style="font-size:15px;"> ‘You’ve saved me from having to explain what an idiot I’ve been,’ she went on, sitting back with a sigh of relief. ‘I was dreading it.’
‘I can’t see any of the Grangers getting angry with you,’ said Nat in the calm way of a man who had no idea what it was like to do anything stupid or be afraid of anything.
‘I know. That’s what makes it worse!’ sighed Prue. ‘They’re so nice and kind,’ she tried to explain, seeing Nat’s baffled look. ‘They’ve been wonderful to me. I’d always wanted to work on a real outback cattle station, and getting a job at Cowen Creek was like a dream come true. Mr and Mrs Granger are great—and Ross, of course.’
She had meant it to sound like a casual aside, but her voice came out ridiculously strangled instead. It was hopeless, thought Prue in despair. All she had to do was think about Ross and her heart clenched, squeezing the air from her lungs. She couldn’t even say his name without her throat thickening.
She coughed slightly to clear it. ‘Well, anyway, I just love being at Cowen Creek,’ she went on, ‘but I’m sure they must think I’m really stupid. They’re just too polite to say so.’
Nat glanced at her. She was staring disconsolately through the windscreen, her unruly hair pushed behind her ears to reveal a fine-boned profile. He didn’t think she looked stupid. Her face was warm, alert, quirky in an attractive way, but not stupid.
‘Why should they think that?’ he asked.
‘Because I am,’ said Prue glumly. ‘I can’t seem to do anything right. I fainted dead away once when I cut myself with a knife, and I couldn’t even watch when they were dehorning the calves. And then the other day I nearly had a fit when I found a snake in the onion sack—they all thought that was really funny,’ she remembered with a sigh. ‘They said it wasn’t poisonous but I didn’t know that, did I?’ she added, turning to Nat almost belligerently, as if he had been the one who had laughed at the sight of her screaming blue murder in the storeroom.
‘There’s no reason why you should,’ he agreed gravely, and Prue subsided a little.
‘I’d love to be able to ride well,’ she went on, ‘but all their horses seem to be half wild, and I keep falling off.’ Her cheeks burned with humiliation as she remembered how Ross had grinned as he picked her up. ‘I just seem to be hopeless at everything.’
‘Except cooking,’ Nat pointed out. ‘Bill Granger told me you’re the best cook they’ve ever had.’
‘Anyone can cook,’ said Prue dismissively. ‘I want to be able to do the things everyone else can do out here.’
‘Like what?’
‘Like lasso a calf. Like mend a fence or fix a water pipe. Like brand a cow without passing out. Like remembering to check the fuel before setting out to drive to town!’ She folded the shopping list sadly in her lap, turning it over and over until it was no more than a tiny square. ‘I’m a liability the moment I step outside the homestead!’
‘You’re just getting used to a different way of doing things,’ said Nat, but Prue refused to be consoled.
‘I’ve already been here three months,’ she grumbled. ‘How much longer is it going to take?’
‘Why does it matter?’ he asked. ‘You can’t help what you are.’
‘But that’s just it! I don’t want to be like me! I was born and brought up in London, but that doesn’t mean I’m condemned to be a city girl my whole life, does it? I don’t want people to think of me as a prissy Pom mincing around the outback, no good for anything except peeling a few potatoes or making a cake. I want to be…’
The kind of girl Ross would fall in love with. The kind of girl he would marry.
She could hardly tell Nat Masterman that, though, could she?
‘…I want to belong,’ she finished instead. She turned to Nat, and he was very aware of the intense, silver-grey gaze on his face. ‘Do you think that’s possible?’
Nat kept his eyes firmly on the track ahead. ‘Why not?’
‘Ross doesn’t think it is.’ Prue dropped her eyes and concentrated on unfolding the shopping list. ‘He thinks you have to be born here to belong. I’ve been trying so hard to prove him wrong, and now I’ve gone and made a fool of myself all over again by forgetting to check the fuel in the car! If you hadn’t come along, it would have looked as if I couldn’t even manage to go into town and pick up a few groceries without them having to come out and rescue me. I know they wouldn’t have been angry, but they’re all so busy at the moment and it would have been a real nuisance…’
She trailed off, imagining the scene if Ross or one of the stockmen had been sent out to find her, and her eyes lifted to Nat’s calm profile once more. ‘That’s why I said you’d saved my life,’ she told him.
‘You know, you’re worried about nothing,’ said Nat. ‘The Grangers like you. They’ve told me so, and they’re not the kind of people who pretend. You’re fun for them to have around and, more importantly, you’re a good cook. They’ve got stockmen to help them outside. What they really want is someone to produce meals for everyone on time, and you can do that. If they don’t want you to be different, why should you?’
‘Because Ross wants me to be different.’ The words were out before Prue could stop them and she bit her lip, turning her head away and letting her hair swing forward so that when Nat glanced at her he could see only the curve of her jaw and the long line of her throat.
‘Are you sure about that?’ he asked dryly after a moment. ‘When I saw the two of you together at Ellie Walker’s wedding, it looked as if he liked you just the way you were.’
Surprise brought Prue’s head round. ‘You were at the wedding?’ She frowned slightly. ‘I didn’t notice you.’
There had been no reason for her to have noticed him, Nat thought without resentment. He didn’t have Ross Granger’s famous looks or charm. He had only noticed her because of the way her eyes had shone that night. It was as if a light had been switched on inside her. She’d seemed to be literally glowing with happiness. Nat remembered wondering what it would be like to have a girl look at him the way Prue had looked at Ross.
‘I got the impression you didn’t notice anyone except Ross,’ he said with a wry sideways look.
It was true. Prue had had eyes only for Ross that night. The other guests, even the bride and groom, had been no more than a background blur to the wonderful, glorious fact that she was with him. It had been a perfect evening. Ross had ignored all the other girls there. He had flirted only with her, danced only with her, and then he had driven her back to Cowen Creek and kissed her in the car outside the homestead.
Prue had been so certain that that night was to prove the beginning of the rest of her life. Ross was everything she’d ever wanted, and for a while she had floated dreamily through the days, imagining how happy they would be together, writing home to tell her family that she had at last found the love of her life.
And she had. It was just that Ross didn’t seem to think that he had found his.
She smoothed the shopping list in her lap. ‘I’m in love with Ross,’ she said
