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‘I couldn’t afford it,’ she said simply, opening the boot to reveal a suitcase and a bulging stuff bag.
Cooper lifted out the suitcase. ‘You seem to have been able to afford a flight to Australia at short notice,’ he pointed out.
‘My father lent me the money for the ticket,’ Darcy confessed. ‘I didn’t know how long it would take to get here from Adelaide, so I had to hire a car, but I thought I should get the cheapest in case I couldn’t take it back after a few days.’ She hoisted out the stuff bag and banged the boot shut. ‘It’s just as well I did! I didn’t realise it would take two days just to get here!’
‘There seem to be a lot of things you didn’t realise about Bindaburra,’ said Cooper unpleasantly, tossing the case into the open back of the ute.
Darcy peered in after it. ‘It’s going to get a bit wet like that, isn’t it?’
‘Not as wet as we’re going to be if we don’t get moving,’ he said, but she was reluctant to give up on her case that easily.
‘Isn’t there room inside?’
‘Not unless you’d like to have it on your lap,’ said Cooper impatiently.
‘My clothes are going to be sodden,’ Darcy complained. ‘Couldn’t we cover it with something?’
Muttering under his breath, Cooper unearthed a grubby tarpaulin from beneath the clutter of tools, jerricans and ropes and threw it over the case. ‘There! Happy now?’
‘I suppose so,’ said Darcy, gloomily contemplating a case full of damp clothes.
‘In that case, will you please shut up and get in? If the creeks keep rising, your wet clothes are going to be the least of our problems!’
In the event, they made it across all the creeks—but only just. Each one was deeper and more alarming, until the water in the last was swirling over Darcy’s feet. She swallowed. The car she had hired would never have got through, and she would have been in real trouble if she had been stuck in the middle of the creek. Perhaps she ought to be a little more grateful that Cooper had come along after all.
It was completely dark by the time they arrived at Bindaburra homestead, and Darcy was too relieved at having reached it safely to be disappointed that she couldn’t see more of the house. She had a confused impression of a long, low house with a deep veranda before Cooper led her down a dim corridor lit by a single naked electric light bulb and opened a door. ‘This is where the last housekeeper slept, so it shouldn’t be in too bad a state,’ he said, dumping her cases inside. ‘I’ll find you some sheets, and I presume you’d like a shower, but then we’d better talk.’
He made it sound rather ominous. Left alone, Darcy sat rather uncertainly on the bed and looked around her. It was a plain room, with spartan, old-fashioned furnishings and that indefinable smell of emptiness. Suddenly she felt rather forlorn. She had imagined a bright, welcoming house bathed in bright sunshine, not rain and gloom and a hostile partner. She should have listened to her father and stayed at home, she thought glumly.
She felt better after a shower. Lugging her suitcase over to the bed, she draped the damp clothes over a chair and burrowed down to find something dry. Eventually she pulled out a dress made of soft, fine wool that swirled comfortingly about her. It was a wonderfully rich colour, somewhere between deep blue and purple, with a narrow waist emphasised by a wide suede belt. Darcy pushed a selection of Middle Eastern bracelets up her arm and regarded herself critically in the mirror.
The dim light gave her the look of a Forties film star, just catching the silky gleam of dark hair and making her eyes seem bigger and bluer than ever. Why was Cooper so determinedly unimpressed? True, she didn’t look like the most practical girl in the world, but she was pretty and friendly and—whatever he might think—not completely brainless. What was so wrong with that?
Darcy gave herself an encouraging smile that faded as she remembered how Cooper had simply ignored it. She had never met anyone so resistant to her charms. It wasn’t that she wanted him to find her attractive, she reminded herself hastily, but he could have been a little more...welcoming.
Her bracelets chinked against each other as she walked down the long, ill-lit corridor. She found Cooper in the kitchen, a large, old-fashioned room with a row of steel fridges and an antiquated-looking stove.
Cooper was sitting at the scrubbed wooden table, turning a can of beer absently between his hands. His face was intent with thought and there was a slight crease between his brows, as if he was pondering some difficult problem, but he looked up at Darcy’s approach, his clear, cool grey gaze meeting her warm blue one across the room.
