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 she opened her eyes again, a moment later, Seth was struck by their dark, liquid beauty.
There was something very graceful and feminine about Amy Ross that he found eminently watchable. On the other hand, there was something about her story that didn’t quite add up.
The child’s presence…Amy’s nervousness…Her insistence on coming now at such an inappropriate time when the wet season was about to break over their heads.
He knew Amy hoped to return to Serenity with him to take publicity shots, but already he was convinced that even agreeing to this meeting had been a huge mistake.
Amy could feel her heart beating in her throat. It had been such a shock to see Seth and Bella together. She’d never dreamed there could be such a strong likeness between a grown man and a baby girl, and she found it hard to believe that he hadn’t seen the resemblance for himself.
How much time did she have before he began to notice and to ask difficult, searching questions?
She was pretty sure he could see huge holes in her claim that she’d come here solely to gather promotional material for Rachel’s book. She was terrified Seth Reardon might change his mind about allowing her to spend a couple of days on his cattle property, and if that happened she would have no choice but to reveal her real reason for coming north.
But she couldn’t tell him yet.
It
