was about keeping Jarndirri, keeping his word. She wasn’t a real woman any more; she was an empty shell, a hulk of a car without its engine.
A woman is far more than her womb, Anna, she’s a man’s other half, the gentleness, the empathy. A man needs a woman for far more than babies alone. The counsellor Jared had paid an exorbitant amount to fly up here every week to let her talk had sprouted those and many other glib words, but they’d brought no comfort or healing, only more unspoken resentment. How could any woman who hadn’t lost both her only child and her last chance of having children at the same time understand the word empty, and how much it encompassed?
She had to make Jared give up on her, and find someone who could give him what he needed. So she didn’t watch him move; she fought the desire with everything in her.
Motherhood by proxy she could do. But how could she be a wife again, a woman, when she felt like a blank slate, almost androgynous? No, she wasn’t that good an actress. She knew what Jared wanted—far more than sex alone, he wanted what he’d had, a wife and partner in Jarndirri—but it was impossible. He was the man who reminded her of everything she’d once been … and never could be again. Desire and endless grief in one taut, man-of-the-land body.
When she entered the kitchen she found a fresh, warm bottle waiting. She fed Melanie one last time, and the baby was fast asleep within a minute. Anna rocked her, softly crooning long after she knew Melanie couldn’t hear her. Ah, motherhood was so sweet, even by proxy.
She laid Melanie in the bassinette she’d just about outgrown, and placed it on the middle of the queen spare bed, surrounding her once again with all the pillows she could find, making a safe zone with every chair in the house. It meant they’d have to eat on the verandah, but that was a good thing: she knew Ellie and John Button would be watching. It also meant some touching, even some kissing to prove their reconciliation was real.
Her fingers curled hard over one of the chair backs. You can handle this. Do it for Rosie, and for Melanie.
The wafting smell of steak and onions came to her, and her stomach reminded her how long it had been since she’d had more than coffee. She walked out the door to the back verandah, where Jared, shirt plastered to his chest from Melanie’s kick-ups of water, was flipping the meat onto a platter already laden with onions. ‘I hope you’re hungry.’
‘Starving, actually,’ she confessed, with an uneven laugh. He looked so—so like every dream she’d had since she’d been fifteen—and he knew how to bring her every desire to life.
To divert herself from her fast-growing obsession, she reached for the platter, taking the food to the outdoor setting where the salad and dressings lay waiting. ‘I guess we eat out here, since all the chairs are surrounding Melanie’s bed …’
Her words dried up as she looked at him. She’d put Melanie in her bed, in the room that had been hers in childhood, and again after she’d moved out of their marital bed. There were many other rooms with beds here, but the implication—
‘I need a mattress put on the floor in her room,’ she said quickly, putting the plate down so he wouldn’t see her hands shaking. So he wouldn’t see how much she wanted and ached for what she craved, but shouldn’t have again. ‘It’s her first night in a new place. She’ll need someone familiar beside her if she wakes.’
‘It’s her second new place in a week, too, which is probably also why she was so unsettled tonight,’ he replied, his gaze penetrating, but his tone was calm. ‘I’ll bring one in for you when you’re ready to sleep.’
Glad she wasn’t facing him, she wet her lips. ‘Thank you.’ What else to say? He seemed so helpful, so strong, and so able to resist her … and though it should reassure her, it only unsettled her. When he’d come to her in Broome, it had been her place, her say. Now, even though she was half-owner of Jarndirri, she felt as if she’d lost her sense of power. He’d taken control again—he was master of her future, as well as her desires.
And yet he’d done nothing but help since she’d entered the house.
‘So tell me about life here since … in the past few months,’ she said with overdone carelessness. Telling him not to get too personal or come too close without words.
He shrugged, but smiled, and she realised it was the first time she’d asked anything about Jarndirri since her time in hospital. ‘It’s all going as normal. The seasons have been pretty good this year, behaving themselves nicely. The crop was excellent, and we got good prices for the beef and lamb. Stock from the neighbouring properties have wandered in, and we mustered them and took them back. One or two sheep have drowned in the river, two cows have died calving.’
‘The round of farming life,’ she replied, hearing the slight dreaminess in her voice. ‘I noticed my veggie patch is still thriving. I thought it’d be long gone.’
He turned his face toward the murky grey of the rain and falling darkness behind the thick curtain of clouds. ‘It’s a good place to shovel the muck from the stables, and the plants seem to do well with it. Watering doesn’t take long.’
With a little start, she blinked at him. ‘You’re the one who’s been looking after it?’
He frowned almost fiercely. ‘Why not? It’s a good source of fresh food, cheaper than flying stuff in, and it solves the dung problem. It makes economic sense to take care of it.’
Funny, but though all he said was true, her mouth twitched. She got the feeling he wasn’t telling the whole truth, and that wasn’t like the Jared she’d always known. ‘Thank you for not letting it die,’ she said softly. It was a part of her.
If anything, his frown grew. ‘You can take care of it again, now you’re back. It’ll save me an hour a day.’ As he said it his gaze came back to her, lingered on her face.
‘Of course,’ she said quietly, still hiding a smile. ‘And even if it only made good economic sense, I’m still glad you saved it.’
Strangely, as they ate, the thrumming rain on the tin roof became a companion, making the quiet somehow peaceable. She found herself smiling at her surroundings, familiar and loved throughout her life; smiling at the rain, her old friend—and she even smiled at Jared, who watched her with smoky-dark eyes, shadows of desire in the darkness. The wanting quivered in the air between them—and instead of being her enemy, her weakness, it gave odd comfort to her hurting heart. After he’d humiliated her before with Kissing used to make you happy, he was showing her he still wanted her.
Her smile grew and she sighed.
His voice drifted to her over the drumming beat of the Wet’s fall, deep and soft, filling her soul. ‘Is my barbecue that good?’
‘Actually, it is,’ she replied, liking even the small talk. ‘What’s the marinade?’
His brows lifted. ‘I’d tell you, but then I’d have to kill you.’
She laughed, feeling relaxed enough—aroused enough—to slide back into the old teasing banter they’d always shared before making love. ‘The man’s a spy. He has to be. Everything’s a state secret, from his early life to his emotions and even his barbecue sauce.’
After a moment, he chuckled, moved an inch closer to her. ‘Australia has so many enemies, especially out here.’
‘You have a million hectares.’
