the promenade with your luggage. Why are you not at home, Mintie?’
His voice would have melted the Elgin Marbles, and Araminta was flesh and blood.
She said gruffly, ‘I’ve been made redundant—the other girl is coming back. I thought I’d just stay here for a day or two.’
‘And why would you wish to do that?’ His voice was very quiet—a voice to calm a frightened child…
‘Well,’ began Araminta, ‘there’s really no need for me to go home. Mother and father have gone to Italy—the Celts, you know—and my cousin has had to go to an aunt who is ill. There’s only Cherub…’
He perceived that Cherub was the only close tie she had with her home. He said nothing, but his silence was comforting, so that she went on, pot-valiant, ‘I shall have no trouble in getting another job. I’m well qualified…’
A gross exaggeration, this, in a world of diploma holders and possessors of degrees, but she wouldn’t admit that, not even to herself, and certainly not to him.
The doctor remained silent, watching her from under his lids while she drank her tea.
‘Well, I must be going.’ She had never been so unhappy in her life, but she must get away before she burst into tears. ‘I cannot think why I have wasted my time here. I suppose you were just curious?’
‘Yes.’ He had spent a good deal of time and trouble looking for her, but he found himself smiling. He said in his quiet voice, ‘Will you marry me, Mintie?’ and watched the colour creep into her pale face as she stared at him across the table. ‘I fell in love with you the moment I set eyes on you, although I wasn’t aware of that at the time. Now I love you so deeply I find that I cannot live without you, my darling.’
Araminta took a minute to understand this. ‘Me? You love me? But I thought you didn’t like me—only you always seemed to be there when I had got into a mess. You—you ignored me.’
‘I did not know what else to do. I am years older than you; you might have met a younger man.’ He smiled suddenly and she felt a warm tide of love sweep over her. ‘Besides, you were always Miss Pomfrey, holding me at arm’s length, so I have waited patiently, hoping that you might learn to love me. But now I can wait no longer.’ He added, ‘If you want me to go away, I will, Mintie.’
Her voice came out in a terrified squeak. ‘Go away? Don’t go—oh, please, don’t go. I couldn’t bear it, and I want to marry you more than anything else in the world.’
The doctor glanced around him, for those sitting near their table were showing signs of interest. He laid money on the table, got into his overcoat, buttoned her jacket and said, ‘Let us leave…’
‘Why?’ asked Araminta, awash with happiness.
‘I want to kiss you.’
They went outside into the dark afternoon, into their own private heaven. The narrow street was almost empty—there were only two women laden with shopping bags, an old man with his dog, and a posse of carolsingers about to start up. Neither the doctor nor Araminta noticed them. He wrapped his great arms round her and held her close, and as the first rousing verse of ‘Good King Wenceslas’ rang out, he kissed her.
Michelle Douglas
This Christmas, Nicola McGillroy will:
1. Be a great nanny to Cade Hindmarsh’s two adorable little girls, and give them the best Christmas they’ve had since their mother left.
2. Enter into the Christmas spirit and forget the fact she should have been planning her own wedding right now.
3. Keep a straight head in her attraction to her gorgeous off-limits boss… Surely this is just a rebound thing and not true love—for both of them?
MICHELLE DOUGLAS has been writing for Mills & Boon since 2007, and believes she has the best job in the world. She lives in a leafy suburb of Newcastle, on Australia’s east coast, with her own romantic hero, a house full of dust and books, and an eclectic collection of sixties and seventies vinyl. She loves to hear from readers and can be contacted via her website, www.michelle-douglas.com.
For Maggie,
who is everything a sister should be.
Thank you!
NICOLA craned to take in as much of the view as she could from the Cessna’s window as they landed on an airstrip that was nothing more than red dirt, bordered here and there with spiky grass and mulga scrub. When the pilot cut the engine the sudden silence engulfed her.
He turned to her. ‘Here we are then.’
‘Right.’ She swallowed and gave a curt nod. Here was the Waminda Downs cattle station in the far west of Queensland—the Outback, the Never-Never, beyond the Black Stump—and about as far from civilisation as a body could get. She glanced out of the window again and something in her chest started to lift. This place was the polar opposite to her native Melbourne. The total polar opposite.
‘May I get out now?’
‘Well, as this is your destination, love, I believe that’s the plan.’
He let the steps down, she stuck her head outside and the first thing to hit her was the heat—hard, enveloping and intense. The second, when her feet found firm ground again, was the scent—hot, dry earth and sun-baked grasses. The lonely desolation thrust itself upon her consciousness with an insistence that refused to be ignored, greater than the heat that beat down on her uncovered head and greater than the alien sights and scents. A person could get lost out here and never be found.
She surveyed the endless expanse of pale brown grass, interspersed here and there with mulga scrub and saltbush, and at all the red dirt beneath it, and for the first time in three months she felt like her heart started to beat at the right pace again. Out here she wouldn’t encounter acquaintances who would glance at her and then just as quickly glance away again to whisper behind their hands. Or friends who would rush up to grip her hands and ask her how she was doing. Or those people who just plain enjoyed others’ misfortunes and would smirk at her.
She closed her eyes and lifted her face to the sky. ‘This is perfect.’
‘Perfect for what?’
That voice didn’t belong to Jerry the pilot.
Her eyes sprang open. She spun around to find a man hauling her suitcase from the plane’s cargo hold. He set it on the ground and then straightened. He was tall and broad. He gave off an impression of strength. He gave off an even bigger impression of no-nonsense efficiency.
She blinked. ‘Where did you come from?’ So much for thinking she and the pilot were alone in
