course,’ Luke said, cheering up. ‘For now you’re my lover, or my ancient grandmother. But it doesn’t matter. My farm’s a haven Tom and I have created, a place with no obligations at all. My farm’s for being whoever you like.’
Whoever she liked.
His lover or his grandmother?
Hmm.
She snuggled under the cashmere and thought, This could be a very long weekend.
THE farmhouse was tiny, remote, perfect.
Lily gazed in awe at the moonlit valley; at the tiny house set high above a creek meandering through bushland. Mountains loomed in the background, blue-black in the moonlight.
A trail of smoke wisped from the chimney and a warm glow of light spread from the veranda.
‘Who lives here?’
‘I do.’
‘But … the fire … the light …’
‘My uncle lives in the big house. He likes his privacy. I bought the adjoining land so this is mine. Tom knows when I’m coming. He’ll have brought in supplies, lit the fire, got the place warm.’
The night was warm and still. A mopoke was calling from the gums around the house. She could hear water rippling over stones, and frogs.
She climbed out of the car and the beauty of the place felt breathtaking. To have had the week she’d had, and then to find herself in a place like this …
Her eyes were suddenly filling with tears and she swiped them away with desperation. Luke was carting her suitcase up the steps. He stopped and looked back.
‘What’s wrong?’
‘I … Nothing.’
‘There are no padlocks here,’ he said, mistaking her hesitation. ‘I promise.’
I wouldn’t mind if there were, if I got to stay here, she thought, filling her lungs with the gorgeous night air.
She could smell horses!
A million memories were crowding in. Her father, their farm, the horses she’d grown up with.
‘When can I meet Merrylegs?’ she managed, and made her feet head for the steps. All she wanted to do was stand and sniff the air.
‘Merrylegs might be a bit hard to arrange,’ he told her. He grinned. ‘Though come to think of it, Tom told me we have a new colt since last time I was down. Merrylegs … Shall we take a look tomorrow and see if the name suits?’
‘You’d name a colt for me?’ She practically gasped.
‘Think about it in the morning,’ he said gently. ‘You’re shaking.’
How had he known? But she was. This stupid bug had left her so weak she was struggling not to cry.
She was out of control. But no. It was simply that she wasn’t under her own control. Luke was calling the shots and for the first time since her father had died someone had lifted responsibility from her shoulders.
She was back on a farm, without the burden of care.
She thought suddenly of the day of her father’s death. Of him sitting at the kitchen table, a mass of bills around him, his face as bleak as death. ‘Lily, if anything ever happens to me, you’ll take care of your mother? Promise!’
She’d promised.
‘Coming?’ Luke said, and she looked up at this big, stern stranger, whose eyes were gentle but whose voice was inexorable. If she didn’t move he was quite capable of striding down the steps, lifting her up and carrying her to bed.
The thought was …
Unwise. She made herself walk up the steps, into the beautiful little house, then up the stairs, into the made-up spare room and into bed.
She was asleep in an instant.
How could he sleep?
He didn’t sleep much anyway. He lay staring into the night. So what was new?
Lily sleeping in his spare room was new.
He didn’t invite people to this house. Hannah had made it beautiful, but he only used his bedroom and kitchen. He’d made the bed up because last year when the local stock and station agent’s car had broken down a few miles from the house, he’d decided having the spare bed ready was sensible—but there was no question that this was his place.
To have Lily here was even more disconcerting than having her back at his apartment.
Why should it be disconcerting? She was a guest, a stranger in the next bedroom. A colleague. She was no different from the stock and station agent.
Or not.
Lily of the gaunt face. Lily who had been too thin even before the gastro. She seemed shadowed.
She needed this weekend. What harm was there in giving it to her? So what reason was there, then, to stay awake and be aware that she was just through the wall?
The whole hospital thought they were an item.
It’d been a spur of the moment deception but now … the thought seemed to be closing in on him. Deception or not, he didn’t connect with people. Especially with complicated women.
Lily.
Hannah.
‘Stand on your own two feet.’ His father’s voice seemed to boom from the darkness.
Luke’s father and also his paternal grandfather were wealthy, foul-mouthed bullies. Luke’s mother and grandmother were society gadflies, only interested in social standing. It was amazing they’d come together for long enough to produce children. Luke’s father certainly hadn’t wanted him. A son with a disfiguring birthmark had meant contempt from the day he was born.
What a family! His Uncle Tom had escaped Singapore as soon as he’d been old enough to emigrate, and Luke had been sent away at ten. Even though Tom had taken rough care of him since he’d arrived in Australia, Tom didn’t seem like family. Neither uncle nor nephew knew what that was about.
Stupidly, Luke had tried family with Hannah. He’d spent four years thinking it might work; knowing it wouldn’t. Then disaster.
Family was disaster. Emotional attachment was disaster.
‘I have my farm and my medicine,’ he told the darkness. ‘That’s enough.’
Whether Lily Ellis was his make-believe lover or not.
She woke and had to pinch herself to think she
