as he circled her car slowly, hoping his shock didn’t show.
His heart was racing at a hectic gallop. The last thing he’d expected to find had been this particular woman stranded on his property. What the hell was she doing here?
Silly question. His stomach dropped like a leg-roped steer as he acknowledged there could only be one reason. She’d come to see Scott. Hell! She didn’t know.
His brother hadn’t shared details about his recent trips to the city, and Callum hadn’t asked. He’d never even known for sure if Scott and Stella had still been an item, and she wasn’t family, she wasn’t a close friend, so he hadn’t sent her word of the accident. At least that was the excuse he’d rationalised.
How the blue blazes could he tell her now?
He was uncomfortably aware of her cool grey eyes assessing him as he checked how far her wheels had sunk into the silty creek-bed. Only a class act like Stella Lassiter could look dignified in such a predicament.
Perhaps her dignity came from the way she kept her chin haughtily high as she sat quietly in her car. Or maybe it was an impression created by that broad, full mouth that made her look earthy rather than vulnerable. Maybe it was all that shiny hair, black as a witch’s cat.
‘How does it look? Am I salvageable?’ she called. Her voice was another problem. Smooth and low, it had a syrupy cadence that kicked him at gut level and conjured a host of images he’d tried so hard to forget.
Hell, maybe she was a witch. In a matter of moments, some soft segment of his brain seemed to be slipping under her spell. Just like last time!
He forced his thoughts to practicalities. Her ridiculous little toy car was well and truly bogged, but it would be easy enough to haul her out.
Reaching into the back of his ute, he grabbed the D shackle and snatchem strap. ‘Sit tight,’ he ordered sharply and bent to shackle the long strap to a low bracket on the front of her car. ‘I’ll give you a tow.’
Leaping high into the truck again, he backed it around until it was positioned in front of hers and then, out of the ute once more, he looped the other end of the strap over the ball joint on his tow bar.
She opened her car door and leaned out to watch what he was doing. And Callum found himself staring at her feet as she sat in her car’s open doorway with the skirt of her light cotton dress bunched over her knees and her bare feet propped on the doorway’s rim.
Her feet were exquisitely shaped. Each neat toe was topped by perfectly applied, sky-blue nail polish. A fine silver chain threaded with blue glass beads was secured neatly around one dainty ankle.
Callum couldn’t drag his eyes away. Her feet were as interesting and compelling as the rest of her.
Suddenly, she drew her legs into the car and pulled the door smartly shut. Had he been gaping? Perhaps he was more of a country hick than he realised. Through the window, she studied him and chewed her full bottom lip, showing a trace of vulnerability for the first time. ‘I’ve come to see Scott. I hope he’s home,’ she said.
Callum swallowed. He knew she’d come looking for Scott and he should have been thinking about that instead of gaping at her mouth and her hair and her feet!
‘Ah—’ a painful constriction dammed his throat ‘—I’m—er—I’m afraid you’re going to be disappointed. Scott’s—’ Stuff this! He avoided looking at her as he blinked stinging eyes. ‘Scott’s not here.’
‘What?’ She stared at him, her eyes wide with disbelief and despair. ‘Where is he?’ Her strength seemed to leave her suddenly. She looked crumpled and crestfallen. ‘I’ve—I’ve driven all the way from Sydney. I’ve got to see him.’
Callum shot a hopeless glance to the darkening sky. If it hadn’t been so late in the day, he would have considered breaking the bad news and sending her packing! But there was less than half an hour of daylight left.
Forcing her to go back down the rough Kajabbi track in the dark wasn’t an option. Chances were she’d get bogged again, or even worse she could hit a deep rut and turn this little death trap over.
‘I’ll tow you out of here and you’d better follow me up to the homestead,’ he said.
‘Thanks.’ Her reply came in a whisper and she looked very pale, as if the stuffing had been knocked right out of her. ‘But can I contact Scott from there?’
Callum cleared his throat. ‘It’ll be easier to explain about Scott when we get back to the house.’
Without waiting to see her reaction, he spun on his heel and climbed back into the ute, calling over his shoulder, ‘Let your handbrake off and don’t turn your engine on yet. Just leave it in neutral.’
He edged the truck forward and the creek-bed released her car easily. After towing her to the top of the small rise, he stopped while he unhitched the vehicles. ‘The homestead’s only a kilometre down the track. See you there.’ Without looking her way again, he accelerated around a bend and headed for Birralee.
Scott wasn’t here. It was more than she could bear. Stella fought to stay calm as she guided her little car over the last twists and turns of the bumpy track. She’d been keeping all her worries to herself for too long, but she couldn’t hold on much longer.
She had never been one for confiding in her friends and the events of the past few months had snowballed into an unbearable, secret burden. First, when she’d realised that Scott hadn’t been as committed to their relationship as she’d believed, there had been the unpleasantness of the breakup.
Then she’d discovered she was pregnant!
She’d almost lost the plot when she’d learned that, but after taking time to get used to the idea she’d tried to contact Scott. The message on his answering machine had said he would be out mustering the back blocks of Birralee for several weeks.
The final blow had fallen with a phone call from London and the job offer of her dreams! A British television network wanted to hire her skills as a meteorologist to head the research for a series of documentaries about global warming in Europe.
She couldn’t believe the bad timing!
She’d studied so hard and had worked her socks off in the hope of scoring a contract like this, but the amount of travel involved and the primitive living conditions required on location meant it wasn’t a job for a woman with a tiny baby.
If only she and Scott had been more careful! But there’d been too many laughs…too much country-boy charm…too many empty assurances that she really was the one and only woman for him…
Stella knew they were poor excuses. She was educated. She was a scientist! She knew better! But…for the first time in her life, she’d allowed herself to let go…
She’d let herself be just a little like her mother. And, just like her mother, her mistakes had caught her out.
She carried the consequences within her. The cluster of little cells, multiplying rapidly every day. Oh, God! She’d been carrying the secret burden of her pregnancy for four lonely months now and she couldn’t keep it to herself any longer.
She had to speak to Scott.
The
