Taming The Brooding Cattleman by Marion Lennox

Author:Marion Lennox [Lennox, Marion]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: Harlequin
Published: 2012-01-24T23:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER EIGHT

SHE didn’t come in after a quarter of an hour. The casserole was less soupy—almost edible.

After half an hour the casserole was perfect but she still didn’t appear.

He removed his apron, set the casserole to the side of the stove and went to find her.

She hadn’t gone far. She was sitting on the edge of the veranda, holding her letter in her hand, staring sightlessly across the paddocks to the mountains beyond.

She looked shocked and defeated.

He sat down beside her without saying a word. Just sat.

‘If it’s really bad news people telephone,’ he said gently. ‘Usually. But this...what’s so bad that it can only be told by snail mail?’

‘My family,’ she whispered, and he waited.

He knew so little about her, he thought as he waited. Her father had Alzheimer’s. That was an appalling disease, but she’d known about it before she left. What was this?

‘Your mum?’ he asked.

She didn’t say anything.

‘You want me to bring your casserole out here?’ he asked gently. He wouldn’t push. Heaven knew he was the last to invade someone’s privacy.

But he wanted to. The look on her face... He couldn’t bear it.

‘Or would you like to talk about it?’ he heard himself say.

There was a long, long silence. The dusk was falling, the last hint of crimson sunset fading behind the distant mountains. The smell of his grandmother’s roses, freed at last from their matt of weeds, pervaded the warm evening air. A flock of cockatoos was settling to roost in the massive gums behind the house, their squabbling for position making a weird evening symphony.

If this was bad news there were worse places to receive it, he thought. Worse places to come to terms with what was in her hand.

Would she tell him?

Did it matter?

But suddenly it did.

Maybe it was a Dear John letter. Did she have a boyfriend back home? He’d assumed not. The kiss...

She’d returned his kiss with a passion that said she was heart-whole. The look on her face now said she was anything but.

‘It’s ancient history,’ she said into the stillness. ‘It’s nothing. But it’s everything.’

She stopped and he thought, Don’t push. She needed time.

He went inside and served two helpings of his casserole, carrying them outside. Maybe he should eat inside and let her be, but something about her face had him not wanting to leave her alone; had him believing his presence might even help.

If she’d had to receive bad news, he was suddenly absurdly glad that she was here, in this place. This night. The stillness. The sound of the cockatoos. This farm had become his solace. It had its own form of healing.

She lay her letter aside and ate her casserole. The news can’t have been too appalling, he thought. She was still hungry.

She cleared her plate and managed a smile. ‘Eight,’ she decreed.

‘Eight?’ he demanded, mock offended. ‘That was a ten worth of effort.’

‘The chicken’s a bit stewed,’ she said. ‘It’s shredded. Maria cooks cacciatore. I don’t think it’s supposed to be boiled for hours.

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