herself, grinned and went to meet her fiancé.
He liked it. She emerged from her bedroom and Charles was waiting. His eyes crinkled in the way she loved.
‘Hey,’ he said softly. ‘What’s the occasion? An engagement or something?’
Charles had made an effort, too. He was wearing casual cream trousers and a soft, cream, open-necked shirt. Quality stuff. Clothes that made him look even sexier than he usually did.
He hadn’t lost muscle mass, as many paraplegics did, Jill thought. His injury could almost be classified as cauda equina rather than complete paraplegia—a damage to the nerves at the base of his spine. He pushed himself, standing every day, forcing his legs to retain some strength. It’d be much easier to stay in the wheelchair but that had never been Charles’s way—taking the easy option.
He was great, she thought. The most fantastic boss…
But a husband?
‘Lily’s OK?’ she asked.
‘Settled at Cal and Gina’s.’
Her face clouded. ‘You know, I wish—’
‘That she wasn’t quite as happy to go to strangers,’ he said softly. ‘I know. It’s what Wendy says. Tom’s right in a way. She needs permanence. Even commitment. That’s what we’re doing now. Let’s go buy us an engagement ring.’
The jeweller was obsequious, eager and shocked. He tried to usher them into the door, tugging Charles’s wheelchair sideways in an unnecessary effort to help, and came close to upending him in the process. By the time Charles extricated himself from his unwelcome aid, the man had realised the potential of his customers.
‘Well,’ he said as he tugged out trays of his biggest diamonds. ‘Never did I think I’d have the pleasure of selling an engagement ring to the medical director of Crocodile Creek. And you a Wetherby. I sold an engagement ring to your brother. He runs the farm now, doesn’t he? Such a shame about your accident. Not that you haven’t done very well for yourself. A healthy man could hardly have done more. You’re still a Wetherby, though, sir. Now, your brother purchased a one and a half carat diamond when he got engaged. If you’d warned me… I don’t have anything near that quality at the moment, but if you’d like to choose a style, I can have a selection flown in tomorrow. As big as you like,’ he said expansively. ‘You’re a lucky lady, miss.’
‘Yes,’ Jill said woodenly. The way the jeweller looked at Charles was patronising, she thought. She’d spent enough time with Charles to pick up on the way people talked to him. This guy was doing it wrong. He was talking to Charles but keeping eye contact with her. He was making her know he was being kind to the guy in the wheelchair. And the way Charles had looked when he’d mentioned his brother…
She hated this shop. She hated these ostentatious diamonds. How big was the man saying this diamond should be?
Would Charles like her to have a bigger diamond than his brother’s wife?
‘What would you like, Jill?’ Charles asked gently, and she shook herself out of her anger and tried to make a choice. She had to do this.
‘Any diamond’s fine,’ she said. ‘I guess….however big you want.’
‘However big I want?’
He was quizzing her. He had this ability to figure what she thought almost before she thought it herself. The ability scared her.
Maybe Charles scared her.
‘You don’t really want a diamond, do you?’ he said.
‘If you think—’
‘I don’t think,’ he said with another flash of irritation. ‘It’s you who gets to wear the thing. Some of these rings are really….’
‘Ostentatious?’ she said before she could help herself, and Charles’s face relaxed. He smiled wryly, though the touch of anger remained.
‘I’m right, aren’t I? You hate these as much as I do.’
‘I suspect we do need an engagement ring, though,’ she said. ‘If you’re planning on telling everyone we’re engaged.’
‘I am planning on telling everyone we’re engaged.’ He hesitated and then held out his hand to the jeweller. ‘Sorry, Alf,’ he said bluntly. ‘I’ve a lady with simple tastes. I’m thinking it’s one of the reasons I’ve asked her to marry me, so we’ll not go against that. Thank you for your help and good day. Coming, Jill?’
‘We’re not…?’
‘No, we’re not,’ he said forcefully, and propelled his chair out the door before she could argue.
By the time Jill caught him up he was half a block away. She had to run to catch up.
He realised, slowed and spun to face her.
‘Sorry,’ he said, rueful. ‘Telling me the size of my brother’s engagement ring pushed a few buttons I don’t like to have pushed.’
‘I can see that,’ she said cautiously. ‘And the way he treated you…’
‘I don’t care about the way he treated me. I’m used to it. But you… You don’t really want a three-carat diamond ring?’
‘I don’t want any ring.’ She hesitated, looking down at her hands. They were work hands, scrubbed a hundred times a day in her job as a nurse. They were red and a bit wrinkled. The nails were as short as she could cut them.
‘I’d look ridiculous with a diamond.’
‘How about an opal?’ Charles asked, and she hesitated. ‘If you don’t want one, just say so.’
‘I love opals,’ she said cautiously. ‘But—’
‘But nothing. George Meredith’s in town. Have you met him? He’s a local prospector—he spends his time scraping in dirt anywhere from here to Longreach. What he doesn’t know about opals isn’t worth knowing. I know he’s in town because I saw him for a dodgy back this morning. I told him no digging for a week, to stay in town, get himself a decent bed and put his feet up. He’ll be down at the hotel. I also know he has some really decent rock. Let’s go and take a look.’
He had more than decent rock. He had ready-made jewellery.
‘I don’t normally make it up,’ he told them. A big, shy man, quietly spoken but with enormous pride in the stones he produced to show them, he stood back as they fingered his fabulous collection. ‘I sell it on to dealers. But a mate of mine’s done some half-decent work and while the back’s been bad he’s been teaching me to do a bit. These are the ones I’m happiest with. When me back’s a bit better I’m heading to Cairns—I reckon the big tourist places will snap this lot up. Hang on a sec.’
They hung on. George had spread his stones out on the coverlet of his hotel bed for them to see. Now he delved into a battered suitcase and produced a can of aftershave. He glanced suspiciously at his visitors, then grinned as if he’d decided suspicions here were ridiculous, but all the same he turned his back