Darcy stopped dead in the doorway, overwhelmed by a sudden and inexplicable sense of recognition at the sight of him. The line of his cheek, the curl of his mouth, the long brown fingers against the beer can, all suddenly seemed almost painfully familiar. It was as if she had always known him, had already traced the angles of his face with her hands and counted each crease at the edges of his eyes. Darcy felt jarred, breathless, quite unprepared for the peculiar certainty that her whole life had led to this moment, standing in a strange kitchen, staring into the eyes of this cool, watchful man while a clock ticked somewhere in the silence and outside the rain drummed noisily on the corrugated-tin roof.
‘What’s the matter?’ Cooper got to his feet, frowning.
Thoroughly unnerved by her bizarre reaction, Darcy swallowed. ‘Nothing,’ she croaked, and cleared her throat hastily. ‘Should there be?’
‘You look a bit peculiar.’
‘I was under the impression that you thought that everything about me was peculiar,’ she said waspishly, desperately trying to recover herself and wishing that Cooper’s eyes weren’t quite so acute.
‘What makes you say that?’ he asked politely.
Typically, Darcy couldn’t then think of a single thing he had said to hold against him. ‘It’s just an impression you give,’ she said a little sullenly. ‘You make me feel as if I’m a complete idiot.’
Cooper looked amused. ‘Anyone would feel a complete idiot, carrying a ridiculous umbrella like that,’ he said. He raised an eyebrow at Darcy, still hesitating in the doorway. ‘Are you going to stand there all night, or would you like to come in?’
That was exactly the kind of comment she had meant, Darcy thought crossly, but of course it was impossible to explain it to him. At least that odd feeling had gone. Obscurely grateful to Cooper for reminding her that he was simply a disagreeable stranger, she went over to the table and pulled out a chair. She was tired, still jet-lagged, lost and disorientated in a strange place. Nothing else could explain that brief, swamping sense of recognition when she had stood in the doorway and looked across at Cooper.
‘Like a beer?’ he asked.
‘I’d rather have tea if you have some,’ she said, proud of how cool she sounded.
‘Sure.’ Cooper crossed to the sink and filled the kettle, and Darcy found herself watching him as if she had never seen him before. There was a lean ranginess about him that hadn’t been so obvious in the ute. His body was compact and very controlled, and his movements had a sort of quiet, deliberate economy that was curiously reassuring.
He could hardly have been more different from Sebastian, she thought. Sebastian was fair and flamboyant, Cooper dark and unhurried, and yet Darcy had a sudden conviction that if she put them in a room together it would be Cooper who was the focus of attention. He wasn’t nearly as handsome as Sebastian, but there was something much more compelling about him than mere good looks, and for the first time she appreciated just how alone they were together. The outside world seemed a long, long way away.
Darcy fiddled nervously with her bracelets, but the chinking silver sounded abnormally loud and she forced herself to link her hands together and think of something to say instead.
Unperturbed by the silence, Cooper had propped himself against the cupboards while he waited for the kettle to boil, arms folded across his chest and long legs crossed casually at the ankles.
‘How did Uncle Bill die?’ Darcy asked at last. “The solicitor just said that he died suddenly, but he seemed so healthy when he was in England.’
‘It was a freak accident,’ said Cooper quietly. ‘He broke his neck when he came off his motorbike. He’d hit an anthill and must have fallen the wrong way.’ He paused and glanced at Darcy. ‘He died instantly.’
Darcy closed her eyes. Her great-uncle had been such a strong, colourful character that it was impossible to imagine him killed by anything as small as an anthill.
‘Is that why you came?’ asked Cooper abruptly. ‘To find out how he died?’
‘Partly.’
‘And partly to see what he’d left you?’
There was an unmistakably sardonic edge to his voice and Darcy stiffened. ‘Uncle Bill always wanted me to see Bindaburra,’ she said defiantly.
‘He wanted you to see it; he didn’t want you to have it.’
‘That’s not what his will said,’ said Darcy in a cold voice. ‘I’m his great-niece and he was fond of me. Why shouldn’t he leave his property to me?’
‘Because he said he would leave it to me.’
‘To you? Why you?’
