to share with anyone else. Mal had been her secret, her aberration, her one brief encounter with romance.
‘That must be very disappointing for your boyfriend,’ said Mal, with something of a sneer.
Looking back, Copper thought that it probably had been disappointing for Glyn, but she had no intention of admitting as much to Mal.
‘It depends what you mean by romantic, doesn’t it?’ she challenged him. ‘I prefer to get on with things rather than mope around wishing they were different.’
Oh, yes? said an inner voice. So why did you never quite manage to forget about Mal, no matter how hard you tried? Why were you so hurt when he didn’t remember you?
‘Anyway,’ Copper went on, firmly squashing the voice, ‘all you need to know is that I’ll work hard and I won’t waste my time dreaming about your brother. As far as I’m concerned Birraminda is business, and I’m not interested in anything else up here.’
Mal studied her in silence for a moment. Copper would have given anything to know what he was thinking, but as usual he kept his reactions to himself. ‘OK,’ he said at last, straightening from the rail. ‘You can stay on as housekeeper—but only until the girl from the agency turns up. She should be here any day.’
‘That’s all right,’ said Copper, getting to her feet in relief at having passed the first hurdle. At least she wouldn’t have to drive back to Adelaide tomorrow! ‘And you will give me an opportunity to show you our proposal?’
‘As long as you don’t mention it the rest of the time,’ said Mal stringently. ‘I don’t want you nagging at me. You can bring out your financial plan and your proposals, but you’re only getting one chance to talk me round.’
Copper smiled. ‘One will be enough,’ she said.
CHAPTER THREE
BY LUNCHTIME the next day, Copper was exhausted. Mal hadn’t been wrong about the hard work. She had been up at five to cook breakfast for Mal and Brett, as well as the three jackaroos, and she seemed to have spent the whole morning since then running between the cookhouse and the homestead.
She had washed and wiped, swept and scrubbed. She had fed chickens and dogs and six men who had appeared for morning smoko and now lunch, and in the middle of it all she had had to deal with a lively and strong-willed four-year-old.
It hadn’t helped that she had spent most of the night lying awake and thinking about Mal—the one thing she had sworn not to do. Her body had craved sleep, but her mind had refused to settle. It had turned Mal’s image round and round, testing it from all angles, disconcerted to find him at once so familiar and yet a stranger. Did he really not remember? Had he forgotten touching her, tasting her with his tongue, tangling his fingers in her hair as they surrendered to the wild beat of their bodies?
Copper had struggled to bury the memories. She was at Birraminda on business, she’d told herself fiercely, gritting her teeth as she worked doggedly through the morning. It was the business that mattered now, and she had better not forget it.
She had had lunch with the jackaroos and all the other men except Bill in the cookhouse. It was a long, wooden building that didn’t look as if it had been decorated since the days when sixty thousand sheep had grazed at Birraminda and whole teams of men had moved in at shearing time and had to be fed at the two huge tables. Bill was an older man who was known as the “married man”. While the jackaroos slept in quarters he had his own house a mile or so from the homestead, and he went home at lunchtime. His wife, Naomi, prepared a meal for the men in the evenings, so that was one job she wouldn’t have to do, Copper thought. Dinner for three ought to be a cinch after all she had done this morning!
Mal had told her that cold meat and bread were all that the men wanted at lunchtime, so that had not been too difficult to get ready. Now Copper ticked ‘lunch’ off her list and studied her remaining chores, wondering if she would have time to explore around the homestead. She would need to take photographs and get the feel of the place if she was to put together an inspiring brochure.
‘What are you doing?’ asked Mal, craning his head to see as she pencilled times against ‘prepare vegetables’ and ‘bath Megan’. He raised his eyebrows derisively when he saw what she had written. ‘I never met anyone who had to have a timetable just to get through the day before!’
‘I like to be organised,’ said Copper, instantly on the defensive. ‘Otherwise nothing ever gets done.’
‘I hope you’ve given yourself time for breathing.’ Mal wasn’t actually smiling but she knew perfectly well that he was laughing at her.
‘I need to with this much to do!’ she retorted, more ruffled than she cared to admit by the amusement gleaming in the depths of his brown eyes. ‘I hadn’t realised slavery was still legal in the outback!’
Brett twitched the list out of her hand. ‘You’ve been working much too hard,’ he agreed. He had greeted the news that Copper was to stay with flattering enthusiasm, and now he edged along the bench towards her. ‘You deserve a break this afternoon,’ he went on, echoing Copper’s own thoughts. ‘Why don’t I take you out and show you the waterhole your father had in mind for a site?’
