town and headed back to their cattle property. And perhaps he would have done that if Jerry Bray hadn’t chosen that exact moment to step out of the stock and station agency to speak to Ellie.
Jealousy was a strange and fierce emotion, Joe swiftly discovered. He hadn’t even met this girl, hadn’t yet seen her front-on, hadn’t discovered the bewitching sparkle in her eyes. And yet he was furious with Jerry for chatting her up.
To Joe’s huge relief, Jerry’s boss interrupted his employee’s clumsy attempts at flirtation and called him back inside.
Alone once more, Ellie continued on to the Bluebird Café, and this was a golden opportunity Joe couldn’t let pass.
After a carefully calculated interval, he followed her into the café, found her sitting alone at one of the tables, drinking a milkshake and engrossed in a women’s magazine.
She looked up when he walked in and Joe saw her face for the first time. Saw her eyes, the same lustrous dark brown as her hair, saw her finely arched eyebrows, her soft pale skin, the sweet curve of her mouth, her neat chin. She was even lovelier than he’d imagined.
And then she smiled.
And zap. Joe was struck by the proverbial lightning flash. His skin was on fire, his heart was a skyrocket.
‘So what d’ya want?’ asked Bob Browne, the café’s proprietor.
Joe stared at him blankly, unable, for a moment, to think. It was as if his mind had been wiped clean by the dark-eyed girl’s smile.
Bob gave a knowing smirk and rolled his eyes. ‘She’s not on the menu.’
Ignoring this warning, Joe shrugged and ordered a hamburger and a soft drink. Unable to help himself, he crossed the café to the girl’s table. ‘Hi,’ he said.
‘Hello.’ This time, when she smiled, he saw the most fetching dimple.
‘You must be new around here. I don’t think we’ve met. I’m Joe Madden.’
‘Ellie Saxby,’ she supplied without hesitation.
Ellie Saxby. Ellie. Had there ever been a more delightful name?
‘Are you staying around here?’ he asked super-casually.
‘I’m working for the Ashtons. As a jillaroo.’
Better and better.
There was a spare chair at Ellie Saxby’s table. ‘OK if I sit here?’ Joe was again carefully, casually polite.
Ellie rewarded him with another dazzling smile. ‘Sure.’
Her eyes were shining, her cheeks flushed. The atmosphere was so electric, Joe felt as if he was walking on clouds.
And yet there was nothing remarkable about that first conversation. Joe was too dazed to think of anything very clever to say. But he and Ellie chatted easily about where they lived and why they’d come to town.
By the time his hamburger arrived, he was halfway in love with Ellie and she was giving out all the right signals. They left the café together and Joe walked with her to her vehicle.
They exchanged phone numbers and Ellie remained standing beside her car, as if she wasn’t ready to drive away.
She looked so alluring, with her sparkling eyes and shiny hair, her soft skin and pretty mouth.
Joe had never been particularly forward with girls, but he found himself saying, ‘Look, I know we’ve just met, and this out of line, but I really need to—’
He didn’t even finish the sentence. He simply leaned in and kissed her. Ellie tasted as fresh as spring and, to his amazed relief, she returned his kiss with just the right level of enthusiasm, and a simple hello, exploratory kiss became the most thrilling, most electrifying kiss ever.
It was the start of a whirlwind romance. Before the week was out, he and Ellie had found an excuse to meet again and, within the first month, they drove together to Rockhampton for dinner and a movie, followed by a night in a motel, which proved to be a night of blazing, out of this world passion.
When Ellie discovered she was pregnant, Joe had to make a quick decision. Ellie or the Army?
No contest.
In a blinding flash of clarity, he knew without question that his plan to join the Army had been a crazy idea. In Ellie he’d found his true reason for being. He asked her to marry him and, to his delight, she readily agreed.
The ink on their marriage certificate was barely dry before they headed north in search of their very own cattle property and the start of their bright new happy-ever-after.
When Ellie miscarried three weeks after they’d moved into Karinya, they’d been deeply disappointed but, in the long run, not too downhearted. After all, they were young and healthy and strong and in love.
But it was the start of a downhill run. A diagnosis of endometriosis had followed. Joe had never even heard of this condition, let alone understood how it could blight such a fit and healthy girl. Ellie was vivacious, bursting with energy and life and yet, over the next few years, she was slowly dragged down.
He remembered finding her slumped over the kitchen table, her face streaked with tears.
He’d touched her gently on the shoulder, stroked her hair. ‘Don’t let it get you down, Ellie. It’ll be OK. We’ll be OK.’
We still have each other, he’d wanted to say.
But she’d whirled on him, her face red with fury. ‘How can you say that? How can you possibly know we’ll be OK? I’m sorry, Joe, but that’s just a whitewash, and it makes me so mad!’
She’d lost all hope, had no faith in him or their future.
He’d felt helpless.
Now, with hindsight, he could see the full picture. He and Ellie had rushed at marriage like lemmings to a cliff, expecting to build a lasting relationship—for richer or poorer, in sickness and in health—having based these expectations on little more than blazing lust.
It was his fault.
Joe had always known that. Looking back, it was blindingly obvious that he hadn’t courted Ellie properly. They hadn’t taken anywhere near enough time to get to know each other as friends before they became life partners. They hadn’t even fully explored their hopes and dreams before they’d embarked on marriage.
They’d simply been lovers, possessed by passion, a heady kind of madness. And Ellie had found herself trapped by that first pregnancy.
Small wonder their marriage had hit the rocks as soon as the seas got rough and, instead of offering Ellie comfort, Joe had taken refuge, working long hard hours in Karinya’s paddocks—fencing, building dams, mustering and branding cattle. Later he’d joined the Army. Had that been a kind of refuge as well?
Whatever. It was too late for an extensive post-mortem. Tomorrow he’d be leaving again and Ellie would finally be free. He wished he felt better about that.
