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Cooper was right—there was nothing for her here. She was an actress—she needed lights, music, people, an audience. Cooper was very unsatisfactory. He wasn’t in the least bit sympathetic, and showed no inclination to admire or applaud. Darcy longed to ring up half a dozen friends and ask their opinion; she was already getting withdrawal symptoms from not having a phone. It would be easy to describe her arrival at Bindaburra, more difficult to explain what Cooper was like.
Drawing the blankets up round her chin, Darcy rolled over on to her side and stared into the darkness. At first sight he seemed a typical outback type, with that lean, rangy body and the air of unhurried deliberation, but there was nothing typical about those penetrating eyes or that mouth...
Darcy clamped down firmly on thoughts of Cooper’s mouth and threw herself on to her other side with much readjustment of blankets. Much better to think about how arrogant and disagreeable he was. She frowned as she remembered how contemptuous he had been about her relationship with her great-uncle. It was true that the family had ignored him for forty years, but that was because they hadn’t known that he was still alive. Bill had left for Australia in 1924 after a bitter row with Darcy’s grandfather, and nothing had been heard from him since their mother had died just after the war. Until two years ago, that was, when Bill had turned up at the house that Darcy’s parents still lived in. They had been surprised, but delighted to welcome him back into the family. When Darcy had met him, she had been amazed that this stocky, pugnaciously colourful Australian could possibly be related to her grandfather, whom she dimly remembered as a stiff and punctiliously correct figure.
Both her parents had been occupied with other things that summer, so it had been Darcy who had spent the most time with her great-uncle. They could hardly have been more different, but each had struck a chord in the other, and much to everyone’s surprise, not least their own, they had enjoyed each other’s company. Darcy had swept her great-uncle off to parties and introduced him to all her friends with a complete lack of inhibition, and Bill had been in turns alarmed, astounded, suspicious and finally charmed.
Remembering her uncle made Darcy glad she had come. He had always wanted her to see Bindaburra, and see it she would, Cooper Anderson or no Cooper Anderson! She knew perfectly well that she wasn’t capable of running the property by herself, but she was damned if she was tamely going to hand everything over to Cooper. She would have to sell in the end, she supposed, but in the meantime she had a perfect right to be here, and it wouldn’t do him any harm to sweat a little!
It was still raining the next morning. Darcy had finally fallen into a deep, exhausted sleep which left her feeling jaded and disorientated and she rubbed her eyes with the heel of her hand as she wandered down the corridor to the kitchen, pulling her dressing-gown about her. It was an old one of her father’s, a dark red Paisley-pattern silk that had become a little worn over the years but which was still Darcy’s favourite. She hadn’t thought to bring any slippers, though, and her feet were cold on the polished wooden floor.
It was so dark that Cooper had the light on in the kitchen. He was standing looking out at the rain as he drank a mug of tea, but he turned as Darcy came yawning into the kitchen. She was never at her best in the morning. Her blue eyes were still smudgy with sleep and the thick dark hair tumbled wildly about her face.
An unreadable expression flickered over Cooper’s face as he watched her pad over to the kettle, but his voice was as astringent as Darcy remembered. ‘You’ll have to get up earlier than this if you’re planning to run the property,’ he said, looking pointedly at his watch.
‘It’s only half-past nine,’ said Darcy, squinting at her own watch.
‘It’s quarter to ten.’
‘Oh, well, that’s more or less half-past nine.’ Oblivious to Cooper’s stare, she peered into a cupboard. ‘Is there any fresh coffee?’
‘I doubt it very much,’ said Cooper. ‘Bill lived a very frugal existence. If you’re looking for luxuries, you’ve come to the wrong place. You’ll find some instant in the cupboard below,’ he added. ‘Do you want some breakfast?’
Darcy shook her dark head. ‘I can only cope with coffee at this time of the morning,’ she confessed. ‘You go ahead and have some, though.’
Looking up from stirring her coffee, she caught the gleam of amusement in his grey eyes. ‘I’ve already had breakfast, thank you,’ he said. ‘Four hours ago. I’ve just come in for a cup of tea.’