The kettle shrieked and Cooper turned calmly away to make a pot of tea. ‘I was his partner. He knew he could trust me to look after Bindaburra the way he had done.’
‘You can’t have been partners all that long,’ Darcy objected. ‘Uncle Bill never mentioned you when he was in England and that was only two years ago.’
‘He wouldn’t have done.’ Cooper put the lid back on the teapot and carried it over to the table. ‘Bill hated the fact that he couldn’t manage financially without a partner. I think he thought that if he didn’t talk about it it would mean that Bindaburra was still completely his.’
‘So were you a sort of sleeping partner?’ asked Darcy as he looked in one of the fridges for some milk.
‘In a way. I put in the capital he needed, but we agreed that Bill would continue to run Bindaburra without any interference from me. We had a tacit understanding that I would take over when he couldn’t manage any more, and that on his death the whole property would revert to me.’
He pushed the milk across the table towards Darcy, who poured some into a mug, frowning slightly. ‘Does that mean you’ve only taken over here since he died?’
‘Exactly. I haven’t had time to sort out the homestead yet, but Bindaburra will be my base.’
‘Doesn’t that rather depend on me?’ said Darcy coolly, reaching for the teapot.
Cooper looked grim. ‘It does now. Bill was a man of his word, but he obviously never got round to changing his will. I can assure you, though, that he intended Bindaburra to go to someone who could continue to look after it as he would have wanted.’
‘I’ve only got your word for that,’ she pointed out.
‘You needn’t worry,’ said Cooper contemptuously. ‘I don’t expect you to honour Bill’s agreement. I’ll give you a good price for your share.’
Darcy stirred her tea vigorously and laid down the spoon with a click. ‘Suppose I don’t want to sell?’
‘What else can you do?’ he said with an irritable look. ‘You’re surely not proposing to stay here yourself?’
He made it sound such a ludicrous idea that Darcy, who hadn’t got as far as proposing anything other than proving to Cooper Anderson that she had no intention of meekly giving in to whatever he suggested, sat back in her chair and pushed the chinking bracelets defiantly up her arm.
‘Why not?’ she said.
CHAPTER TWO
‘DON’T be ridiculous!’ said Cooper impatiently. ‘You can’t stay here.’
‘I don’t see why not.’ Darcy was looking mutinous. ‘It’s my house, isn’t it?’
He sucked in his breath, obviously having trouble controlling his temper. ‘If this is a way of trying to get me to force up my price, you can forget it, Darcy...sorry, Miss Meadows.’
‘I’m not interested in the money,’ she said with a glare at his sarcastic reminder of the way she had mistaken him for an employee. ‘I’m interested in doing what Uncle Bill would have wanted, and that doesn’t include handing it over to you as soon as you wave a cheque-book under my nose!’
‘Are you sure you want to turn your back on that kind of money?’
‘I loved Uncle Bill,’ Darcy said fiercely. ‘That means far more to me than anything, and if you thought I came out here just to bump up the price of some crummy little outback station you’ve got another think coming!’
‘Is that what you think Bindaburra is? A “crummy little outback station”?’
Darcy shifted a little uncomfortably at the sting in his voice. ‘I know it didn’t seem like that to Uncle Bill,’ she admitted sulkily. ‘I only meant that the property isn’t likely to be of any interest to me financially.’
‘Bindaburra covers over ten thousand square kilometres,’ said Cooper coldly. ‘It’s a very valuable property,’ he went on, ignoring Darcy’s dropped jaw. ‘You should consider that before you claim not to have any financial interest. Personally, I think you would be mad not to accept my offer to buy your share from you. You’re unlikely to be able to sell it as easily with a hostile partner already in place.’
‘I had no idea it was that big,’ said Darcy, struggling to convert kilometres into miles to try and work out just how big ‘big’ was. Not that she needed to bother. The answer was obviously huge.
‘Perhaps now you’ll realise how impossible it would be for you to stay!’
Darcy lifted her chin stubbornly. ‘No.’
‘Bindaburra can’t support someone who just sits around looking decorative,’ said Cooper with a scathing look, and she bristled.
‘I don’t just sit around! I’m used to working.’
‘Oh, yes?’ He didn’t even bother to hide his disbelief. ‘Doing what?’
