The Wedding Challenge

‘There’s room for three,’ he said drily.

Which meant, of course, that Bea was stuck in the middle. The gear stick was set into the column of the steering wheel, so there was nothing to stop her sliding across the shiny leather seat against Chase. She kept edging back towards Emily, who used her bottom to shunt her back into the middle.

‘Budge over, Bea,’ she said. ‘You’re squashing me.’

Bea clung to the bar across the dashboard and concentrated on not brushing against Chase’s arm, but it was hard when the ute was lurching and bumping over the rough ground.

‘Who’s Julie?’ she asked to distract herself from the solid length of his thigh on the seat next to hers.

From the fine hairs at his wrist glinting in the sunlight.

From his hands on the steering wheel and the tingling where his touch seemed imprinted still on her skin.

Bea shivered, and Chase shot her a curious glance. ‘Julie’s married to one of the stockmen,’ was all he said. ‘He’s known as the married man, which means he gets a house on the property. Julie’s got two kids of her own, but she’s been keeping an eye on Chloe until you got here.’

He pulled up outside a low house which looked to Bea as if it had been plonked down in the middle of the bush with an arbitrary fence thrown around it to create a yard otherwise indistinguishable from the surrounding scrub. Three children were playing in the shade of the long veranda, but when they saw the ute pull up at the gate, a little girl detached herself and came tumbling down the steps.

‘Uncle Chase! Uncle Chase!’

Glad of the excuse to get out of the car, Bea had slid out after Chase, just in time to see him smile at the child who threw herself at him.

It gave Bea a horrible fright. For one terrible moment she thought that her heart had actually stopped beating, but the next instant it had slammed back into action, thudding painfully against her ribs and sucking all the oxygen from her lungs so that it was difficult to breathe properly.

For God’s sake, she scolded herself. It was only a smile! You’ve seen a man smile before, haven’t you?

Not like that, an inner voice answered.

She was so taken up with breathing again that it took a minute to realise just what she had heard. Uncle Chase?

Bea swallowed. ‘Uncle?’ she repeated in a hollow voice.

Chase looked at her over the top of the cab. There was no mistaking the glint of mockery in his eyes. ‘Uncle Chase,’ he confirmed, the little girl hanging off one hand.

Even Emily was diverted from Baz for a moment. ‘You’re Nick’s brother?’ she said, staring.

‘I’m Chase Sutherland,’ he agreed.

‘We thought you were the manager!’ Emily put her hand to her mouth and giggled. ‘You must have thought Bea was weird when she insisted on calling you Mr Chase!’

Bea gritted her teeth. ‘I’m sure Mr Sutherland knew perfectly well what we thought,’ she said tightly, glaring at Chase. ‘Why didn’t you tell us Chase was your first name?’ she demanded.

‘I told you to call me Chase,’ he pointed out with what she was sure was a smirk. ‘But you seemed pretty set on calling me Mr. I thought maybe things were more formal where you come from.’

He hadn’t thought anything of the kind, Bea thought savagely. He had just enjoyed seeing her making a complete idiot of herself.

Chase put one hand on the shoulder of the little girl in her denim dungarees. Her blonde hair was tied up in bunches and she had an angelic face belied by the expression in her sharp green eyes.

‘This is Chloe,’ said Chase. ‘Say hello to Emily and Bea, Chloe. Oh, I’m sorry!’ He caught himself up and looked at Bea in mock apology. ‘Would you prefer her to call you Miss Bea? I know how keen you are on formality!’

‘Bea’s fine,’ she said grittily and forced herself to smile at the child as Emily was doing. ‘Hello, Chloe.’

Chloe eyed her warily. ‘Hello,’ she said without enthusiasm.

Bea and Emily exchanged a glance. Even inexperienced as they were, they recognised the mutinous set to that little mouth.

‘Emily and Bea are going to look after you until Dad comes home,’ said Chase.

‘Emily is going to look after you,’ Bea put in firmly. She knew absolutely nothing about children, and she had no intention of getting roped in to looking after one. ‘I’m just the cook.’

Chloe studied her with suspicious green eyes. ‘Why do we have to call you Miss Bea?’ she demanded.

‘That was just your uncle’s idea of a joke,’ said Bea.

‘Why?’

‘I’ve no idea. It wasn’t very funny, was it?’

