delight, but he couldn’t ignore her warmth and sympathy, or her courage for taking on the responsibility of Bella.
The fact that these qualities all came wrapped in such a sweet, sexy package was a miracle.
Amy had looked so right standing there beside the rock pool and he’d almost hoodwinked himself into thinking that she belonged there.
Fool.
He shouldn’t have started another kiss; should have been stronger. Amy hadn’t been flirting. Hell, if she’d been flirting, the kiss could have been excused. But she’d been deadly serious when she’d turned to him.
She’d been asking him to take a leap of faith.
And Seth had no faith.
He’d lost his faith years ago in hard and bitter lessons, and he knew damn well that no amount of loving could overcome the problems posed by this remote lifestyle.
All faith in such rosy dreams had been shattered by his mother, by Jennifer, and by what had happened when Rachel turned up…
Seth’s die had been cast then, just as Amy’s had. They had separate responsibilities now. He had no choice but to keep Serenity going. He owed it to his uncle to stay here, and Amy had no choice but to return to Melbourne and to raise Rachel’s daughter there, surrounded by family, schools, playgroups, ballet classes—everything a little girl needed.
He had no right to dally in kisses, or to toy with Amy’s emotions.
For the rest of her stay, he had to remember that. Her sweetness and softness were out of bounds.
Hell, he’d already kissed her twice.
Twice.
Two mistakes.
He couldn’t afford a third.
AMY was unhappily aware of how very quiet Seth was as they set off later that morning to explore Serenity in his four-wheel drive.
They were travelling west and ahead of them the sky was leaden and thick with grey clouds. ‘Looks like the rain’s coming back,’ she said.
Seth merely nodded, but she told herself he was concentrating on the narrow, winding track that quite quickly emerged from lush rainforest into open eucalypt bushland and then to grassy plains.
Now, she could see big mobs of Serenity’s cattle dotting the wide, flat paddocks. The animals were huge, pale cream and grey with droopy ears and humps on their shoulders.
‘What kind of cows are they?’ she asked.
‘Brahmans. That’s the best breed for the tropics.’
‘So…do you ride horses and do all those wonderful cowboy stunts?’
‘What cowboy stunts?’ His eyes held a glint of amusement that suggested he was only pretending to be insulted.
‘Oh, you know—throwing a lasso around some poor unsuspecting cow, or turning your horse on a five-cent piece.’
He spared her a small smile. ‘You mean the incredibly valuable stock-handling skills that come after years and years of hard practice?’
‘Well…yes. Have you been through all the years of practice?’
‘Sure.’
‘I’d love to see you on horseback.’
She wasn’t sure why he frowned. She thought it would be so cool to see Seth thundering over grassy plains after a mob of cattle, or sending water flying as his horse cantered across a creek.
For a short stretch of silence, she let her thoughts play with these swoon-worthy images. She stole a glance at Seth’s jeans-clad thighs, toned from all the hours he’d spent in the saddle, watched the competent way he drove over the rough ground, one hand on the steering wheel, the other smoothly shifting gears.
He was all hard-packed male and capable strength and every time she remembered the way he’d kissed her, the way his hands had touched her, her body caught fire.
Hugging the memories like happy secrets, she dug into her scanty understanding of the cattle industry to find more questions to put to him. When were the cattle mustered? When were calves born and weaned? Were the wetseason floods a problem? How often was a vet required? When did the stock go to market?
Seth answered politely and patiently, but she sensed his cautiousness, too, as if he didn’t want to bore her with unnecessary details. His caution bothered her. Couldn’t he guess that she would never be bored by anything to do with him? Or his lifestyle?
He pulled up at a group of cottages beside timber-railed stockyards. ‘I thought you might like to meet one of the families who live here,’ he said.
‘I’d love that,’ Amy replied with an eagerness that was totally sincere.
Seth frowned and she wondered what she’d said wrong.
Still frowning, he said, ‘By the way, these folk know about you and Bella.’
Before she could ask him how much they knew, a tall, rather splendid-looking Aboriginal man came towards them, walking with a longlegged, easy stride.
Seth introduced him as Barney Prior, Serenity’s head stockman.
As Amy shook hands with Barney the flyscreen door of the nearest cottage opened and a young woman, willow slender, with arresting green eyes and hair the colour of rich marmalade, waved to them.
She was wearing a colourful sarong and a sky-blue vest top. Her feet were bare, her toenails painted blue to match her clothes, and a silver chain twinkled at her ankle. Despite her fair complexion, she looked wonderfully at home in this tropical outpost.
Amy liked her at first sight, and her name, she soon learned, was Celia. She was Barney’s wife. They’d met in Cairns, they happily explained, and they’d lived together on Serenity station for ten years.
Their two children appeared close behind Celia—a golden-skinned, bright-eyed boy of six and a shy little girl of three.
As soon as Bella was released from her seat belt she shot out of the vehicle like a champagne cork from a bottle. ‘Hello, kids! Hello, hello! My name’s Bella.’
Luckily the children were charmed by her lavish enthusiasm for their company, and a mutual admiration society was quickly formed.
Within a matter of moments, Seth and Barney were lounging in squatters’ chairs on the veranda, keeping watch over the giggling children, who were already climbing the railings on the stockyard fence.
‘These guys are going to talk non-stop about the weather and the condition of the cattle,’ Celia told Amy with a friendly wink. ‘Why don’t we go inside?’
Amy
