effect.
Prue’s eyes rested on it speculatively. It was a pity Nat didn’t smile more often, she thought, remembering how white his teeth were, the way his eyes had crinkled at the corners and the creases had deepened in his cheeks, and for some reason a tiny, almost imperceptible tingle tiptoed down her spine and made her shiver.
Puzzled by her silence, Nat looked across to check that she was all right and their eyes met for a brief instant. There was nothing in his expression to suggest that he was aware of how closely she had been studying him, but Prue felt a blush steal up her cheeks and she jerked her gaze away.
‘You’re lucky,’ she muttered, averting her face and conscious of a quite inexplicable feeling of shyness. ‘You belong here. You don’t have to go to London and wonder if you’ll ever see the outback again.’
Nat didn’t answer immediately. A road train was bearing down on them, and he lifted a hand to acknowledge the driver’s wave as it thundered past with four long trailers.
‘You’ll just have to come back after the wedding,’ he said when it had gone, able to put his foot down on the accelerator at last. ‘The Grangers will still be here, and I’m sure they’d give you another job.’
‘I’m not sure I’ll be able to do that.’ Prue had recovered from her momentary confusion. ‘It took me ages to save the money for this trip, and I’ve spent it all now. If I wanted to buy another ticket, I’d have to start all over again.’
‘Couldn’t you do that?’
‘I could, but by the time I’d got enough money together I’d probably be too old to get a work permit—and even if I wasn’t, they would have had to have found a new cook for Cowen Creek.’
What was the betting that the next cook would be young, and pretty, and completely at home in the outback? Just the type to convince Ross that it was time to settle down, in fact. Desperation clutched at Prue’s heart as she imagined coming back to find that Ross had given up waiting for her to get used to the bush and married someone much more suitable instead.
‘So what you need,’ said Nat, following his own train of thought, ‘is a short-term job that will pay you enough to cover your fare back to Australia?’
Prue nodded. ‘Except I’ll probably need at least two jobs in order to save anything. I could get some office work during the day and waitress in the evenings, and if I stay with my parents I won’t have to pay London rents, which would make a difference. It’ll be all right if it’s not for too long,’ she tried to convince herself.
It would still take months before she could get back to Australia, she calculated in despair, and she sighed. ‘Perhaps I could rob a bank or something!’
‘What about a job that paid your flight back to Australia instead?’
‘I can’t see there being many of those advertised in the jobs pages,’ said Prue glumly. ‘Robbing a bank would be easier than finding a job like that. I might as well think about sprouting wings and flying back myself!’
‘You shouldn’t be so negative,’ said Nat. ‘Do you know anything about babies?’
Prue was momentarily thrown by the sudden change of subject. ‘Babies?’ she echoed uncertainly. ‘As in very small people, dirty nappies and sleepless nights?’
Nat grimaced. ‘It sounds as if you do know about them,’ he said in a dry voice.
‘I spent a lot of time with my elder sister’s children when they were tiny. I’ve always loved babies,’ she told him. ‘They’re a lot of work, but they’re so gorgeous and…’
She broke off, belatedly realising why he might be asking and sat bolt upright to turn to him, her face suddenly alight with excitement. ‘You don’t know anyone who wants a nanny, do you?’
‘Yes,’ said Nat, nodding and the corner of his mouth lifted in a slight smile. ‘I do.’
CHAPTER TWO
PRUE’S grey eyes widened. ‘You’ve got children?’
There was no reason why he shouldn’t, of course, but she couldn’t help feeling surprised. He seemed so self-contained that it was hard to imagine him with a wife amid the cheerful chaos of family life.
What would Nat’s wife be like? Prue wondered. Probably as cool and sensible as he was himself. Certainly not the kind of woman who would forget to put fuel in the car, or cry, or pour out her heart to a virtual stranger, she decided, and felt unaccountably depressed.
‘I’m going to have two.’ Nat’s smile was a little twisted as he thought about how much his life was going to change.
‘Going to…?’
Glancing sideways, Nat caught her puzzled expression. ‘They’re not mine,’ he explained. ‘I’m talking about my brother’s children, William and Daisy. They’re twins, just eight months old and I’m their guardian now.’ He paused. ‘Ed and his wife were killed in a car accident in England a couple of months ago.’
Shocked, Prue pressed her hand to her mouth. ‘How terrible,’ she said, conscious of how inadequate her words sounded.
‘I thought you might have heard about the accident,’ said Nat after a moment. ‘The Grangers knew Ed and Laura pretty well. They bought a property just to the east of Cowen Creek last year, and they’d help each other out on big musters sometimes.’
Prue shook her head. ‘I didn’t know,’ she said. She had been too wrapped up in Ross to take any interest in the Grangers’ neighbours she realised, ashamed. ‘I’m so sorry,’ she went on, biting her lip. ‘What were they doing in England?’
‘Laura was English, like you. Ed met her when he was over in London, but they married out here. Laura loved the outback, too, and she was quite happy to live here but she felt guilty about her parents. They’re quite elderly, and couldn’t manage the trip out to Australia, so they hadn’t been at the wedding. When the twins were born, she knew they would be longing to see their grandchildren and Ed promised that he would take her and the babies to London for a visit instead.
‘That was in April,’ Nat went on. ‘It’s a busy time of year, but Ed knew how much it would mean to Laura, so he asked me to keep an eye on things while he was gone. He said they would only be a month.’
The careful lack of expression in his voice made Prue’s heart twist with pity, and she cringed as she remembered how she had whinged on about her own problems which were so pathetic in comparison to his.
‘What happened?’ she asked awkwardly.
‘They’d been in London three weeks when Laura’s parents offered to look after the twins for a day so that she and Ed could have some time to themselves. It was the first time they’d left William and Daisy. Apparently it was a nice day, and they decided to drive out to the country…’
He trailed off, and Prue found herself imagining Ed and Laura kissing the babies goodbye, waving cheerfully as they got into the car and drove off, looking forward to a day together alone away from the city’s noise and grime. Not knowing that they would never be coming back.
‘They