With some difficulty, Darcy mentally subtracted four hours. ‘You had breakfast at five-thirty?’ she asked incredulously.
‘You’d better get used to it if you’re still planning to stay. Or has a good night’s sleep made you see things in a more sensible light?’
‘I haven’t changed my mind, if that’s what you mean,’ said Darcy, although privately she doubted that she would be able to bear any regime which meant getting up at five o’clock, and as for eating breakfast then...! She shuddered at the thought.
Shifting from foot to foot on the cold floor, she made herself a coffee and went to sit cross-legged on a chair, tucking her feet up beneath her. ‘It’s freezing,’ she grumbled and cradled her hands around the mug. ‘I thought this was supposed to be a desert?’
‘It is mid-winter,’ Cooper pointed out. ‘You should be glad it’s like this.’
‘How do you work that one out?’ she asked, still grumpy with sleep.
‘If you’re going to be part-owner of a property like Bindaburra, you’re going to have to learn to pray for rain. If we don’t have rain, we don’t have feed for the cattle, and if we can’t feed our stock we’ll both be selling up.’
Darcy stared morosely at the rain pouring off the roof of the veranda outside the kitchen window. Surely they had had enough rain in the last two days to be going on with? It was June, summer at home. Everyone would sitting outside the pubs in the sunshine, walking across the parks in bare feet, drinking Pimms in the garden. Of course, it might be raining at home, too, she admitted honestly.
Cooper came over to the table and pulled out a chair. Darcy watched him a little warily. He looked bigger in daylight, and everything about him was more pronounced. She was very conscious suddenly of his solidity and the latent power of his body, and she thought of the French expression—being at ease in one’s skin. It described Cooper perfectly. He was quiet and controlled and somehow centred.
He must have been outside for his face had a damp sheen and his eyelashes were still wet. Darcy found herself staring at them. They were short and thick and the rain had emphasised how their darkness contrasted with the startling lightness of his eyes. For no reason, a tiny shiver slid down her spine and she pulled her dressing-gown closer around her.
‘How long had you intended to stay?’ he asked abruptly.
‘As long as necessary,’ said Darcy, irritated by that ‘had’. She put up her chin. ‘I booked a return flight to London in a month’s time, but I can easily change it if I decide to stay longer.’ ‘I wouldn’t have thought a busy actress could afford to be away that long.’
‘It just so happens that I don’t have any commitments at the moment,’ said Darcy in a dignified way. She was rather sensitive about the fact that the play that had given her her first big break had turned out to be a flop, and had folded after a disastrous two weeks.
‘Ah,’ said Cooper with one of his disquieting gleams of humour. ‘So you’re...what’s the word...resting?’
She gave him a cold look. ‘That’s one way of putting it, yes.’
‘What happens if a starring role comes up while you’re away?’
That was about as likely as one of his cows jumping over the moon, but Darcy didn’t feel like telling Cooper that. She had spent the last six weeks sitting by the phone, but no call to instant stardom had come, and, while she was normally the most optimistic of souls, she couldn’t help thinking that a month or two away wouldn’t mean missing more than a couple of television adverts. Still, it wouldn’t do for Cooper to guess that she was something less than a household name.
‘Naturally, I’ll have to let my agent know how she can contact me,’ she said grandly.
‘I hope she knows how to use a radio,’ said Cooper in a dry voice. ‘Bill didn’t have a phone, but if it’s an emergency she can always leave a message with the Flying Doctor Service.’
Darcy tried to imagine her perennially harassed agent coping with the Flying Doctor Service. ‘I’ll send her the details,’ she said, avoiding the sceptical glint in Cooper’s eye. ‘There’s nothing to stop me staying here as long as I want.’
‘So you won’t reconsider your decision not to sell?’
‘I didn’t decide not to sell,’ said Darcy. ‘I decided not to make a decision yet, and I have no intention of changing my mind about that!’
To her surprise, Cooper looked resigned rather than angry. ‘I didn’t think you would,’ he said. ‘You may not have had much in common with Bill, but you seem to be just as stubborn as he was. It seems to me that the sooner I accept that the better.’
