woman, the same woman he’d glimpsed in the window upstairs—Amy Ross, he presumed—came hurrying behind the child.
‘Bella!’ She reached for the little girl’s hand and halted her headlong dash to embrace Seth’s legs.
‘I’m sorry,’ she huffed, slightly out of breath and blushing brightly. ‘I’m afraid Bella’s very friendly.’
‘So I see.’
Seth’s dryly drawled response was the result of habit rather than displeasure. Now that the child was safely perched on her mother’s hip, he could see that the two of them formed a charming picture.
The child’s dark, curly hair, dimples, and blue eyes were in startling contrast to her mother’s brown eyes and straight honey-brown hair. Amy Ross’s complexion was warmer than her daughter’s, with the slightest hint of a golden tan.
But in spite of the differences in their appearances, the close bond between the two of them was clear, and Seth was suddenly lassoed by unexpected emotion. He’d been stoically resigned to his life as a loner, but now he felt strangely left out, excluded from a very special unit.
He’d thought he’d thrown off his urges to be a family man.
‘Perhaps we should start again,’ Amy Ross said, and she held out her hand with a smile as appealing as her daughter’s. ‘I’m Amy and you must be Seth. How do you do?’
He accepted her greeting with a stiff nod, and as they shook hands he was super-conscious of the soft warmth of her skin.
‘You didn’t mention that you were bringing your daughter,’ he said with an asperity he immediately regretted.
Amy’s eyes widened. ‘I hope you don’t mind. I’m afraid I couldn’t leave Bella behind. She’s usually well behaved.’
Seth made no comment and the little girl continued to regard him with enormous delight, which he found quite extraordinary.
He swallowed to clear the tightening in his throat. He was mad with himself for allowing a total stranger—a woman, no less—to convince him to drop everything and race into town.
Admittedly, Amy Ross’s phone call had delivered alarming news that Seth couldn’t afford to ignore. He’d been shocked to hear about Rachel Tyler’s death. He hadn’t heard from Rachel since she’d worked on Serenity, and he’d tried to put her clear out of his mind.
Her death was a tragedy.
And already, there’d been too much tragedy.
Amy hooked the straps of her shoulder bag more securely and held Bella’s hand. But the child immediately began to squirm.
‘Man, up!’ she demanded, running to Seth’s side and tugging at his denim jeans with determined little hands.
‘Bella, no.’ Grimacing with embarrassment, Amy pulled picture books from her shoulder bag. ‘Come and sit here quietly and look at these books while I talk to Mr Reardon. Come on now, be a good girl.’
Seth tried to be patient while Bella was persuaded to sit cross-legged on the carpeted floor with books and a handful of toys. He and Amy sat at one of the dining tables.
‘Hey, diddle, diddle,’ the child announced gleefully.
He stifled a sigh of irritation. ‘Does your daughter usually accompany you to business meetings, Mrs Ross?’
‘Cat an’ fiddle,’ chanted Bella.
Flushing, Amy nervously lifted her hair from the back of her neck. Clearly, the heat and the tropical humidity were bothering her. Her hair was damp against her skin, and her neck was flushed and shiny with perspiration.
‘I’m not married,’ she said.
It was only then, as Seth watched her elegant hands securing a twist in her honey hair, that he noticed she wasn’t wearing rings.
So she was a single mother. He supposed he should be more tolerant. He’d heard all the news reports about the excessive costs of day care.
‘I don’t usually have Bella with me while I’m working,’ she said. ‘But I had to travel such a long way this time, and I didn’t want to leave her.’
He bit back a question about the child’s father, but he couldn’t help wondering where the guy was and why he hadn’t been able or willing to help out.
‘You’ve come quite a distance,’ he said.
‘Don’t I know it? It’s so hot and muggy here.’ She lifted the limp collar of her cotton shirt away from her skin. ‘The tourist agency told me it’s as far from Melbourne to Tamundra as it is from London to Moscow.’
Seth nodded. ‘And you’ve chosen the very worst time of the year to make such a long journey.’
Her lower lip pouted. ‘I had no choice. There’s so little time to get publicity organised. Rachel’s book is coming out in April.’
‘Ah, yes, Rachel Tyler’s book,’ Seth said quietly and he narrowed his eyes.
‘Aren’t you pleased about it?’
‘Why should I be pleased? When Rachel was on Serenity three years ago, she never once mentioned to anyone that she planned to write a book. I was very sorry to hear about her accident, but I can’t say I’m happy that there’s a book coming out now, after such a long silence.’
‘Rachel’s—Rachel was—a brilliant writer. She had a wonderful gift for description.’
That was all very well, but what had she described? As a reclusive bachelor, who prized his privacy, Seth was distinctly unhappy that a former employee had written a book about the six weeks she’d spent on his cattle property.
On the phone last week, Amy Ross had gone to great lengths to assure him that the book was a work of fiction and people’s names had been changed to protect the innocent. But Seth wasn’t at all confident he could assume that Rachel Tyler had been discreet.
Rachel had claimed to have been on a back-packing holiday, but she’d never hinted that she planned to race off and write a book about it.
To Seth, Rachel’s behaviour had been sneaky. People in the bush were upfront and open and the whole business of this book made his gut churn with apprehension. Even so, he was determined to find out what he could. It was why he’d agreed to this meeting.
He frowned at Amy. ‘You were Rachel’s best friend, so I assume you can shed some light on this book.’
Amy smiled awkwardly. ‘I’m afraid I don’t know much at all. I’m here because the publishers have a limited budget for the promotion, and I wanted to do as much as I could for—for—’
Her eyes rested on the child. ‘I wanted to do this for Rachel.’
The little girl looked up suddenly. ‘Mummy?’
To Seth’s surprise, Amy paled and closed her eyes, as if the child had upset her.
When
