Jonno groaned. He knew Gabe was itching to ask a load of questions, so he rushed to explain. ‘There’s nothing fascinating about it, but she wants to write a piece for her magazine and I don’t want her to sail back to Sydney telling the world that all I have to do is stick her steers in a paddock and then put my feet up. I’m going to show her a thing or two about the realities of country life.’
‘Excellent.’ Gabe chuckled. ‘They’re fine, noble motives, mate.’
‘Motives? What do you mean?’
‘Oh, nothing.’ Gabe’s voice rippled with suppressed laughter. ‘After you’ve spent so long giving women the brush-off, I’m glad to hear your red blood’s flowing at last.’
‘Pull your head in, Gabe. I’m not planning to make a pass at her. In fact,’ he added, raising his voice for emphasis, ‘I’m planning to show her that there’s nothing romantic about life with a cattleman.’
Gabe chuckled again. ‘All I can say is, don’t let her near Piper. My wife might shoot your argument down in flames.’
Camille was talking to Megs the cat when Jonno prowled back through the house to the veranda. Her head was bent forward as she scratched the ginger tabby gently between the ears and her dark hair fell in a tumble of curls that caught fiery-red lights from the setting sun.
At the sound of his footsteps she looked up, her dark eyes shining, and he felt a startling jolt of desire.
Hell! Every time he saw her he was caught afresh by how unexpectedly lovely she was.
And his reactions weren’t his only problem. Camille was acting as if everything about his place was fascinating and fun. She was supposed to be looking for gritty realism. How the hell could he impress on her that life on the land was hard for a woman, that it wasn’t the slightest bit romantic, when she was determined to be delighted by everything?
From the minute they’d left her hire car at a garage in Mullinjim and she’d driven home with him in his truck, she’d carried on a treat about the countryside—the rolling pastures, the wide skies and the distant hills.
As for the wildlife, every kangaroo, emu, or plains turkey excited her.
‘Now that I’m not having to risk my neck in the driver’s seat, I can appreciate all this,’ she’d said in an attempt to justify her enthusiasm.
The problem was, her delight wasn’t over-the-top or insincere. It seemed to be genuine and spontaneous and that bothered Jonno, but he was hanged if he knew why.
Right now she was becoming best friends with his cat.
‘She’s gorgeous,’ she said, running an elegant hand along Megs’s spine. ‘I’ve never had a pet.’
‘Not even when you were a kid?’
‘No. And now we have pet-police running my apartment block and they won’t let me have anything, not even a goldfish.’
He resisted the urge to ask why she hadn’t had a pet as a child. Getting to know her life history wasn’t part of his game plan. She was here on business.
‘You’re comfortable there, so you stay where you are,’ he said gruffly. ‘I’m going to get a yard ready for the steers.’ He headed for the steps.
‘Don’t go without me.’ She lifted the purring cat from her lap and leapt to her feet. ‘I want to experience as much as I can.’
Her face was glowing and he looked away and glared at the low blaze of sunlight on the horizon. He sighed. ‘Let’s go, then.’
Edenvale’s homestead and stock yards had been built on a rise and from here they had a view right down Mullinjim Valley. The grey clouds that had threatened more rain this morning were transformed now, under-lit by pink and gold from the setting sun, and the whole landscape was tinged with a bronzed glow.
At the bottom of the slope lay the billabong, home to various wild ducks and geese, and beyond that stretched long, rolling, grassy paddocks, pale yellow and dotted with clumps of trees and cattle. On the far horizon a low line of purple-pink hills sprawled.
‘It’s so beautiful here,’ Camille said yet again.
Jonno scowled and strode faster, so that she had to almost run to keep up. At the barn, he pulled three bales free from the haystack. ‘Can you carry one of these?’
‘Sure.’ She held out willing arms to take it. ‘So what happens now?’
‘We spread this in the yard so the calves will have something to eat when they get here. They won’t have been fed at the sale yards and, as they’re coming off their mothers’ milk, we don’t want them to lose too much condition.’
As they broke up the bales and laid the hay around the stockyard’s fence line, she asked, ‘Why don’t we spread it all over the pen?’
‘It’s a waste of time putting hay in the middle—the cattle will only trample it into the mud.’
‘That makes sense,’ she said, standing with her hands on her hips and admiring their handiwork.
Jonno frowned. ‘It’s only a stock yard, Camille. Not a work of art.’
Things went from bad to worse when she insisted on cooking their dinner.
‘I’m handy in the kitchen,’ she said. ‘And you must be sick of having to cook for yourself.’
‘Actually, I cook a mean steak,’ he muttered. ‘And I have a cleaning woman who makes a big casserole each week. That lasts me for several days.’
‘But you’d like a change, wouldn’t you?’ she insisted. ‘And there’s something about being out in the country with animals and hay and gum trees and sunsets that brings out my domesticated instincts.’
He must have looked thoroughly alarmed because she rushed to add, ‘Don’t worry, Jonno. I only get very occasional doses of domestication. I’m not dangerous. I don’t step up to a stove and immediately have visions of a slim gold band and a trip to the altar. Cooking is as far as I go.’
‘Glad to know I’m safe,’ he said with a wry grin. If only he could be as casual about this as she was. But somehow, letting Camille Devereaux into his kitchen felt more dangerous than entering a bull ride at a rodeo.
Rummaging around in Jonno’s kitchen and concocting a meal from what she found was fun. Thinly sliced beef, onions, capsicum, carrot and celery combined with a sweet chilli sauce quickly became a tasty Asian-style stir-fry, but when they sat down to eat at the round pine table, Camille’s sense of fun turned edgy.
What was she doing here, alone and sharing an unnatural cosiness with this puzzling, gorgeous man? She’d spent the best part of the day at war with him and yet here they were—just the two of them in his whopping great empty homestead, with a meal to share and a long night ahead.
With Jonno’s self-conscious glances and her screaming hormones!
They