Darcy eyed him suspiciously. Cooper Anderson hadn’t seemed to her the sort of man who gave in that easily. ‘What are you suggesting?’
‘A truce,’ he said. ‘I’ve just been out to check the creeks, and they’re way up. Whatever you decide to do, we’re stuck here for the next few days at least, so we may as well make the best of it. I think that means facing facts.’
‘What sort of facts?’ she asked cautiously.
‘The fact that we’re not going to agree about what Bill wanted for Bindaburra, for instance. I think—I know—that he wanted me to have it and you think he intended to leave it to you. It’s obvious that neither of us is going to change our mind.’ He paused and looked thoughtfully across at Darcy. ‘We got off to a bad start last night. You were tired, and I wasn’t expecting to have a partner thrust into my plans. Let’s say that neither of us was at our best. You didn’t like me and I didn’t like you, and we both think the other is being unreasonable.’
He quirked an eyebrow at her, obviously waiting for her to agree. Trying to ignore an unpleasant sinking feeling at the cool way he had admitted that he didn’t like her, Darcy nodded. She didn’t like not being liked, and she wasn’t used to such brutal candour.
‘I suggest that we start again,’ Cooper went on. ‘You’ve said you’ve booked a flight for a month’s time, and I can’t make you leave before then. Since for reasons best known to yourself you seem determined to stay, I think we should try and forget about what Bill wanted and assume that we’re willing partners. It’il mean that we both have to make an effort, but we ought to be able to manage that if it’s just for a month.’
‘Why just a month?’ said Darcy.
He met her gaze directly. ‘I think a month will be quite long enough to persuade you that you’d be better off selling your share to me.’
‘And if it doesn’t?’
‘Then we can talk again.’ He pushed his mug away from him. ‘If you agree to this, though, it’s on the understanding that we’ll treat each other as partners. That means that you do your fair share of the work. You won’t be a guest, and I won’t treat you as one—unless, of course, you decide to sell. If you stay, you work, and if you still want to stay after a month... well, I’ll admit that I was wrong.’
Darcy swirled her coffee in her mug and considered the proposal. She had a nasty feeling it wasn’t going to work to her advantage, but it was hard to find anything to object to. She could hardly refuse his overture of peace, nor would she be in a very strong position if she said she didn’t want to work. Perhaps she had been a little quick to imply that she wanted to run Bindaburra herself, and she suspected that Cooper was going to call her bluff by setting her impossible tasks.
‘Will I have to brand cows and wrestle bulls to the ground?’ she asked nervously.
Cooper looked as if he didn’t know whether to be exasperated or amused. ‘You’re welcome to try, but that wasn’t quite what I had in mind.’
‘What did you have in mind?’ said Darcy, trying to conceal her relief.
‘Bill always had a housekeeper who cooked for him and the men and kept this place in some sort of order. The last girl left a couple of weeks ago, and I haven’t had time to do anything about finding a replacement yet. One of the men has been doing the cooking since then, but he’s more useful to me outside, so if you took over the cooking you’d be making more than a token contribution.’
Darcy toyed with the idea of objecting to the sexist way he had assumed that all she was good for was cooking and cleaning, but when she thought that the alternative might be fencing in the rain or much worse she decided that she might be better off in the kitchen after all.
‘I’m not a very good cook,’ she warned him, with judicious understatement. Her dinner parties made popular disaster stories among her friends and she had learnt that it was easier to buy prepared meals from the supermarket freezers to shove in the microwave.
‘You must be better than Darren,’ said Cooper. ‘They don’t want anything fancy, just roasts and stews, and a cake or a biscuit for smoko.’
‘Oh, well, I expect I could manage that,’ said Darcy optimistically. The more she thought about it, the more she liked the idea of working, even if it did have to be in the unglamorous role of housekeeper. Uncle Bill would have wanted her to stay, at least for a while, she told herself. If she could prove her worth to Cooper, it would be a way of showing that her great-uncle had not been mistaken in her. She would be doing it for him as much as for herself.
Fired with enthusiasm, she beamed across the table at Cooper. Her hair was still tousled from sleep, but the dark blue eyes were wide awake now. ‘All right, I’ll do it.’