A smile twitched at the corner of Chase’s mouth as he went over to speak to Baz. To Emily’s dismay, the stockman nodded, tipped his hat again in their direction, and walked off.

‘Don’t panic,’ said Chase drily, correctly interpreting the look on Emily’s face. ‘You’ll see him again this evening. If you get in the ute, I’ll be back in a minute,’ he added. ‘Chloe, you get in too.’

The three of them squeezed into the front seat and, when Chase reappeared, they set off down a fork in the track. Bea could feel the dust gritting her skin already, and her hair felt awful. She couldn’t believe why anyone would choose to live out here. There was nothing but scrub, a few spindly trees and the bare earth, cracked and baking in the heat.

And then Chase swung off the main track, and they suddenly found themselves in an oasis of green. It was so unexpected that Bea actually gasped. Tall trees cast fractured shade over a lawn where a sprinkler flickered. There were lemon trees and great clumps of pink oleanders and purple bougainvillea, and set amidst it all the homestead, a solid, stone building with a deep veranda running around all sides and an air of gracious calm.

‘Oh, it’s beautiful!’ Emily cried.

Bea said nothing, but she had to admit to herself that things might not be quite as bad as she had feared.

Chase drove round the back to a big, dusty yard and parked the ute under a gum tree. From this view the homestead was less impressive. Nobody was wasting water on the working side of the house, with its collection of sheds, its water tanks and windmill.

Inside, though, the homestead was cool and quiet. The floors were of polished wood and the furniture was a comfortable mixture of the antique and the modern. Someone, thought Bea, had a lot of style.

And a lot of money.

Chase dumped their cases in a room with twin beds and looked at his watch. ‘I’ll show you the kitchen,’ he said to Bea, ‘and then leave you to get on with it.’

Leaving Emily to cope with Chloe on her own, he strode back down the corridor, with Bea forced to trot to keep up with him.

‘This is the kitchen,’ he said, opening a door into a large room equipped, to Bea’s relief, with what looked like the latest technology. He pointed through a door on the other side of the room. ‘We eat on the veranda through there.’

‘What, outside?’

‘It’s cooler out there.’

‘Yes, but what about the flies?’

‘It’s screened in,’ said Chase impatiently, as if she was supposed to know that everyone in the outback ate on their verandas. ‘Now, you should find everything you need over there,’ he went on, pointing at a wall of steel fridges and freezers. ‘There’s a larder and a cold store as well. I suggest you keep opening doors until you find what you need. The stockmen will come over for supper at seven o’clock, so you’ll need to have a meal ready by then. Any questions?’

‘“What am I doing here” springs to mind!’ sighed Bea.

Chase frowned. ‘I understood you were a qualified cook.’

‘I am. That doesn’t make me a mind reader!’

He glanced irritably at his watch, impatient to be gone. ‘What do you need to know?’

‘How many I’m cooking for, for a start.’

‘Oh.’ It was a reasonable enough question, Chase allowed grudgingly. ‘Nine of us, plus you two. Chloe eats separately in the evening. She should be in bed by seven.’

‘I’ll tell Emily,’ said Bea sweetly. ‘Any special dietary requirements?’

She was looking straight at him, and Chase saw her eyes properly for the first time. They were golden, the colour of warm honey, and very clear.

‘Meat,’ he said gruffly, annoyed with himself for even noticing. ‘Nothing fancy.’

‘Well, I should be able to cope with that.’

She didn’t even bother to disguise her sarcasm, and Chase shot her a look as he took a hat from the hooks by the door.

‘You’re not much good to me if you can’t,’ he said, and went out, letting the screen door bang behind him.

He didn’t reappear until six o’clock. Bea looked up as the screen door creaked and then went back to slicing carrots vengefully.

The door clattered back into place and Chase hung his hat on a hook. ‘Is everything OK?’

The casual note in his voice infuriated Bea.

‘Oh, yes, everything’s fine!’ she said, tight-lipped, her knife flashing dangerously as it demolished the carrots. ‘We’ve been dumped in the middle of nowhere, with no idea of where anything is or how anything works…and you disappear and just leave us to get on with it!’

‘I thought you wanted to come and work on a cattle station?’

‘Emily wanted to come. Personally, I appreciate a more professional set-up!’

Chase eyed her cautiously. She seemed tense, and he knew from past experience that the last thing you wanted was a tense cook at this stage of the evening. If they wanted to eat tonight, he would have to be careful not to provoke her.