‘I’m an actress.’
‘Oh, an actress ... that’ll be handy!’ Cooper was predictably sarcastic. ‘I’m talking about real work.’
‘Acting is work,’ she protested. ‘It’s much harder work than most people realise. It only looks easy.’
‘It’s still not exactly relevant experience for running a cattle station, is it?’
Darcy took a defiant sip of her tea. ‘I could learn.’
‘We’re not talking about a part in some play!’ A muscle hammered in Cooper’s lean jaw. ‘Bill worked hard all his life to build up Bindaburra into one of the finest properties in this part of Australia. I’m not going to let you throw it all away. Quite apart from anything else, I’ve got my investment to consider. That’s why I am now running Bindaburra, and I’m more than capable of running it without assistance from you!’
‘And I’ve got my inheritance to consider,’ she retorted. ‘What about all these other properties you said you owned? How do I know that you won’t be so busy that you’ll end up neglecting Bindaburra?’
Cooper clenched his teeth together. ‘There’s no question of that. I have managers who deal with problems on a day-to-day basis, and I’ve already made arrangements to come and live here permanently.’
‘That was a bit premature, wasn’t it? You could at least have waited to see what I wanted to do!’
‘It never occurred to me that you would want to do anything other than sell,’ he snapped. ‘I certainly didn’t think you would drop everything and hotfoot it out from England to see exactly what the old man had left you!’
‘It wasn’t like that,’ Darcy protested, stung.
‘It looks like that from where I’m standing. You and your family ignored Bill for forty years. It was only when he went over to England and looked you up that you suddenly discovered that he owned a cattle station and you started making a fuss of him. Oh, there have been plenty of letters since then but it’s funny how you’ve only kept in touch since you thought you might get something out of him—as you have.’
Darcy banged her mug down on the table so hard that tea slopped over the edge. ‘I’ve told you, I had no idea that Bindaburra was worth anything!’
‘So you say. I’ve only got your word for that.’
‘Well, you’ll just have to take it, then, won’t you?’
‘I will if you’ll take my word that Bill intended to leave Bindaburra to me,’ said Cooper in a hard voice.
There was a hostile silence as they glared stubbornly at each other. It was Darcy who spoke first. ‘It sounds as if you’ve got other properties. Why do I have to sell up just so that you can have another one?’
He hesitated. ‘Bindaburra’s special,’ he said after a moment. ‘I’ve waited for this property a long time. I want all of Bindaburra, and I don’t care what I have to do to get it. If that means paying you a fair and generous price for something that’s rightfully mine, then that’s what I’ll have to do, but I’m not prepared to play silly games with you about it.’
‘I’ve got no intention of playing games,’ said Darcy, angrily shaking back her dark hair. ‘What makes Bindaburra rightfully yours? If Uncle Bill had wanted you to have Bindaburra, then he would have left it to you, but he didn’t. I came out here not because I wanted to see what I’d “got out of him”, as you put it, but because I felt I owed it to Uncle Bill to come. If he left Bindaburra to me, it’s because he wanted me to have it, not you, and I’m not going to casually hand it over on your say-so, no matter how fair and generous you think your offer is!’
Cooper crunched his empty beer can in his hand with an angry exclamation. ‘Fine words, but why don’t you face facts? A cattle station is no place for someone like you. It’s a hard, uncomfortable life, and you wouldn’t last five minutes out here on your own.’
‘Perhaps, but I’m still not going to be bullied into selling,’ said Darcy, draining her tea and pushing back her chair to stand up. ‘You’ve made it very plain that you don’t want me here, but you’re not going to get rid of me that easily. I may well decide to sell, but I’ll make up my own mind in my own time, and until I do I’m going to stay, so you’ll just have to lump it, won’t you?’
In spite of her brave words, Darcy lay awake wondering what on earth she had got herself into. It was wet and miserable, the house was cold and dingy and she was stuck in the middle of nowhere with a man who apparently both disliked and distrusted her. If she had any sense, she would take whatever Cooper Anderson was offering and head back for civilisation as soon as she could.
No, Darcy corrected herself gloomily. If she had any sense she wouldn’t have come at all.