If she had expected Cooper to look delighted, she was disappointed. Instead he sounded almost disapproving of her ready acceptance of his idea. ‘There are other things you should think about as well,’ he said.
‘Like what?’
‘Can you afford to stay, for a start? Obviously it won’t cost you anything to stay here, but you won’t earn anything either. It would be a pity if you gave up opportunities at home just to prove a point out here.’
‘I don’t see that that’s a problem,’ said Darcy. ‘It’s not as if I had any responsibilities. I share a flat with a friend. We only pay a nominal rent because her father owns it, so I won’t be leaving her in the lurch. And as for work...well, as I said, I’ll let my agent know how to contact me just in case something unexpected comes up.’
‘Hmm.’ Cooper studied her critically, unimpressed by her insouciant attitude. ‘You should also consider how you feel about living alone with me.’
Carried away by the prospect of proving that she wasn’t as useless as he thought her, Darcy had forgotten how she had sat fidgeting with her bracelets, overwhelmed by that strange sense of awareness. Now she uncrossed her legs and dropped her feet to the floor, conscious for the first time of the intimacy of the situation. She hadn’t thought twice before about the propriety of sitting opposite him with nothing on under her dressing-gown, but now she tightened the belt automatically. The silk slithered sleekly against her skin and she had a sudden disturbing awareness of her own body.
She wished Cooper had never mentioned the prospect of living alone. She had been happily defiant before; now she couldn’t take her eyes off his hands, horrified by how easily she could imagine what it would be like to sit here like lovers, still sleepy and smiling after a night together, her body tingling with remembered desire. So vivid was the picture that Darcy’s skin seemed to burn as if she could feel his hands easing the dressing-gown apart to slide caressingly over her body and pull her against his tautly muscled strength...
Darcy swallowed and pushed the vision aside with an effort. Living alone with Cooper suddenly seemed fraught with unsuspected dangers, none of which she could explain. ‘W-we won’t be alone, though, will we?’ she said in a voice that sounded ridiculously high even to her own ears. ‘The other men will be back as soon as the creeks go down, won’t they?’ There would be safety in numbers, she reasoned, and with three other men around there would be none of the intimacy that might lead to more dangerous fantasising about just one.
‘They’ll eat with us here in the homestead, but they sleep in their own quarters.’
‘Oh.’ Darcy looked down into her empty coffeemug. ‘Well, couldn’t you sleep in their quarters?’
‘I could, but I have no intention of doing so,’ said Cooper in an acerbic tone. He got up impatiently and carried his mug over to the sink. ‘I intend to make Bindaburra my home, and I don’t see why I should move out just to make you feel better.’
‘You were the one who brought up the subject,’ she pointed out with a touch of sullenness.
‘I’m just advising you to think about what’s involved,’ he said austerely, swirling the mug under the tap. ‘There’s no point in you agreeing to stay and then suddenly getting maidenly scruples.’
‘I haven’t got maidenly scruples!’ Darcy protested.
‘Oh? Then why did you suggest I move out to the ringers’ quarters?’
‘I just thought it would be...less awkward.’
Cooper came back to the table. ‘Awkward for whom?’
‘Well, not exactly awkward—’ she began, wishing she’d never opened her mouth, but he interrupted her.
‘You mean you don’t trust me to keep my hands off you?’
‘No!’ Seeing Cooper raise his eyebrows, she hurried to correct herself. ‘I mean, no, I didn’t mean that. That you wouldn’t be able to keep your hands off me, I mean...’ Utterly confused about what she meant by now, Darcy floundered to a halt.
‘Could it be that you don’t trust yourself to keep your hands off me, then?’ he suggested provocatively.
‘Certainly not!’ Without thinking, she jumped to her feet, clutching her dressing-gown about her, dark hair bouncing around her face and blue eyes stormy and magnificent. ‘I’m hardly likely to have any interest in you!’
‘Why not?’ Cooper came round the table towards her, but Darcy was too angry to care.
‘Why? Why?’ she echoed, trying desperately to think of a convincing reason. ‘Because... because you’re just not my type, and even if you were I... I’m already involved with someone else,’ she finished in a rush.