‘You seem to have managed, anyway,’ he said pacifically. ‘Something smells good. Did you find everything you needed?’

‘Eventually,’ said Bea with something of a snap. If she had, it was no thanks to him!

There was a tiny pause.

‘Where’s Emily?’ Chase tried again.

‘Giving Chloe a bath.’

‘Has she been all right?’ Bea reached for another carrot, her edginess at the sight of Chase easing slightly. ‘She seems a bit…wary,’ she said.

There had been a definite sense of wills being measured and in Chloe’s case at least, some calculation as to how much she could get away with. It hadn’t taken her long to realise that the answer was ‘a lot’ as far as Emily was concerned.

Still, it wasn’t her problem, Bea told herself firmly. She had enough to do as it was. Finding your way around a strange kitchen and producing supper for eleven with no warning was problem enough for her!

She had changed, Chase realised. She had replaced those ridiculous shoes with flat sandals and the dress with cotton trousers and a sleeveless top beneath a practical apron. Her hair was pushed behind her ears, and her lashes were lowered as her eyes followed the rapid slicing movements of the knife in her hand.

For some reason Chase felt awkward. ‘She’s a nice kid when she gets to know you,’ he said after a moment. ‘She’s had to get used to a lot of different people passing through, and she tends to take her time before deciding whether she likes you or not. I don’t blame her.’

‘Nor do I.’ Bea looked up from her knife and he was struck again by how clear her eyes were. ‘I do exactly the same.’

Although that wasn’t quite true, was it? She had decided she didn’t like Chase straight away.

There was another pause. Bea reached for another carrot.

‘It must be difficult for Chloe with her mother being away as well as her father. When is she coming back?’

Chase had gone over to the beer fridge, but he stilled with his hand on the door and turned to face her, his brows drawn together. ‘Didn’t Nick explain the situation?’

‘I’ve never met him,’ said Bea. ‘I gathered from Emily that his wife was working in the States and that he’d gone to join her.’

Chase’s hand fell. ‘It’s a bit more complicated than that,’ he said slowly.

Bea paused in mid-slice, and something in his expression made her lay the knife down. ‘What?’

‘Georgie’s left Nick.’

‘Oh, I see,’ she said uncomfortably. ‘And Chloe?’

‘She doesn’t know. She’s too young to understand.’

Chase pulled a beer out of the fridge and wrenched off the top before belatedly remembering to offer Bea one. She shook her head and he sat down at the table, turning the bottle between his hands. It went against the grain to pass on Nick and Georgie’s private business, but she and Emily really needed to know the situation so that they didn’t upset Chloe unnecessarily.

‘Nick’s gone to try and persuade Georgie to come home,’ he said.

To his relief, Bea didn’t offer sympathy or sit down next to him and encourage him to tell her the whole story. Instead she swept the carrots off the board into a saucepan and picked up an onion.

‘Why has…Georgie?…gone to America? Is she really working?’

‘Oh, yes, she’s working all right. That’s part of the problem. Georgie’s an actress. She’s making a movie somewhere in Texas, and she’s got a starring role.’

Bea froze and put down her knife very carefully. ‘We’re not talking about Georgie Grainger by any chance, are we?’

‘You’ve heard of her?’ Chase took a pull of his beer. ‘Georgie would be pleased.’

Bea opened her mouth and then closed it again. Georgie Grainger was not yet in Nicole Kidman’s league, but comparisons were already being made. She had had a small part in a film that had turned into the unexpected success of the previous year, breaking all box office records, and for a while the media couldn’t get enough of her.

Bea remembered seeing her being interviewed on a television chat show, and how envious she had been of her creamy skin and swinging chestnut hair and spectacular green eyes.

‘She’s gorgeous, isn’t she?’ she had said to Phil, but he had only grunted and said that he preferred blondes.

That should have been a warning.

CHAPTER THREE

‘I DIDN’T realise that she was married,’ she said after a moment. Georgie Grainger had seemed so young and so glamorous that it was hard to imagine her as a wife and mother, let alone in a place like Calulla Downs!