‘Possibly because you’ve remembered that you’re going to check those bores this afternoon,’ Mal interrupted, before Copper had a chance to accept. His voice was quiet but implacable. ‘Megan and I will take Copper out.’
Megan looked up, suddenly alert. ‘Are we going to ride?’
Mal glanced at Copper. She was more practically dressed today, in jeans and a fresh, mint-coloured shirt, but there was still something indefinably citified about her. Over lunch, all the talk had been about the forthcoming rodeo, and the expressive green eyes had been appalled at the thought of wrestling a steer to the ground, or trying to cling onto a bucking bronco.
‘I think Copper would probably prefer to go in the car,’ he said, but a smile lurked around his mouth.
Copper stiffened, well aware of how out of place she looked. ‘Not at all,’ she said, lifting her chin. She wasn’t going to give Mal the excuse of dismissing her proposals just because he thought she couldn’t cope in the outback! So what if she had never ridden before? It couldn’t be that difficult. ‘I’d like to ride.’
She regretted her bravado as soon as she laid eyes on the horse that Mal led towards her. It looked enormous, and as Copper edged closer it rolled its eyes and shook the flies off its mane with a snort. Backing rapidly away, she clutched her wallet file nervously to her chest. Maybe the car would be a better idea.
Mal nodded at the file. ‘What have you got there?’
‘Just a few things I want to check—Dad’s plan of the site, the measurements of the tent, that kind of thing—and I’m bound to need to take some notes.’
‘Where are you going to put it?’ he asked in exasperation. ‘Or were you planning to ride one-handed?’
Copper hadn’t even thought about it until that moment. ‘Isn’t there a saddle-bag or something?’
Mal sighed. ‘Here, give it to me. I’ll hold it while you get on.’
‘Right.’ She blew out a breath and squared her shoulders. ‘Right.’
The horse tossed its head up and down impatiently as Copper seized the reins. She had seen this lots of times on television. All she had to do was put one foot in the stirrup and throw her other leg over. There was nothing to it.
On television, though, the horses stood obligingly still. This horse danced sideways as soon as she got her foot into the stirrup, and she ended up hopping around the yard while the three jackaroos sitting on the fence watched with broad grins. Tipping their hats back, they had the air of settling down for a rare afternoon’s entertainment.
Cursing the horse under her breath, Copper clenched her teeth and hopped harder. Mal shook his head with a mixture of amusement and exasperation. ‘Would it help if I held him?’ he asked, the very politeness of his voice a humiliation. He took hold of the bridle, and the horse, sensing the hand of a master, stopped dead.
‘Thank you,’ said Copper grittily. Gathering the reins more firmly in her hand, she tried again, but with no more success than before, and in the end Mal had to take her foot and boost her unceremoniously up into the saddle where she landed with a bump.
‘Oh, my God,’ she muttered, horrified to find herself so far from the ground. She would need a parachute to get down again! Too nervous to notice the resigned expression on Mal’s face, she stared straight ahead as he let the horse go and stepped back.
Flicking its ears at the delay, the horse immediately set off. ‘Whoa!’ squawked Copper in alarm, and yanked at the reins, but it only seemed to take that as encouragement and broke into a brisk trot around the yard. Copper’s feet bumped out of the stirrups and she bounced hopelessly around in the saddle, bawling at the horse to stop. Somewhere in the background, she could hear the sound of heartless laughter. At least someone was enjoying themselves!
The horse was heading straight for the gate into the paddock. Oh, God, what if it decided to jump? ‘Who-oo-oo-oa!’ yelled Copper, pulling frantically at the reins, and the horse turned smartly, sending her lurching sideways before it discovered Mal barring its way and stopped dead. Unprepared, Copper pitched forward, slithered down its neck and landed on her bottom in an undignified heap at Mal’s feet.
He was grinning callously. ‘Are you OK?’ he asked, not even bothering to conceal his amusement as Megan squealed with laughter and the jackaroos hooted and whistled from the fence.
Without waiting for an answer, Mal reached down and put a firm hand beneath her arm to lift her easily to her feet. Copper was very conscious of the strength in his fingers and the whiteness of his teeth against his brown skin as he grinned. She jerked her arm away and made a great show of brushing the dust off the seat of her jeans. ‘I think so,’ she said a little sulkily. Much he would have cared if she had broken her leg! That would have been really funny, wouldn’t it?
‘Why didn’t you tell me you couldn’t ride?’ Mal asked, his voice still warm with amusement