It didn’t seem to have much effect in halting Cooper’s advance, which she had belatedly noticed. ‘What’s his name?’ he asked, calmly taking her waist between his hands. They were hard and strong and seemed to burn through the silk on to her skin.
’S-Sebastian,’ she stammered, trying to push away his steely grip.
‘Sebastian? Is he an actor, too?’
‘Yes,’ said Darcy, preoccupied with her futile struggle to free herself.
Cooper himself hardly seemed to notice her efforts. ‘How involved is “involved”?’ he said.
‘I’m in love with him,’ she said defiantly. She was, she reminded herself, remembering how heartbroken she had been.
‘And is Sebastian in love with you?’
Darcy hesitated. ‘Yes.’ Much the safest answer, even if the least truthful. She had given up her attempts to wriggle free and had brought her hands up to his chest to ward him off. Beneath her palms she could feel the disturbingly warm solidity of his body through the brushed-cotton shirt, and she drew her hands away slightly.
‘You don’t sound very sure,’ said Cooper conversationally, a smile lurking around his mouth.
Darcy drew a steadying breath. ‘I am sure,’ she said. ‘Sebastian trusts me utterly.’
‘Really?’ he said, drawing her inexorably closer until her hands were jammed back against his chest. His eyes were alight with an expression that set her heart thudding in a treacherous combination of alarm and anticipation. ‘Sebastian sounds like a rash man to me. If I were in his position, I wouldn’t tempt fate by letting a girl like you out of my sight, let alone disappear off to Australia on her own.’
‘He knows I’d never be interested in another man,’ whispered Darcy, who could hardly hear her own voice above the booming of her heart and was fighting a desperate battle against the terrible temptation to lean into him.
Cooper’s smile was speculative. ‘Well, let’s see if Sebastian was right or not, shall we?’ he murmured, and slid his hands up to cup her throat and lift her face to his.
CHAPTER THREE
THE touch of Cooper’s mouth sent a lightning bolt of reaction through her, catching Darcy off balance. It was as if the floor had dropped away beneath her, plunging her into a maelstrom of conflicting emotions, and she gasped, clutching instinctively at the front of his shirt as her only anchor.
How had she known that his lips would be so warm, so sure, so treacherously persuasive? Darcy was caught between shock and the arrowing certainty that it had always been like this. Just as when she had hesitated in the kitchen door last night she had been swamped by that strange sense of familiarity, so now his kiss left her awash with recognition. It was almost like coming home; the touch and the scent and the hard, masculine feel of his body through the flimsy silk dressing-gown were all part of her, inseparable from the intoxicating rush of feeling that swirled through her senses and left her reeling and incapable of thought.
She was unaware of her hands slowly loosening their clutch on his shirt to spread and slide over his chest and up to his shoulders. Beneath the cotton, his body was tempered steel, solid and unyielding to her touch. Darcy clung to its reassuring strength, heedless of the instinctive arch of her body. Her head was tipped back invitingly so that her soft dark hair fell over his hand, which was smoothing seductively down her spine. She had forgotten her anger, forgotten Sebastian and the cold floor beneath her bare feet, forgotten everything but Cooper’s kiss, his mouth on hers, his hands burning through the silk on to her skin and the breathtaking thump of excitement that was beating ever louder and faster, drowning out the voice that should have been shouting at her to resist.
As her arms slid round his neck, Cooper lifted his mouth from hers, but only to gather her closer again into a kiss that was deeper and more demanding than before. Darcy was drowning, dissolving in a rising tide of desire, and her fingers tightened on his shoulders as the silk belt of her gown slithered apart and his hands slipped beneath to curve over her body. Darcy gasped aloud, electrified by their scorching exploration, and sheer, shameful pleasure shuddered over her skin.
Abandoned to the wash of sensation, Darcy hardly heard Cooper’s muttered exclamation or realised that his hands had stilled abruptly. They withdrew slowly, sliding reluctantly out from beneath the silk as he levered himself away from her. By the time Darcy had grasped what was happening, he was retying her belt with a wry smile.
