painful than he let on. ‘We can spread our swags out here and I can bribe you with soup.’
Together they found flat ground, flicked stones away and unrolled their canvas swags and bedding. Piper rummaged in her backpack, extracted a Thermos and filled two mugs with hot, fragrant, homemade tomato soup.
‘Sorry to dump my hassles on you,’ she said, after she’d taken her first warming sip.
‘No need to apologise.’ Gabe grinned. ‘I’m used to it.’
And wasn’t that the truth? Just sitting here with Gabe, having him home again, made her remember all the times she’d come to him with her problems. And how desperately lonely she’d felt when he left. She’d never really understood Gabe’s urge to get away, but she knew that somehow it had reinforced in her an even stronger desire to stay on Windaroo—as if she’d needed to prove to him and to herself that life out here was worthwhile, worth fighting for.
‘That’s a long face,’ he said, pulling her sharply back from her thoughts.
She smiled and shrugged. ‘I’ve got a lot to think about.’
He set his soup mug on the ground and his gaze held hers. He wasn’t in shadow any more, and in the moonlight his eyes were dark and brooding rather than the lively green she knew them to be. ‘You don’t need to worry about finding a husband, Piper.’
She groaned. ‘Don’t tell me you think I should give in and let Grandad sell Windaroo?’
‘Under certain circumstances it could be a good idea.’
‘What kind of circumstances?’
‘What if…what if I were to buy Windaroo? Michael would sell it to me.’
Surprise sent such a savage jolt through her that she almost dropped her mug. She had a blinding, instantaneous vision of herself and Gabe living for ever on Windaroo, running the property—working partners and steadfast friends way into their old age. Now that was a dream she could live with! ‘Would you really want to do that?’ she asked in a hushed, awe-filled whisper.
‘Well, it’s a possibility. I know Jonno’s interested in buying out my shares in the Edenvale property, and I’ve a substantial payout from the army. I’m looking for an investment. I could buy Windaroo and hire some extra hands, appoint you as manager, and you could go on living here and running the place for as long as you want to.’
She frowned. ‘But what about you? What would you do?’
He shrugged and she saw a shadowy bitterness tighten his features. ‘I’m not sure. I haven’t decided what I want to do with the rest of my life yet. I can’t fly Black Hawks any more, but I could train helicopter pilots for cattle mustering, or I could set up my own chopper mustering business. Or there’s always the city. I still have quite a few options up my sleeve.’
Cradling her cooling mug in both hands, she drew circles in the dust with the heel of her riding boot and tried to shake off a crazy sense of disappointment. Of course Gabe didn’t want to settle down and live here. He’d left the bush because he craved adventure.
Why would he want to live on this rundown property with her when there was an enticing world beyond the Mullinjim Valley? A world of excitement, adventure and sophisticated, sexy women.
How could she have let herself forget that Gabriel Rivers was a cool, tough Black Hawk hero and a knock-em-dead lady-killer?
She swallowed the lump of pain in her throat. ‘Your offer is very generous, Gabe, but I don’t really like the idea. I—I don’t want to be a tenant on my family’s land. It would feel all wrong. Can you see that?’
‘But I thought you wanted to stay here no matter what.’
‘I do, but it would be best if I could find a husband. Then Grandad wouldn’t need to sell the property and it would still be mine. Well…mine and the husband’s, I guess, but at least it would still be in the family.’
He stared at something way off in the distance. ‘It was just a thought.’
‘That’s why I was hoping you could give me some sure-fire hints about how to catch a guy.’
Slowly his gaze swung back to her, and now he stared at her for ages. For far too long. ‘I’m the wrong man for that job, Piper.’
She let out a disbelieving little laugh. ‘Oh, come on, Gabe. You’re an expert. I’m expecting a master class from you. Everyone out here knows what a hit you made with the women in the big smoke. We got sick of hearing about your big city reputation as a babe magnet.’
‘A babe magnet?’ With a toss of his head he released a wry sound that she guessed was a laugh.
‘The stories were flying thick and fast about how those city girls took one look at your country boy swagger and were panting all over you.’
‘You shouldn’t listen to gossip.’
‘I didn’t need to. I saw with my own eyes what happened every time you came home on leave. Remember the “babe pack”? That gang of city girls who followed you out here just to take a look at you doing your cowboy act?’
With a sigh of irritation at the distasteful memory, she picked up the empty mugs and stacked them next to her backpack.
As Gabe watched he asked, ‘You haven’t seen any girls following me this time, have you?’
‘No,’ she admitted softly, and she bit her lip, wondering if she’d touched a sore point. Whenever she and her grandfather had travelled to the city to visit Gabe in hospital she’d never seen any of the trendy city girlfriends. As far as she could tell, not one of Gabe’s ‘babe pack’ had shown the staying power necessary to see him through the long, painful months of recovery and rehabilitation after the accident.
‘You know,’ she said, searching for a change of subject, ‘Grandad reckons it’s his fault I’ve turned into a tomboy. He says he never got around to putting the right finishing touches on me.’
‘What kind of finishing touches does he want?’
‘He thinks he should have sent me off to the city when I left school instead to letting me come straight back here to start work as a jillaroo. Says I should have gone to university, or overseas on one of those exchanges—some place where I could mix with other young people. He thinks I should have broadened my horizons—the way you have.’
Gabe nodded. ‘Maybe it’s not too late. You could do it now. If you’re determined to find a husband there are millions of blokes to choose from in cities all along the coast.’
She sighed. ‘But what use would a city guy be to me? I need a cattleman for a husband not a geeky banker or a computer nerd.’ She kicked at a stone and sent it scudding into the dark. ‘Choice isn’t my problem. There’s no shortage of eligible blokes in the bush. My problem is that I don’t know how to start husband-hunting. I’ve never been into proper girly stuff. Even at boarding school fashion and make-up never interested me. And I’ve never worked out how to—to—’
‘Flirt?’ Gabe inserted with a slow smile.
‘Yes.’ Her eyes widened as comprehension
