on it. ‘They usually work two weeks on, one week off. I wanted to check it all out on their off-week. Ready for your tea?’ He poured boiling water onto a teabag in an enamel mug and handed it to her.
‘Mmm…I’m looking forward to this. Thank you. But I don’t see any cattle.’
‘We rotate paddocks; this one’s resting.’
‘I see. How long…?’
But he interrupted her to give her all the information she was about to ask for about the paddocks, and more besides.
Holly had to laugh, although a little self-consciously, when he’d finished. ‘Sorry, I’m asking too many questions, but it is interesting.’
He sent her a thoughtful look. She seemed to be completely unfazed by the heat and the flies; she seemed quite unaware that she had a dirty smudge on her face, or that her hands were grimy, that her hair was plastered to her head or that her shirt was streaked with sweat.
‘You’d make a good countrywoman,’ he said at last.
Holly tried the damper and pronounced it delicious. ‘I’m insatiably curious,’ she said. ‘That’s my problem.’
He looked thoughtful, but he didn’t comment. When they’d finished their tea, he put the fire out carefully, they mounted again and went to explore the dam workings.
Two hours later they cantered back into the holding paddock and Brett suggested a swim in the pool.
‘Sounds heavenly,’ Holly said in a heartfelt way, and went to change into her togs. She was on her way to the pool when it occurred to her that Sarah wasn’t around, and that she hadn’t been quite her cheerful self at breakfast. She hesitated then went to knock on her cabin door.
Sarah opened it eventually and was full of apologies. ‘I’m sorry, I’ll get stuck into lunch—I’ve just got a touch of sinus, but I’ve taken something. Makes me feel a bit sleepy, though.’
Holly studied the other girl’s pale face and the dark rings under her eyes. ‘Oh, no,’ she said. ‘You go back to bed. I can handle lunch!’
‘I wouldn’t dream of it,’ Sarah replied, but her gaze fastened on something over Holly’s shoulder. Holly turned round to see that Brett was standing behind her. Before Sarah got a chance to say anything, she explained the situation to him and finished by saying, ‘I could make lunch easily.’
‘Done,’ Brett said with authority. ‘You do as you’re told, Sarah.’
‘I should be better in time to make dinner,’ Sarah said anxiously.
‘We’ll see about that,’ her boss replied, and reached out to rumple Sarah’s hair. ‘Take it easy,’ he advised her.
Sarah sighed and looked relieved.
In the event Holly made both lunch and dinner. They had a swim in the pool before lunch, then Brett poured them a gin and tonic each—a fitting aperitif for the middle of a hot day, he told her—while she made open cold roast beef sandwiches with hot English mustard and salad.
They took their drinks and lunch to a table beside the pool beneath a shady tree.
Holly had put her peasant blouse on over her togs but Brett had added nothing to his board shorts. Bella lay beside them, gently indicating that she’d be happy to clean up any scraps. The bush beyond the fence was shimmering in the heat and vibrating with insect life.
‘How do you manage to leave this place so often?’ Holly asked.
‘Don’t kid yourself,’ Brett responded. ‘You can feel isolated up here.’
‘But you can drive out, can’t you?’
‘Sure, but it’s a long way on a rough road.’
Holly sipped her drink. ‘Do your sister and brother like it up here?’
‘From time to time, but they don’t really have cattle in their blood. Neither does Aria. She doesn’t really enjoy roughing it.’ He grimaced then elaborated. ‘She’s the girl Mark’s marrying.’
‘What’s she like?’
Brett considered and gave Bella the last bit of his sandwich. ‘Very beautiful. She has long blonde hair, a striking figure. She and Natasha make a good pair, come to think of it, although Nat’s a redhead.’ He paused. ‘My ex-fiancée.’
Holly’s mind fled back to the dinner party she’d witnessed at Palm Cove. Unless there were two stunning redheads in his life, had the one she’d seen been his ex-fiancée? If so, did that mean they were still friends?
‘No curiosity on that subject, Miss Harding?’ he queried, a shade dryly.
Holly shrugged and looked away. ‘I’m sure it’s out of bounds, and besides, its none of my business.’
‘True.’ He looked reflective. ‘Anyway, Aria is a biochemist and actually very nice, although something of a meddler.’ He looked briefly heavenwards. ‘But since Mark’s a computer genius they have similar lifestyles in common.’
Holly looked around. ‘So all this falls to you? I mean all the responsibility, the planning and so on.’
‘Yes.’ He sat back and crossed his hands behind his head.
‘It must be quite a handful, combining it with your other work.’
‘More or less what I’ve been thinking for a while now,’ he agreed with a wry little smile. He sobered. ‘But it’s in my blood. Just as you inherited your father’s writing gene, I must have inherited my f—’ He stopped abruptly.
Holly waited but found she was holding her breath.
‘Much as I don’t care to admit it,’ he said finally, ‘I must have inherited my father’s gene for cattle and the land.’
Holly released her breath slowly. Although the thought chased through her mind that she’d been right—there had been something between Brett and his father—she was mindful of his warning about going into things he didn’t want go into.
‘So it’s something you really love,’ she said instead. ‘I can understand that.’
He looked at her penetratingly. ‘You can?’
‘I think so. It’s probably unfair to say there are more challenges out here than in suburban life, but to me anyway these open spaces are not only exciting—’ she looked up at the wide arc of blue, blue sky above ‘—they’re liberating. I guess that’s what motivated my father and may have come down to me.’
‘You really mean that, don’t you?’ He sat up.
Holly nodded, then grimaced. ‘Probably easy enough to say. So. What’s on this afternoon?’
He eyed her, sitting so relaxed in her chair in her peasant blouse with its pretty embroidery, her legs long and bare and her hair curling madly.
What’s