‘Not many people did. She was told to keep it quiet. Apparently a husband and a baby aren’t the right image for an up and coming star.’ There was a bitter edge to Chase’s voice. ‘Once you’ve made it, a baby is the ultimate accessory, I understand, but when you’re still trying to hit the big time…no, much better to hide them away. They kept telling Georgie that she had a great future. They talked about Hollywood and dazzled her with hints of multimillion-dollar deals. You can see why cooking a roast for the stockmen would lose appeal, can’t you?’

Only too well, thought Bea, but it didn’t seem tactful to say so. She had never wanted to be a movie star, but she could certainly understand the lure of Los Angeles after Calulla Downs. She’d been here less than half a day and already she couldn’t wait to head back to the bright lights.

On the other hand, she didn’t have a husband and a small child to think about.

She went back to chopping onions. ‘Why did Georgie marry your brother if she wanted to be an actress?’ she asked. ‘She must have known there wouldn’t be much scope for her career out here.’

For a moment she thought Chase wasn’t going to reply. He was brooding over his beer, frowning down into it as if it held the answer to her question.

‘She was very young when she met Nick,’ he said eventually. ‘She was just out of drama school and the play she was in folded after a couple of weeks. It seemed then that her career wasn’t going anywhere, and Nick can be very persuasive. He swept her off her feet.’

When Bea glanced at him under her lashes, his face was stern and set. He obviously disapproved of his brother’s romance. It was hard to imagine Chase sweeping a girl off her feet, she thought. Tapping his watch and telling her to make up her mind would be more his style.

Unaware of her thoughts, Chase was still talking about his sister-in-law. ‘I think marriage for Georgie was just another role she could play. She saw herself as mistress of a famous cattle station, and was carried away by the romance of it all. She should have known better,’ he added drily. ‘She grew up on a property down south, but I guess she thought it would be different here. It wasn’t, of course. It was just more isolated.’

He looked at Bea, but she was busy chopping onions and it was impossible to tell what she thought.

‘Georgie did try,’ he went on, almost as if he had to convince her. ‘She used to love having parties, and the homestead was always full of her friends, but then we had a bad drought and things were a bit tight for while. Georgie decided that we should get into the tourist business, and spent a fortune we couldn’t afford on all this.’ He waved a hand at the gleaming array of kitchen equipment.

‘She redecorated the homestead, built a new wing with extra bedrooms, and insisted on employing a chef, all with the idea of taking paying guests who wanted to experience life on a station, but without getting their hands dirty or sacrificing home comforts.

‘It’s been popular, too,’ Chase had to acknowledge. ‘We’ve never advertised, but Georgie had so many friends that word of mouth was more than enough. And then a friend of a friend from her acting days turned up. He’d made it big in Hollywood and he decided Georgie was just the fresh face they needed. Before we quite knew what was happening, he’d persuaded her to fly out to LA and audition for a small part and the whole circus took off from there.’

‘Didn’t Nick want her to go?’

‘Have you ever seen a picture of Georgie?’ Chase countered.

‘Yes.’

‘Then you’ll know how beautiful she is.’

His voice softened imperceptibly, and Bea sent him a sharp look. He had sounded as if he disapproved of Georgie before, but now she wondered how he really felt about his beautiful sister-in-law.

‘Nick was jealous?’

‘Of course he was. Any man would have felt the same.’

Including him? Bea wondered.

‘He could see that she was getting bored out here, though,’ Chase was saying, unaware of her mental interruption. ‘He encouraged her to go back to acting at first, but none of us expected that her career would take off the way it has. Suddenly Georgie’s a star, and everything’s changed. When this new part came up, Nick didn’t want her to take it, and he told her she would have to choose between him and the movie.’

‘Oh, dear,’ said Bea. She could just imagine how that had gone down.

‘Quite. Georgie’s not the kind of person to give in to an ultimatum like that, and of course they had a huge argument which ended up with her demanding a divorce. She wanted to take Chloe with her, but Nick said that she wouldn’t be able to look after her properly while she was filming, and I think Georgie knew herself that she’d be better here until everything was sorted out.’

‘Is that why Nick’s gone to the States? To arrange the divorce?’

‘No, he wants Georgie back. He was devastated when she left, but a lot of hard things were said on both sides, and it won’t be easy. He didn’t even tell Georgie he was coming. I’m not sure he even knows exactly where to find her, but he was determined to track her down and persuade her to give him another chance.

‘He asked me if I would keep an eye on Chloe while he was gone, but it’s a busy time on the station, so I said I’d do it if he found someone to replace the cook and the governess who’d both left in a huff. They couldn’t cope with the rows. I told Nick we’d had enough prima donnas around here and to make sure that he got someone suitable.’

Chase looked at Bea. ‘So he gave the job to you and Emily,’ he said drily.

Bea bridled. ‘Is that what you think we are? Prima donnas?’

‘I don’t know about that, but you’re definitely not what I had in mind when I asked for someone suitable!’

She lifted a chin in what he already thought of as a familiar gesture. ‘How do you know?’

Chase finished his beer and set the bottle back down on the table. ‘I knew the moment I saw those shoes you were wearing,’ he said. ‘They didn’t look very suitable to me!’

‘Why do I let you talk me into these things?’ Bea threw back the sheet and climbed into bed. ‘“You’ll love it,” you said. “It’ll be an adventure,” you said.’

‘Well, it is,’ said Emily, still brushing her hair.

‘What’s adventurous about getting up at four-thirty tomorrow morning?’

‘Think of the romance, Bea! Feeding the men before they saddle up, waving them off to a hard day’s work as they ride into the dawn…it’ll be wonderful.’

‘If you think it’s so romantic, you can get up and cook breakfast for them!’

‘You know I can’t cook,’ said Emily, ‘and there’s no point in both of us getting up, is there?’

She put down the hairbrush and began slathering moisturiser into her face and neck. She was always very strict about her beauty regime. Bea often thought it was the only area in which Emily had any discipline.

‘I’m so glad we came, aren’t you?’ she was saying, rather muffled. ‘It’s even better than I thought it would be! You can practically feel the possibilities of romance buzzing in the air!’

Bea stared glumly at the ceiling. ‘The only possibility I can see is the chance of being heartily bored for the next month.’

‘You’re not looking in the right place.’

‘The stockmen’s quarters, I suppose?’

‘You’ve got to admit it looks promising!’

‘It?’

‘OK, he,’ Emily conceded with a grin. ‘Baz is to die for, isn’t he?’

Bea considered the matter. ‘I can see he’s good-looking,’ she said slowly, ‘but he hasn’t got a lot to say for himself, has he?’

Not that anyone round the table that night had had much to say much for themselves. Emily hadn’t given them a chance. Thrilled with everything, and especially with Baz, she had been on sparkling form, flashing her bright blue eyes at the shy young men who had trooped in at seven o’clock and stood around awkwardly, mumbling names. They had all been dazzled.

All except Chase, thought Bea. She had a feeling that it would take a lot to dazzle him.

‘Baz doesn’t need all that superficial chatter,’ Emily was saying as she got into bed. ‘He just needs to sit there and I go all squirmy inside.’ She heaved a dreamy sigh.

‘I thought the governess always had a passionate affair with the master,’ said Bea. ‘What happened to your plan to be mistress of a million acres?’

‘Oh, well, Nick’s off the market if he’s steamed off to Hollywood to fetch his wife, and that just leaves Chase, and I can’t imagine having an affair with him, can you?’

The worst thing was that Bea could. ‘Why not?’ was all she said.

‘He’s a bit of a cold fish, isn’t he?’ said Emily, settling herself in bed. ‘I tried to chat to him in the plane, but it was like trying to flirt with a brick wall. I don’t see him having a passionate affair with anyone. He doesn’t look like he knows what passion means!’

‘No,’ agreed Bea after the tiniest hesitation. She had thought much the same herself, but when she remembered his mouth, she wasn’t quite so sure.

‘He’s too dour for me,’ Emily went on. ‘You’d never guess he was related to Nick. With a name like Sutherland he must be a throwback to some Scottish ancestors. He could do with lightening up a bit, if you ask me. It might make him less intimidating.’

‘I wouldn’t say that he was intimidating,’ said Bea, thinking about the way Chase had sat at the kitchen table and told her about his brother’s marriage. He hadn’t been friendly exactly, but he hadn’t been quite as dismissive either.

‘That’s because you don’t intimidate easily,’ said Emily. ‘Anyway, I think he likes you.’

Bea sat up and stared across at her friend. ‘How do you work that out?’

‘I noticed him watching you at dinner.’

So Emily had noticed too. Bea had wondered if she was imagining it, or if it had just been chance that whenever she looked up her eyes had encountered Chase’s cool blue ones. His expression had been impossible to read, but she didn’t think it had been one of liking.